Like most bands in Havana, this one took a while longer than was tolerable. I didn’t own a gun in Cuba, but if I had, I might have enjoyed using a set of maracas or a conga drum for a little target practice-really, any Latin American instrument, as long as it was actually in use at the time. Finally I could stand it no longer. I stood up and, taking Noreen’s hand, led her out.

In the foyer, she said, “This is where you spend your spare time, is it?” Out of habit she spoke German to me. “So much for Montaigne.”

“As a matter of fact, he already wrote an essay about this place and the custom of wearing clothes. Or not wearing them. If we were born with the need for wearing petticoats and trousers, nature, he says, would no doubt have equipped us with a thicker skin to withstand the rigors of the seasons. On the whole, I think he’s pretty good. Gets it right most of the time. About the only thing that man doesn’t explain is why you came all the way over here to see me. I’ve got my own ideas about that.”

“Let’s take a walk in the garden,” she said, quietly.

We went outside. The Tropicana’s garden was a jungle paradise of royal palms and towering mamoncillo trees. According to Caribbean wisdom, girls learn the art of kissing by eating the sweet flesh of the mamoncillo fruit. Somehow I had the feeling that kissing me was the last thing on Noreen’s mind.

In the center of the sweeping driveway was a large marble fountain that had once graced the entrance of the National Hotel. The fountain was a round basin surrounded by eight life-sized naked nymphs. It was rumored that the Tropicana’s owners had paid thirty thousand pesos for the fountain, but it reminded me of one of those Berlin culture schools once run by Adolf Koch at Lake Motzen for overweight German matrons who liked to throw medicine balls at each other in the nude. And, in spite of what Montaigne has to say about the matter, it made me glad that mankind had invented the needle and thread.

“So,” I said, “what did you want to tell me?”

“This isn’t easy for me to say.”

“You’re a writer. You’ll think of something.”

She puffed silently on her cigarette, considered this idea for a moment, and then shrugged, as if she’d thought of a way, after all. Her voice was soft. In the moonlight she looked as lovely as ever. Seeing her, I was filled with a dull ache of longing, as if the scent of the mamoncillo’s greenish-white flowers contained some sort of magical juice that made fools like me fall in love with queens like her.

“Dinah’s gone back to the States,” she said, still not quite coming to the point. “But you knew about that, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “Is this about Dinah?”

“I’m worried about her, Bernie.”

I shook my head. “She’s left the island. She’s going to Brown. I don’t see what you could possibly have to worry about. I mean, isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Oh, sure. No, it’s the way she suddenly changed her mind. About everything.”

“Max Reles was murdered. I think that might have had something to do with her decision.”

“Those gangsters he associated with. You know some of them, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do they have any idea who killed Max yet?”

“None at all.”

“Good.” She threw away her cigarette and quickly lit another. “You’ll probably think me crazy. But you see, it crossed my mind that, perhaps, Dinah might have had something to do with his murder.”

“What makes you say that?”

“For one thing, my gun-the one Ernest gave me-it’s gone. It was a Russian revolver. I had it lying around the house somewhere, and now I can’t find it. Fredo-Alfredo López? My lawyer friend has a friend in the police who told him that Reles had been shot with a Russian revolver. It sort of made me wonder. If Dinah could have done it.”

I was shaking my head. I hardly liked to tell her that Dinah had suspected that her own mother might be the murderer.

“There’s all that, and there’s the fact that she seemed to get over it so quickly. Like she wasn’t in love with him at all. I mean, didn’t it make any of those Mafia guys suspicious that she wasn’t at the funeral? Like she didn’t care?”

“I think people thought she was probably too upset to go.”

“That’s my point, Bernie. She wasn’t. And this is why I’m worried. If the Mafia comes around to the opinion that she did have something to do with Max’s murder, then maybe they’ll do something about it. Maybe they’ll send someone after her.”

“I don’t think it works like that, Noreen. Right now all they’re really concerned about is the possibility that Max Reles was killed by one of their own. You see, if it turns out that one of the other hotel and casino owners was behind the killing, then there could be a gang war. That would be very bad for business. Which is the last thing they want. Besides, it’s me they’ve asked to help find out who killed Max.”

“The mob has asked you to investigate Max’s murder?”

“In my capacity as a former homicide detective.”

Noreen shook her head. “Why you?”

“I guess they think I can be objective, independent. More objective than the Cuban militia. Dinah’s nineteen years old, Noreen. She strikes me as a lot of things. As a selfish little bitch, for one. But she’s not a murderer. Besides, it takes a certain kind of person to climb over a wall eight floors up and shoot a man seven times in cold blood. Wouldn’t you say?”

Noreen nodded and stared off into the distance. She dropped her second cigarette on the ground, half smoked, and then lit a third. Something was still troubling her.

“So, you can rest assured I’m not about to lay the blame at Dinah’s door.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it. She is a bitch, you’re right. But she’s mine and I’d do absolutely anything to keep her safe.”

“I know that.” I flicked my cigar at the fountain. It hit one of the nymphs on her bare behind and fell into the water. “Is that really what you wanted to tell me?”

“Yes,” she said. She thought for a moment. “But it wasn’t everything, you’re right, damn you.” She bit her knuckle. “I don’t know why I ever try to deceive you. There are times when I think you know me better than I know myself.”

“It’s always a possibility.”

She threw the third cigarette away, opened her bag, took out a little matching handkerchief, and blew her nose with it. “The other day,” she said. “When you were at the house. And you saw Fredo and me coming back from the beach at Playa Mayor. I suppose you must have guessed that he and I have been seeing each other. That we’ve become, well, intimate.”

“I try not to do too much guessing these days. Especially concerning things I know absolutely nothing about.”

“Fredo likes you, Bernie. He was very grateful to you. The night of the pamphlets.”

“Oh, I know. He told me himself.”

“You saved his life. I didn’t really appreciate it at the time. Or thank you properly. What you did was very courageous.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I didn’t come to see you about Dinah. Oh, perhaps I just wanted to hear you reassure me that she couldn’t have done it, but I’d have known. A mother knows that kind of thing. She couldn’t have hid that from me.”

“So what did you come to see me about?”

“It’s Fredo. He’s been arrested by the SIM-the secret police-and accused of helping the former minister of education in the Prío government, Aureliano Sánchez Arango, to enter the country illegally.”

“And did he?”

“No, of course not. When he was arrested, however, he was with someone who is in the AAA. That’s the Association of Friends of Aureliano. It’s one of the leading opposition groups in Cuba. But Fredo’s loyalty is to Castro and the rebels on the Isle of Pines.”

“Well, I’m sure when he explains that, they’ll be happy to send him home.”

Noreen didn’t share the joke. “This isn’t funny,” she said. “They could still torture him in the hope that he’ll tell them where Aureliano is hiding. That would be doubly unfortunate, because of course he doesn’t know anything.”