Read The Neruda Case for Free Online

Pete, the shortage of supplies was beginning to take its toll. Cayetano approached the large front door, where a few guards wearing helmets and armed with nightsticks smoked in silence.
    “I’m here on behalf of Comrade Pete Castillo,” he said, showing them the safe-conduct note Pete had scribbled on a paper napkin at the Los Porteños table. “I need to speak with Camilo Prendes.”
    One of the guards examined the document, jotted Cayetano’s information down in a notebook, and after consulting with a superior by phone, allowed him to enter. He felt like something of an orphan as he crossed the empty patio of the factory and approached the office, where another guard handed him a long, flexible bamboo cane.
    “Join the group over at the northern access door. Or do you prefer a nunchuck?”
    “I’ve never held one.”
    “In that case, keep the cane. Carry it like a spear.” He cast him an unfriendly glance. “And go to the left. They’ll give you more instructions at the end of the hall.”
    At the end of the hall he encountered a few men with helmets and nunchucks, seated next to a large metal door. They told him that if he saw any suspicious movements, he should knock on the door with a hammer that lay on the floor.
    “In case of emergency, everybody knows what to do. Don’t worry about finding Commander Prendes. He visits all the sentry posts every night, and speaks with all the comrades. Good luck.”
    They left, taking their makeshift weapons with them, and Cayetano sat down on a stack of boxes and lit a Lucky Strike. Its aroma gave him solace in the midst of this uncertain night. He was lucky to have gotten these cigarettes from Sergio Puratic, a trader in the port neighborhood, since there weren’t any left publicly and a carton cost an arm and a leg on the black market. He inhaled the smoke slowly, letting it warm his body, and he thought about the poet, the curious mission he’d been charged with, and the stories of Inspector Maigret. His life was taking on a surreal slant, yoked to a strange secret that separated him from others. Could he possibly be dreaming? Could this be a dream in which he was waiting, cane in hand, for a revolutionary in a country threatened by the phantom of civil war? Could he be dreaming that he lived in Valparaíso, while actually sleeping a thousand miles from there, in his old house in Hialeah, near Miami, or perhaps even in Havana itself? His fingers brushed against the Simenon volume he carried in his jacket. He had read a few of the novels in the last few days, not because he thought they could teach him how to be a detective, but because Simenon knew how to tell an entertaining story, and Inspector Maigret struck him as both honestand convincing. The book, with its transparent plastic cover folded neatly at the edges, was proof that he’d spoken with Neruda, and wasn’t dreaming after all.
    A vehicle approached the large metal door. Cayetano crushed the cigarette butt with his foot and hid behind a pillar. He didn’t want to be seen from outside. It was said that members of the Nationalist Movement for Homeland and Liberty, or of the Rolando Matus Command, shot at the drop of a hat. He held his breath. The paved stones shone in the headlights of a vehicle that slowly approached. At last he saw it. It was a soldiers’ jeep. Not long ago, the army had shot at workers at a factory they’d taken over, then refused to turn the murderers over to justice. The jeep turned the corner slowly, without its occupants seeing Cayetano.
    “What are you reading?” asked a voice at his back.
    When he turned, he saw a pale, bearded youth with long hair. He wore a beret, a long jacket, and boots. Two individuals in olive-green jackets accompanied him but stood at a distance.
    “Simenon.” He showed the man the book cover.
    “You like crime novels?”
    “They’re entertaining.” He looked toward the street. No trace of the jeep.
    “I read him for the first time in Paris, when