The Beggar's Opera Read Online Free PDF Page B

name. He wasn’t sure where they were going, but that didn’t seem to matter either. What is her name?
    He didn’t know how long they walked, the woman holding much of his weight, encouraging him, laughing lightly, easing him along the path until his hotel emerged from the darkness.

EIGHT
    Inspector Ricardo Ramirez planned to sleep in late on Christmas Day, make love to his wife and play with his children. Maybe listen to his Christmas gift from Francesca, a CD of the terrific Cuban soprano Lucy Provedo.
    He did not expect to spend the morning investigating the death of a small boy pulled from the ocean like a fish. Or the afternoon watching Hector Apiro practically straddle the child’s battered body.
    Like most Cubans, Ramirez and his family had stayed up late on Christmas Eve. His apartment was the only one able to hold all nine of his extended family on the night of such a major celebration without serious risk of collapse. For years, Fidel Castro had banned Christmas because it interfered with the sugar cane harvest. But Castro changed his mind just before the Pope’s visit some years before, and so Christmas was once again legal, even if religion was officially discouraged.
    After the children went outside to play, the adults relaxed with music, beer, and rum. Then they all walked to Revolution Square along with hundreds of thousands of other Cubans for the midnight mass. As church bells rang, a huge television screendisplayed the Pope’s address. Despite Cuba’s official atheism, most Cubans believed in Catholicism a little, just in case. In Cuba, Catholicism was a hedge.
    They walked back to their apartment, dropping relatives off along the way. Ramirez lay awake now, listening to his wife’s soft snores, thinking how much he already missed her.
    He kissed her hair before he finally fell asleep. Slept restlessly, fitfully, until 6 A.M. , when the phone rang and startled him. Beside him, Francesca stirred. “I hear bells ringing, Ricardo. But it is too early for church.”
    “It’s just the phone, cariño ,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep. I will answer it.”
    He got up and knocked his head against a bell. Francesca had decorated the apartment with metal Christmas bells and homemade stars that hung from everything, even the overhead lights. Ramirez ducked to avoid losing an eye.
    He pulled on his underwear and walked to the kitchen. He stubbed his bare toe on a chair as he stepped around the stranger waiting for him in the doorway. Coño , he cursed silently, and hopped on his other foot until the pain subsided.
    The dead man shrugged apologetically. He held his hat with both hands. A middle-aged man with light brown, weathered skin. Unlike his other hallucinations, Ramirez was quite sure he’d never seen him before. He wasn’t a victim in any of Ramirez’s files.
    Ramirez grabbed the phone to stop the relentless ringing and fumbled as he put what he thought was the receiver to his ear. Still sleepy, he wondered why he didn’t hear anything except a distant buzzing. He finally managed to get it turned around the right way.
    The dead man hovered nearby. It seemed rude to leave him waiting indefinitely. “My day off,” Ramirez whispered, his hand over the mouthpiece.
    The man looked disappointed but showed himself out.
    An honest mistake, thought Ramirez. Christmas Day, unlike Christmas Eve, was a working day in Cuba. For the first time in years, however, Ramirez had the day off.
    “Yes?” he said, careful to keep his voice down, but he knew who it was and guessed that his record for working Christmas Days would remain unbroken.
    He heard the voice of the morning dispatcher. “Inspector Ramirez? I am terribly sorry to wake you, but a boy’s body has been found in the ocean across from the medical towers on the Malecón. It looks suspicious. Dr. Apiro is at the scene.”
    “Tell me what you know so far.” Ramirez scrambled to find a pen and some paper.
    Ramirez’s office processed only some