Havana Bay ar-4 Page 26

  "Leaving marks?"

  "It all depends. If there was contact, there would be a burn. Farther away, a person might only experience a tingle in his extremities. But the heart and the respiratory center of the brain are regulated by electrical impulses and an electrical shock can initiate fibrillations without necessarily causing trauma to tissue."

  "Meaning," Ofelia said, "that somewhere between too near and too far to a live wire in water, a victim could suffer a heart attack and there would be no entry or exit mark, no burns, absolutely nothing?"

  There was a silence at the doctor's end. Traffic rattled on the Malecon. Arkady seemed to be enjoying his cigarette enormously.

  "You could put it that way," Bias finally said.

  "Why didn't you say so before?"

  "Everything in context. Where would a neumatico encounter an electrical wire in the middle of the sea?" There was a burst of static and Bias changed the subject.» Have you seen the Russian?"

  "No." She met Arkady's eyes with hers.

  "Well," Bias said, "I notice that he left a new photograph of Pribluda for me."

  "Have you matched it to the body yet?"

  "No. There are other murders, you know."

  "But you will try? It's important to him. You know, as it turns out he's not a total idiot."

  Since they'd skipped breakfast, they stopped at a park table for ice cream. Huge leathery trees overhung a playground and a shooting gallery. Ofelia was going after Teresa and Arkady wanted to see Mostovoi's apartment again, but at the moment the detective looked like a movie star on the Riviera, lips pink with strawberry.

  "We can meet here later and have ice cream for dinner," Arkady said.» At six? And if we miss each other, then ten o'clock at the Yacht Club and we'll see what that has to do with Angola."

  Ofelia was suspicious.» What will you do in the meantime?"

  "A Russian named Mostovoi has a picture of a dead rhinoceros I want to take a look at."

  "Why?"

  "Because he didn't show it to me before."

  "That's all?"

  "A simple visit. And you?"

  "You said last night when you followed Luna he was pushing a cart of what looked to you like black-market goods. Well, what goods? Maybe they're still there. Someone has to see."

  "You're not going alone?"

  "Do I look crazy? No, I'll take plenty of help, believe me," Ofelia said. She looked very composed for a moment and then pulled down her dark glasses in shock.

  Arkady turned to face two girls in maroon school jumpers. They had green eyes and hair streaked with amber and held cones of ice cream close enough to drip on his shoulder. An energetic gray-haired woman in a housedress and sneakers followed with a vengeance.

  "Mama," Ofelia asked, "why aren't the girls in school?"

  "They should be in school but they should see their mother from time to time, too, don't you think?" Ofelia's mother took in Arkady.» Oh my God, it's true. Everyone's meeting a nice Spaniard, a little Englishman, you found a Russian. My God."

  "I just asked her to bring some toiletries," Ofelia told Arkady.

  "She looks unhappy," Arkady said.

  "Don't offer her your chair."

  But the deed was done and her mother was settling in where Arkady had been.

  "My mother," Ofelia muttered as an introduction.

  "My God," her mother said.

  "My pleasure," Arkady said.

  With a pride Ofelia couldn't suppress, "My daughters Muriel and Marisol. Arkady."

  The girls rose on tiptoe for his kiss.

  "Where do you even find a Russian?" her mother asked.» I thought they were gone like the dodos."

  "He's a senior investigator from Moscow."

  "Good. Did he bring food?"

  "They look just like you," Arkady told Ofelia.

  "You dressed so nice." Muriel looked Ofelia up and down.

  "Those are new clothes." Ofelia's mother took a second look.

  "No hablo espanol," Arkady said.

  "Just as well," Ofelia assured him.

  "He bought them?"

  "We are working together."

  "Then that's different, that's absolutely different. You're colleagues exchanging gifts of esteem. I see possibilities here."

  "It's not what you think."

  "Please, don't disabuse me when I have hopes. He's not so bad. A little lean. A week or two of rice and beans and he'll be fine."

  "Do you like him?" Marisol asked Ofelia.

  "He's a nice man."

  "Pushkin was a Russian poet," her mother said.» He was part African."

  "I'm sure he knows that."

  "Pushkin?" Arkady thought he heard something to hang on to.

  "Does he have a gun?" Muriel asked.

  "He's not carrying a gun."

  "But he can shoot?" Marisol asked.

  "The best."

  "The target gallery!" the girls shouted together.

  "They see you so little," Ofelia's mother said.» You shouldn't begrudge them a little fun, and your Russian marksman can show off."

  The shooting gallery was a gutted bus on blocks, the back end replaced by a counter of air rifles that faced an array of American jet planes and paratroopers cut from soda cans. Behind them, on a black dropcloth, an artist had added cutout stars and comets and a vista of the Malecon with drivers shooting from convertibles. Sound effects were supplied by a tape of machine-gun fire. The sisters pushed Arkady into an open space at the counter.

  "He should feel right at home," her mother said.

  "Pump it." Muriel pushed the rifle into his hands.

  "You have to pump it," Ofelia said as she paid.

  "First the planes, first the planes," Marisol said.

  The rifle was a toy with a tiny bead at the tip of the barrel. He fired at a particularly mean-looking bomber, and the paratrooper next to it jumped.

  "What are you aiming at?" Ofelia asked.

  "I'm aiming at everything."

  The wrong target was the best he did. Kids around him made planes hop, spin, dance, but for all the shiny, dangling invaders every other shot of his thudded igno-miniously into the backdrop.

  "He must be high up in the police," her mother said.» I don't think he ever shot at anything."

  The girls pushed a rifle into Ofelia's hands. She gave the lever two quick pumps and aimed at a big bomber from Tropicola.

  "I think the bead's a little off," Arkady suggested.

  The bomber pinged and spun.

  "No, Mama," Marisol complained.» In the center."

  Balancing her glasses on her forehead and tucking the stock more firmly against her cheek, Ofelia pumped and fired at a more steady pace. Silvery planes swung and paratroopers sang and danced. A comet, too, for good measure. The glasses dropped down over her eyes, it didn't matter, she had half the targets swaying at once. Arkady thought of the plane that had brought him less than a week ago, which now seemed an age. Here he was out in the open with Luna looking for him, but what better camouflage was there than a Cuban family? What could be more strange and more natural? Twelve hits with twelve shots earned Ofelia the prize of a can of lighter fluid that her mother tucked into a net bag. As she said, "Everything counts."

  Appeased, the girls allowed themselves to be kissed by Ofelia and taken in hand by their grandmother, who dipped into her bag to give Ofelia a plastic toiletries bag and something wrapped in greasy newspaper.» Banana bread from Muriel's bananas. You remember the bananas?"

  "I can't take this bread."

  "Your daughters helped make it. They would feel much better if you did."

  Muriel and Marisol made their eyes huge.

  "Okay, okay. Thank you, girls." A farewell round of kisses.

  "Feed it to him," her mother advised.» And take care of him."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  What Arkady remembered of Mostovoi's accommodations on the sixth floor of the Hotel Sierra Maestra were a runway balcony of parked tricycles and, within, a living
room with movie posters, African artifacts, a plush shag rug, leather sofa and a balcony facing the sea. He also recalled a front-door lock and deadbolt, a sensible precaution considering the cameras and equipment inside. And in case he thought of rapelling athletically by rope from the hotel roof down to Mostovoi's oceanview balcony, he had noticed in Rufo's videotape Sucre Noir that the sliding glass door was jammed shut by a steel bar. Spetznaz troops knew all about swinging in through glass doors; Arkady did not. Also, the trick was not just getting in, it was getting Mostovoi out and taking another look at the photographs on the wall.

  Mostovoi was correct in calling his hotel Central Europe. The cafe and boutique of the Sierra Maestra were Russian, the graffiti on the elevator door was Polish and the entire lobby was empty. Even the smell of rancid oil from the popcorn machine at the entrance stairs couldn't conceal a standing funk of cabbage.

  The last time Arkady had visited, Mostovoi had switched a photograph of a sailboat for the safari picture. Or perhaps he had given away the rhino since otten tired of seeing a dead animal on his wall. The safari picture, however, had looked like the exotic centerpiece of his private gallery, and Arkady wanted to see it on his own before Mostovoi could rearrange the pictures again. The idea was to get Mostovoi out in a rush.

  Arkady may not have been a marksman or a commando, but one valuable thing he had learned was that fuel for mayhem was everywhere. Behind a door marked entrada FROHIBIA filthy drapes lay on a three-legged chair of black leatherette set between plastic bags of corn kernels and potato chips and containers of cooking oil. Arkady made sure the other lobby exits were unlocked before he carried the chair and drapes to the popcorn machine and returned for the chips and oil. He opened the containers and poured the viscous oil down the hotel steps, threw the drapes on the oil, added the bags of chips to the drapes and lit the last bag with his lighter. Rufo's lighter, actually. The plastic bag caught nicely and potato chips, dry and saturated with grease, were by weight about the best kindling on earth. The chair and drapery were polyurethane, a form of solid petroleum. Cooking oil had to get hot enough to vaporize, but when it did it was a hard fire to put out. Then he climbed the stairs to the sixth floor.

  Arkady took his time. The alarm, an old-fashioned clapper on a bell, sounded before he was halfway up, and by the time he reached the stairway door on Mostovoi's floor and looked down, the blaze was a brilliant orange accelerated by the grease of the chips while darker flames lapped at the chair and drapes. Residents lined the balconies for the spectacle of motorcycle police leading a red fire-engine pumper and a tank. The hotel was only blocks away from Miramar's embassy row and Arkady had expected a fast response. A bald Mostovoi in shorts peeked out his door, ventured to the balcony rail with the other residents on his floor and jumped back before his door latched behind him. Spectators on the sidewalk scattered as the oil ignited with an orange whoosh all the way from the popcorn machine down to the street. The effect of shore breeze over the hotel created just enough vacuum to draw black smoke toward the building. Plastic silk floated up as a fireman with a bullhorn waved for the gawkers on the balconies to evacuate. Arkady stood aside rather than be stampeded by families rushing down. Mostovoi's flat was nearer the stairs at the other end of the balcony. He hopped out again in pants, shirt, toupee, camera bags slung every which way off his shoulders, shoes in hand, the dapper sort who hated to be hurried. Even as Mostovoi started down the far stairs Arkady walked to the door, pulling Pribluda's wallet from his new hip pack as he went. Burdened with gear, Mostovoi hadn't paused to turn the deadbolt, the door was only on the latch. Arkady selected a credit card; he'd seen this done in movies, but he'd never actually tried it. If it didn't work, he'd just wait for Mostovoi to return. He slipped and wiggled the card in the jamb as he turned the knob and swung his hip into the door. Three hits and he was in.

  The apartment looked again like the residence of a middle-level Russian diplomat abroad decorated with souvenirs of a man who had seen much of the world, who cleaned for himself better than most bachelors, with an interest in books and the arts, who kept his own creative efforts under wraps. The photograph Arkady had noticed in the videotape was on the wall, back in its place between the pictures of a colleague at the Tower of London and a circle of friends in Paris.

  It was a photograph of five men with assault rifles, one standing and four kneeling around a dead rhinoceros. Now he could see that the poor animal's feet were shredded and its stomach winking with shiny intestine. The men were not hunters but soldiers, one Russian soldier and three Cubans. Mostovoi, twenty years younger and balding even then. Erasmo, his beard mere boyish wisps. A coltish, skinny Luna cradling an AK-47. Tico with the bright, reckless smile of a leader, not the nearsighted focus of a man searching for leaks in an inner tube. And standing behind them in a safari jacket of many pockets, George Washington Walls. On the bottom border was written, "The best demolition team in Angola shows a fellow revolutionary their new mine-sweeping device." The rhinoceros's legs were pulp to the knees. Arkady considered the beast's frenzy of agony and confusion when it had wandered into a minefield, and he also thought of the callousness men develop in the midst of trying to stay alive. Tico and Mostovoi were on the ends of the group. By Tico's knee was the flattened pot of a pressure mine. By Mostovoi's was the convex rectangle of a claymore, an antipersonnel mine with the warning in English "This Side to Enemy." It was a good photograph, considering that Mostovoi had most likely set the camera's timer and run to take his place, considering the sharp African light, considering that mines were probably still all around. Arkady could almost hear the flies.

  Arkady moved through the rest of the apartment before Mostovoi returned. On his first visit Arkady hadn't seen the autographed photographs in the hallway of Mostovoi with famous Russian film directors or the erotic boudoir series of Cuban girls that seemed to have been shot in his own bed. Arkady looked in the bureau, night table and under the pillow. A side table held a laptop, scanner, printer. The laptop denied him access as soon as he turned it on. The chances of hitting Mostovoi's password were remote. There was no gun in the drawer or under the bed.

  Arkady walked farther down the hall into a small room redone as a darkroom with a black curtain inside the door. A red light was on, as if Mostovoi had been interrupted in the middle of developing. Arkady squeezed between an enlarger and trays of sour-smelling fixer and developer. Red film curlicued from a red clothesline. Held to the light, the film had nothing more than volleyball in the nude, and the developed pictures pinned to a board were embassy fare: Russians visiting a sugar combine, delivering postcards from the children of Moscow, pushing vodka on Cuban editors. The Russians, indeed, looked like bolos.

  Back in the hall, Arkady had to push past more cabinets of photographs. He riffled through contact sheets of vacations in Italy, Provence. No nudes, no Africa. Finally in the kitchen he opened the refrigerator and found vichyssoise, an open can of olives, Chilean wine, canisters of color film and behind a bag of eggs a 9-mm Astra, a Spanish pistol with a tubular barrel. He emptied the magazine on the side of the sink, replaced the clip, wiped the gun and returned it behind the eggs. An empty ice tray sat in the sink. Arkady filled the tray with bullets and water and put it in the freezer before he sat in the living room and waited for Mostovoi to return.

  Going by Rufo's sort of calendar-the urgency, that is, in trying to kill someone who would be in town for only a week-Arkady felt that time was running out. His time was. Tomorrow night he could be boarding his flight for home, he and Pribluda, but he felt he was still before the event, whatever it was that would make sense of the Havana Yacht Club, Rufo and Hedy, and the best demolition team in Africa.

  Ofelia didn't bring anyone. Careful not to scuff her new shoes, she walked up the steps of the Centro Russo-Cubano, dropping her dark glasses into her bag with the banana bread as she stepped into the lobby, which had changed from the day before: the statues of the cane cutter and the fisherman had toppled facedown on the tiles, the ladder
stretched by a splintered counter and no car sat on the lobby floor. Dust climbed the red ray of light falling from the stained glass overhead. Centro Russo-Cubano? From what she knew of this place, when the Russians thought they led the way to the glorious future, it was a very rare Cuban who had ever been invited in.

  She took a deep breath. Ofelia had come alone to see whatever Luna had carted in the night before because she didn't want to involve anyone else until she knew what evidence she could find. The PNR did not accuse an officer of the Ministry of the Interior lightly. That was her professional reason. The real reason was personal. Nothing humiliated Ofelia more than being afraid, and inside the trunk of the Lada she had been afraid to the point of tears. She took extra target practice at the Guanabo range just so that wouldn't happen. A dusty mirror hung over the counter. She caught sight of herself as she took the gun from her straw bag and swung, body and weapon moving as one dangerous little jinetem.

  Being back in the lobby made her taste the hemp and coconut milk again. That was the way Luna had picked her up, like a coconut to be thrown into a bag and the bag tossed into a trunk. She'd tried to find the Lada on the way, and it had disappeared, perhaps already being cannibalized in an Atares warehouse. A shiny track showed where the cart's iron wheels had rolled over the floor tiles of a hammer-and-sickle pattern toward a grim corridor of cement walls and doors of Cuban hardwood.

  Ofelia kicked the first door open, entered an empty luggage room, scanned with the gun and returned to the hall before anyone could approach behind her. The next door had the title of "Director" and promised to be larger and farther from the dim light of the lobby. She'd reloaded the gun but she should have brought a flashlight. She knew she should have thought of that.

  This was the sort of situation where a person had to gauge what they were most likely to encounter. A sergeant of the Ministry of the Interior carried the same firearm she did, but a man from the Oriente might have more confidence in his machete. Also, he knew the layout of the Centra Russo-Cubano, she didn't. He could pop out of any corner like an oversized goblin.