Havana Bay ar-4 Page 29

  As Bias lifted the doll's face his own went whiter than usual.» Cono."

  "Five charges of eighty percent dynamite. American-made, but we get it through Panama all the time for construction and making roads. There was a receiver and blasting cap that I removed. This is a bomb."

  "That was at Pribluda's?"

  "That was removed from there, I believe, by Sergeant Luna, who had also taken Pribluda's car and put it in an abandoned building in Atares, where this doll was recovered."

  There was much Ofelia didn't have to say. In recent years incendiary devices had been set off at different hotels and discos by reactionaries from Miami. Just for the sake of terror. Then there was The Target whose name Ofelia was afraid to invoke, the leader who for forty years had dodged bombs, bullets, cyanide pills.

  "This is a very grave matter. Does the sergeant know you have it?"

  "Yes, he tried to stop me. This was two nights ago. I only learned it was a bomb last night. There don't seem to be any fingerprints on the outside of the head, but I think there are latent prints on the dynamite."

  "Leave it to me. You should have come to me right away. When I think about that poor Hedy and you." Bias put down the mask to wipe his hands on his lab coat.» You're so cool about all this. Do you have the receiver and cap?"

  "Yes." She brought them wrapped in newspaper from her bag.

  "Better that I have all of the device. Who else knows?"

  "No one." She was going to omit Arkady as long as possible. A Russian and a bomb, how would that look? Especially with those assassination files he had found on Pribluda's computer, it would muddle everything. The reason the doll's head was clear of prints was that she had wiped Arkady's off.» Except that we have to assume there are more people involved on Luna's side."

  "A conspiracy in the Ministry of the Interior? Sergeant Luna is a nobody, this could go much higher. It's no wonder he and Captain Arcos refused to investigate. They're reporting to someone. The question is who? Who assigned them? Who do I call?"

  "You will help?"

  "Thank God you came to me. Detective, I have always said it, you are a marvel. Were you going someplace from here?"

  "To the apartment where Rufo died." She didn't want to say where Arkady killed him, even if it was in self-defense.» It seems to me a hustler like Rufo must have had a mobile phone. CubaCell has no listing for Rufo but-"

  "No, no, no. Stay off the street. We must find someplace safe for you. You must sit and write a complete statement of all the facts while I cogitate how to approach this problem. The first call is the most important. Since we have the means of destruction, thanks to you, we have a minute to think. The safest place is right here. There's paper and pencil in the desk.

  You have to put down everything and everyone involved."

  "I've written statements before, no?"

  "You're right. The main thing is, don't move from here until I come back. Don't let anyone else in. Promise?" Bias eased the two halves of the head together, wrapped the head in newspaper and carried it under his arm to the door.» Just be patient."

  Ofelia was surprised that her anxiety did not dissipate even when the doll was in competent hands. She found writing materials in a drawer as Bias had said, but discovered that she had become overly used to typing reports on PNR forms. Also, beyond the simplest statements of Luna's involvement with the doll it was difficult not to drag Arkady in. Questioning would be even worse. Who had identified the doll as being at Pri-bluda's? If Luna had attacked her, how had she escaped? Better a brief statement than either the complete truth or a lie. Once Arkady's name surfaced she knew that suspicion, hard earned by Russians in Cuba over so many years, would swing right to him.

  Pribluda, proud of his tan, grinned from the monitor. The skull lay under the video camera. Chango and Russians, a terrible combination. Ofelia flicked the screen off and on. Why was she waiting? How would she get to the marina if she was kept in a room? She admitted she would feel easier once Luna was arrested. At the same time she had a niggling memory of the sergeant standing over Hedy at the Casa de Amor and how his entire body seemed to turn to stone. Which reminded Ofelia of Teresa, Luna's other special girl.

  Between two jars of pickled snakes was a telephone. Ofelia opened her notebook and dialed Daysi's number. This time there was an answer.

  "Yes?"

  "Hello, is Daysi there?" Ofelia asked.

  "No."

  "When will she be back?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know? I have this swimsuit of hers she keeps asking for. It's the suit with the Wonder Bra like she saw on QVC. She wanted it today. She's not there?"

  "No."

  "Where is she?"

  "She's out."

  "With Susy?"

  "Yes." A little more relaxed.» You know both of them?"

  "They're still at the marina?"

  "Yes. Who is this?"

  Ofelia said, "This is the friend with the swimsuit. I drop it off today or it's mine. Frankly, it looks better on me."

  "Can you call tomorrow?"

  "I'm not calling tomorrow. I'll be gone tomorrow and the suit will go with me and you explain to Daysi why she doesn't have the suit."

  During the silence Ofelia could see Teresa Guiteras, hair tangled, knees up to her chin, chewing on her fingernails.

  "Bring it over."

  "I don't know where you are," Ofelia said.» You come here and get it."

  "I thought you were a friend of Daysi."

  "Okay, since you're a better friend, you explain to Daysi how she lost her QVC swimsuit. It's fine with me. I tried."

  "Wait. I can't come."

  "You can't come? Some friend."

  "I'm on Chavez between Zanya and Salud, next to the beauty shop, in back and up the stairs to the roof and the pink casita. Are you near?"

  "Maybe. Look, I have to get off the phone."

  "Are you coming?"

  "Well…" Ofelia drew the moment out.» You're going to be there?"

  "I'm here."

  "Not going to leave?"

  "No."

  Ofelia hung up. She signed her statement and tucked it under the monitor. She hated waiting. Besides, Ofelia still wanted to know why the homicidal Luna, rather than putting her in the car trunk, hadn't simply killed her, and to that question Teresa conceivably had the answer.

  Vice Consul Bugai arrived at his office at a casual eleven o'clock, removed his jacket and shoes, replaced them with a silk Chinese robe and sandals. He poured himself tea from a thermos and stood, cup in hand, at his window, which was twelve stories up, waist level in the tower that was the Russian embassy. The green palms of Miramar spread to the sea. Satellite dishes lifted their faces to the sky. Outside, the city baked. Inside, the air-conditioning throbbed.

  "So you do come to work on Saturdays," Arkady said from a corner chair.

  "My God." Bugai spilled his tea and stepped back from the cup.» What are you doing here? How did you get in?"

  "We have to talk."

  "This is outrageous." Bugai set the cup on a stack of papers and picked up his telephone. In his robe the vice consul was the picture of an affronted mandarin.» You're out of bounds. You can't just break into people's offices. I'm calling the guards. They will sit on you until they put you on the plane."

  "I think they'll sit on both of us and put us both on the plane because I may be out of bounds, but you, my dear Bugai, have far too much money in the Bank for Creative Investment in Panama."

  Arkady had once seen a militiaman, shot, take ten slow jerky steps before he sat and rolled over. That was the way Bugai moved as he set down the phone, bumped against the desk and dropped into his chair. He clutched his heart.

  "Don't die on me yet," Arkady said.

  "There's a good explanation."

  "But you don't have it." Arkady moved the chair so that he was within arm's reach of Bugai. He said more softly, "Please don't make things worse by trying to lie. Right now I'm more interested in infor
mation than your hide, but that can change."

  "They told me there would be bank security."

  "You're a Russian and you thought there would be security in a bank?"

  "But this was Panama."

  "Bugai, concentrate. At this moment the affair is between you and me. Where it goes from here depends on your cooperation. I'm going to ask a few basic questions just to see how honest you're going to be."

  "That you already know the answers to?"

  "That doesn't matter. It's your cooperation that counts."

  "It could have been a loan."

  "Would pain help you concentrate?"

  "No."

  "We don't want to resort to that. Who wrote the checks deposited in your account?"

  "John O'Brien."

  "In return for?"

  "For what we knew about AzuPanama."

  "For what Sergei Pribluda knew about AzuPanama."

  "That's correct."

  "Which was?"

  "All I know was that he was getting closer."

  "To finding out AzuPanama was a fraudulent sugar broker created by the Cubans to renegotiate their contract with Russia?"

  "In so many words."

  "They were concerned."

  "Yes."

  "O'Brien and …"

  "The Ministry of Sugar, AzuPanama, WaOs."

  "So Pribluda had to be stopped."

  "Yes. But there were many ways to stop him. Include him, pay him, get him working on something else. I said I would have nothing to do with violence. O'Brien agreed, he said violence only attracts more attention."

  "Except Pribluda's dead."

  "He had a heart attack. Anyone can have a heart attack, not just me. O'Brien swears no one touched him."

  Arkady walked around Bugai and the desk, viewing the vice consul from different angles. Despite the air-conditioning Bugai sweat through his robe at the armpits and lapels.

  "Have you ever been to Angola?"

  "No."

  "Africa?"

  "No. No one wants those postings, believe me."

  "Worse than Cuba?"

  "No comparison."

  "Tell me about the Havana Yacht Club."

  "What?"

  "Just tell me what you know."

  Bugai frowned.» In Miramar there's a building that used to be the Havana Yacht Club." He relaxed enough to dab his face with a handkerchief.» Quite a place."

  "That's all you know?"

  "That's all I can think of. One story."

  "What's that?"

  "Well, before the Revolution the old dictator Batista applied for membership in the club. He was complete ruler of Cuba, held the power of life or death and all that entails. It didn't matter, the Havana Yacht Club turned him down. That was the beginning of the end for Batista, they say. The end of his power. The Havana Yacht Club."

  "Who told you that story?"

  "John O'Brien." Bugai had a chance to look around his desk.» Why is my intercom on? I thought this was just between you and me."

  Arkady motioned Bugai to follow. They walked out of his office and across a floor of empty desks to Olga Petrovna, who sat in a small workstation that she had tried to make pleasant with decals and pictures of her granddaughter. A voice-activated tape recorder sat by her intercom, and behind her stood a thickset man with the sort of face a person could grind knives on. Olga Petrovna, as it turned out, had missed Pribluda more rather than less as days went by, and the mere suggestion from Arkady when he had found her at breakfast that another Russian had betrayed Pribluda's work was reason enough for her to introduce Arkady to the chief of embassy guards and set up her tape recorder.

  "We were talking in private," Bugai said.

  Arkady admitted, "I wasn't being entirely truthful. If I made any other mistakes, Olga Petrovna was making notes."

  She had been. Pribluda's plump pigeon finished with a flourish and lifted to Bugai a gaze that would have done Stalin proud.

  There were black angels bearing wreaths above the Teatro Garcia Lorca. A black bat that roosted on the Bacardi Building. Then there was the little black jinetera sitting on top of Daysi's pink casita, which was not much more than a water tower with a coat of paint.

  For hiding out it wasn't such a bad place, nothing but chimney pots and pigeons all around. Since the water tank had been removed, water had to be hauled up by pail, but what Ofelia saw of the tower interior was surprisingly roomy, tiles on the floor, a bed adorned with paper flowers. Teresa had carried a chair and an illustrated romance up a ladder to the roof. Her knees looked scuffed and her curly mass of hair was misshapen, lumped to one side.

  As Ofelia came up the ladder Teresa squinted down.» You have the swimsuit?"

  "I'll show you."

  "Don't I know you from the marina? The Malecon?"

  Ofelia waited until she reached the roof before she lifted her glasses.» The Casa de Amor."

  The scales fell from Teresa's eyes. She looked Ofelia up and down and tabulated the slim shoes, white rubbery pants, white top, wide Armani dark glasses. She herself was in the same bedraggled outfit she had been wearing when Ofelia arrested her.» Puta, look at you. I don't think you dress like that on a detective's salary, no, no, no. I'm not blind. I know competition when I see it. That's why you're always after me."

  Ofelia's first impulse was to say, "Stupida, there are a thousand girls just like you in Havana." She looked down to roofs that spread to the sea, clotheslines bright as paper cutouts. Sparrows scattered by a peregrine. The pursuit swirled around the capital dome and to the trees of the Prado. Winter was hawk season in Havana. Instead she said, "Sorry."

  "Fuck your 'sorry.' There's no QVC swimsuit, is there?"

  "No."

  "This is funny. I lost my German. I lost my money. You put me on a list of whores. I can't go back to Ciego de Avila because my family is depending on me to stay here and send them money, otherwise I would be in a fucking school, like you say. And now that you have fucked with my life you're ajinetera, too? That's funny."

  "You're not on the list."

  "I'm not on the list?"

  "Not on the list. I only said that to scare you."

  "Because we're competition."

  "You're a smart girl."

  "Fuck off." Teresa's nose ran, making a wet smear of her upper lip.

  "Teresa-"

  "Leave me alone. Go the fuck away."

  Ofelia couldn't go away. Luna had gone insane at the sight of Arkady at the Centra Russo-Cubano, but the sergeant had only stuffed her in the car trunk when cutting her throat would have been as easy. Why?

  "Sit down."

  "Fuck away."

  "Sit down." Ofelia pressed Teresa down onto the chair and moved behind her.» Stay there."

  Teresa's eyes rolled back to follow.» What are you doing?"

  "Be still." Ofelia reached into her bag for her new brush and comb and pulled back the black excelsior of Teresa's hair.» Just sit."

  Waves, curls and spit curls close to the scalp and tight as springs would have daunted Ofelia if Muriel's hair weren't almost as thick. One pull wouldn't do, she had to firmly feather the hair out, work it loose, put some shape back into it.

  "You have to take care of yourself, chica."

  To begin with, Teresa submitted with silent grimness, but after a minute her neck started to roll with the strokes. Hair like this warmed up with brushing, especially on a hot day, polished up like silver with a little attention. As Ofelia lifted the hair from the nape of the neck she could feel Teresa soften to the touch. Fourteen years old? Alone for two days? Frightened for her life? Even a stray cat needed to be petted.

  "I wish I had hair like this. I wouldn't need a pillow."

  "Everyone says that," Teresa murmured.

  "That's looking better."

  As Teresa relaxed, though, her shoulders began to shake. She turned to Ofelia and revealed her whole face wet with tears.

  "Now my face is a mess."

  "I'll cheer you up." Ofelia pu
t the brush into her bag.» Let me show you what else I have."

  "The stupid swimsuit?"

  "Better than a swimsuit."

  "A condom?"

  "No, better than that." Ofelia brought out the Mak-arov 9-mm pistol and let Teresa hold it.

  "Heavy."

  "Yes." Ofelia took the Makarov back.» I think all women should be issued guns. No men, just women."

  "I bet Hedy wished she had something like this. You know my friend Hedy?"

  "I'm the one who found her."

  "Cono," Teresa said more in awe.

  When Ofelia put the gun away, she stayed kneeling and lowered her voice as if they didn't have the whole skyline of Havana to themselves.» I know you're afraid the same thing is going to happen to you, but I can stop them. You have an idea who did it or you wouldn't be hiding, no? The question is, who are you hiding from?"

  "You really are police?"

  "Yes. And I don't want to find you like I found Hedy." Ofelia let the girl contemplate that for a moment.» What happened to her protection?"

  "I don't know."

  "The man who protects you and Hedy, what's his name?"

  "I can't say."

  "You can't because he's in Minint and you think this will get back to him. If I get to him first, then you'd be able to leave this roof."

  Teresa folded her arms and shivered in spite of the heat.» I didn't really think some turista was going to come here and marry me. Why would he want to take home some ignorant black girl? Everyone would make fun of him. 'Hey, Herman, you didn't have to marry your whore.' I'm not stupid."

  "I know."

  "Hedy was really nice."

  "You know, I think I can still help you. You don't have to say his name. I'll say his name."

  "I don't know."

  "Luna. Sergeant Facundo Luna."

  "I didn't say that."

  "You didn't, I did."

  Teresa looked away, as far as the angels that balanced on the theater. A breeze lifted her hair the same as it seemed to do to the angels'.

  "He gets so mad."

  "He has a temper, I know. But maybe I can tell you something that can help. Did you sleep with him?" When Teresa hesitated Ofelia said, "Look me in the eyes."

  "Okay, once. But Hedy was his girl."

  "When you slept with him-"

  "No details."

  "One detail. Did he keep his drawers on?"