He put the scissors and knife aside. "Something nonsparking?"
Ofelia cradled the doll's head in her lap and delicately dug the cap out with her fingernails.
You had to admire a woman like that, Arkady thought.
Chapter Twenty-Five
* * *
Enough daybreak sifted through the window shade for Arkady to see Chango lying on the table, the front and back of the head resting separately on the doll's chest. Disconnected, the face seemed more animated and malevolent than ever.
Ofelia was under Arkady's coat, asleep. He dressed in his old clothes, strapped on the hip pack and stole his coat as quietly as he could. This was the point where they went their different ways. As she said, it would be difficult enough to explain how she had come into possession of the doll. Having a Russian along wouldn't help.
"Arkady?"
"Yes?" He had already opened the door.
Ofelia sat up against the headboard. "Where will I see you again?"
They'd gone over this the night before. "At least at the airport. The night's at midnight. It's a Russian plane and a Cuban airport, we should have lots of time."
"You're going to see Walls and O'Brien? I don't want you to go. To their boat? I don't trust them."
"I don't either."
"I'll be watching. If that boat leaves the dock with you on it, I will send a police boat out after you."
"Good idea." They had decided all of this already, but he returned to burrow for a moment in her neck and kiss her mouth. Love's exaction for forward motion.
"What about Blas and the photograph?" she asked. "I'll be seeing him."
"Leave the photograph to me."
"And after?"
"After? We will shop on the Arbat, ski among the birches, go to the Bolshoi, whatever you want."
"You'll be careful?"
"We will both be careful."
Her eyes let go. Arkady slipped out into a morning with a dull pewterish light rimming the water, streetlights fading, on his way, appropriately enough, to see Sergei Pribluda's lover.
A block on, he encountered another socialismo o muerte billboard with a giant Comandante in fatigues, shambling again in mid-stride, keeping pace.
Ofelia took a little longer to dress, tape the doll's head back together and take it in her straw bag to her car. It was eight by the time she reached the Institute de Medicina Legal, found Blas in the autopsy theater and sent a message that she would be waiting for him at the anthropology room. No one was ever completely alone in that room, there were too many skulls and skeletons, preserved beetles and snakes huddled in the light. On the desk a newly scrubbed skull was positioned under a video camera. She turned on the monitor, and a picture of a robust Pribluda at a beach emerged on the screen.
"Not yet," Blas said as he came in drying his hands with a paper towel. "No show until we have our other Russian. Detective, I understand you're dressed for a certain kind of duty, but I must congratulate you for how convincing you are." She was in the white jinetera outfit. Blas threw the towel into a waste basket and ran his hands up and down her arms as if performing an inspection. "Irresistible."
"I have something for you," she said.
After all, who else could Ofelia go to? He was sympathetic and sophisticated, with connections at Minint, the army, the PNR well above the level of Captain Arcos and Sergeant Luna.
"A gift?"
"Not quite." She took the head wrapped in newspapers out of her bag and placed it in front of the screen.
"Well, I'm always interested." Blas pulled the paper off and revealed Chango's obsidian stare. The doctor's anticipation disappeared. "What is this about? You should know by now that my interest in Santeria is strictly scientific."
"But this head was on a doll that was in Pribluda's apartment. Later it was found with black-market goods in a building near the docks."
"So? I've seen hundreds of these dolls across the country."
Ofelia peeled off the tape that held the front and back of the head together. "Go ahead."
As Blas 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." Blas 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?" Blas 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 Blas 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 Pribluda'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 easie
r 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 information 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 b
earing 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 Malecón?"
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."
Havana Bay Page 29
