She guided his hand between her legs so that he could feel her through the cotton of the dress, then kissed him and slipped into the sitting room. Maybe this was a test for signs of life, he thought. The dress was thin to show the slimness of her body and the dark caps of her breasts, and if he were a normal man he would feel healthy lust. The truth was he did feel a first stirring, feeling her breath on his neck, taking in the almond scent of her hair braided like long black silk. Her pale skin made her lips all the more red.
"No mistake," Isabel said.» I asked you to do something for me. Fair trade. Gordo keeps the rum over the sink."
"I thought Gordo was the name for the turtle."
"For both. Sergei, turtle."
"What do you call George Washington Walls?"
"I call him done with. I have a new boyfriend, no?"
"Well, I can't imagine who that is."
Isabel touched the coat hung on the back of the chair, and when he pulled her hand away she said, "Relax. Such a strange man, but I like you." She found the rum herself and rinsed two glasses.» I like strong men."
"That's not me."
"Let me be the judge." She handed him a glass.» I know you've heard about my father."
"I heard there was a conspiracy."
"True. There's always a conspiracy. Everyone complains, and He …"-she pointed to her chin-"He lets them, as long as they don't do anything. As long as they don't organize. All the same, every year there's a conspiracy, and it's always a mix of conspirators and informers. That's Cuban democracy at work, that's how we will finally vote, when even the informers decide enough is enough and they keep their mouths shut and this country is delivered." She brushed Arkady's cheek.» But not yet, I don't think. This is the first place where time does not exist. People have been born and died, yes, but time has not passed because time demands fresh paint, new cars, new clothes. Or maybe war, one or the other. But not this, which is not dead or alive, which is neither. You're not drinking."
"No." The last thing he needed was Isabel and alcohol.
"Do you mind?" She took a cigarette.
"No."
"The reason my father agreed to the coup in the first place was the assurances from his Russian friends that he would have their complete support. It wasn't his idea."
"He should have known better."
“I think I'm choosing more wisely." She inhaled as if the smoke would travel the length of her body, exhaled and spun, her arms spread, so that the dress clung to her and smoke trailed behind.» I think we're the best. English dancers are too stiff, the Russians are too serious. We have the elevation and technique, but we are also born with music. There is no limit once I'm out, once I have my letter and my ticket."
"The letter hasn't come."
"It will. It has to. I told George we were looking into going back to Moscow together."
"You and I?"
"Yes, wouldn't that be the simplest way?" Isabel came to rest against the coat and an ember from her cigarette spilled on the sleeve.» Are you married?"
Arkady brushed the ember off and took Isabel by the wrist. It was a slim wrist, an elegant wrist, but he led her to the door.» It's late. If something comes for you I promise I'll let you know."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm saying good night."
"I'm not done."
"I'm done."
He pushed her out and only had a glimpse of her in the hallway crushed as a moth before he shut the door.
"You son of a bitch," she shouted through it.» You prick, cono. Just like your friend Sergei. All he wanted to do was talk about that stupid plot that got my father killed. You're just the same, another maricon. El bollo de tu madre."
Arkady shot the bolt. "I'm sorry. I don't speak Spanish."
His way with women was astonishing, he thought. What a charmer. He wrapped himself in the coat and shivered. Why was everyone in Cuba warm except him?
It was midnight, and dark had overwhelmed the city when Arkady wasn't looking. A power outage arranged by Luna, or was his imagination expanding in the dark? There were no streetlamps on the Malecon, only a couple of faint headlights like the sort on luminescent fish found in an ocean trench. Although he latched the shutters closed and lit a candle, darkness continued to seep into the room with a solid, tarry quality.
A car horn woke him. The horn blared until he opened the balcony doors and saw that the morning had started hours before. The sea was a brilliant mirror to a huge sky, the sun high and shadows reduced to mere spots of ink. Across the Malecon a boy flipped small, silvery bait out of a net up to a partner standing on the seawall with a pole. Another boy gutted his fish on the sidewalk and threw the entrails up to a hovering gull. Directly below the balcony was a streamlined cloud of chrome and white, Hemingway's Chrysler Imperial convertible with George Washington Walls at the wheel and John O'Brien in a golf cap and Hawaiian shirt.
"Remember, we were going to talk about possible employment," Walls called up.» And show you some famous sin spots."
"You can't just tell me?"
"Think of us as your guides," O'Brien said.» Think of it as a Grand Tour."
Arkady looked to Walls for any sign that Isabel had reported her midnight visit and he looked to O'Brien for an indication that word of the AzuPanama papers reached him via Osorio, but all he saw shining up from the car were bright smiles and dark glasses. Employment in Havana? That had to be a joke. But how could he dare to miss learning more about AzuPanama and John O'Brien? Besides, he thought, what could happen in Hemingway's car?
"Give me a minute."
The desk drawer had envelopes. Into one Arkady fit all his worldly evidence: Rufo's house key, Pribluda's car key, AzuPanama documents and the photo of the Havana Yacht Club. Arkady taped the envelope to the small of his back, put on his shirt and coat, a man equipped for all climates and occasions.
The car even rode like a cloud, the warm upholstery adhesive to the touch. Arkady noticed even from the backseat the push-button transmission, how could anyone miss that? They breezed along the Malecon while Walls gossiped about other famous cars, Fidel's penchant for Oldsmobiles and Che's '6 °Chevrolet Impala. Arkady looked around.» Have you seen Luna?"
"The sergeant is no longer associated with us," Walls said.
"I think the man's unhinged," said O'Brien.
Walls said, "Luna is one funky dude." He dipped his glasses from his blue eyes.» When are you going to dump the coat?"
O'Brien said, "It's like driving around with Abe-Fucking-Lincoln. It is."
"When I get warm."
"You read Hemingway in Russia?" Walls asked.
"He's very popular there. Jack London, John Steinbeck and Hemingway."
"When writers were bruisers," said O'Brien.» I'd have to say I think of The Old Man and the Sea every time I see the fishing boats go out. I loved the book and the film. Spencer Tracy was magnificent. A better Irishman than Cuban, but magnificent."
"John reads everything," Walls said.
"I love movies too. When I get homesick I put on a video. I have America on videotapes. Capra, Ford, Minnelli."
Arkady thought of Vice Consul Bugai and the $5,000 deposit in Bugai's name at O'Brien's Panama bank.
"Do you have any Russian friends here?"
"There aren't that many. But to be honest I have to say I steer clear, as a precautionary measure."
"Pariahs," said Walls.
"The Russian Mafia would love to get in here. They're already in Miami, Antigua, Caymans, they're in the neighborhood, but Russians are such a sore subject with Fidel there's no point in being associated with them. But more than that, they're stupid, Arkady. No offense."
"None taken."
"A Russian wants money, he says, I'll kidnap someone rich, bury him up to his neck and demand a ransom. Maybe his family will pay and maybe they won't. A short-term proposition either way. An American wants money, he says, I'll do a mass mailing and offer an investment with an irresistible rate of return. Maybe th
e investment pays off or maybe it doesn't, but as long as I have lawyers those people will be paying me for the rest of their lives. After they're dead I'll put a lien on their estate. They'll wish I had buried them up to their necks."
"That's what you did?" Arkady said.
"I'm not saying that's what I did, I'm saying what's done in the States." He raised his hand and his biggest grin.» Not lying. I have testified in district court in Florida and Georgia, federal court in New York and Washington and I have never lied."
"That's a lot of courts to tell the truth in," Arkady said.
"The fact is," said O'Brien, "I prefer happy investors. I'm too old to be stalked by unshaven, angry men or have to duck subpoenas from men who can stand outside a door for the rest of their miserable lives. Hey, we're here!"
Walls swung across oncoming traffic to the curb of an airy high-rise hotel, an angled tower of blue balconies that nestled at its base the separate dome in mottled colors. Arkady had passed the hotel before without fully registering how its architecture was pure American fifties. And they'd arrived in the perfect car, gliding to a stop under a cantilevered entrance by a statue of, perhaps, a seahorse and siren carved from the largest of all whale bones. John O'Brien had visited before, judging by the doormen's zeal.
"The Riviera," O'Brien explained in a hush to Arkady, as if they were about to enter the Vatican.» The American Mafia built other hotels here, but the jewel was the Riviera."
Arkady asked, "What does this have to do with me?"
"A little patience, please. It all fits."
O'Brien removed his cap as a mark of respect before they climbed the stairs and entered glass doors to a low lobby of white marble under inset ceiling lights spaced as irregularly as stars. Sofas as long as boxcars reached across the floor toward a skylit grotto of elephant-ear ferns. Along one side was the tidal murmur of a bar, at the far end a staircase suspended on wires wound around a stabile of black stone, and a bright haze that was plate glass leading to a pool. O'Brien glided at a reverent pace across the lobby, tassels of his shoes flopping.» Everything deluxe. Kitchen like a cruise ship, beautifully appointed rooms. And the casino?"
One step ahead of O'Brien, Walls opened the brass doors to a convention hall emblazoned with the colorful, forceful logos of Spanish, Venezuelan, Mexican banks. Knockdown displays and charts on easels forecast Caribbean economic trends. Business cards and four-color brochures littered the carpet. O'Brien stopped at a particularly outsized booth with a row of chairs facing a giant monitor.
"It's pathetic," O'Brien said.» Market projections, rates of interest, capital protection, all languages spoken. Look at this." He tried to turn on the monitor at the screen.» Hell, it doesn't even work."
"Maybe this does." Arkady picked up a remote control from the booth counter and pushed on. At once, images of serious men and women in expensive suits marched across the screen. Dollars, pesetas, deutsche-marks flowed from them like lines of electricity.
"Right," O'Brien said.» They know how to put your money to work for your benefit around the world, sure they do. The only trouble, this isn't the world. This is Cuba. You know what Fidel says about capitalists. First, all they want is the tip of your little finger, then the finger, then the hand, then your arm and piece by piece all the rest of you. He's made up his mind. So the banks didn't come all this way to make their presentations to Fidel, think about that. Thank you, Arkady."
Arkady turned the remote off.
"Anyway," O'Brien said, "the banks have it backwards. Nowadays people are not interested in a slow accrual of assets. What they want is a jackpot, the lottery, payday. Look around, you can still see it." He called Arkady's attention to walls of baroque cream and gold, pointing out how the dropped ceiling hid the dome overhead. They were in the painted dome they had seen from outside. If the Riviera was the Vatican, this was the Sistine Chapel. As O'Brien removed his dark glasses and made a slow, complete turn a small miracle happened, the lines on his fine-as-an-eggshell forehead seemed to smooth away and Arkady saw a hint of the redhead O'Brien once had been.» The Gold Leaf Casino. You have to imagine the way it was, Arkady. Four roulette tables, two seven-eleven, one baccarat, four tables for blackjack with mahogany rails, the nap brushed twice a day. Not an ash. Pit manager on a bishop's chair. It was a meeting of two classes, the rich and the mob. The French have a word for it: frisson. A little charge and, by God, it sparkled. Chandeliers lit like bubbling champagne glasses. Women wearing diamonds from Harry Winston, I mean rocks. Movie stars, Rockefellers, you name it."
"No Cubans?"
"Cubans worked here. They hired Cuban accountants and made them into croupiers and dealers. Taught them grooming, bought them suits, paid them well to keep them honest. Of course, they were still vacuumed for chips at the end of the day."
Arkady had seen casinos. There were casinos in Moscow. The Russian Mafia loved to strap leather jackets over uncomfortable holsters so they could belly up to a table and lose money loud and big.
"Mind, there was always gambling in Havana," O'Brien said.» The Mafia just made it honest, with a fair split for President Batista. Batista and his wife got the machines, the Mafia got the tables and there was no more honest operation in the world. Plus, biggest names in entertainment, Sinatra, Nat King Cole. Beautiful beaches, best deep-sea fishing and the women were unbelievable. Still are."
"It's hard to believe there was a revolution." "You can't please everyone," O'Brien said.» Let me show you my personal favorite, though. Smaller but more historical. America's last stand."
On the way, as soon as they left the Riviera, they drove by picturesquely rotting houses, the sort Arkady might have expected to find in a mangrove swamp, the pavement rolling over banyan roots.
Arkady asked, "So, what kind of business have you been doing here? Investing?"
"Investing, consulting, whatever," O'Brien said.» We solve problems."
"For example?"
Walls and O'Brien glanced at each other, and Walls said, "For example, Cuban trucks here need spare parts because the Russian factory that used to produce them is turning out Swiss Army knives now instead. What John and I did was find a Russian truck factory in Mexico, and buy the whole thing just for the parts."
"What did you get out of that?"
"Finder's fee, costs. You know, I used to think because I was a Marxist that I understood capitalism. I didn't know anything. John plays it like a game."
O'Brien said, "I have always noticed that people from the socialist camp take money far too seriously. You should have fun."
"It's like a second college education being with John."
"Yes?" Arkady was ready to be educated.
"Like boots," said Walls.» The Cubans ran out of boots. We found out that the U.S. was getting rid of surplus boots at a dollar a pair. We bought all of them, which is why the Cuban army is marching in American combat boots."
"You must be appreciated here."
"I'd like to think that George and I are," said O'Brien.
"But how do you do that from Cuba? I would think you'd need a third party."
"In a third country, of course."
"In Mexico, Panama?"
O'Brien twisted in his seat.» Arkady, you've got to stop being such a cop. Over the years, I have helped a lot of police in your situation, but it's a matter of give and take. you want to know this and you want to know that, but you have yet to give me a believable explanation how you came to stand on the dock of the Havana Yacht Club."
"I was just visiting places where Pribluda might have been."
"What made you think he might have been there?"
"There was a map in his apartment and the club was circled." Which was true, although not as true as the photograph.» It was an old map."
"Just an old map? That's how you heard about the Havana Yacht Club? Amazing."
The Hotel Capri was a pocket version of the Pviviera, a high rise but off the Malecon, and no dome or spiral stairs, instead a simple lobby of glassy
sounds and chrome furniture. Cubans were not allowed upstairs; they sat and nursed colas as they waited for appointments to materialize, ready to wait all day. The air-conditioning eddied around potted plants.
"I can't get over the coat," Walls told Arkady.» Do you mind if I try it on?"
"Go ahead."
Although Arkady didn't want other people even touching the coat, he helped Walls in. The coat stretched a little over Walls's shoulders. He ran his hands along the cashmere outside, the silk lining in, felt the pockets inside and out.
O'Brien watched the fashion show.» What do you think?"
"I think he's a man with empty pockets." Walls returned the coat.» But nice. You got this on an investigator's pay? Good for you."
"A good sign for us all." O'Brien led the way off the lobby and through the doors into a small, darkened theater. Arkady could barely see the stage, steps, speakers and overhead lights with colored eels.» La Sala Roja. It wasn't a cabaret then. It was a better show. Use your imagination and you can see red drapes, red carpet, red velvet lamps. In the center, four blackjack tables and four roulette. In the corners, seven-eleven and baccarat. Girls selling cigars, and I mean beautiful girls selling Cuban cigars. Perhaps a little cocaine, though who needs it? It's the sound of the ball on the track, the excitement around a craps table. The man says 'Bets, gentlemen' and people bet. Do you gamble, Arkady?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't have the money to lose."
"Everyone has the money to lose. Poor people gamble all the time. What you mean is, you don't like to lose."
"I suppose so."
"Well, you're unusual, most people need to. If they happen to win, they keep on playing until they do lose. Right now around the world more people are gambling than ever in the history of man." O'Brien shrugged to show that the phenomenon was beyond him.» Maybe it's the coming millennium. It's as if people want to shed material things, not in a church but in a casino. People are willing to lose everything as long as they have fun. They can't resist. It's human. The worst snub in the world is a casino where they won't take your money."
"Were you here before the Revolution?"
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