Havana Bay (26 page)

"I've always wanted to see someplace that didn't
exist."

"Cuba's the place," Walls admitted. He looked at the
club and back at Arkady and the shoes in Arkady's
hand.» Yeah, you look like you're settling in. Do you
have a couple of minutes? How would you like a cup of coffee with
two
men who have been on the FBI's Most
Wanted List?"

"That sounds irresistible." Arkady hesitated.» Has
Luna been invited, too?"

"Not to this party. No drums, no dancing, no Luna. Hop in."

Walls reversed and swung the stern to present the transom with the name "Gavilan" on the stern. Arkady
jumped without breaking a leg, and as he slipped into a leather seat the boat scooped him up and moved away
from the dock.

The ride was brief, smoothly skimming the waves out
of the cove to deeper, bluer water until Walls slowed as
smoothly as a limousine driver to a stop, the sharp nose
of the boat headed to the wind. Giving Arkady a sign to
wait, he ducked down into the cabin and returned with
a tray table that locked into the cockpit deck, ducked
down and returned with a brass tray carrying a basket
of sweet rolls, a pot of coffee and three china demitasses
with "Gavilan" written on the side. The cabin doors
opened again for a small, silver-haired man in black pajamas and slippers, who climbed the steps and sat
himself across from Arkady. He wore the smile of a
man who was both magician and the rabbit in the hat.

Walls said, "John, I want you to meet Arkady Renko.
Arkady, John O'Brien."

 
"A great pleasure." O'Brien took Arkady's hand with
both of his. He caught Arkady's glance at the pajamas.» Well, it's my boat and I dress as I please. Winston
Churchill, you know, used to wander around in the
altogether. I'll spare you that. And you wear this some
what astonishing coat, George told me about that. I
apologize for not coming up sooner, but when George
winds up the
Gavilan
I stay below. Falling overboard
would be fatal for my dignity. You like
cafe cubano,
I
hope?"

Walls poured. O'Brien might have been close to
seventy, Arkady guessed, but he had a youthful voice,
engaging eyes and an oval face as lightly freckled as a
shorebird's egg. He wore a wedding band on his hand,
a silver Breitling on the wrist.

"How do you like Havana?" he asked Arkady.

"Beautiful, interesting, warm."

"The women are unbelievable. My friend George here is smitten. I can't afford to fall in love because I
still have family in New York, on Long Island, a very
different island. I happen to be a faithful man and
someday, God willing, I'll be home."

"There are problems now?" Arkady broached the
subject delicately.

O'Brien brushed a crumb from the table.» A legal
hurdle or two. George and I have been fortunate enough
to find a home away from home here in Cuba. By the
way, I am sorry to hear about your friend Pribluda. The police think he's dead?"

"They do. Did you know him?"

 
"Of course, he was going to do some security work
for us. A simple man, I would say. Not a very good spy,
I'm afraid."

"I'm not a judge of spies."

"No, just a humble investigator, to be sure." O'Brien
added a touch of Irish brogue. He clapped his hands.»
What a day! If you're going to be a fugitive from
justice, where would you rather be?"

"Are you the only fugitives in Cuba?"

"Hardly. How many of us are there?" O'Brien cast a
doting eye on Walls.

"Eighty-four."

"Eighty-four Americans on the lam. Well, it's better than a life in a federal minimum-security prison, where you get lawyers, congressmen, dope dealers, the usual cross-section of America. Here you get genuine firebrands like George. For a businessman like me, it's an opportunity to meet entirely new people. I never would
have had the chance to become so close to George in
the States."

"So you try to keep busy?"

"We try to stay alive," O'Brien said.» Useful. Tell me,
Arkady, what are you doing here?"

"The same."

"By visiting the Havana Yacht Club? Explain to me,
what has it got to do with a dead Russian?"

"A missing man at the place that doesn't exist any
more? That sounds perfect to me."

"He's sort of careful," Walls said to O'Brien.

"No, he's right," O'Brien said and patted Arkady's
knee.» Arkady's a man who's just sat down to play cards
and doesn't know the rules of the game and doesn't
know the value of his chips."

O'Brien's black pajamas had pockets. He took out a large cigar that he rolled
between his fingertips.

"You know the great Cuban
chess champion Capablanca? He was a genius, thinking ten, eleven moves ahead. He smoked Cuban cigars, of
course, while he played. One title match his opponent extracted a promise from Capablanca that he wouldn't
smoke. All the same, Capablanca brought out his cigar, squeezed it, licked it, savored it, and his opponent went
nuts, lost the match and said that not knowing
Capablanca was going to light up was even worse than
him smoking. I love Cuban cigars, too, although the
joke's on me because the doctor says I'm not allowed to smoke anymore. Just tease myself, that's all. Anyway,
what led you to the club, that's your cigar. We'll just
have to wait for you to light it up. For the time being,
we'll simply say you were curious."

"Or amazed."

"By what?" asked Walls.

"That the club survived the Revolution."

"You're talking about the Havana Yacht Club now,"
O'Brien said.» The French, you know, they beheaded
Louis, but they didn't burn Versailles. What Fidel did
was give the club, the grandest, most valuable single
property in the entire country, to a construction union
and charge Cubans, black or white, one peso to use the beach. Very democratic, communistic, admirable."

Walls
  
pointed
  
toward
 
 
the
  
Moorish
  
tower.
  
"La
Concha, the casino on one side of the cove, they gave
to the caterers' union and the greyhound track they
turned into track and field."

"God knows, I respect idealism," O'Brien said, "but let me put it this way, as a result these properties have not been developed to their maximum. There's an
opportunity here to create something of enormous
value for the Cuban people."

"Is that where you come in?"

"I hope so. Arkady, I was a developer. Still am.
George can tell you I'm not sneaky. Disney's sneaky.
When they start buying up land they form a little
corporation that sounds like your neighbors trying a
little preservation, buying an acre here, an acre there
and then you wake up one morning and there's a two-
hundred-foot mouse outside your window. I'm up
front. Every developer wants one great landmark development, his own Eiffel Tower or Disneyland. I want to
make the Havana Yacht Club once again the center of
the Caribbean, bigger and better than ever."

Walls took over.» See, the government developed
Varadero Beach and Cayo Largo because they wanted to keep tourists as far from Cubans as possible. But
tourists want Havana. They want the girls at the Tropi-
cana and strolling in Havana Vieja and dancing all night
at the Palacio de la Salsa. The government's finally
getting the right idea, restoring the Malecon, rebuilding
old hotels, because what tourists want is style. Fortu
nately, by a miracle, the Havana Yacht Club is in great
condition."

 
 
"Its upkeep drains the state of half a million pesos a
year. George, tell him it could be making the state thirty
million dollars a year."

"It could," Walls said.

O'Brien pointed to the club and beach.» That's con
ference center, restaurant, nightclub, twenty suites, twenty
rooms, time shares or condo that can be explored. Plus
spa, berthing for boats, you want luxury cruisers. What
I'm describing to you, Arkady, is a gold mine waiting
for someone to pick up a shovel."

Arkady couldn't help wondering why two well-placed
American fugitives would share their aspirations with him, although he sensed that O'Brien was the sort of
salesman who enjoyed his own performance, like an
actor who could deliver the most outrageous lines while
he winked at the audience. Since Arkady's construction
experience had been in Siberia, he felt at a loss at luxury
cost projections.» To make the club into a hotel might
be expensive."

"Twenty million," Walls took over.» We'd find the
money and the Cuban government wouldn't put up a
single peso or dollar."

"A lot of people," O'Brien said modestly, "would call
that a gift."

"And what do you want in return?" Arkady asked.

O'Brien said, "Guess."

"I don't have the faintest idea."

O'Brien leaned forward as if sharing a secret.» Last
year an Indian casino in Connecticut, in the—excuse
my language—fucking north woods, with no sex, no
style, no sun, cleared one hundred million dollars. What
do you think a casino set among palm trees and cruise ships and million-dollar yachts and the famous, reborn
Havana Yacht Club might possibly take in? I don't
know, but I'd love to find out."

"We're asking for a twenty-five-year lease of the old
La Concha casino and an even split of profits with the
Cuban government," Walls said.» It's a no-risk situation
for them, but there's a political problem in that they
made such a big deal about closing casinos after the
Revolution."

"Closing casinos and closing the Mafia," O'Brien
said.» Which was why, with the CIA, the Mafia tried to
kill the President."

"Castro, he means," Walls said.» And it's not easy to
get Cubans to reverse direction. It would stop us cold if there was even a hint any Mafia, American or Russian,
was involved. Our casino has to be absolutely clean."

"Any project at an early point," said O'Brien, "is like
a bubble, anything can burst it. Your friend Pribluda
was going to be our protection from the sort of Russians who are, I assure you, swarming into the Caribbean like
the Visigoths. The wrong people showing up at the
wrong time can burst the bubble. Which is why I told
George we should take the boat and get a certain
Russian investigator off the Yacht Club dock before
anyone else heard you were there."

"And brings us back to the question," Walls
reminded Arkady.» Why were you at the club?"

Arkady felt like a can between two expert can open
ers. The photograph of the Havana Yacht Club was in
his pocket. However, he wasn't in the mood to offer to strangers what he had kept at some cost in blood from
the sergeant.

"In four more days I'll be back in Moscow and it
won't matter why I went to the club."

"Why go back?" O'Brien asked.» Stay here."

Walls said, "Pribluda's gone. I hate to put it this way,
but there is an opening now."

Arkady took a moment to understand the new direc
tion of the conversation.» An opening for me?"

"Maybe," O'Brien stressed.» You don't mind if we
got to know you a little better before we offered you a
position?"

"A position?" Arkady asked.» That sounds even better
than work. You don't know me at all."

"Oh, I don't?" O'Brien said.» Let me guess. In your forties, right? Disappointed in your work. It's evident
you're bright but you're still just an investigator? A little
reckless, working too close to the edge, inviting disaster.
Except for the coat, cheap clothes, cheap shoes, signs of
an honest man. But the way things are in Moscow now
you must feel like a fool. And personal life? I'm taking
a stab in the dark, but I'd say you don't have one. No
wife, maybe not even kids. Zero, dead end. And that's
what you can't wait to get back to in only four more
days? I'm not trying to suck you into a criminal
endeavor, I'm opening you a door on the ground floor
of the biggest project in the Caribbean Basin. Maybe
you'd rather soak up vodka and freeze to some fucking
miserable death in Moscow, I don't know. All I can do
is offer you an opportunity for a second chance at life."