Havana Bay (46 page)

"That could work."

Not honey but the sweet salt of her skin. No silken
rope but her arms. No words but hands and lips, and Arkady was pulling her closer when Change's cane
scraped across the linoleum. The doll sagged forward,
head askew, tipped in the slow fashion of a drunk
releasing himself from the obligations of respectability,
slumped off the chair and landed with a thud on its
face.

"Some spell," Arkady said. It had been working on him. He swung out of bed, picked up the doll and set it
in the chair again. Here was a figure that had followed him all over Havana, his shadow companion, and how
he'd ever managed to get Chango to stay in the chair
Arkady didn't know because the cane slid one way and the doll perversely slumped the other.» The head is just
too heavy, it won't sit up."

 
 
Ofelia motioned Arkady back.» Leave it. It's just
papier-mache."

"I don't think so." The spell was broken. He lifted
Chango and brought him to the bed, the better to see
how the head was sewn to the shirt.» Are there scissors
in your toiletry kit?"

Arkady pulled on pants and Ofelia slipped into his coat. Because the nail scissors were small, Arkady had to cut the threads one at a time to slide the head off a wooden stake that was the doll's backbone. He let the headless body roll onto the floor.

Ofelia asked, "What are you doing?"

"Looking into Chango."

He cut off the bandanna, leaving a red ring of cloth
still glued. The head was papier-mache coated with a lacquer-hard paint like a lumpish skull daubed black. Ofelia found a serrated knife in a drawer of the kitch
enette. Arkady sawed through the head from ear, over
the crown, to ear, until he pulled the doll's face like a
mask off a layer of cheesecloth that had been formed
on someone's face to lend the effigy its rough features.
Under the cloth were crumpled newspapers, and under
the newspapers was a flat oval of slick silver tape. In
tiny snips Arkady cut around the edges and peeled the
tape off five thick brown waxy sticks that said in English
"Hi-Drive Dynamite." The sticks had been warmed and
molded to pack tightly together with a Plexiglas backing
in the oval space of the head. On the middle stick was a
printed circuit board of a radio receiver the size of a
credit card with a built-in kopeck-sized battery and
antenna. Arkady prodded the board up. Its wires were
crimped around the leg wires of a blasting cap inserted
deep into the dynamite itself. In spite of the air-
conditioning he felt a bloom of sweat. He and Ofelia
had been around the doll on and off for almost a week. Someone could have pressed a remote transmitter and
brought his Havana trip to an end at any time.

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 Change 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 Bias 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 Bias 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 pos
itioned 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," Bias 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. Bias 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 newspa
pers out of her bag and placed it in front of the screen.

"Well, I'm always interested." Bias pulled the paper off and revealed Change'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 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 investi
gate. 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 moni
tor. 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.