Havana Bay (47 page)

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 con
tract 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 arm
pits 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 sugges
tion 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 mis
shapen, 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."