Havana Bay (17 page)

Before Arkady could beg off, Walls joined them.»
You're missing everything," he told Isabel.

"I wish I could," she said.» We were talking about
Sergei."

"Were you?" he asked Arkady.» Where is the good
comrade?"

"A good question."

Shouts erupted in the living room, and a moment
later Hedy rushed past them through the hall. The
santero
and the Canadian followed.

"Oh, no," Walls said.» I didn't mean this real."

"What do you mean?" Arkady asked.

"She's possessed."

Isabel was unfazed.» It happens all the time. This
whole island is possessed."

The backyard was dark, but Hedy had kicked over
the soup cauldron and spun on the coals as sparks
nested in her hair. She swung out of the fire, her
spandex dulled by ashes, golden hair pulled into tufts,
while the
santero
ran after, trying to pull something
invisible from her body. The Canadian looked ready to retreat to someplace tame and far away. As Luna burst
into the yard the
santero
spread his arms helplessly and
put Hedy between himself and Luna.

Erasmo squeezed his chair through and told Arkady,
"Luna says he is going to kill the
santero
if he doesn't
get the spirit out of Hedy. The
santero
says he can't."

 
"Maybe he should try again." Arkady saw the ice pick
in Luna's hand.

As Luna yanked Hedy aside, her halter strap broke
and one breast spilled out like a loose eye. Luna seized
the
santero
by the neck and bent him belly-up between
the trees. The Canadian bolted through the crowd as it
poured into the yard and pushed Arkady forward. No
one else moved except Abuelita, who shoveled her
hands into the fire, rose to her toes and poured a bright
stream of live coals over Luna's back. As Luna wheeled
on her Arkady caught the sergeant's wrist, which was
like grabbing the iron wheel of a locomotive, bent it
back and up in the "come along" grip as taught to the Moscow militia and ran Luna headfirst into the wall.
Luna bounced off, leaving a pink imprint on the
cement. Blood ruby-spotted his white shoes.

Arkady decided he had not swung the sergeant hard
enough.

"Now you're fucked
de verdad."
Luna wasn't even
breathing hard, he'd barely started.

"Parate."
A small woman with a needle-sharp voice
stepped in between. Since she was in a skimpy top and
shorts and not a PNR uniform, it took Arkady a
moment to recognize his new colleague, Detective Oso-
rio. Where she had come from and how long she had
been taking in the scene with her grim little gaze he didn't know. A straw bag hung from one hand and in
the other was a Makarov 9-mm. He recognized the gun
right away. She didn't raise it or aim it, but it was there.
Luna recognized the gun, too. He lifted his hands to
signify not surrender or shyness but an awareness of
growing complications, his own duties as an officer, and
that he was done only for the time being.

"Truly fucked," Luna told Arkady on his way out.

"You okay?" Walls asked Arkady.» I'm sorry about
this. Typical Cuban party. Too many spirits in one
place. Now you'll have to excuse me, my investor has a
head start."

Abuelita dusted ashes from her palms. In the middle
of the yard Hedy looked down at her torn halter and
the dirt on her shiny shorts and burst into tears. Arkady
went into the house to look for Mongo and the drum
mers, but they had all left. Osorio followed him with an
expression that said fools were multiplying.

 
Chapter Ten

While he and Osorio put Erasmo to bed Arkady looked
around at what the mechanic afforded himself for living
quarters: a small space enlarged by the fact that his
cot, counter, table and chairs were all cut to half height.
On a pillow of gold African cloth was a collection of
military medals and campaign ribbons. The photo
graphs on the wall reflected more glory than Erasmo
had let on. A hospital-bed scene of Erasmo being visited
by two men in military fatigues—a tall, swarthy man in
aviator glasses who would have passed as Armenian in
Russia, the other older with a full gray beard and wiry brows, unique and unmistakable, the Comandante him
self. Neither man wore officer's insignia on his cap or shoulders; this was, after all, an egalitarian army. Castro was as puffed with pride as a father. The second visitor seemed to focus more ruefully on Erasmo's shortness of
limb.

"The Cuban general in Angola," Osorio said.

Another picture showed the same distinguished
friends on the deck of a fishing boat, this time with
Erasmo strapped into the fighting chair. Family pictures
displayed friendly, affluent men and women at swim
ming pools, bridge tables, dancing. Or children on
baseball fields, bicycles, ponies. And the entire family in
formal suits and ballroom gowns at champagne receptions and Christmas parties. In one wide photomontage they and hundreds more like them spread up and down the grand double stairway of a white mansion.

"He'll sleep a long time," Osorio said.

" 'Unconscious' is the word."

Just as Luna had been the last man Arkady wanted
to encounter, the last place he'd expected to see again
was Pribluda's apartment, but at Osorio's insistence he
climbed the steps with her. Although he thought he had
tidied up fairly well, as soon as he turned on the light
the detective noticed a difference.

"Dried blood on the carpet. What happened here?"

"You don't know? You work with Luna and Arcos."

"Only for this case because Russians are involved."

"You weren't surprised to see the sergeant come after
me with an ice pick?"

"All I saw was you throwing him into a wall."

"It's a tense relationship. After all, he did beat me
with a baseball bat. I think it was a baseball bat, he said
it was."

"He hit you?"

"You know nothing about that?"

"This is a serious charge."

"Other places, not here. Here, my experience is, not
much is investigated."

"As a matter of fact," Osorio said, "I did ask your
friend, Erasmo, before he passed out, what happened to
you. He said you told him you fell down the stairs."
See, Arkady thought, that was the penalty of ever telling
 
less than the truth. Osorio's eye fell on the empty corner
chair.» What did you do with Change?"

"What did I do with Change?" Arkady asked.» The
doll? Only in Cuba would this question come up. I don't know. Either Luna took him or Chango left on
his own. How did you find me?"

"I was looking for you. You weren't here, so I
followed the drums."

"Naturally." Arkady touched the cut on his hairline
to feel if it had split open.

Osorio set her bag on the parlor table.» Let me see
your head. You cleaned up all the other evidence of this so-called attack."

"Detective, I've been here three days and I've seen
the PNR excuse itself from two violent deaths. I don't
think you're going to investigate mere assault."

She pulled his head down, brusquely turned it one
way and then the other and ran her fingers over his
scalp.» What do you claim Luna said?"

"The sergeant mentioned that he'd prefer I stayed off
the street."

"Well, you didn't."

He winced as she parted the hair around a cut.» I
didn't get far."

"What else?"

"Nothing." Arkady wasn't about to strip and show
her the bruises on his back and legs and he wasn't going
to hand over the Yacht Club picture so it could be
delivered straight to the sergeant. That he still had it
was the luck of tossing his passport with the picture
inside a shoe.

Osorio released his head.» You should see a doctor."

"Thanks, that's helpful."

"Don't be insulting. Listen, I'm only saying that since there's no evidence here that you haven't compromised
and your story has changed already once and since
officers of the Ministry of the Interior do not beat
visitors from other countries, even from Russia, another explanation is more likely. Considering the blows you
took to your head, you may not be responsible for what
you say."

He wondered why Osorio had insisted on coming to the apartment. He also wondered why she was dressed
like a vamp with platform shoes and carrying a big
straw bag.» Detective, what are you here for?"

"Because I want you to go home alive."

While he tried to come up with an answer to that
the lights in the room faded and went dark. He stepped
out to the balcony and saw that the problem wasn't
only in the apartment; an entire arc of buildings along
the Malecon had gone black.

Arkady fed Pribluda's turtle by the illumination of
Rufo's lighter and then lit a cigarette and inhaled
wonderful, pain-soothing fumes. Osorio sat in the dark at the table.

"A power outage," Osorio said.

  
"I know the feeling."

"You should stop smoking."

"That's my biggest problem?" He found candles
above the sink, lit the fattest one and joined the
detective.

"Besides Sergeant Luna and your friend downstairs, who else did you know at the
santero's?"

"No one," Arkady said.» I'd heard of Walls."

"Everyone in Cuba knows George Washington
Walls."

"Luna arranged the show for him. I think Luna's
going to arrange a show for me. You may not be safe
here." Arkady had not intended to stay in the flat
himself. She reached into her bag and laid out a Maka
rov 9-mm, the same police issue as in Moscow.» Would
you have used that on Luna?"

"He knows I have the bullets. The patrolmen you see
on the street, they have guns but they don't have
bullets."

"There's a comfort." He saw her lay a toiletry kit by
the gun.» What is that for?"

"I'm staying the night."

"I appreciate the gesture, Detective, but you must
have some place to be. A home, a family, a beloved
pet."

"Are you offended to have a woman protect you? Is
that it? Do Russians suffer from machismo?"

"Not me. But why do it if you don't believe me
about Luna?"

"Luna is not the one I worry about. Dr. Bias exam
ined the syringe that you say Rufo attacked you with. The doctor wasn't supposed to, but he did, to look for
signs of drugs."

"Were there?"

"No, only blood and brain tissue of Rufo's and traces
of a different blood type altogether."

"Maybe he stabbed someone else."

"Did he? Where did Rufo get the syringe?"

"Dr. Bias said he stole it at the institute."

"Yes, that's what the doctor said. I have a different
answer. Wasn't that Rufo's lighter you used?"

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"Light it."

He did as she asked and the flame became a resonat
ing circle between them. Osorio reached into the light and pushed his coat and shirt sleeve up his forearm to show two dark bruises on the artery.

"That's why I came back."

Arkady regarded the marks with the expression of a
man surprised to find himself tattooed.

"Rufo must have scratched me when we were
struggling."

She ran her finger lightly along the vein.» These are
punctures, not scratches. Why did you come to
Havana?"