Havana Bay (41 page)

He continued along the canal, seeing no obstructions in the water, no flotsam by the dock. A galvanized pipe
led water to each slip; a foreign crew was washing down
a three-story megayacht, spraying one another, drinking
the water, so it was even potable. American boats in Cuba made for an interesting community, grandiose
white palaces mixed in with raffish fishing boats mus-
tached with stains, all bending the law by even being
where they were. Arkady had no experience on yachts
himself, but having spent some time in Vladivostok
around factory ships and trawlers, he knew a little about
bringing power on board, and what caught his eye
about the waist-high electrical distribution boxes spaced
along the dock of the Marina Hemingway was how
few had ordinary outlets to plug into. Instead, a power line led from the box while another led from the boat,
and where they met the lines were spliced and taped together, the connection protected from water by a clear
plastic shopping bag taped at the ends. He worked his way to an empty outdoor bar at the far end of the dock.
Fully half the hookups he saw on the way went through
spliced and bagged electrical lines sitting in water between the hull of the boat and cement wall of the
dock.

The transom of the
Alabama Baron
was smeared with
fish guts and scales, although the
jinetera
in the sailboat's hammock didn't look like a fisherman to Ofelia.
The girl had the Julia Roberts look from the film
Pretty
Woman,
very popular in Cuba, tons of hair, myopic
eyes, pouty lips, and she was watching a bracelet being sold on a portable television connected to a small satellite dish bolted to the dock. Ofelia recognized the Home
Shopping Network, also very popular in Cuba among
those with access to dishes. The woman on the tele
vision laid the bracelet across her wrist to let the light
play on the stones. The sound was off, but the price
flashed in the corner of the screen.

"That's beautiful," Ofelia said.

"Isn't it? Good price, too."

"Diamond?"

"Same as. Last week, they had a chain for the ankle
with the same stones. You think that's a good price, but wait." The woman on the television spread the bracelet
on a bed of velvet and added a pair of earrings.» See, I
knew. You order too soon and you don't get the
earrings. You have to know to wait and then pick up
your phone and give them your credit-card number and
the bracelet's yours in two days." Julia Roberts glanced
over.» You're new here."

"I'm looking for Teresa."

The television woman brushed back a mantle of hair to model the earrings, left, right, frontal. Another girl in
a top and thong came out of the cabin. Her hair was
almost as short as Ofelia's but peroxided blonde.» You
know Teresa?"

 
"Yes. Luna told me she would be here."

"You know Facundo?" The girl in the hammock sat
up.

"I met him."

"Teresa's real upset," the blonde knelt by the rail and
whispered.» She was next door when Hedy got her
throat slit. They were close."

"She got run in, too," Julia Roberts said.» Some
police bitch gave her a tough time. For helping feed her family, you know."

"I know," said Ofelia.

"Teresa's scared," the blonde said.» She went home
to the country. I don't think she's going to be here for
a while."

"Is she afraid of the sergeant?" Ofelia asked.

"You met the sergeant, what do you think?" Julia Roberts said.» With all due respect, what do you think?
I just know him, but Teresa and Hedy were his private
girls, understand?"

The blonde checked out Ofelia's vital points.» Aren't
you a little old to be doing this? What are you, twenty-
four, twenty-five?"

"Twenty-nine."

"Not bad."

"I-am-trying-to-sleep," a deep voice in American
came from the bowels of the sailboat, and a form
struggled up the galley steps. It had to be the Alabama
baron himself, Ofelia thought. He wore a Houston
Astros cap, shorts and a Hawaiian shirt that couldn't
cover a sunburned belly that he salved by rolling a can
of beer over its expanse. He loomed over the two Cuban girls on his boat.» Talk-talk-talk-talk-talk-Jesus-Kayrist-
you-women-talk. Whoa," he said as he caught sight of
Ofelia, "the talent contest may still be open."

"She's with me," Arkady said. He had worked his
way back along the dock to the tender and the sailboat,
berthed one behind the other.» We were just admiring
the boats."

The baron glanced around at the beer cans on his
deck until he noticed that Arkady meant the
Gavilan.

"Yeah, sure, that's a fucking classic. A genuine rum
runner, everything but the bullet holes."

Rumrunner? Arkady liked that. That smacked of
Capone.

"Fast?"

"I'd say so. You're talking a V-12, four hundred horses, sixty knots, faster than a torpedo boat. 'Cept
with a woodie you spend all day at the dock sanding,
varnishing, polishing."

"That's a drawback," Arkady agreed.

"No time to fish. Of course,
they
do all the upkeep for him here. He gets special treatment. Where you
from?"

"Chicago."

"Really?" The baron digested that.» You fish?"

"I wish I could. I don't have enough time."

"Locals keeping you otherwise occupied?" The
baron's eye returned to Ofelia, who kept her face blank
of comprehension.

"Busy."

 
 
"Well, it's a fish or fuck world, it really is. I'll tell
you what, the last thing in the world I want is lift the
embargo. Cuba is cheap, beautiful, grateful. Take away
the embargo and it'll be 'nother Florida in a year. Hell,
I'm a man on a pension, I'd hardly be able to afford
Susy here." He pointed with his free hand to the girl in
the hammock, whose eyes had returned to the shopping network and a new item, a clock in a crystal elephant. Arkady remembered Rufo's list of names and phone
numbers. Susy and Daysi. Did the other girl peroxide her hair for a daisylike effect? Arkady could tell that
Ofelia had caught the name too.

"What do you mean, 'special treatment'?" he asked
the baron.

"The owner of that boat is George Washington Walls.
Their hero. Hey, I was a fireman twenty years, I know
about heroes. Heroes don't put a gun to no pilot's
head."

"You're not just...?" Arkady raised his eyebrows
delicately.

"Racist? Not me." The baron waved his arm toward
the
jineteras
and Ofelia as proof.

"For example, then?"

"For example." The baron was hot now. He hung on
to a guy wire for balance and pointed to the hookup
servicing the tender.» Check out the power lead installed
specially for him just yesterday. Now, look at mine." Where the
Alabama Baron's
lead dipped into the water was the typical splice in a bag that was filthier than the
others.» I understand they're clever devils here and they
got American boats and European boats with whole
different electrical frequencies and they got to jury-rig a
new line for every boat that hooks up, but I'm a fireman
and I know hot lines and water. Get this lead in the
water and spring a little leak and you will fry yourself
some very surprised fish. All I'm saying is, how come
Senor Walls has himself the only berth in the entire
marina with a new power lead?"

"And if a swimmer was in the water?"

"Kill him."

"Heart attack?"

"Stop it cold."

"And there would be burn marks?"

"Only if he touched the line. I've seen bodies in tubs
with a hair dryer, same thing. Look at her"—the baron
gave Ofelia an approving nod—"like she understands
every word."

The very statement that Teresa had gone back to the
country made Ofelia believe that the
jinetera
was lying low in Havana in the rooms of her friends. Calling from
the DeSoto, Ofelia tried the numbers Rufo had listed
for Daysi and Susy, and when neither phone answered,
Ofelia called Bias.

"It's not like a bolt of lightning but yes"—the doctor
agreed with her—"if a live wire falls into water, there would obviously be a charge."

"How strong?"

"It depends. Submerged in water, power is diffused
exponentially depending on the distance from the
source. Then there is the size and physical condition of
the victim, and the peculiarities of each individual
heart."

"A fatal charge?"

"Depending. Alternating current, for example, is
more dangerous than direct current. Salt water is a
better conductor than fresh."

"Leaving marks?"

"It all depends. If there was contact, there would be
a burn. Farther away, a person might only experience a
tingle in his extremities. But the heart and the respira
tory center of the brain are regulated by electrical
impulses and an electrical shock can initiate fibrillations
without necessarily causing trauma to tissue."

"Meaning," Ofelia said, "that somewhere between
too near and too far to a live wire in water, a victim
could suffer a heart attack and there would be no entry or exit mark, no burns, absolutely nothing?"

There was a silence at the doctor's end. Traffic rattled
on the Malecon. Arkady seemed to be enjoying his
cigarette enormously.

"You could put it that way," Bias finally said.

"Why didn't you say so before?"

"Everything in context. Where would a
neumatico
encounter an electrical wire in the middle of the sea?"
There was a burst of static and Bias changed the subject.» Have you seen the Russian?"

"No." She met Arkady's eyes with hers.

 
 
"Well," Bias said, "I notice that he left a new photo
graph of Pribluda for me."

"Have you matched it to the body yet?"

"No. There are other murders, you know."

"But you will try? It's important to him. You know,
as it turns out he's not a total idiot."

Since they'd skipped breakfast, they stopped at a park
table for ice cream. Huge leathery trees overhung a
playground and a shooting gallery. Ofelia was going
after Teresa and Arkady wanted to see Mostovoi's
apartment again, but at the moment the detective
looked like a movie star on the Riviera, lips pink with
strawberry.

"We can meet here later and have ice cream for
dinner," Arkady said.» At six? And if we miss each
other, then ten o'clock at the Yacht Club and we'll see
what that has to do with Angola."

Ofelia was suspicious.» What will you do in the
meantime?"

"A Russian named Mostovoi has a picture of a dead
rhinoceros I want to take a look at."

"Why?"

"Because he didn't show it to me before."

"That's all?"

"A simple visit. And you?"

"You said last night when you followed Luna he was
pushing a cart of what looked to you like black-market goods. Well, what goods? Maybe they're still there. Someone has to see."

 
 
"You're not going alone?"

"Do I look crazy? No, I'll take plenty of help, believe
me," Ofelia said. She looked very composed for a
moment and then pulled down her dark glasses in
shock.

Arkady turned to face two girls in maroon school
jumpers. They had green eyes and hair streaked with
amber and held cones of ice cream close enough to drip on his shoulder. An energetic gray-haired woman in a
housedress and sneakers followed with a vengeance.

"Mama," Ofelia asked, "why aren't the girls in
school?"

"They should be in school but they should see their
mother from time to time, too, don't you think?"
Ofelia's mother took in Arkady.» Oh my God, it's true.
Everyone's meeting a nice Spaniard, a little Englishman,
you found a Russian. My God."

"I just asked her to bring some toiletries," Ofelia told
Arkady.

"She looks unhappy," Arkady said.

"Don't offer her your chair."

But the deed was done and her mother was settling
in where Arkady had been.

"My mother," Ofelia muttered as an introduction.

"My God," her mother said.

"My pleasure," Arkady said.

With a pride Ofelia couldn't suppress, "My daughters Muriel and Marisol. Arkady."

The girls rose on tiptoe for his kiss.

 
 
"Where do you even find a Russian?" her mother
asked.» I thought they were gone like the dodos."

"He's a senior investigator from Moscow."

"Good. Did he bring food?"

"They look just like you," Arkady told Ofelia.

"You dressed so nice." Muriel looked Ofelia up and
down.

"Those are new clothes." Ofelia's mother took a
second look.

"No hablo espanol,"
Arkady said.

"Just as well," Ofelia assured him.

"He bought them?"

"We are working together."

"Then that's different, that's absolutely different.
You're colleagues exchanging gifts of esteem. I see possibilities here."

"It's not what you think."

"Please, don't disabuse me when I have hopes. He's
not so bad. A little lean. A week or two of rice and
beans and he'll be fine."

"Do you like him?" Marisol asked Ofelia.

"He's a nice man."

"Pushkin was a Russian poet," her mother said.» He
was part African."