Havana Bay (51 page)

"Why would Arkady want to meet here?" Ofelia
demanded.» How would he even get in?"

"He's been here before," Mostovoi said.» He gets
around."

The Noche Folklorica was an event Arkady had asked
about, Ofelia knew. If he had changed his mind about
talking to O'Brien and Walls, that was just as well. She
saw the colors of dancers sequestered behind spiky
palms: blue for Yemaya, yellow for Oshun. Spaced along
the beach were soldiers. Tied to the end of the dock was
a black patrol boat. All the light and all the sound
was concentrated on an outdoor stage facing the water.

 
The Noche Folklorica had already begun, and from the
clubhouse balconies men in plain clothes scanned
the crowd. Most people stood on the patio around the
stage, but there was also a reviewing stand with five
tiers of special guests. She knew only the figure in the
middle of the front row, a man with a flat, nearly Greek profile set in wiry gray hair and beard, the face that was the second sun of her lifetime. Beside him was an empty
chair.

The doors opened and O'Brien peeked through to say,
"Come on. It's too lovely a night to miss."

Arkady marched up. This far out the cockpit sat
under a canopy of stars. Walls steered parallel to the
shore, running at dead slow. Besides his cigar O'Brien
also held, casually but not negligently, a pistol with a
barrel extended by a silencer. The marina had passed from sight, but approaching on the Miramar shore was
a far brighter nexus of excitement and music. Arkady
recognized the Havana Yacht Club brilliant in floodlights. On the patio leading down to the beach a crowd surrounded a stage and reviewing stand.

Along with floodlights the Yacht Club displayed the colored lights of carnival, although the club's twin docks
were empty and only a black patrol boat had tied up to
enjoy the spectacle. As the
Gavilan
drew closer Walls
slipped forward to snap covers over the running lights
and John O'Brien dropped his cigar into the water.

"Quite a show." He handed Arkady a set of heavy
binoculars.» Now your trip to Cuba is complete."

The glasses were 20x Zeiss with a matte metal body,
and through them the scene at the Yacht Club meters
leaped into view. Spectators filled two levels of the
patio. A troupe of women in yellow scarves and skirts ascended the stage while a band filled the time with a percussive rhythm, whistles, bells clearly audible even from the
Gavilan.
Arkady zoomed in on the reviewing
stand, on a tall man with aviator glasses, Erasmo's
friend, the same man who had raised a toast to the
Havana Yacht Club at the Angola
paladar
the night
before. Arkady ran the glasses along the other seated
guests. In the front row's places of honor were an empty
chair and a man with a gray beard who looked as if he
had been big once but had since shrunk into a stiff
green shell of ironed fatigues. He had the abstracted expression of an old man regarding a thousand grand
children whose names he could no longer keep track of.

Arkady went back to the patrol boat. By now, Ofelia
ought to have communicated with someone, and
although the
Gavilan
ran low in the water Arkady
assumed it appeared on the patrol boat's radar. Whether
or not Ofelia had made contact, the
Gavilan
was within
four hundred meters of the stage. Either the patrol boat
at the dock would come out to inspect the
Gavilan
or another patrol boat was closing from a different direc
tion. Arkady was surprised that the
Gavilan
hadn't been
challenged already by radio.

 
O'Brien said, "The marvelous thing about you,
Arkady, is that you're both suicidal and insatiably curi
ous. 'What' isn't good enough for you, you have to
know the 'why.' When you came out to the boat you
had to know something like this was going to happen,
but you had to see."

"And then maybe fuck us up," Walls said.» Go out
in a blaze of glory."

"Or leave a message behind," O'Brien said.» Look on
the beach to the left of the stage."

Arkady swung his glasses and saw Ofelia work her
way from the spectators. He'd missed her when she was
in the crowd. A PNR shield was pinned to her white
halter. He waited for her to move toward the patrol
boat or the stage. Instead, she moved in the opposite
direction. At her side, being helpful, was Mostovoi, a camera bag swinging from his shoulder.

"What do you want?" Arkady asked.

"I have what I want," O'Brien said.

Walls nudged Arkady.» You're missing the show."

Arkady swung his glasses to the reviewing stand and
saw the man in aviator glasses carry a man-sized doll
with a cane and a red bandanna down to the chair
in the front row, where a drummer helped make the
doll sit up, its face turned toward the man on its
right. Change and the Comandante. Arkady focused on
the doll's bandanna and walking stick, different from
the ones he had left on a doll's body at the Rosita. The
Comandante returned the doll's gaze at first, then
looked up and joked with his friend in the aviator
glasses, who laughed and retreated from the stage to the
side of the stands, where he was joined in the crowd by
Dr. Bias, too energetic to stay in the shadows any longer.
Arkady refocused on Change, on the doll's roughly
molded head, patched and repainted, with the same
glittering eyes.

"This is murder," Arkady said.

"Not just murder, please," O'Brien begged, "This is
the elimination of an individual who has survived more
assassination attempts than anyone else in history."

"That demands respect right there," said Walls.

"And let's admit it," O'Brien said, "the death of this
man is the only crime down here of any interest. You can steal five dollars or a million, it's still petty crime
while he's alive. Because you can't leave with it and
essentially it's all his."

"You can stop," Arkady said.» You haven't done
anything violent with your own hands yet. I know
Pribluda's death was an accident."

"See, we told you we never touched him," Walls said.»
We had no idea where Sergei disappeared to."
\
   
"But we couldn't stop now," said O'Brien.» In the
last forty years only one generation of Cubans has tasted S independent thought, one group has experienced command on the battlefield and operated in the greater world. There are two hundred forty generals in the
Cuban army, and the army is getting smaller and
smaller. Where do you think they're going to go, what do you think they're going to do? This is their prime,
their window of opportunity."

"Their time to throw the dice?"

"Yes."

"And they all ordered lobster."

O'Brien gave Arkady an appreciative smile and lifted
his own pair of binoculars.» That's right, very good.
That was the vote. They all wanted in."

The pageant had begun again. Golden skirts and brown legs obscured the guest of honor in his front-
row seat. His green cap seemed to weigh as heavily on
him as a bishop's miter. Change's roughly molded face
was slightly cocked, glass eyes bright in the lights. At
the side of the stage the man in aviator glasses reached
down to shake someone's hand. Erasmo. Appearing
gravely pale and weary, the mechanic lifted his eyes
toward the
Gavilan,
although Arkady knew the boat had
to be invisible from shore.

More figures slipped out of the back rows of the
reviewing stand; Arkady recognized them all from the
paladar
Angola. The front rows appeared mesmerized
by swirling skirts, the insinuating pace of the drums booming from speakers, echoing off the clubhouse.
Change's head listed heavily to the bearded man on his right.» This Side to Enemy," Arkady thought. No doubt
the man's uniform fit as badly as it did in part because
of an armored vest, which would stop a small-caliber
bullet but not a shaped charge of dynamite. No shards
or ball bearings, Arkady guessed. They didn't want a
general slaughter, just an effective circle of impact, and
who more expert with explosions than Erasmo?

He swung the glasses and found Ofelia and Mostovoi going in a completely different direction, working their
way far from the stage and along the sand to a white wall that separated the grounds of the Havana Yacht
Club from the neighboring beach. Arkady saw Mostovoi check his watch.

"It's La Concha, the old casino," Mostovoi said.» I
consider it one of the most romantic settings in Havana.
I've shot here daytime, nighttime, it's got that exotic
feel that women love."

He ran his hand up a column. For all the police and military presence on the other side of the beach wall,
Ofelia and Mostovoi had this area entirely to them
selves. It was now the social center for a catering union,
but she remembered that before the Revolution it had
been not only a casino but a Moorish fantasy, with a minaret, date palms and orange trees, tiled roof. Ofelia
and the Russian stood in the long shadow of a colon
nade of horseshoe arches. The fact that she had followed
Mostovoi didn't mean she trusted him. For all his
assurances there was a shiftiness about him. His beret
shifted, his hair shifted and his eyes seemed to be over
everything, especially her. She wouldn't have spent a minute with him except for the fact that he claimed to know where Arkady wanted to meet her.

"First one place, then another? Why would he come
here?"

"You'll have to ask him that. Do you mind if I take a picture of you?"

"Now?"

"While we're waiting. I think that Cuban women are
nature's children. The eyes, the warm color, a lushness
that can be almost too overripe at times. Not you,
though."

"Where and when exactly is Arkady coming?"

"Right here. Who can say exactly when with Renko?"
Mostovoi unzipped his bag for a camera and a flash
unit that he tightened into the camera shoe. The unit
made a warm-up whine.

"No pictures." Ofelia wanted to keep eyes adjusted
to the night sky, the arc of sand, the dark of the water.
The last thing she needed was a flash.» You keep looking
at your watch."

"For Arkady."

The white light blinded her. She was unprepared
because Mostovoi shot without raising the camera and
she saw nothing but a fixed image of flash unit's faceted
lens and the photographer's smirk until she blinked her way back to normal.

"If you do that again," she said, "I will break your
camera.”

"Sorry, I couldn't resist."

"Was that a signal?" Arkady noticed that with the flash
from the casino Walls eased the throttle forward, bring
ing the
Gavilan
even closer to the beach. Why wasn't
the patrol boat at the dock responding?

 
Walls said, "When my friend John O'Brien plans
something the z's are dotted and the
t's are
crossed."

"Thank you, George. The devil, as they say, is in the
details. Speaking of whom ..."

Ahead in the water was a
neumdtico
with a hand
shielding a candle. As Walls slowed the boat to idle
again, the
neumdtico
snuffed the flame with his fingers,
spun his tube and paddled backward to the stern of the
Gavilan,
where Walls helped him on board and tied
the tube to a transom cleat. Luna stood dripping in the
cockpit. Wet, he had the dank look of a body disinterred
and he stared at Arkady with anticipation.

"Now you'll know what it feels like," Luna promised.