by John Lutz
“Yes. The next question is, where is this Rainbow Reef?”
“I poked around on Google. There are a lot of dive sites called Rainbow Reef. One of them is off a town called San Ferdinand, on the north coast of Cuba.”
“You’re on to something, Stan. I’m sure of it. I have to find this Mr. Nelson.”
There was a brief pause, then Rahmberg laughed.
“What?”
“Sorry, Ava. I forget sometimes how young you are. Mike Nelson was the frogman hero of a ’50s TV series called Sea Hunt. It’s just a username.”
“Oh.”
“I was able to hack into the billing section of the website that hosts The Bubbler. Mike Nelson is Larry Berman, owner of a dive shop called Plunge, located in Key West.”
“That’s great, Stan.”
“So you’re going to Key West?”
“Tomorrow morning. It’s a short flight.”
They managed to end the call without either of them saying what both were thinking. That harmless as it seemed, this was the information that had gotten Ken Brydon killed.
* * *
The propeller plane flew low over the sunlit blue sea, paralleling the course of the highway that linked the Florida Keys, then made a steep descent into the smallest airport she’d ever seen. It wasn’t equipped with jetways. She and the other passengers stepped out in fierce heat and enervating humidity. They walked down the stairway and across the cement. In the terminal, the air-conditioning practically froze the beads of sweat on her forehead.
Her cabdriver took the scenic route, without bothering to ask if she was willing to pay extra for it. They drove past beaches studded with leaning coconut palms and tourist-thronged streets lined with houses painted yellow, pink, and turquoise, dead-ending at a big striped buoy that said, “Southernmost point in the United States. 90 miles to Cuba.” At Plunge, they told her that Larry was leading a dive tour and gave her directions to the marina. When she arrived, the concrete dock was busy. A dozen or so divers were carting or carrying their gear to the boat. Ava’s idea of a scuba diver was a Navy SEAL, but these folks tended to middle age and rotundity. Perhaps they liked the feeling of weightlessness that they got in the water. The boat was a simple affair, just a hull with benches down the sides, an awning overhead, and a cluster of metal air tanks in the middle.
Larry Berman was in the stern, adjusting the twin outboard motors as his young employees helped the divers board and stow their gear. He was a big man in his forties, wearing a Marlins ballcap to shade his lined and reddened face. His tropical print shirt was missing buttons and gapped to reveal a graying mat of black hair around his pierced belly button.
Once she got his attention, she said, “I’d like to talk to you about your posts concerning Rainbow Reef.”
He frowned. “How’d you find those?”
“Oh, just poking around online. I’m interested in coral reefs. My name is Marlo Jenks, and I’m in the marine biology department at FSU.” Laker had told her once that if you couldn’t think of any other excuse for asking questions, pretend to be a professor. People never asked a professor for ID.
“You’re not some kind of activist, are you? I don’t want to end up in the newspapers.”
“I only write for academic journals, and I won’t use your name.”
That seemed to satisfy Berman. He suggested that they meet at Jimmy Buffett’s bar when he got back. But she was impatient and asked if she could ride along. He told her to have a seat.
All the divers were aboard. The youngsters cast off as Berman took the wheel and steered them away from the pier. Apparently the dive site wasn’t far offshore, because the divers began struggling into their wetsuits and buoyancy control vests, crossing their legs to don their flippers.
Ava welcomed the sea breeze and the gentle rocking of the boat. But the face of the man next to her turned greenish pale. He slid to his knees, then laid himself down full length on the deck.
“Are you all right?”
“Seasick.”
“Want me to ask them to take you back?”
“No. It’s like this every time. I just have to get under the waves.”
Berman slowed and guided the boat over to a buoy. He stopped the engines. As the youngsters tied boat to buoy, he gave a safety lecture that would have put Ava off scuba-diving immediately, if she’d ever been on it. Then he wished the customers a pleasant dive. In their tanks, weight belts, and fins, they could barely get up from the benches and waddle to the stern, where one by one they stepped off and disappeared with a splash. The seasick man had gone first.
Both youngsters hopped in the water to cool off. She and Berman were alone on the boat. Sitting on the bench next to her, he said, “Listen, this is—um—kind of delicate.”
“I understand. You could get in trouble with the authorities in Cuba and the U.S. for getting that close to the Cuban coast, even if you didn’t land. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”
Berman smiled as he rubbed white sunblock on the bridge of his red nose. “It used to be worth the risk. Customers would pay plenty to dive at Rainbow Reef. Florida didn’t have a reef to match it. The variety of corals and fish. The colors. The clear water. It’s all ’cause Cuba’s economy has been in the toilet for decades. There was practically no development. Kept the offshore waters pristine. But I guess you know all about that.”
Ava didn’t, but she nodded.
“It had to end sometime, of course. When I saw the dredgers in San Ferdinand harbor, I knew the jig was about up. It was just a fishing village. Then they started building that big resort on the beach just up the coast—”
“Yemayá?”
“That’s the one. They figured they were going to need a harbor deep enough for cruise ships anyway. So they built themselves a basic container-shipping port. That way they could bring all the construction materials almost straight to the site.”
“And the reef?”
“It’s a quarter mile offshore, and for a while it was okay. I kept bringing parties in, even though it got a lot riskier.”
“How so?”
“Cuban shore patrol did not want anybody near that harbor. I had gunboats pulling alongside, armed sailors boarding, threatening to impound my boat and put everybody aboard in jail.”
“Why?”
“They said they didn’t want decadent capitalist spear fishermen poaching the livelihoods of the poor fishermen of San Ferdinand. Usual Commie bullshit. They were never that worried about us diving on the reef before that port was put in.”
“Why did they want to keep people away from the port?”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter anymore. About a month ago, I snuck some divers in, and they went down to Rainbow Reef. Came back real pissed off, demanding their money back. Told me it looked like the surface of the moon. Corals dead, no fish, water murky.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Probably a chemical spill from one of the freighters in the harbor. Kind of thing that always happens around a port, sooner or later. That’s when I posted the message, telling other dive operators Rainbow Reef wasn’t worth the hassle anymore. Nothing to see.”
A few feet from the stern, a diver splashed to the surface, coughing.
“Looks like somebody forgot to keep his regulator in his mouth. ’Scuse me,” Berman said as he got to his feet. Leaving Ava to her thoughts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The next morning, Ava found her cousin reading the Miami Herald in bed. Tilda claimed to read only the society page and the comics, but in fact she read the business section as thoroughly as the rest of the Norths did.
“Mind if I come in?” Ava asked from the door. “I’m afraid I’m kind of sweaty.”
“Not at all, coz. I’m glad the home gym is getting some use. Sit down and pour yourself some coffee.”
Ava pulled a chair up to the bedside and picked up a cup and the coffeepot from the night table, where it rested next to framed photos of Dakota an
d Carolina.
“There’s some interesting news,” Tilda said. “Rodrigo Morales has noted that the travel media are terribly excited about his resort in Cuba, so he’s going to gratify their curiosity at a cocktail party tomorrow evening, in his flagship hotel in downtown Miami. Representatives of the Havana government will be there, possibly even Minister of the Interior Gonçalves.”
“Tomorrow evening,” Ava repeated.
“Yes. I doubt we’ll be invited. But it’s easy to crash these big media events. What shall we wear?” Tilda took off her reading glasses and gave her cousin a second look. “Oh, dear, Ava, you’ve got that North expression. As if you’ve just formed some resolve.”
“I have, actually. I’ll be going to this media event alone. And right after breakfast, I’m moving to a hotel.”
“Don’t start that again.”
“What I’m doing—trying to do—is about to become more dangerous. I’m not going to involve you any further.”
“I’m not scared.” Tilda laughed. “How can I be, when I don’t know what’s going on?”
Ava considered. “That’s true,” she said. “Let me tell you what’s going on, so you can be scared.”
Tilda threw her covers off and perched on the edge of the bed, facing Ava. “Finally,” she said. “I’m all ears.”
Ava told her about Ken Brydon’s murder, ending with what Berman had told her yesterday.
Tilda was silent for a moment, thinking it over. Then she said, “Of course I’m sorry for Mr. Berman’s scuba customers, having their vacations spoiled,” she said. “But what about the Cuban fishermen? They live terribly close to the edge. Have you read The Old Man and the Sea?”
“Coz! You proudly boast that you’ve never read a work of literature.”
“I’ve read a few of the short ones. But you see what I’m getting at? Corals are where fish breed. If some chemical spill has turned the waters off San Ferdinand into a dead zone, the fishing may never recover. What are the people going to eat?”
Ava nodded. “I think Morales has been keeping the bad news from the Havana government. That’s why he killed Ken Brydon.”
“Ruy and Carlucci are entirely capable of committing murder to protect a lucrative deal. But that’s not proof. What’s your next step?”
“It’s obvious.” Ava tapped the newspaper. “Members of the Havana government will be there tomorrow night.”
“Possibly even Minister Gonçalves.”
“I’ll tell him or whoever’s there. See what the reaction is. If he’s shocked, then we can be pretty sure that’s why Ken was killed. If he shrugs me off because he already knows, then we’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”
“Seems to me you’re playing a delicate game, coz. Promise me you won’t let Ruy see you talking to the Cubans. I’ve observed this phenomenon before. Attacks of patriotic insanity run in the North family. They decide they want to get into Arlington National Cemetery by the shortest route.”
“That’s why I’m going alone tomorrow night.”
Tilda shook her head decisively. “It’s why I’m going with you.”
* * *
As Tilda predicted, they had no trouble getting into the media event. They showed photo ID, stepped through a metal detector, and joined the throng in the enormous ballroom. Tilda was wearing a white dress from Dolce & Gabanna, printed with a large vase overflowing with flowers of every imaginable color. Her MedicAlert bracelet was fuchsia. Ava was more understated in a strappy black silk frock trimmed with lace from Prada.
Most of the other guests, being media people, were heading straight for the bar, but Ava and Tilda walked slowly along the walls, looking at the big black-and-white photos. It was a cavalcade of celebrities in 1950s Havana: Frank Sinatra at the microphone, Fulgencio Batista in his blue sash of office, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano in straw hats, strolling the Malecón, Desi Arnaz at his big drum, no doubt thumping out “Babalu.”
“Looking for your namesake?”
It was Morales, smiling at Ava, looking relaxed and handsome. He had dressed for the occasion in a white dinner jacket with a wine-red cummerbund. He nodded to Tilda as he stepped up beside Ava.
“Sorry?”
“I said looking for your namesake?”
Ava was still confused. She had been named for her great-aunt, the first woman pediatrician in Virginia. Morales pointed at the next picture on the wall. It was of Ava Gardner, posing on the rampart of Morro Castle with Spencer Tracy.
“Oh,” said Ava. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“I’ll say. Legend has it she liked to swim in Hemingway’s pool at Finca Vigía. In her birthday suit. Wish I had a picture of that.”
One thought led to another, and Morales ran his eye unhurriedly over Ava’s body, collarbone to ankle. To distract him she said, “And who are the men on the veranda?”
“The courtyard,” Morales corrected. “That’s the Morales house in Old Havana. The men are my grandfather and his brothers.”
They moved closer to the photograph, which showed three men in white suits with gleaming black hair, sitting on wicker chairs placed amid potted tropical plants on a gleaming tile floor, in front of a tall arched doorway. All were smoking long cigars with evident enjoyment. Morales pointed at each in turn. “Abuelo Francisco, who eleven years after this photo was taken would be beaten by Castroite thugs, driven into exile with nothing but the clothes on his back. He founded the family fortune in Miami. Tío Pablo, who spent his life serving the exile community as a state senator in Tallahassee. And Tío Antonio, whom I never knew, because he was killed at the Bay of Pigs.”
Morales shook his head and turned away to regain his composure. After a moment he snapped his fingers and a waiter approached with a tray of champagne glasses.
“Let me show you Yemayá,” he said, as he handed glasses to Ava and Tilda.
On a dais in the center of the room, under a glass dome, was a meticulously executed scale model of the resort complex. Rain-forested hills above, beach and blue sea below, and at the center an eight-story building with projecting wings topped by twin lanterns with round-arched windows and finials.
“Architecture inspired by the Hotel Nacional in Havana,” Morales said.
“Inspired?” Tilda murmured in Ava’s other ear. “I’d call it outright plagiarism.”
“The pool complex, the tennis club, the spa, the beach pavilion,” Morales said, pointing out each feature. “And less than five miles away, we’ll have our own port facility.”
“San Ferdinand,” Ava said.
“Yeah, that’s right. So the cruise ships can moor practically at my doorstep. I won’t have to share them with Havana.”
“It looks great, Ruy,” Ava said. “But aren’t you supposed to be giving a progress report tonight? Shouldn’t there be pictures of the construction site?”
He shrugged. “Who wants to look at mud and rebar?”
“But at least you’re going to give a detailed report about how things are going?”
“I flew over in my helicopter a month or so ago. The site’s looking fine.”
“You flew over in a helicopter.”
“Look, I’m not the kind of guy who takes core samples and plants stakes myself. I make deals. Other people take care of the details.”
She remembered something he’d said at his previous parties, that the representatives of the Cuban government had come to him to make this deal. “Ruy, have you ever been to Cuba?”
The full lips jutted in the famous pout. “Hey, I wanna go . . . and I don’t wanna go.” He unwrapped his forefinger from his champagne glass and pointed at the photos on the wall. “Havana doesn’t look like that anymore. It’s poor. Slums everywhere. All the beautiful buildings crumbling. Probably even Casa Morales. What can you expect after sixty years of Commie rule? I know it’s gonna break my heart, first time I see Havana. But then I’ll dry my tears, roll up my sleeves, get to work restoring it to what it was in 1957.”
Morales drained
his glass, handed it off to a passing waiter, and turned away. “Excuse me.”
As Ava watched him go, Tilda stepped up beside her. “My my, what a speech.”
“Can’t repeat the past?” Ava quoted. “Why of course you can!”
“He reminds you of Gatsby?”
“Coz! There’s another work of literature you’ve read.”
“Another short one. I wouldn’t call him Gatsby, though. A one-night stand with Daisy would’ve been enough for Ruy.”
On their right, a foursome of guests who’d been chatting broke up, to reveal Arturo Carlucci standing behind them. He was wearing a charcoal suit and silver tie. His bald head glittered under the chandeliers. The long dark hair curled out over the bump of his right ear, lay flat on the left side. He looked over the shoulder of the man he was talking to. At Tilda, then at Ava.
Tilda shivered and whispered, “God. At least when Ruy undresses you with his eyes, he stops at the skin. Carlucci flays you down to the bone.”
Ava said nothing. She was busy returning Carlucci’s gaze. Only when he looked away did she take a sip of champagne. Tilda linked arms with her and walked her away. “Do not get into staring contests with that guy, okay? He’s—” she broke off as a thought struck her. “Your friend Brydon—was it Carlucci who—”
“We don’t know. But Brydon was killed by a thrust through his back that pierced his heart. A long, thin blade. When Carlucci was starting out with the Jersey mob, he was famous for his prowess with a stiletto.”
Tilda drained her glass, took Ava’s, and drained that too. “Why did I have to ask?” she moaned.
There was a stir of talk among the people around them. Ava looked up to see that everyone was looking toward the door. A lone man was standing on the threshold, looking as if he didn’t really want to enter.
“Who’s that?” Tilda asked. “He looks like he’s just come from the funeral of his favorite child.”
Ava recognized him from pictures. “Ivan Gonçalves, Minister of the Interior.”