Suspicion of Rage

by Barbara Parker

  "On Monday morning."

  "There may be other questions regarding the death of Miss Saavedra. You and your wife will not leave Havana until you are notified by State Security." Prieto rose to his feet. "Good evening."

  In the elevator on the way down, Anthony cleared his throat a couple of times. It felt like he'd been swallowing sand. When the doors slid shut, he could see Abdel Garcia in the polished metal.

  "What do you have for me?" Garcia said.

  "Juraguá."

  "What?"

  "Céspedes is talking about Juraguá. He says you want to finish construction as soon as possible. You need the energy, and you believe the United States is in no position to object. With world attention diverted by the situation in the Middle East, the time is ready to push forward."

  The digital red floor display counted down.

  Garcia said, "Do they believe him?"

  "They think he's probably lying. If he were correct— if you resumed construction on the reactor—it would be bombed to rubble. Your government is aware of what could happen."

  "The Americans have made it quite clear. What else?"

  "He's naming the agents you're sending to Venezuela, but I couldn't get a list."

  "What else?"

  "There is nothing else."

  "That can't be all." A light flared in Garcia's narrow black eyes.

  "That's all I was given."

  "Who is your source for this ... information?"

  "I regret that I can't divulge the name."

  "You're lying," Garcia said. "I can hear a lie. Yes. I can smell a lie."

  "Can you? I don't have that ability. What does it smell like?"

  The doors opened on the first floor, and Anthony stepped out of the elevator.

  "Quintana."

  He turned around.

  Garcia's mouth slid into a moist and tilted smile. His lips parted on one side to reveal small, discolored teeth. "This is not our last meeting."

  The doors closed, and Anthony was looking back at his own reflection.

  27

  The police were still working at Olga Saavedra's apartment. From the backseat of Ramiro Vega's minivan, Gail could see two small white cars with blue lights on top. She caught a brief glimpse of a uniformed officer in the courtyard. And then the minivan continued down the street to where Anthony had left the rental car.

  Sitting with Gail for nearly an hour at the Ministry, Ramiro had told someone to bring her some coffee, someone else to find food, a sandwich, inmediatamente. He had let her use his cell phone to assure her mother they'd be home soon. Aside from telling Ramiro what she had seen at the apartment, their own conversation had been filled with long silences. What could she have said? I know about you and Olga. You loved her, and I'm so sorry.

  "Ese carro ahí," Anthony said, and Cobo stopped alongside the blue Toyota.

  Ramiro got out to slide back their door. Gail gave him a quick embrace. "Thank you for taking care of me.

  When Anthony spoke to him, Gail understood most of it. They would talk at the house. What a horror this day had been. Ramiro got back in, and Cobo drove on.

  Darkness had made the street narrower, emptier. The pavement was still wet from the rain. Gail recognized the colonnade and glass storefronts where earlier she had waited to go across. The dim streetlight on the corner outlined the gray arches and put shadows on the wall. She saw a man standing against one of the columns. Except for the light that touched one sleeve, she wouldn't have seen him at all.

  "Gail, come on." Anthony was holding her door.

  She felt vulnerable and exposed in the interior lights. They went off when Anthony closed his door. He started the engine and hit the wiper control to clear the windshield of mist. After another car went by, he made a U-turn. The headlights passed across the colonnade. The man who'd been standing there a few seconds before was gone.

  It wasn't cold in the car, but Gail crossed her arms and rubbed them briskly. The muscles in her chest quivered, and her jaw was tight. "When will they let us go? I hope my law practice is still there when I get back to it." She laughed. "Why don't we just confess everything to the American Interests Section and beg them to help us?"

  Anthony looked over at her. "If it's more than a couple of days, we can ask Ramiro to intervene. Don't worry."

  "Don't worry. Well, at least my mother and the kids aren't stuck here. We aren't either, damn it. Why don't we just have a boat pick us up? I'm serious, Anthony. To hell with State Security."

  "We're not going to do it that way," he said.

  "God, no, they'd never let you come back here, would they?"

  After a few seconds of silence he said, "If we left without permission, they would ask Ramiro why. I can't allow that. He needs to stay completely under the radar."

  Leaning over, Gail put her forehead against Anthony's shoulder. "I know. Sorry for my bitchy mood. I can't think straight."

  Without looking away from the street ahead of them, he picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. "Todo va a salir bien. It's going to be all right. I promise you."

  "Poor Ramiro. Poor Olga. What a rotten, rotten thing to happen to her. He's not going to tell them about her, is he?"

  "It's his duty to inform them, but—" Anthony shook his head. "I hope he's out of the country before they find out."

  "Do they know yet who could have done it?"

  "If so, they didn't share it with me."

  "Why did Olga want to see you?" Gail asked.

  A wedge of light fell across his eyes, and he glanced into the rearview mirror. "I believe she wanted me to get her out of Cuba. After Céspedes defected, she may have thought it was too dangerous to stay. She'd been sleeping with him, before Ramiro. Céspedes spilled secrets to the CIA, and she might have known about it. But if you want my guess as to who killed her... I don't have one."

  Gail sat sideways in the seat. "Yes, you do. You just told me it's connected to Omar Céspedes."

  "I'm not sure," Anthony said. "Her attacker could have shown her a badge to get in, but the Cuban government does not send agents into women's homes to beat them to death. It doesn't happen. It's messy."

  "What would they do?" Gail asked. "I mean, assuming..."

  "She would disappear. Or have an accident in her car. A drowning." Anthony checked the rearview again. "The problem with someone like Olga is, too many people knew her. There would be questions."

  Gail shuddered, remembering the blood, the smashed bones in Olga Saavedra's face. "Maybe she had other lovers."

  "If so, the police will find out," Anthony said. "With the CDR, eyes are everywhere. No, I wouldn't say it was a crime of passion. Except for the violence, it didn't fit the pattern. The killer was methodical and cold. He took the time to wipe the murder weapon clean of fingerprints. He mopped up footprints from the floor. He even took the cloth with him. No, most killers who do it in a jealous rage aren't so smart. They get rattled. They forget something. This guy knew what he was doing. He was careful."

  Anthony's route took them up a hill past the Colón Cemetery with its long wall of peeling ochre paint. Even here, the streets were dark. There were no flashy signs, no floodlit billboards. Gail had noticed this the first time they'd driven through Havana at night—how the city surrendered to darkness. Even the modern streetlights on the Malecón seemed to be on a dimmer.

  She said, "Tell me what happened at the Ministry."

  Anthony checked the mirror, then slowed and turned right into a residential district. "Not much. I was questioned by Lieutenant General Efraín Prieto. Three stars. They want to handle it at the top because you and I are staying with Ramiro, and you walked into a murder scene. They want to be sure nothing more comes of it. Prieto went over the same ground Detective Sánchez had already covered. There was nothing I could tell him. He finally said okay, but don't leave town."

  Gail waited for him to go on. "Anthony, that isn't all. You were up there for an hour and a half."

  "Prieto was thorough.
He wanted my life history. He even wanted to know about you. 'Is it true what they say about American women? Are they all as pretty as your wife?' "

  "Right. I'm sure you guys had a grand time."

  Anthony's eyes went back to the rearview mirror. "Abdel Garcia was there too. We had a talk afterward. He asked if I'd found out what Céspedes was saying to the CIA, and I gave him the story I got from Bookhouser."

  Gail remembered that Anthony was supposed to meet the agent this morning, but she hadn't spoken to him since then. "Well? What story?"

  "That Cuban spies are going into Venezuela to help prevent a recall election, so that Cuba can keep getting cheap oil. Céspedes is also telling the Americans that Fidel wants to finish the nuclear reactor at Juraguá, which the Americans think is bullshit. Garcia asked me if there was anything else, and I said no."

  Gail let her head fall back on the headrest. "Great. For once the Cubans and the CIA are on the same side. They will both want to kill you if you screw up."

  "No one is going to kill me. Label me as a spy? Maybe. Have me banished from my grandfather's house? Destroy my career? That's more likely. You might have to support me."

  "You don't have to see him again, do you? García, I mean. You said you had to meet him tonight."

  "No. I won't see him again."

  "Thank God. The man gives me a major case of the creeps." Gail twisted her mouth sideways and made her hands into claws. In an exaggerated accent she said, "Good eeeee-evening. Saludos a la familiaaaaa—"

  Anthony's grim expression gave way to a smile, then a laugh.

  They were traveling on Twelfth Street. Gail saw the sign on a low concrete marker on the corner. They were in Vedado. She was beginning to know her way around. To get to Miramar, Anthony would go north, then turn left on Calzada.

  She said, "Anthony? I have to tell you something. This afternoon, Karen and Mother and I hitched a ride downtown. The driver let me off at Olga's apartment."

  He was watching something in the mirror. "You hitchhiked? I was wondering if Marta took you."

  "No, she was busy. Anyway, the driver let me off, and I was a little early—"

  "Hang on." Anthony slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel left just in front of an oncoming car. Gail's body was pressed against the door, and she heard the screech of tires and a high-pitched horn. "Anthony!"

  He accelerated. The headlights made a tunnel of light in the trees. At the next corner, he swung left again. The tires skidded into a pothole, and Gail's breath jolted out of her lungs. She looked back and saw headlights sweeping around the trees behind them. Anthony took a quick right, then another, and came out on a larger street, where he joined the flow of traffic heading west.

  "My God!"

  He looked over at her. "Are you all right?"

  "I am having a heart attack! Someone was following us? Who?"

  "I don't know. It's probably nothing."

  "Nothing? You were driving like a madman. Was it the police?"

  "Well, if it was, they know where we're staying. They can sit outside Ramiro's house and wait for us."

  Gail closed her eyes and pressed her forehead into her hands. "You make me want to scream."

  They went into the tunnel under the river, and someone ahead tooted to hear the echo. The road descended, then quickly came up again.

  "Are they still behind us?"

  Anthony looked in the rearview. "There's no one there. I'm sorry to have frightened you. It was nothing."

  Gail stared across at him. "You thought it was Abdel Garcia. Didn't you?"

  "No. Why would I think that?"

  "He killed her because she knew about him and Omar Céspedes. That's what's going through your mind. Isn't it?"

  Anthony watched the road. Streetlights shifted the shadows inside the car. His face went in and out of darkness. "Abdel Garcia wants me alive. In exchange for a house on the beach and my choice of women, I'm going to report on exile activities in Miami."

  "That makes me feel so much better." Gail huddled into the seat as the road split into a wide boulevard divided by grass and flower beds. The trees were clipped into cylindrical shapes. "What's going on, Anthony? When Sánchez was questioning me, I didn't know what to tell him. I had to play so dumb he must have thought I was retarded."

  Anthony smiled and rested a hand on her knee. "I would trust you with my life, sweetheart, but I don't want to put you in the position of having to lie. You don't do it very well."

  "Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

  "What I want you to do, if you don't mind, is to let me take care of this. All right? It's not your problem. In a few more days, we'll be on our way home."

  She stared through the windshield.

  "Gail. Don't be that way." He lifted his hands and let out a breath through his teeth, then took the turn into the Vegas' neighborhood.

  She looked over at him. "No, I was just remembering what I meant to tell you, before you started sliding around corners back there. Detective Sánchez doesn't know about this. Just before I went across the street to knock on Olga's door, I saw Mario Cabrera going into her building."

  "Mario?"

  "Yes. He went through the side entrance. But he came out again a minute later—less than a minute. I think he knocked on the door, and when she didn't open it, he left. That's what I assume because I almost did the same thing."

  "Cono. What the hell was he doing there? Did you talk to him?"

  "He didn't see me. I followed him to the next street. I was curious. He got into his car and drove off, and I walked back to Olga's. What's odd about it is that he parked so far away ... but he couldn't have killed her. It's not possible. If I had told Sánchez, they would have jumped to all sorts of conclusions. It was Olga Saavedra who remained free while José Leiva spent four years in prison."

  Anthony stopped the car in front of the gate. "You may not be the only one who saw him. I need to find Mario."

  The headlights shone on the chain-link fencing and picked up the reflectors on the back of the minivan in the driveway. Through the long windows across the front, Gail could see her mother walking across the living room.

  She wanted to tell Anthony the rest of it, but she was afraid that if she gave voice to her thoughts, they might become real. And Cobo was already walking toward them across the yard, and it was too late.

  Anthony, there's another reason I didn't tell them about Mario. Because... he might be your son.

  When the men vanished into the study to talk, locking the door behind them, Gail went upstairs. She wanted a hot soak in the tub and some clean clothes, preferably flannel. She got as far as taking off her shoes. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she pivoted around and threw both pillows against the headboard.

  In something of a fog, she stared at the peeling veneer on the built-in armoire and counted the cartoon characters over the baby crib. She heard the thud of hip-hop coming from Gio's room. Gio was out with friends, but Danny was in there playing CDs. God knew what else. Drinking. Blowing Marlboro smoke out the window. Lying low.

  Karen sat cross-legged on the other side of the bed keeping Gail company. Her thumb moved over the controls on the back of Irene's digital camera, deleting photos she judged too boring to be worth saving.

  "Mom, do you think Mr. Vega would let me have a blank CD? I didn't bring any with me. He has extras. I saw them."

  "You could ask him. What do you want it for?"

  "For photographs. Gramma is filling up her memory sticks. If I burn them to a CD, she'll have more room. I brought my PC interface, and I'm pretty sure it will work with his computer. Check these out. We took these today." Karen turned the screen so Gail could see it. "That's where we bought the Internet cards. There was this lady behind the desk who was really nice. You should've seen her panty hose. They looked like black spider webs. All the women in Cuba wear them. Gramma spent a hundred and fifty dollars! Yolanda was all like, no, no, please, but Gramma said, well, Yolanda, darling, allow me to be selfish. If yo
u can't get on the Internet, how can you stay in touch with us?"

  Gail reached over to hug her. "I love you."

  Karen scrolled through, and Gail saw various doors, buildings. A park. A huge santera in a flouncy white dress and bangles on her earlobes, reading Irene's fortune. Street performers in bright costumes, walking on stilts. Then a shot of Yolanda Cabrera and Karen arm in arm, squinting in the sunlight. Yolanda's hair gleamed. She was beautiful. Saint Yolanda.

  Gail said, "They're all good. You pick, Karen. It doesn't matter to me."

  If Karen hadn't been there, Gail might have rolled over and wept into the pillows. She had to make a decision, and whatever it was, it would hurt. Should she bring it up or not? Maybe Yolanda had never told him. But it was so obvious! Was he blind? Anthony had said she wasn't a good liar. He should know, Gail thought bitterly to herself. He's an expert. She had come to Cuba to find out who he was, and she knew less now than before.

  On the nightstand was the book Anthony had been reading in bed. The essays by José Leiva. Gail leaned over and picked it up. Memorias y esperanzas. José Benito Leiva. Memories and hopes. She flipped through. Published in Spain, 2001. A scrap of paper marked a page. "Crónicas de una isla semi-hundida." Anthony had told her it meant "chronicles from a half-drowned island." He had said don't expect to find these essays in any bookshop in Cuba. A friend had brought Leiva some copies in his suitcase. A box sent by the publisher had been confiscated by customs.

  Dangerous contraband. A bomb made of paper and ink.

  Gail wished she knew enough Spanish to understand it.

  When she heard Marta Quintana's voice at the door, Gail returned the book to the nightstand, facedown.

  "Hello! I brought you a little surprise." Carrying a tray, Marta pushed open the door with one foot. "Irene says you like warm chocolate milk. I have some toast, too, with grape jelly."

  "That's so nice of you, but you didn't have to bother, really."

  "Shush, shush, it's not a bother to me." Marta set the tray on the end of the bed. "Irene is making dinner. Noodles and tuna and cream sauce! A new dish for us, for sure!" She laughed and pushed her streaked bronze hair off her forehead. "Dinner will be ready soon. You want to eat up here or come downstairs with us?"