"It's a different club."
"Apparently."
"You don't understand. These are all men who fought together in Angola and Ethiopia, who fought side by side with Russians, who shared a common experience."
"Except for O'Brien."
"And you."
"Me?" Arkady didn't remember the initiation.» How did that happen?"
Erasmo's head lolled as if he'd been trying unsuccessfully to drink himself into a stupor.» How does it happen? By accident. It's like you're in the middle of a play, say, Act II, and someone wanders onto the stage. Somebody new, never in the script. What do you do? First, try to get him off, drop a sandbag on him or lure him behind the scenery so you can hit him over the head with a minimum of fuss because there is an audience watching. If you can't get the son of a bitch off the stage what do you do then? You start incorporating him into the play, find him a role of someone who is missing, feed him some lines as smoothly as you can so that the Third Act goes virtually unchanged, just like you always planned."
The last lobster was delivered. Every plate was covered by a lobster or a well-picked carapace, although Arkady had noticed that many guests had shown no interest in their dinner once it had been served. A tall man with aviator glasses rose with a glass of rum. He was the same army officer Arkady had seen in a picture with Erasmo and the Comandante. The man proposed a toast to "The Havana Yacht Club."
Everyone but Arkady and Erasmo stood, although Erasmo raised his glass.
"Now what?" Arkady asked.» A meeting's going to begin?"
"The meeting's over." Erasmo added in a whisper, "Good luck."
In fact, men were leaving as soon as they set down their glass, not pouring out as a crowd but slipping under the neon sun to the dark of the street in twos and threes. Arkady heard a muffled sound of car doors opening and engines starting. Mostovoi vanished like a shadow. Tico pushed Erasmo, who leaned his brow on his hand like Hamlet considering his options. Soon the only ones left in the paladar were the staff, Walls, O'Brien and Arkady.
"You're part of the club now," O'Brien said.» How does it feel?"
"A little mysterious."
"Well, you've only been here six days. Cuba takes a lifetime to understand. Wouldn't you say, George?"
"Absolutely."
O'Brien pushed himself to his feet.» Anyway, we have to run. It's almost the witching hour and, frankly, I'm bushed."
Arkady said, "Pribluda was involved in this?"
"If you really want to know, come by the boat tomorrow evening."
"I'm flying to Moscow tomorrow night."
"It's up to you," Walls said and opened the gate. The Imperial glowed at the curb.
"What is the Havana Yacht Club?" Arkady asked.
"What do you want it to be?" John O'Brien said.» A few guys goofing off with a fishing line. A dump of a building waiting to be touched by a magic wand and be turned into a hundred million dollars. A group of patriots, veterans of their country's wars, having a social evening. Whatever you want, that's what it is."
Chapter Twenty-Four
The DeSoto was parked outside the Rosita. Ofelia was inside on the bed, curled up tightly in the sheets. Arkady undressed in the dark, slid beside her and knew by her heartbeat that she was awake. He ran his hand over her breast and up her arm to the gun in her hand.
"You went back to Luna's place."
"I wanted to see what he had there."
"You went alone?" he asked and read her silence.» You said you would take someone with you. I would have gone."
"I can't be afraid to go into a house alone."
"I am, often. What did you find?"
She described the condition of the Centre Russo-Cubano, the lobby and each room as she had investigated them, the goat, the buffet door and the grenade that was wired to it. Also how she had picked her way through the aftermath of the blast into a buffet and kitchen without ovens, freezers or refrigerators, then retraced her route back to the lobby, set the ladder on the balcony rail and climbed to the mezzanine to search the rooms on that level, opening every door with the tip of a broom. There were no more booby traps, no goats, nothing but their droppings and open jars of Russian hair pomade that they had licked clean.
By then their meeting time at the park had come and gone, and when she went to the Havana Yacht Club he never showed. She let go of the gun and kissed his mouth and released him slowly.» I thought you weren't coming."
"We just missed each other, that's all."
He gathered her in his arms and felt her slide down him. In a moment, he was in her and she wrapped herself around him. Her tongue was sweet, her back hard, and where he joined her she was endlessly deep.
They ate banana bread with beer while Arkady told Ofelia about his trip to Mostovoi's apartment, everything except the fire. Arson she might be a stickler about. He had to smile. She had sneaked through his defenses, a small bird on barbed wire. There was also pleasure-morbid or professional-in talking with a colleague. She was a colleague even though her point of view was not so much from a different world as from a different universe. She was a colleague even though she sat naked, cross-legged, in the haze of light produced by a power brownout.
"There are parts of Havana that haven't had electricity for weeks, although you won't read that in there." She pointed to the newspaper the bread had come in. On the front page was a blotchy picture of revolutionaries celebrating victory and a red banner that said Granma.» It's the official Party newspaper."
Arkady looked at the date.» It's two weeks old."
"My mother doesn't read it, she only gets it for wrapping food. Anyway, whatever Luna had to move- TV, VCR, shoes-he moved. It was gone."
"He tried to kill us in the car. He killed Hedy and her Italian friend if the combination of ice pick and machete is anything to go by; I don't think that's an everyday technique. And if he cleared mines in Angola he can rig a grenade. I think the least of his crimes is taking Rufo's VCR."
"He really only hit your side of the car," Ofelia said.
"What?" This was a new tack, Arkady thought.
"He only put me in the car trunk."
"He left you to suffocate."
"Maybe. You got me out."
"And then he tried to chop up the car."
"You mostly." This seemed like splitting hairs to Arkady, but Ofelia went on.» So, you went to the Yacht Club and didn't find me. What then?"
"I don't know exactly." He told her about the lobster dinner at the Angola paladar.» They were military types and they called themselves the Havana Yacht Club. How unusual is it for army officers to take over a private restaurant like that?"
"It's not unknown."
"Or have lobster there?"
"Maybe it was their own lobster. A lot of officers spearfish. The navy sells lobster, too. The officers don't eat so bad."
"They seemed unhappy."
"This is the Special Period-except for you and me, everyone is unhappy. What were they driving?"
"Sport utility vehicles."
"See!"
"But at least half of them didn't eat the lobster."
"That," Ofelia granted, "is strange."
"No speeches."
"Very strange."
"I thought so from what I know of the Cuban character. Also, Walls, O'Brien and Mostovoi were there. O'Brien described me to them as the 'new Russian' as if I was taking Pribluda's place. I feel something happened in front of me that I just didn't see. O'Brien is always ahead of me."
"He hasn't committed any crime."
"Yet." Arkady didn't quibble over the arrest warrant from America or the $20 million sugar scam of Russia.» Why would twenty highly placed Cubans call themselves the Havana Yacht Club?"
"A joke?"
"That was the answer for Pribluda's photograph."
"You think this is different?"
"No, I think it's the same. I don't think it was ever a joke."
"Did the officers at this dinner have names?"
"No names that I heard. All I can say is that they all wore guayaberas and ordered lobster on pieces of paper that had to be unfolded to be read. Some, like Erasmo, didn't touch their lobster at all, just watched, counting the lobsters, and as soon as the last one was delivered to a table dinner was over, as if they'd reached a unanimous vote. Maybe I'll find out tomorrow. I'll see Walls and O'Brien before I go."
"As long as you don't miss your plane," Ofelia said.
He knew she was studying him for a reaction about leaving. He didn't know what his reaction was. They were both so far out on a limb that the slightest shift made for dizzying sways. His eye fell on the newspaper her mother had wrapped banana bread in.
"What is Change up to?"
"What do you mean?" Ofelia was not ready to change subjects.
He picked up the newspaper. It was a greasy broadsheet folded to a photo of a black doll with a red bandanna. Under the photograph a news caption read,
Noche Folklorica Aplazada. Debtdo il condltioncs indementes fue necesario aplazar el Festival Folklorico Cubano hasta dos Sdbados mas, a la Casa Cultural de Trabajadores de Construction.
"Inclement weather I understand and Sabado is Saturday and the Casa Cultural is the Havana Yacht Club."
" 'Because of rain a folkloric festival is postponed for two weeks,' that's all."
Arkady checked the newspaper's date.» Until tomorrow." He got up to look at the Change sitting in the corner, the doll's left arm lank on a cane, feet sprawled, half-formed features and glass eyes returning Arkady's gaze. The more Arkady studied the doll the more convinced he was that it was the one that had disappeared from Pribluda's flat on the Malecon. Same red bandanna, same Reebok shoes, same baleful glare.» He reminds me of Luna."
"Of course," Ofelia said.» Luna is a son of Change."
"A son of Change?" Once again Arkady had the sense that any conversation with Ofelia had trapdoors that could open and drop a person into an alternative universe.» How do you know this?"
"It's obvious. Sexual, violent, passionate. Change all over."
"Really?" He leaned to better see the yellow beads around her neck.» And…"
"Oshun," she said stiffly.
"I've heard of that one."
"You are a son of Oggun."
Arkady felt he was about halfway through the trapdoor.
"Go ahead, who is Oggun?"
"Oggun is Change's greatest enemy. They often fight because Chango is so violent and Oggun guards against crime."
"A policeman? Doesn't sound like fun to me."
"He can be very sad. Once, he was so angry at the way of people, their crimes and lies, that he went into the deep woods, so deep no one could find him, and he was so silent no one could talk to him or could coax him out. Finally, Oshun went after him and walked through the woods and walked through the woods until she came to a clearing by a stream. She could feel Oggun carefully watching from behind the trees. She didn't make the mistake of calling out to him. Instead she began to dance slowly with her arms out like this. Oshun has her own dance, very sexual. When she felt that he was curious and moving closer she still didn't call his name. Instead she danced a little faster, a little slower, and when he came out of hiding she danced until he was close enough to her to dip her fingers into a gourd of honey hanging from her waist and she smeared the honey on his lips. He had never tasted anything so sweet in his life. She danced and filled her hand with honey and put more honey in his mouth and more honey while she tied him to her with a rope of yellow silk and led him back into the world."
"That could work."
Not honey but the sweet salt of her skin. No silken rope but her arms. No words but hands and lips, and Arkady was pulling her closer when Change's cane scraped across the linoleum. The doll sagged forward, head askew, tipped in the slow fashion of a drunk releasing himself from the obligations of respectability, slumped off the chair and landed with a thud on its face.
"Some spell," Arkady said. It had been working on him. He swung out of bed, picked up the doll and set it in the chair again. Here was a figure that had followed him all over Havana, his shadow companion, and how he'd ever managed to get Chango to stay in the chair Arkady didn't know because the cane slid one way and the doll perversely slumped the other.» The head is just too heavy, it won't sit up."
Ofelia motioned Arkady back.» Leave it. It's just papier-mache."
"I don't think so." The spell was broken. He lifted Chango and brought him to the bed, the better to see how the head was sewn to the shirt.» Are there scissors in your toiletry kit?"
Arkady pulled on pants and Ofelia slipped into his coat. Because the nail scissors were small, Arkady had to cut the threads one at a time to slide the head off a wooden stake that was the doll's backbone. He let the headless body roll onto the floor.
Ofelia asked, "What are you doing?"
"Looking into Chango."
He cut off the bandanna, leaving a red ring of cloth still glued. The head was papier-mache coated with a lacquer-hard paint like a lumpish skull daubed black. Ofelia found a serrated knife in a drawer of the kitchenette. Arkady sawed through the head from ear, over the crown, to ear, until he pulled the doll's face like a mask off a layer of cheesecloth that had been formed on someone's face to lend the effigy its rough features. Under the cloth were crumpled newspapers, and under the newspapers was a flat oval of slick silver tape. In tiny snips Arkady cut around the edges and peeled the tape off five thick brown waxy sticks that said in English "Hi-Drive Dynamite." The sticks had been warmed and molded to pack tightly together with a Plexiglas backing in the oval space of the head. On the middle stick was a printed circuit board of a radio receiver the size of a credit card with a built-in kopeck-sized battery and antenna. Arkady prodded the board up. Its wires were crimped around the leg wires of a blasting cap inserted deep into the dynamite itself. In spite of the air-conditioning he felt a bloom of sweat. He and Ofelia had been around the doll on and off for almost a week. Someone could have pressed a remote transmitter and brought his Havana trip to an end at any time.
He put the scissors and knife aside.» Something nonsparking?"
Ofelia cradled the doll's head in her lap and delicately dug the cap out with her fingernails.
You had to admire a woman like that, Arkady thought.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Enough daybreak sifted through the window shade for Arkady to see Change lying on the table, the front and back of the head resting separately on the doll's chest. Disconnected, the face seemed more animated and malevolent than ever.
Ofelia was under Arkady's coat, asleep. He dressed in his old clothes, strapped on the hip pack and stole his coat as quietly as he could. This was the point where they went their different ways. As she said, it would be difficult enough to explain how she had come into possession of the doll. Having a Russian along wouldn't help.
"Arkady?"
"Yes?" He had already opened the door.
Ofelia sat up against the headboard.» Where will I see you again?"
They'd gone over this the night before.» At least at the airport. The night's at midnight. It's a Russian plane and a Cuban airport, we should have lots of time."
"You're going to see Walls and O'Brien? I don't want you to go. To their boat? I don't trust them."
"I don't either."
"I'll be watching. If that boat leaves the dock with you on it, I will send a police boat out after you."
"Good idea." They had decided all of this already, but he returned to burrow for a moment in her neck and kiss her mouth. Love's exaction for forward motion.
"What about Bias and the photograph?" she asked.» I'll be seeing him."
"Leave the photograph to me."
"And after?"
"After? We will shop on the Arbat, ski among the birches, go to the Bolshoi, whatever you want."
"You'll be careful?"
"We will both be careful."
Her eyes let go. Arkady slipped out into a morning with a
dull pewterish light rimming the water, streetlights fading, on his way, appropriately enough, to see Sergei Pribluda's lover.
A block on, he encountered another socialismo o muerte billboard with a giant Comandante in fatigues, shambling again in mid-stride, keeping pace.
Ofelia took a little longer to dress, tape the doll's head back together and take it in her straw bag to her car. It was eight by the time she reached the Institute de Medicina Legal, found Bias in the autopsy theater and sent a message that she would be waiting for him at the anthropology room. No one was ever completely alone in that room, there were too many skulls and skeletons, preserved beetles and snakes huddled in the light. On the desk a newly scrubbed skull was positioned under a video camera. She turned on the monitor, and a picture of a robust Pribluda at a beach emerged on the screen.
"Not yet," Bias said as he came in drying his hands with a paper towel.» No show until we have our other Russian. Detective, I understand you're dressed for a certain kind of duty, but I must congratulate you for how convincing you are." She was in the white jinetera outfit. Bias threw the towel into a waste basket and ran his hands up and down her arms as if performing an inspection.» Irresistible."
"I have something for you," she said.
After all, who else could Ofelia go to? He was sympathetic and sophisticated, with connections at Minint, the army, the PNR well above the level of Captain Arcos and Sergeant Luna.
"A gift?"
"Not quite." She took the head wrapped in newspapers out of her bag and placed it in front of the screen.
"Well, I'm always interested." Bias pulled the paper off and revealed Change's obsidian stare. The doctor's anticipation disappeared.» What is this about? You should know by now that my interest in Santeria is strictly scientific."
"But this head was on a doll that was in Pribluda's apartment. Later it was found with black-market goods in a building near the docks."
"So? I've seen hundreds of these dolls across the country."
Ofelia peeled off the tape that held the front and back of the head together.» Go ahead."
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