The trio launched into a spirited version of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.”
“That, the bass player, is Manuel, the
Rostnikov looked again at the man playing the bass fiddle. The man turned his gaze to the detective, and when their eyes met Rostnikov was sure that Manuel knew who he was and why he was there.
The waiter returned, placed the daiquiris in front of Rostnikov and Rodriguez, left a check, and disappeared without a word.
“And,” said Rodriguez with great satisfaction, “you have just met Javier.”
Rostnikov looked at the pale drink before him and said, “The waiter?”
“The waiter,” Rodriguez confirmed. “How you like that? Javier works here. He gets his father to fill in with his group once in a while.”
Rostnikov looked at Javier, who was waiting on a quartet of tourists-two blond couples who looked Scandinavian.
Javier was tall and light-skinned. His hair was cropped short. He had a clear, handsome face with a sculpted nose quite unlike the nose of his father. Rostnikov was sure that beneath the uniform was a strong, sinewy body. Nothing in the man’s face or dark eyes betrayed anything he might be feeling or thinking.
“You want to meet them?” Rodriguez asked.
“Very much,” said Rostnikov.
Rodriguez began to rise, but Javier, who had returned, leaned past Rostnikov and collected the Canadian bills Rostnikov had put out. He did not look at Rostnikov as he picked up the money and departed.
“You won’t get change,” said Rodriguez. “How you like the drink?”
Rostnikov hated the frigid, sour-sweet liquid.
“It is interesting.”
“You hate it,” said Rodriguez. “Russians always hate it. Americans pretend to love it. They even order a second. Americans. They think they’re going to return and turn us into a Disneyville.”
“Do you like daiquiris, Antonio Rodriguez?”
“They taste like frozen goat piss.”
“You’ve tasted frozen goat piss?”
“When pushed to the wall and thirsty,” said Rodriguez with a straight face.
“But you just drank one.”
“It is the thing to do in La Floridita. Wait here. I’ll talk to Javier.”
“No,” said Rostnikov.
“I thought you wanted …”
“I changed my mind,” said Rostnikov. The band moved to something Latin but without heart. Rostnikov stood up.
Rodriguez shrugged.
“Russians make no sense,” he said, following Rostnikov to the door.
At the door, Rostnikov turned to look at Manuel the bass player. There was no expression on the face of either man but their eyes met once again.
Rodriguez drove back along the Malecón, past the monument to the victims of the
“There, that building used to be the National Bank. Still has vaults, still has Cuban money in it, but now is a hospital, best hospital in Central America, even your big shots come here.”
Rostnikov looked but he was not really listening. He kept his hands folded in his lap and wondered why his leg was causing him so little trouble. He resisted the urge to reach into his pocket and read the note that Javier had slipped into it.
The twenty-story-high Soviet embassy in Havana stands behind a seven-foot-high iron fence. The embassy itself is a modern brick monolith surrounded by lower buildings and ample lush grounds. It culminates in a tower that looks like a squat letter
Next to the embassy is a Catholic church, its spire matching the height of the embassy tower in an uneasy contest for dominance of the street.
Major Sanchez, in full blue uniform complete with blue baseball hat, parked his white Lada on the nearly empty street in front of the embassy gate and looked out of the curbside window past Elena Timofeyeva.
“Impressive, eh?” he said in Russian. “Just a year ago it would have been impossible to park on this street. Cars, trucks, people in and out. Now, empty. Fidel has a house near here. It is said he can see the tower of the embassy from his bedroom window when he wakes up.”
Sanchez’s face was inches from Elena’s. When Sanchez had picked her up that morning, they had breakfasted on toast, oranges, and bananas in the rooftop cafeteria reserved for guests of the hotel. Their conversation moved from Russian to Spanish and back to Russian again for no reason that Elena could perceive.
As they ate, Sanchez had asked Elena how she became a police officer. Elena told him about her aunt Anna, who had been a Moscow procurator, and about her father, who had been in military intelligence. Throughout the conversation, Elena had been acutely aware of the major’s eyes scanning her, watching her, saying something without speaking.
Now, as she felt his breath on her cheek, she had no doubt about his eyes and his body language. Elena suspected that the major behaved in the same way toward all women. She had no illusions about her looks. Her face was oval, clear-skinned, and healthy-looking. Her hair was short, brown, and straight. Her body was not yet heavy, but it was certainly ample, and her condition, from a strenuous routine of running and exercise, was excellent.
Sanchez and Elena got out of the car and moved to the iron gate.
“Who knows how many millions it cost to build it?” Sanchez said, pressing a bell in the gate. “You have anything like it in Moscow?”
“Nothing this new,” she said. “Many things this large.”
The gate clicked open.
“You people are impressed by size,” he said, holding the gate open so Elena could step inside. “Russians think the bigger something is-a statue or a building-the more it will impress. They are right, but their mistake is in equating beauty with size alone.”
Elena counted the twenty-eight serpentine marble steps as they moved upward toward the embassy entrance.
“And Cubans, what do they find impressive and beautiful?” she asked as they approached two massive wooden doors at the top of the steps. Each door was studded with vertical rows of wooden spheres.
“Intricacy, music that makes one weep, the remembered shape and touch of a woman’s body, paintings that burst with color and life,” he said, looking at her with a smile.
Elena had worn her suit-gray skirt and matching jacket-with an off-white blouse. The suit had belonged to her aunt, with whom she lived in Moscow. A neighbor had miraculously altered the suit to fit Elena, for Anna Timofeyeva was significantly larger than her niece.
The door opened and a tall, thin man with unkempt white hair stood before them. The man needed a shave and looked pained by the brightness of the morning sun. He wore a blue shirt only partially tucked into his matching blue trousers. He wore black socks and no shoes.
“Seven-ten,” Sanchez answered in Russian after checking his watch.
The white-haired man brushed his hair back with his long fingers and stepped back to allow them to enter.
“You are Major Sanchez?” the man asked in Russian. He closed the door behind them. “And you are Assistant Inspector Timofeyeva from Moscow?”
“Yes,” Elena said.
Their voices echoed through the empty corridors and the three-story entryway as the man shook his
