Havana Bay

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.'