Havana Bay

'Did you ask Hedy about it.'

'Well.' Teresa bobbed her head from side to side.» Yes. We were really good friends. He never did with her either.'

'You know, chica, it wouldn't be a bad idea to stay here for another day, but actually I think you're probably pretty safe.'

'What about Hedy?'

'I'm going to have to rethink that.' As Ofelia gathered her bag and stood she kissed Teresa on the cheek.» You helped.'

'It was nice to talk.'

'It was.' Ofelia started down the ladder and paused midway.» By the way, did you know Rufo Pinero?'

'A friend of Facundo's? I met him once. I didn't like him.'

'Why not?'

'He had one of those mobile phones. Mr. Big-Time Jinetero, always on it. No time for me. So you really think I'll be okay?'

'I think so.'

Because the question for Ofelia ever since Sergeant Facundo Luna hadn't killed her right off at the Russian Center was whether he was Abakua. It was hard to say about a member of a secret society. The PNR had tried to infiltrate the Abakua and the result was the opposite: the Abakua had penetrated the police, recruiting the most macho officers, white as well as black. Identifying them had become an art. An Abakua might hijack a truck from a ministry yard, but he would not steal even a peso from a friend. Never allowed an insult to go unanswered. Might murder but never informed. Wore nothing feminine, no earrings, tight belts or long hair. There was one conclusive identification: an Abakua never showed his bare behind to anyone. He never pulled his drawers down even for making love. Ofelia thought of it as a kind of Achilles' ass.

One more thing an Abakua never did.

He never hurt a woman.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Arkady returned to Mongo's room in the back of what had been Erasmo's boyhood house. An empty house today, enervated by heat. After a courtesy knock on the door Arkady reached to the upper lip of the frame and found the key.

Not much had changed in the bedroom since Arkady's first visit. Shutters opened wide enough to take in the curve of the sea, fishing boats trolling against the current, neumdticos wallowing in their wake. Not a cloud in the sky or a wave in the water. Dead still. The coconuts, plastic saints and photographs of Mongo's favorite fighters were just as Arkady had seen before, and whether a sheet was tucked in the same manner he couldn't tell, but a different disc topped the CD stack, and the swim flippers that had hung from a hook on the wall and the truck inner tube that had been suspended above the bed were both gone. Arkady returned to the window to see three different groups of neumdticos listlessly paddling, each group at least five hundred yards apart from the other.

Arkady went down to the street and walked a block west to a cafe of cement tables set in the shade of a wall with the sign siempre-Siempre something because bougainvillea had taken root and smeared the rest of the slogan with magenta. Arkady was not surprised that Mongo would venture out on the water. Mongo was a fisherman. He had probably been warned away from Erasmo's repair shop while a Russian investigator occupied the apartment above. Where better to hide than on the water? If he was out on his tube, sooner or later he would have to come in, somewhere along Miramar's First Avenue or the Malecon, too much ground for Arkady to watch. But it seemed to him that he could lower the odds by remembering that what a man with an inner tube needed most of all was air. From his table he had a view of a gas station with two pumps under a canopy styled with a modernistic fin, blue once, now the off-white found on the lip of a clamshell. It was a station on his Texaco map. By the office was a faucet and an air hose.

Cars came and went all afternoon, some struggling like lungfish up to the pump and then crawling away. Neumdticos had to deal with a garage dog that accepted some and chased away others. Arkady sipped his way through three Tropicolas and three cafe cubanos, his heart tapping its fingers while he sat, invisible in the shadow of his coat. Finally a skinny asphalt-black man approached the station office with an inner tube that was going limp in his arms. He threw the dog a fish, went into the office and came out a minute later with a patch he applied to the tube. When he felt the adhesive had set, he added air to check the repair. His clothes were a green cap, loose running shoes and the sort of rags a sensible man would choose for floating in the bay. Balancing the tube with its net and sticks and reels on his head, he lay his flippers over one shoulder and a string of rainbow-sided fish over the other. When he saw Arkady cross the intersection, the neutnatico's red, salt-stung eyes looked for an avenue of escape, and but for his inner tube and the day's catch, he no doubt could have easily outrun someone in an overcoat.

'Ramon 'Mongo' Bartelemy?' Arkady asked. He thought he was starting to get a grip on Spanish.

'No.'

'I think so.' Arkady showed Mongo the picture of himself proudly displaying a fish to Luna, Erasmo and Pribluda.» I also know you speak Russian.' It was worth a stab.

'A little.'

'You're not an easy man to find. Join me for a coffee?'

The elusive Mongo had a beer. Crystal beads of sweat covered his face and chest. His mesh sack of fish lay on the bench beside him.

'I saw a tape of you fighting,' Arkady said.

'Did I win?'

'You made it look easy.'

'I could move, you know? I could move with anyone, I just didn't like to get hit,' Mongo said, although his nose was splayed enough to suggest he had been caught a few times.

'Then when they dropped me from the team I was eligible for the army. Oye, suddenly I was in Africa with Russians. Russians don't know the difference between an African and a Cuban. You learn Russian fast.' Mongo grinned.» You learn 'Don't shoot, you assholes!''

'Angola?'

'Ethiopia.'

'Demolition?'

'No, I drove an armored personnel carrier. That's how I became a mechanic, keeping that puta APC alive.'

'Is that where you met Erasmo?'

'In the army.'

'Luna?'

Mongo regarded his large capable hands, callused from drumming and scarred from barbs.» Facundo I know from way back when he first came from Baracoa to join the boxing team. He could have been a fighter or he could have been a baseball player, but he had no discipline with women or drinking, so he wasn't on any team for long.'

'Baracoa?'

'In the Oriente. He could hit.'

'He and Rufo Pinero were friends?'

'Claro. But what they did I didn't know.' Mongo shook his head so emphatically his sweat sprayed.» I didn't want to know.'

'And you were Sergei Pribluda's friend?'

'Yes.'

'You went fishing together?'

'Verdad.'

'You taught him how to fish with a kite?'

'I tried.'