Red Angel (21 page)

Cipriani closed his eyes. “What is it you want to know?”

Martínez rubbed his hands over his face. “The same thing I have asked you for the past hour. The names of the persons you visited in Cobre, the purpose of your visit, and whether or not you were sent there by Colonel Cabrera, as the presence of Major Cepedes would seem to indicate.”

“You’re not offering me anything but a prison cell or a death warrant,” Cipriani said.

“I am offering you a beach in a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. If my information is correct, you were preparing to go to that country when you were arrested by Colonel Cabrera.”

Cipriani shook his head. “I understand they’ve also got nice cemeteries in Rio.”

“If you are afraid of Colonel Cabrera, I assure you he will present no problem for you.”

Cipriani gave him a mirthless laugh. “I’m not worried
about Cabrera. If you get what you want, he’ll be too busy trying to avoid a firing squad.”

“Who are you afraid of?” It was Devlin this time. “Are we talking narcotics? Like maybe your visitor flew in from Medellín, and our poking around is screwing up some drug deal Cabrera has working?”

Cipriani shook his head. “I’ll take my chances with Cabrera. When Cepedes and I don’t show up, he’s going to start looking.” He let his eyes fall hard on Martínez. “You ready to take on State Security, Major?”

Martínez gave him a cold smile. “It would appear I already have, señor.”

They sat at a large table on the Casa Grande’s rooftop terrace. It was after midnight and a rumba band provided the rhythm for several dozen swaying hips. Devlin, Adrianna, and Pitts showed no interest in the music. Neither did the three men at the next table. They were Martínez’s men, sent to play bodyguard while the major put the finishing touches on the arrests he had made.

Adrianna stared out over the waist-high terrace wall. There, appearing almost close enough to touch, the twin spires of the cathedral hovered in the darkness, the large granite angel set between them like some avenging specter. Beyond the cathedral, even the lights of the harbor seemed ominous, as if their normally romantic glow were hiding some new and yet-to-be-revealed threat.

Adrianna turned away from the view. “I don’t like this city. It looks so small and peaceful, but it’s not.”

Pitts grinned at her. “Hey, it’s hard to like a place where witch doctors put curses on you and a bunch of ‘yoms try to slice you up with shivs.”

“Watch the racist crap,” Devlin warned.

Pitts raised his hands. “Okay, okay. A bunch of Abakua.
The same group of loonies who tried to do us in with a truck in Havana.” He glanced at Adrianna and grinned again. “So how do you feel about Havana?”

Adrianna ignored him. She turned to Devlin. “Maybe we should forget everything and go home. My aunt’s dead. Let the Cubans find her and bury her. She wouldn’t want this. Not if it meant having you killed, too.”

Devlin reached out and covered her hand. “Your aunt didn’t even know me.”

“No, she didn’t. But I wrote to her, and told her how much I love you.”

Pitts raised his chin. “I hate to break up this moment we got going here, but I think I see our little major headed this way.”

They turned and watched Martínez weave his way through the dancers. As he reached the table, he placed a hand on his midsection and gave his hips a small rumba sway.

“Ah, the music is wonderful,” he said as he took an empty chair.

“You seem very jolly,” Pitts said. “Cipriani finally spill his guts? Or maybe your major from State Security?”

“I am afraid not. Señor Cipriani and Major Cepedes both remain very unhelpful. They are now on their way back to Havana by car. Under guard. My men will use back roads, so it will take them two days, but that will also make it difficult for Colonel Cabrera to find them, no?” He smiled. “It will also make them available to us if we need them. I have made arrangements for us to return to Havana tomorrow morning. We will fly to Varadero, where a car will meet us and drive us the last one hundred and forty kilometers.” He gave them his Cuban shrug. “This will also present some difficulties for the colonel.”

“Why are we going back?” Devlin asked. “I thought Plante Firme said we’d find the body here?”

Martínez nodded. “But I believe the body is being taken back to Havana by Baba Briyumbe’s disciple.”

“This Seven Thunderbolts guy?” Pitts asked.

“Yes, by Siete Rayos.”

“Why do you think that?” Adrianna asked.

“Some new information has come to me.” Martínez leaned forward and lowered his voice so it could just be heard over the music. “The men who fled the shrine—the old, sickly man and his companion, along with the two Abakua—left Santiago on a private jet, which is why my men at the airport failed to observe them. A later check of flight records showed that they arrived in Havana three hours ago.”

“Did customs get their names?” Devlin asked.

“Unfortunately, there are no customs for internal flights, so there was no report filed in Havana. I did check on the flight’s initial arrival in Cuba. It flew in yesterday with two passengers: a Señor John Smith and a Señor Matthew Jones. Both had Canadian passports that I believe to be false. One of the men required assistance getting off the aircraft, and both seemed to receive special consideration going through customs and immigration. Their entry forms indicated they were businessmen.”

“Where did they fly in from?” Devlin asked.

“From Nassau in the Bahamas,” Martínez said.

Devlin and Pitts exchanged looks, but remained silent.

Devlin decided to stick with the missing body. “What makes you think this changing-of-heads ritual hasn’t already been done?” he asked.

“I am sure that it has not,” Martínez said.

“Why?” Adrianna asked.

“Because the house in which the men stayed was being watched at all times. By either Señor Caputo or his wife. There were no visitors until Señor Cipriani arrived. And, most important, there was no
nganga.
In Cuba, the arrival of a
nganga
would not go unnoticed.”

“And you’re sure this sickly man is the reason my aunt’s body was stolen?”

Martínez nodded. “Everything points in that direction. And now everything points back to Havana. I suspect the
nganga
is on its way there now. And that it will arrive within days.”

“You think it’s going by car?” Adrianna asked.

Martínez smiled. “It would make strange baggage on an airline, no? Even if it were loaded on a private jet, it would not go unnoticed or unchallenged by the immigration police.”

“What about roadblocks?” Pitts asked. “Maybe you can find it before it gets to Havana.”

“I am afraid there are too many small roads, and too few people to blockade them. It is exactly why Señor Cipriani and Major Cepedes are now traveling this way.” He shook his head. “No, we must get to Havana and find this sickly man. Then the
nganga
holding the Red Angel’s bones will come to us.”

“We’re thinking about going home,” Adrianna said. “It’s just—”

Devlin cut her off. “No, we’re not.” He reached out and covered her hand again. “I think it might be a good idea if you went home,” he said. “But Ollie and I are going to stay.”

Adrianna stared at him. “Like hell,” she said. “If you’re staying, so am I.”

“I think it would be best if you all stayed,” Martínez said. “But not at the Inglaterra. I am presently having some of your clothing removed and taken to a location where Colonel Cabrera will not think to look.”

“Where?” Devlin asked.

Martínez smiled again, a bit coyly, Devlin thought.

“You will stay in the house of the Red Angel. Not the ancestral home her sister now occupies, but the one in Miramar, the one Fidel, himself, has given her.” The smile widened. “We will hide under Cabrera’s nose. His own house, also a gift of Fidel, is only a few blocks away.”

Devlin put Adrianna to bed. When she was asleep, he entered Pitts’s room through the connecting door.

“John the Boss?” Pitts asked.

“Could be. If it is, at least we know who we’re looking for.” He went to the telephone. “I’m gonna call a friend in our organized-crime bureau. He knows everything about Rossi, right down to the size of his dick.”

“You think there’s a Cuban connection we don’t know about?”

“If there is, he’ll know about it.”

Devlin hung up the phone ten minutes later and let out a long breath.

“You got something?” Pitts asked.

Devlin nodded. “Back in the fifties, Rossi worked here with Meyer Lansky. He was small potatoes, just a button doing odd jobs, but apparently he made an impression. When Castro tossed them out, he went back to New York and
started to move up in the organization. And that’s when the NYPD started paying attention.”

“So you think it’s him.” There was no hint of a question in Pitts’s voice. He obviously thought so, too.

“It fits,” Devlin said. “The old Cuban connection. The sick, old man, who maybe got introduced to Palo Monte back in the old days. The flight from the Bahamas, where Rossi and his goon, Mattie the Knife, just happened to be. The phony passports that used the same first names: John and Matthew.” Devlin shook his head. “This thing walks like a duck and says quack, Ollie. Plus, you’re forgettin’ a few other things.”

“Like what?”

“Like it was the body of Adrianna’s aunt that got snatched. And that was something that just might bring
me, here.
” Devlin tapped the side of his nose. “Like the fact that this sick old man waited around to see somebody get iced, and only took off when that didn’t happen. And sending me to the boneyard has been somethin’ John the Boss has wanted to do for a long time. He tried once, and it didn’t work. But he’s not the kind of guy who changes his mind. He just knew he couldn’t try again in New York.”

“And you think he set it up here?” Pitts’s voice was incredulous. He shook his head. “That would mean he had Adrianna’s aunt killed just to get you down here. That doesn’t make sense. He can’t have that kind of clout here.”

“No, but maybe he has friends who do.” Devlin waved his hand, as if dismissing his own argument. “Look, I think he knows everything about me. And everything about anybody I’m close to. It’s the kind of mean old bastard he is.” He waved his hand again. “But no, I don’t think he set it up that way. That’s too Byzantine even for an old Mafia bastard like him. I wouldn’t put it past him, but I think he fell into this. I think he and his gumbas had something else going, and the
situation just presented itself. And the old Bathrobe jumped on it with both feet. Look, if he believes in this crazy voodoo nonsense, and is looking for a cure, what better than the body of Cuba’s most famous doctor. If Martínez is right, Cuba’s Red Angel got rubbed out by Cabrera. And what a nice little bonus that she happens to be Adrianna’s aunt. Because that just about guarantees that my ass is headed for Cuba. And that’s something that will put me right in his sights. Right where everybody’s been leading us, ever since we got here. And you know what else that means. That means Martínez could be involved right up to his rumba-shaking little ass.”

Pitts thought about it. “I don’t buy it. It doesn’t play.” He hesitated, forming his reasons. “Martínez is the one who tipped us that it might be John the Boss. If he was part of it, he would have known we’d tumble to that. It would have been a dumb move, and Martínez is too sharp for that.”

Devlin nodded, acknowledging the point. “He is sharp. No question about it. But it’s either that, or he’s being played for a stooge, too. Or maybe he’s got his own little game. And we just haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that. But if you’re right, we better find out what it is.” Pitts hesitated, then asked, “So whadda we do now?”

Devlin walked back toward the connecting door that led to his room. He looked back at Pitts. “Now we stop being tourists, and we start being cops,” he said.

The Red Angel’s house was on Fortieth Street, two doors in from Avenue Five in a seemingly prosperous area of Havana known as Miramar. It was a neighborhood dotted with foreign embassies and the occasional upscale restaurant. There were several small hotels catering to visiting foreign officials and businessmen, and along the nearby coast there were discreet private clubs—once a bastion of Batista’s oligarchy—that now served high-ranking Cuban officials who had modified their brand of socialism.

Mixed in were ordinary Cubans, just as poor and struggling as compatriots in more meager neighborhoods, many living on inadequate government pensions that forced them to seek out dollars wherever they could find them. Yet the homes of those in power showed none of that financial strain. They were large and well tended, with no battered automobiles parked out front awaiting repair. They were like the homes one would find in any affluent American neighborhood, and they seemed just as removed from everyday life.

“Your aunt lived well,” Devlin said as they looked up at
the large modern stucco home that sat behind a high hedge. Devlin thought about José Tamayo, the “successful” writer they had visited only days ago. This was a far cry from the impoverished, firetrap apartment that housed his extended family.

“You are thinking, perhaps, there are contradictions in our socialism,” Martínez said.

“You read my mind, Major,” Devlin said.

Martínez made a helpless gesture with his hands. “You are right. Cuba has become a nation of contradictions. The government is dedicated to serving the people, but some in the government—those at its highest levels—live much better than the people they serve.” He removed a key from his pocket and opened a locked iron gate. “This was not always so, and it is something our Red Angel argued against. But come, I will show you.”

They entered the first floor and found themselves in a well-equipped clinic. The main rooms had been divided into a waiting room and four small examination cubicles. The large kitchen, in addition to a stove, refrigerator, and sink, also housed a laboratory.

Martínez turned to Adrianna and smiled. “Your aunt lived on the second floor, where you will find her private office, a sitting room, and two bedrooms. I have had blackout curtains installed over the louvered windows. It will be hot, but if you keep the curtains drawn, no one will know you are here. When the lights are out, you may open the curtains.”