Suspicion of Rage (36 page)

Mario stood when Anthony did, and the two men embraced quickly. Mario put a soft kiss on Gail's cheek. His smile dazzled. "I see you later."

He walked over to his tiny green car and got in. The engine coughed into life, and Mario drove up the hill and around the corner.

Anthony checked his watch. "Let's take a walk. Hector's on his way."

They took the sidewalk that Gail had seen earlier from the hotel. It went under the same limestone bluff where the flag blew in the wind.

"You're very quiet," Anthony said.

"I'm fine."
 

"Good."

Gail said, "Mario didn't seem enthusiastic about living in Miami."

"Well, it's a big decision for him."

"You'll have them all in Miami, won't you? One way or the other, you'll do it."

He looked at her as they walked. "Do I sense an objection?"

"Maybe they think of Cuba as home, miserable as it is. Maybe they don't want to leave, and you're interfering."

"If they don't want to leave, they don't have to. I'm not putting a gun to their heads."

Gail laughed. "Oh, sweetie. You severely underestimate your ability to persuade."

"What are you trying to say, Gail?"

She turned to him, and they stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. "I want you to think about something. Maybe you don't have the answer now. Or maybe you do, but you have to think what to say to me."

"Do I hear an argument coming on?" He put a hand to his ear.

"It's an observation, all right? I believe you're in love with them. All of them. With José for his courage, his ideals that you think you've lost. In love with Mario for being young and innocent. You're in love with Yolanda most of all because she's what you left behind."

"Oh, Jesus." He looked up at the sky, then back at Gail. "Where do you get these ideas?"

"I listen to what you say. I watch you."

"Is that so? Did you notice someone making love to you last night? Who was that?"

"I have to ask you something. I don't want to, but I will. Did you ever make love to Yolanda?"

"Ah. So that's the problem. You're jealous. I should have known."

"Did you? When you and she were young, and you first came back to Cuba—"

"No. Never. It is beyond belief that you would ask me such a thing. Yolanda is ... she's like a sister."

"A sister? You don't buy sterling silver hair clips at Tiffany's for a sister! How much did you pay for it?"

"I don't remember."

"Don't lie to me! How much?"

"It was nothing. Two hundred something."

"What, two hundred ninety-nine?"

His anger erupted, and he shouted, "It's a goddamned hair clip, not a fucking ring. Why don't you add up what I've spent on yon?"

A woman in tight capri pants and a sleeveless top approached around a curve in the sidewalk. Not a tourist, a middle-aged Cuban woman who had to be wondering why these people were screaming at each other. She glanced at them apprehensively.

Hands on his hips, Anthony let out a breath and stared across the road at the Malecón. When the woman was gone, he looked back at Gail. "I'm sorry for yelling at you. The answer is no, I did not sleep with Yolanda. Now let's drop it."

"And I'm sorry I brought it up."

He put his arms around her neck and looked into her eyes. "Sweetheart. I love you. Only you. Don't you believe that? Gail?"

"Yes. I know you love me."

"How can you doubt it?
Te quiero,
Señora Quintana. Well?"

"Te quiero,"
she said, and kissed him.

He laughed. "I'm in love with José Leiva too. I'm glad he wasn't around to hear that. Come on."

Taking her hand, he pulled her toward the street. They waited a moment for traffic to clear, then hurried across three lanes to a monument in the center of the road. Two bronze cannons pointed east and west, and two Greek columns rose to support a narrow platform with nothing on it. Ahead of them, across the westbound side of the road, the wind whipped the spray over the Malecón. Gail could taste the salt on her lips. They walked around to the other side of the monument and sat on one of the steps facing the ocean.

Anthony put his arm around her. "I'm crazy about you."

She smiled. "And I'm just crazy. Please forget what I said."

"I have already forgotten."

Within a few minutes a small, gray-haired
mulato
came into view. He carried a plastic sack with some large green fruits in it. He called out,
"Mamey. Señora, mamey rico, dos por un dólar."
Mamey, two for a dollar.

Gail had to laugh. "Hello, Hector."

Hector Mesa stood a few steps down from them, a slight figure in dusty trousers and a faded plaid shirt. He had even traded his black-framed glasses for a pair with clear plastic frames, convincingly scratched.

"Señora." He made a little bow in Gail's direction.

"You look like a farmer," Anthony said.

"I am Eusebio Pérez from Pinar del Rio, visiting my relatives in the city."

"I hope you have your identification card."

Hector acknowledged that he did.

Anthony said, "You know they'll arrest you, selling mamey on the street to tourists."

"You are not tourists," Hector said.
"Señor Anthony, necesito hablar con usted."
He nodded again at Gail. "You will excuse us, señora?"

"It's all right, Hector. I've told her everything so far."

The little man made a regretful grimace.

Anthony sighed and patted Gail's knee as he got up. "I'll be back."

They walked out of earshot, and Gail watched traffic, a sparse procession of old American cars and rusted-out Eastern European models, a double-humped bus crammed with riders, a shiny Mercedes tourist bus with tinted windows. The waves broke on the Malecón. She could see the spray as it rose and fell behind the concrete barrier.

The men finished their conversation. Hector glanced her way, bowed slightly, and ambled off with his sack of mameys.

Anthony came back up the steps. The sunglasses hid his eyes, but something was wrong. Gail stood quickly and reached for him. "Anthony, what happened?"

"Omar Céspedes. He was shot to death last night."

 

 

 

 

30

 

 

Everett Bookhouser said to meet him at the Colón Cemetery. After the murder of Omar Céspedes, Anthony thought this might be the CIA's idea of a macabre joke. He took Gail back to the house in Mira-mar. She didn't argue when he said he had to go alone. It was close to three o'clock when he walked under the triple-arched stone gate of the cemetery. Above him, Lazarus rose from the dead, and saints in their classical robes stared out over the graves.

Anthony paid his dollar entry fee and walked along the main road with its double row of meticulously clipped ornamental trees. At midweek, the place was nearly deserted. A groundskeeper trimmed the grass beside the low iron fences. An old woman moved slowly among the monuments, vanishing and reappearing.

The necropolis was laid out like a small city with streets on a grid. Bookhouser would be at the intersection of 5 and G, east of the central chapel. Standing in the shadow of the church, Anthony looked around. The road was empty. He had taken a different route leaving Ramiro's house. If anyone had followed, they had been extremely good at it.

He walked east. Even through his sunglasses, the glare off the white marble tore at his eyes. The memorials and tombs and family vaults fought a silent battle of architectural excess. Just past a baroque tomb of carved doves and angels, Bookhouser stood with one sneaker-shod foot on a low wall, reading the tourist guide. The bill of his Yo Amo
La Habana
cap turned when Anthony stopped alongside him.

"It says here a million people are buried in this cemetery. Isn't that something? The more important you are, the closer you get to the chapel. Nobility over there, common folks in the back. And the ordinary rich somewhere in between. Like this one. An excellent example of the classical Greek influence popular in the late nineteenth century."

Bookhouser glanced up from his tourist guide to gesture toward a tomb built like a small Parthenon. He read, " ‘The family vault of Julio Amador Pedrosa, 1814 to 1892, who founded the national railroad system of Cuba.' Do you want me to take a photo?"

"No, thanks. There's one hanging on the wall in my grandfather's study."

"I saw it," Bookhouser said.

With the toe of his shoe, Anthony gently nudged Bookhouser's foot off the wall. "Ernesto carried hopes for many years that this would be his final resting place. Now he wants me to wrap his body in a Cuban flag and bury him in a field. Red earth, he says. Make sure it's the red earth of my homeland." Anthony was halfway through crossing himself before he realized he had fallen into this old habit again. He finished, put his fingers to his lips, and reached over the iron fence to touch one of the columns.

Bookhouser watched without comment.

"Tell me about Céspedes," Anthony said.

"How did you find out, by the way?"

"You aren't the only one with friends."

Bookhouser closed his tourist guide. "At one-fifteen this morning, Omar Céspedes was shot five times with a .22-caliber pistol. The round in the back of his head was fired at close range as he lay on the ground. A neighbor happened to be awake checking on her baby and saw the whole thing from a third-floor window. Céspedes parked his vehicle in the common alley behind the town houses. He got out, walked toward his back fence, and a man came out from behind one of the cars and shot him. The witness said it was very fast, very neat. The man took Céspedes's wallet and walked away. The D.C. police initially classified it as a robbery-homicide, but the FBI monitors all murders in the District. The name Omar Céspedes rang a bell, and they called us."

"Not a robbery," Anthony said.

"No. And it's going to affect your brother-in-law in two ways. First, we need him more than ever, because Céspedes was only halfway through his sworn testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. And second, Ramiro should get out as soon as possible. Céspedes is dead. Olga Saavedra is dead. Unless you can think of some reason why not, I'm going to say that the same person is behind both murders and that Ramiro Vega is next."

Anthony said, "Do you want me to tell him to call you?"

"Please." Bookhouser checked some readings on his camera, then raised it to his eye and focused on a weeping angel across the path. Her hand hid her eyes, and her wings drooped. "Look at the skill in that carving. Did you know that Cuba has its own marble? I thought all this stuff was imported from Italy. No, most of it was homegrown and carted over from the Sierra Maestra."
Click.
"Tell Vega we'd like him to leave on Friday night. That gives him a little over forty-eight hours."

"Marta won't like leaving Friday. Their daughter's birthday party is on Saturday."

"Yes, I'm sorry about that," Bookhouser said. "Are they coming? Vega hasn't told me. We can accommodate as many of the immediate family as he wants to bring with him, but he has to let me know who they are."

"I'll see him tonight," Anthony said. "How do you plan to get him out?"

Bookhouser aimed his camera west. "See that white marble cross over there? It marks the grave of 'La Milagrosa.' Woman of the miracles. She died in childbirth, and they buried her and her baby in separate caskets. When they opened hers for some reason, who knows why, the baby was in her arms. Faith is required, Mr. Quintana." He squinted through the viewfinder. "Faith in the resourcefulness of your friends in the United States government."

Click.

Checking the photo's image in the viewing screen, Bookhouser said, "If you would, let Ramiro know that additional compensation has been approved. He and I can talk about it."

"Are you taking my family out, too, or am I supposed to arrange my own miracles?"

"No, we'll get you out." Bookhouser snapped the lens cap back on. "What I need you to do is stay in Havana through Friday night so the house doesn't look empty. You leave on Saturday. I can give you final details by tomorrow. Do not—I repeat this—do not attempt to leave Cuba on your own. I know you have ways of doing it, but we need you here. You and your family are not in danger."

"That's good to know."

"The people behind this aren't after you."

"People? How about Abdel Garda?"

"García? Maybe. García and a few others."

"Does Ramiro agree with that?"

"Ramiro wouldn't say."

"Ah. Well, that's Ramiro." Anthony noticed that on the pediment of the Pedrosa mausoleum, a small tree had taken root in a crack. The roots reached through and hung in the air below it, seeking earth. A crow flapped away, cawing loudly, and the noise echoed across the cemetery.

Anthony said, "Garcia was at MININT last night when I was being questioned. Afterward we had a talk, a brief one, in the elevator on the way down. I gave him your story, that Céspedes was talking about Cuban spies in Venezuela. I found out—through one of my friends— that Céspedes had also talked about finishing construction on the nuclear reactor at Juraguá. I told Garcia. He didn't buy either story. Let me give you my theory. Céspedes told you that the Russians made an unaccounted-for shipment of uranium. Someone in the regime—if not Fidel himself—wants to put it to good use by selling it on the arms market. It could wind up in a backpack bomb on the New York subway or at the next Super Bowl game."

Bookhauser's ice-blue eyes moved to look at him. He smiled. "Please don't. I myself think you're just trying to figure it out, but if your actions were to affect the outcome adversely, there are some people who would get a lot of satisfaction in labeling you as an agent of the Cuban government."

"It would be a lie."

"Since when does that count? Don't take the risk. Friendly advice, okay?"

"I should be getting back," Anthony said.

His companion followed a few paces behind. They passed a low crypt where someone had laid yellow carnations, some beads, and a handmade doll dressed in blue and yellow. The colors of Yemayá.