Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

Russian, not even in the safest capital in the world, because Cuban anger is so deep. You crawl to the camp of the enemy and you warn Cubans we better do the same. That history has left us behind. No! Cuba is master of history. Cuba has more history to make and we do not need instruction from any former comrades. That's what I told your embassy."
    Arcos had worked himself into such a rage his face balled like a fist. His black sergeant Luna stood by, slouching, ominous and bored at the same time. Renko sat calmly wrapped in his coat. Rufo sprawled in his silvery running suit, his gaze aimed at a syringe clasped in his left hand. What amazed Ofelia was the lack of technicians. Where was the normal bustle of video and light operators, the forensics experts and detectives? Although she didn't question the authority of the two men from the ministry, she made a point of loudly snapping on surgical gloves.
    "The captain speaks Russian, too," Renko told Ofelia.» It's a night of surprises."
    Arcos was in his forties, Ofelia thought, exactly the generation who had wasted their youth in learning Russian, and been bitter ever since. Not an insight she'd share with Renko.
    "He has a point, though," Renko told her.» My embassy does not seem inclined to help me."
    "This is the unbelievable statement he gives us," Arcos said.» That Rufo Pinero, a man with no criminal record, an honored Cuban sportsman, a driver and interpreter for Renko's own embassy, approached him with the intent to sell cigars, was told 'no' and, anyway, returned to this apartment here and, without warning or provocation, attacked Renko with two weapons, a knife and a syringe, and in a fight accidentally drove a needle through his own head."
    "Are there any witnesses?" asked Ofelia.
    "Not yet," Arcos said, as if he might dig one up still.
    Ofelia had not worked with the captain before but she recognized the type, better at vigilance than competence and promoted well beyond his natural abilities. She couldn't expect any help from Luna; the sergeant seemed to regard everyone, including Arcos, with the same dark disregard.
    She unzipped Rufo's running suit and found that under it he was still completely dressed in the shirt and pants he had been wearing at the ILM. In warm weather that made very little sense. In his shirt pocket was a plastic case and passport-sized ID that read: "Rufo Perez Pinero; Fecha de nacimiento:
2/6/56
; Profesion: traductor; Casado: no; Numero de habitation: 155 Esperanza, La Habana; Status Militar: reserva; Hemotipo: B." Glued in a corner was a photo of a younger, leaner Rufo. In the same case was a ration card with columns for months and rows for rice, meat, beans. She emptied Rufo's pockets of dollars, pesos, house and car keys, handling everything by the edge. She thought she remembered his having a cigarette lighter, too. Cubans noticed that. For some reason she also had the conviction that the Russian had already gone through Rufo's pockets, that she wasn't going to find anything that he hadn't already.
    "Has the investigation started now?" Renko asked.
    "There will be an investigation," Arcos promised, "but of what is the question. Everything you do is suspicious: your attitude to Cuban authority, reluctance to identify the body of a Russian colleague, now this attack on Rufo Pinero."
    "My attack on Rufo?"
    "Rufo's the one who is dead," Arcos insisted.
    "The captain thinks I came from Moscow to attack Rufo?" Renko asked Ofelia.» First Pribluda and now me. Murder and assault. If you don't investigate that, what exactly do you people investigate?"
    Ofelia was unhappy because basic protocol was to work a crime scene as soon as possible and Luna had done nothing. She stepped back for a wider view and saw a knife lodged chest-high in the side panel of a wooden cabinet yet not a book in it disturbed, not even Fidel y Arte, which was a heavy presentation book with valuable plates. Neither a chair broken nor a bruise on Renko, as if the