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

confrontation had been over in an instant.
    "Your friend is a spy and you are a murderer," Luna laid into Renko.» This is intolerable!"
    Without dislodging it, Ofelia examined the knife in the cabinet. The weapon was of Brazilian manufacture, spring-loaded with an ivory handle and silver butt, the blade double-edged and sharp as a razor. Driven into the wood was a black thread.
    Arcos said, " I. told the embassy, Renko is like any other visitor, he enjoys no diplomatic protection. This apartment is like any Cuban apartment, it does not enjoy extraterritorial protection. This is a Cuban matter, completely up to us."
    "Good," said Renko.» It was a Cuban that tried to kill me."
    "Don't be difficult. Since the facts of this matter are so cloudy and you are alive and no harm done, you should consider yourself lucky if you are allowed to leave Havana ."
    "You mean leave Havana alive. Well, I missed tonight's flight."
    "There will be another in a week. In the meantime, we will continue to investigate."
    The Russian asked Ofelia, "Would you consider this an investigation?"
    She hesitated because she had found in the lapel of his black coat a narrow cut in the wrong place for a buttonhole. Her pause incensed Arcos.
    "This is my investigation, run as I see fit, considering many factors, such as whether you surprised Rufo, stabbed him with the needle and, when he was dead, placed it in his hand. It could still have your prints."
    "Do you think so?"
    "Rigor mortis has not set in. We'll look."
    Before Ofelia could stop him, the captain knelt and tried to bend Rufo's fingers off the syringe. Rufo held tight, the way dead men sometimes did. Luna shook his head and smiled.
    Renko told Ofelia, "Inform the captain it's a death spasm, not rigor mortis, but now he'll have to wait for the rigor to come and go. Depending on how much he wants to wrestle with Rufo, of course."
    Which only made Arcos pull harder.
    She took Renko back to Pribluda's flat on the Malecon for lack of a better place for him to stay. He didn't have the money for a hotel, the embassy's apartment was now a crime scene, and until he officially identified Pribluda he would only be staying in the flat of an absent friend.
    For a minute she and Renko stood on the balcony to watch a solitary car sweep along the boulevard and waves lap against the breast of the seawall. Out on the water lamplights spilled from fishing boats and neumdticos.
    "You've been on the ocean before?" Ofelia asked.
    "The Bering Sea . It's not the same thing."
    "You don't have to be sorry for me," she said abruptly.» The captain knows what he's doing."
    Which sounded hollow even to her, but Renko relented, "You're right." He was wrapped in his black coat, like a shipwrecked man happy with the only article he'd rescued. She felt a conspiracy of sorts between the two of them because he hadn't mentioned to Arcos and Luna the earlier visit to Pribluda's flat.
    "The captain doesn't usually investigate homicides, does he?"
    "No."
    "I remember newsreels of Castro's first trip to Russia . He was a dashing revolutionary hunting bear in a beret and green fatigues while our Kremlin Politburo stum bled through the snow after him like a pack of fat, old, love-smitten tarts. It was a romance meant to last forever. It's hard to believe that Russians are now hunted in Havana ."
    "I think you are in a confused state. Your friend dies and now you are attacked. This could give you a very distorted view of Cuban life."
    "It could."
    "And be upsetting."
    "Certainly distracting."
    She didn't know what he could mean by that.
    "There were no other witnesses?"
    "No."
    "You answered the door and Rufo attacked you without warning."
    "That's right."
    "With two weapons?"
    "Yes."
    "That sounds implausible."
    "That's because you're a good detective. But do you know what I've found?"
    "What have you found?"
    "I have found from my own experience that—in the absence of other witnesses—a simple, resolutely main tained lie is wonderfully