Red Angel (6 page)

Cabrera’s car was parked half a block away, with a clear view of the hotel’s front entrance. He sat in the rear and watched Martínez leave. Two young men sat in front, both
dressed completely in white. One turned to look at him, as if anticipating an order.

“It will not be necessary to follow the major,” Cabrera said. “That is already being done. I want you to concentrate on our two visitors. I want the names of everyone they contact. And I want those names quickly.”

“Should we take action if—”

Cabrera waved a hand impatiently, cutting the man off. “First I want to know who is helping them. We do not want just one or two vipers. We want the entire nest. But do not underestimate the man. He is a trained detective, so you must assume he is a danger to us.”

“If he finds—”

Again, Cabrera waved away the man’s words. “If our visitors become dangerous, we will see to it that they disappear.”

“Permanently?”

“I know of no other way to disappear.” Cabrera raised a cautioning hand. “But only on my order.”

“And Martínez?”

“If he interferes …” He paused as if considering the wisdom of his words. It was a dangerous decision, but there really was no choice. The fact that he despised the scruffy little major made it easier. “If he interferes, we will see to it that he disappears as well.”

But why, Paul? What does he think we can do?”

Devlin considered the question. They were seated in the hotel dining room, where a breakfast buffet had been set out for guests, made up mostly of fruits and rolls and some type of processed ham that Adrianna had dubbed “Cuban mystery meat.”

All about them vacationers stumbled from buffet to table, all recovering from the delights of Cuban nightlife. They were a mix of Spaniards, Brits, Italians, Canadians, Mexicans, and Germans, part of the steady flow of foreigners that filled hotels each week. Many were men vacationing alone—here to sample the island’s newfound position on the world sex-tour circuit—many bringing last night’s “catch” to breakfast with them, slender and lithe women, mostly mulatto and black (Negroes in the Cuban terminology), all still dressed in the blatantly short skirts, revealing tops, or brightly colored body stockings they had worn the night before. Devlin studied the parade, then turned back to Adrianna.

“I have no idea what Martínez is thinking, but right now he may be our only shot at finding out what really happened.”

“But you don’t trust him.”

“I sure as hell don’t. And I trust Cabrera even less. Between the two of them, I feel like we’re being hung out to dry, and there’s nobody even watching our backs.” He shook his head. He had been in the country for less than twelve hours and already felt thoroughly mystified. He glanced around the dining room again, studying the parade. And this was certainly a first, he thought: Here less than twelve hours, and you’re having breakfast in a whorehouse.

“What did Martínez tell you about my aunt?”

Adrianna’s words drew him back. Her eyes seemed both eager and fearful, and Devlin wondered just how much of it she could handle. In the end, he told her all of it. There was nothing Adrianna liked less than being protected by “a big strong man.”

When he finished, she just sat and stared at him for several moments. She had handled the ugly news well, concentrating instead on the new things she was learning about her aunt’s life.

“My God. I had no idea. She was really a hero.” She stared at Devlin. “I mean,
really.
”

“Yes, she was,” Devlin said.

The waiter arrived at their table and he had to ask a second time if Adrianna wanted coffee.

She looked at him as though he had arrived from another planet, then shook her head as if freeing it of cobwebs.

“Sí, gracias,”
she said. The shake of her head and affirmative answer seemed to confuse the waiter even more. She looked back at Devlin and shook her head again.

“She never told me any of that, Paul. Not the attempt to kill Batista. Not her arrest. The torture. The rapes?” She closed her eyes momentarily. “Oh, God.” She stared into her
freshly poured coffee as if wondering how it got there. “She never even told me about the two years she spent in the mountains with Castro, or the work she did after the revolution was won. All she ever talked about was her work with children, and how she had been given a government position that involved making sure they were all immunized.”

“Didn’t your father ever tell you the rest of it? He must have known.”

Adrianna shook her head again. “He would never talk about her. He said she was a communist, and a disgrace to the family.” She clasped her hands, the fingers intertwined, and held them in front of her face. “My father was very young when he left Cuba. He was ten years younger than María, only about twelve when she was arrested. Two years later, when Castro took power, he and my grandfather fled to Miami, and then to New York. My grandfather had disowned my aunt for what she had done. He refused to have her name spoken in their home. When he died, eight years later, my father said his last words were a curse on her name.”

Tears formed in the corners of Adrianna’s eyes and she brushed them away. “When my grandfather died, my father was forced to leave college. That’s when he joined the New York Police Department.” She gave her head another small, sad shake. “My dad was very much like his own father—a very hard, very unforgiving man.” She folded her hands again and stared across the table at Devlin. “In all the time before he was killed, he honored his own father by never speaking my aunt’s name in our home.” She paused, started to pick up her coffee cup, then stopped and let out a long, tired sigh. “Even when she wrote to him when my mother died, he refused to answer the letter. He did write to his other sister, who had stayed behind with her husband. But he always said
she
was crazy.” She leaned in closer to the table, as if it would give emphasis to her words. “That’s really all
he ever said. That he had two sisters in Cuba. One of them crazy and the other a communist.”

Devlin had been a newly made detective, working in the same squad, when street punks in a Harlem tenement had gunned down Rudolfo “Rudy” Mendez. Adrianna’s father had been a homicide detective on his way to make a fairly routine arrest, when he and his partner had stumbled on a drug buy. Both detectives had been killed without ever having a chance to draw their weapons.

Devlin had known Adrianna years before. They had been lovers then, he a young cop, she a graduate student and aspiring painter. But the relationship ended abruptly. Adrianna had given Devlin the news simply and directly. She wanted a different life—different from everything she had known as a child. And that life did not include living with a cop.

Years later Devlin had met Mary, the woman who would become his wife, and he was finally able to push Adrianna from his mind. Then a drunk driver had killed Mary, leaving him with their small daughter. Adrianna had come to his wife’s funeral, and when Phillipa, still a toddler, had begun to fuss, she had taken the child outside. Devlin had found them sitting on the grass, searching for four-leaf clovers. Phillipa had already found two, and the smile on her face had softened all the grief and misery of the day.

A year later Devlin found himself at Rudy Mendez’s funeral. Unable to find a baby-sitter, he brought Phillipa with him, and when the services ended, Adrianna had sought the child out. It was as though her new status as an orphan had required her to hold a child in her arms—perhaps just to give the kind of comfort she would never again know.

Still, despite obvious mutual attraction, Devlin and Adrianna’s own relationship had not rekindled, and several years passed before the vagaries of fate—and the madness of a serial killer—brought them together again.

Devlin’s reverie was broken by the appearance of Arnaldo Martínez. The major was again dressed as he had been the night before—rumpled and threadbare, a perfect match to his world-weary face and mournful eyes.

Today Martínez had opted for a pale blue shirt, missing one button and hanging outside brown trousers that Ollie Pitts would have described as “shit-colored.” Devlin studied the untucked shirt. He wondered if it was used here as it would be by a New York cop—to conceal a weapon. There was no way to tell. If Martínez was carrying, it was probably an automatic, stuck into his trousers flat against his lower back. He gestured to a chair and offered Martínez coffee.

The major accepted with obvious gratitude, then smiled in turn at Adrianna and Devlin. “I am pleased you have both decided to assist me,” he began.

Devlin cut him off. “We haven’t decided anything. Not until you’ve explained some things.”

“Of course. That is understood.” Martínez held his sad smile.

“Number one.” He paused to emphasize that more than one explanation was needed, then leaned toward Martínez and softened his tone. “First, we need to know your involvement in this. Your official involvement. And we need to know Cabrera’s involvement.
And
I want some clarification on these confusing statements you keep making about him. Does he work for State Security, or not. For the secret police, or not. And what the hell is the difference between the two.”

A waiter brought coffee, and Martínez sat smiling and silent until he had left.

“Let me explain our police structure first. When you understand this, you will understand who Cabrera is. And who I am. Perhaps then you will better understand what I am doing, and why it must be so.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “First, you must understand that there are many police agencies in Cuba—nine that are known to the people,
and one more that officially does not exist. All come under the Ministry of Interior.”

He raised a finger, then clasped it with his other hand. “First is the national police, in which I serve. We have a simple duty. We are to protect our citizens against crime.” He released his finger and waved his hand in dismissal. “Next are several police agencies that do not concern us. The coast guard, fire protection, the immigration police, all of whose functions are explained by their names. Then there are political police. They deal in propaganda and in making sure the attitudes of the government personnel do not become anti-revolutionary or revisionist.” He shrugged. “The mind police.” He laughed at the term. “Most Cubans today listen to what they say, and then ignore them.”

He leaned even closer to the table. “Now we come to the more serious and more secret agencies. First is the intelligence service.” Another shrug. “Our spies. Next is the counterintelligence service. Our spy catchers. And finally is our Office of Internal Security, or State Security. These are the people who watch everything that goes on inside Cuba, and who are responsible for serious crimes against the government. And it is this organization in which Colonel Antonio Cabrera serves as number two in command.”

“And the unofficial police agency?” Devlin asked.

“This is the Departamento Técnico de Investigación, the DTI, more commonly known as our secret police.” Martínez smiled across the table. “The DTI have no offices, but work out of ordinary-looking houses in utmost secrecy. No one, except their own officers, knows who is a member. Those who are, are drawn from other police agencies and each of the various ministries, where they all continue to work, supposedly undetected. It is their job to watch the people who are watching everyone else. And they answer to no one except the highest people in the government. It is said that evidence presented against you by the DTI assures that you are doomed.”

“Sounds like the man in charge pretty much holds the fate of everyone in his hands,” Devlin said.

Martínez inclined his head. “If he has done what I believe he has, even he is vulnerable.”

“So, who is he?”

Martínez smiled. “It is a secret, of course. One that only the highest people in our government are supposed to know.”

“But you know.”

“Yes,” Martínez said. “I know. The head of our secret police is Colonel Antonio Cabrera.”

“And
how
do you know?” Especially as a freshly minted major with a shiny new badge, Devlin added to himself.

“I was told several years ago, by someone high in our government. Someone who trusted me, and who believed that certain things were happening in our government that could destroy the revolution.” He turned to Adrianna. “I was told by your aunt. María Mendez.”

Adrianna seemed at a loss for words. “She would know something like that?” she finally asked.

Martínez let out a long sigh. “There was very little that our Red Angel did not know.”

“And what was she afraid was happening?” Devlin asked.

Martínez gave him a regretful look. “That, my friend, I cannot tell you. Let us just say it is something that could jeopardize the security of my country. So, in this matter, I will have to ask you to trust me.”

Devlin sat back and stared at this small, sad, middle-aged man. Trust you, he thought. I don’t even know you. “And why should we trust you?” he asked.

Martínez made a helpless gesture with his hands. Devlin suspected that his helplessness was as phony as his rumpled clothing and mournful eyes. “I believe you should trust me, because in this matter we have a common interest. Finding the body of María Mendez.”

“Do you believe she died as a result of a car accident?” Devlin held his gaze, searching for a lie.

Martínez shook his head. “But I cannot prove this. Not yet.”

“Who would have wanted her dead?”

A sly look came to Martínez’s eyes. It seemed so out of character it was almost comical. “Perhaps the same person who is now charged with finding her corpse.”

“Cabrera,” Adrianna said.

“This is what the investigation by the national police has found?” Devlin asked.

“There has been no investigation by the national police,” Martínez said. “The matter was taken from us before any investigation could begin. It was given to State Security. The explanation we received is the same one Cabrera gave last night. That the theft of the Red Angel’s body is somehow an act against the government.”

“Have you gone to anyone with your suspicions?” Adrianna asked.