Red Angel (7 page)

“Ah, señorita. And who would I go to? Someone that I know for certain is not a member of Cabrera’s secret police? And who would that be?”

“So who’s working with you?” Devlin asked.

“I am hoping you and Señorita Mendez will be working with me,” Martínez said.

“Just us? That’s it?” Devlin’s tone was pure incredulity.

“The gentleman we will see this morning may also help.”

“Who is he?”

“He is a well-known Cuban mystery writer, who, before he retired, also worked as a propagandist with our political police.”

“That’s it?” Devlin snapped. “One Cuban cop, a retired mystery writer, and a pair of tourists? And against us we’ve got the Cuban secret police?”

“You are much more than a tourist, my friend.”

Devlin shook his head emphatically. “No, I am not, my friend. Here, I am definitely just a tourist.”

“I am also hoping that Plante Firme will assist us,” Martínez said.

“The witch doctor?” Devlin stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Please, señor. The term ‘witch doctor’ would be an offense to him. He is called a
palero
, a priest of the Palo Monte sect, a follower of the Regla Mayombe.”

“Great,” Devlin snapped. “One Cuban cop, one retired writer, two tourists, and a goddamn
palero.
”

“A powerful mix, my friend. If used well, a very powerful mix.”

Devlin leaned forward, eyes hard on Martínez’s mournful face. “Well, not quite powerful enough for me, Major.” He held up a hand, stopping the words Martínez seemed about to speak. “I’ll help you,” he said. “Because I damned well want to know what happened to this woman’s body. But there’s a condition.”

“A condition?” Martínez blinked several times.

“I bring one of
my
people from New York to help us.”

“Who, Paul?” It was Adrianna.

“Ollie Pitts.”

“God, Paul. No. Not Ollie.”

“Who is this Ollie?” Martínez asked. He pronounced the name Oily.

“One of my detectives. The best damned street detective I have.”

Martínez turned to Adrianna. “You do not seem to like this man,” he said. “Why is that?”

“No one likes him.” Adrianna looked sharply at Devlin.

“I like him,” Devlin said. “I especially like him watching my back.”

“No one likes him except Paul,” Adrianna said.

“And why is that?”

“It’s simple.” Adrianna threw another sharp look at Devlin. “Ollie Pitts is a beast.”

Martínez sat back in his chair and nodded. “Ah, a beast,” he said. “Yes, that is definitely what we will need. A beast.”

Robert Cipriani sat in his brightly lit cell, the day’s edition of
Granma
propped on his lap. He glared at the newsprint, his face twisted in a sneer. He despised everything about Cuba’s daily newspaper. Even the fact that it was named after the battered ship that Fidel and eighty-six followers had used for their 1956 invasion at Alegría de Pio. It was so like these goddamned Cubans, he thought. Deifying some leaky tub, just because the fucking “Comandante” and his band of bearded greasers had once puked in its head. Naming their one fucking national newspaper after it. His jaw tightened. Christ, they had even put up a monument to the boat right behind Batista’s old Presidential Palace.

Cipriani tossed the newspaper aside. It was useless. The only financial news it carried was so laden with propaganda, all the facts became skewed. Fidel’s view of world finance. Like tits on a bull.

He pulled himself out of his leather easy chair, walked the three steps it took to cross his cell, and punched the button that would boot up the mainframe of his IBM computer. At least they had given him this—a way to communicate with the still-sane world. He moved to the cell’s one barred window while Windows 98 performed its magic. Outside, across the wide, green parade ground of the State Security compound, he could see an occasional car move past the barbed-wire-topped gate that opened onto Canuco Street. Most Cubans avoided the street. The high, wire-topped wall with its watchtowers and heavily armed guards, the mounted video cameras that tracked each car and pedestrian, made the entire two-block area inhospitable.

He snorted over the final word, then turned to take in his own “hospitable” surroundings. A ten-by-eight-foot cell, closed off by a solid iron door. A single bed, not even adequate for the weekly whore they provided. A leather reading chair. And the goddamned computer they had confiscated from his own house.

He closed his eyes and raised his hands to his face. He could feel the changes that had taken place in the five years he had been locked away. His hair was thinner now, the former widow’s peak now reaching back to the middle of his head. His face felt skeletal under his fingers, the cheeks sunken, the lines deeper across his forehead and around his eyes. He had kept his mustache, still too vain about the harelip it hid to cut it away. Christ, he was only fifty-five, but he looked ten years older, all of it coming since they had stuffed him in this cell. The bastards were killing him.

Cipriani’s eyes snapped open with the sound of the key in the lock. He watched as the door swung away and
that prick
Cabrera stepped into the cell.

“Hola, my friend. Have you come to free me at last.” He had forced a wide smile that Cabrera did not return.

“We have a problem.” Cabrera spoke to him in English, as he always did to protect their conversations from any eavesdropping guards. The colonel had taken care to make certain all the guards on the cellblock were not fluent in the language. It had only added to Cipriani’s miseries.

“We?” he said. “Why is it that
we
have problems, while only
you
enjoy the occasional success?”

“Spare me your philosophical observations.” Cabrera perched on the very edge of Cipriani’s bed, worried, as always, about damaging the knife-edge crease in his trousers. He was dressed in a business suit—his normal attire. Like all officers of State Security, he wore his uniform only for ceremonial occasions, or when he wanted to intimidate someone.

Cipriani returned to his leather armchair and became as attentive as possible. There was no point in irritating the man. The first two years of his incarceration had been spent in serious prisons. First, here at the State Security detention facility, the Villa Marista, but in a regular cellblock where he lived with four other men in a cell half the size of the one he now occupied. Next he went to a general prison, at Combinado del Este. There it was eight men to a cell, sleeping in tiered bunks one atop the other, the food so meager that doctors classified their level of undernourishment as moderate, severe, or critical, and it was not uncommon for prisoners to kill each other over food brought in by relatives. No, he thought, there was no point in irritating the colonel. He had saved him, brought him back to the Villa Marista, and put him in this well-appointed hellhole. And the price of redemption for his “financial crimes” was at least interesting.

It was a strange turn of fate. Robert Cipriani was a fugitive from the United States. There, he had done what other financiers do daily. He had taken money from fools. He, however, had been caught, and had fled—twenty million dollars in hand—to one of the world’s few havens from extradition. Here, the Cubans had accepted him, and his money, allowing him to live well for more than a decade. Then they had come in the night and dragged him away, convicted him of financial crimes against the government, which to this day were vague at best. All of it to one purpose. To put him where he was now, serving the interests of State Security.

But at least there was decent food, and the weekly teenage whore. There was his computer, which allowed him to work again, and over the past five years he had accumulated another five million. And that was the best game there was. Better even than anything the teenage whore could offer.

“Tell me your troubles,” Cipriani said. He studied the colonel’s dour expression. He was a tall man—six-foot-two,
a full six inches taller than Cipriani—and when dejected, his tall, hard, angular body curved like a great, bony question mark. He was hatless today, and it pleased Cipriani to see his balding head glistening above his dark beard. The man was only forty, at best, and he already had less hair than the prisoner he pissed on at will. He also had a big nose that ruined any chance of being handsome.
You
were handsome once, Cipriani told himself. But that was before. Before they turned you into a walking skeleton.

Cabrera told him about Devlin and Adrianna Mendez. “I did not know María Mendez had any relatives, other than her lunatic sister. I only learned of her after the old man told me what he wanted done.”

“Look, you agreed to what the old man wanted. That’s a fait accompli. And I still don’t see the problem.” Cipriani shrugged away concern. “This is Cuba. They are in a maze with only one exit, the airport.”

“I told you the problem. This woman, this niece of María’s, her lover is a detective.”

“But he’s a detective walking in the same maze.”

“But he has a guide.” Cabrera told him about Martínez. “I had no idea they would have this kind of help. If they begin to inquire too deeply …”

Cipriani shook his head. “You have the ability to stop all of them. I’m still missing the problem.”

Cabrera glared at him. “The problem is María Mendez, a hero of the revolution. Everyone above me is shitting their pants that the people will learn, not only that she has died, but that her body has been stolen. If they learn this, and then learn that her only surviving relative is raising questions about her death …” He lowered his eyes and ground his teeth. “It could become serious—serious enough to put our plan in jeopardy.”

Cipriani rubbed his face, feeling again its cadaverlike transformation.
We
, he thought. It’s always
we
when things
don’t work out. “I still don’t know why you chose the Red Angel.” He waved a hand in the air. “Oh, I know we needed her dead anyway, that it was necessary to keep her from putting the screws to our overall plan. But then to give that crazy old man what
he
thought he needed? Just so he’d finally give his support?” He shook his head. “That, my friend was a mistake. You should have thought about the effect, the disgrace it might bring on Fidel and his cronies. Christ, we’d already gotten Fidel to accept what we wanted.” He shook his head. “If you recall. I told you this Palo Monte-Red Angel nonsense was dangerous. There were other ways to keep the old man happy. Christ, we could have found
any
doctor. The old man never would have known the difference.”

Cabrera jumped up from the bed, furious. “He wanted
her.
”

Cipriani drew a breath, buying time. He kept his voice soft, free of accusation. “Yes, he did. And now, from what you tell me, there are people who want
him
dead.”

Cabrera spun away and stared at the cell door. “That is not the reason. They wanted him dead before this happened. Because he at first opposed the plan.”

“Yes, but only because they thought he wanted a bigger share. But that was a matter that could be negotiated. Resolved.” Cipriani raised his hands. “Since he’s coming here, maybe it already has been resolved.” He shook his head. “But now, because of the Red Angel, there may be no share for anyone. This, they will not forgive. And they will blame him. Perhaps even you.”

Cabrera spun back, eyes glaring. “Is that all you have to offer? I could get more from some crazy
palero
, rolling coconut shells on the floor to divine my future.”

“What do you want me to tell you? Finding the body now is impossible, unless you want to produce a corpse with its head and hands and feet missing.”

“That may be my only choice.”

“Then you will have to have arrests. Arrests that could lead back to you.”

“Not if the people responsible are dead.”

Cipriani shrugged. “That’s always a solution.” He tapped a finger against his lips. “And for more than just your fellow conspirators.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cipriani stroked his chin, as if ready to impart a unique wisdom. “Tell me something first. Does Mickey D know about any of this?”

“He knows about the ritual that will be performed,” Cabrera said.

“But not about these problems?”

Cabrera shook his head. “No, he knows nothing. He is due to arrive here in a few days. I am hoping to have it resolved by then.”

Cipriani nodded. “I think that’s wise. In fact, I think it’s imperative that it
is
resolved by then. Unless you want to see this whole deal blow up in your face.”

Cabrera stared at him. “And what do you suggest?”

“I think you need another accident. I’m talking about María Mendez’s niece.
And
her detective lover.
And
Martínez.” He gave Cabrera a regretful smile. “There are billions of dollars at stake, my friend. You’ve already gotten rid of two people who threatened our little deal—that Pineiro guy, and the Red Angel. So, do what you did the other times our plan was threatened. Arrange another automobile accident.”

Cabrera’s jawline hardened. “I have considered this, and already I have people in place.” He let out a long breath. “But, of course, you are right. There is no choice now. It is something that must be done quickly.”

Before they left the hotel, Devlin got a list of available flights from Cubana Airlines, then placed a call to New
York. Ollie Pitts mumbled something about grave-robbing communists when Devlin explained the problem. He grunted when Devlin told him what he wanted. Then he cackled when Devlin said he would personally cover the cost of the flight, the hotel, and all the detective’s meals and expenses. When Pitts started to negotiate beer money as an expense, Devlin gave him two choices. He could arrive in Havana later that night via a connecting flight from the Bahamas, or he could spend the rest of his career wondering what “new shit assignment” HIS BOSS would have for him each and every day.

That done, Devlin changed Martínez’s plan. Putting together their collection of misfits could wait, he said. The first stop he wanted to make was the funeral home that had managed to lose María Mendez’s body.