Cuba Straits

Anatol Kostikov of the KGB: low marks for creativity. Zero for professionalism. In all Ford’s years, he had never witnessed such pointless, joyous cruelty. A similar flaw defined the difference between arson and pyromania. It was weakness. Weakness could be targeted.

Ford stopped beneath the towering chimney, then moved a safe distance away. Hurricanes and the years had twisted it like the spine of a cripple. The damn thing could come toppling down beneath the weight of the stars, or one croaking frog, or a breeze that pushed sulfuric musk across this plain where the diseased had died and were dumped into holes. The air, the earth, and the weeds were contagious with dread. Even Ford, a scientist, could understand why locals avoided this place.

He used the flashlight. Painted the chimney, which was the size of a furnace cupola—a crematorium, possibly. The building’s foundation was primitive cement . . . a couple of collapsed rooms . . . a wedge of steps to a root cellar or basement, where rats scampered. Nearby, more rats atop the remains of a well or cistern . . . then, at a distance, a trench lined with bricks, bricks piled everywhere. Several likely locations. “Okay,” Ford said. “Show me the bodies.”

Vernum didn’t move. “Someone was here,” he said. He sounded spooked.

“So what?”

“Unlock my cuffs. Man, you saw what they left behind but you just didn’t understand. I need the flashlight.”

Not a chance. Ford figured it out for himself. Near the steps was a sunflower bound with red ribbon. A little pile of cowrie shells with painted eyes . . . a cigar and an empty rum bottle. At the base of the well, another sunflower, where rats quarreled among the seeds.

“No one comes here,” Vernum said. He was scared—but probably more worried about revealing evidence that he was a child killer. Or maybe not, because then he said, “They’re in there . . . inside the chimney.”

“All five bodies?”

“Isn’t that what I just said? There’s an opening at the bottom. Hurry up. I want to get out of here.”

Ford shined the light. “I don’t see it.” Gave the man another push, and kept prodding him, until the chimney dwarfed them both, and there it was, hidden by weeds: a brick conduit into the chimney. The outline suggested the shape of an oversized oven. He’d been right. A crematorium.

Ford kicked weeds away. The chimney’s base was the diameter of a large room, but the opening was less than the width of his shoulders. “Sit on the ground with your back to me,” he told Vernum. He emptied his pockets to streamline himself but kept the flashlight and his phone, which he switched to video mode.

“You’re crazy, man. Crawl in there on your knees?” Vernum looked up, the chimney six stories high, rows of bricks missing, whole sections segmented like blocks hanging by a thread. “I don’t want to be sitting on my ass if that falls. You bang into it wrong, kick something loose. Jefe . . . why you need pictures? Get them later, man, after we do the Russian.”

Ford stared at the Santero until he dropped to the ground, facing the river. “Don’t do anything stupider than you already have,” he said, then got down and probed with the flashlight. What he saw caused him to thread his head and one arm into the space. Then attempted to wiggle his shoulders through. The space within stunk of fur and darkness.

High above, a brick broke free, fell for a silent second, and hammered into the ground. Another brick fell.

Vernum’s voice: “Shit, man . . . didn’t I tell you?”

Ford held his breath even though he knew Vernum was on his feet, ru

He didn’t speak. Even when he remembered the Russian’s phone out there with his wallet, but not the keys to the car. Sound was energy. His voice would reverberate up the chimney like smoke or an eroding wind. Vernum, his hands cuffed behind him, would be easy enough to catch.

When he did, Ford’s first question would be What did you do with their heads?

On the road that tu

Tomlinson, who had spent most of the trip looking over his shoulder, said, “Jesus Christ, why not flag down a cop and tell him we’re late for our firing squad?” He looked back where the chickens were trying to sleep in their wire cages. “Where the hell did that Mercedes go? It’s been twenty minutes . . . no, more like thirty. The commie bastard’s toying with us, that’s what I think.”

Very confusing, the strange things this gringo hippie said, but the shortstop reminded himself that the hippie was also a left-handed pitcher. “It’s dangerous to speak with policemen, I think. But if you’re sure, you should take off your hat. Rastafarians are illegal in Havana. Well, three years ago, that was true, but”—he laid on the horn again before exiting the tu

“It’s a beanie, not a hat,” Tomlinson said. “More like a hair cozy—a stocking cap with style.” A moment later, he added, “Illegal? You’re shitting me. What do you mean illegal?”

Figuerito replied, “I asked the chicken woman the same thing.” He shrugged. “You think I’m going to argue with a body like hers? Even at her age, a woman who danced at the Copa deserves respect as an expert.”

“Olena?” Tomlinson asked. He had no idea what the little Cuban was getting at.

“Of course. How many dancers we know from the Copacabana? I liked her legs. Did you happen to see her chichis?”

Impossible, Tomlinson decided, to make sense of a shortstop on a freedom binge. So he let it go, saying, “Can’t argue, I guess. Olena wouldn’t do me wrong.”

They drove up the hill onto the Malecón, four lanes that curved along the sea, crumbling buildings to their left—Old Havana—some adorned with scaffolding that for years had signaled the hope of restoration but was used only for hanging laundry. Traffic sparse, a few cabs and whining motor scooters; a restless farmer in an oxcart, who urged his horse Faster! Faster! in the slow lane.

“That’s a nice load of mangoes,” Figgy remarked.

Tomlinson didn’t notice. He was trying to orient himself. It had been several years since his last stay in Havana. Not that much had changed, but cities built by Conquistadors were always a directional challenge. Streets converged like spokes of a wheel, designed to capture the wind in hot, tropical regions, which was ingenious—air-conditioning via architecture—but also confusing as hell if you were in a car, not on a plodding horse.

“Are we near the Hotel Plaza? That’s where Doc would stay if he’s here.”

“Who?”

Tomlinson went through it again, making the co