other hand, was wide awake.
Stepping onto the street in a foreign city in the middle of the night was diving into a dark pool without knowing how deep the water was. An arcade of columns ran the length of the block, and he didn't emerge into faint, gassy light until he reached the lamp at the corner. He continued along the boulevard because its long curve against the sea simplified the problem of orientation.
Although he listened for the stir of a car or a footfall, all he heard was his own echo and the surge of the ocean on the other side of empty traffic lanes. On the way he passed a mural of Castro painted up the side of a three-story building. The figure appeared to be a giant walking through his city, his head obscured in the dark above streetlamp level, wearing his characteristic mili tary fatigues, legs in mid-stride, right hand tossing a salute toward an unseen someone vowing "A Sus Ordenes, Comandante!" Well, Arkady thought, the Coman- dante and he made a strange pair of insomniacs, a furtive Russian and a sleepless giant on patrol.
Six blocks on was a dark hotel front and a taxi, the driver's head cradled on the steering wheel. Arkady shook the man and, when one eye squinted open, held up Rufo's address and a five-dollar bill.
Arkady sat up front as the taxi flew like a bat through the blackout, the driver yawning the entire way as if nothing short of a collision was worth waking up for, slowing only when mounds of urban rubble loomed in the headlights. Rufo's address was stenciled on the front of a low, windowless house on a narrow street. The cab fumbled away while, with Rufo's lighter, Arkady found the right key; when he had taken the house key off the dead man before calling the PNR Arkady noticed how like his own house key Rufo's was, a Russian design with a star stamped on the grip, no doubt a souvenir of socialist commerce. It did occur to him that if Detective Osorio had tried to enter with the keys he had left on Rufo she was frustrated and annoyed.
The door opened to a room narrow enough to make claustrophobia creep up his back. He walked the lighter flame between an unmade daybed and a low table with a ceramic ashtray-and-nude and a stack of TV and stereo, tape deck and VCR. A minibar looked ripped out of a hotel suite. A pedestal sink was lined with minoxidil, vitamins and aspirin. An armoire held, besides clothes, boxes of Nike and New Balance running shoes, cigar boxes, a library of videotapes and copies of Windows '95, a regular emporium. He opened a door to glimpse a filthy toilet, ducked back into the room and moved more slowly. Tacked to the walls were newspaper articles headlined gran exito de equipo cubano and, over a photo of a young world-beating Rufo raising his boxing gloves, pinero triunfa en ussr! Framed pictures showed groups of men in team jackets in Red Square , at Big Ben, the
Eiffel
Tower
. Arkady turned the photos and copied names he found on the back. Names and numbers were also scribbled on the wall by the bed.
Daysi 32-2007
Susy 30-4031
Vi. Aflt. 2300
Kid Choc. 5/1
Vi. HYC 2200 Angola
The only sense Arkady could make of the list was that he had been the visitor arriving on Aeroflot at 2300 hours, eleven at night, and that there seemed to be another visitor from Angola due at almost the same late hour. Anyway, the list was a lot of phone numbers for a room with no phone or phone jack. Arkady remem bered that Rufo had had a cell phone when they met at the airport, although when Arkady had searched Rufo's body later, the phone was gone.
On a hook hung an elegant, ivory-colored straw hat with "Made in Panama " and the initials RPP stamped on the sweatband. He searched the bureau, felt under the pillow and mattress, flipped through videos that all seemed to be boxing films or porn for more personal labels. The minibar held airline nuts and healthful bottles of Evian. There was no sign of any visit by Luna or Osorio, no fingerprint dust of burned palm fronds,
Most important,
Stepping onto the street in a foreign city in the middle of the night was diving into a dark pool without knowing how deep the water was. An arcade of columns ran the length of the block, and he didn't emerge into faint, gassy light until he reached the lamp at the corner. He continued along the boulevard because its long curve against the sea simplified the problem of orientation.
Although he listened for the stir of a car or a footfall, all he heard was his own echo and the surge of the ocean on the other side of empty traffic lanes. On the way he passed a mural of Castro painted up the side of a three-story building. The figure appeared to be a giant walking through his city, his head obscured in the dark above streetlamp level, wearing his characteristic mili tary fatigues, legs in mid-stride, right hand tossing a salute toward an unseen someone vowing "A Sus Ordenes, Comandante!" Well, Arkady thought, the Coman- dante and he made a strange pair of insomniacs, a furtive Russian and a sleepless giant on patrol.
Six blocks on was a dark hotel front and a taxi, the driver's head cradled on the steering wheel. Arkady shook the man and, when one eye squinted open, held up Rufo's address and a five-dollar bill.
Arkady sat up front as the taxi flew like a bat through the blackout, the driver yawning the entire way as if nothing short of a collision was worth waking up for, slowing only when mounds of urban rubble loomed in the headlights. Rufo's address was stenciled on the front of a low, windowless house on a narrow street. The cab fumbled away while, with Rufo's lighter, Arkady found the right key; when he had taken the house key off the dead man before calling the PNR Arkady noticed how like his own house key Rufo's was, a Russian design with a star stamped on the grip, no doubt a souvenir of socialist commerce. It did occur to him that if Detective Osorio had tried to enter with the keys he had left on Rufo she was frustrated and annoyed.
The door opened to a room narrow enough to make claustrophobia creep up his back. He walked the lighter flame between an unmade daybed and a low table with a ceramic ashtray-and-nude and a stack of TV and stereo, tape deck and VCR. A minibar looked ripped out of a hotel suite. A pedestal sink was lined with minoxidil, vitamins and aspirin. An armoire held, besides clothes, boxes of Nike and New Balance running shoes, cigar boxes, a library of videotapes and copies of Windows '95, a regular emporium. He opened a door to glimpse a filthy toilet, ducked back into the room and moved more slowly. Tacked to the walls were newspaper articles headlined gran exito de equipo cubano and, over a photo of a young world-beating Rufo raising his boxing gloves, pinero triunfa en ussr! Framed pictures showed groups of men in team jackets in Red Square , at Big Ben, the
Eiffel
Tower
. Arkady turned the photos and copied names he found on the back. Names and numbers were also scribbled on the wall by the bed.
Daysi 32-2007
Susy 30-4031
Vi. Aflt. 2300
Kid Choc. 5/1
Vi. HYC 2200 Angola
The only sense Arkady could make of the list was that he had been the visitor arriving on Aeroflot at 2300 hours, eleven at night, and that there seemed to be another visitor from Angola due at almost the same late hour. Anyway, the list was a lot of phone numbers for a room with no phone or phone jack. Arkady remem bered that Rufo had had a cell phone when they met at the airport, although when Arkady had searched Rufo's body later, the phone was gone.
On a hook hung an elegant, ivory-colored straw hat with "Made in Panama " and the initials RPP stamped on the sweatband. He searched the bureau, felt under the pillow and mattress, flipped through videos that all seemed to be boxing films or porn for more personal labels. The minibar held airline nuts and healthful bottles of Evian. There was no sign of any visit by Luna or Osorio, no fingerprint dust of burned palm fronds,
Most important,
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