Arkady looked at the house. It was quite grand. Erasmo's hair and beard had gone a little wild in the breeze.

"You didn't want to live here?"

"I used to. I traded for rooms where a garage wouldn't be so obvious. Mongo lives here now."

"You're old friends?"

"Old friends. You know, he often misses work but up to now he always let me know."

They backed the chair up the steps and through a progression of dining room, sitting room, courtyard, second parlor all turned into separate apartments, the larger rooms divided by plywood and sheets into two apartments, so that the house was a pueblecito, as Erasmo called it, a little city. He knocked at a door in the rear. When there was no answer, he told Arkady to feel over the doorframe for a key.

"This was my bedroom whenever I slept here. Some things stay the same. I loved it. Here I was Captain Kidd."

The room afforded such a sweeping view of the water it had to be a theater of fantasy for a boy brought up on pirate tales of the Caribbean, Arkady thought. The accommodations were tight: cot, sea chest, desk and shelf of adventures like Don Quixote, Ivanhoe and Treasure Island, with the overlay of a CD player, a mirror trimmed in red velvet, coconuts and seashells on the windowsill, a plastic saint surrounded by paper flowers. A truck-sized inner tube suspended from the ceiling made a bumper and chandelier in one. Hung in fishnet bags around the walls were flippers, reels, candles, sticks, jars of hooks by size. Under the bed were a toolbox, cans of motor oil, drums and gourds. On a hook over the bed was what looked like a crossbow without the bow, a long wooden muzzle with a pistol grip and trigger and three round bands of heavy rubber hanging from the front end.

"Speargun," Erasmo said. He had Arkady take it down and showed him how to place the elongated back end against a hip to pull the bands with both hands to a cocked position. The spear itself was a steel bolt with, instead of barbs, two folding wings held down by a sliding collar behind the tip.» The Cuban fisherman meets his prey on all fronts."

Arkady was more interested in pictures of boxers on the wall.

"Kid Chocolate, Kid Gavilan, Teofilio Stevenson. Mongo's heroes," Erasmo said.

Under a newspaper photo of Fidel in a sparring pose with a tall, spindly fighter the caption read, "El Jefe con eljoven pugilista Ramon Bartelemy."

"You said his name is Mongo."

Erasmo shrugged as if it were self-evident.» Ramon, Mongo, same thing."

The picture of Cuban boxers in front of the Eiffel Tower was identical with the one Arkady had seen in Rufo's room, except now Arkady saw that next to Rufo was Ramon "Mongo" Bartelemy.

"If he's not here, where do you think he is?"

"I don't know. His tube is here. Arkady, do you mind if I ask about the PNR? There were two stationed across the street until the show at the santero's. I know they don't like Russians, but is there anything you want to tell me? After all, it's where I live too."

Arkady thought that was a reasonable request.» Sergeant Luna might have something to do with them."

"Luna. That Luna, the dark phase of the moon, unseen but there. Yes, a bad man to cross and a very bad man to embarrass before his friends. An exquisite choice of enemy. And now the PNRs are gone. You may want them in case he's coming back."

"That's occurred to me."

"You're so intent on finding Sergei?"

"Or what happened to him."

"You should start thinking about what's going to happen to you. You have no authority and you don't even pretend to speak the language, which is a relief. You can't investigate, all you can do is get involved."

"In what?"

"Cuba, which is very complicated. But simply, if you don't want your head in a bucket, stay away from Luna. I tell you that because I feel a little responsible for last night. I don't need any more regrets."

Arkady opened the shutter wider. Under a low sun, waves pressed against an offshore breeze and two neumaticos came into view riding the crown of a swell, each in turn sliding up the incoming brow, sinking from sight and reappearing on the next slope of water like riders on submerged horses.» So, if Mongo's tube is here, where is he?"

"He can still fish."

By the time Arkady and Erasmo returned outside the neumaticos were using short paddles to maneuver around the breakwater. Green aerated waves churned between the breakwater and rock. The fishermen had to come in on one rush as much as possible and the boulders struck Arkady as an excellent place to crack a head.

"When does Mongo go out?"

"You never know. Neumaticos go out day or night. They fish one stretch of the bay and then another. I think you have to call fishing from an inner tube a feat of improvisation. They can stay close to shore or go miles out, where the charter boats are hooking marlin. The boats don't like that, having a couple of poor Cubans mess with their tourists."

"The neumaticos try to catch marlin?"

"They could. They're like buoys, they just drag behind until a fish gets tired. A fish could tow them to Florida, who knows? But they've got to get the fish back, no? Would you like to land a marlin in an inner tube? No. Another problem is barracuda because they'll bite on anything. A barracuda on your lap isn't so much fun either. So, they take smaller fish. They do well, especially at night, but then you have to take flashlights and lamps, and at night the inner tubes attract sharks, that's the part I wouldn't like. That's why neumaticos go in pairs, for safety."

"Always in pairs?"

"Absolutely, in case one gets sick or loses his fins. Especially at night."

"Do they have radios?"

"No."

"And what exactly could a neumdtico do while his friend was being eaten by a shark?"

Erasmo let his eyebrows rise.» Well, we have a lot of religions in Cuba to choose from."

What appealed to Arkady was the marginal aspect of the fishermen, the way they folded into the motion of the sea, rose on the horizon and then slid from sight, their vanishing act. Lying back in their tubes, they removed their flippers and sat up, paddles lifted. A still space was followed by a trough sucking sand and then a set of three waves gathering strength. Both men chose the same climactic surge and stroked in deep pulls to ride it around the breakwater and up the rocks. The nearer spilled, clutching his tube with one hand and rocks with the other until he could scramble up on his belly. The second was an older man in a straw hat, and he timed his landing to let the wave's momentum smoothly lift him standing onto the coral, the brim of his hat trembling raggedly in the breeze, shirt and pants bleached, black shanks ending in feet gray with calluses. He found a tide pool in which to deposit his catch while he tucked his gear between the tube and the net that constituted his one-man craft. Despite the weight and dripping of the inner tube balanced on his head, he found a match to light the stub of a cigar in his mouth.

Arkady dug out the photograph of the Havana Yacht Club for Erasmo to show him. The fisherman put his finger on Mongo and pointed to the sky.

"Pe'cando con cotneta. Con cometa."

"It's what I thought." Erasmo pointed out to Arkady a dot in the sky.» You see that kite? The old man says maybe he saw Mongo fishing over there. Even from the air the industrious Cuban finds his fish."

Arkady thought of Pribluda's heart attack.» Could you ask him if he ever fishes in the rain?"

"He says,'Sure.'"

"When there's lightning?"

A solemn shake of the head.» No."

"When was the last time there was lightning on the bay?"

"He says,'A month.'"

They took the Jeep. Since the kite was too far over the water to keep track of from the street, Arkady stopped for another look. From a bathing stairway he saw about two hundred meters farther on a thin figure in a cap standing on steps and playing out a string rising with a delicate curve that disappeared into the air. Perhaps three hundred meters over the water a kite rode the offshore wind. The Jeep honked.