Hungry Ghosts Read Online Free Page B

didn’t. “What about witnesses? Do we have a description?”
    â€œAbout the only thing they agree on is that it was a man,” said Espinoza. “After that, he was tall, he was short, he had a moustache, he was clean-shaven. A dozen witnesses, a dozen different opinions. No one paid attention to details. As soon as they heard the word bomb , they panicked. Even the security guards ran.”
    â€œOf course they did,” said Ramirez. “No one quarrels with a bomb.”
    Hernandez rewound the tape. “He pulled the fire alarm just before four. The emergency exit alarm went off three minutes later. I was standing in the street by then. I thought it was another fire alarm.”
    Espinoza turned to Ramirez. “I wonder why he didn’t take the elevator instead of the stairs. It would have been faster.”
    â€œElevators aren’t supposed to be used during an evacuation,” said Hernandez.
    Espinoza nodded. “It also means he didn’t have to push any buttons. No fingerprints. That’s probably why he left by the fifth floor exit. That door has a push bar. He could open it without using his hands.”
    â€œAre there any security cameras on that floor, Carlos?” asked Ramirez.
    â€œYes,” said Hernandez, “but he sprayed them with paint. The only one he seems to have missed is an outside surveillance camera. We can look at that tape as soon as you’re finished with this one.”
    â€œAre you sure there’s nothing missing?”
    Hernandez shook his head. “It will take days, maybe months, to inventory everything. We have almost fifty thousand pieces of art here. But so far, it doesn’t look like it. There are no obviously empty spaces on the walls. And none of the display cases are broken.”
    â€œWell, let’s watch this tape again to see if we missed anything.”
    Hernandez pushed Play.
    â€œHmmm,” said Ramirez, leaning forward as something caught his eye. “Can you rewind that a few frames?”
    Hernandez pushed another button. The policeman on the tape ran backwards down the steps and raced up them again. “Stop there, will you?” said Ramirez, pointing.
    Hernandez pressed Pause. Ramirez pointed to the holster hanging from the policeman’s belt. “Look, Fernando. No gun.”
    Espinoza leaned in to look as well. “You’re right, Inspector. He wasn’t armed. Definitely not a policeman.”
    â€œThat flashlight on the other side of his belt? I’m guessing that’s an aerosol can. People see what they expect to see. I’ll bet if you ask those witnesses, they’ll all say he had a gun.”
    Espinoza frowned. “I wonder where he got it.”
    It was virtually impossible to buy spray paint in Cuba. Or almost any paint for that matter. It was the reason that most buildings in Havana were a mishmash of peeling colours.
    â€œSmuggled in, no doubt,” Ramirez said. “Maybe someone going to the hip-hop festival.”
    Once the festival started each year, foreign graffiti artists sprayed slogans like “¡Cuba sí!” and pictures of Che Guevara throughout the city. The festival was underway in Alamar. The city was full of ra-peros enjoying government support: Fidel Castro had decided that rap music was the authentic voice of the revolution. “You say there’s another tape as well, Carlos?”
    â€œYes.” Hernandez took out the first tape. He replaced it and fast-forwarded the new one to the appropriate time frame.
    â€œ Coño ,” said Ramirez, impressed despite himself. “It explains how he got away so quickly. Can you replay that in slow motion?”
    Hernandez nodded. They watched the policeman push through the exit, then swing by one hand from the iron railing at the top of the landing. He pirouetted gracefully through the air, the camera catching only the blur of his back before he dropped out of sight.
    â€œYou