THEY FOLLOWED HER, staying close to doorways and canopies, until they reached the end of the avenue. There the street opened out into a vast esplanade stretching towards the cathedral, where the ancient neighbourhood used to be before it was flattened by air raids during the war. A liquid moon splattered the pavement, and Alicia’s silhouette left the wake of a shadow in the air.
“Have you noticed?” asked Fermín as they watched her starting up Calle de la Paja.
“Noticed what?”
“Someone’s following us.”
Daniel turned to scan the silvery darkness tinting the streets.
“There. In the entrance to the toy shop. See?”
“I can’t see a thing.”
“The ember of a cigarette.”
“So . . . ?”
“It’s been following us since we left.”
“Why would anyone want to follow us?”
“Maybe he’s not following us. Maybe he’s following her.”
“This is making less sense by the minute, Fermín.”
“On the contrary. It’s becoming increasingly clear that something ominous is going on here . . .”
They followed Alicia’s trail along Calle Baños Nuevos, a narrow chasm through ancient buildings that seemed to join in a shadowy embrace over the winding route.
“I wonder where she’s going?” murmured Daniel.
The answer came soon. Alicia stopped by a front door on Calle Aviñón, opposite the Gran Café. They saw her enter the building. They walked past and took shelter a couple of doors farther down.
“And now what?”
Fermín’s answer was to point towards the facade of La Manual Alpargatera, a shop a few doors up the street. Daniel realized that his friend was right. They were being followed, or Alicia was. Hiding under the arches of the espadrille-shop entrance, barely visible, was a small figure wearing a cheap bowler hat.
“At least he seems to be on the small side,” Fermín reckoned.
“And what’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’ll prove a tactical advantage for you, once you get into fisticuffs with him.”
“Great. And why does it have to be me?”
“Because you’re the younger of us two, and when it comes to dishing out a thrashing, what matters is brute force. I provide the strategic vision.”
“I have no intention of dishing out a thrashing to anyone.”
“Don’t get all squeamish on me now, Daniel. As the Lord is my witness, you already proved your warrior’s zeal when you smashed that jerk Cascos Buendía’s face in at the Ritz. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
“It was not my best hour,” Daniel admitted.
“No need to make excuses. May I remind you that the swine was sending lovey-dovey letters to your wife to soften her up, following orders from that worm Valls. Yes, yes, the same worm whose slimy path you’ve been tracking in the Ateneo newspaper library since spring last year. Don’t think for a second I hadn’t noticed.”
Daniel hung his head in defeat. “Any other secret you don’t know about me?”
“Haven’t you wondered why the hell it is there’s been no sign of Valls for so long?”
“Every single day,” Daniel admitted.
“Or where Salgado’s booty ended up, the one he’d hidden in the baggage locker?”
Daniel nodded.
“Who says this fox isn’t another one of Valls’s minions? Possibly the worst one . . .”
Daniel closed his eyes. “You win, Fermín. What do we do?”
*
When she reached her apartment, Alicia noticed the strip of light under the door and recognized the smell of Vargas’s cigarettes in the air. She went in without saying a word, leaving her bag and coat on the dining-room table. Facing the window, with his back to the door, Vargas was smoking. He too was silent. She poured herself a glass of white wine and collapsed on the sofa. In her absence, Vargas had pulled out the box with the documents stolen from Brians’s warehouse from under the sofa. Isabella’s notebook lay on the table.
“Where have you been all day?” asked Alicia finally.
“Wandering around,” Vargas replied. “Trying to clear my head.”
“Any luck?”
He turned and looked at her warily. “Are you going to forgive me for telling Leandro everything?”
Alicia took a sip of wine and shrugged. “If you’re looking for a confessor, there’s a church just before you get to the Ramblas. I believe they do shifts until midnight.”
Vargas lowered his eyes. “If it’s any consolation, I got the impression that Leandro already knew most of what I told him. That he only needed confirmation.”
“That’s what always happens with Leandro,” said Alicia. “One never reveals anything to him, just clarifies some detail or other.”
Vargas sighed. “I had no choice. He could sense something. If I hadn’t told him what we’d found, I would have shown you up.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation, Vargas. What’s done is done.”
The silence grew thicker.
“What about Fernandito?” asked Alicia. “Hasn’t he come back?”
“I thought he’d be with you.”
“What else are you not telling me, Vargas?”
“Sanchís . . .”
“Out with it.”
“He’s dead. A cardiac arrest while they were taking him from police headquarters to the Hospital Clínico. That’s what the report says.”
“Motherfuckers . . .” murmured Alicia.
The policeman slumped down on the sofa next to her. They gazed at one another. She filled her glass of wine again and offered it to him. Vargas downed it in one gulp.
“When must you go back to Madrid?”
“I’ve been given five days’ leave,” said Vargas. “And a five-thousand-peseta voucher.”
“Congratulations. Perhaps you’d like to burn it all on a pilgrimage with me to see the Virgin of Montserrat. They say she works wonders for the troubled conscience.”
Vargas smiled sadly. “I’m going to miss you, Alicia. Even if you don’t believe it.”
“Of course I believe it. But don’t get your hopes up. I won’t miss you.”
Vargas smiled to himself. “What about you? Where have you been?”
“Visiting the Semperes.”
“How did that happen?”
“A birthday party. Long story.”
Vargas nodded, as if that made all the sense in the world.
Alicia pointed at Isabella’s notebook. “Have you been reading while you waited?”
Again Vargas nodded.
“Isabella Gispert died knowing that bastard Valls had poisoned her,” said Alicia.
The cop put his hands on his face and pushed his hair back. He looked as if every year of his life were weighing on his soul. “I’m tired,” he said at last. “I’m tired of all this shit.”
“Why don’t you go back home?” asked Alicia. “Make them happy. Take your pension and retire to your country house in Toledo to read Lope de Vega. Wasn’t that the plan?”
“And do like you? Live off literature?”
“Half the country lives off make-believe. I don’t think two more will make much of a difference.”
“How was it with the Semperes?”
“Good people.”
“I see. And you’re not used to it. Right?”
“No.”
“That used to happen to me, too. You’ll get over it. What are you planning to do with Isabella’s notebook? Are you going to give it to them?”
“I don’t know,” Alicia admitted. “What would you do?”
Vargas considered the question. “I would destroy it,” he declared. “The truth isn’t going to do anyone any good. And it might put them in danger.”
Alicia nodded. “Unless . . .”
“Think this through before saying it, Alicia.”
“I think I’ve already thought it through.”
“I thought we were going to let it pass, and just be happy.”
“You and I are never going to be happy, Vargas.”
“Put like that, woman, how can I refuse?”
“You don’t need to tag along. It’s my problem.”
Vargas smiled at her. “You’re my problem, Alicia. Or my salvation, even if the thought makes you laugh.”
“I’ve never saved anyone.”
“It’s never too late to begin.”
He stood up, collected her coat, and handed it to her. “What do you say? Shall we screw up our lives forever, or would you rather let the years go by, only to find out that you haven’t a shred of talent for writing, and for me to accept that Lope only works when performed on stage?”
Alicia slipped her coat on.
“Where would you like to begin?” asked Vargas.
“By the entrance to the labyrinth . . .”
*
Daniel shivered with cold in his doorway hideout. Fermín, despite being as thin as a rake and sporting a build mainly composed of cartilage, seemed happy as a clam, passing the time by humming a son montuno while he lightly swayed his hips in his tropical style.
“I can’t understand how you’re not cold, Fermín. I’m frozen shit-less.”
Fermín undid a couple of buttons to reveal the folded newspaper lining he wore under his clothes.
“Applied science,” he explained. “This and a few well-chosen memories of the little mulatto girl I had in Havana in my younger days.”
“Holy Mary . . .”
Daniel was considering walking over to the Gran Café to ask for a piping-hot coffee with a generous dash of brandy when they heard a creak from the door to Alicia’s building and saw her come out, accompanied by a solidly built guy with a military look about him.
“Look at the Tarzan our minx has found herself,” remarked Fermín.
“Stop calling her a minx. Her name is Alicia.”
“It’s time you got over your puberty. You’re a family man and a father now. Let’s go.”
“And what do we do about the other one?”
“The spy? Don’t worry. I’m formulating a devastating strategy as we speak.”
Alicia and the big fellow, who clearly belonged to the forces of law and order, turned into Calle Fernando towards the Ramblas. Following Fermín’s plan, they walked casually past the spy, who had buried himself in the shadows of the street corner without acknowledging their presence. At that time of night the street was more lively than usual, thanks to a contingent of sailors on the hunt for a cultural exchange and the odd rake from the better part of town, come down to the city’s bowels to satisfy his illicit bedroom urges. Fermín and Daniel used each gaggle of pedestrians as a curtain until they reached the arches leading to Plaza Real.
“Look, Daniel, this is where we met. Remember? The years go by, but it still smells of piss. It’s the eternal Barcelona that never fades away . . .”
“Don’t get all mushy, now.”
Alicia and the policeman were crossing the square towards the exit that led to the Ramblas.
“They’re going to catch a taxi,” Fermín deduced. “The show’s beginning.”
They turned and caught sight of the spy peeping through the arches.
“Can you elaborate?” asked Daniel.
“Go up to him and kick him in the gonads as hard as you can. He’s just a weakling, and I’m sure he’ll oblige.”
“Do you have an alternative plan?”
Fermín sighed, exasperated. He then noticed a local policeman calmly patrolling the square, staring in amazement at the generous cleavage of a couple of tarts posted outside the main door of the Hostal Ambos Mundos.
“Make sure you don’t lose sight of your darling angel and the big guy,” ordered Fermín.
“What about you? What are you going to do?”
“Look and learn from the master.”
Fermín shot off in the direction of the policeman, whom he saluted, military style, and with great ceremony. “Chief,” he said. “I find it my painful duty to report a crime against decorum and decency.”
“And what crime might that be?”
“Can Your Excellency make out the tadpole over there, hiding lustfully under that cheap and smelly coat and pretending to pass for a model citizen?”
“You mean that kid?”
“That’s no kid, boss. It is with a heavy heart that I certify, so help me God, that beneath that stinky coat he’s as naked as a newborn baby. What’s more, he’s been disgracefully swinging his dick at some ladies, and spewing language I wouldn’t dare repeat to a crew of sailors.”
The policeman grabbed his billy club energetically. “Are you sure?”
“As God is my witness. There he goes, a pig through and through, in search of new opportunities to strike again.”
“Well, then, he’s in for a rude awakening.” The policeman pulled out his whistle and pointed at the suspect with his club. “Hey, you there! Stop!”
Realizing the fix he’d been put into, the spy ran off, the policeman trailing behind him. Fermín, satisfied with his distracting ploy, hurried over to join Daniel, who was waiting by the taxi rank.
“Where are they?”
“They just got into a cab. There they go.”
Fermín pushed Daniel into the second taxi. The driver, a master juggler of the toothpick in the mouth, looked at them through his rearview mirror. “I’m not going to Pueblo Nuevo,” he warned.
“That’s your loss. See the taxi over there?”
“Cipriano’s cab?”
“That’s the one. Follow it and don’t lose him. It’s a matter of life and death, and a good tip.”
The taxi driver set the meter running and smiled acidly. “I thought these things only happened in American movies.”
“Your prayers have been answered. Step on it, and eyes on the prize.”