“WHERE NOW?” ROSS SAID.
They had passed the gates of the castle and were moving swiftly down the road, toward the city of Granada, brightly lit, stretching across the plain below. The night was cool.
“Anywhere you say.”
“A motel?”
“I don’t think we dare,” she said.
“We have to stay nearby,” Ross said.
“Why?”
“Tell you later.” He bent over and turned on the map light beneath the dashboard. He checked his hand quickly, examining the wound.
“How is it?” Angela said.
“Not good.”
“There’s a doctor I know,” she said, “in town.”
“Can we trust him?”
“Probably. He works for the British consulate.”
Ross flexed his fingers, which had already begun to swell.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s go see him.”
They drove into town, and Angela parked before a modest house in the west end. When the doctor answered the door in his pajamas, he was in a bad mood, but he agreed to treat Ross.
“Nasty,” the doctor said, holding the hand in the light in his office. “Very nasty. Wolf?”
“Just a dog,” Ross said. “Damnedest thing, we were just walking down the street back to our car, and a lady was walking her dog, and all of a sudden—”
“What kind of dog?” the doctor said, swabbing with alcohol. Ross winced. “Sorry,” he said.
“A cocker spaniel,” Ross said. “It looked like.”
“Nasty bites, for a cocker,” the doctor said. “I had a cocker once. He didn’t bite like this, I can tell you.” He continued swabbing.
“Well, it looked like a cocker.”
“You’ll want to report this to the health authorities, of course.”
Ross looked at Angela. “Of course.”
“As soon as I’m through, I’ll call—”
“It’s rather late,” Angela said. “Could we do it in the morning?”
“We shouldn’t really,” the doctor said.
“She was a sweet old lady,” Ross said. “She was awfully apologetic. A Mrs. McPherson.”
“McPherson? Then she was English?”
“Oh yes,” Ross said. “She’s calling our hotel in the morning. Going to have the dog checked first thing.”
“Ah,” the doctor said. “Well then.”
The doctor bandaged the hand carefully, then leaned back. “Have you had a tetanus shot?”
Ross looked puzzled.
“That’s the shot to prevent lockjaw,” the doctor explained. “Most travelers get a booster.”
Ross thought, half a cubic centimeter of antitoxin. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I had so many shots, it’s hard to keep track …”
“I’ll just give you another,” the doctor said. He filled a syringe. “What sort of work do you do, Mr. Ross?”
“I’m an insurance adjuster,” Ross said, and made a face as the needle jabbed in.
They left the doctor after promising to call back in the morning. Angela drove away, out of the town.
“We can go south,” she said, “to the coast. And catch a boat—”
“No,” Ross said. “We have to stay nearby.”
“But why?”
“Because,” Ross said, “it’s here.”
“The emerald?”
He nodded.
“But where? How do you know?”
Ross sighed. “I wasn’t sure, until just an hour ago. Then I made the connection. Hamid. He had been hired by the count to steal the body and bring it down here. But he didn’t deliver.”
“I know,” Angela said, “but I don’t see how that explains anything.”
“Hamid,” Ross said. “It’s an Arab name, not a Spanish name.”
“So?”
“Think,” Ross said. “Where would you hide the most valuable single jewel in the world if you were a Spanish Arab?”
She smiled. “An Arab would give it to his father, or his brother, or his uncle…”
“Right.”
She frowned. “I still don’t—”
“Hamid mentioned something to me about Washington Irving, and something about lions. I didn’t understand. But now I do. Hamid took that body, with the emerald, to the logical place for any Arab to take a valuable object.”
“The Alhambra?”
“Yes,” Ross said.
“I don’t believe it. The Alhambra is a park. It’s got cops, and guards, and everything. How could he have gotten a body in there and hidden it?”
“The same way we’re going to get it out,” Ross said. “Now drive into the mountains, and let’s get some sleep.”
She drove high into the hills east of the town, until they were up where it was cool. She pulled off the road into a grove of olive trees. Ross sat back in his seat, sighed, and closed his eyes. Angela rested her head on his shoulder. He fell asleep almost immediately.
He awoke in the morning with hot sun streaming down onto his face. Looking over, he saw Angela curled up behind the wheel, still asleep. Carefully, so as not to wake her, he got out, stretched, yawned, and walked through the olive grove. The air was slightly damp, fresh, and clear, smelling of animals, plants, and the desert. Off to the right, a small herd of sheep grazed on the grass beneath the olive trees.
He walked until he came to a short rise and could look down on the city of Granada. Though large, and in some districts modern, it still bore the Moorish influence, with the cramped streets, the brown tile roofs and whitewashed walls, and the open courtyards. It was very beautiful in the morning light.
He stood and looked for a long time.
It was said that the Arabs still mourned for Granada in their evening prayers. If so, they had mourned a long time; Granada fell to Ferdinand and Isabella in January, 1492, the same year the Genoese lunatic, Columbus, discovered America. Granada, until then, represented the last and strongest foothold of the Arabs in Europe. It was easy to see why—rising high above the town, on a sharp, steep series of hills, was the Alhambra, the complex of palaces and fortresses which had housed the Moorish kings, their nobles, and harems for hundreds of years. The name, literally, meant purple-red, which was the color of the buildings. On an adjoining hill was the Generalife, the summer residence of the Moorish court, composed of white, pristine buildings.
And everywhere were gardens, trees, fountains, running water … an exotic fortress of great beauty and craftsmanship. The hills were covered with trees and the palaces decked with flowers; the temperature there was ten to twenty degrees lower than the one-hundred-degree heat of the desert and the city of Granada on the plains. In Granada, the heat, the dust, and the burning light were brilliantly hot; in the Alhambra, everything was cool, verdant, and sensual.
Now, in the twentieth century, it was difficult to imagine the caliphs, the harems, the eunuchs, the sorcerers and alchemists and noblemen who had lived on that mountaintop. Below, in the city, were the spires of a Catholic cathedral and the modern buildings of a bank, a hotel, a garage. Yet the mountain retained a sense of mystery, of greenery and seclusion, of secret sensuality, even from afar.
“What are you thinking about?” He looked over; Angela was there.
“Dancing girls,” he said, “in the moonlight.”
“The Alhambra?”
He nodded.
“Are you sure about it?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“And you know how to get in?”
He smiled. “For the moment,” he said, “we simply pay the tourist entrance fee and walk in.”
“As simple as that?”
“Let’s hope so.” He smiled. “Come on. Let’s go: we’ve got to stop in town.”
“What for?”
“Sandwiches and a bottle of wine.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
As they drove down in the Porsche, Ross found himself frowning. Angela said, “Something the matter?”
“I keep thinking about Joaquim. Did you notice his hands?”
“They’re huge. Immense.”
“No, I meant the scars. He had some peculiar hook-shaped scars that were obviously very deep.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps he got them in a fight.”
“No,” Ross said. “I don’t think so. Something else.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. But I keep wondering whether those scars came from the same knife that was used on Carrini and his men and on Hamid.”
“You think Joaquim killed them?”
“No. He’s strong, and he’s powerful, but he could never kill Carrini and his three friends. Not all together, in a group. Not without help.”
“Maybe he had help.”
“Yes,” Ross said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”