“What are you going to do with Siaka?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I need your help; that’s why I made him leave that message on your machine…What do you think I should do?”
Gonzalo was unequivocal. “You’ve killed one man and kidnapped another. If you kill Siaka, they will have won, Luis. Without his testimony, all the evidence Laura gathered will be circumstantial. It will be our word against theirs, justice will never be served. You have to let him go. Give me the computer and turn yourself in.”
Luis stroked the back of one hand with the other, tracing the outline of his knuckles and veins. He saw that everything had gone past the point of no return. There was little chance of returning to London with beautiful Erika, getting married and starting over, living a happy, well-ordered life. One way or another, it would all go wrong, as it had with Laura. His years with Roberto were a lovely fiction. Lovely and unrepeatable.
He was destined never to feel anything again. Luis realized this as he was torturing Siaka. It had been different with Zinoviev—brutal, visceral, impulsive. The second time was more refined; he’d gotten a taste for it, the bluffing and the feints, the waiting game, terrifying his victim one second and showing compassion the next. Still, what had made him see his true nature was the lack of justification. Finally, his true self had been set free: He wasn’t doing it to avenge Roberto and Laura’s deaths, at least not after the first initial instinct, which was just a flimsy excuse. He was doing it for himself, and even if he didn’t actively enjoy inflicting pain on Siaka, he did not feel remorse either. Rather, he simply needed to impose justice and some sort of universal order, to find a place where things were in balance.
He shook his head. “If I do what you’re asking, one of my son’s killers will go free. He’ll bargain with the judge, be given a new identity, get off scot-free. And I’ll go to jail, because it will come out that I killed Zinoviev.”
“That’s possible,” Gonzalo admitted.
“And for what? Do you really think it will have been worth it? Do you think your sister’s wish will come true and the Matryoshka will be disbanded? That Alcázar and your father-in-law will pay for their scheming all these years? Or will they all go unpunished?”
“With the proof on Laura’s laptop and Siaka’s testimony, neither of them will go unpunished, I can guarantee it.”
“Even if they pay, won’t there be a thousand other Matryoshkas waiting in the wings? Wasn’t Laura fighting evil, writ large? And hoping, absurdly, to win? What she never understood is that you can’t defeat something that lives in every one of us. And the fact is that evil resides in the deepest part of human nature, don’t you think? She died for nothing, just like my son, and here you are asking me to throw myself at the altar of sacrifice, for nothing. Because nothing will ever change.”
What was it that his father used to say? That silent line in Gonzalo’s dream, the one he had to remember in order to save Laura, the line that always came to him too late?
“The first drop to fall starts breaking down the stone.”
Luis shot him a sideways look. “A bit trite, don’t you think? That might be the case for those who are patient, but you and I don’t have a lifetime to watch the edifice be worn down.”
“It was something my father used to say. Every man chooses the battles he’s going to fight and win.”
Luis cleared his throat, stood, and asked for the check.
“Yeah? And which battle did you choose?”
Gonzalo remained pensive. The recurring dream he’d had all his life—it was so vivid.
“The same one as my sister.”
“Well, then?”
“I can help you, Luis. You need a good lawyer. We can come up with plenty of mitigating circumstances, but you have to stop. Now. I’m here to accompany you to the police. If you don’t go voluntarily, I’ll report you and they’ll come after you.”
Luis told the waiter to keep the generous tip. He smiled imperturbably, as always—sure of himself, not a threat to anyone.
“A real shame to hear you say that, Gonzalo. See, I have a different way of looking at things. I hear what you’re saying, and though I understand your reasoning, it’s got nothing to do with mine. Plus, I think you’ve made a pretty serious miscalculation: You hardly know me, yet you come here and threaten me. That’s something I can’t tolerate. The truth is, there’s another reason why I let Siaka leave you that message.”
Most of the time, Siaka remained in a sort of semiconscious dream state, like a fetus floating in formaldehyde, unaware of the physical reality of his surroundings. The immense room could go from torture chamber to beautiful salon from which to contemplate the sea, lost in melancholy. When he awoke, Siaka saw that Luis had ripped off his clothes and then soaked his body. He was freezing and shivering, cold to the bone. He slid down the wall to the floor, head tilted back.
His nose must have been broken—holding his head like that made it easier to breathe. Siaka put a hand to his cheekbones, swollen large as tennis balls, and bit his lip to keep from crying out in pain. Feeling sorry for himself was a waste of time, not to mention energy, and he was going to need every bit of it he had to survive. It was clear, since the first blow, that there was no turning back. The way Siaka saw it, he had two choices: either he killed Luis, or that lunatic killed him. So he obsessed over the prospect of catching him with his guard down, working away at a plan with chisel and hammer. He dreamed up wild scenarios, discarded them, reworked the details. He would have only one opportunity.
In the meantime, Siaka had to tough it out, and that meant submission was not an option. He knew the way Luis thought and acted, and knew that the second he begged for his life it was all over. That was what Luis had done with the Russian: tortured him until finally Zinoviev begged for an end to the torment. And then he let him die, and felt magnanimous about it. Luis forgave him and then executed him. But Siaka had no intention of dying and therefore no intention of begging. All he had to do was force his mind to go blank, numb the pain. He couldn’t give in to Luis and his mind games, appealing to Siaka’s emotions by telling stories about holidays with Laura, recounting tales of Roberto, saying things to try to make Siaka cry and get him to pronounce the words Forgive me.
He had to blunt the pain, wear it like a shroud the way he’d done as a boy when he was kidnapped and trained by the militia, the way he’d done to endure being raped by Zinoviev and taking part in macabre spectacles for rich degenerate clients. It was the only way he’d make it, by not thinking. It was the only way out.
He heard a key turn in the lock and his body tensed, preparing for another session.
Luis appeared in the doorway, glancing around quickly. Then he focused on Siaka and smiled amiably.
“There’s someone here who wants to say hello.” He turned to the door and pushed in Gonzalo.
Gonzalo stepped cautiously into the room. His heart clenched on seeing the swollen mass that Siaka had become. He turned to Luis, disdainful.
“How could you do this to a person?”
Luis observed Siaka attentively, as though seeing him for the first time, then nodded.
“I don’t have a lot of time, Gonzalo. And I need to be sure of your loyalty.”
He walked over to Siaka, took out a gun, and aimed it at his head.
“This bastard betrayed your sister; she trusted him and he used her trust to kidnap my son and hand him over to his killer. And you’re worried about him. What kind of a brother are you?”
Gonzalo became distressed. “What are you going to do?”
Siaka stood slowly, his gaze steadily fixed on the barrel of the gun. Unfathomably, he looked into Luis’s face and challenged him.
“Listen to the lawyer. If you kill me, the Matryoshka wins, but I don’t think you care about that, despite your song and dance about loving Laura and your son. So if you’re going to kill me, d
o it, but don’t expect me to get down on my knees.”
Luis’s finger gripped the trigger, and he slowly cocked the hammer.
“Luis, don’t do it,” Gonzalo said.
“I won’t, unless you tell me to.”
“Are you insane? I’m not going to tell you to kill a man.”
The hammer clicked, making a disappointed sound. Empty chamber, no bullet. Luis slammed the butt of the gun into Siaka’s head and wheeled to face Gonzalo, enraged.
“Next time it won’t be empty. And I’ll give you the same choice. If you say no, I’ll ask him and aim at you. And I’ll go back and forth until one of you decides that the other one dies.”
Gonzalo stared in wonder at this complete stranger, an expression of utter horror on his face. “Why are you doing this?”
Luis gave a malevolent smile and shrugged.
“Your sister once told me the story of a woman and her daughter your father met when he was young—I’m sure you know who I’m talking about. Someone forced your father to make an impossible choice: the hero and his virtue or the man and his needs. The monster won. Your father made his choice—he chose to live. I’ve picked my battle, and I’m fighting it my way, Gonzalo. You think I didn’t see how you looked at me in the bar? You, the virtuous lawyer, Elías Gil’s perfect son, and me, the cruel sadist. Your cause is right; mine is wrong. Your view of the world makes me sick! And I’m going to prove that you’re no better than me or your father. In forty-eight hours or less, either you ask me to shoot Siaka or he’ll ask me to shoot you.”
Miranda loved dancing to Compay Segundo y Sus Muchachos. There was something about Cuban son that went straight to her core, made all her worries float away. As long as the lights in the club were down, she could dance away her cares and dream she was still a little girl, holding on to her mother as they twirled through the laundry lines at their house in Havana, faded cotton sheets hanging out to dry, the smell of soap and yucca filling the air.
This was the fragile state of euphoria Miranda was in as she walked out of the dance hall, sweaty and tired but still light on her feet, tingling. She leaned against the hood of a car to wriggle her toes. She was no longer twenty years old, and wearing tight high-heeled shoes was torture. Miranda rummaged in her sequined bag for a pack of cigarettes.
“You need a light?”
The voice caressed the hairs on the back of her neck and she wanted to burst into tears. Slowly, her eyes scanned the parking lot for help. She was alone, the lights of the dance hall like an unreachable beacon for a shipwrecked sailor. Miranda knew that even if she shouted, no one would get there in time.
Floren Atxaga knew it, too, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He didn’t want any meddlers ruining his plans. With his right hand he grabbed Miranda’s scalp and jerked her head back. With his left, he poured a bottle of acid onto her face.
The guy was tall and good-looking, like an ad agency creation. Alcázar remembered him well.
“Luis, what a coincidence.”
They’d just bumped into each other in the waiting area of Gonzalo’s office. For a second, Laura’s ex-husband didn’t recognize him, or that’s what he made out. But then he seemed to remember and held out his hand sincerely, with a big open smile.
“Hey there, Inspector.”
Alcázar felt a stab of envy at his tanned athletic body. Luis was one of those guys who seemed inhuman. Not an ounce of fat, flawless skin, every hair in place. It was enough to depress mere mortals. In a tiny display of self-pity, the ex-inspector decided not to tell him that in fact he’d retired. This, at least, made him feel slightly superior.
“What brings you here?”
Luis’s reply was so quick as to be suspicious: He was just passing through Barcelona and had decided to say hello to Gonzalo but, he was sad to say, Luisa had told him that he wasn’t in.
That was unfortunate, thought Alcázar. He said goodbye to Luis as he left and approached Luisa’s desk. There was no need to introduce himself; he and Gil’s assistant knew each other and neither one liked the other.
“What did he want?”
Luisa watched Luis walk down the hall.
“Who? Hot stuff? He was trying to get me into bed but I gave him the brush-off.”
“Very funny. What did he want?”
Luisa shot him a wry look, perhaps comparing Alcázar’s wrinkled skin, thickset body, and buffalolike wheeze to the almost feline perfection that had just slunk down the corridor leaving a trail of cologne in his wake.
“I’m afraid that’s attorney-client privilege.”
Alcázar slammed his hands onto Luisa’s desk as though slapping down a dead fish. “I don’t have time for nonsense, lady. Where’s your boss?”
“He’s not here.”
Alcázar raised a lip and his mustache lifted, displaying a dirty eyetooth.
“How long since he was last in?”
“A couple of days.”
“Has he called? Have you heard from him?”
Alcázar’s somber expression was beginning to alarm Luisa, so she stopped kidding around.
“No, and to be honest he doesn’t usually disappear without letting me know. Generally, he at least calls to tell me he won’t be in, or that he’s going to be late. Is something wrong?”
More brusquely than necessary, Alcázar strode past Luisa’s desk and into Gonzalo’s office, ignoring her protestations.
“I told you he’s not here.”
Indeed, the office was empty. But there was something in the air that made Alcázar’s mustache tingle, coarse whiskers trembling.
“He was in here,” he said, emphasizing the pronoun.
“Dream boy, you mean?”
Alcázar nodded. The scent of Luis’s cologne was everywhere.
“I was only away for a minute,” Luisa said in panic. “I went to the bathroom and when I came back he was sitting there, in Gonzalo’s chair. He apologized, really politely, said the door was open and that he was hoping to talk to Gonzalo…It gave me a funny feeling.”
“What kind of feeling?”
Luisa did a little wave with her hand, as though brushing away an absurd thought. “Nothing, really. It’s just that I got the impression he’d been snooping around. Gonzalo has a very particular way he keeps his files, and it seemed like they’d been moved.”
Alcázar made a mental note to possibly have a chat with Laura’s ex, but that wasn’t why he was there.
“Gonzalo’s not in his apartment, hasn’t been by the hospital to see his son. Lola says she hasn’t seen him in two days.”
Luisa nodded, twisted her lips pensively. “It’s none of my business, but he’s got a…friend. Tania.”
Alcázar clenched his jaw. He’d already checked: Gonzalo hadn’t been at Flight, Anna’s bookstore, or Tania’s studio.
“I think it’s important for you to know: Floren Atxaga attacked his ex-wife last night, threw acid in her face when she was leaving a club.” Luisa looked appalled, but Alcázar didn’t let her speak. “She’ll recover, although her face will be permanently scarred. Before he took off, Atxaga left a message for Gonzalo. He said he wasn’t going to disfigure him, he was going to finish what he’d started in the parking garage. It’s not likely, but he could come here. Just in case, I put an armed man in the lobby, and you need to be on the lookout…Stop shaking. Are you listening to me?”
“Do you think that son of a bitch has Gonzalo?”
Alcazar rejected the possibility, at least for the time being.
“He made that threat last night, and it sounds like Gonzalo’s been missing for a couple of days. Do you think you’d recognize Atxaga if he appeared? I can get a photo faxed over to you.”
Luisa nodded her head vehemently. “I’d recognize him in a second, I’ve seen that tape so many times.” Stunned at how quickly she’d spoken, Luisa suddenly
felt apprehensive and was sorry the words had slipped out of her mouth.
Alcázar gave her a penetrating stare. “Why have you seen the tape so many times?”
Luisa tried to avoid the trap his expression seemed to lay for her, but Alcázar wouldn’t let up. He amped up the pressure until she told him the truth.
“Gonzalo asked me to get him a copy on the sly. He was obsessed with his sister’s laptop and thought the key to what happened to it was on the tape.”
“There’s nothing on the tape. I’ve gone over it thoroughly myself.”
“Well, that may be, but I think Gonzalo found something…The last time he watched it was exactly two days ago, here, in his office.”
“Where does he keep it?”
“In the safe.”
“Do you have the combination?”
Luisa nodded. Gonzalo had no memory for numbers and could barely remember his own phone number or national identification number, so he’d used a date he couldn’t forget.
“23-06-1967.”
Alcázar shook his head in resignation: the date Elías Gil disappeared at the lake.
He typed the code into the digital keypad, swung open the door, and saw a few documents and contracts but no tape.
“It was here, I watched him put it in with my own eyes.”
“Who else has been in here since then?”
Luisa remained pensive. The scent of Luis’s cologne was beginning to fade, blending in with the smoky stench of the ex-inspector’s clothes.
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