Well, yes, Zak thought. Downside, certainly. But was Father onto something big? A new Freemasons or Opus Dei? Or was he just a nut?
“They forget Isabella’s accomplishments: victory and unity.” Father continued. “So, it’s up to us to assure that Spain’s purity is sustainable.” Father was sitting at his desk and rolling a Mont Blanc pen in his fingers. “We are all of one blood.” He drew himself up full height. “We are Spaniards. God’s aristocrats.”
God’s aristocrats. Zak hid a smile. But just because Father was arrogant, didn’t mean he was crazy, A new movement meant money. Church, community and even Vatican grants and donations.
The following nights Zak and Father drafted the by-laws and budget for a watchdog group they jokingly called the resistance and officially dubbed the Knights of Constancia. Fidelity, the Archbishop said, loyalty to the majesty of Spain. The mission statement read, ‘to deter the destructive effects of diversity,’ “Because,” Father said, “only fools believe minorities fight for equality. They fight for supremacy.”
A week of revisions while Father paced the creaking oak floors, and Zak designed templates on his laptop. Once Zak threatened to quit when Father insisted all Board members be donors. Once Father refused to sign off on a transparency statement. Their differences resolved; they drafted legislation to be introduced in Parliament. None with a snowball in hell’s chance of passage. A property sur-tax levied on non-Catholics, language they lifted from the Emirates. A bill barring building permits for synagogues or mosques. Father argued for military expenditures for a cadre of special forces to be deployed against refugees. Overkill, Zak insisted.
The documents were indexed, tabbed, and packaged with a cover letter to Madrid and copies to Rome. “You’ve met our diocesan lawyer?” Father asked. “Roberto Defalla? No? Never mind. He’ll file for incorporation for the Knights of Constancia.”
. . . . .
Candy sneezed.
Zak closed the list of new recruits and said aloud, “God’s aristocrats. I love it.”
Candy raised her head. “Who’s the it?”
He opened a new document and pretended not to hear.
She rolled to one side, pummeled the pillow into shape and repositioned it behind her head. “Or is the ‘it’ Miss Texas’s money?”
“Candy, just for once can you think before opening your mouth.”
“American doctors are hip-deep in it,” she said.
“Go to sleep.”
The Strega rocked in the gentle rhythm of the waves, an occasional bump of the fenders against the pilings. Zak’s eyes focused on the screen, but his thoughts were on Paige’s silky loose hairs blowing against her pale cheeks, her slim hands and endless legs. How she leaned towards him across the table, leaned into him as they walked the esplanade on the way to his car. He glanced at Candy and imagined Paige stretched out atop the sheets and wondered what that would be like.
5
The day after the debacle at the police station, on my hands and knees, I wrung out the scrub-rag and draped it on the rim of the bucket. I sat back on my heels to catch my breath as Bach’s fugue on the radio was wound down. Counterpoint—me, Zak… I brought the thought up short. Who was I kidding? What relationship? There wasn’t one unless you counted the conversations about the cost of cement. We had no connection other than renovating the summer house. In fact, he might even be ripping me off on the cost of materials. Don’t be stupid. Tell the Guardia Civil about Zak and the Arab in the restaurant. So, what if they use Zak to find the Arab and indict them both? Case closed, I’ll get my passport and go home.
The ledge of the ceramic baseboards held a rim of sandy grit. I dipped the brush into my power mix of Don Limpio and ammonia. I’d relegated Mozart to the deck until the floor dried. A knock on the door, and he let out a hound-dog yip. Wiping my hands on my jeans, I got to my feet. The pounding escalated. The doorknob rattled. I thought of the Gestapo and the infamous knock on the door in the middle of the night. But this was Spain, not Germany. And Franco was dead. The sudden wave of my fear was the fear of the irrational, the anxiety of being in a place where I didn’t know the language and didn’t know the rules. Not the everyday rules of traffic and no smoking signs, but the unwritten rules of how the society really worked.
“Hold it, I’m coming.” I turned off Bach and crossed the living room before the pounder splintered the wood. Mozart’s barks became howls. He stood on his back legs with his front paws propped on the screen “Careful, watch those claws,” I shouted to him. At the front door, I slid back the security chain.
Two Guardia Civil officers stood in the hall, one tall, one short. “Seňora,” said the tallest. He wore his black beret at a slant, exposing a stubble of blond hair. A finial of a nose presided over a round chin, his front teeth prominent as a beaver’s. Polish? No, more likely, Galician from up north around Coruna. Light from behind his head shone through his pale blue eyes, as if unfiltered by gray matter.
His short, wiry partner had the bushy black eyebrows of the Basques. Both wore khaki tunics and boots. I looked for guns but saw only batons, miniature baseball bats strapped to their belts.
“Hola, Seňora,” the Basque said.
“Sorry, no Español. English? I forgot the correct Spanish ‘you’ so tried both. “Usted? Tu?”
He tipped his hand back and forth and smiled, large teeth with brown necks as if the enamel were rusting from the bottom up. “Don’t worry.” He tapped the brass badge on the front of his jacket. Leather? In this heat? Under the badge, a name-tag read Raul Perez Guadiano.
His partner, the Galician, Juan Varega Martinez, craned his neck to keep an eye on Mozart. “Bites?” Juan said.
“You mean my dog?” About to assure him that Mozart’s sole enemy combatants were fleas, I said as I often said to workmen, I was leery of, “He can be vicious. It’s the breed, Weimaraner’s are German. Although I took him to dog school.”
“Bueno,” Raul said as if relieved.
“He bit the trainer.” I lied.
A whiff of Don Limpio drifted from my damp tee-shirt. “Excuse the way I look; I wasn’t expecting anyone.” Raul nodded impatiently at the door I held half-closed. “Let’s see both your ID’s.”
Each photo showed the Guardia Civil logo and a reasonable likeness to the bearer, but the cards were so blurred by the yellowed plastic covers, I demanded the men remove them. The expiration dates, issuing dates, and emergency telephone numbers on the flip sides appeared bona fide. But the pictures were no clearer than when encased in plastic, fuzzy as if the camera or the subject had been jerked back and forth.
I returned the ID’s and motioned to the sofa. The men preceded me into the living room. Neither sat.
“Your owner passport, please,” Raul demanded.
“I don’t have it. Your people took it yesterday at the station.”
“You who whom?” he asked.
“They said it would be held until a legal issue gets resolved.”
The officers exchanged looks.
Strange. Wouldn’t the passport confiscation be in the computerized record? And wouldn’t these guys have seen the entry? I tried to recall if Casey mentioned that the passport confiscation was in the print-out of the interview with the intake officer. Come to think of it, where was my copy? Then I remembered I left it in in the door-pocket of Casey’s Audi.
“Because you,” Raul said in an accusatory tone, “must have gave a report to a different department.”
“Different from what?” I asked.
“We’re from the Department of Verification,” Raul said.
“Okay, so you’re a verifier,” I said, my suspicion about the guys escalating. “But why ar
e you here in person? I was told officers rarely go off-site, why my friend and I had to file the report at the station and waste a whole day.”
Raul’s eyebrows moved slightly, as if too heavy to rise. “Friend?” He took a notepad and pen from his hip pocket. “Name of friend?”
This was getting silly. “What do you want?”
“Your report copy for verification.”
“I think we’re finished here “I looked to the door. “Feel free to leave.”
While Raul formulated a response, Juan wandered the living room, lifted a pillow from the sofa, put it down, and flipped the pages of a Norton anthology with such indifference, I wondered if he could read. From behind the screen, Mozart yapped twice, then sat quivering with excitement.
“We’ll leave when we get it,” Raul said.
“I told you I don’t have it.”
“She lies,” Raul called to Juan as if I weren’t there.
“Who you are you two, anyway?” I asked. “You don’t know what goes on at your own headquarters.”
A scraping sound as Mozart ran his paw down the screen. I spun around and yelled, “Stop it.”
Juan’s jacket sleeves hung to his knuckles. The gaps between Raul’s legs and his boots was at least half an inch wide—as if the men were in rented costumes. This was a scam of some sort. Raul had a mean streak and something about Juan—he was either bi-polar or smoking funny stuff. Crack? On the other hand, it was possible the men were authentic—shabby uniforms reflecting Spain’s chronic fiscal crisis. Whoever they were, what was the worst they could do to me? Other than rape, murder, kidnapping, theft… Instead of blood, my heart pumped fear through my system. An acidic unfamiliar body fluid moistened my palms and filled my mouth.
Juan had invented a game—darting toward the balcony, then jumping back as Mozart flung himself against the screen, He laughed a methamphetamine laugh, prolonged and shrill.
Raul snapped at Juan in Spanish.
If I tried for the door, they could block me before I got out. My phone was in the other room. Screams might or might not get through the thick plaster walls. For the first time in my life, I wanted a gun.
With his hands on his hips, Raul looked around the room, taking in the IKEA sofa, marble floor lamp, and the Picasso print over the couch. His eyes lingered on the rag draped over the bucket. His hand moved to the baton at his belt. “Who else is in this place?”
“I do my own cleaning.”
“We find out.”
I moved in front of him. “You need a warrant.” Bluffing, as if I knew Spanish law.
“Not necessary.” He opened the lower door to the credenza. “When the one who is supposed to cooperate isn’t, we have the right to look for why.” He pulled a stack of paperbacks to the floor, stepped over them, and crossed into the bedroom.
My mobile was on the nightstand. I started around him, but before I could get to the phone, Raul pocketed it and shook his finger at me as he would admonish a child.
“Give that back. I’m calling my lawyer.” Another bluff. I didn’t have a lawyer.
Mozart whimpered.
“You be quiet,”
Raul pawed through the desk drawers, then tackled the papers on top. He studied a Cortes Ingles receipt for a pair of jeans. “Go ahead,” I said. “Feel free to look. Don’t mind me.” With my arms crossed my chest and tapping my foot, I leaned against the doorway to the bedroom, pretending indifference. Watched the light from the window change from cream to gray, the clearly defined square shadow on the wall fading as the sky grew dark, rain clouds.
Raul tossed aside calendars, credit card statements, a ten-page brokerage summary, and a paper on medication compliance I was editing. Meanwhile, Juan rummaged in the dresser and giggling like a teenager, held up his hand and twirled a bra from his index finger. Neiman Marcus’s industrial style, no-frills, white.
Two strides and I grabbed my underwear. “Fucking pig.” I tossed it back in the drawer and slammed it shut. “Grow up. Three minutes to get out of here before I —”
A silver streak and Mozart barreled through the doorway, skidded around the corner of the bed with his nails fighting for traction.
“Cuidado,” Juan screamed.
I turned to the living room and the jagged hole in the screen. “Mozart, over here, boy. Be good.” He knocked over the pole lamp as he shot past.
Juan pushed me aside on his way to the front door. Mozart blocked his path, leaped and with his paws on Juan’s chest began licking his chin. I reached, grabbed for him, and found myself holding a collar, but no dog.
Juan unclipped the baton from his belt.
“Don’t you dare,” I shouted.
He wound the strap around his wrist and raised the club higher. A downward swish cut the air. He missed.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” I yelled.
Mozart danced under Juan’s arm. Once more, the guy lifted the baton positioning for a backhand attack. If I could throw him off balance—I lunged. Juan retreated; arm still raised. My kick hit his shin. Undeterred, he aimed the baton at Mozart and held it in mid-air just as Mozart galloped off. The baton swung down—the crack of bone—mine.
I clawed at the dresser on my way to the floor and found nothing to grab. Gasping, I watched the room spin as I lay on the carpet that smelled of dried wine and the dust collecting since the Visigoths. Listening for voices, I heard only the click of Mozart’s feet in the kitchen and the hum of the refrigerator. Then came the slam of the door, sounding as if from a great distance. The men were gone. I rolled on my side, straightened my legs gratified to find them in working order. I flexed my arms. All intact, more or less. Gathering strength, I attempted a deep breath and stifled a scream. The air was a paring knife coring my lungs.
Mozart lapped water in the kitchen, his metal bowl clanging against the cabinet. I loosened my tee-shirt from my jeans and ran my hands over my torso. The worst scenario, punctured lungs. I risked another breath. Shallow, but air was getting through.
Fetal position worked best. Lay quietly. Stabilize. Call Casey downstairs. Only Raul had my phone. A doctor. An X-ray? I tried to recall exactly where I’d had seen the billboard along the A7 towards Marbella. The sign pictured a smiling physician, a British flag, and in English, Manchester Emergency Medicine.
I talked myself through the plan. Take it step by step. Car keys from the jacket pocket. Where’s the remote for the garage? On the kitchen table where I’d left it. Don’t forget the wallet to pay the clinic. How much in there? A few hundred euros and three credit cards.
I struggled to a full-blown stand. So far, so good. Careful, take it slow in case of a jagged bone. Vicodin. Thank heavens I’d saved a few from a root canal. To be on the safe side, I took two Advil and a valium.
I shut Mozart in the bedroom with his water. Crossing the hall, riding the elevator was a piece of cake providing I didn’t breathe. The garage door was open to one of the ferocious downpours that swamped the coast for about ten minutes before roaring off to Portugal. I made it into the front seat of my rented Renault and managed to exit the garage without side-swiping a neighbor’s BMW.
No windshield wiper on the planet could outpace the downpour overflowing the gutters. I wound through the narrow street and turned onto the ramp to the interstate, which was now a waterfall of foaming mud. Inside the car, condensation coated the windows, lifting my arm to the defrost toggle switch brought back the paring knife.
I remembered the physician’s billboard as being right before the entrance to the tunnel at Puerto Banus. The rain was letting up. One mile past the Caeseras Road, another mile past Estapona, and mixable dictu, the sign with the Union Jack. The man in the white coat smiled di
rectly at me over the caption, “We Speak Your Language.”
“Praise God,” I said aloud.
. . . . .
Later that afternoon, I lay on the sofa strategically positioned so I could watch the boats rock in the marina, the sea, and the dark line of the North African coast. I adjusted the ice pack on my back and eased my leg out from under the seventy pounds of dog draped over my feet. Yo-Yo Ma came from the stereo, but instead of a distraction, Bach’s exuberance only sharpened my anxiety. Three broken ribs, two men, why me?
“Self-pity is irrelevant, and irrelevance wastes time.” My father’s voice was as brutal as the surgeon he was. With a cigar in one hand and a Jack Daniels in the other, he would preach, “The old Occam’s razor. Strip the problem to the bone. No digressions, no speculating and if you’re too lame-brained to control maverick thoughts, cut them from the herd.”
I tried to cut the two maverick thugs from the herd. They wandered back. Were they Guardia Civils—if that was the correct plural—or imposters? No burglary, the invaders were after my police report. Someone in the station must have spotted me, and told whoever was interested, why I was there. Who might care? Only three people—or maybe two. Zak, the Arab, and the tall, dark watcher-in-the weeds, who might be the Arab himself. Between the restaurant and the murder, the guy would have had time to change from his leather jacket into the red sweatshirt. But an Arab—possibly an undocumented immigrant—would hardly have confidants inside the Spanish police force.
That left Zak, who paid the Arab, but what for? Zak might worry I’d tell the police about him being in the restaurant and passing money to an Arab as the woman looked on. All a big maybe. All I knew was from now on each knock on the door, and unidentified number on the phone would bring a cold sweat.
The prescription meds from the Manchester clinic turned the room to a soft haze and muzzled the jaws biting my chest. My thoughts drifted from the woman’s head on the sand, to my broken bones, to the rat-hole of a clinic and the gentle touch of the British doctor.
The Loss of What We Never Had Page 4