The Dead: Vengeance of Memory

by Mark Oldfield

  He reached for his beer, drank it and ordered another, still watching the people on the terrace, enjoying the sunshine. Beyond them, the slow lines of traffic crawled by, bathed in a haze of exhaust fumes. From time to time, daring pedestrians darted across the road through the vehicles, provoking sudden blasts from the horns of short-tempered drivers. And there were plenty of those, Guzmán smiled to himself, though his smile lasted only a moment.

  Across the street, a man was watching him.

  A familiar face, despite the years that had passed since he last saw it. The white linen suit, the close-trimmed grey beard and cropped hair. The savage insolence of his smile. A memory of circles of light, rising through dark water.

  As the waiter brought his beer, the traffic thickened, obscuring Guzmán’s view of the road. When the traffic started moving again, the man was gone. He glanced around the terrace, tense with violent anticipation.

  The phone on the bar rang, loud and shrill.

  The barman answered. ‘Phone call for Señor Guzmán?’

  Guzmán went to the bar and took the phone. Behind him, the steady grumble of traffic continued. Bright voices rattled around the terrace. He lifted the phone to his ear and heard the voice from his past. The voice of the dead.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Comandante.’

  ‘What kind of game is this? I thought you had something to tell me?’

  ‘Look across the road.’ A soft, mocking tone.

  Guzmán stepped back from the bar, pulling the phone cord taut as he moved to a spot where he could look out over the terrace. He saw the café on the far side of the street, the crowd of people outside. And next to the café, a phone box. A man was standing inside it. A man in a white linen suit.

  ‘I see you.’

  ‘Now look at the terrace, Comandante.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘See that red pushchair? The one near the large potted palm?’

  Guzmán saw the pushchair. Saw the tiny hand rising and falling, trying to reach the plastic toys dangling from the hood. And he saw the wire running down the side of the pushchair, disappearing beneath the chassis.

  The Italian breathed the words into the phone. ‘His Mamá had an accident.’

  The phone hit the wooden floor as Guzmán ran towards the bar, shouting a warning as he hurled himself across the counter. Behind him, sudden shouts and screams, the tap of high heels as someone started running.

  Guzmán pressed his face to the floor as the explosion tore through the bar in a murderous storm of fire and smoke. Above him, the fake art deco mirror shattered in a hail of jagged glass and the floor ran with spilt liquor as bottles rained down from the collapsing shelves. Stunned, Guzmán lay, protecting his head with his hands until the cascade of broken glass was over. He pulled himself to his feet, blinking and coughing in the thick cloud of dust now settling over what had been the dining room.

  The room was destroyed. The glass French windows had vanished, leaving only a few jagged shards in place. Not a table or chair remained intact. Most had been hurled against the far wall, shattered like firewood. Amid the wreckage, he saw the waiter who liked movies. What was left of him.

  He staggered outside, his ears ringing from the blast.

  Bodies were scattered across the terrace. A slick of blood marked the spot where the group of women had been chatting earlier. There was no sign of the pushchair or the baby.

  He heard the wail of approaching sirens. People were shouting, though the ringing in his ears made it hard to tell what they were saying. At the roadside, a man was kneeling by the body of a woman. Her clothes were shredded and, as the man rolled her onto her back, Guzmán saw she had lost an arm. That would not bother her now, she was beyond help.

  He crossed the road, wending his way through people running towards the Bar Navarra. The sirens were growing louder. Someone put a hand on his arm, asked if he was all right. Guzmán pushed them away and went to the pay phone. He yanked open the metal door, expecting some taunting message amid the graffiti and adverts for prostitutes. Sure enough, it was there, taped to the phone. A personal message consisting of a small cheap business card: Pensión Paraíso, Calle del Carmen.

  Guzmán punched the side of the phone box. He had no idea how the Italian had located the pensión, though it was entirely consistent with the man’s warped logic. An eye for an eye. Or in this case, a woman for a woman.

  The Italian had gone after Daniela.

  MADRID, OCTOBER 1982, PENSIÓN PARAÍSO, CALLE DEL CARMEN

  The roads around Bar Navarra were gridlocked as the emergency services tried to get through to the carnage. Guzmán raged as he passed lines of stationary traffic, in search of a taxi. He turned down Calle San Leonardo and ran towards the Gran Via before he finally managed to flag down a cab. He pushed a wad of notes into the driver’s hand as he gave him the address. ‘Drive like a lunatic and don’t say a word.’

  The cab driver was not inclined to argue and drove off at speed.

  Guzmán took the Browning from its holster and put a round in the chamber. Things were going to happen quickly when he reached the pensión and he had to be ready.

  A hundred metres from the pensión, he ordered the driver to stop and jumped out, not bothering to close the door as he ran up the street. The gun in his passenger’s hand discouraged the driver from asking for a tip and he turned the car and headed away in the opposite direction.

  Guzmán ran up the steps to the pensión, the pistol raised. The door was slightly ajar and he nudged it open, scanning the reception area with the Browning. No sign of a struggle. No sign of anyone. Unusually, there was no sound from Señor Argüello’s TV. He stepped inside, calling Daniela’s name.

  A weak voice called for help from behind the glass bead curtain.

  Guzmán pushed his way through the coloured beads. Daniela’s father lay on the floor, alongside his upended wheelchair. ‘Leo.’ His voice was sharp with fear. No wonder, Guzmán thought, as he saw the pool of blood under the old man’s body.

  ‘What happened?’ Guzmán asked.

  ‘A man in a white suit came in,’ Argüello wailed. ‘He asked where your room was. Then he took Dani upstairs.’ His voice cracked. ‘I heard him say that he’d teach her not to lie to him. I told him he could have all our money, but he shot me.’ Trembling, he lifted a bloody hand, palm upward, as if Guzmán needed further evidence.

  ‘What about Dani?’

  ‘There was a bang, I think it was the door slamming. He must have taken her.’

  Guzmán pushed his way through the bead curtain into reception and went slowly up the stairs. The door to his room was open and he raised the Browning, ready to confront the Italian. But the Italian was long gone, he realised as he peered into the room.

  Daniela lay on her side near the far wall, her dark hair spilled around her head like a halo. So dark, it was difficult to tell where her hair ended and the blood began. One arm was extended, as if she had tried to protect herself. As if there were any protection from that lunatic’s bullet. He touched her cheek. It was soft and cool and very dead. Shot through the head as a punishment for knowing him. For what he’d done in Alicante. And then, as he checked the room, he saw the full extent of the disaster.

  The floorboards by the nightstand had been torn up. The weapons were still in their oilskin bags where he’d left them. But the money, all eight million pesetas, was gone.

  Downstairs, he holstered the pistol as he went back through the bead curtain. Señor Argüello had not waited to find out what had happened to Dani. He was dead. That was perhaps just as well, Guzmán thought. Argüello had suffered long enough. Slowly, he leaned over and switched on the TV. As in life, so in death. Then he went back upstairs.

  Daniela seemed to weigh nothing as he scooped her up and laid her on the bed. Carefully, he closed her eyes and covered her with one of the threadbare sheets. Then he went downstairs. As he went into reception, he heard a soft noise by the door and spun towards it. Leonidas Espartero came o
ut of the shadows, his hands raised.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Guzmán asked.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Espartero said, blinking unhappily. ‘I came to ask Señorita Daniela if I could start work tomorrow. But I can see this is a bad time. I’ll come back.’

  ‘How do you know it’s a bad time?’

  ‘An educated guess,’ the dwarf said. ‘There was no one in reception so I looked in there.’ He pointed to the glass bead curtain that hid Señor Argüello’s windowless room. Slowly, he started backing away to the door. ‘I’ll not trouble you any further.’

  ‘Wait.’ Guzmán gestured at one of the chairs by the table. ‘Sit down.’ He took a seat facing the dwarf. ‘There’s still a job for you here, despite what’s happened, though it’s somewhat different from the one you were interested in.’

  ‘That’s fine: I can cook,’ Espartero said, ‘and I don’t mind dirty work, though preferably not at the same time as I’m cooking.’ He waited in vain for Guzmán to acknowledge the joke. ‘May I ask what you meant by “despite what’s happened”?’

  ‘You saw Daniela’s father in there, didn’t you?’ Guzmán said. ‘Her body’s upstairs.’

  ‘Perhaps it would be best if I withdrew?’ Espartero said. ‘I can be out of the city within the hour.’

  ‘I didn’t kill them, you fool,’ Guzmán snorted. ‘I’m going to make you an offer. How would being hotel manager suit you?’

  Espartero’s expression changed. ‘I suspect you’re making fun of me.’

  ‘Not many dwarves get offered a position like this,’ Guzmán said. ‘You’ll be in charge of everything. But you’ll have to make the place pay, because there’s no money.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The pensión is yours. But you have to take it on this minute. And there are a couple of problems that need addressing. You need to dispose of the bodies and clean up the blood.’

  Espartero drew himself up to his full height. ‘I always relish a challenge, Comandante.’

  ‘You may be sorry you said that.’

  Espartero smiled. ‘I’ll take my chances.’

  *

  Once he’d put the dwarf to work, Guzmán called Gutiérrez. The brigadier general sounded less than happy. ‘The media have been harassing me, Guzmán. They think the explosion at Bar Navarra was an attempt to delay the election.’

  ‘They can think what they like, it was the Italian’s handiwork.’

  ‘Trouble is,’ Gutiérrez said, ‘they’re referring to the Brigada Especial as “Franco’s Old Guard”. Before long, they’ll be accusing us of trying to derail the election.’

  Guzmán sighed, thinking that if he’d still had the money Benavides paid for the code, he could be miles away, leaving Gutiérrez and the Italian behind. He saw a fleeting image of a long strip of yellow sand covered in bikini-clad women with sing-song Nordic accents. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘You have to complete the job, Guzmán. First, we need to get the files you’ve been collecting to a safe place.’

  ‘And where would that be?’

  ‘I’ll find somewhere, don’t worry. Call me in the morning.’ The phone went dead.

  *

  Down the road from the pensión, the bell of the Church of el Carmen struck midnight. Guzmán sat in the cane chair in reception, watching the street. He was tired and his ears were still ringing from the explosion that afternoon. Upstairs, he heard the sound of the dwarf scrubbing Daniela’s blood from the wooden tiles of his room. For a moment he wondered about helping him to move her body but decided against it. Years ago, he’d buried his daughter with his bare hands: enough was enough. Besides, Señor Espartero had agreed to handle the burials using the services of an acquaintance. A dwarf with contacts: he would do well, Guzmán had no doubt.

  He lit another cigarette, raising his hand in front of him, staring at the glowing tip. So it had come to this: despite all his efforts, he was living in squalor and still short of money. Without money, a man was no better than a beggar cowering in a doorway. He had never thought this would happen to him, not after all he’d done for Franco. He’d placed his faith in that bandy-legged popinjay, thinking he would always reward a faithful servant like Guzmán generously. He had no idea now why he’d thought that. If history showed anything, it was that the Caudillo by the grace of God, Francisco Franco Bahamonde, could not be trusted as far as a man could throw him.

  All that killing, the bullets he took in defence of the State, the traitors he liquidated, continuing the malevolent violence of the war long after the Republic surrendered. All of it to enable Franco to have his revenge on those who opposed him. Such service deserved a better reward than this.

  In his long bloody career, Guzmán had rarely asked questions. But he was faced by one now: had it been worth it? Could he truly look himself in the mirror and say that his was a life well spent? But when he thought about it, that question was easily answered: of course he fucking could. Because whatever he had done, he had always stayed true to his values: let no insult go unanswered and no challenge go unpunished. That had been the bedrock of his self-respect for a long time. There was no reason to abandon it now.

  He went to the door and threw the cigarette down the steps, a brief trail of sparks in the cool night air. It was beginning to rain. Further up the street, he heard the rumble of traffic in the Plaza del Callao. And above that, the deep visceral thump of music from El Topless. Eduardo Ricci’s club.

  Fucking Ricci. Eduardo el Bastardo. There were always winners and losers in this life and right now, Ricci was a winner and Guzmán a loser. The perverse logic of history. And just to add to Guzmán’s woes, the Italian had returned. The deck was rapidly being stacked, and not in his favour.

  He looked up the street again, towards Ricci’s nightclub. Ricci, a man who epitomised everything that was wrong with Spain. A man who’d humiliated him. No, that was not true: Guzmán had let himself be humiliated by Ricci’s lackeys for Daniela’s sake.

  It was time to respond to that insult.

  He started walking, indifferent to the rain. The smart thing to do now would be to cut and run. Head for the sea, make a new life somewhere, as he had once before. But Guzmán had never run from anything, and the last time he was by the sea was in Alicante.

  He continued up the road and slipped along the side of El Topless, towards the emergency doors at the rear. Inside the club, the music was thick and physical, the pumping bass notes steady and strong, like a dark beating heart.

  By the fire doors, two bouncers were chatting. He recognised them at once: the men he had allowed to throw him out of the club to save Daniela getting into trouble. Dani was far beyond their reach now.

  A familiar odour of kif hung in the damp night air. The bouncers were getting stoned, hiding away by the back door, neglecting their duty. These were the kind of men Ricci hired. In the war, Guzmán killed men for much less.

  The Arab laughed as he saw him coming towards them. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Señor Ricci told me to see him about a job,’ Guzmán muttered.

  A lopsided grin. ‘What job’s that, amigo?’

  Guzmán paused, staying outside the faint halo of light from the door. ‘Bar work.’

  That amused them. ‘You can’t see him now, he’s in the VIP lounge with Señor Masias,’ the Arab said. ‘Come back this afternoon about one. Losers’ hour, we call it. Maybe you’ll pick up a bit of work then if you ask nicely.’ He turned, about to make a quip to the other man.

  Guzmán grabbed the Arab’s arm, spinning him to face him as he drove the trench knife into the man’s chest, up to the hilt. A dull grunt of surprise, a muffled sound as the Arab fell to the ground, already dead. As Guzmán turned to the second man, the volume of the music in the club rose in a violent crescendo. Voices whooping and shouting. As the noise intensified, the other bouncer came at him, trying to take the initiative.

  Guzmán kicked the man’s legs from under him and he fell heavily. As he
tried to get to his feet, Guzmán seized him by the hair and dragged his head back, exposing his throat to the knife.

  Once he had wiped the blade clean on the dead man’s jacket, Guzmán went through the emergency doors into the club. On the dance floor, the dark mass of dancers ebbed and flowed under the fluctuating light of the strobes. He pushed through them, enveloped in warm, moist heat, an odour like the sheets of a brothel.

  A woman stumbled into him, drunk. For a moment he felt the warmth of her skin, smelled the musk of her perfume before she was swept away again by the tide. On the far side of the dance floor, he saw a sign for the VIP lounge and made for it. The sign pointed up a flight of stairs and Guzmán went straight up, noticing there were no bouncers on duty. Another mistake on Ricci’s part.

  The VIP area was a black chrome and steel platform overlooking the dance floor. At the far end of the platform was the bar, an oblong of black marble, the bottles on the shelves glowing under the eccentric, fluctuating lights.

  And at the bar, Eduardo Ricci, his back turned, taking a bottle of champagne from an ice bucket, leaning across to top up Guillermo Masias’s glass. Both laughing with contagious drunken humour, unaware of Guzmán bearing down on them, silhouetted against the light storm raging over the dance floor.

  He watched their reactions as they saw him. Ricci making some sneering comment, both of them laughing. All they saw was a man who had been pushed out of the club by Ricci’s bouncers. Such a man posed no threat to them, they were certain.

  So many over the years had shared that certainty. Guzmán had killed every last one.

  Ricci’s face changed, his laughter turning to a snarl, caught between amusement at Guzmán’s audacity and fury at his intrusion.

  On the dance floor, the music reached a thunderous climax, the dancers oblivious now to anything outside this world of pulsing light and swaying bodies. Above them, a sudden flash of light in the VIP lounge, the sound of the shot lost in ‘Eye of the Tiger’.