‘I’ve had several fall-outs with him about those magazines,’ Ortiz growled. ‘The ones with children in them, were they?’
‘Ochoa’s a family man. He gets upset about children being mistreated.’
‘Good for him,’ said Ortiz. ‘I’ll add an extra increment to his pension.’
Guzmán winced. Ochoa seemed to attract money like shit attracted flies. At this rate, he’d be the wealthiest pensioner in Spain. ‘He’ll like that,’ he said, through clenched teeth.
‘One other thing,’ Ortiz said. ‘Somebody killed Eduardo Ricci last night.’
‘There’s a tragedy.’
‘It could be for someone: you know he was protected by the Centinelas?’
‘Doesn’t sound like they did a very good job.’ Guzmán went to the door.
‘Look after yourself, Leo. These are tough times, and they’re going to get tougher – especially for you, I imagine.’
‘Why me?’ Guzmán asked, suddenly belligerent. There were others who’d served the regime besides him, many others, yet people talked as if he’d been the only one.
‘Men who stand out at what they do are always remembered, and there are plenty of people who remember you and what you did.’ He looked up and met Guzmán’s eye. ‘You have to know when it’s time to go.’
Guzmán narrowed his eyes. ‘Why? Franco didn’t.’
‘Franco had been gone a long time before he died on that life-support machine,’ Ortiz said. ‘And even then, they only kept him alive so he’d still be here for the fortieth anniversary of the war. It’s different for your sort. Men like you don’t die in their beds.’
Guzmán closed the door behind him. He went into the courtyard and walked past the sentries at the gate into the street. A surly grey sky. More rain to come, given the dark layers of cloud moving over the city. Winter was coming and in winter things converged: ice and snow, TB and the grave, hunter and prey. A time when the weak fell and the strong stayed standing. Winter had always been his time.
Somewhere along the street, a dog was barking.
He crossed the road and used a payphone to call Gutiérrez. ‘You asked about my code the other day. I think I can get you a copy.’
‘Excellent,’ Gutiérrez wheezed. ‘I’ll be happier knowing the Centinelas can’t read our communications. Can you bring it to HQ at once?’
‘Not yet,’ Guzmán said. ‘I have to collect it from someone.’
‘Who might that be?’ A sudden note of suspicion in Gutiérrez’s voice.
‘I can’t say. But when I’ve collected it, you can have it for a reasonable sum.’
He heard Gutiérrez sigh. Or perhaps he was gasping for breath. ‘That would be most helpful, Comandante.’
Guzmán hung up.
MADRID, OCTOBER 1982, SECRETAS DE LA NOCHE, LENCERÍA, CALLE DE NÚÑEZ DE BALBOA
Guzmán entered the shop and waited, glowering at the arrays of underwear until an assistant emerged from behind a display of lacy basques and came to serve him.
‘Can I help you, señor?’
‘I’d like some underwear,’ he muttered. ‘Not for me, of course, they’re for a lady.’
‘Of course.’ The assistant beamed. Men’s shopping habits were inevitably lucrative. Their embarrassment made them willing to part with far more money than they intended. For most, the aim was to make the purchase and get out before anyone saw them. ‘Does the gentleman have anything in mind?’
Guzmán had a great deal in mind, though he was hardly going to tell her.
‘Underwear,’ he said. ‘Red underwear.’ He pointed to various items. ‘Bra, panties. Suspender belt and stockings. All in red.’
‘And the size?’
‘A little taller than you, a bit stockier as well.’
‘One size bigger than me then?’
‘Larger,’ he said, appraising her with a critical eye. ‘You’re bigger than you seem.’
The shop assistant wrapped his purchases in tissue paper and put them in a brown paper carrier. ‘Anything else?’
He glanced along the counter, thinking quickly. ‘Lipstick.’
‘To match the underwear?’
‘Of course,’ he snapped, wondering why sales people made things so difficult.
Once he had paid, he hurried from the shop, clutching the carrier to keep it from spilling its contents in the street. Such things were the stuff of nightmares.
The assistant watched him go, certain his wife or girlfriend would be calling in during the next couple of days to change the items for different sizes or colours. They invariably did.
The afternoon light was starting to fade. That cheered him. Most aspects of his business were best conducted in the dark. He looked again at the piece of paper Ignacio gave him. If the old man’s information was correct, Javier Benavides lived only a few hundred metres further up the road.
He found the address without difficulty. A sombre, though well-kept apartment building. Its appearance spoke of money, which was hardly surprising, given Benavides’ position within the Centinelas.
Guzmán stood in a doorway across the road from the apartment building, watching people go in and out. He saw the small desk inside the door where the portero lurked, making sure that visitors were expected, taking parcels from the postman and keeping out any lowlifes who might drift in to tap up the residents. Or rob them, of course. Another sign of change. But those things were problems for the police, not for him. He had his own problems.
He crossed the road just as the portero was helping an elderly resident into a taxi. Guzmán slipped inside, crossed the entrance hall and, without pausing, went down an unlit corridor. From the smell of damp, he guessed this was the tradesmen’s entrance, accessed from a passage at the side of the building.
At the end of the corridor, he found an emergency door to one side and to the other, a flight of steps that led to the cellar. Quietly, he went down the stairs into the murky basement. A couple of rusting old washing machines stood against the wall and he hid the lingerie behind them before going back upstairs. The concierge glared as he came across the marble tiles.
‘Can I help, señor?’ The man’s tone suggested that would not be his preferred option.
‘Probably,’ Guzmán said. ‘I’m a reporter. I’m looking for someone called Javier Benavides. I’d like to interview him.’
‘You’ve no right to come wandering around in here, señor.’ The man’s outrage turned his already unhealthy complexion puce. At this rate he wouldn’t survive the encounter, Guzmán decided.
‘I can go if there’s a problem.’
‘You’d better, before I call the police.’
Guzmán held his hands up. ‘You don’t have to tell me twice.’ Outside, he crossed the road and slowly looked in every shop window on that side of the street, concentrating on shops that could easily be seen from the portero’s desk. He walked up and down a few times, each time making sure the man had seen him. When he checked his watch, half an hour had gone by. Surely to God the portero had instructions to call for backup when Benavides had unexpected callers? No one in Benavides’ position could be that lax.
He turned again, planning to survey the shop windows and restaurant windows once more to try and provoke a reaction. A few metres up the road, a car pulled to a halt and Guzmán stopped his bogus window shopping.
The backup had arrived.
MADRID, OCTOBER 1982, CALLE DE GARCÍA DE PAREDES
‘Pour me a proper fucking drink, for Christ’s sake,’ General Ortiz barked. ‘No son of mine is going to give his father half a fucking glass of whisky.’
‘Sorry, Father.’ Ramiro opened the bottle and topped up the general’s glass. Ortiz took a long drink and sank back into his favourite leather armchair. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Has your wife sent you to borrow money again?’
‘It... it... it’s not that, Father,’ Ramiro stammered.
It was quite common for people to develop a slight stammer when dealing with
General Ortiz. Normally, he would have ignored it. But not with his son.
‘It... It... It’s not... wh-wh-wh-what?’ Ortiz took an angry gulp of his Scotch. ‘How the fuck are you ever going to command men if you can’t speak to your own father?’
‘It’s only a problem with you,’ Ramiro muttered.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, son. It’s you that’s fucking wrong. You’re a coward, lazy and, worst of fucking all, everyone knows about those foreign magazines your pal Galíndez keeps buying.’
‘He doesn’t mean any harm, they’re just a bit of fun, Papa.’
‘Don’t call me papa,’ General Ortiz shouted. ‘A bit of fun? Carmen’s a bit of fun. Good-looking, big tits and a sense of humour. But she’s a woman, not a child.’
‘You know what? You spend more time talking to her than you do to me.’
‘I’d rather spend more time with Corporal Ochoa than you. At least he was man enough to give Galíndez a thrashing for buying that filth.’
‘Times have changed, Father. Spain’s liberated now. Music, books, even porn. People smoke dope in public.’
‘You think I don’t know?’ The general got to his feet and went over to the drinks cabinet to get a refill. ‘Do you think that gives an officer in the guardia the right to sell smut to his colleagues like some impoverished pimp?’
‘Miguel only sells them to his friends.’
General Ortiz slumped back into his chair. ‘You keep protecting him like this and your career is going to end up down the fucking toilet along with his.’ He unfastened his holster and pulled out his Star semi-automatic. ‘Here, make yourself useful. Strip this down and clean it. And make a good job of it.’ He tossed the pistol over his shoulder, forcing Ramiro to catch the weapon before it landed amid a collection of the late Señora Ortiz’s porcelain. ‘And get a move on,’ Ortiz growled. ‘I’m meeting Carmen later.’
MADRID, OCTOBER 1982, CALLE DE NÚÑEZ DE BALBOA
Guzmán watched the men come down the road, shadow figures against the pale street lights. He watched carefully, looking for the subtle movement of a hand towards a hidden weapon. Even though they seemed relaxed, that didn’t mean they weren’t armed.
The men stopped a couple of metres away. The tallest took a pace forward, making him Guzmán’s first target.
‘You’re looking for Señor Benavides, I hear?’
‘That’s right, I’d like to interview him about his views on the election.’
‘We can take you to meet him, if you like. He’s out at the Casa de Campo.’
‘A country park is an odd place to carry out an interview, isn’t it?’
The man shrugged. ‘He’s willing to spare you an hour for the interview.’ A cold smile. ‘We’ll give you a lift back later.’
‘Let’s go, then.’ As Guzmán followed them to their car, he glanced up at the windows of Benavides’ apartment. In one of the upper windows, he caught a glimpse of a man, highlighted against the electric light, watching. At this distance, there was no mistaking Benavides. Not with that fake tan.
The tall man got behind the wheel. The other two sat in the back, leaving Guzmán no choice but to take the front passenger seat. That was unfortunate, since it left him open to being garrotted or shot in the back of the head. That was a risk he would have to take. As the driver started the engine, Guzmán got in and slammed the door.
Once the car pulled away from the kerb, he took a look in the mirror at the two men behind him. Neither seemed nervous or fidgeted in the way that men about to kill someone often did. There were usually at least some signs to be detected but these men were relaxed. That suggested he wasn’t going to be killed yet. Maybe they planned to torture him to satisfy their curiosity about his interest in Benavides.
‘You eaten, amigo?’ the driver asked, making conversation.
‘An hour ago.’ Guzmán nodded, improvising. ‘Seafood. It didn’t agree with me.’
‘I’ve had that,’ one of the men in the back said. ‘Mussels. I was sick for a week.’
‘I’ve got a story to write,’ Guzmán said. ‘I can’t afford time off work.’
A sudden furtive complicity passed between them. He glanced out of the window, noticing shabby buildings to either side. A badly lit alley ahead. He clutched his stomach. ‘Fuck, I’m going to spew.’
‘Don’t be sick in the car,’ the driver said, slowing.
‘Over there,’ Guzmán groaned. ‘That alley.’
The driver exchanged looks with the two in the back as he slowed.
Guzmán felt the two men behind him relax as the car turned into the alley. He knew what they were thinking. No way out. They were correct.
‘Sorry about this, gentlemen,’ Guzmán said, opening the door. He crouched by the side of the car, stuck a finger down his throat and began retching.
‘Doesn’t sound too bad, amigo,’ one called. Guzmán heard a metallic click as someone cocked a pistol. By the car’s front tyre, he saw a dog turd among the other refuse.
‘We haven’t got all night.’ The driver’s voice, tense now.
Guzmán stuck his finger into the turd and then popped it into his mouth.
‘Señor Benavides doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
The man’s voice was cut short by Guzmán’s sudden, agonised retching. He banged the side of the car with his fist as a stream of vomit burst from the deepest recesses of his gut, splattering the cobbles.
A voice from inside the car. ‘Fuck’s sake, he’s making me feel ill.’
With each spectacular wave of nausea, he felt their discomfort growing. Finally, he spat a wad of bile onto the pavement. ‘Fuck, that’s better out than in.’
‘I hope you’re done,’ someone growled as Guzmán raised his face into the open window. He saw their disgusted expressions. And then he retched violently, spraying vomit onto the empty passenger seat. Automatically, the men turned away in disgust.
Guzmán pushed the Browning through the window and shot the driver in the side of the head. The other two reacted far too late. The car shook with two sharp reports from the Browning and they sagged back against the seat, their faces set in a look of eternal surprise.
Guzmán took out his handkerchief and wiped the inside of his mouth. He left the car and walked back along the street until he found a bar. Inside, he ordered brandy, filled his mouth with it and then left. Once outside, he gargled with the brandy and then spat it out, carelessly splattering the shoes of a dark-clad passer-by.
‘Sorry about that,’ he called. Irritatingly, the man ignored him. That was typical of priests, he thought, they never saw the funny side of anything. A taxi turned the corner and he flagged it down. ‘Núñez de Balboa,’ Guzmán told the driver.
MADRID, OCTOBER 1982, CALLE DE NÚÑEZ DE BALBOA
Javier Benavides slipped a cassette into his tape deck and pressed play. The room filled with a slow smoky voice as Dionne Warwick sang ‘Heartbreaker’. He mimed a little dance, swirling across the carpet with an imaginary partner.
A knock at the door. ‘Parcel for Señor Benavides.’
Benavides sighed. How many times had he asked the portero not to send tradespeople up? Laziness, that was what it was.
With a sigh, he opened the double lock on the door. ‘You could have left it with the—’ The sentence ended as he stared into the muzzle of Guzmán’s Browning.
Benavides backed away, raising his hands. ‘What is this, Comandante?’
‘Shut up.’ Guzmán was holding a brown paper package in his free hand. He stepped inside and tossed the package to one side before locking the door. ‘Take a seat,’ Guzmán said. An order, not a request. Benavides did as he was told.
‘Where’s my code?’ Guzmán asked.
Benavides smiled. ‘Don’t you mean my code, Comandante?’
Guzmán clubbed him over the head with the Browning, knocking him from the chair. As Benavides lay on the floor, clutching his head, Guzmán picked up the upended chair, righted it and then shoved Ben
avides back into it.
‘That was unnecessary,’ Benavides groaned. ‘The code isn’t here.’
That was not what Guzmán wanted to hear and he cocked the Browning as an indication of his displeasure. ‘If you don’t have it, who does?’
‘I’m no expert on these things, Comandante, so I decided to get one of Spain’s best mathematicians to look over it. He’s a little eccentric, but an absolute genius with figures.’
‘I don’t want a fucking reference, just give me his address.’
Benavides reached for a rolodex card index on his desk and flipped through the cards. ‘This is him, Alberto Pedraza. It’s Dr Pedraza, actually, though you wouldn’t think so to look at him: he dresses like a tramp.’
Guzmán snatched the card from Benavides’ hand and stuck it in his top pocket.
‘You know, you really aren’t playing by the rules, Comandante.’
Guzmán raised the pistol. ‘See this?’
Benavides blinked nervously at the pistol a few centimetres from his face. ‘Yes?’
‘Now tell me whose fucking rules we’re playing to.’
Benavides opted for silence.
Strangely, that annoyed Guzmán as much as when he was talking. ‘Where do you keep the drinks?’
‘In that globe.’ Benavides pointed to a large wooden sphere by the wall.
‘Looks like it’s ready for the dump,’ Guzmán said. ‘The paint’s faded.’
Benavides gave him a hurt look. ‘It’s antique.’
Guzmán pulled open the hinged lid. ‘Is there any Carlos Primero?’
‘But of course.’ Benavides started to get to his feet.
Guzmán raised the pistol again. ‘One more move like that and you’re dead. Hands behind your head and put your face down on the desk.’ Benavides obeyed.
‘What’s your poison?’ Guzmán asked, searching for the brandy.
‘Whisky.’
Guzmán selected two heavy Venetian glass tumblers and poured himself an extremely large brandy and a small whisky for Benavides. Satisfied Benavides was keeping his face pressed to the desktop, Guzmán took two small tablets from his top pocket and dropped them into the whisky. The tablets dissolved within moments.
The Dead: Vengeance of Memory Page 31