“You were a friend of the dead man?”
“I met him for the first time Tuesday night. At his uncle’s ranch in Navarre.”
“Then what were you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Luz Robles. She was kidnaped and her unc—”
“I know she was. And I warned you that you could not play at being a detective here in Spain, señor.”
“Tell that to my friend Don Santiago,” I said, exaggerating somewhat. “He sort of indicated that anyone in the Guardia who gave me trouble might wind up patrolling a mountain pass up near Andorra looking for smugglers. Maybe you need the exercise.”
Primo de la Vaca looked at me. He looked at the fat man taking our conversation down in shorthand. “Not that part of it, you fool,” he shouted.
I showed him Sotomayor’s letter. He gave it a quick going over, folded it, unfolded it and read it more slowly the second time around. He handed it back to me and finished his brandy in a gulp and stood before the window-wall. The sun had gone down beyond the Guadarrama mountains.
“Spain,” roared Primo de la Vaca. “Do you know a more beautiful land?” He glared at me. “But it is as cold as Siberia in the winter and as hot as the Congo in summer, and it is primitive. No people are less capable of enjoying their land than the Spaniards. They live very close to death always. It is why they have so much afición for the running of the bulls. In happiness they would be unhappy. By contrast you Americans are happy in unhappiness.”
I missed the contrast. He went on, “Are you happy now?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Are you going to lift my passport?”
“Why should I do that?” he shouted.
“No reason, I guess. Do you need one?”
“If you think that Don Santiago’s letter will protect you, you are mistaken. His is an honored name, but he is an old man who lives in retirement on his ranch. You will not bring up his name again. Don’t take that down!” he bellowed at the fat stenographer.
“The municipal police,” he told me, “are not so bad. They are merely the stupidest police force in the entire world. Fortunately, we of the Guardia are conducting this investigation. Modern, scientific methods are at our disposal. We also have the benefit of an army of secret informers. As a branch of the military we are accountable to no one but the Caudillo and his top level of ministers. Our network for the prevention of crime is vast. There is a Guardia casa cuartel in every village in Spain. The highways and seacoasts are safe, and so are the hordes of foreign tourists who sample the delights of Spain each year. The Guardia is everywhere. We are proud of our record.” He sighed. “But unfortunately, señor, I need your help.”
“I thought I was a suspect.”
He stood over the fat stenographer. “Give me those, idiot,” he said, and jerked the steno pad away from him. He ripped out the three pages that had been squiggled on and tore them in half and in half again. “You were never a suspect,” he told me. “Don Santiago mentioned your name when I phoned him the news of his nephew’s death. I merely wished to instill the proper attitude of respect in you. Such an attempt becomes routine when one has been a policeman long enough.
“Tourism,” he said suddenly. The way he said it, he might have been talking about a woman he could not live with but could not live without. “Do you know how many tourists visited Spain last year?”
“No,” I said.
“Neither do I. But tourism is the biggest industry in my country, while even the Swiss can rank it only second in their little land of innkeepers. Last year tourists poured almost a billion American dollars into the Spanish economy, and if you don’t think the Guardia Civil is aware of that then you are mistaken. A billion dollars,” he cried. “Of course we are aware of it. We are instructed to coddle foreigners. We rarely ticket foreign cars. We are polite to foreign drunks—not that all foreigners are drunkards. We forgive them small transgressions of our laws. If they commit more serious misdemeanors—the kind that would earn a Spaniard six months in prison—we escort them quietly to the border and request that they do not return. But don’t misunderstand. I like foreigners. I like it when they visit my tierra. I enjoy them. They are simpático. But sometimes I wish.…”
His voice got wistful. “Still, if they commit a crime, señor, a serious crime such as kidnaping or murder—what do you think happens then?”
“The same as anywhere else. You throw the book at them.”
“Throw the book? Sí, sí, I understand. Yes, we do that when we must. Throw the book,” he shouted. “I like that expression. I must remember it.”
He walked the length of the window-wall and back, rubbing the smudge of ink on his long nose. “Now,” he said, “now we have a crime. A woman born in Spain but a citizen of Venezuela has been kidnaped. A man has been murdered, and they are brother and sister, and everywhere I look, what do I see? I see foreigners. I see Mr. Axel Spade of Switzerland and the United States. I see Mr. Ray Moyers, also of the United States, and if that isn’t bad enough, of the American army as well. I see Mr. MacNeil Hollister, also of the American army. And I see you. I like you, señor,” he bellowed.
I didn’t know why he liked me. I had said or done nothing to merit his approval or disapproval. Maybe I was a good listener.
“Not only do I like you, but Don Santiago, the former commander-in-chief of the Guardia, respects your reputation as a detective. Now do you understand what I wish of you?”
“Sure,” I said. “The Guardia has its image to protect. You help little old ladies across the street. You spend most of your time escorting lost tourists from the Plaza Mayor to the Retiro Park. What you don’t want is to look like the hatchet men of a police state. If investigating the disappearance of Luz Robles or the murder of her brother means putting pressure on guys like Ray Moyers or MacNeil Hollister, you don’t want to do it. You’re hoping I’ll do it for you.”
“I wish you had not put it so bluntly,” he said. “Can you believe instead that I need a—go-between? They are your countrymen. They will understand you, and you will understand them. Even the language barrier—”
“Why should I do it? I have a client—Axel Spade. If your interests conflict with his, he’s the man I’m working fór.”
“You wish to find Luz Robles? And you consider it possible that finding Luz Robles and learning who murdered her brother José would entail no conflict of interests?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Whoever killed José either got out of the building without the conserje seeing him, or he’s still inside. Maybe what you ought to do is start knocking on doors right here and see what kind of contact José had with the other tenants.”
“We have alrady begun that, señor. Also I am aware that the dead man was a womanizer and a taker of drugs. Who knows what difficulties he was involved in? A spurned mistress, an irate husband—our investigation has already commenced. But José Sotomayor is beyond your help or mine. His sister isn’t—assuming she is still alive. We are after the same thing. That is one reason you should help me.”
“You mean there are more?”
“We will keep you informed of our progress if you will keep us informed of yours. That is another reason.” He frowned, took out a handkerchief and rubbed the ink smudge off his nose. “I could also say, if I wished to,” he continued pedantically, “that although as a suspect you are less than satisfactory as you have no motive for killing José Sotomayor, still, as of now you are the only suspect we have. But that would be unfair to my old commander Don Santiago. I respect him. I trust his judgment of you. But we have ways. We could make it difficult for you. We could hound you. We could make it impossible for you to go anywhere or do anything without committing some small infraction of the law. Our laws are very confusing. Even I sometimes don’t understand them.”
“I get it,” I said. “One word from you and I’d spend half my time in court answering summonses.”
He laughed politely. “Half your time, señor? I fear you underestimate
me. For example,” he asked, “are you armed?”
I opened my jacket and showed him there was no shoulder holster and no holster clipped to my belt either.
“But what would a visit to your room find?”
A visit to my room would find a .44 Magnum in its holster wrapped in a couple of dirty shirts in my B-4 bag. I shrugged.
“There is no statute on the books here in Spain that could authorize you to carry a handgun. A rifle or a shotgun for the purposes of hunting, and duly licensed, of course. But nothing smaller. Where are you staying, by the way?”
“The Castellana Hilton.”
“If we were to find a weapon concealed in your room at the Hilton we could send your passport to the border, señor. A splendid hotel, the Hilton, combining the best of American and Spanish tradition.” He smiled. “A .44 Magnum is a very interesting revolver, Señor Drum, rare in Spain and, unless I am mistaken, more powerful than a Colt .45. But of course I have never seen one and I am aware of no member of the Guardia who has—certainly not today and certainly not in room 612 of the Castellana Hilton. Do we understand each other? I am so glad we will be working together, señor.”
SEVEN
Paseo Reina Cristina was a broad, tree-lined boulevard a couple of blocks from Retiro Park. It was flanked on both sides with big old stucco mansions, their formal gardens floodlit for the pleasure of the crowds taking their evening paseo. Only Carmen Prieto’s house seemed out of place. Set back behind the expected hedges and ornate fountain, it was a two-story half-timbered building that would have been more at home in Stratford-on-Avon than in Spain.
I drove Axel Spade’s Jaguar into the driveway and parked in front of a three-car garage, also half-timbered. A soft, warm wind fluttered the leaves of the orange trees that bordered the driveway. The floodlighting from the garden made the oranges glow like Christmas tree ornaments.
A fat man wearing British tweeds and looking as though he wasn’t enjoying them in the warm climate came waddling down a short flight of steps from a side door of the house as I climbed out of the Jag. He looked at me and at the car, and then his face lit up with an enormous smile when his eyes fastened on Axel Spade’s hallmark on the Jag’s door, a black ace of spades on a silver disk.
“You are Mr. Axel Spade, of course,” he said in excellent English. “But what a wonderful surprise. I knew you were here in Spain, naturally. Only my illness prevented me from attending the party in your honor, sir. Don Santiago and I are old friends.” He thumped his chest with a pudgy fist, indicating the location if not the nature of his affliction.
He stuck out his hand. I shook it. Then he fondled the ace of spades, as though it were a talisman from which he could draw some of Axel Spade’s magic.
“This is a rare privilege, sir. Would you permit me to say that I have followed your career with enthusiastic interest from the very beginning? After all, in a manner of speaking, we are in the same profession.” He laughed self-consciously. “And, as I wrote you when we were corresponding in—was it 1959?—I of course forgive you the occasional, shall we say, financial peccadillos that made you unwelcome in Spain until quite recently.”
He cleared his throat and mopped his damp forehead with a handkerchief. “You do remember our correspondence? It concerned the Loyalist gold reserve that remains, to this day, in the Gros Bank in Moscow.” He sighed. “Three quárters of a billion dollars, in the hands of the most perfidious bankers in the world. Do you remember what you wrote me in 1959?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
“Of course, of course. You are a busy man and what for me is a ruling passion is for you but an intriguing problem. Still, I can remember what you wrote word for word. ‘I tell you, Señor Prieto y Azaña,’ you wrote, ‘whoever discovers the touchstone that will make possible the return of the Spanish Loyalist treasure to Madrid will go down in history for performing the greatest coup in the annals of international finance.’ Do you remember writing that?”
“It sure would be something,” I said.
“May I assume you still feel that way, Mr. Spade, and that that is the reason for your visit? I am very honored.” He laughed self-consciously again. “I must admit that you are rather younger than I expected. But come, forgive me. Here I stand chatting like a magpie, yes, a magpie,” he said, pleased with the allusion made in a foreign language, “when you would probably like nothing better than a drink after the long drive from Navarre. I keep Pimm’s Number One Cup which I learned to enjoy when I was economic attaché at our embassy in Great Britain,” he went on garrulously. “Or the makings for a very dry martini, with a twist of lemon peel of course. I find these drinks so much more civilized than the sherry and Valdepeñas of my own country. Don’t you agree?”
With a flourish he indicated that I should precede him across the driveway and up the stairs. We entered a hallway paneled with dark wood and went through it to a large living room festooned with what were probably family portraits. The furniture was solidly and uncompromisingly English, with only a mounted bull’s head over the mantel to indicate we might be in Spain.
“A gift from Don Hernando Sotomayor, which arrived, ironically, on the day of his arrest,” Prieto told me. “We were great friends, and I am almost glad I never had the chance to tell him that I consider the running of the bulls a barbaric custom. Well, chacun à son goût, as the French say. And speaking of that, Mr. Spade,” he said, his eyes twinkling over plump cheeks, “is your taste for the Pimm’s Cup or the martini?” He yanked a bell cord near the window.
I expected that to summon a uniformed flunky or at least a maid in a black dress and a white frilly apron, but what it brought was his daughter Carmen, still wearing the dress she had climbed into before leaving José Sotomayor’s apartment. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but she managed a dutiful, “Yes, Papa?”
“This is my daughter Carmen,” Prieto informed me. “But perhaps you already met at Don Santiago’s ranch. Carmen returned quite unexpectedly.” His nervous little laugh punctuated the sentence. “My little Carmen is as mercurial and unpredictable as her dear mother was, and I love her the more for it.” He patted Carmen’s shoulder.
“Yes, Mr. Drum and I met at the ranch,” Carmen said.
Prieto raised his eyebrows at that. “Surely you mean Mr. Spade?”
“No,” I said quickly. “She has it right. My name is Drum, Señor Prieto.”
“Then why did you allow me to go on like that about a subject that could be of no possible interest to you?” he demanded angrily.
“I work for Axel Spade.”
That failed to satisfy him, “In what capacity, may I ask?”
“Sort of a man Friday, I guess you’d say.”
“Man Friday? Ah, I see. Daniel Defoe. British. Splendid book. And Robinson Crusoe was the first writer of true novels, of course.”
His flaunting of erroneous knowledge mollified him somewhat. “Then may I assume you came here on Mr. Spade’s behalf to … shall we say … do a preliminary exploration of the matter we were discussing outside?”
“Not exactly,” I said again. “But Spade’s talked to me about it, and he’s interested.” So was I. Spade had mentioned the possibility of a connection between Hernando Sotomayor’s missing fortune and the Loyalist gold reserve. “We’ll probably be getting back to you on it later.”
“Then what is the purpose of this visit, sir?” he asked me coldly.
“Well, I had business in Madrid and asked Carmen if she’d like to have dinner with me.”
Carmen gave me a grateful look. Prieto said nothing. “If it’s all right with you,” I added.
“I? Carmen has been willful, like her mother, since she was sixteen. She comes and goes as she pleases. Perhaps I have been a too-permissive father, not that I had any choice. Here in Spain the gap between the generations has become as great as it is in England or America. Perhaps that is an indication that Spain is becoming a civilized country.”
“Does that mean we have your permission,
Papa?” Carmen asked.
“Haven’t I said as much?”
Carmen smiled faintly. “Yes, Papa.” She turned toward the door. She was in a hurry to go.
Prieto walked with us to the car. “Please tell Mr. Spade I would be honored by his visit at any time. We have so very much to talk about if he still feels the way he did in 1959.” He scowled. “Or perhaps it was 1960.”
I helped Carmen into the car and went around to the driver’s side. Prieto was fondling Axel Spade’s hallmark again. He stepped back reluctantly when I opened the door.
Carmen sat with an anxious look on her face as we backed out of the driveway and drove off.
We got a table in the downstairs room in Botín’s, a many-centuries-old restaurant lost in the labyrinth of crooked streets off the Puerta del Sol. Glazed and crackling suckling pigs turned slowly on their spits. Waiters kept coming and going, toting the roasted cochinillos on big platters, smiling down benignly at them and presenting them at tables with a flourish before carving them into a few succulent slices and disposing of the heads.
Carmen Prieto watched all this mouth-watering activity without a word. She sat primly with her hands folded in her lap, staring at the bottle of Marquis de Riscal on the table.
“Take a drink,” I said. “It will do you good.”
She spoke for the first time since we had left her father’s house. “Madre de Dios, don’t just sit there. When will you tell me what happened?” Her voice was too loud. Heads turned to look at us. She dropped her gaze to her lap.
“Relax,” I said. “Nobody asked me if José was alone when I got there. You’re in the clear.”
She looked up. Her dark eyes were enormous. “Truly?”
I nodded.
“And you said nothing? I thank you, señor. With all of my heart.”
“You can start by calling me Chet.”
“Sí. Chet. That is easy.” She pronounced it Chayt. “And then what?”
“Then I ask some questions and you answer them.”
Drumbeat Madrid Page 6