Midnight in Madrid rt-2

by Noel Hynd

  The job was steady. It paid reasonably. It supported her comfortably, if not lavishly. But she also felt as if she was doing something not just to support herself and her young daughter, but something for Spain as well. Something that protected the public. From accidents. From terror. Even from inferior Metro service.

  So she took her job seriously and dutifully, which was in the family tradition. Her father had been an engine driver for RENFE, the railway company, until he died of a stroke.

  From her father, she had also inherited his little apartment in Lavapies, not far from where so many of the new immigrants from India, Morocco, and China had settled. The home was not grand and it was not in a chic or fashionable part of the ancient city, nestled onto a street with Arab tea rooms and Indian kabob restaurants. Her place was a rambling apartment in one of the old corrales -or tenements-of the nineteenth century. But inside, it was tidy, clean, and comfortable, a nice home all the same among friendly people from all over the world. And it was hers.

  The home was her father’s inheritance to her. All of it. And her father was the man she had loved unequivocally her entire life and who had loved her the same way in return. Pictures of him with Maria’s mother adorned every room of her home. In his honor she still supported Atletico, the soccer team that was the perennial underdog to the much more famous Real Madrid. She had gone to the games with him when she was a small child, sitting on his knee when she was small enough, in much the same way that he had taken her to the bullfights

  She still went to the bullfights at Las Ventas from time to time. She felt very much at home sitting in the pie-slice shape of the arena where her father sat along with all the real aficionados, compared to the tourists in the more expensive sections. Actually, more than the bullfights themselves, she liked walking back along the Calle de Alcala, with its lively scene of people enjoying the bustle of the boulevard, leading up to the Puerta de Alcala, the three-hundred-year-old neoclassical arch that remains Madrid’s grandest monument.

  Men in her life? From time to time. But she no longer wished to be tied down. And one of the last things in Spain that would change, she thought, would be the machismo aspect of the male dominated Spanish society. No, she had her daughter, a job that gave her some independence, and the little pleasures of life.

  Men were a mixed lot, anyway. Except for her father, who had accepted her behavior and her pregnancy, saying “ Los tiempos cambian .” Times change.

  Times had changed.

  A lot of the change had been very visible and in her lifetime, the last few decades, the final part of her father’s life and the first part of hers. Much of the change had come thanks to Felipe Gonzalez and the PSOE, the Socialist Party that came into power in 1982 and completed the transformation from the stodgy, repressive Franco era to the vibrant Spain of the present day.

  She remembered the latter years of the movida, the time when frozen morals were thawing and repressed creativity in everything from the arts to fashion to cinema was blossoming everywhere. She remembered dancing late into the night as a young girl sans chaperone, something that would have been unthinkable a few years earlier. She had even gotten pregnant by a man she barely knew, and though she hadn’t married the father, she was proud of her twelve-year-old daughter, who was now an outstanding student in school.

  For a woman in her thirties with minimal formal education and no husband, things were going very well.

  FIFTEEN

  MADRID, SEPTEMBER 7, 12:47 P.M.

  A s Alex was closing her laptop, Gian Antonio Rizzo moved to a position beside her. “When did you arrive in Madrid?” he asked, switching into Italian.

  “Yesterday. By train from Barcelona.”

  “I noticed your tan,” he said. “Very nice. Your legs look spectacular. Spent some time turning heads on the beach, did you?”

  “Yes, thank you. Are you flirting with me already?”

  “I hope so,” he answered good naturedly. “I need to do something to make this otherwise-useless trip worthwhile. We’re never going to find this filthy figurine, you know. Might just as well go to the flea market on Saturday and get them a piece of junk there to replace it. So let’s talk about your skin hue, and the unending beauty of it, instead.”

  Alex smiled. “I’m not sure I’ll be having much more time to work on the tan,” she said, packing her PC into an equally new carrying case. “Seriously, this looks like a full plate.”

  “When art is gone, it’s gone,” he said. “Poof. Arrivederci. Hasta la vista, baby!”

  “We’ll see.”

  “But you’re feeling better?” he asked. “Better than I saw you last in Paris.”

  “ Molto meglio, grazie.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Ritz,” she said. “Down the Calle Filipe IV from here.”

  “I didn’t know America’s balance of payments was so healthy they could put your investigators in a place like that,” he said.

  “It’s not,” she said, packing up her things. “The dollar is still in shambles worldwide, but the average bubba who votes doesn’t know that yet. So they waste money, anyway. Like all governments. At least some of it gets thrown in my direction. If I objected, they’d probably have me investigated.”

  “How many dollars is that a night, the hotel?”

  “Maybe six hundred,” she said. “I haven’t looked. But the marble bathrooms are wonderful, as is the balcony and the view. I’m on the fifth floor overlooking the Prado. What’s not to like?”

  “It’s always helpful to understand that staying at a five-star hotel in Europe is quite a different experience than staying at one in Asia, or even in America for that matter. You’ll never get the service of the Oriental in Bangkok or the amenities of the St. Regis in New York. But what you do get is a heavy dose of old-world charm. And yes, sometimes that does come in the form of a beautiful hand-loomed carpet that is a bit stained or a breakfast buffet with indifferent food. That is what I love about hotels like the Ritz. You have to take a portfolio view of the experience and not focus too hard on any one aspect. Is that your experience?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Then invite me up to your room sometime.”

  “Not a chance,” she said with a laugh. “So far I’ve focused on the fresh fruit that arrives each day. Today it was yellow plums. Yesterday it was Haifa oranges.”

  “Don’t tell your taxpayers,” he said.

  “Sometimes being a government slave has its perks. This is one, I guess. And what the heck, I’m a prima donna, anyway, and tend to injure easily.”

  He laughed again. “Of that I have no doubt,” he said. “Unfortunately, I come from a small backward country with an outstanding football team but a third-world economy.”

  “Oh, knock it off.” They both moved toward the door. “You make Italy sound like Tunisia.”

  “Sometimes the similarity is vague,” he said.

  By then it had become a conversation in motion, Essen of Interpol tightly latching a computer case and talking to Fitzgerald of Scotland Yard in hushed tones, while LeMaitre, the Frenchman, picked through his pockets for a pack of cigarettes.

  The two Spaniards in uniform stood at their places and waited in case anyone felt like asking them anything further. They looked disappointed when no one did.

  Floyd Connelly of US Customs came over. His face was puffy up close, little red veins visible around the eyes that suggested a more than passing acquaintance with booze over several decades. He had the confused look of a man playing out the final few months before retirement, not really on top of anything any more, and torn between saying something smart and making a fool of himself.

  “A lot of bull, this whole thing,” he said in English. “I don’t know why I was even included here.”

  “I don’t either,” Rizzo said.

  “I had to fly in for this,” he muttered. “I missed a golf weekend in Maryland and an Orioles-Yankees game. I thought the peet-a was a big rock in Rome, and n
ow this guy’s telling us it’s a little thing that got stolen from here.”

  “This is one of the tinier ones,” Rizzo said, switching smoothly to English. “Which is why it walked off.”

  “How you supposed to keep track of them if there’s two things by the same name?” Connelly asked.

  Rizzo blinked. “There are actually several,” Rizzo added. He and Alex looked at him in the same way, wondering if he was that dumb or joking.

  “Well, carry on,” Connelly said, ignoring Rizzo and looking at Alex. “If you need anything, give me a holler.” He handed her a business card. On it he had written the name of his hotel in Madrid and a phone number.

  “I’ll do that. Same going the other direction,” she said.

  “Yeah. Right,” he answered, after taking a moment to figure out what she meant. “Right. Listen, my Spanish is a little weak, so I might give you a call just to compare notes on what was said here.”

  “That’s fine,” Alex said. “But the handouts are in English also.”

  “Are they?”

  “But call me with any questions,” she said.

  “Right,” he said again. “Okay.”

  Rizzo and Alex watched him lumber to the door and leave. Rizzo placed a hand on her shoulder, then took it away.

  “Political appointee,” she said.

  “ Capisco,” he said.

  “Anyway, you look like you’re doing well,” he said, going back to English. “I’m very glad. You were in my thoughts for the last weeks.”

  “Thank you.”

  “This work can slowly kill you sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I wake up and am surprised I’m still alive. Know what I mean?”

  “Look,” she said. “The Ritz is only a few blocks from here and they have an excellent cafe just off the lobby. I think you should buy me coffee.”

  “I think I should too,” he said.

  SIXTEEN

  MADRID, SEPTEMBER 7, EARLY AFTERNOON

  O n the outskirts of Madrid, Mahoud’s small car pulled to a halt in front of a ramshackle garage connected to a private home. The neighborhood was one of immigrants from Asia and North Africa. The home was owned by a taxi driver named Basheer. Basheer was not home at the time. He was an honest workingman in his thirties who pushed an old vehicle around Madrid for twelve hours a day, six days a week, to support his family. He had emigrated from a war-torn Lebanon to Spain in 1993. His family had found peace and prosperity in Western Europe.

  Basheer was also the second member of the cell that Jean-Claude had pulled together in Madrid.

  Jean-Claude stepped out and, as he always did, surveyed the street. His eyes swept quickly. He saw no danger. From a ring of keys, he found the one to Basheer’s garage. He unlocked the two doors and swung them open. He glanced at his watch.

  Mahoud pulled the car into the garage. They closed the garage door and waited.

  In the garage, which had space for only one car, Jean-Claude flipped open a cell phone and called a certain number. A familiar voice answered in Spanish.

  “ Soy aqui,” Jean-Claude said.

  The response was rapid. “ Veinti minutes.” Twenty minutes. But, Basheer warned, he had just dropped off some lousy American businesspeople at the airport and the traffic might be bad returning. Or he might catch a fare that he didn’t want to turn down.

  Jean-Claude said he would wait and clicked off.

  For a moment, neither Mahoud nor Jean-Claude spoke. There was taped music from Egypt on the car radio. It played softly. The garage was stuffy and hot, the sun pounding on the roof. Jean-Claude smoked. Mahoud coughed.

  He switched back to Arabic. “Why don’t you go stand sentry?” Jean-Claude suggested. “Outside. Stand across the street and keep watch.”

  “I don’t want to,” Mahoud said.

  “I didn’t ask if you wanted to,” Jean-Claude answered.

  Mahoud glared and hesitated. Then he opened his door, got out, and slammed it shut. He leaned forward and glared at Jean-Claude, looking as if he had something to say. He had a gun at his belt, beneath a soccer jersey. But Jean-Claude returned the glare with cold brown eyes. Mahoud exited the garage through the side door and took up his assigned position across the street.

  Jean-Claude remained in the back of the old car, his duffel bags at arm’s reach. There was also a rear exit to this garage, one that led to an alley that led between buildings and to safety down another street. If he felt that they had drawn a tail, this was his escape route before his cargo reached its destination. But for now everything looked fine.

  His attention drifted to a side door that led from the garage into a kitchen. The door was half open. There was activity in the kitchen now. Basheer’s wife, Leila, was there with her young child.

  Leila was a trim Arab woman, very pretty with fair skin. She was very young, maybe eighteen or nineteen. She was dressed very immodestly because of the heat.

  Jean-Claude watched her, his eyes riveted, more than a devout man should. Basheer, the taxi driver, was obviously a fortunate man in his home, not only to have such a young wife but such a sensual one too.

  The child was a boy. Excellent. Basheer and his wife had been blessed with a son. If Jean-Claude ever had a family, he would want a woman who looked as good as Basheer’s wife and he would want to impregnate her with many sons to continue his wars. Basheer’s wife had the infant in a high chair and was fixing a meal for her offspring. She was a perfect baby machine, a nice lithe body and obviously fertile.

  Jean-Claude remembered, though, that Basheer had expressed some criticism of Leila from time to time. Like many of the young Arab women in Madrid, she had some irritating pro-Western attitudes. She didn’t sufficiently hate Americans and English people, or even Spaniards. Worse, she seemed to like them and even like their culture. She and a friend, for example, had snuck off to a Batman movie and apparently liked it. The unfortunate Basheer had to raise his hand to his wife over that and punish her so that similar transgressions would not mar their future.

  Leila glanced in Jean-Claude’s direction but obviously didn’t see him in the car. She continued to go about her business, fixing the meal, feeding the child, entertaining an unseen watcher with her half nudity.

  Then, perhaps from feeling unseen eyes on her, she glanced again at the garage. This time, she did see him. She was startled.

  Jean-Claude’s instincts told him to look away quickly, but he didn’t follow them. His eyes were riveted. He was seeing something that he hadn’t often seen in his life. So he stared awkwardly, and then smiled.

  He smiled in spite of himself. Basheer was a primitive pious man. If he knew his wife had been seen in this state, Basheer would be prone to violence against both of them. He was a simple man and that was how he normally reacted.

  All sorts of scenarios ran through Jean-Claude’s head, none of them good. At the very least, he hoped Basheer’s wife would simply close the door and never mention the incident.

  Instead, she did the unpredictable. She did nothing. She didn’t close the door, and she didn’t cover up. Instead, she suppressed a delicate little smile and went about her business with her child.

  Jean-Claude would later remember thinking, “People are right.” Leila is “too Western.” But he didn’t look away, either. And in this case he didn’t seem to mind.

  SEVENTEEN

  MADRID, SEPTEMBER 7, MIDAFTERNOON

  A lex and Rizzo arrived at the Ritz and soon found their way to a cafe located on the back patio of an inner courtyard. As they found seats in a comfortable shaded area, it occurred to Alex why Rizzo had been assigned to the case.

  Italy had the most art crime of any country in the world, with approximately twenty thousand art thefts reported each year. Russia had the second most, with approximately a tenth as many. Italy was also the only country whose government took art crime as seriously as it should. Italy’s Carabinieri were the most successful art squad worldwide, employing over three hundred full-time agents, so if Rizzo had con
tacts within their ranks, as assuredly he did, he would be invaluable.

  “So,” Rizzo finally said, “it’s been about two months since I saw you last. You’ve managed to enjoy yourself a little bit, I hope.”

  The cafe was shaded and fans blew cold air outdoors from within the air-conditioned hotel. Despite the bad associations with the events in Paris that had nearly cost Alex her life, she was glad to see someone here she recognized, and, for that matter, someone she trusted.

  “I think I’m managing reasonably well,” she said. “The government gave me some time off. They don’t want me to turn into a nut case a few years down the road and sue them for abusive employment practices.”

  “Ah, America,” Rizzo said with a laugh. “I wish I were American. I wish my ancestors had gotten their tails onto a freighter out of Calabria and done me the favor of a lifetime.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Anyway,” she concluded, “I’ve been vacationing in Switzerland, Portugal, and Spain. Just collecting my thoughts, hanging out on beaches, doing a lot of reading, getting back into shape, listening to my iPod in six different languages, seven if you count English and American separately.”

  “I do. And my congratulations on a wise use of your time,” Rizzo said. “So you didn’t return to America at all?”

  “I did actually, yes,” she said, “for two weeks in June. Too many memories there for now. So I picked up some different clothes and came back over here.”

  “I understand,” he said. “Are you carrying a gun these days?” he asked.

  “Not in Spain. Are you?”

  “If I reached to my right ankle I might find something,” he said.

  Via the waitress, a pitch-black espresso arrived for Rizzo, a double poured over ice, and a small pitcher of iced tea with mint for her.

  “So you’ve been hanging out by yourself mostly?” he asked. “Not missing the warmth of human contact?”