Alicia refused the stick and walked out to the corridor without waiting for them, limping slightly.
A few minutes later they were traveling silently through the streets of Madrid in the rain. Sitting on the back seat of the black Packard, Alicia looked up at the profiles of domes and statues along the cornices of Gran Vía. Angel-driven chariots and stone sentinels kept watch from above. It looked to her as if the lead-gray skies had disgorged a snaking reef of colossal, somber buildings, all piled up against each other: petrified creatures that had swallowed entire cities. At her feet, the canopies of grand theaters and the fronts of cafés and fancy shops gleamed beneath the rain. Closer to the ground, people were just tiny sketches with vapor coming out of their mouths, walking past under a swarm of umbrellas. On days such as this, Alicia thought, one began to agree with good old Maura and believe that the dark shadows of the Hispania stretched right across the country, from one end to the other, without letting in a single chink of light.
3
“Tell me about this new operative you’re proposing. Gris, did you say?”
“Alicia Gris.”
“Alicia? A woman?”
“Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard about her more than once, but always as Gris. I’d no idea she was a woman. Some may question the choice.”
“Your superiors?”
“Our superiors, Leandro. We can’t allow another mistake like the Lomana one. They’re getting nervous in El Pardo.”
“With all due respect, the only mistake was that they didn’t explain clearly from the start why they needed someone from my unit. Had I known what it was about, I would have chosen another candidate. That was not a task for Ricardo Lomana.”
“I don’t set the rules, nor do I control the information. It all comes from above.”
“I realize that.”
“Tell me about Gris.”
“Señorita Gris is twenty-nine and has been working for me for twelve years. She’s a war orphan. She lost her parents when she was eight. She was brought up in the Patronato Ribas, a Barcelona orphanage, until she was thrown out when she was fifteen for disciplinary reasons. For a couple of years she took to living on the streets, working for a black marketeer and second-rate criminal called Baltasar Ruano, who ran a gang of teenage thieves, until the Civil Guard got their hands on him and he was executed, like so many others, in Campo de la Bota.”
“I hear that she’s—”
“That’s not a problem. She can manage on her own, and I can assure you she knows how to defend herself. It’s a wound she sustained in the war, during the Barcelona bombings. It’s never been an obstacle when it comes to performing her duty. Alicia Gris is the best agent I’ve recruited in my twenty years of service.”
“Then why hasn’t she turned up when she was expected?”
“I understand your frustration and apologize once again. Alicia can be somewhat unruly at times, but so are almost all exceptional agents in this line of work. A month ago we had a routine disagreement about a case she was working on. I suspended her temporarily without pay. Not to turn up at her appointment today is her way of saying she’s still annoyed with me.”
“Your relationship sounds more personal than professional, if you’ll allow my opinion.”
“In my field one can’t exist without the other.”
“I worry about this contempt for discipline. We can’t afford any more mistakes in this matter.”
“There won’t be any more.”
“That had better be true. We’re putting our necks on the line. Yours and mine.”
“Leave it in my hands.”
“Tell me more about Gris. What makes her so special?”
“Alicia Gris sees what the rest don’t see. Her mind works differently from the rest. Where everyone else sees a locked door, she sees a key. Where others lose track, she picks up the trail. It’s a gift, one could say. And the best thing is that no one sees her coming.”
“Is that how she resolved what they called the case of the Barcelona Dolls?”
“The wax brides. That was the first case Alicia worked on for me.”
“I’ve always wondered whether that story about the civil governor was true . . .”
“All that happened years ago.”
“But we have time, no? While we wait for the damsel.”
“Of course. It happened in 1947. At the time I’d been posted to Barcelona. We were informed that during the past three years the police had discovered at least seven bodies of young women in different corners of the city. They turned up sitting on a park bench, at a tram stop, in a café on the Paralelo . . . They even found one kneeling in a confessional in the parish church of El Pino. They were all perfectly made up and dressed in white. There wasn’t a drop of blood in their bodies, and they smelled of camphor. They looked like wax dolls. Hence the name.”
“Did they know who they were?”
“Nobody had ever reported their disappearance, so the police thought they might be prostitutes. This was confirmed later on. Months went by without any more bodies appearing, and the Barcelona police closed the case.”
“And then another one turned up.”
“Correct. Margarita Mallofré. They found her sitting in an armchair in the lobby of the Hotel Oriente.”
“And this Margarita was the darling of . . . ?”
“Margarita Mallofré worked in a rather exclusive brothel on Calle Elisabets, which catered to, let’s say, unusual tastes provided at high prices. It emerged that the civil governor at the time was a regular customer, and the deceased was his favorite.”
“For what reason?”
“It seems that Margarita Mallofré was the one who managed to remain conscious longest, despite the governor’s special attentions. Hence the gentleman’s preference.”
“So much for His Excellency.”
“The fact is that thanks to that connection, the case was reopened, and because of the delicate nature of the matter, I was put in charge. Alicia had just started working for me, and I assigned it to her.”
“Wasn’t it too lurid a matter for a young girl?”
“Alicia was a very unusual young girl, and not easily shocked.”
“And how did the matter end?”
“It ended quickly. Alicia spent a few nights sleeping rough, keeping an eye on the entrances and exits of the main bordellos in the Raval quarter. She discovered that whenever there was a routine police raid, the clients would sneak out through some concealed door, and that sometimes the young girls or boys working there did the same thing. Alicia decided to follow them. They hid from the police in doorways, in cafés, and even in the sewers. Most of them were caught and made to spend a night in prison, or worse still, but that’s neither here nor there. Others managed to dodge the police. And the ones who did always ended up in the same place: the junction of Calle Joaquín Costa and Calle Peu de la Creu.”
“What did she find there?”
“At first glance, nothing special. A couple of grain warehouses. A grocer’s. A garage. And a textile mill whose owner, someone called Rufat, had had a few brushes with the police because of his tendency to go overboard when he applied corporal punishment to some of his female workers, one of whom had lost an eye. Rufat was a frequent client of the establishment where Margarita Mallofré worked until her disappearance.”
“The kid works fast.”
“That’s why the first thing she did was eliminate Rufat. He was a brute, but he had no link to the case beyond the coincidence that he was a regular visitor to the establishment. Which was only a few streets away from his own business.”
“And then? Back to square one?”
“Alicia always says that things follow not their apparent logic, but instead an inner logic.”
“And what logic could there be in this case, according to her?”
“What Alicia calls the simulation logic.”
“You’ve really lost me now, Leandro.”
“The s
hort version is that Alicia believes that everything that happens in society and in public life is a staging, a mere simulation of what we are trying to pass off as reality, but in fact isn’t.”
“Sounds Marxist.”
“Don’t worry. Alicia is the most skeptical person I know. According to her, all ideologies and creeds, without distinction, are brain inflammations induced by low intellect. In a word, simulations.”
“Even worse. I don’t know why you’re smiling, Leandro. I don’t find this funny. I’m feeling an increasing dislike for this young lady. She’s good-looking, at least?”
“I don’t run a hostess agency.”
“Don’t get angry, Leandro, I was only joking. How does that story end?”
“Once Rufat was no longer a suspect, Alicia began to peel off what she calls the onion skins.”
“Another one of her theories?”
“Alicia says that every crime is like an onion: you have to cut through lots of layers to find out what’s hidden inside, and on the way you must shed a few tears.”
“Leandro, sometimes I marvel at the fauna you recruit.”
“My work consists in finding the right tool for each task. And keeping it sharpened.”
“Be careful you don’t cut yourself one of these days. But go back to the onion story. I was enjoying that.”
“By peeling off the layers of each of the businesses and establishments located at the road junction where the vanished girls had last been seen, Alicia discovered that the garage belonged to the old charity almshouse known as the Casa de la Caridad.”
“Another dead end.”
“In this case, dead is the key word.”
“I’m lost again.”
“That garage was used to house part of the fleet of hearses belonging to the city council, and there was also a storeroom for coffins and funeral sculptures. In those days, the municipal funeral services were still managed by the almshouse, and most of its menial employees, from gravediggers to young helpers, were godforsaken people: convicts, beggars, and so on. In other words, miserable souls who had ended up there because they had no one else in the world. Applying her skills, which are plenty, Alicia managed to get employed as a typist in the administrative department of the Casa de la Caridad. Soon she discovered that on the nights when there were police raids, the girls from the neighboring brothels ran to hide in the garage of the funeral services. It was always easy for them to persuade any of the poor souls who worked there to let them hide in one of the carriages in exchange for their favors. Once the danger was over, and the benefactors’ desires had been satisfied, the girls went back to their posts before daybreak.”
“But . . .”
“But they didn’t all go back. Some were never seen again. Alicia discovered that among the people working there, there was one character unlike the rest. Like her, he was a war orphan. They called him Quimet, because he had a boyish face and such a pleasant manner that all the widows wanted to adopt him and take him home with them. The fact is that this so-called Quimet was an outstanding student and already very skilled in funeral arts. What caught her attention was that he was a collector and had a photograph album of porcelain dolls that he kept in his desk. He said he wanted to get married and form a family, and that was why he was looking for the right woman, pure and clean, both in spirit and in flesh.”
“The simulation?”
“Decoy would be a better word here. Alicia started to watch him every night, and it didn’t take her long to discover that her suspicions had been well founded. It turned out that when one of those women who’d gone astray went to Quimet for help, if the girl satisfied all his requirements of height, complexion, looks, and build, far from demanding a sexual payment, he would pray with her and assure her that with his help and that of the Holy Virgin Mary, nobody would ever find her. The best hiding place, he argued, was a coffin. Nobody, not even the police, would dare to open a coffin to see what’s inside. The girls, captivated by Quimet’s childlike face and gentle manners, would lie down in the coffin and smile at him when he closed the lid and sealed them inside. There he would let them suffocate. Then he would undress them, shave their pubes, wash them from head to foot, bleed them, and inject an embalming liquid into their hearts, which he then pumped through their bodies. Once they had been reborn as wax dolls, he would apply makeup and dress them in white. Alicia also discovered that all the clothes that had been found on the bodies came from the same bridal shop on Ronda San Pedro, just two hundred meters away. One of the employees remembered having served Quimet more than once.”
“What a gem.”
“Quimet would spend a couple of nights with the dead bodies, emulating, so to speak, some sort of marital life, until the bodies began to smell of dead flowers. At that point, always before daybreak, when the streets were still deserted, he would take them to their new eternal life in one of the hearses and then stage their discovery.”
“Holy Mother of God . . . Stuff like that only happens in Barcelona.”
“Alicia was able to discover all this and more, just in time to rescue what would have been Quimet’s eighth victim from one of the coffins.”
“And was it established why he did it?”
“Alicia found out that when he was a boy, Quimet had spent a whole week locked up with his mother’s corpse in a flat on Calle de la Cadena, until the smell alerted the neighbors. It seems that his mother had committed suicide by swallowing poison when she found out that her husband had left her. Unfortunately, none of this could be verified because Quimet took his own life during his first night in the Campo de la Bota prison, after leaving his dying wishes written on the wall of his cell. He wanted to have his body shaved, washed, and embalmed, and then, dressed in white, be exhibited in perpetuity in a glass coffin next to one of his wax brides, in the shop window of the El Siglo department store. Apparently his mother had worked there as a shop assistant. But, speaking of the devil, Señorita Gris must be about to arrive. A little brandy to remove the bad taste from the anecdote?”
“One last thing, Leandro. I want one of my men to work with your agent. I don’t want another unreported disappearance like Lomana’s.”
“I think that’s a mistake. We have our own methods.”
“The condition isn’t negotiable. And Altea agrees with me.”
“With all due respect . . .”
“Leandro, Altea had already wanted to put Hendaya on the case.”
“Another mistake.”
“I agree. That’s why I’ve convinced him to let me do things my way, for the moment. But the condition is that one of my men must supervise your operative. It’s that, or Hendaya.”
“I see. Who were you thinking of?”
“Vargas.”
“I thought he had retired.”
“Only technically.”
“Is this a punishment?”
“For your agent?”
“For Vargas.”
“More like a second chance.”
4
The Packard circled Plaza de Neptuno under the deluge, then turned up Carrera de San Jerónimo toward the white, French-style silhouette of the Gran Hotel Palace. They stopped in front of the main entrance, and when the doorman came over to open the passenger door, holding a large umbrella, the two secret-police officers turned their heads and gave Alicia a look that was somewhere between a threat and a plea.
“Can we leave you here without you making a scene, or must we drag you in so you don’t give us the slip again?”
“Don’t worry; I won’t show you up.”
“Do we have your word?”
Alicia nodded. Getting in and out of a car on a bad day was never easy, but she didn’t want that pair to see her looking even more crushed than she actually was: as she stood up, she concealed the piercing pain in her hip with a smile. The doorman walked with her to the entrance, protecting her against the rain with the umbrella; a battalion of concierges and valets seemed to be waiting for her, ready to escort
her through the hall to her appointment. When she noticed the two flights of stairs rising from the lobby to the grand dining hall, she knew she should have taken the walking stick. She pulled out a pillbox from her handbag and swallowed a pill. Before beginning the ascent, she breathed in deeply.
A couple of minutes and dozens of steps later, she stopped to catch her breath outside the doors to the dining hall. The concierge who had accompanied her noticed the film of perspiration on her forehead. Alicia smiled reluctantly. “From here on, I think I can manage all by myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. As you please, miss.”
The concierge left discreetly, but Alicia didn’t need to look back to know that he was still watching her and would not take his eyes off her until she’d entered the dining hall. She dried her forehead with a handkerchief and studied the scene.
Barely a whisper of voices and the tinkling of a teaspoon slowly turning in a china cup. The Palace dining hall opened up before her, possessed, it seemed, by dancing flashes that dripped down from the large dome beneath the hammering rain. She had always thought the structure resembled a huge glass willow tree that hung like a canopy of rose windows taken from a hundred cathedrals and put together in remembrance of the Belle Époque. Nobody could accuse Leandro of having bad taste.
Under that bubble of multicolored glass, only one table was taken among a large number of empty ones. Two figures were being watched diligently by half a dozen waiters, who maintained the exact distance from the table that was too far to overhear their conversation but close enough to read their gestures. After all, the Palace, unlike her temporary address, the Hispania, was a first-class establishment. A creature of bourgeois habits, Leandro lived and worked there. Literally. He had occupied suite 814 for years and liked to carry out his business in that dining hall, which, as Alicia suspected, allowed him to believe that he lived in Proust’s Paris and not in Franco’s Spain.
She trained her eyes on the two diners. Leandro Montalvo, sitting, as usual, facing the entrance. He was a man of average height, with the soft and rounded build of a well-to-do accountant. Hiding behind oversize horn-rimmed glasses that helped him conceal his sharp eyes. Affecting the relaxed and affable air of a provincial lawyer, the sort who enjoys operettas, or a successful bank clerk who likes visiting museums after work. Good old Leandro.
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 9