“Nobody’s going to hurt you,” said Leandro as he removed the shackles.
When she was free, Alicia stood up and ran for shelter to a corner of the room.
The man’s gaze fixed on the puddle of urine under the chair. “I apologize, Alicia.”
“What do you want?”
“I want us to have a chat. That’s all.”
“What about?”
“About the man you’ve been working for these last two years. Baltasar Ruano.”
“I don’t owe him anything.”
“I know. I want you to know that Ruano has been arrested, together with most of your gang.”
Alicia looked at him suspiciously.
“What are they going to do to him?”
Leandro shrugged. “Ruano’s finished. He confessed after a long interrogation. He’ll be garroted. It’s a matter of days. That’s good news for you.”
Alicia swallowed hard. “What about the others?”
“They’re just kids. Reformatory or prison. For the lucky ones, that is. The ones who go back to the streets have their days numbered.”
“And me?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’d like you to work for me.”
Alicia observed Leandro without a word as he settled in the chair and gazed at her, smiling.
“I’ve been watching you for some time, Alicia. I think you have the gift.”
“What for?”
“For learning.”
“Learning what?”
“To survive. And also to use your skills for something more than filling the pockets of a small-time crook like Ruano.”
“And who are you?”
“I’m Leandro.”
“Are you with the police?”
“Something like that. Think of me as a friend.”
“I don’t have any friends.”
“We all have friends. It’s a matter of knowing how to find them. What I’m proposing to you is that you work for me for the next twelve months. You’ll have decent lodgings and a salary. You’ll be free to leave whenever you wish.”
“What if I decide to leave now?”
Leandro pointed to the door. “If that’s what you want, you can go. You can go back to the streets.”
Alicia fixed her eyes on the door. Leandro stood up and opened it. Then he went back to the chair, leaving the path open for her. “Nobody is going to stop you if you decide to walk through that door, Alicia. But the opportunity I’m offering you stays here.”
She took a few steps toward the door. Leandro made no attempt to stop her.
“And if I stay with you?” she said.
“If you decide to trust me, the first thing will be to find you a hot bath, clean clothes, and dinner at the Siete Puertas restaurant. Have you ever been there?”
“No.”
“They serve a delicious seafood rice.”
Alicia’s stomach rumbled with hunger. “And then?”
“Then you’ll go to your new home, where you’ll have a room and a bathroom to yourself, and there you’ll rest and sleep in your own bed with clean new sheets. And tomorrow, without rushing, I’ll come and fetch you and we’ll go to my office so I can begin to tell you what I do.”
“Why don’t you tell me now?”
“Let’s say that I devote my time to solving problems and to putting criminals like Baltasar Ruano and others far worse out of circulation, so that they can no longer hurt anybody. But the most important thing I do is find exceptional people like you, who don’t know they’re exceptional, and teach them to develop their talents so that they can do good.”
“Do good,” Alicia repeated coldly.
“The world isn’t the amoral place you’ve known until now, Alicia. The world is simply the reflection of those of us who make it up. In fact, the world is only what we make of it between us all. That’s why people like you or like me, who are born with a gift, have a responsibility to use it for the good of others. Mine is to know how to recognize talent in others and guide them, so that when the time comes they can make the right decision.”
“I have no talent. No gift—”
“Of course you do. Trust me. And above all, trust yourself, Alicia. Because if you so wish, today could be the first day of the life that was stolen from you. If you let me, I’ll give it back to you.”
Leandro smiled warmly, and Alicia felt an anxious and painful need to hug him. He held out his hand. Step by step, she crossed the room toward him. She placed her hand on that stranger’s hand and gazed deep into his eyes.
“Thank you, Alicia. I swear you won’t be sorry.”
* * *
The echo of those words, so distant now, slowly died away. Pain was starting to bare its claws, and Alicia decided to walk slowly. She knew that since she left Barceló’s club someone had been following her. She could feel someone’s eyes caressing her figure from a distance, waiting. When she reached the traffic lights on Calle Rosellón, she stopped and turned around slightly, combing the street behind her with a casual look, scanning the dozens of passersby who had come out to stroll down the Rambla, to show off their uniforms, to see and be seen in the right places. She hoped it would be poor old Rovira, but she couldn’t help asking herself whether Lomana might be hiding among all those people, cleverly concealed some thirty meters away in a doorway, or behind a group of pedestrians who could cover him up: observing her, hot on her heels, his hand in his coat pocket, eagerly stroking the knife he had been keeping for her for so long. A block farther down, she sighted the glass front of the Mauri Patisserie, bursting with delicious confectionery, all masterfully presented to sweeten the autumn blues of wellborn ladies. After checking behind her again, she decided to take refuge there for a few moments.
A young woman—her expression solemn and virginal—led her to a table by the window. The Mauri Patisserie had always seemed to Alicia a lavish sugar den where ladies of a certain age and position retired to scheme, sheltering behind exquisite chamomile teas and almost sinful cakes. That afternoon the congregated clientele only confirmed her diagnosis. Tempted to feel like one more among the chosen few, she ordered a cappuccino and a cream Massini cake she had noticed on her way in, which had her name written all over it. While she waited, she smiled back absently at the bejeweled matrons who glanced at her from the other tables, in their armor-plated outfits from Modas Santa Eulalia. It was easy to lip-read their sotto voce comments. If they could pull my skin off in shreds and make themselves a mask with it, she thought, they would.
* * *
Alicia swallowed half of her cake greedily as soon as it was served. Within a few seconds she felt the sugar rush. She put her hand in her bag, pulled out the bottle Leandro had given her in the station, and opened it, placing one of the pills on the palm of her hand. Before putting it in her mouth she examined it for a few seconds, but a sharp new pang in her hip made up her mind for her. She swallowed the pill with a long gulp of coffee and ate the rest of the cake, just to pad her stomach. For the next half hour she sat there, watching people go by and waiting for the drug to kick in. As soon as she felt the pain drowning in the murky veil of drowsiness that spread through her body, she stood up and paid at the till.
Outside the patisserie she hailed a taxi and gave her address. The taxi driver was in a chatty mood and offered her a long monologue, to which Alicia vaguely agreed. As the narcotic began to freeze her blood, the city lights seemed to fade into a watery mantle, like watercolor stains sliding down a canvas. The traffic sounds seemed to reach her from afar.
“Are you feeling all right?” asked the driver, stopping in front of her flat on Calle Aviñón.
She nodded and paid her fare without waiting for the change. The taxi driver, not altogether convinced, didn’t leave until he’d made sure she could fit the key in the lock.
Not wanting to bump into Jesusa or some neighbor eager for l
ong-time-no-see conversations on landings, Alicia started up the stairs at a brisk pace. After what felt like an interminable ascent, marked by moments of darkness and vertigo, she managed to reach the door to her flat. Miraculously, she found her key and let herself in.
Once inside, she took the bottle out of her bag again. She pulled out two more pills with trembling fingers, let the bag fall to the ground by her feet, and walked over to the dining-room table. The bottle of white wine Fernandito had given her was still there. She filled a glass to the rim. Clutching the table with one hand to steady herself, she swallowed the pills in one gulp, raising the empty glass to Leandro’s health. And especially not with alcohol.
* * *
Alicia staggered down the corridor to her bedroom, dropping her clothes on the way. Without bothering to switch on the light, she slumped down on the bed and, with great difficulty, tugged the bedspread over herself. Exhausted, she closed her eyes. The cathedral bells rang in the distance.
10
In the dream, the stranger had no face. His black silhouette looked as if it had become detached from the liquid shadows that dripped from the ceiling. At first Alicia thought she had seen him watching her from the foot of her bed, but then she realized that he was sitting on the edge, pulling off the sheets that covered her. She felt cold. The stranger was slowly removing his black gloves. She felt his freezing fingers touch her bare belly, searching for the scar that spread over her right hip. The hands of the stranger explored the folds in the wound, and his lips settled on her body. The warm contact of the tongue caressing the ridge of the scar made her feel nauseous. Only when she heard footsteps walking away along the corridor did she realize she wasn’t alone in the apartment.
Fumbling about in the dark for the switch, she turned on her bedside lamp. The light blinded her, and she covered her eyes. She heard steps in the dining room, then the sound of a door closing. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that she was lying naked on her bed, the sheets piled up on the floor. She sat up slowly, holding her head, overwhelmed by vertigo. For a moment she thought she would pass out.
“Jesusa?” she called out nervously.
She picked a sheet off the floor and wrapped herself in it, then managed to walk down the corridor, searching the walls with her hands, groping in the dark. The trail of clothes she’d left hours before had vanished. The dining room was buried in a steely darkness. A bluish gleam filtered through the window, barely outlining the shapes of furniture and bookshelves. She found the switch and turned on the ceiling lamp, her eyes slowly adjusting to the light. As soon as she understood what she was seeing, fear cleared her mind. The scene before her suddenly jumped into sharp relief, as if until that moment she had been looking through a lens that was out of focus.
Her clothes had been gathered on the dining-room table, except for her red coat, which lay on one of the chairs. Her dress was folded with professional expertise, her stockings delicately stretched out with the seams to one side, her underwear smoothed out as if on display in a lingerie shop. Again, she felt a surge of nausea. She walked over to the bookshelves and pulled out the Bible. Opening it, she removed the gun hidden there, letting the empty book slip from her hands. She made no attempt to pick it up. Cocking the hammer, she grasped the revolver in both hands.
Only then did she notice her bag, hanging on the back of one of the chairs. She remembered having dropped it when she came in. She walked over to look at it. It was closed. A shiver ran through her body when she opened it. She let it fall, cursing herself. The Mataix book was no longer there.
Alicia spent the rest of the night in the dark, curled up in a corner of the sofa, her gun in her hands, her eyes fixed on the door, listening to the unending moans of the old building. Daybreak caught her as her heavy eyelids were beginning to close. She sat up and looked at her reflection in the windowpane. Farther away, a blanket of purple spread over the sky, sketching a parade of shadows between the rooftops and towers of the city. Alicia looked out of the window and saw that the lights of the Gran Café were already speckling the pavement. Barcelona had only given her one day’s respite.
“Welcome back,” she told herself.
11
Vargas was waiting for Alicia in the dining room of the Gran Café, nursing a steaming cup and rehearsing his smile as a truce offering. She spotted him as soon as she walked out of her front door, his profile outlining a double image on the café window. He was sitting at the same table she had occupied the day before, surrounded by the remains of what must have been a sumptuous breakfast, and by a couple of newspapers. Alicia crossed the street and took a deep breath before opening the café door. When he saw her come in, Vargas stood up and waved nervously. She returned his greeting and approached the table, signaling to Miquel to bring her the usual breakfast. The waiter nodded.
“How was your journey?” asked Alicia.
“Long.”
Vargas waited for her to sit down before doing so himself. They eyed one another in silence. His brow was furrowed, and he looked confused.
“What?” asked Alicia.
“I was expecting to be greeted with a curse, or something more in your style.”
Alicia shrugged.
“If I were a bit more stupid, I’d almost say you were pleased to see me,” he added.
She gave just the hint of a smile. “Don’t push it.”
“You scare me, Alicia. Has something happened?”
Miquel approached the table with care, carrying Alicia’s toast and her cup of coffee. She gave him a nod, and he quickly left, disappearing discreetly behind the bar. Alicia took one of the pieces of toast and gave it a tentative bite.
Vargas shot her a slightly worried look. “So?” he finally asked, impatiently.
Alicia began to summarize the previous day’s adventures, and those of the night. Vargas’s face grew somber. As she finished telling him how she had spent those hours until dawn, holding her revolver, waiting for the door of the flat to open again, he swore under his breath.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” he said. “You say a man came in while you were asleep and took the book.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“How do you know it was a man?”
“Because I know.”
“So you weren’t asleep.”
“I was under the effects of the medication. I’ve already told you.”
“What part haven’t you told me?”
“The one that’s none of your business.”
“Did he do anything to you?”
“No.”
Vargas looked at her in disbelief. “While I was waiting for you, your friend Miquel here offered me an attic they have upstairs, with a partial view of your home. I’m going to ask him to take my suitcase up, and I’ll pay him a couple of weeks in advance.”
“You don’t need to stay here, Vargas. Go to a good hotel. It’s on Leandro.”
“It’s either this, or I take up residence on your sofa. You choose.”
Alicia sighed. She was not in the mood to start a new battle.
“You hadn’t told me you had a gun,” said Vargas.
“You hadn’t asked me.”
“And you know how to use it?”
Alicia fixed her eyes on his.
“There I was, thinking you were more the knitting kind,” said the policeman. “Will you please always carry it with you? Inside and outside your home.”
“Yes, sir. Were you able to discover anything about Lomana?”
“No one in the ministry is saying a word. The impression I got was that they didn’t know anything. You must have already heard the police force’s version. He was transferred from his unit about a year ago to assist on the case of the anonymous letters to Valls. He did some investigating on his own. He was supposed to report to Gil de Partera. At some point he stopped doing so. Vanished into thin air. What is your history with him?”
“None.”
Vargas frowned. “You’re
not thinking he’s the person who came into your apartment last night to steal the book and do whatever it is he did that you won’t tell me about?”
“That’s you talking, not me.”
Vargas was observing her with a quizzical look. “This medication, is it for that wound of yours?”
“No, I take it for fun. How old are you, Vargas?”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Probably twice as old as you, although I’d rather not think about it. Why?”
“You’re not starting to see yourself as my father, or anything of the sort, are you?”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“What a shame,” said Alicia.
“And don’t get all soppy now. It doesn’t suit you.”
“That’s what Leandro says.”
“Probably with good reason. If our sentimental interlude is over, why don’t you tell me what our plans are for the day?”
Alicia finished her coffee and signaled to Miquel to bring her another.
“You do know that aside from caffeine and cigarettes the body also needs carbohydrates, protein, and all that stuff, don’t you?”
“I promise we’ll go and have lunch at Casa Leopoldo later today. You’re paying.”
“What a relief. And before that?”
“Before that we’re going to meet my private spy, good old Rovira.”
“Rovira?”
Alicia gave him a brief account of her meeting with Rovira the day before. “He must be wandering around out there, frozen stiff.”
“Let him freeze his balls off,” said Vargas. “And after giving your apprentice his assignment for the day, what’s next?”
“I thought we could pay a visit to a lawyer. Fernando Brians.”
Vargas nodded unenthusiastically. “Who is he?”
“Brians represents a collector who for years has been buying up all the copies of Mataix novels.”
“You’re still on about that book. Don’t be offended, but wouldn’t the sensible thing be to see what they have to tell us at police headquarters about the car Valls was in when he left Madrid? I’m just giving an example of something truly connected with the case in hand.”
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 24