“Where is he?” whispered Vargas in her ear.
She pointed toward the bottom of the stalls. Brians had taken a seat in the fourth row. They moved down the side passage, where a row of seats was backed up against the wall, as on an underground train. Halfway down, Alicia slipped into one of the rows, sitting in the middle.
Vargas sat down beside her. “Have you seen this film?”
Alicia nodded. She’d seen it at least six times and knew the dialogue by heart.
“What’s it about?”
“Penicillin. Keep quiet.”
The wait turned out to be shorter than they thought. The film was still running when Alicia, glancing over her shoulder, saw a figure advancing down the side aisle. She nudged Vargas, who was by now utterly engrossed in the film.
The stranger wore a dark coat and carried a hat in his hand. Alicia clenched her fists. The visitor stopped by the row where the lawyer was sitting, and stood staring calmly at the screen. A moment later he stepped into the row just behind Brians, sitting in a seat diagonally behind the lawyer.
“Knight’s move,” whispered Vargas.
For the next couple of minutes the lawyer showed no sign of having noticed the presence of the stranger, nor did the stranger seem to communicate with him in any way. Vargas looked at Alicia skeptically. Even she began to think that perhaps it was a simple coincidence—two strangers in a cinema with no more connection than a nearsightedness that made them prefer to sit in the front rows. It was only when the sound of gunshots filled the hall, ending the thousand lives of the evil Harry Lime, that the stranger leaned toward the seat in front of him, and Brians turned slightly. The sound track took away his words, and all Alicia was able to establish was that the lawyer had spoken a couple of sentences and given the stranger a piece of paper. Afterward, ignoring one another, they settled back in their seats and continued watching the film.
“In my day I would have arrested them on grounds of being fairies,” said Vargas.
“Pity we’re no longer living in the golden days of your Stone Age Spain,” replied Alicia.
When the projector flooded the screen with the grandiose final shot, the stranger stood up. He withdrew slowly toward the side aisle, and while the disillusioned heroine walked along the deserted avenue of the old Vienna cemetery, he put on his hat before slinking off to the exit. Alicia and Vargas didn’t turn their heads or otherwise suggest that they had noticed his presence, but their eyes were fixed on the figure sprinkled by the vaporous flicker of the projector. The brim of the hat cast a shadow over his face, but not enough to hide a bizarrely smooth, shiny ivory surface, like the face of a dummy. Alicia shivered.
Vargas waited for the stranger to disappear behind the entrance curtain before leaning over. “Is it me, or was that guy wearing a mask?”
“Something like that. Come on, let’s get out before he slips away.”
At that moment, before they had time to stand up, the lights went on and the end credits disappeared from the screen. Brians had stood up and was making his way toward the side aisle. In just a few seconds he would walk past and see them sitting there.
“What now?” whispered Vargas, lowering his head.
Alicia grabbed the back of the policeman’s neck and pulled his face toward hers.
“Embrace me,” she whispered.
Vargas put his arms around her with the zeal of a practicing schoolboy. Alicia pulled him toward her. Their lips almost touching, they became entwined in what looked like one of those furtive kisses that in those days were only seen in the back rows of local cinemas and in dark doorways at midnight. Vargas closed his eyes.
As soon as Brians had left the cinema hall, Alicia pushed Vargas away and stood up. “Let’s go.”
Outside the cinema, Brians was walking down the central lane of the underground avenue in the same direction as he had come. There was no trace of the stranger with the mannequin face. Some twenty meters farther along, Alicia spotted the stairs that led to the crossing of Calle Balmes and Calle Pelayo, and they hurried toward them. A stabbing pain ran up Alicia’s right leg, and she held her breath. Vargas grabbed her arm.
“I can’t go any faster,” she announced. “You go on ahead. Quick.”
Vargas leaped up the stairs while she leaned against the wall, recovering her breath. Emerging into the daylight, the policeman found himself staring at the entire length of Calle Balmes. He looked around in confusion. He didn’t know the city well and had lost his bearings. By then the traffic was very thick. The center of Barcelona was flooded with cars, buses, and trams. Curtains of pedestrians moved across the pavements beneath a dusty sunlight bearing down from on high. Vargas put a hand on his forehead to protect himself from the light and swept the intersection with his eyes, ignoring the shoving of passersby. A thousand black coats and hats were parading every which way. He’d never find the stranger, he thought.
The peculiar texture of the stranger’s face gave him away. He was already on the other side of the street, walking toward a car parked on the corner of Calle Vergara. Vargas tried to cross, but the mass of vehicles pushed him back to the pavement amid a bellow of horns. On the other side the stranger was getting into the car—a Mercedes-Benz, at least fifteen or twenty years old.
By the time the traffic lights changed, the car was already driving away. Vargas ran after it and managed to get a good look before it was swallowed by the river of traffic. On his way back toward the mouth of the metro station, he walked past a local policeman, who gave him a disapproving look; he must have seen Vargas try to cross the street against a red light and dive in among the cars. Vargas nodded meekly and raised a hand in apology.
Alicia was waiting expectantly on the pavement.
“How are you feeling?” Vargas asked.
She ignored his question and shook her head impatiently.
“I managed to see him get into a car. A black Mercedes,” said Vargas.
“Plate number?”
He nodded.
23
They took shelter in Café Nuria at the top of the Ramblas, sitting by the window. Alicia asked for a glass of white wine, the second one that day. She lit a cigarette and let her eyes roam through the mass of people flowing down the Ramblas, as if she was gazing at the largest aquarium in the world. Vargas watched her raise her glass with trembling fingers and draw it to her lips.
“No lecture?” she asked, not looking away from the window.
“To your health.”
“You didn’t say anything about the guy with the mask. Are you thinking the same thing as me?”
He shrugged doubtfully.
“The report concerning the alleged attack on Valls in the Círculo de Bellas Artes mentioned a man with a covered face,” she said.
“It could be,” Vargas conceded. “I’m going to make a few calls.”
Once alone, Alicia let out a sigh of pain and pressed her hand against her hip. She thought about taking half a tablet but decided against it. Making the most of the fact that Vargas was using the phone at the far end of the coffee shop, she signaled to the waiter to bring her another glass and take away the first, which she polished off in one gulp.
Vargas returned a quarter of an hour later, his little notebook in his hand. The glow in his eyes foretold news. “We’re in luck. The car is under the name of Metrobarna S.L. It’s a property investment company, or at least that’s how it’s registered. The main office is here, in Barcelona. Paseo de Gracia, number six.”
“That’s just around the corner. Give me a couple of minutes to recover, and we’ll go there.”
“Why don’t you leave this one to me, Alicia, and go home to rest for a while? I’ll come by later and tell you what I’ve found out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Go on.”
Outside, in the Ramblas, the sky seemed to have cleared at last. It shone with that electric blue that sometimes bewitches Barcelona winters, persuading the gullible that nothing can go wrong.
“Straight home, OK? No technical stops,” Vargas warned. “I’m getting to know you.”
“Yes, sir. Don’t solve the case without me.”
“Don’t worry.”
She watched him head off toward Plaza de Cataluña and waited a couple of minutes. Years ago she’d discovered that when a woman exaggerated symptoms of pain, adopting the helpless expression of a frail maiden in distress, she could manipulate any man who needed to feel that she required his protection and guidance—and that applied to almost the entire male contingent on the census, excepting Leandro Montalvo, who had taught her most of the tricks in her armory and could also invariably sense the ones she had picked up herself. As soon as Alicia was sure that she’d got rid of Vargas, she changed her route. Going home could wait. She needed time to think and observe from the shadows. And above all, there was something she wanted to do—on her own, and in her own way.
* * *
The Metrobarna offices were located on the top floor of a celebrated modernist block. The massive structure, its facade covered in ocher stone and its roof crowned with pinnacles and domed turrets, was known as Casa Rocamora. It oozed the fastidious craftsmanship and grand melodrama pervading certain examples of architecture only found on the streets of Barcelona. Vargas paused on the corner to look at the spectacle of balconies, galleries, and Byzantine geometry. A street watercolorist had set up his easel on the corner, and was giving the finishing touches to an impressionist take on the building. When he noticed Vargas’s presence, he smiled politely.
“Beautiful image,” Vargas congratulated him.
“We do our best. Policeman?”
“That obvious?”
The artist gave him a bitter smile.
Vargas pointed at the picture. “Is it for sale?”
“It will be in just under half an hour. Interested in the building?”
“Increasingly. Does one have to pay to go in?”
“Don’t give them any ideas.”
* * *
A lift straight out of Jules Verne’s dreams took Vargas up to an office door, on which a weighty golden sign bore these words:
METROBARNA Ltd
Property Investment & Management
He pressed the bell. A sound like the chime of a grandfather clock echoed from within, and a few seconds later the door opened, revealing the delicate figure of a receptionist in oversmart clothes, framed by a sumptuous hallway. In some firms, opulence was communicated with intentional malice.
“Good morning,” Vargas stated in an official tone, showing his badge. “Vargas, Central Police Headquarters. I’d like to speak to the manager, please.”
The receptionist looked at him in surprise. Presumably the type of visitor she was used to receiving in that office was somewhat classier.
“Do you mean Señor Sanchís?”
Vargas replied with a nod and stepped into an entrance hall, its walls lined with blue velvet and dotted with delicate watercolors of Barcelona’s emblematic facades and buildings. Vargas suppressed a smile when he recognized the style of the corner painter.
“May I ask what this is about, Officer?” asked the receptionist behind his back.
“Captain,” Vargas corrected her without turning around.
The receptionist cleared her throat and, realizing she was not getting an answer, sighed. “Señor Sanchís is at a meeting right now. If you wish . . .”
Vargas turned around and looked at her coldly.
“I’ll let him know right away, Captain.”
Vargas nodded unenthusiastically. The receptionist rushed off in search of reinforcements. This was followed by a quick succession of hushed voices, sounds of doors opening and closing, and hurried steps along corridors. A minute later she was back, this time with a docile smile as she invited him to follow her. “If you’ll be so kind, the director will see you in the boardroom.”
He walked down a long passageway flanked by pompous office rooms where spruced-up lawyers in three-piece suits dealt with the day’s business with the seriousness of skilled traders. Statues, paintings, and top-quality carpets outlined the route leading him to a large room with a glazed balcony that afforded an angel’s-eye view of the entire Paseo de Gracia. An impressive board-meeting table presided over a series of armchairs, glass cabinets, and fine wood moldings.
“Señor Sanchís will be with you in a moment. Can I offer you anything while you wait? A coffee?”
Vargas shook his head. The receptionist vanished as soon as she could, leaving him on his own.
The policeman studied the scenery. The Metrobarna offices reeked of money. The carpet at his feet alone probably cost quite a bit more than he received from several years’ salary. Vargas walked around the board table, caressing the lacquered oak wood with his fingers and taking in the perfume of excess. The stage set, with its shapes and designs, distilled that oppressive and exclusive air of institutions devoted to the alchemy of money, reminding the visitor that even if he thought he was inside, he would, in fact, always be outside the proverbial bank counter.
The room was decorated with numerous portraits of different sizes. Most of them were photographs, but there were also some oil paintings and a few charcoal sketches signed by an assortment of official and prestigious portrait artists of the last decades. Vargas studied these. The same person appeared in all the images, a gentleman with silvery hair and a patrician expression glancing at the lens, or the easel, with a calm smile and ice-cold eyes. The protagonist of those pictures clearly knew how to pose and choose his company. Vargas leaned over to take a closer look at one of the photographs, in which the gentleman with the cold eyes appeared with a group of important-looking men in hunting gear, smiling like lifelong friends as they stood on either side of a younger-looking General Franco. Vargas went through the cast of figures taking part in the hunting scene and was drawn to one particular participant. He stood in the second row and smiled enthusiastically, as if he were trying hard to stand out.
“Valls,” Vargas murmured.
The door of the room opened behind him, and he turned around to encounter a lean, almost fragile-looking middle-aged man, with scant fair hair as fine as a baby’s. The man wore an impeccably tailored alpaca suit that matched his gray eyes, steady and penetrating.
“Good morning. My name is Ignacio Sanchís, director general of this company. I gather, from what Lorena tells me, that you wish to speak to me. I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting. We’re preparing the annual shareholders’ meeting, and we’re rather snowed under. How can I help you, Captain?”
Sanchís exuded a cultivated air of friendliness and utmost professionalism. His eyes transmitted both warmth and authority while he cataloged Vargas meticulously. Vargas was certain that before ending his introductory sentence, Sanchís already knew the brand of the shoes he was wearing and how old his second-rate suit was.
“This face looks familiar,” said the policeman, pointing at one of the oil paintings hanging in the room.
“That’s Don Miguel Ubach,” Sanchís said, smiling benevolently at the ignorance or ingenuousness of the man speaking to him. “Our founder.”
“Of the Banca Ubach?” asked Vargas. “The Gunpowder Banker?”
Sanchís offered him a light, diplomatic smile, but his look grew colder. “Don Miguel Ángel never liked that nickname, which, if you don’t mind my saying so, does not do the person justice.”
“I heard that it was the Generalissimo himself who gave it to him, for his services,” Vargas ventured.
“I’m afraid that’s not the case. The nickname was conferred on Don Miguel by the red press during the war. The Banca Ubach, together with other institutions, helped finance the campaign of national liberation. A great man to whom Spain is hugely indebted.”
“For which no doubt he has been generously rewarded . . . ,” mumbled Vargas.
Sanchís ignored his words without losing any of his cordiality.
“And what is the relationship between Don Miguel �
�ngel and this company?” Vargas inquired.
Sanchís cleared his throat. “When Don Miguel Ángel died in 1948, the Banca Ubach was divided into three companies,” he said patiently. “One of these was the Banco Hipotecario e Industrial de Cataluña, which was absorbed by the Banca Hispanoamericana de Crédito eight years ago. Metrobarna was created at that time to manage the property investment portfolio that was on the bank’s balance sheet.”
Sanchís pronounced those words as if he had recited them often, with the expert and absent air of a museum guide instructing a group of tourists while eyeing his watch. “But I’m sure that the company’s history doesn’t interest you that much,” he concluded. “How can I help you, Captain?”
“It’s a small matter, probably unimportant, Señor Sanchís, but you know the routine with these things. One has to check everything.”
“Of course. I’m listening.”
Vargas pulled out his notebook and pretended to be reading through a few lines. “Could you confirm whether a car with the license plate B-74325 belongs to Metrobarna?”
Sanchís looked at him in bewilderment.
“I really don’t know. . . . I’d have to ask . . .”
“I imagine the company has a fleet of cars. Am I wrong?”
“No, you’re right. We have four or five cars, if—”
“Is one of them a Mercedes-Benz? Black? A fifteen- or twenty-year-old model?”
A shadow of anxiety crossed Sanchís’s face. “Yes . . . It’s the car Valentín drives. Has something happened?”
“Valentín, you say?”
“Valentín Morgado, a driver who works for this firm.”
“Your own private driver?”
“Yes. For years now. . . . May I ask what—”
“Is Señor Morgado in the office now?”
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 30