The signatures were those of Don Ramón Giménez Campos, senior deacon of the Illustrious Royal Fellowship of the Most Holy True Cross of Caravaca, and Don Miguel de los Santos Díaz Gómara, bishop of the Diocese of Cartagena.
Elías gasped. He held in his hand proof that the senior deacon’s version was true. Her grandfather had indeed delivered the Holy Cross to Church authorities. So why had it never been returned to its rightful place in Caravaca?
He’d have to keep digging. For now, though, it was time to go home and rest. There was much yet to do tonight.
19
The last Midas employees left at four a.m. The bouncer set the alarm, shut the barred gate, and locked it. They said good night. Two went one way and three went the other. A middle-aged man came down the street, absorbed in his smartphone. He brushed against the bouncer, who gave him an angry push and received a mild-voiced apology. The man in the suit turned the corner onto La Platería, where Elías was waiting. There, the mystery man, a professional pickpocket, traded the purloined keys for a couple of hundred-euro bills.
Before his visit to the archives, Elías had phoned his buddy at the Guardia Civil and gotten the pickpocket’s contact information. Along with an admonition not to get in trouble.
Elías wished him good night. The man walked away satisfied but checked nevertheless to make sure he wasn’t being followed.
Elías had gone back to Cartagena after his visit to the archive, knowing that would make it easier to ditch his shadow. He’d had dinner with his wife and they’d gone to bed early. At two a.m., he’d sneaked out of bed and dressed in the dark. From his unlit living room, he’d spotted the man in black posted across the way. The man was killing time with some game on his phone, glancing up at their building from time to time.
He’d belted himself into his trench coat but left the hat behind. It was too distinctive. He’d slipped out onto the landing and gone up to the rooftop terrace, then leaped across to the flat roof of the adjoining building. He’d unlocked the stairwell with a key he’d obtained not long after moving in, though it was his first time using it. He’d never been followed before, but a conscientious detective should always be prepared.
He’d gone downstairs and emerged on Calle Cuatro Santos. The Cartagena night was calm, with not another soul in sight. The stylish bars and restaurants were all shuttered. He’d gone to the Plaza del Rey parking garage for his car. The radio frequency detector he’d purchased that afternoon alerted him to a GPS tracker. He’d removed it, left it on the floor of the garage, and headed to Murcia.
A couple of young night owls were still out and about. Elías spent a few minutes surveilling Midas’s. It wouldn’t do to have someone suddenly turn up looking for the keys. Then he strode casually to the gate and unlocked it. Once inside, he closed it and waved the black key fob across the control panel. A beep confirmed the alarm had been deactivated.
He used a flashlight to navigate around the tables. He passed the bar and took the stairs two at a time. The office decor was just as tasteless as the rest of the joint. The gold-colored statutes there were of animals. He went through the desk and picked the lock on the middle drawer with his knife. There were letters, papers, a few bills, some ads, and a remote control with two buttons. Elías put his Casio watch in learn mode, set the remote before him on the desk, and pressed the first button. He repeated the operation with the second. Now he had Midas’s electronic keys. He had no idea what they opened—yet. He put everything back the way it was and locked the middle drawer. He searched the walls for a safe but found none. Turning his attention to the ceiling, he climbed onto the desk and popped out a couple of overhead panels. He used his flashlight to examine the space above. Nothing. The floor was the only remaining possibility.
He spied a parquet tile beneath the desk that didn’t quite match the others. He displaced the desk and inserted the knife blade along the tile’s edge. Underneath was a Sentry safe. Not an old-fashioned one with a key, but a new model with a keypad.
Electronic safes, he knew, were equipped with a manual backup keyhole in case the batteries ran out. He placed the heel of his hand over the control panel and pushed down to dislodge it. The battery compartment came into view. He extracted the batteries one by one and located the keyhole behind them. This job required a precision tool. He took out his set of picks and inserted one in the bottom of the slot and another above it. He manipulated them slowly and delicately, working each cylinder ever so patiently until, at last, they gave way with a quiet click. He turned the handle, and the safe opened as if by magic.
There was cash inside. Lots of it, bundles of green bills. A hundred thousand euros at least. He set the money aside. His next discovery was a notebook with a list of usernames and passwords, including one labeled Home Alarm. He snapped a photo with his phone. Under that were several deeds—most of them for bars and brothels—an inventory of shady businesses, including the bar he was visiting. He photographed them all.
Two particularly were of interest: the first was for a mansion in Tentegorra, one of Cartagena’s most expensive neighborhoods. That was probably Midas’s residence. The other was for the Phrygian mine in La Unión, an exhausted deposit of lead ore purchased a decade earlier from Portmán Golf Enterprises.
Why on earth had Midas bought a derelict mine? The city had restored a couple of the La Unión mines as tourist attractions—they portrayed the grim working conditions of the early twentieth century—but Elías couldn’t see any reason for a private individual or business to invest there. Maybe Midas had planned to set up another bar or brothel? Considering that the sale had happened ten years earlier, wouldn’t he have done so by now?
Elías put everything back in place, concealed a voice-activated microphone in the office, and slipped out of the building. He walked down La Trapería on high alert. He scanned both sides of the street, knowing that the bouncer had gone this way. If there was one thing his profession had taught him, it was that you could never be one hundred percent sure that someone or something wasn’t watching. Even though the street was deserted, he swept his arm along his side as if to pocket the keys, but opened his hand at the last second and dropped them behind him in the street.
20
Hercules was seven feet tall and three feet wide. He wore leopard print tights but left bare his spectacular torso and the huge, oiled arms that reflected the hot glare of the spotlights. His almost superhuman strength matched his enormous back.
But size wasn’t everything. L knew from experience that he left much to be desired between the sheets. The circus folks called him the Fridge, based on the crude joke that if they ever got hungry, his cock and balls would be enough sausage and eggs to feed them all for a week. They liked to tell the story of how he’d once tried to hammer in a tent stake with his dick but failed because he was too drunk to whack it right.
No, Hercules’s problem wasn’t one of size, but rather a lack of refinement, tact, and empathy. When he grabbed a breast, he clenched it like he was squeezing an orange. When he fucked, he banged so hard it was like he thought the G-spot was in the throat.
In his act, Hercules lifted two barrels full of water. After that, he lit the cannon fuse and rushed into position thirty feet away. The cannon fired, and the giant caught the cannonball in his dinner-plate hands, staggering backward four or five paces from the impact. Then he hefted the cannonball in a single hand and hurled it against one of the barrels, sending a swell of water across the crowd to prove that nothing was fake.
Damián the knife thrower came next. He wore a black shirt with a pointed collar and silver spangles above tight black trousers padded to accentuate his crotch. His cock was smaller than average, but his ego was extra-extra-large. His assistant, Doris, wore a skimpy leather costume that covered only her sex and two skimpy breasts hanging on a muscled but bony ribcage. She was fairly attractive, even though she was about forty and had sharp, reptilian features.
In their act, Doris stood before a wood panel fest
ooned with balloons while Damián twirled his throwing knives. They were sharp steel blades with no handles. He shouted suddenly and flung a knife that popped a balloon next to his assistant’s head. Before the audience even had time to react, the rest of his blades were sailing through the air. An exploding balloon marked each impact, and knives stuck quivering in the panel. Doris extracted the blades as Damián invited the spectators to examine the hood to be used for the next feat. He took his position, pulled the hood over his head, tested the weight of his blade, then cast it. The knife flew through the air and bit into the panel next to his companion’s left leg. Then a rapid flurry of blades followed and stuck quivering in a line that moved up along the left side of her body and descended along her right.
The audience applauded enthusiastically. Damián approached a pretty young girl seated near the front and asked her to join him on the stage. At first, she refused, but the crowd booed and Damián wouldn’t take no for an answer. At last, she reluctantly allowed him to pull her out of the audience. Doris again collected the blades, and Damián coaxed the girl to stand against the panel.
“Don’t move, no matter what,” he whispered.
She clenched her fists and stood rigid as a tentpole.
Damián smiled, showing off straight teeth stained by wine, coffee, and tobacco. Doris went up to the girl and fixed a balloon above her head. Damián picked up a shotgun, measured off exactly eight paces, and turned to face her. But before he even lifted the gun to aim, it roared and the balloon just above the girl’s head burst, giving her such a fright she almost fainted. With feigned amazement, Damián showed the shotgun to the crowd as if it had gone off of its own volition. He reloaded. This time, he stood with his back to the target and took a small mirror from his pocket. Doris put another balloon in place. He rested the barrel of the gun on his shoulder and took aim using the mirror. Again, he hit the balloon. The spectators clapped heartily as the girl swayed on her feet. Damián took a knife from his pocket, tossed it up high, and took another bow. Just as the plunging knife was about to fall on his head, he snatched it out of midair, pivoted, and threw it at the girl, this time shearing off a lock of her hair. She tried to bolt back to her seat, but he grabbed her, stole a juicy kiss, and declared he’d be waiting for her in the bar after the show. She tottered back to her seat, where her delighted friends were overcome with giggles.
After the show, L always trolled the circus grounds for clients. Sometimes she nabbed teenagers whose friends wanted to watch or participate; others were older men who regained the sparkle in their eyes for a few brief moments; occasionally, there was a family man who’d left his spouse at home and was more than happy to pay for a blow job while his kids were stuffing themselves with cotton candy and gawking at the bear in the menagerie.
One day, L had her first female client—not the first woman she’d gone to bed with, but the first who’d offered to pay for it. She had a sweet face, black curly hair, and hippie garb. She walked up to say she’d just seen one of the town’s most notorious womanizers come out of the trailer and to ask whether L accepted female clients. L ushered her in.
The two of them spent more than an hour enjoying each other. They collapsed in bed totally exhausted after the third orgasm and lay there unmoving for several minutes.
Her new partner broke the silence. “Do you have any W?”
“What?” L sat up in astonishment.
“Oh, come on, you don’t have to play innocent with me.” She lay there, looking up at the ceiling, totally relaxed. “This same circus came through here ten years ago. The Scottish Circus. I’ll never forget that day. I was still living at home with my mother—such a bitter person. I was in love with a friend, but I didn’t dare to admit it. She and I came to the circus together, and while we were waiting for the show to start, the master of ceremonies, the tall man with a mustache, came up and gave us each a tiny plastic bottle of black liquid. We asked him what it was, but all he said was ‘W.’ We had a great time at the show that night, and afterward, we went to a park and decided to try the stuff. It was out of this world. In the blink of an eye, it freed me of all my anxieties and inhibitions. I told my friend how I felt. She didn’t feel the same way, but that was okay. It was a tremendous load off my mind just to say it. From that moment on, I’ve accepted who I am. My life began again.”
L took out a plastic vial and handed it to her. “That’s a lovely story.”
“Thanks.” Her companion sat up and grinned. “I knew it wasn’t just my imagination.”
Each took a sip and they sank back onto the sheets.
“Why is there a goose foot on the circus sign?”
“A goose foot?” L turned to her. “What do you mean?”
“Above the i in Scottish. Instead of a dot, you have a goose foot.”
“You mean the trident?”
“A trident is more rounded. A goose foot is like a V, but split down the middle.”
“Well—I don’t know. Never thought about it, really. I just always thought it was a trident.”
The woman leaned over and inspected L’s ear.
“I knew it.” She gave her a kiss.
“You knew what?”
“They never told you, did they?”
“Told me what?” L sat up again. “Now you’ve got me worried.”
“The meaning of the goose foot. Who you are, where you come from.”
“My name is L, and I’m with the circus.”
“And I’m Flora,” the woman responded. “Ele? From Elena?”
“No, just L, like the letter.” She gave Flora a smile and ran a hand down her new friend’s body. “It’s really Eleuteria, but don’t tell anyone.”
“Okay, Eleuteria.” She returned the caress. “Anyone ever tell you that you have the perfect body? Obviously, you know it, and you’ve learned to work marvels with it. How old are you? Twenty?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen? Are you kidding? My God, you’re fantastic.”
“Thanks. So are you.”
“I’m over forty. Experience counts for a lot, but you . . .”
“I’m pretty precocious. I jacked off my uncle for the first time when I was six, and we were having sex by the time I was eight. I started doing it for money when I was twelve.”
“Oh, my God. That must have been so hard for you . . .”
“Hard? Not at all.” L straddled her new friend and pinned her arms. “But don’t change the subject. What’s all that stuff about a goose foot and where I’m from?”
“It’s a symbol. It identifies a group of people.”
“What group of people?”
“I’ll satisfy your curiosity if you satisfy mine first.” Flora pushed her off, and L tumbled down alongside her.
“What do you want to know?”
“About the sex stuff. It’s shocking! That stuff with your uncle, it didn’t mess you up? No trauma, no nightmares?”
“Sex is completely natural. It’s like eating or taking a shit. That’s what my uncle taught me, so I’ve always lived that way. Nobody ever forced me, like, physically.”
For a time, they lay back, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.
Finally, L broke the silence. “This has been a terrific fuck, but it’s a real bitch, ’cause now I’m not going to be able to charge you for it.”
Flora looked at her in astonishment and then burst out laughing. “Well now, thank you very much!” She leaned over and gave L a long kiss. “That’s a wonderful compliment. But I don’t mind paying. You probably need the money more than I do.” Flora got out of bed and began to dress. L watched the slim, firm body sway.
“Are you really forty? How do you stay in such good shape?”
“Ha! Thanks to yoga, I guess.”
“Yoga? What’s that?”
“It’s a way of life.”
“Tell me more.”
Flora pulled on her bright-colored trousers and assumed a standing pose, topless, hands on her hips and one foot on
the opposite thigh. Around her neck hung a necklace. It had gotten in the way earlier and L had pushed it aside, but now she couldn’t keep her eyes off it. “Look, if you like, I’ll come back tomorrow. Since you don’t want to charge me, I’ll bring you a present.”
“That’d be great.” L gave her a flirtatious look. “But you can’t leave yet.”
“Why?”
“I answered your question, but you didn’t answer mine.”
“Oh, yes, the goose foot.” Flora took the necklace between her fingers. “The goose foot has many meanings.” She detached the pendant and held it out to L. “Take a look. What does it remind you of?”
L was amazed. “It’s a goose foot. Inside a circle.”
“It’s a peace symbol,” Flora explained. “And yes, the inside is based on the footprint of a goose. They say those who made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela followed the stars by night and the geese during the day. In fact, the Pilgrims’ Trail uses the goose foot symbol everywhere. You see it on churches and hostels, even on signs naming the villages and the valleys. But in this part of the country, the Basque Country and Navarra, the symbol has a very special meaning because it was used for many years to identify a group of people, an unhappy, cursed race that was shunned for centuries.”
L was captivated. “Who were they?” But Flora just went on getting dressed. “Oh, come on! Tell me!”
“Just one thing more for now. People said all sorts of stupid things about that race. They claim the people were lepers or mutants, even carriers of some sort of plague . . . all lies. They were normal people, shunned for obscure reasons nobody would discuss, and they had only one distinguishing physical characteristic.” Flora leaned over to put on her shoes.
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