The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman (22 page)

“So, César Barbosa,” Berta finally said, to break the ice and get a bit of warmth flowing.

María could do nothing but nod, her hands clutching the mug of milk and her eyes fixed on the carpet.

“What a scoundrel,” Berta went on. “I had him figured out the day he walked into the office with that stubble and that dirty jacket, the tattoo, the tough-guy look, and the motorcycle helmet. I really don't know what you see in men like him when it's clear as day that they have no good intentions.”

“Because you're clever, Berta.” María turned on her and added, “And that's why you've been single your whole life.”

“Better alone than in bad company,” Berta replied, somewhat put out. “I hope you'll call the whole thing off now.”

“It's not that easy,” replied María nervously. “Things are a lot more complicated than they seem. I've tried to break up with César loads of times, and he's gotten violent. He says there's no way he's going to let a stupid woman like me leave him.”

“Sure, because he's the kind of guy who thinks he's better than you, right?”

María burst out crying. “Oh, Berta! What have I got myself into?”

“I hate to say it, but I told you so, María,” said Berta. “I don't want to be cruel, but remember what I said to you? That you were risking your family and your happiness. You should've listened to me.”

Exhausted by her fear and pain, María slowly began to drop off into a deep sleep; she felt as if the pillow was suffocating her, but she didn't have the strength to lift her head and breathe. Berta watched her sleep for a while, then before long she too began to nod off. It had been an intense day.

When Berta got up from the sofa to turn off the living room lights, she saw that María had gone to sleep clutching her cell
phone. She was gripping it with superhuman strength, as if it held the key to her survival. Gently, trying not to wake her, Berta uncurled each of María's fingers from the device, one by one, until she was able to extract it. Then, when she was just about to turn it off and leave it on the table, she noticed that the little red New Message light was flashing.

She peered at the phone and saw the name César Barbosa light up intermittently. Then, feeling no pang of conscience, she decided to read the latest abusive and threatening text: “I know you're at your boss's place. If you rat on me I'll kill you both.”

The phone dropped to the floor. María let out a weak moan. Berta felt the room spin around her, as if she was on a merry-go-round at the fair, and the lights, the music, the laughter, and the shouts of children were making her nauseous. She was defenseless, trapped in a tiny flat on Calle del Alamillo, with nothing to protect her but an old lock and an old door and a few old neighbors.

She picked the phone back up and read the last sentence again: “If you rat on me I'll kill you both.” She went out to the balcony. She scanned the street from one corner to the other, looking for the sinister figure of César Barbosa, his leather jacket, his pointy shoes, and his metal belt buckle, but the night was calm and silent. It was too silent.

She crouched down. For no particular reason. She simply crouched down.

She crawled on all fours to the table where she kept her house phone. She lifted the receiver. She dialed the number that she had memorized, absurdly, as if she was the girl eating sunflower seeds in the square, who sees the short-trousered boy, the one who stares at her, bumps into her all over the village, throws pebbles
at her window and dreams about her, who repeats her name in the echoing gully, and then writes it in white chalk on the wall by the allotment.

“Manchego?”

“Berta?”

“Help, come quick!”

CHAPTER 35

I
nspector Manchego was on a winning streak. He had been dealt three aces, and the pot, a pile of five-euro notes, came to more than €250. Macita looked like he might have two pairs, Josi had just said, “I'm out,” and Carretero was bluffing, not very well because when he was lying he always got a nervous tic in his nostrils, and Manchego, who had known him since they were kids, couldn't fail to notice the flapping of those enormous blowholes. So they were either neck and neck or Carretero was done for—as he well knew from the days when they used to play
mus
together at the village club.

Manchego was already rubbing his hands together and mentally savoring some tasty dish from the restaurant he had promised to take Berta to when his cell phone rang in his trouser pocket.

“Christ on a bike, don't you dare pick up,” spat Macita; the poor sod thought the money was his.

Manchego looked at him with a mixture of disdain and ferocity as he took the cell phone out of his pocket quicker than John Wayne drawing his pistol in
Stagecoach
and waved it in front of Macita's eyes.

“For fuck's sake, this isn't the phone in a grocery shop, Macita,” he said. “It's crucial for my work. It's the line that can separate life and death, catch a killer, avert tragedy. And you're telling me not to pick up, Mr. Small-timer? Stick to what you know. However many times you write
gourmet
on the tacky sign outside your shop, you're still selling cans of tuna. Don't pick up, don't pick up,” he added mockingly, imitating his friend's nasal voice. “And what if it's to do with drugs, or a gunfight, or an armed robbery?”

He answered.

“Berta?” he stammered.

“What a prick!” exclaimed Macita.

The truth is, Manchego found it easier to hide three aces than keep his cool when he had a new love interest. His friends had noticed something stirring the inspector's complex emotions the first time he turned up late for their game of poker with some excuse about work piling up, his face flushed, a stupid smile on his lips, and an absent look. He had confused a pair of queens with a pair of jacks, left his portion of garlic prawns half eaten, and hadn't been on the ball all night.

“Manchego, Manchego,” Míguel teased him, “you've fallen in love again, say no more.”

“Who? Me?”

The inspector fell in love easily. And he wasn't picky. Nor was he very realistic. The guys had accompanied him on many drunken nights when his hopes had been dashed; together they had damned all the women on Earth to the fiery pits of hell because of their treacherous ways, and sworn they would never fall into their traps again. And even though all of them, except Manchego, were married, they had all broken their promises in the most shameful ways. The inspector's last conquest had turned
out to be a con artist who stole his wallet on their first date. Her name was Piluca, and the guys suspected that she used to be a man; her hairy hands, her shaved mustache, and her Adam's apple were all dead giveaways in their books.

There had been no way of verifying their suspicions, however, because that particular ill-fated love story ended before it had even started, in the local restaurant where Manchego lost his money, his wallet, and his dignity.

Since then, Manchego had attempted to remain celibate in thought, word, and deed, partly to protect his emotional integrity and partly because so far he hadn't come across a new candidate for breaking his heart.

But Berta Quiñones, the mild-mannered editor of
Librarte
magazine, whom the inspector had described as middle-aged, plump, and shortsighted, seemed, for some strange reason, to have found her way inside Manchego's head. He maintained that his interest in Berta was purely professional—he had kept his friends in the loop about the Craftsman case—but the guys knew him well and had no doubt that the way Manchego trembled every time his cell phone rang owed to a different kind of interest, most likely the amorous kind. What they didn't understand was what their friend could see in a woman like that; she was so different from the girls he usually went for, who all seemed to be straight out of American TV series. He had always liked them tall, blonde, and voluptuous, a bit dumb, a bit easy, with absurd names like Babi or Mimí, poor helpless things in need of a brave police inspector who would risk his life to save their handbags.

Set the bar lower, they told him, or you'll end up lonelier than Gary Cooper in
High Noon.
You'll end up old before your time, you'll develop all sorts of strange habits, and in the end you'll die,
like we all do. What they didn't realize was that the bar, in all senses but the physical, was already set so low that it would hit the floor if it went any lower.

No woman had ever really loved Manchego. He was at the disadvantage of having been born with a naturally fabulous body, well out of the league of mere mortals like plain old Berta, and so far he had known nothing but physical attraction and emotional turmoil. He was still relatively handsome—he was a big man with wide shoulders, large hands, and athletic legs—but gray hairs had begun to lay siege to the part of his head that hadn't already succumbed to baldness; his belt sported two new holes made by the local cobbler; and sometimes he got breathless if he exerted himself more than usual. The good thing was that he had arrived at the point at which the unequal pairing of a bookworm and a hunk was starting to reach a natural balance, giving way to the credible image of two members of the same species stumbling along side by side.

The guys, who, just as they looked at themselves in the mirror and refused to see the ravages of time on their own skin and hair, could see only the old Manchego, a dashing chap, and hence dismissed the whole Berta thing as nonsense. They listened to their friend talk about the unremarkable, fifty-something ex-librarian and couldn't accept that they themselves were pushing sixty. Manchego's surrender to a love that was more emotional than physical felt like a collective defeat that they weren't prepared to accept.

“Come on, Manchego,” they said, “it's one thing to lower the bar, but you're a fool to scrap it altogether.”

But that night at the
fonda
—that's what they called the bar, as if they were still back in the village—they could see traces of
love in their friend's half-closed eyes, his twitchy hands, his constant swallowing, and the curse that he couldn't help but mutter when he hung up and slapped his phone down on the table.

“I'll kill him,” he said. “I swear to God, I'll kill him.”

“Who are you going to kill? Watch what you say, because if you actually end up killing someone, we'll all be arrested as accomplices,” said Josi, his best student.

“Some guy who's out there threatening defenseless women, the son of a bitch.”

Inspector Manchego, in all his glory, heaved the 220 pounds of his monumental body out of his chair, lifted his hand to his waist, checked that his gun was in place, put on his Gore-Tex jacket, and left, almost without saying goodbye.

“Wait, Manchego, we're coming with you!” shouted Macita, acting as spokesman for the rest of the guys, who stood up simultaneously, knocking a few chairs over, left their cards and the money on the table, followed him out into the street, and squeezed into the car. Five graying men, five prominent bellies, five youthful lads from Nieva de Cameros, all ready to beat the shit out of the outsider who dares come to the village fiestas to dick around, get off with the girls, and disrespect the grandmothers—but who runs off with his tail between his legs after the first punch, shits himself when he's faced with the lads from the village, Macita, Josi, Míguel, Carretero, and Manchego. Like the old days, on a cold night with the car windows steaming up and their blood boiling.

CHAPTER 36