The Antiquarian (55 page)

“Luck? If I believed in such things, I'd say this is all part of a preordained plan,” Carlos answered. “So many coincidences seem to indicate that you, and no one else, were destined to find it. But let's get out of here now; I want to take a nice long look at that damned rock.”

They walked over the roof toward the stairway. After pulling closed the heavy grate, they began their descent toward the cathedral down the steep stairs, which had now become a sound box for the powerful organ. On reaching the triforium, just one turn down, Carlos, who was going first, thought he saw a figure. He stopped short, alarmed by the fugitive shadow awaiting the trio's descent. His hand went inside his jacket. With the other, he stopped Enrique, coming down behind him.

“Who's there?” he firmly inquired.

“Enrique? Enrique? Are you there?” a woman's voice anxiously asked. “Answer me, please!”

“It's Mariola,” he whispered, surprised by her presence. “Don't worry, Mariola, I'm over here. Let me by, it's no problem, it's Mariola,” Enrique told his friend, as if this succinct explanation could dispel all doubt.

Carlos went down to the landing that joined the access gallery to the triforium and the stairway. There, after looking around and confirming that the woman was alone, he allowed Enrique to move toward her. Mariola stood in the triforium with open arms, waiting to be embraced. The other two stayed in the background, a few yards behind the couple.

“What's going on?” Carlos whispered to Bety.

“They fought this morning, while we were updating her on the case.”

“Did you two tell her that we would be here?”

“Yes.”

“I think there's something that doesn't quite fit.”

Descending a bit more, they were able to hear part of the couple's conversation.

“I'm sorry! I couldn't wait for you to call. I've been thinking all day about what I said to you. Since you said you'd be coming here, I left Samuel alone at the shop to come see you and apologize.”

“There's nothing to apologize for,” he responded between the organ's arpeggios, “nothing at all.”

Enrique turned back to his friends. He could see how Carlos knitted his brow and kept his hand inside his jacket, as well as the expression of utter surprise on Bety's face. Enrique tried to turn toward Mariola to see what could cause such a reaction, but was unable to. He was aware of a sudden, barely perceptible movement, and then taking a blow between his ear and neck that knocked him sideways to the floor, where he lay curled. It didn't knock him out, but left him unable to react; his muscles felt like melted
butter. Bright twinkles filled his field of vision, forcing him to blink compulsively. He had no time to think about what was happening, he couldn't consider what had made Mariola do something so rash, he couldn't, or didn't know how to, understand that she could be responsible for the two crimes. Mariola ignored her lover's body and continued her advance. She raised her gun, with him powerless to do anything, and fired. In that narrow corridor, and at such short distance, she didn't have to be an expert marksman to hit the bull's-eye. He saw Carlos flying backward like a marionette whose puppeteer takes him out of the scene with a brusque, savage yank. The force of the blow thrust him back over Bety, who lost her footing and was trapped under the detective's small but solid body. Curiously, he heard no sound whatsoever; he only saw a small cloud of smoke floating between Mariola and Carlos. The gun must have been fitted with a silencer. Rallying all his forces, Enrique managed to put his hand far enough forward to grasp Mariola's ankle, just as she'd begun to take a step after stopping, as if she hadn't known what to do next. Or maybe he saw it from another angle, his reactions slowed, and everything was happening at lightning speed. He couldn't know. His hand accomplished its mission; he tripped her up. Her body, with nothing to support it, also toppled after colliding with the wall.

Mariola fell to the floor with a dull thud. Stunned, Enrique tried to get up. He was on his hands and knees. Enrique saw Mariola's pistol sliding across the floor with incredible slowness toward Carlos, and stop halfway between them. He saw his friend, whose face was clenched in pain, his jaw hanging open, both hands over his chest, as Bety struggled to unpin herself from under the detective's body and be able to move again. He couldn't see the ample blood flowing out of his friend's body, or the bleeding scrape across Mariola's face, which, strangely, was now positioned before his, and then immediately moved further back, as if he were riding a conveyor belt, leaving her
behind. Nor could he see the expression of pure terror on Bety's face, and even less the visible incredulity written there as she tried to grab the gun that Mariola had dropped. She was just about to reach it, she saw her fingers next to the metal. More than that, she thought she'd already made contact and that, due to the blow she suffered, she'd lost her sense of touch. But although reason told her that she could take it, her hand was unable to obey the orders of her mind. An instant more was all it took for Mariola to reach out her hand and fall back with the weapon in her possession again.

With superhuman effort, Bety managed to get up one second after Mariola had. There they were, in the narrow corridor, face-to-face. Their breathing came faster, almost a pant that Enrique, far away, heard muffled. Mariola looked undecided; by the time Enrique was up she had her gun trained on Bety, but then she seemed to withdraw it.

“Get out of there.” He heard Mariola's voice in the distance. “Get out of the way!”

“It was you,” he heard himself saying. “It was you who killed them.”

He was able to think clearly for the first time since the blow.

“Give me the Stone,” she ordered. Enrique hesitated. Mariola stretched out her hand, encouraging him to give up the Stone. “Give it to me and I'll go back the way I came, and nothing else will happen, I promise you.”

“She'll kill us if you give it to her!” shouted Bety.

“Tell that bitch she'd better shut up and stay that way.”

“Why'd you have to kill them?” Enrique asked, still shaken by the sight of her with a pistol in her hand, completely ignoring her command. “Why'd you have to kill Artur? Why'd you have to kill my father?”

“Give me the Stone,” she demanded again.

“Why?”

“Because the Stone was supposed to be mine.”

“I trusted you. You took advantage of me. Everything that happened between us was fake. You did it just to find out about the Stone. You tricked me! You manipulated me like a fool!”

“That's not true,” she denied. “I never meant to use you. What happened between us would have happened anyway, even without the Stone.”

“How do you expect me to believe you after what you've done?”

“I don't expect you to believe me. But it's the truth.”

“Nothing's stopping you from shooting. If you do, you can take it, no problem.”

“Don't make me do it.” Her icy voice was tinged by a hint of worry. “Don't make me do it, because that, I really would regret.”

Enrique thought for several lengthy seconds. She could have easily killed him. If she'd plotted to draw him to her to be able to knock him out, it was because she didn't want him dead. That much was clear. And yet, she'd shown no reservations about shooting Carlos, and she probably wouldn't mind doing the same to Bety. He didn't know what to do. The revolver was in his jacket pocket, next to the Stone, the leather bag, and the keys to Artur's car and house. He thought of drawing the gun; she would never expect anything like that. All he would have to do was pull the trigger to catch her off guard, but he was surprised to find that, beyond all the fear, the hate, and the pain, he didn't wish for her death. A stabbing premonition told him that if he tried it, in the end, Mariola would be forced to shoot. What to do? A sudden inspiration motivated him to rummage through his pocket a few seconds until he found the bag that held the Stone; next, he laid his hand on the railing, seventy-five feet above the cathedral floor, now packed with concertgoers enthralled by sacred music.

“Shoot me, and I'll open my hand, and you'll lose the Stone forever.”

“If you don't hand it over to me now, I'll shoot Bety without a second thought.” She changed the angle of the gun barrel and pointed at Bety. “As much as you try, you won't be able to save her. Plus, your friend is bleeding to death. Look at him; his only chance depends on you giving me the Stone. Then you could get him to a hospital.”

Enrique shot a quick glance over his shoulder. Mariola was right: laid out on the floor and unconscious, Carlos was losing a lot of blood, more than Enrique had ever seen in his life. It was spreading out in a huge puddle that threatened to brim over the edge of the triforium and spill into the presbytery. Bety had gotten out from under his friend's body, and squatting next to him, she fought to stop the bleeding with both hands.

“I can't trust you after everything you've done.”

“Don't test me! Everything I've done to get the Stone, I'd do for you.”

“Then leave! If you do, I'll try to forget you, and the pain you've caused me.”

“Forget me? You couldn't. It's too late. We've been joined forever. For better and for worse. So I'll say it one more time: give me the Stone.”

“Fine, take it.” He held his arm out toward her. Mariola approached cautiously, taking tiny steps, her right hand holding the pointed pistol and her left out toward Enrique's, where he held the bag. She had one eye on Bety's movements and the other on Enrique's. Her fingers brushed against her lover's. Enrique felt them as if all his senses were concentrated in his fingertips and nothing else existed. And then the bag was flying toward Mariola's face. She was taken by surprise, and it hit her right between the eyes. She backed up at the same time she instinctively pulled the trigger of the pistol.

The bag flew between the bars of the safety railing that formed a parapet along the triforium, and fell down into the concert audience. Enrique thrust his entire body
forward, with eyes closed. The blow to her face from the Stone caused Mariola to lose her aim, changing the trajectory of the bullet, which grazed his arm. He clearly felt the nick of the steel, but not the pain. Mere yards separated him from Mariola, and their bodies clashed with extreme force. They fell to the floor in a tangle of torsos and limbs. Mariola had managed to partly dodge Enrique's blind rush. The gun was still in her hand, but her lover powerfully grasped her arm: not enough to force her to drop it, nor so little that she could escape his oppressive grip. They twisted around, half crawling, half dragging themselves. Mariola contorted her body to one side. Enrique's wounded arm took an impossible angle, causing the strength to drain out of him. A victorious smile crossed Mariola's face, but vanished as soon as she heard an ominous metallic snap behind her. The safety railing had given way under the weight of her body. She was slipping into the void. Her hands grasped at space, imploring, searching for any handhold, any support, but the inexorable force of gravity was pulling her inevitably toward the distant floor of the presbytery.

Enrique threw himself over the falling body with a desperate cry, and just managed to stop her deadly fall by grabbing hold of her by the waist. The momentum of his body and the inertia of the drop were about to include him in Mariola's fatal fall, but he stopped himself at the very edge, half of his body hanging in the void. Below, the crowd dispersed like tiny ants surprised by a rainstorm. A mortal silence fell, punctuated only by isolated screams of hysteria. The organ had stopped playing.

“Hold on! For the love of God, hold on!” Enrique kicked desperately, until his foot found a column on which he levered his leg into an impossible contortion that stopped the slow but definite advance, inch by inch, of his body into the abyss.

“Bety! Help me!”

“Enrique!” begged Mariola. “Enrique!”

“Bety!” he roared, desperate.

His wounded arm partly gave way. Now he was only holding onto Mariola by her underarm. “Bety!”

He felt a hand feeling its way across his straining back muscles until it stopped at the belt of his pants. Bety grasped it to keep Enrique from falling.

“Enrique! I can't hold you!” Bety cried. “If you don't drop her we'll all fall!”

Mariola turned her face up to Enrique's. It showed neither fear nor despair, simply an indescribable feeling that he could see in all its magnitude.

“Good-bye, my love,” she said, and let go.

“No!”

Enrique closed his eyes and put his entire soul into his hand, Mariola's only remaining support. There he concentrated all his energies and desires, all his hopes and dreams, all his prayers and supplications. It was in vain. His hand, coated in sweat, slipped over the bare skin of her arm. It was at her elbow now, now higher, and now her hand, completely lax. He struggled to clasp her fingers, he clenched them in his with a strength born out of the most complete desperation.

Suddenly, his hand was free.

He opened his eyes. Mariola was falling, her skirt billowing around her, tracing a path through the air like a butterfly with quivering wings, her arms upraised imploringly toward him. He managed to home in on the shine in her eyes until she was far below, until they became undistinguishable, eventually melting into the oval of her face. At last, her fall came to an end. A crowd more morbidly curious than concerned converged in a circle around the body. Enrique closed his eyes.

“No,” he softly said to himself. “No.”

Bety helped him up. She begged him not to, but he rushed downstairs anyway in a wild, headlong descent that caused him to slam into the stone walls more than once. At the end of the staircase, he violently kicked open the door to come out into the presbytery. When they saw him and his ashen face, trailing blood from the wound on his arm, the crowd parted; they feared what he might do next, and they didn't know he hadn't caused Mariola's death intentionally. Enrique flung the disordered chairs aside until he reached Mariola. She had fallen over one of them, which was made into a splintered wreck by the force of her impact. Her green skirt and white blazer were covered in blood. Sobbing, Enrique cast himself over her body and embraced it. Pulling her bloody face to his, he was shocked to hear a tiny rattle of air: she was still breathing.