The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory) (35 page)

‘Those greasers certainly aren’t keeping a low profile,’ Peralta said, still writing.

‘So that’s one question,’ Guzmán said, gulping down his beer and then calling for the waiter to bring more. He paused to wipe froth from his mouth. ‘Second question. Who shot at me last night?’

‘Well,
jefe
,’ the
sargento
grinned, showing more of his devastated teeth, ‘we could make a list of all the people who might want you dead. Mind you, I don’t think the
teniente
there has enough paper to write them all down.’

Peralta thought about smiling but decided against it.

‘And they don’t seem like blokes who’d fuck up a simple ambush,’ the sarge said.

‘That’s reassuring.’ Guzmán said. ‘Next, who the hell is following us around?’

‘Someone’s been following us?’ Peralta asked in surprise.

‘The bloke in the black coat you mean?’ the sarge said.

‘You noticed him then?’

‘I noticed him right away,’ the sarge said. ‘I thought he was probably another one of Valverde’s lads, spying on us.’

‘I wondered about that,’ Guzmán said, ‘but then
Señora
Martinez came by yesterday and she’d a visit from him. Just how he knew she had any connection to me is puzzling. When we arrested
el Profesor
, you came out of her building after me, Sarge. Did you see anything?’

‘Didn’t see no one.’ The sarge shook his head. ‘I poked around in the mailboxes but there was nothing interesting. Then I heard you shouting for me.’

‘Someone must have seen me there,’ Guzmán said.

‘Jealous boyfriend?’ the sarge smirked.

‘One more like that and I’ll fucking hurt you,’ Guzmán snarled. ‘I hardly know the woman and someone gives her a message for me. Very odd.’

‘What message?’ Peralta scribbled notes furiously.

‘A message from my mother. She’s coming to see me. Soon.’

‘Nice.’ The sarge grinned. ‘A visit from
Mamá
. Maybe she’ll bake a cake,
jefe
.’

Guzmán’s big fist smashed into the sarge’s forehead. The sarge flew backwards in an arc of beer, hitting the floor with a loud crash that silenced the café. Guzmán glared at those customers daring to show an interest. They rapidly returned to minding their own business.

‘
Señores
,’ the manager came around from behind the bar, ‘I will not have this behaviour in my bar. It is uncivilised. It’s—’

Guzmán turned, lifting his coat away from the big automatic in its holster beneath his left arm. He let the manager look at the weapon for a moment.

‘
Policía
,’ Guzmán growled. ‘Are you interrupting us in the pursuit of our duty?’

The man backed away, mumbling apologies. Guzmán called after him, ordering a bottle of wine and some tapas. The manager scurried behind the bar purposefully. Life returned to the café. The sarge dusted himself off and sat down, dripping beer.

‘No more lip,
Sargento. Me entiendes
?’

‘
Lo siento, jefe
. I didn’t mean any harm.’

‘I did,’ Guzmán said. ‘But the question is, who’s this man in black who passes a message from my mother to a woman I’ve only just met?’

‘Aren’t you in touch with your mother, sir?’ Peralta asked.

‘My mother died in the Civil War,’ Guzmán said. ‘So it’s unlikely she’s going to go to the trouble of sending messages through some third party who just happens to be following me around. I want to know if this is linked to those Dominicans.’

‘Well, we know where the Dominicans were the other night,’ Peralta said, brightly. ‘Maybe they’ll go again – a taste of home, familiar territory.’

Guzmán nodded. ‘Bar Dominicana. We’ll pay them a call.
Qué hora es
?’

‘Six thirty.’ Peralta moved to one side as the manager arrived with a bottle of his best wine and plates of omelette and sliced ham. He returned to the kitchen to bring them more food: sausages, anchovies, stuffed peppers filled with spiced pork.

‘The night is still young,
señores
,’ Guzmán said, taking a large bite of one of the peppers. ‘Excellent,’ he nodded appreciatively to the manager, ‘we’ll come here more often.’

MADRID 1953, BAR DOMINICANA, CALLE DE TOLEDO

There were plenty of lowlife bars in Madrid, Peralta knew, but the Bar Dominicana looked far, far worse than any he had previously encountered. The bar’s front windows were filthy, emblazoned with its name in large peeling letters. This was a place that reeked of trouble and they were still metres away from it. And, Peralta reflected, trouble was highly likely, since Guzmán had spent the last three hours drinking continuously. At Bar Flores, Peralta had been unable to look the owner in the eye when Guzmán refused to pay the bill when they left. In fact, now he thought of it, Peralta realised it was Guzmán’s drunkenness that worried him the most. A big, violent man was worrying enough when drunk. Such a man armed with a powerful automatic pistol was even more so.

Though badly lit, the street was still not dark enough to hide the motley collection of prostitutes and beggars loitering in the grimy doorways of rundown buildings, each of which seemed to emanate the smell of cabbage and shit. Mainly shit, Peralta noted. As they approached the door, the sarge wandered off to bargain with a tall, bulky prostitute. While they argued loudly about her prices, Guzmán and Peralta entered the bar. And that, Peralta thought morosely, was their plan. What there was of a plan. The sarge would enter later and pretend not to know them. The rest was down to improvisation and intuition.

The smell inside was rank, a fetid stew of body odours, cooking, drink, cigarettes and dirt. Peralta looked around in disgust. At the back was a long zinc-topped bar. Tables and chairs – none of which matched or were even vaguely coordinated – were strewn around in an unsuccessful attempt to create the impression of a café. Against a wall in the back corner was a small stage and a piano. The entire place looked like one of the houses Peralta had seen as a kid where a bomb had fallen, killing everyone in the house and churning the occupants and their goods into bloodied chaos. This place, however, lacked the tragic presence by which the bombed houses evoked pity. Here, he felt only disgust.

The customers looked them over with casual brooding resentment since Guzmán and Peralta’s clothes marked them out as possible policemen. Peralta met the eye of anyone who looked at him, noting with satisfaction they soon looked away. Guzmán also faced down some of the hostile looks, looks which became even more hostile when he lurched against a table and spilt the drinks of a ragged couple holding an intense and highly intimate discussion. To Peralta, they resembled a pair of harpies escaped from Goya’s
caprichos
. Guzmán ignored their wailed protests and made his way to the bar where an elderly woman with a painted face was serving. Fat and dissolute, Peralta thought she must be a failed prostitute fallen from hard times to harder ones and probably still travelling downwards.

‘
Buenas tardes, señores
.’

Her voice was deep with a Caribbean accent. Peralta guessed she must be in her sixties but was disinclined to study her more closely because of the cluster of cold sores she sported around the lurid gash of her painted mouth. Her eyebrows had clearly been shaved off and then redrawn with a pencil some five centimetres above her eyes, giving her the look of a decaying clown. Guzmán leaned on the bar.

‘Mmm, big boy, what can I do for you?’ the woman’s voice was husky with smoke, drink and quite probably a whole genealogy of vice besides.

Guzmán lit a cigarette, offering one to Peralta in a moment of generosity. Peralta lit Guzmán’s cigarette and then his own. The woman watched them.

‘Got a smoke for a lady?’ She placed one large, chubby hand on her hip.

‘Of course.’ Guzmán exhaled a cloud of smoke. ‘If you can find a lady in this place.’

The painted face distorted for a moment and then cracked in a lopsided smile, revealing an incomplete set of brown teeth. Peralta looked away.

‘You a funny guy. You make a joke with Mamacita? Oh you so cruel, pretty boy. But mess with Mamacita and you gonna get hurt.’

Guzmán looked at Mamacita, the cigarette hung from his lips, a wisp of smoke rising slowly. Peralta realised Mamacita had just done something incredibly stupid: she had threatened Guzmán. Even in fun, it was a big mistake and with a drunken Guzmán, it could end very badly. Peralta saw Guzmán’s right fist clench, ready.

‘Say something, big boy? Why you here? Why you come to Mamacita if you going to be bad like that? You so rude,
chico
. Why you here? You on business?’ The ruined face creased into another hideous smile. ‘You want business? You want girls, right? Yeah, that’s what you want. ‘C’mon, big boy what’s your business?’

Guzmán stared at the frightful face confronting him. Peralta placed a hand on his arm. Guzmán tensed.

‘Come on, Leo,’ Peralta said with exaggerated bonhomie, ‘relax and enjoy yourself. We don’t want this lady calling the police on our account now, do we?’

Guzmán shrugged, recognising the
teniente
’s effort to defuse the tension – which was just as well, Peralta thought, since otherwise it could have turned very nasty for him.

‘We’ve been on a long trip,’ Peralta said, gushing with improvised jollity. ‘We just want to have some fun. My friend’s a bit tired, that’s all.’

‘Bit tired.’ Guzmán echoed, relaxing his fists.

‘A bottle of house red please,
señora
.’ Peralta smiled.

The fat woman shrugged. ‘OK, gents, I thought maybe you were being a bit rude and I don’t like that. But paying customers…’ she gave them an evil grin, ‘I like them.’

As she waddled away, Guzmán turned to Peralta.

‘Nice work there, Peralta. I was getting steamed up seeing that fat hag. Makes me squeamish. I never understand why men like that do it.’

‘Men?’ Peralta said.

‘Ever the choirboy eh? Penny dropped now?’

Peralta nodded uncertainly. ‘Christ.’

Mamacita returned with a bottle and two glasses. Guzmán watched as she poured it.

‘Is that an Albanian red,
señora
?’

‘Albania? This is from Burgos. Albanians are all cowards and goat herders,’ Mamacita said, evidently well informed on small Balkan countries.

‘You’re not from Burgos by any chance,
señor
a?’ Guzmán was laying on the charm now, Peralta noted with sudden unease. Guzmán being superficially pleasant was a disturbing experience.

Mamacita quivered. ‘No, no, big boy. No, Mamacita comes from the Dominican Republic. An island of dreams, long beaches, palm trees. Long, long time I been here, since the war.’

Guzmán took a drink. Peralta noticed his face twitch momentarily and then took a swig himself. The wine was like a badly kept vinegar.

‘Where in the Republic exactly?’ Guzmán asked.

‘Say, you not a copper, big boy? You not a bad old policeman come to shut Mamacita down?
Vaya
, that would be just too bad.’ She clutched at her bosom, and then, finding the padding in the front of the dress had shifted, vigorously rearranged it. ‘Mamacita from Puerto Plata. Nice place. Bad people. People don’t like Mamacita. Mamacita can’t be Mamacita there, know what I mean, big boy?’

‘Do we really look like police?’ Guzmán asked.

‘I guess not. What do you two boys do?’

‘Salesmen.’ Guzmán looked at Peralta and the
teniente
nodded quickly in agreement.

‘You sell stuff, big boy? And you, pretty boy…’ she beamed raggedly at Peralta, ‘you gonna sell me something? Cos I got things I can sell you, handsome.’

Much to Guzmán’s amusement, Peralta was lost for words.

‘We’ll see about that later.’ Guzmán said. ‘I’m worn out,
señora
, we’re going to go and take a seat.’ He indicated an empty table near the stage.

‘You go on over, boys.’ Mamacita smiled. ‘Just keep on spending. You want to buy more fun, I can help there too.’

‘She means whores,’ Peralta said, as they sat down at the filthy table. The ashtray was overflowing and after a moment’s thought, Guzmán emptied it onto the floor.

‘Whores, eh? You surprise me,
Teniente
.’

‘Better not use my rank.’ Peralta leaned forwards across the table.

Guzmán nodded. ‘Good thinking, Francisco.’

‘Thanks.’

‘That’s quite all right.
Francisco
.’

‘You’re overdoing it now.’

‘I think since we’re such good chums, I think I’ll call you Paco.
Paquito
.’

‘My wife does.’

‘That’s not what she’ll call you if she finds out you were in here.’ Guzmán chuckled.

The Bar Dominicana was getting busy. The clientele seemed largely to be from the neighbourhood – and therefore a bunch of losers, Guzmán noted. Peralta, with the experience of his training in police college, argued they were typical criminal types, going on the evidence of their physical condition and degenerate bearing. The argument ended as did so many of their arguments, with Guzmán ordering the
teniente
to get another round of drinks. Peralta doubted he could stomach more of the house wine and opted for a bottle of brandy – much to Mamacita’s delight as she blatantly overcharged him. Guzmán also reacted favourably when he saw it.

‘Excellent, Paco. Sit down and pour, the stripper’s just coming on.’

As soon as the first dancer appeared, Peralta regretted sitting so near to the stage. Thin, undernourished and wan, the girl wore a dress that looked as if it were about to fall apart. Not that it did, since within a few moments of the fat sweating pianist beginning his heavy-handed accompaniment, she was taking it off. Or would have if she had been able to undo the zip at the rear. Panic-stricken, she struggled with the zip, beset by an avalanche of cat calls and insulting comments about what she would look like when she finally got the dress off. Some of the loudest of these came from Guzmán.

Peralta squirmed in helpless embarrassment as the girl finally removed her dress and began to take off her grimy underwear. He looked away. Across the room, he saw a familiar face.