‘What happened, inspector?’ asked a journalist.
‘You’ll hear about it soon enough.’
He was learning to talk like a cynic. He didn’t avoid the cluster of hostile faces. Nor did he issue any challenges. He just walked on by like a man without a care in the world. Which is to say, a man who is fucked.
On his way to the car, he met Mara. She was distracted. Confused by the run of events.
‘They’re going to set him free. It’s unbelievable,’ said Fins. ‘The bail’s tiny. You’d have thought Rhesus Negative had lent a hand.’
‘Rhesus Negative?’
‘One of the court’s henchmen.’
Leda Hortas pushed open the door of the courthouse and exclaimed happily, ‘He’s been set free!’
There was Brinco with his ace’s smile, accompanied by two other important detainees, Inverno and Chumbo, and by the lawyer Óscar Mendoza. From the top of the stairs, the lawyer took control of the situation. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, a good day for Noitía! My client, Víctor Rumbo, has been set free. Later on we’ll give the details. The important thing now is to celebrate the fact that justice has been done and our beloved neighbour can come home. Thank you, everyone!’
‘Mr Rumbo, how are you feeling?’ asked the journalist Lucía Santiso.
‘Better than those who arrested me. I slept very well in fact.’
He caressed Leda. Put his arm around her. Kissed her. The scene was reminiscent of a medal ceremony.
‘And tonight I’m sure I’ll sleep even better!’
In the car Mara suddenly asked Fins, ‘What would you do if you got home and found your cat dead?’
‘By “dead”, do you mean really dead?’
‘Yes, I mean they killed him. Killed him and hung him on the door handle. Just like in the old days.’
Fins placed his hands on the steering wheel. Didn’t dare look at her. Or touch her.
‘Can I put on Casta Diva?’ she asked.
‘Of course you can. It’s there until it breaks.’
39
IN THE MIDDLE of the Vaudeville’s stage was a Cadillac Eldorado. Víctor Rumbo had bought it in Cuba. Seen it in Miramar, contacted the owner and not stopped until, when Brinco said it was his last day on the island, the owner had gestured to him to get in the car and take it for a drive. ‘Let’s go for a paseíto!’ He always told this story. And whenever he got mad, this was what he said, ‘Let’s go for a paseíto!’ He was terrifying when he said it. Because the business with the Cadillac got complicated. When it was finally unloaded in Vigo, Brinco’s expression changed. He spat out curses so foul they wounded the clouds. All that had arrived was the Eldorado’s bodywork. It wasn’t that he minded so much, despite all the administrative headaches. He only wanted the sedan for decoration. What bothered him was that the emblem on the bonnet was missing.
‘Where’s the lark? Where’s the fucking skylark?’
The package had been sealed, they explained in customs. Encased in wood. This was how it had travelled. Víctor Rumbo was spewing smoke. In his rage he’d forgotten the owner’s name. Called him ‘Let’s Go’. Shouted it out. Across the sea. A raving lunatic. ‘Let’s Go’ and ‘Skylark’.
‘Don’t get so upset over a steel bird,’ commented Óscar Mendoza. ‘I’ll get you one from a Rolls-Royce. The Spirit of Ecstasy. Now there’s an emblem!’
‘You don’t understand,’ shouted Brinco. ‘This one was mine. My own fucking skylark! I didn’t know what it was. And that bastard went and told me it was a lark.’
So he sent Inverno to Havana with the details, Let’s Go’s address and the instructions, ‘Don’t come back until you’ve got the emblem.’
In the middle of the stage was the Cadillac with its emblem.
Víctor Rumbo wanted to turn the Vaudeville into something straight out of a film. A before and afterwards in Noitía’s history. Till then, most singles clubs on coastal roads had been run-down, sinister places with depressing architecture oozing neon pus. The Vaudeville was going to be different. Unforgettable. A club that would cause stylish scandal among the jet set after a wild night out. Mendoza, Rocha and the increasingly active and enterprising Estela Oza were partners, with the corresponding front. For his part, Brinco wanted the Vaudeville to be an outrageous present for Leda. He went so far as to imagine her as the great madam reigning over her kingdom, controlling everything from an office with screens relaying what was going on in every corner. In the public and private rooms, but also in the bedrooms. She had character, ambition and style. Come on. She had more style, a savage attraction, than Estela Oza ever would. But things turned out otherwise. As expected, he did his bit. Went and found the women. Because this is how it works. People think prostitutes travel around like tourists. Well, no. You have to attend the auction. Check their teeth. Compete with other buyers. Tame them. Protect them. So to speak. This was Brinco’s business. And he did what he had to. He bought the meat.
The inauguration was unbelievable. There were some surprising guests in attendance, some of the jet set, those Brinco knew looked the other way to avoid greeting him. And, above all, amazement, exclamations, when they entered the covered terrace with its large transparent column full of hummingbirds in suspended flight around the serpent of a bougainvillea flower. In the back room, where there was a place for playing cards, another exotic surprise that caused consternation among men and women. An aquarium in which warrior fish fought each other. Red dragons. A kind of host dressed in a shimmery satin jacket replaced the severed fish and sang the bets. On the main stage, with the Eldorado in the background, its bodywork glistening more than the host’s satin, a show billed as the real Tropicana.
But in the midst of all this uproar something was missing. Brinco kept asking after Leda and eventually sent Inverno to fetch her from the Ultramar. She came. Apologised for being late. Domestic matters. Her arrival did not pass unnoticed, she had a genuine air of dangerous elegance, and Brinco lost the face of someone searching for a fallen tooth. One absence was mentioned, especially among the less well informed. Where was Mariscal? But neither Víctor nor his circle asked themselves this question. The Old Man didn’t like large groups of people. He’d be floating around, with his panoptic eye, working out the moment when the void would demand his voice.
Leda would never come back to the Vaudeville. Brinco soon understood she avoided ever mentioning the subject. She’d decided it didn’t exist. On him, however, the large blue neon sign, with its pink skylark blinking in an arc above the letters, had a hypnotic effect. It stood on the hill, visible from the whole valley, defying the dark and the sea.
The wave of high rollers soon washed away from the Vaudeville. Among the partners, only Mendoza the lawyer continued to visit. He liked the girls and could fuck for free. That was the reason for his loyalty. Though there were more of them, the Vaudeville’s customers ended up being the usual clientele of a singles club. Lads on a night out. Old men with money. And flour people. Especially those glorious days after a shipment.
‘Who’s that? Belvís? You’re joking. Didn’t he lose his mind or something?’
It was Belvís, the ventriloquist, the orchestra man, with his friend the Kid. Víctor Rumbo carried on organising programmes for the weekends. Not the spectacular stuff he’d done to begin with. Now the most frequent event was a lazy singer followed by an erotic act. But one day Belvís arrived. He got off the bus at Chafariz Cross with a suitcase. Brinco stopped the Alfa Romeo and told him to hop in. Belvís was happy, he’d always liked novelties.