"About the money," he said. He had to keep asking questions. He was here to carry out an investigation, not to have Carmen of the Tobacco Factory place her fingers on his lips. "Have you thought of selling the pictures in the vestry to fund restoration work?"
"They're not worth anything. The Murillo isn't even genuine."
"What about the pearls?"
She looked at him as if he'd just said something incredibly stupid. "Why doesn't the Vatican sell off its art collection and give the money to the poor?" she replied. She finished her drink, took out her wallet, and asked for the bill. Quart insisted on paying but she wouldn't hear of it. The manager was apologetic: I'm sorry, Father, Doha Macarena's a regular, etc.
They went out into the street. Their shadows lengthened in the light of the streetlamps. In the stretches without lights, the moon took over, white and almost full between the shadows of the eaves and the balconies above their heads. After a moment she spoke. "You still don't understand," she said, sardonic. "The pearls arc Carlota's tears. Captain Xaloc's legacy."
Footsteps echoed loudly in the narrow streets, so the three villains kept at a healthy distance from the pair, and they took turns passing them so as not to arouse suspicion: sometimes Don Ibrahim and La Nina Punales, with El Potro del Mantelete staying behind; at others El Potro on his own, or with La Nina on his arm – the arm that wasn't burned and in a sling – but always keeping the priest and the young duchess in sight. It wasn't easy, because the streets of Santa Cruz twisted and turned, and had many dead ends. On one occasion, the three colleagues had to reverse in a hurry, tiptoeing panic-stricken into the shadows, when Quart and Macarena came to a closed square and returned the way they'd come after standing and talking for a few minutes.
Now everything was all right again. The pair were walking along a street with gentle turns and wide doorways, so they could be followed without much risk. More relaxed, Don Ibrahim – a large pale form in the darkness – took out a cigar and put it in his mouth, twirling it voluptuously in his fingers. El Potro and La Nina walked nine or ten paces ahead, keeping a close eye on the priest and the young duchess. The former bogus lawyer felt a wave of affection as he watched his companions. They were carrying out their mission very conscientiously. In the quiet stretches, La Nina removed her high-heeled shoes to make less noise. She walked with a grace that the years hadn't taken from her in spite of everything, carrying her shoes and the handbag that contained her crocheting, Peregil''s camera, and the newspaper clipping allegedly about a man with green eyes who had killed for her love. Eternal Nina in her polka-dot dress, with her dyed hair, the kiss-curl like Estrellita Castro's: a flamenco singer heading for an imaginary tablao. At her side, serious, manly, El Potro gave her his good arm, knowing that it was the most precious homage he could pay to a woman like her.
His walking stick under his arm, Don Ibrahim lit his cigar. He pock-1 eted the dented silver cigarette lighter – a keepsake from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whom Don Ibrahim knew, he said, when the author of No One Visits Colonel Paramo was a humble reporter in Cartagena de Indias – and felt the tickets for Sunday's bullfight, purchased that very afternoon by El Potro. In his spare time, the former bullfighter and boxer worked with gangs of thimblerig players near Triana Bridge. He was a shield for the guy who handled the three cups and the little balclass="underline" Now you see it, now you don't, come along, sir, lay down twenty-five thousand pesetas. And all around, accomplices crowed about their winnings, and a couple of men on the corner watched out for the police. Looking grave and responsible, in a checked jacket that was too small, El Potro inspired confidence. Thanks to his performance, he and his colleagues had relieved a Puerto Rican tourist of a good wad of dollars. So to make up for his blunder with the Anis del Mono bottle, El Potro presented Don Ibrahim and La Nina with expensive tickets for the bullfight. He'd invested his entire morning's earnings in the three tickets, because there were some really big names on the bilclass="underline" Curro Romero, Espartaco, and Enrique Ponce (Curro Maestral had been taken off at the last minute with no explanation) and six – six! – Cardenal y Murube bulls.
Don Ibrahim expelled a cloud of smoke and touched the tender skin on his cheek that had been carefully covered with ointment. His moustache and eyebrows had been singed, but he really couldn't complain: it had very nearly been a catastrophe, but they had got away with superficial burns, a ruined table, a blackened ceiling, and a big fright. Particularly when they saw El Potro running around the room with his arm on fire, as in the film with Vincent Price in the wax museum. With great presence of mind and invoking the Virgin Mary, La Nina had given Don Ibrahim a good squirt with the soda siphon and thrown a blanket over the table to put out the fire. After that, it was all smoke, explanations, neighbours banging at the door, and a rather uncomfortable moment when the firemen arrived and found no fire, just the three red-faced partners. By tacit agreement none of them ever referred to the unfortunate incident again. For, as Don Ibrahim put it, raising a learned finger after La Nina got back from the pharmacy with a tube of ointment and plenty of gauze, there are painful episodes in life that are best put out of one's mind.
The priest and the young duchess must have stopped to talk, because La Nina and El Potro were waiting discreetly at the corner, standing against the wall. Don Ibrahim was grateful for the pause -propelling his considerable bulk over long stretches was no easy task. He gazed up at the moon and savoured his cigar, its smoke spiralling gently upwards in the silvery moonlight. Not even the smell of urine and garbage that hung around some of the bars in the darkest streets could entirely obliterate the fragrance of the orange blossom, the jasmine, and the flowers that spilled over the balconies. From behind the blinds one could hear, as one passed, muffled music, snatches of conversation, dialogue from a film or applause on a TV quiz show. From a nearby house came a few bars of a bolero that reminded Don Ibrahim of other moonlit nights on different streets, and he wallowed in nostalgia for his two pasts: the real and the imaginary, which in his memory merged into a series of elegant evenings on the warm beaches of San Juan, long walks through Old Havana, aperitifs in Los Portales de Veracruz with mariachis singing "Divine Women", by his friend Vicente, or "Pretty Maria", a song in whose composition he played such a part. Or perhaps, he said to himself as he took another long drag on his cigar, it was only his youth that he missed. And the dreams that life always destroys.
Anyway, he thought as El Potro and La Nina moved on and he set off after them, he would always have Seville; parts of it reminded him so strongly of places from his past. For at certain corners, in the colour and light, the city retained, as no other city, the gentle hum of time slowly extinguishing itself – or of himself being extinguished. Don Ibrahim took another puff of his cigar and nodded sadly: a beggar was asleep in a doorway, covered with newspapers and cardboard, an empty plate beside him. Instinctively, he put his hand in his pocket and found a coin, beneath the tickets to the bullfight and Garcia Marquez's lighter. He bent down with difficulty and placed the coin next to the sleeping figure. Ten paces further on, he realised that he no longer had change for his phone call to Peregil. He considered turning back and retrieving the coin, but stopped himself. El Potro or La Nina might have some coins. A gesture was a profession of faith. And it wouldn't have been an honourable thing to undo it.
It's a small world, but after that night Celestino Peregil often wondered if the encounter between his boss and the young duchess and the priest from Rome happened by chance, or if she'd promenaded the priest under Gavira's nose on purpose, knowing that at that hour her husband, or ex-husband, or whatever he was technically at that stage, always had a drink at the Loco de la Colina Bar. Gavira was sitting on the crowded terrace with a girlfriend, while Peregil was inside, at the bar, near the door, playing the bodyguard. Gavira had ordered Scotch on the rocks and was savouring his first sip, admiring his companion, an attractive Sevillian model who, despite her notorious deficit in the intellectual department, or maybe because of it, had achieved fame because of a line in a TV ad about a certain make of bra. The sentence was "This is all mine", and Penelope Heidegger, the model – who, anatomically, had every right to make such a claim – said it with devastating effect. Gavira was obviously preparing to enjoy what was all Penelope's in the next few hours. As good a way as any, thought Peregil, for his boss to take his mind off the Cartujano Bank, the church and all the stuff that was making life hell.