“What are you doing on the floor?” asks the middle-aged man. Then he looks up at the man next to the counter with the hat and sunglasses and a pistol in his hand. Finally he nods with an expression that shows he has a general understanding of what's going on. “Uh,” he says, “we have a security camera with a line to the police.”
There is something inexplicably sexual in the way the salesgirl is lying facedown on the floor, with the skirt of her suit slightly raised, revealing a good chunk of her thighs. In Pavel's opinion. In spite of the fact that it's absurd to have sexual thoughts in a situation like the one taking place in the jewelry store. Pavel is vaguely aware that these completely inappropriate thoughts come to one's mind in moments of professional stress or high pressure. The salesgirl remains facedown, watching out of the corner of her eye. Pavel tosses the black leather bag to the middle-aged man.
“Put that in bag,” he says. “And that. And that over there. All that.” Pavel points to various display cases filled with items. “And faster. Fast as you can or you be out one niece. Come on.”
The middle-aged man opens the glass cases with a key and is emptying them into the vaguely medical black leather bag. Another characteristic of the clothing of many little kids and middle-aged men is that their V-neck sweaters almost never match the colors of the shirts that stick out from underneath them. As if the chromatic rules of dressing didn't apply to certain phases of life. Pavel looks at the clock on the screen of his cell phone. The third golden rule of robbing jewelry stores is that the whole process, including the entrance, theft and getaway, can't take longer than three minutes. In order to avoid getting caught by the cops. Three minutes seems to be the international professional standard. In the case at hand, the deadline is fast approaching. The middle-aged uncle gives him back the black leather bag with handles. Pavel puts it over his shoulder, still aiming the starter pistol in the general direction of the salesgirl. She has two almost identical runs in the stockings of each leg. Pavel looks at the clock on his phone again.
“Wait,” says Pavel to the overtly expectant faces of the salesgirl and the man who seems to be her uncle. Even though he says it to them, his expression and body language seem to indicate that he's really talking to himself. Like in those situations when people say “wait” when they are trying to give themselves time to think. He points with the starter pistol toward the painting. “The painting. Give me that painting. I'll take it.”
The salesgirl looks at Pavel as if she didn't understand and then looks at the painting. Exactly three and a half minutes have passed since Pavel entered the jewelry store and took a look around. Now both he and the salesgirl watch as the middle-aged man gets up on a chair, takes the pictorial representation of the Temple of Jerusalem off the wall and offers it to Pavel. Although the idea is completely incongruous with the context and the situation, Pavel could swear there was a certain component of curiosity and amused interest in the face of the salesgirl who is now looking at him. Who is no longer lying facedown with her hands behind her head but rather lying on her side in a more comfortable position with her head resting on one arm. In a comfortable way that accentuates her sexual self-confidence. Pavel extends his hand to take the painting but stops and looks out of the corner of his eye at the camera filming him.
“Stick it in there,” he says to the salesgirl's uncle. “Keep safe.” He waves around the pistol the way people sometimes wave whatever's in their hand when they can't find the word they're looking for. “Wrap it up. That's it. Wrap it up.”
The salesgirl and her uncle exchange a fleeting glance. Twenty-five seconds later, Pavel exits the jewelry store onto a street flooded with the sound of police sirens. He takes off his wool hat and throws it into a trash can. He quickly shakes out his newly unconstrained dreads.
Two blocks from the scene of the robbery, a police car passes by him and one of the officers inside takes a quick look at him as he walks down the street with his dreads out and the wrapped painting beneath his arm. The police car keeps going. Pavel looks at the clock on his cell phone again: now he has to hurry. If he wants to catch the flight tomorrow morning, he has to sell the contents of the bag in the next few hours.
CHAPTER 46. Chicote's Testimony
Toward the second half of the preliminary hearing of his trial for mental incompetence, Lucas Giraut thinks he can see something in the last rows of the public that interferes with his ability to concentrate on what's going on in the courtroom. At first it's just a flash. A flash that seems to come from a metal plate located on the head of one of the people observing the hearing. Although it is impossible to be sure from where he's sitting. The flash is in a hidden area at the back of the room. A blind spot. Blocked by various columns and architectural elements. Giraut is sitting on some sort of platform to one side of the room. With his lawyer that's either Arab or from the Asian subcontinent. The area for the public looks in many ways like the seating area in a movie theater, with its lateral aisles and wider central aisle and its double doors at the very back. And yet, the district courtroom where the hearing is going on doesn't remind him of any movie theater. It's more like the pews in a church. Probably for not entirely conscious reasons.
Lucas Giraut leans over the railing of his platform to try to see the back of the room. From where he is sitting he can see the whole room except for some parts at the back obscured by architectural elements. Marcia Parini is among the witnesses. Iris Gonzalvo is in the audience. Seated beside a guy with the biggest ass that Giraut remembers having ever seen on a man who wasn't morbidly obese. There is someone in the audience with white earbuds coming out of their ears. Giraut rests both hands on the platform's railing and twists his head as much as he can and even leans over the railing again to try to make out the flash that he thinks he's seen a couple of times now at the back of the room.
“This is an outrageous scandal,” the plaintiff's lawyer is saying. The same sickly-looking redheaded lawyer. “We already warned the court that this could happen. We already offered evidence that the defendant is involved with organized crime. And things have been allowed to go this far.” He points to Carlos Chicote, head of the International Division of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD., who is sitting in the witness area. Chicote's terrified, overwrought face is an attempt to smile sycophantically. “The witness is shaking like a leaf. I wouldn't be surprised if he was being threatened by someone in this very room. And basically trying to sabotage this trial. When we have sworn declarations implicating the accused. Your Honor, this hearing must be suspended. Investigations must be made into this.” The plaintiff's redheaded lawyer makes a gesture as if loosening his tie without actually loosening it. “I'm talking about an in-depth investigation of the defense's methods.”
It appears that Giraut's lawyer is carrying out a series of ambiguous movements with his hand in his crotch area. Giraut doesn't see any female near the platform that could hypothetically be associated with those movements. The rings that the lawyer's wearing on his dark hairy hands somehow accentuate the overall lasciviousness of his appearance. Thick heavy gold rings. His little neat beard, like Peter Gabriel's in the eighties, also accentuates his lascivious air. Marcia Parini smiles nervously at Giraut and waves. From the witness bench. Most of the audience seems to be only partly paying attention to what is going on at the front of the courtroom.