The Angst-Ridden Executive (24 page)

A folded cheque was deposited next to the pile of empty mussel shells. Carvalho licked his fingers, dried them, and reverently picked it up.

‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pesetas. Not bad.’

‘It would buy more than a year of your time.’

‘My father retired on a pension of eight thousand pesetas a month after having worked for sixty-five years—or rather seventy, because at the age of five he was already looking after the cows. If I had pursued my career as a professor of sociology and literature, I would now be earning thirty thousand pesetas a month, plus yearly bonuses. No less than four hundred and fifty thousand pesetas a year. So you see—you got your sums wrong. It’s too little. That said, though, it’s not bad.’

‘Are you in need of help, señora?’

It was the long-haired policeman again, and at his side a colleague, dressed like a specialist in Peruvian agrarian reform.

‘Señor Jauma, do you always travel escorted by the Sixth Fleet?’

‘Drop the wisecracks. We’ve been very patient with you.’

‘He wasn’t bothering me. I came of my own free will, and we’ve finished now.’

‘Don’t forget—tell your protector that I’m gunning for him.’

‘You’re gunning for nobody, friend. And don’t go acting flash, because we might just decide to pull you in.’

Concha Hijar was already a drumming of heels in the middle distance. The two policemen wavered, and then went and parked themselves at the bar so as to keep an eye on Carvalho. The detective got up and went to watch the queasy movement of the leaden sea. It was raining. The sea seemed offended by the scant contribution of the falling celestial waters. He took several deep breaths to empty his stomach of the malodorous vapours of anxiety. Close to his heart lay the undeniably comforting presence of a fat cheque, which might not buyout one’s fear of death, but would make a decent addition to the savings account which Carvalho kept as a protection for his old age. If he ended up as one of those old men who wet their beds, the thousand-peseta notes would make an excellent absorbent mattress.

‘It looks like we’ve wet the bed again, señor Carvalho. . .’

Or:

‘You disgusting old man—you’ve pissed yourself again.’

All that stood between these two comments was the insurance of a lifetime’s savings, religiously buried under the grey tombstone of his Savings Bank paying-in book.

‘Steer clear of banks, Pepe. Avoid them like the plague. Banks go bust and take your money down with them. Savings banks are more reliable.’

‘But they give a lower rate of interest, dad.’

‘They’re safe, though.’

Or maybe he would buy a piece of land, with a view to reselling it when he retired. If the country went democratic, though, it would be harder to speculate in land. And what about if socialism came? Then they’d have neat, clean old people’s homes everywhere. They’d connect a plastic pipe to his cock, and when he urinated in his sleep, it would end up in a collective reservoir of purified piss which would then go out into the city’s water supply as privatized water fit for public consumption. The Antonio Gutierrez Diaz Gerontology Centre. They would cremate his body in the La Pasionaria Crematorium, and then they would scatter his ashes in the Friedrich Engels Eternal Matter Park. It would be a real drag if they killed me right now, he thought, with the town hall in a mess, and a shortage of grave spaces, and with Charo and Biscuter following the coffin and crying allover the place. And what would become of Biscuter then? He’d have to teach him a few things. Biscuter’s best chance would be to try and get a job in a restaurant somewhere, because he had all the makings of a good cook. But then he was so sickly and stunted that the only feelings he inspired in people were pity and disgust, and racism doesn’t operate only on the colour of your skin, but also on how you look, how tall you are, what kind of nose you have, what kind of hair, and so on. He’d make out a will, so that in the event of his dying unexpectedly his savings and the house at Vallvidrera would go to Biscuter and Charo. He’d leave his wine cellar to Bromide so that he could die with his liver pickled in good wines. Within a few hours the threat he’d made to Concha would provoke a reaction. Carvalho decided to meet it armed. He left the restaurant purposefully when he heard the siren of the approaching ferry. The two policemen boarded the boat behind him and took up seats where they could watch him. Neither of them spoke. They observed the passengers on the boat as if they were mentally classifying them into active criminals and latent criminals. When the boat docked, Carvalho set off to the local branch of the Savings Bank to pay in his cheque.

‘Look, I don’t have my savings book with me. I’d like to put two other people’s names on the account. They’ll come in to sign later.’

‘Fill out this form, please.’

He had to write out Charo’s and Biscuter’s proper names, but he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t the faintest idea what they were, The counter clerk didn’t look like the type who would willingly accept diminutives or nicknames, A savings-book made out in the name of Jose Carvalho Larios, Charo and Biscuter would have prompted at the very least a meeting of the board of directors of the Savings Bank Association. Shit! He set off on foot to the office to ask them for their proper names and also to get his gun, He sat in his swivel-chair. Biscuter was preparing beans, and raised an inquiring eye when he saw Carvalho examining the mechanism of his Star handgun.

‘Do you always carry a gun?’

‘You have to, in this country.’

They had taken off their jackets as they climbed up the paths which led to the heights overlooking Death Valley, Jauma made the point that he wasn’t big on landscapes, but he accepted that the place was impressive, This was the third time that Carvalho had visited the high, red-earth plateau from which you can see, almost at arm’s length, the white, curving undulations of Zabriskie Point, with the sun setting on them. Mountains where you could very easily kill yourself as you set off in pursuit of the unknown—of some place that you would never want to return from, a place of total oblivion, where you could enjoy being the sole living particle in a totally uninhabited world, a particle freed from fear. Meandering trails at the bottom of the windblown valley—yellow, black, blue, green and red—as the early evening shadows settle in.

‘If we don’t get a move on, we’ll be too late to take photos at Zabriskie Point, and we’ll be late getting to Vegas, too.’

‘I want to see the Ann Margret show. It’s her first show since the accident and the plastic surgery.’

Dieter was wanting to take photos, and Jauma wanted to see one of his erotic fantasies in the flesh. They raced off to Zabriskie Point. Rhomberg’s camera just had time to photograph Carvalho pretending to stride off to the horizon, which by now was turning mauve with the setting sun.

‘I suppose the trip’s over for you now. You only came out here to see these hills again, didn’t you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Doesn’t Vegas tempt you?’

‘Not really. This was what I came for.’

Dieter continued driving, partly because Jauma was ill at ease with automatics, and partly because he didn’t enjoy the passivity of being a passenger. Darkness was settling on the desert, but you could still see the dry, rolling countryside, the old abandoned wooden houses, and the distant silhouette of the road to an Indian reservation which Jauma decided against visiting.

‘I want to see Ann Margret and I want to gamble. Tomorrow I have to do the rounds of the shops to see how business is going. Both Dieter and I have come here to work, but in Las Vegas real life begins when the sun goes down. What’ll you be doing tomorrow?’

‘I’m going back to San Francisco.’

‘Only staying one day?’

‘I like seeing Death Valley.’

‘I’ve only ever seen it from the plane, and in the Disney film
The Living Desert
.’

‘If you’ve got a couple of days to spare, why don’t you hire a light aircraft and take a flight over the canyons. Do the Colorado canyon first. Then there’s another canyon nearby, with a forest of phallus-like pillars of rock left by the erosion. You should find the spectacle stimulating.’

Jauma promised to do the trip, even if only to check out the phalluses.

‘I’ll kneel before them and pray for mine to be as big and eternal as theirs.’

Las Vegas suddenly came into view like a brightly-lit mirage in the middle of the desert. Dieter put his foot down. In Jauma’s Sephardic eyes the reflection of the approaching lights mingled with the sparkle in the eyes of a man eager for a party. They drove into the midst of a kind of multicoloured electric sun dedicated solely to the promise of happiness to come. Vegas still managed to amaze them, even though all three of them were regular visitors—Carvalho because he was a training instructor at a CIA base near the city, and Dieter and Jauma because this was a fabulous world of social relations created by the industries that they were involved in. Jauma had reserved rooms for them at the Sands Hotel, and what they got was a bungalow each, fronting directly onto the sands of the desert and backing onto lush monumental gardens which were crisscrossed by youthful hotel porters driving baggage trolleys.

‘Don’t be too long dressing, Carvalho. The show’s at Caesar’s Palace, and I want to eat first.’

An assortment of smoked savouries, accompanied by a Moselle wine, and followed by fresh lychees flown in from Thailand and a Calvados of exquisite aroma and proper strength. He gazed at the women dressed in curtains and their menfolk in fancy dress: green Prince of Wales check suits, yellow shoes, red shirts, and solid gold pendants in place of ties. The waitresses were wearing the sort of clothes that Cleopatra might have worn at the moment of her death, if we suppose that Cleopatra would have worn a skirt so short as to present the invading Romans with the full spectacle of her royal arse.

‘You’ve not still got your gun with you. . . ?!’

‘It’s become part of me.’

Ann Margret’s floorshow was opened by Sergio Mendes and his Brazilian band. A professional perfection tailored to the receptive capacities of an audience that was split more or less evenly between rich people, adventurers, and newly-weds. Everyone was wearing evening dress, and the men’s suits and women’s dresses bought in Paris or in branches of Parisian stores in New York and Los Angeles had been adapted to the calculatedly ‘casual’ tastes of the North American market. Ann Margret came on-stage with her perfect little body and her new, improved face, looking like a mischievous street-urchin. Her voice was childlike, but she handled it well. She was one hell of a dancer too, as Jauma never tired of saying. She had the audience on their feet when she announced that at one of the tables in the immense hall was Elvis Presley in person. The one-time youthful rock and roller got up to acknowledge the enthusiastic screams of the middle-aged women in the audience. Everyone was on their feet scanning the aisles for the island where their hero exhibited a corpulence corseted in an adolescent costume. With a final wave he left, surrounded by bodyguards who unceremoniously shoved aside the women pressing forward for an autograph. With Elvis out of the way, everyone calmed down again, the house lights dimmed, and the show continued. Jauma wanted to get closer to the stage. He came back enthusing.

‘She’s perfect! Perfect!’

They headed for the exit, to get out before the rush and find a seat at one of the gaming tables. The one-armed bandits were looking like robots in electronic evening dress. But the green baize covers of hundreds of gambling tables introduced a vice of another era multiplied by the demon of present-day prosperity. Dieter settled himself among the serried ranks of fruit machines. Jauma took possession of a seat at a table where baccarat was under way. Carvalho inspected the small stage of an Egyptian barge on which an orchestra of first-century BC Romans was playing. However, the solid policemen protecting the casino safes were dressed in colours that were very much twentieth century: grey, khaki, beige and camouflage. Brown-skinned policemen with big guns in white leather thigh holsters. Carvalho ventured five quarters on the fruit machines, and then resigned himself to a long wait, given the obsessiveness with which Jauma was following the game and losing his money. Dieter was doing the
via crucis
of every fruit machine in the place, with the methodical rigour of the German engineering inspector that he was. For a while Carvalho exchanged glances with a small, shapely Jewess surrounded by her menfolk, who were gazing ironically at a game in progress. He took advantage of her temporary separation from the clan to inquire whether she wasn’t thinking of trying her luck.

‘My religion doesn’t permit me to gamble,’ she said, through moist lips, but to Carvalho it was as if the voice was coming from the two compact globes that stuck out over the
décolleté
of her pink tulle dress. Her whole group was staying at the Holiday Inn, and Carvalho offered to take her back to the Sands, to show her the desert.

‘The hotel’s owned by Sinatra.’

The dark-skinned woman spied movement among the clan. A man with crinkly black hair and heavy features looked over at her from the midst of the clan.

‘I can’t. We’re leaving now.’

‘Are you from San Francisco?’

‘No, Owosso. It’s hardly on the map even. We’re here to celebrate my in-laws’ golden wedding anniversary.’

‘It’s a shame you can’t come to the Sands. From my room you can see the Sahara Desert.’

She returned to her family and friends with a look of immense satisfaction on her face, and hooked herself onto the arm of the hard-faced Jew, looking as if she’d just returned from crossing Sinai. Dieter had another two hundred and thirteen fruit machines to go, and Jauma wasn’t even noticing Carvalho’s attempts to attract his attention from across the table. At one point he looked up, and his eyes met Carvalho’s. He had the glazed look of a man in the grip of gambling fever. He looked at Carvalho as if he was a stranger. Carvalho raised his arm in a halfhearted wave. He paused at the door for one last look, but Jauma was sitting with his chin resting on folded hands and totally engrossed in the game.