The Angst-Ridden Executive (4 page)

‘It’s for the bus, chief. I’ve lost my travel card.’

‘You’re going to get pulled in by the police if they find you hanging around here, Biscuter. Don’t you recognize me?’

‘Good God—it’s the student!’

That was what the prisoners used to call Carvalho when he was inside. He invited Biscuter for a meal, and they reminisced about the meals they had managed to concoct in Lerida prison, with a stove made out of a big tomato tin and a small red-pepper tin equipped with a wick and fuelled by methylated spirits.

‘You even managed to make a crab bouillabaisse, chief.’

From the end of Carvalho’s sentence to the present day, Biscuter had been in and out of prison many times. He’d been cured of his passion for stealing cars, but his record stuck with him. He would occasionally fall foul of a police round-up, and, being unemployed, would find himself charged under the Vagrant Persons Act.

‘If only I could find a job. . .’

‘How would you fancy working for me? You’d be in charge of a small office. You’ll make me a coffee or a potato tortilla every now and then, but apart from that your time’s your own.’

‘I also know how to make bechamel, boss.’

‘Fine. I’ll even risk eating it. You can sleep in the office. You’ll get board and lodging, and I’ll give you a couple of thousand pesetas a month for your expenses.’

‘And a letter of employment, so’s they don’t keep picking me up?’

‘And a letter of employment!’

From that day to this Biscuter had not left the little Ramblas world that Carvalho inhabited. Occasionally he came in useful for detective work, looking as he did like a down-and-out.

‘I’ll keep your coffee hot, boss. Brrrm, brrrm!’

Biscuter had the curious habit of accompanying his activities with the noise of a 750cc motorbike. His speciality had been stealing big cars and reselling them in Andorra, but the only thing that Biscuter now retained of his former glories was the language. When he was happy, his lips made a sound like a car exhaust at full throttle, and when he wanted to indicate that all was not well, the ‘brrrm brrrm’ turned into a disconsolate ‘pifff. . . pifff. . . pifff’.

‘Give me three quarters of a cup, and then take a look to see if Bromide’s about.’

‘Straight away, boss! Brrrm, brrrm!’

Biscuter knew just how hot to make the coffee to suit Carvalho’s delicate palate. His boss didn’t like it over-hot. Carvalho drank the coffee slowly as he tried to get San Francisco on the phone. It appeared that Dieter Rhomberg was out of town, but he had an appointment for a business dinner at the Fairmont that night. The picture of the revolving restaurant on the top floor of the Fairmont, with its Scandinavian buffet and its waitresses who dressed like a cross between valkyries and the girl-next-door in a rather dated musical, unfolded before him. He saw himself going up in the external lift, which looked out over the city, and which slowly unfolded its mysteries—a city seated on pine clad hills, a city whose downward slopes rushed headlong into the bay below.

‘Rhomberg is a lovely man, as long as you don’t get put off by his intellectual manner.’ So had said the ‘lady from Valladolid’. ‘He was very fond of Antonio. He’ll be able to help you.’

‘Bromide’s gone to the doctor’s, boss. He left a note saying he won’t be back before one.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘I don’t know. He’s gone for a urine analysis.’

‘He must be trying to find out about the bromides that he claims the government’s putting in everything we eat and drink so as to keep us all off sex.’

‘He could have a point there, boss. I haven’t had a decent hard-on for months.’

Carvalho picked up the phone again:

‘Is that the Urquijo Bank? Can I have the research department. . . ? Colonel Parra, please. . . Sorry, I mean Pedro Parra. . .’

At university Pedro Parra had been known as ‘Colonel’ Parra. He’d been obsessed with the idea of setting up an anti-fascist resistance movement in the mountains, and he used to go training every Sunday, in the hills. He never missed a chance to do a round of press-ups to show off his physique. He would arrange secret assignations in the mountains near the city, always at places which were a sweat to get to, with half your breath spent cursing him and the other half spent trying to get your breath back. There was not much of that Parra left now. These days he worked as an economic researcher for the Urquijo Bank, and the only hint of the call of the mountains was the triangle of suntan—the mark of the inveterate skier which his unbuttoned shirt revealed.

‘Pepiño—you still in the land of the living?’

‘I need your help, Pedro.’

‘Same old Pepiño—straight to the point. What’s up?’

‘I need you to prepare me a report on a multinational. Petnay, in fact. Their operations worldwide, and particularly in Spain. I want what’s public knowledge, and what’s not.’

‘Read any book about the fall of Allende and you’ll know all you need to know about Petnay. At least as regards the international side of things. For Spain, I should be able to help. We have people here who specialize in multinationals. What’s it all about? You getting back into politics?’

‘No way!’

‘Maybe we can take this chance for a bit of time together? How about a trip to the mountains, for old time’s sake, Ventura?’

‘Ventura?’

‘You don’t mean you’ve forgotten your
nom de guerre
. . . ?!’

Bromide set about Carvalho’s shoes, and before the detective could say a word he had them shining like new.

‘You go round like a rich man, you eat like a rich man, and you spend like a rich man, but your shoes look like a dustman’s sandals!’

‘Dustmen don’t wear sandals.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Listen. Pin back your ears and pay attention, because this could make you rich. A man’s been found dead, near Vich, with no underpants on and a pair of women’s knickers in his pocket.’

‘Did he run a sausage factory?’

‘What do you make of it?’

‘Had he been stabbed?’

‘No. Shot.’

‘Unusual. It sounds something to do with pimps, but usually they tend to use knives. Do we know who the knickers belonged to?’

‘Wake up! If they knew whose the knickers were, they wouldn’t need a private detective, would they! Keep your ears open, Bromide, and see if something turns up.’

‘What kinds of girl would you say he was involved with?’

‘Expensive. He was the sort of man who needed to be discreet, and he probably had two or three regular lays.’

‘Pepe, I’ve been in this city for the best part of forty years and I know it like the back of my hand. My kidneys might be shot to hell, but I have very good eyesight. This would be the first time I’ve ever heard of high-class pimps using guns. Beating someone up, yes—but guns. . . ? There’s something odd about it, Pepe. If you were talking about cheap whores, OK—but not when you’re talking about the classy end of the market. No, it doesn’t sound right to me.’

‘I want you to keep your ears open for anything you can find out.’

‘As soon as I finish with you, I’ll go to the gents. I’ll piss what I have to piss, then I’ll wash my ears out, and I’ll listen all you like.’

‘Why did you go to the doctor’s?’

‘To take him a Cigar, what do you bloody think?! I went because I’m ill, very ill. Understand? My kidneys are fucked, my stomach’s playing up, and look at the state of my tongue.’

Carvalho suddenly saw a tongue appear down by his knees. It had been ravaged by all the nicotine in the world, and was covered with a white and yellow film.

‘Put it away—you’re making me ill!’

‘Here I am, telling you that I’m ill, and you don’t even care! The doctor told me I had to go on a bloody diet. Grilled meat, salads and fresh fruit!’

‘I ask you—me, when all I usually have is a vermouth, a tapas of this or that, and a black coffee to get me through the day. I get by on a hundred pesetas a day. If you ask me, they don’t think. They wear their brains out studying to make themselves a career, and when they’ve finished their clients can go fuck themselves, because all they’re interested in is the money. Say what you like, but that’s the way it is. Look at my brother-in-law. He was feeling a bit rough, so he went to see the doctor. The doctor told him he had cancer. “Don’t give me that. . .” says my brother-in-law. Anyway, three months later he was dead. If you ask me, the reason was just because he knew he had cancer. Thousands of people pop off just like that, because one minute you’re fit as a fiddle, and then you go to the doctor and he tells you you’ve got cancer, and the next thing you know you get a cancer from worrying. They never actually cure you of anything, Pepe—particularly not when you get to my age. All they do is tell you what you’re going to die of.’

‘I thought you were going to see the doctor about the bromides.’

‘That creep?! He’s been my doctor since. . . let me see. . . since the Social Security started, since the days when concierges used to go round dressed like Marshal Goering. I’ve told him about the bromide hundreds of times, and he just ignores me. Why do you think so many people are dying these days? It’s because of the downers the government puts in the water.’

Bromide looked round to make sure nobody was listening.

‘Why do you think Franco lasted so long? Because we were all confused. Our heads were in a mess, and it was all because of the bromide they were putting in our water. And in the bread.’

‘I thought you didn’t like bread or water.’

‘Well in the coffee, then. Anyway, what’s coffee made from, wine? The water in your coffee—that’s where the bromide gets you! I’m telling you, Pepiño, if I had any power in politics—which I haven’t—I would make it my business to denounce the scandal of how they were using the bromides under Franco. I thought we were supposed to be living in changing times? Can you imagine a greater abuse of human rights than forcing a whole population to take bromides?’

With his brush in one hand and his rhetoric in the other, even when he was down on his knees polishing people’s shoes Bromide’s gestures and features took on a certain senatorial dignity.

‘I’m going to put you up for the next elections. We’ll collect signatures in the
barrio
, and you’ll be Senator for the Ramblas.’

‘And I’ll represent the whores, and the tramps, and the private detectives.’

‘Be careful you don’t overdo the bromide business, though. They might take you for a Green.’

‘What’s a Green?’

‘They’re the people who protest about pollution. . . air pollution, river pollution, that sort of thing.’

‘That’s peanuts compared with this bromide business. Why should I worry about whether or not there’s trout in the rivers? How many trout have you eaten in your life, Pepe? Come on, how many?’

‘Twenty or so.’

‘Jesus—and you kick up all this fuss for twenty trout!’

‘Bromide, the last thing I need is an argument with you about ecology. Forget it. Let’s get back to the corpse, eh?’

‘I know, I know. . . mind your own business. . . That’s always the way it is with you “gentlemen”. The minute someone steps on your territory, it’s “Hey, you, Bromide, get back where you belong.” And that way people end up staying silent all their lives, even though they have things to say. As I live and breathe, I wrote a letter to General Munoz Grande, because people said he was an honest man, and he was my commanding general during the Russian campaign. I told him—man to man, old soldier to old soldier—everything I knew about the bromides. Well, you didn’t want to know, and neither did he.’

A thousand-peseta note emerged from Carvalho’s pocket. Bromide caught it without interrupting the violin-bow action of his brush, and he gave it a look that said he would find it a safe resting place.

‘Don’t worry—your word is my command..

When the final flourishes were over, Carvalho stretched his legs, admired his shoes, and descended from the throne. He deposited fifty pesetas in the shoe shine’s hand, and made his way past the darkened billiard tables. A light hood hung over the table in the corner, where the balls were conscious of their colour as they rolled—sumptuously faded whites and menacing reds. An ageing hustler was chalking his cue with ritual solemnity as his frog-like eyes lined up the next shot. He had a billiard-player’s pot belly. The sort of pot belly that has to be hoisted up before every shot so as to get it over the edge of the table. The player took a measured walk round the table while his opponent sipped a glass of pastis without taking his eyes off the green baize. There’s no way of telling whether the light is coming down from the conical metallic lampshade onto the green baize, or vice-versa. What is certain is that this little theatre is created by the darkness, and the fat billiard player drives a ball, follows its crisp course, and as he watches it collide and click against the others he raises his hand in the hope of preventing some unforeseen deflection of the ball and in order to reach for the magic cube of blue chalk which will give aim and desire to the tip of his cue.

Jauma and Rhomberg were waiting for him outside the Holiday Inn in Market Street. Carvalho took one more turn round the parking lot in his VW and finally found a space, whereupon he was greeted effusively by Jauma, who, paradoxically, was claiming to be depressed.

‘The prospect of a sightseeing trip doesn’t really appeal to me. Just as well that we get back to Vegas at the end of it. I’m a born gambler. Are you a gambler, Carvalho?’

‘No. I sometimes visit the casinos, but once I’ve lost ten dollars in the fruit machines I call it a day. As for roulette and that sort of thing, I don’t really understand them.’

‘Really?’

‘They don’t interest me. As I say, it’s all Greek to me.’

They left Rhomberg at the Avis counter sorting out the car hire. Jauma sat in the front passenger seat, and Carvalho sat—or rather sprawled—in the back. Every now and then he would interrupt Jauma to point out something interesting about the San Francisco that they were now leaving to go to Los Angeles, but the reluctance with which this information was received was so obvious that he opted for a state of silent somnolence. He awoke to find himself being shaken by a smiling Jauma, who was pointing at something out of the window. The car was parked at a gas station, and the spectacle was that of Dieter Rhomberg in conversation with the two young Chicanos who ran the place.