Turned to Stone (4 page)

3

Sandra’s Italian accent had moved to the foreground, as if she’d suddenly reclaimed her ethnic roots. Jaime walked down the stairs, encouraged by the gun barrel pressing into him from behind. Adrenaline began to overcome the dulling effect of the alcohol on his brain and he became more aware of what was happening. His arms and legs trembled and his heart was beating at twice its normal speed, but his fear didn’t paralyze him. His biggest regret was having taken such obvious bait. Sandra was a textbook femme fatale.

Who do you think you are, fool? Brad Pitt?

He made an effort to breathe deeply, trying not to let panic set in. Near the bottom of the stairs he turned around with his arms still raised.

Sandra didn’t even blink. “Keep walking.”

“What is this, anyway? A holdup?”

“Just turn around and walk.”

Seeing that she wasn’t in a talking mood, Jaime obeyed. When they reached a closed door at the opposite end of the guesthouse lobby, Sandra shoved him inside. After waiting a few seconds to make sure all was quiet, she followed him in and closed the door behind her. “Very good. Now tell me who you’re working for.”

Jaime blinked as he tried to take in the absurd question. “Working? I’m here on vacation.”

Though he was past the initial shock, he was still dazed and confused. He feared that the alcohol’s effects would make him appear braver than he really was and he’d end up with a bullet in him for talking too much.

Looking around, he saw that they were in the guesthouse kitchen. Strings of garlic hung from the ceiling, and the remains of a rabbit rested on the countertop. The only light came from a streetlamp, filtered in through the translucent glass of the door to the outside.

“If you’re on vacation you must work somewhere.”

“All right, I’ll tell you.” Jaime took a breath and, without thinking first about what he was going to say, he let the alcohol do the talking. If she got mad, so much the better; the more noise she made, the more likely she was to wake the guesthouse owners or some other guest. “I’m police. The chief asked me to investigate all the horny brunettes in Castilla-León and find out whether they’d be prepared to screw our informers to make them talk. Or the captain, to help him let off some steam. Or all of us, so we stop demanding a Christmas bonus . . .”

The whole thing didn’t come out as witty as Jaime would have liked. Fearing imminent payback, he threw up his hands to protect himself. But the woman was no fool and she didn’t make a move toward him. Instead, she started laughing. He felt ridiculous.

“You’re wasting your breath. No one’s coming down here until tomorrow morning, so I have all night to find out what I want to know.”

“Oh yeah? Well I warn you, I charge by the word.”

“For me you’ll do it for free.”

“You wish.”

“Oh, you’re going to tell me what I want to know and you’re going to be quick about it. There are plenty of things in this kitchen I can use to help with your interrogation.”

“You’re going to gouge my eyes out with a spoon? If you do that I’ll scream.”

“If you scream, I’ll blow your head off.”

“And if you blow my head off . . .” Unable to think of a way to finish the sentence, Jaime abruptly thrust his hand under her dress. Sandra turned red and slapped him.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing, just checking something.” Jaime stroked his chin.

Sandra pushed her pistol against his forehead.

“Enough games. I’ll repeat the question: Who are you and who are you working for?”

It occurred to Jaime that he could save himself a lot of misery if he just followed this psychopath’s instructions.

“If I tell you, will you explain what all this is about?”

Sandra stood motionless, still holding the weapon as Jaime looked back in a stupor. She cut a striking image: a beautiful and dangerous woman in a black dress and red overcoat, pointing a gun at him. All that was missing was the wailing of a saxophone. And a Dashiell Hammett signature.

“All right,” she said, lowering the pistol.

“My name’s Jaime Azcárate. I work for the magazine
Arcadia
and I’m here to see the
Ars Homini
exhibition. I’m a Libra, I live in Madrid, I don’t have a girlfriend, and my mother insists I should find one. Though if she met you, I’m certain she’d change her mind.”

“A sensible woman. What’s your relationship with Vicente Amatriaín?”

There it was. The little light that had been flickering in his mind began to blaze. Two events as unusual as these happening in one day? Of course they were related.

“Amatriaín? If you’d asked me that earlier you could’ve saved me the trouble of reaching under your dress.”

Ignoring the comment, Sandra deftly dug through her purse with her free hand and took out a crumpled piece of paper.

“And he gave you this?”

Jaime winced upon finding himself face-to-face again with Medusa. He had done his best to forget all about the business of the statue, but everything was working against him.

“If I’d known you were already acquainted with my hotel room, I’d have suggested going to your place.”

“Did Amatriaín give you this drawing? Yes or no?”

Jaime quickly explained that Vicente Amatriaín had approached him in the restaurant and asked him for help in the case of the stolen sculpture. He emphasized what he’d told Amatriaín: that all he wanted to do was relax and forget about things. That, Jaime told her, was why he had gone into that bar at such an unlucky moment.

Sandra regarded him silently for a few seconds, looking not at all convinced. “You’re saying you didn’t already know him.”

“I’d never seen him before. I’d remember those white teeth and nasty scars.”

“Yet you both happened to be in El Burgo de Osma at the same time, and then in the same restaurant, where he took a liking to you and gave you a drawing of the statue he’s searching for. Either I’m stupid or I’m missing something here.”

“Or both. What does the sculpture have to do with you?”

“It’s a long story—one I’m not about to tell you.”

Jaime considered the possibility that this was a case of mistaken identity and that, despite how things looked, Amatriaín, not Sandra, was the villain in the story. He recalled that Amatriaín had not shown him any identification. What if all that stuff about the EHU was a lie and he wanted Jaime to help him find the sculpture for some other, unknown purpose? He decided to resolve the matter directly. “Are you a cop?”

Sandra smiled at his naiveté.

“Do you really believe that’s a possibility?” She looked at the clock and then aimed at Jaime again. “Sorry,
caro
. Time’s up.”

Jaime tensed. The woman’s stony glare could mean only one thing. “You wouldn’t shoot me here,” he said.

“Shoot you? What we have in store for you is far more subtle.”

“We? Who’s we?”

Her weapon still pointed at him, Sandra made her way to the walk-in freezer located at one end of the kitchen. When she opened the door, a cloud of frosty air floated out, then quickly dissolved. She signaled for Jaime to step inside. “You’re going to freeze me?” he asked in disbelief.

“You know the castle on the hill, at the entrance to the town? In three hours your lifeless body will be outside it. You’ll be taken for a foolish, drunken homeless person who fell asleep out in the open and froze to death. The autopsy will reveal nothing abnormal and there’ll be no investigation. How’s that for subtle?”

“No, no, wait. You’re making a mistake. Amatriaín gave me the drawing but I don’t know anything about it and I never wanted to. I left it in my room, wadded up in a ball, just the way you found it. I don’t want anything to do with that Medusa’s head! What else do I have to say to convince you?”

“To tell you the truth, this plan was for Amatriaín, but he’s managed to get away. Don’t worry, though. He’ll join you soon enough.”

Jaime began to breathe heavily. He lifted his arms and walked around the kitchen, trying to hide the fact that his legs were trembling again. “They’ll never believe I was a drunken tramp.”

“I don’t give a damn what anyone believes. I’ll be long gone by the time they discover the truth, if they ever do.”

“Why are you doing this? I’m telling you—I have nothing to do with Amatriaín. What is it about this Medusa that’s so important?”

Just as she was about to reply, the translucent glass in the door lit up, and a dreamlike shadow was projected onto it.

Someone was coming. Jaime took his chance.

Quickly, he launched himself against Sandra, who could not keep her balance in those heels and immediately fell backward and hit the wall. The pistol flew out of her hand and Jaime managed to grab it. Suddenly the rules of the game had changed: now he was the one aiming the weapon at the startled woman in the red overcoat. “You should be more careful,” he said, smiling.

“You don’t say,” she said, smiling back.

Her lack of concern alarmed Jaime, but his apprehension came too late. By now the door had opened and the figure he had seen through the glass was standing beside him, holding a long object. The man was dressed in black and wore a demented smile beneath his mustache.
“Buona sera,”
he said. “Can I help you?”

Jaime felt a sharp blow to the head and an intense pain, and then he was overcome with the sensation of falling into a deep, dark spiral.

4

Madrid

The ringing of the telephone broke the silence in the room like a train sounding its horn in a desert. On the third ring, a hand reached out from between the sheets and grabbed the wireless handset from its base.

Still half-asleep,
Arcadia
editor Laura Rodríguez spoke without rising or even opening her eyes. “Mmm . . . Hello?”

Given her languid tone, the man on the other end of the line might have reasonably assumed he’d reached some kind of sex line. But instead of cursing and hanging up, he asked, “Dr. Rodríguez?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Vicente Amatriaín.”

“Who?”

“Amatriaín, from the EHU. Remember?”

Laura opened her eyes, sat up, and planted her feet on the floor. As she turned on the lamp and looked at the clock, she brushed away the curly cascade of red hair that fell across the right side of her face. “It’s one thirty in the morning,” she said in an icy voice.

“I’ve been calling your cell phone all evening.”

“The battery’s dead. Who gave you my home number?”

“I took the liberty of finding it myself, since no one at your office would put me through to you.”

“I was in a meeting with the CHR bosses. I told you I would contact you. I have your number.”

“Yes, of course, I know. But . . . Look, I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I have to talk to you about your contributor.”

“Jaime? What is it?”

“I was with him a few hours ago. And to be honest, his attitude disappointed me.”

“I don’t follow.”

“To put it nicely, he didn’t show much willingness to help us.”

“Perhaps you didn’t ask him the right way.”

Amatriaín waited for Laura to advise him about his next step.

“Listen, Señor Amatriaín,” she said. “As we discussed the other day, the Center for Historical Research will back your plan and do everything possible to help you recover the lost works of art. To be honest with you, to me, the idea of
Arcadia
publishing a report on your methods seems opportunistic, exhibitionistic, and inappropriate. But from a purely selfish point of view, I realize this could pull in readers and benefit us, too. I’ll call Jaime in the morning to bring him up to date.”

“I already did that, but the outcome wasn’t as positive as I’d hoped.”

“You’re a total stranger and I’m his boss. And by the way, Jaime is within his rights to refuse.”

“But you told me—”

“I know what I told you: Jaime is curious by nature and easily enticed by a good mystery. But he doesn’t accept commissions from strangers just for the hell of it. I’ll call him, okay?”

Laura was about to hang up when Amatriaín’s voice stopped her. “Wait.”

Laura wavered, holding the phone halfway between its base and her ear. After a moment, she chose the latter. “I’m listening.”

“Azcárate insisted that he knew nothing about the study you mentioned.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“But you—”

“I said what I said, but that study was credited to two people, one of them being someone Jaime did not end on good terms with. Leave this to me. I promise I’ll talk to him and we’ll get things sorted out.”

“But when?”

Laura moistened her lips with her tongue and, despite how tired she felt, smiled. “Don’t worry. He’ll contact you.”

After hanging up, Laura jumped out of bed, turned on her cell phone—which was at full charge—and dialed Jaime’s number. It didn’t surprise her when a businesslike voice told her that the person she was calling could not take her call right now. She left him a message, even though she knew she wouldn’t get a response, and then looked up the number for Hotel Virrey Palafox in El Burgo de Osma. Before being reunited with her pillow, there was one thing she wanted to check out. The receptionist who answered her call sounded friendly, but when Laura asked to be put through to Jaime Azcárate’s room, the woman told her nobody by that name was staying at the hotel.

Laura sat on the bed for a few moments, a blank stare on her face. Then she dialed another number. The phone rang seven times before someone grunted in her ear. “Grmph.”

“I don’t believe it. Were you asleep?”

“Are you kidding?” a gruff, powerful voice replied. “I was just fighting off a zombie attack in the east wing. It’s no end of excitement here tonight.”

If Laura had been in better humor she would have laughed at Roberto Barrero’s banter, but her worry had affected her mood. She pictured the bald, potbellied security guard slumped against the desk in the CHR lobby, his eyes glassy, white drool collected at the corner of his goatee-encircled mouth, the cobwebs of his slumber slowly falling away. “Well, get rid of those zombies quick because I have a question for you: What do you know about Jaime?”

“That he’s a jackass. That he can’t comb his hair. I don’t know, a lot of things. You’ll need to be more specific.”

“I mean, has he called you, or have you spoken to him?”

“Not since he went gallivanting off to El Burgo de Osma, no. Why? Has something happened?”

“Just that he’s taken his gallivanting a bit too seriously and seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Gallivanting should never be taken seriously,” said Roberto. “All right, Jaime’s a jackass. But lately his head’s been a mess, and this vacation was well deserved. I could use a break myself, by the way.”

“Talk to your bosses about it.”

“If you were my boss, I’d be doing that already.”

Laura ignored the dig. For years, Roberto had been trying to talk her into hiring him at the journal as a photographer, but
Arcadia
’s finances kept her from taking on any more staff.

“But I’m not your boss. You’ll have to take this to someone who can help you.”

“I already have. By this time next week, you’ll see neither hide nor hair of me—not that there’s much hair left to see.”

“I’m thrilled for you. Now listen, I need Jaime back here as soon as possible for a briefing. You know how he is—when he’s on vacation his house could be burning down and he wouldn’t know because he won’t answer the phone.”

“What do you expect me to do? He didn’t tell me where he was staying, what he was doing—nothing. All he said was that he wouldn’t miss me. You know how that son of a bitch is. I don’t know why I’m bothering to teach him to shoot.”

“To shoot?” Laura was horrified.

“Yeah, but don’t worry. He’s a dead loss. If he was hunting King Kong he wouldn’t even hit the Empire State Building.”

“Please don’t tell me these things.” Just the thought of Jaime with a weapon in his hand would give her nightmares for months. “But see what you can find out, okay? Do you know whether he drove his car?”

“What car? He sold that old beater he had. He’s so cheap, he probably took the bus.” Roberto exhaled loudly. “Look, I’m not his mother. Isn’t there anyone else you can call?”

“Not at this hour.”

“Great. You know the name of his hotel, at least?”

Laura felt a knot in her stomach. She swallowed and told Roberto the name of the place Jaime had said he’d be staying.

“I’m not promising anything,” Roberto said.

“I didn’t ask you to promise. But if he sees it’s you calling, he might actually respond.”

“I’m sure he will. But he shouldn’t get his hopes up—my heart belongs to someone else.”

Laura said good night and hung up. Despite their very different natures, Roberto and Jaime had been friends since their paths first crossed five years earlier, when Jaime was working on a story in the Sepúlveda area. She was certain the two men shared more secrets than they admitted, but Roberto had sounded sincere about trying to reach Jaime. She just hoped he would have more luck than she’d had. As she switched off the bedside light, she felt a twinge of apprehension.

“Jaime, please tell me you haven’t got yourself into trouble again,” she prayed into the gloom.