“Son of a bitch,” I heard myself say.
I pulled the box containing my father’s old revolver from the back of the wardrobe and opened the cylinder to make sure it was loaded. I put the remaining contents of the ammunition box in the left pocket of my coat, then wrapped the weapon in a cloth and put in into my right-hand pocket. Before leaving I stopped for a moment to gaze at the stranger who looked at me from the mirror in the entrance hall. I smiled, a calm hatred burning in my veins, and went out into the night.
12
Andreas Corelli’s house stood out on the hillside against the blanket of dark red clouds. Behind me, the dark forest of Güell Park gently swayed. A breeze stirred the branches, making the leaves hiss like snakes. I stopped by the entrance and looked up at the house. There was not a single light on in the whole building and the shutters on the French windows were closed. I could hear the panting of the dogs that prowled behind the walls of the park, following my scent. I pulled the revolver out of my pocket and turned back toward the park gates, where I could make out the shape of the animals, liquid shadows watching me from the blackness.
I walked up to the main door of the house and gave three dry raps with the knocker. I didn’t wait for a reply. I would have blown it open with a shot, but that wasn’t necessary: the door was already open. I turned the bronze handle, releasing the bolt, and the oak door slowly swung inward under its own weight. The long passage opened up before me, a sheet of dust covering the floor like fine sand. I took a few steps toward the staircase that rose up on one side of the entrance hall, disappearing in a spiral of shadows. Then I walked along the corridor that led to the sitting room. Dozens of eyes followed me from the gallery of old photographs covering the wall. The only sounds I could hear were my own footsteps and breathing. I reached the end of the corridor and stopped. The strange, reddish glow of the night filtered through the shutters in narrow blades of light. I raised the revolver and stepped into the sitting room, my eyes adjusting to the dark. The pieces of furniture were in the same places as before, but even in that faint light I noticed that they looked old and were covered in dust. Ruins. The curtains were frayed and the paint on the walls was peeling off in strips. I went over to one of the French windows to open the shutters and let in some light, but just before I reached it I realized I was not alone. I froze and then turned around slowly.
His silhouette, sitting in the usual armchair in the corner of the room, was unmistakable. The light that bled in through the shutters revealed his shiny shoes and the outline of his suit. His face was buried in shadows, but I knew he was looking at me. And I knew he was smiling. I raised the revolver and pointed it at him.
“I know what you’ve done,” I said.
Corelli didn’t move a muscle. His figure remained motionless, like a spider waiting to jump. I took a step forward, pointing the gun at his face. I thought I heard a sigh in the dark and, for a moment, the reddish light caught his eyes and I was certain he was going to pounce on me. I fired. The weapon’s recoil hit my forearm like the blow of a hammer. A cloud of blue smoke rose from the gun. One of Corelli’s hands fell from the arm of the chair and swung, his fingernails grazing the floor. I fired again. The bullet hit him in the chest and opened a smoking hole in his clothes. I was left holding the revolver with both hands, not daring to take a single step, transfixed in front of the motionless shape in the armchair. The swaying of his arm gradually came to a halt and his body was still. There was no sound at all, no hint of movement, from the body that had just received two bullet wounds—one in the face, the other in the chest. I moved back a few steps toward the French window and kicked it open, not taking my eyes off the armchair where Corelli lay. A column of hazy light cut a passageway through the room from the balustrade outside to the corner, revealing the face and body of the boss. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry. The first shot had ripped open a hole between his eyes. The second had pierced his lapel. Yet there was not a single drop of blood. In its place a fine, shiny dust spilled out down his clothes, like sand slipping through an hourglass. His eyes shone and his lips were frozen in a sarcastic smile. It was a dummy.
I lowered the revolver, my hands still shaking, and edged closer. I bent over the grotesque puppet and tentatively stretched my hand toward its face. For a moment I feared that those glass eyes would suddenly move or those hands with their long, polished fingernails would hurl themselves round my neck. I touched the cheek with my fingertips. Enameled wood. I couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh—one wouldn’t expect anything less from the boss. Once again I confronted that mocking grin and I hit the puppet so hard with the gun that it collapsed to the ground and I started kicking it. The wooden frame began to lose its shape until arms and legs were twisted together in an impossible position. I moved back a few steps and looked around me. The large canvas with the figure of the angel was still on the wall: I tore it down with one great tug. Behind the picture was the door that led into the basement—I remembered it from the night I’d fallen asleep there. I tried the handle. The door was open. I looked down the staircase, which led into a well of darkness, then went back to the sitting room, to the chest of drawers from which I’d seen Corelli take the hundred thousand francs during our first meeting in that house. In one of the drawers I found a tin with candles and matches. For a moment I wavered, wondering whether the boss had also left those things there on purpose, hoping I would find them just as I had found the dummy. I lit one of the candles and crossed the sitting room to the door. I glanced at the fallen doll one last time and, holding the candle up high, my right hand firmly gripping the revolver, I prepared to go down.
I descended carefully, stopping on each step to look back over my shoulder. When I reached the basement I held the candle as far away from me as I could and moved it around in a semicircle. Everything was still there: the operating table, the gas lamps, and the tray with surgical instruments. Everything covered with a patina of dust and cobwebs. But there was something else. Other dummies could be seen leaning against the wall, as immobile as the puppet of the boss. I left the candle on the operating table and walked over to the inert bodies. Among them, I recognized the butler who had served us that night and the chauffeur who had driven me home after my dinner with Corelli in the garden. There were other figures I was unable to identify. One of them was turned against the wall, its face hidden. I poked it with the end of the gun, making it spin round, and a second later found myself staring at my own image. I felt a shiver down my spine. The doll that looked like me had only half a face. The other half was unfinished. I was about to crush it with my foot when I heard a child’s laughter coming from the top of the steps.
I held my breath. Then came a few dry, clicking sounds. I ran back up the stairs, and when I reached the sitting room the figure of the boss was no longer where I’d left it. Footprints trailed off toward the corridor that led to the exit. I cocked the gun and followed the tracks, pausing at the entrance to the corridor. The footprints stopped halfway down. I searched for the hidden shape of the boss among the shadows but saw no sign of him. At the end, the main door was still open. I advanced cautiously toward the point where the trail gave out. It took me a few seconds to notice
that the gap I remembered between the portraits on the wall was no longer there. Instead there was a new frame, and in that frame, in a photograph that looked as if it had been taken with the same camera as the rest of the macabre collection, I saw Cristina dressed in white, her gaze lost in the eye of the lens. She was not alone. Two arms enveloped her, holding her up. They were the arms of a smiling man: Andreas Corelli.
13
I set off down the hill toward the tangle of dark streets that formed the Gracia neighborhood. There I found a café in which a large group of locals had assembled and were angrily discussing politics or football—it was hard to tell which. I dodged in and out of the crowd, through a cloud of smoke and noise, until I reached the bar. The bartender gave me a vaguely hostile look with which I imagined he received all strangers—anyone living more than a couple of streets beyond his establishment, that is.
“I need to use a phone,” I said.
“The telephone is for customers only.”
“Then get me a brandy. And the telephone.”
The bartender picked up a glass and pointed toward a corridor on the other side of the room with a sign above it saying TOILETS. At the end of the passage, opposite the entrance to the toilets, I found what was trying to pass for a telephone booth, exposed to the intense stench of ammonia and the noise that filtered through from the café. I took the receiver off the hook and waited until I had a line. A few seconds later an operator from the exchange replied.
“I need to make a call to a law firm. The name of the lawyer is Valera, number 442 Avenida Diagonal.”
The operator took a couple of minutes to find the number and connect me. I waited, holding the receiver with one hand and blocking my left ear with the other. Finally she confirmed that she was putting my call through and moments later I recognized the voice of Valera’s secretary.
“I’m sorry, but Señor Valera isn’t here right now.”
“It’s important. Tell him my name is Martín. David Martín. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“I know who you are, Señor Martín. I’m sorry, but I can’t put you through because he’s not here. It’s half past nine at night and he left the office a long time ago.”
“Then give me his home address.”
“I cannot give you that information, Señor Martín. I do apologize. If you wish, you can phone tomorrow morning and—”
I hung up and again waited for a line. This time I gave the operator the number Ricardo Salvador had given me. His neighbor answered the phone and told me he would go up to see whether the ex-policeman was in. Salvador was soon on the line.
“Martín? Are you all right? Are you in Barcelona?”
“I’ve just arrived.”
“You must be careful. The police are looking for you. They came round here asking questions about you and Alicia Marlasca.”
“Víctor Grandes?”