The Angst-Ridden Executive (26 page)

The smell of the cooking relaxed them. Even Charo sniffed appreciatively, and although she said repeatedly that she wasn’t hungry, and that Pepe and Biscuter were two savages who thought of nothing but their stomachs, and that beans made you fat and she had no intention of ending up like a balloon, moments later she lifted the lid of the pot, smelt the aroma with evident pleasure, and had Biscuter almost passing out with delight when she said:

‘Your cooking’s as good as Pepiño’s.’

Carvalho took the envelope out of his pocket. First he put it on the mantelpiece. Then, fearing that the sight of it would give Charo the horrors again, he put it in a drawer in the sideboard and began to lay the table.

The room smelt of the camphor in the liniment. The rest of the house smelt of bean stew. Across Charo’s bared chest the bruises had formed into capricious
fleurs du mal
. Carvalho didn’t wake her. He shifted the unwashed dishes, sat himself on the one comer of the sofa that wasn’t occupied by the sleeping Biscuter, and wrote something on a piece of paper, choosing his words carefully as he wrote. Then he put it in the envelope that his assailants had left him. He put his jacket on and put the envelope in one pocket and the note that the boxer had given him in the other. He shook Biscuter to wake him.

‘I’ll be out all day. Don’t let Charo go out.’

‘I’m getting up now, boss. This house needs a good cleanup.’

‘This house needs nothing of the sort. It’s fine as it is. You just keep your eyes open, and stay with Charo.’

His somnolent major domo had bloodshot eyes. Carvalho felt his gun where it sat in his pocket. Biscuter’s eyes followed the gesture, and it seemed to shake him awake.

‘I’m not letting you go on your own this time.’

‘Don’t worry—this time I’m taking my little protector.’

The sun was barely up. The damp night air gave everything an early-morning smell—the earth, the pine trees, and the gravel as it crunched beneath Carvalho’s feet. The roads to the city were empty. The comanches were still sleeping in their lairs, or were just starting their daily gargles in the bathroom. The traffic lights saw that he was in a hurry and duly obliged. He arrived at Nuñez’s house just as the concierge was opening up, put the envelope in Nuñez’s mailbox and left again before the man could question him. He checked to make sure the boxer’s note was still in his pocket, took it out, unfolded it and put it on the passenger seat.

‘It gives me great pleasure to invite you to my estate at Palausator (Gerona) for an exchange of views. I shall be expecting you at midday on Saturday, and I would be delighted if you could lunch with me. You can inquire for the whereabouts of my house in Pals or La Bisbal, but I enclose a map anyway, in case you need it.’

Signed: Argemi.

The motorway seemed built for him alone. He devoured the miles, driven on by the emptiness of it all and the gentle coolness of the morning. As he crossed the Tordera he gave a moment’s thought to Dieter Rhomberg, and how he had died for the greater glory of universal stability. He came off the motorway at the Gerona North toll and took the road to Palamos. The countryside was slowly yawning into life. Tractors were working the fields. A van was going round picking up its daily harvest of dead dogs run over bypassing cars. Groups of children in single file were walking to the local high school.

The van picks up its daily harvest of dead children run over by passing cars, and dogs are walking to school in single file,’ Carvalho said to himself, out loud, and then, at the top of his voice, he started into a romantic aria.

You’re the woman I love best.

The only one to whom I gave my heart

Then he let rip with ‘Faithful triumphant sword’, and half strangled his vocal chords when he tried his luck with the tune:

I love you

Like a man loves his mother,

Like a man loves his girl,

Like a man loves mo-o-o-o-ney

I lo-o-o-o-ve you.

In La Bisbal they told him that the only place he would get something solid to eat was at La Marqueta. A small restaurant with oilcloth-covered tables, the wife in the kitchen, and a cylindrical giant of a man listing what they could heat up for him at that hour of the day: chicken with crayfish; spidercrab with snails; pigs’ trotters; roast kid; stuffed squid; baked snails with a vinaigrette or garlic dressing; turkey with mushrooms; stewed veal; sausage and kidney beans; an assortment of home-made sausages;
butifarras
; pork fillets; pork chops and steaks. The man completed his recitation, confident of the overwhelming effect of such a litany. Carvalho chose spidercrab and snails.

‘It’s more snails than spidercrab, really. The crab is for the flavouring.’

‘I suspected as much. After that I’ll have the kidney beans and
butifarra
, with a side-dish of garlic mayonnaise.’

Slices of bread that still had the smell of the wheat field about them. A thick, dark red wine of the sort that turns your ears red in winter.

‘Where do you get the wine from?’

‘We make it ourselves. I’ve got a cellar on the other side of the river.’

‘Could I buy a few bottles?’

‘I don’t know if I’ll have time to get them ready for you. I’ve got a lot to do first.’

‘Call me at the Argemi estate, in Palausator. Ask for me by name—Pepe Carvalho—and tell me if you can manage it. I’d like to pick tip thirty or forty bottles on my way back.’

The man offered him an almond pastry which he said was called a
rus
, and placed at his elbow a big bottle of
garnacha
, from which Carvalho filled his glass three times. He came out of the La Marqueta having decided that the world was a wonderful place after all, and at the same time stressing to his host that the best time to call him chez Argemi would be between twelve-thirty and one. Then he wandered through La Bisbal looking at the ceramics shops, and went into one to order himself a tiled picture that showed the points of the compass with the names of the local winds—Gargal, Tramontana, Garbi. Once again he said that they should phone the Argemi establishment, without fail, between twelve-thirty and one, because then he’d be able to tell them if he needed two pictures instead of just one. Next he went into an antique shop and bought an old oak chest.

‘It’s a present for someone. I wonder, could you ring me at the Argemi estate in Palausator, because I don’t have the address that I want it sent to. . .’

‘I know the people. Señor Argemi’s house is full of furniture that has been bought at our shop.’

‘Call me at around one. Maybe a bit before. Ask for me—Pepe Carvalho. Then I’ll be able to give you the exact address.’

‘Don’t worry, I will.’

In a fish shop recommended by the man at La Marqueta he ordered a fair-sized
rascasse
, a kilo of small squid, and a further kilo of rock fish for making soup. He asked could they please keep them in the fridge for him, and be sure to phone him at Argemi’s half an hour before they closed for lunch, to remind him to call by and pick them up.

‘I’ve got so much on my mind that I’m quite capable of driving back to Barcelona and forgetting all about them.’

‘No problem, sir.’

Like Hansel and Gretel, he was dropping bits of bread en route to the ogre’s castle, to mark his way. He returned to his car and set off for Palausator, calling in at Peratallada on the way, to ask a few questions about the Argemi estate. He made a point of telling various people his name, and made inquiries as to Argemi’s personal standing in the area and the physical layout of the estate. He was told that he could get there directly from the road that ran through the rice fields around Pals, or he could go the roundabout route via Sant Julia de Boada. Carvalho checked out both routes. He climbed to the top floor of an abandoned rectory in order to get an overall impression of the estate. The grounds were overlooked by a large, solid country house set on a gently sloping green ridge. A trail bike was being put through its paces on the path leading to Argemi’s private forest. There was a bustle of people in the vicinity of the house, and the smoke rising from an outdoor barbecue indicated that an al fresco lunch was being prepared. Carvalho decided that the time had come.

A groundsman came out to meet him at the iron gate. He was old and Andalusian. He made inquiries via a phone concealed in one of the square stone columns that supported the iron gate. The gate opened to reveal an enormous lawn stretching away to the house. A deluxe lawn which had grown, in the space of a few years, as much as a normal lawn would grow in thirty. As if his entrance had been a signal, a thousand small jets of water started up and wove a cool, sparkling web in a fine spray across the lawn. The installation covered more than half a hectare of lawn in a display of hydraulics that bordered on the aesthetic. An expensively dressed servant was taking two Afghan hounds for a walk, and they were busily engaged in barking at the detective’s wretched little car. The path left the lawn behind and continued over a gravel esplanade that was dotted with magnolias, acacias, and laurel bushes. The walls of the house were covered with wisteria, alternating with bougainvillea and Virginia creeper. This vegetal mass was scrupulously respectful of the windows of the house, which were conspicuously Gothic, evidently stolen by antique dealers from old churches in the Pyrenees thathadbeen abandoned to the mercies of bats and antique dealers. A roofless Gothic cloister surrounded a forged iron outdoor grill set on large chunks of masonry. The spit-roast on its own engaged the efforts of two women and a man who were preparing the charcoal for a barbecue that was evidently expected to be perfect and well attended. Beneath an arch of recently-hewn stone stood Argemi, waiting to greet him, in a short silk dressing gown and with a big Havana between his fingers. He had placed himself in the centre of the doorway in such a manner that the keystone with the date of the building on it acted as a frame for his neatly-trimmed grey hair.

‘Carvalho—you don’t know how much pleasure this gives me.’

‘Hi, dad!’

The shout came from an Amazonian female motorcyclist on a trail bike as she roared past the front door of the house. Carvalho just had time to register a slender blonde body encased in leather and a toothpaste smile.

‘That’s my daughter. We call her Solitud at home, in honour of the great novelist Victor Catala.’

‘She’s some girl! Is she for real?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t have a PR company create her? I remember an advert that was very popular when I met Jauma in San Francisco. A blonde girl, looking unmistakably American, smiles out from a street hoarding and announces to the world at large: “Everybody needs milk”.’

Argemi laughed as he inclined his short, well-fed body to usher Carvalho in. The entrance hall was about half a kilometre square, and provided a showcase of some of Europe’s best antique shops. From there they went into an open-plan living room, passing beneath a pair of Catalonian vaulted arches, which also looked like the result of a competition to find the biggest and the best preserved. There were three seating areas, marked off by oriental carpets. One for watching television, another for reading, and a third for conversation, which was where Argemi took Carvalho, and where they sank into carnivorous sofas that seemed to swallow them up with the smooth, sucking motion of shifting sands.

‘A prince among houses, Carvalho! If this house could only speak. It used to belong to the richest landowners in this part of the world. They went bankrupt during the first Carlist war, and the eldest son took off for Cuba. He made his fortune there, and returned home. He decided to buy back the house, and set about making it habitable again. The family went bust again, though, after the Civil War. At that point the house was bought by my father-in-law, and he started the work which has led to this being the jewel that it is. What you see here is ten years of work and the entire imaginative effort of my life devoted to creating a house that would reflect my cultural tastes and my taste for good living. I’ll show you my wine cellar later. And the indoor swimming pool. And the little mini-golf course I have in the west wing. As you see, I have a splendid oak forest, which I have stocked with my favourite animals, deer and squirrels. Do you know what excites me most about forests? The mushrooms that pop up at the end of August. Here they call them
flotes de suro
. I don’t know their name in Castilian. Perhaps they don’t even have one. Castilians don’t go in for mushrooms much. . . In fact they’re useless with them. By the way, can I count on you for lunch?’

‘All depends on what we’re eating.’

‘Barbecued meat. All local meat. Everyone knows about Gerona veal, but I can assure you that the best thing about Gerona is its lamb, its
butifarras
, its fresh dripping, and the rabbits which I raise on the same food that they’d eat in the wild.’

‘I see that you enjoy eating all kinds of animals, señor Argemi. Calves, rabbits, pigs, lambs, Germans, and even your own best friends.’

‘I gather you’re wanting to get down to business. Your bruises must still be hurting. Believe me, I was very worried that my men might have overdone it. However, I must say, your face looks very presentable.’

The expensive-looking servant came in with a message for Carvalho.

‘There’s a señor Savalls on the phone for you, from La Bisbal.’

Argemi obligingly excused him, and Carvalho took the phone, spoke to the man from La Marqueta, and remarked pointedly what time it was, whose house he was at, and that he would be there to pick up the bottles by four that afternoon.

‘Your business with the bottles seems rather urgent. . .’

Argemi’s comment was accompanied by a slight puckering of the brow and the beginnings of a broad smile on his muscular face.

‘So, let’s not beat about the bush. Yesterday was just a warning. You’ve overstepped the mark. I realize that your threat to Concha was some sort of bravado, but I decided that the time had come for action.’

‘When I made that threat I still hadn’t made up my mind between you and Fontanillas.’