Finisterre

by Graham Hurley

  Her hand was still extended across the table. Gómez stared at it. Beautiful. All his life he’d been careful to keep his options open and this inbred caution had served him well. He’d survived. He’d prospered. And now he was holding down not one but two jobs.

  He was still gazing at the hand. The lacquered nails. The single silver ring. What the fuck.

  ‘Deal,’ he said.

  *

  This time Eva spent the whole night with Stefan. While she was undressing, he insisted on a cautious tour of the room, stark naked, the splint abandoned, the crutches wedged beneath his armpits, one foot in front of another, two complete laps. She watched him while she folded her clothes and when he was done, panting with effort beside the bed, she embraced him from behind, her body folded around his long back, her hands linked over the flatness of his stomach. A miracle, she agreed.

  They made love again, quicker this time, more urgent, and afterwards, nose to nose in the darkness, he asked about her father.

  ‘He’s worried,’ she said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I don’t know. First I think it’s here.’ She touched Stefan’s chest. ‘Breathing is hard. Maybe he gets frightened. But maybe it’s something else.’

  ‘He knows about us?’

  ‘No.’ The thought alarmed her. He could see it in her eyes.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what about tonight? He must know you’re sleeping here.’

  ‘I said I’m sleeping here for him. Maybe he needs me. Then I come down.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He likes that. In some ways he’s a child. Alone he’s frightened. I can make that better. You understand?’

  ‘I do.’ Stefan laughed. ‘Totalmente.’

  ‘So I have two men? Two children? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Yes. A little.’

  She kissed him. Her eyes were huge. She said she wanted to tell him something. She said it was a secret.

  ‘You promise? Not to tell about this thing?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I talk with Agustín. Agustín thinks my father will need a hospital soon. Somewhere with oxygen. Somewhere with more doctors.’

  ‘Where will that be?’

  ‘Coruña.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then the house will be empty.’

  ‘You want to stay here?’ Stefan asked.

  ‘I want to know what you want.’

  ‘I want to be with you.’

  ‘Verdaderamente?’ It was a whisper, her lips shaping the word in the darkness.

  Stefan nodded. He’d learned the word only yesterday, from Agustín. It meant truly.

  ‘Here or some other place,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Here will be dangerous.’

  ‘Why?’

  She shook her head, wouldn’t say. Stefan asked again. He said it was important. He needed to know.

  ‘This is a small place. People talk.’

  ‘About us?’

  ‘About you. It can’t be a secret. Not here.’

  ‘But the Germans have gone.’

  ‘I know. But another place will be better. I will find somewhere. Maybe you have to be there by yourself. Until my father goes to hospital.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then we go away. To where no one will find us.’

  To where no one will find us. Stefan couldn’t think of a brighter, sweeter future. Some place where they could put the war behind them, and the uniforms, and the killings, and Hitler’s mad dreams of still finding victory under the ruins of the fallen Reich.

  ‘That would be good,’ he said. ‘That would be wonderful.’

  ‘Maravilloso?’

  ‘Sí.’

  ‘Then it will happen. You trust me? You’ll wait for me?’ She hugged him close, made him promise. Then she held him at arm’s length in the darkness. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow we find a place for you.’

  *

  The police came at four in the morning. The first Stefan heard was a thunderous hammering at the door. Eva was already out of bed. She wrapped a gown around herself and hurried downstairs. Stefan heard the door open. Then came voices, many voices, all male apart from Eva’s. She was shouting at them in Spanish. Then he heard a slap and a scream. Eva, he thought, fighting to get himself out of bed, to get himself to the door, to offer some kind of resistance.

  It was too late. The men were in uniform. There were three of them. Guardia Civil, he thought. They threw him back on to the bed. One of them wrapped a blanket around him, the roughness of his hands on Stefan’s flesh. Then they half pushed, half carried him downstairs. Eva was standing in front of the room where her father slept, trying to protect him. Stefan could hear him shouting inside. Blood was pouring from a wound on the side of her face. Stefan swore at the men in German. He’d tried to struggle free but he knew it was hopeless. They were dragging him backwards towards the open door and the street beyond. It was freezing outside. His bare heels went clump-clump on the cobblestones, sending jolts of pain through his injured leg. Through the open door he could still see Eva. He wanted to yell at her, to tell her that one day he would be back, but a hand was clamped over his mouth and by the time they got to the van it was too late.

  The van was parked on the other side of the street. The guards tossed him into the back. He could smell the sour tang of petrol and then came something else. A cigar, he thought. Two of the guards had clambered into the back. The third climbed behind the wheel and fired up the engine. As he did so, a shape beside him turned round. A face in the throw of light from Eva’s house. The glow of a cigar between his fingers. And perfect German.

  ‘Guten Abend, Herr Kapitän.’ The man smiled. ‘We have much to discuss.’

  Part Three

  13

  Gómez took the train to California. Yolanda was with him. They rode the southern route through New Orleans and Phoenix, a journey of two and a half days, and paused for an hour at El Paso for a change of locomotive. It was the middle of the night. Gómez walked up and down the platform, enjoying the warmth. Beyond the head of the train, at the very end of the platform, he peered into the darkness, wondering what lay in wait down the track. The knowledge that Hoover had cut him loose, that he had a couple of weeks to freelance the hunt for Donovan, was a big plus. Better still, Yolanda had volunteered – insisted – on accompanying him to Ensenada. She hadn’t been back home for a while. Diego could be difficult. Best that she handled the introductions in person.

  They arrived at Los Angeles towards the end of the following day and took another train down to San Diego. Yolanda had a modest, slightly dowdy apartment several blocks inland from the beach. To make up for the lack of a view, she’d brightened the place with native Indian carvings, faces mostly. They studied Gómez as he trekked from room to room. Yolanda had taste and a nice sense of colour. Her choice of rugs and wall hangings took him back to some of the cramped little apartments on the Hill, bright splashes of yellow and scarlet, local Navajo motifs.

  Yolanda drove a battered old Chrysler. They sped down Route 1 and crossed the border at El Chaparral. Ensenada lay beyond the sprawl of Tijuana. Both cities, according to Yolanda, had been oases in the desert during the Prohibition years, drawing thirsty Americans down from the States. As much booze as your liver could take, and your choice of local putas afterwards. Yolanda had grown up in Ensenada and could remember the whores parading along the waterfront in the early evening under the watchful eyes of their pimps. Thirties Mexico, she said, was no place for a girl with ambition and any sense of justice. Gómez, unimpressed by what he was seeing, could only agree.

  ‘That was your decision? Leaving?’

  ‘Sure. My family still haven’t forgiven me. A real Mexican doesn’t live among the gringos. Some of these people would rather starve than cross the border.’

  ‘And that includes your b
rother? The cop?’

  ‘Afraid so.’

  They’d agreed to meet Diego at a bar near the docks called El Pescador. The place was ten minutes from the police station and a chalked board on the sidewalk offered shrimp tacos at a handful of pesos a plate. Thanks to the traffic they were late and the moment they walked in from the brightness of high noon Gómez knew he had a job on his hands. The place was empty except for a dog asleep on the floor among the litter of cigarette ends. The air smelled bad: stale tobacco and cooking oil thinly laced with bleach. A songbird on its back in a cage near the window appeared to be dead.

  Diego occupied a stool at the end of the counter, hunched over a plate of what might have been stew. When Yolanda tapped him on the shoulder and said hi, he barely acknowledged her presence. Brother and sister had, according to Yolanda, always been close but you’d never know it.

  ‘You gonna put that spoon down a moment? This here is my good friend Hector.’

  Diego eyed Gómez over the plate. A fall of lank black hair curtained the gauntness of his face. His eyes were sunken and a savage attack of teenage acne had cratered the pale flesh beneath the stubble. He was wearing jeans and a plain grey T-shirt and his scarred forearms were as pale and skinny as the rest of him. There was menace in his every movement, his every glance. If you’d just emerged from a night in the drunk tank, Gómez thought, and you had to account for your misdeeds, this man would scare the shit out of you. Good start.

  ‘The name’s Gómez. Mucho gusto.’

  Diego ignored the proffered hand. He uncoiled from the stool and summoned the bartender. Gómez found himself looking at a glass of beer.

  ‘Carta Blanca, señor,’ the bartender said. ‘The best.’

  Diego muttered something Gómez didn’t catch and the bartender disappeared. Yolanda asked whether Diego had talked to his bosses.

  ‘Sí.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They said no.’

  ‘No leave?’

  ‘No anything. They say no all the time. Am I surprised?’ He shrugged. ‘No.’

  His voice was low, difficult to follow, as if he was talking to himself. Gómez had worked with cops like this before, hard men who’d taken a good look at the world around them and put up the shutters. They came across as losers but – in Gómez’s experience – they were anything but.

  Yolanda wanted to know what Diego was going to do about getting time off. On the phone, she reminded him, he’d told her no importa.

  ‘I go sick,’ he said.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘A week. Maybe more.’ His eyes found Hector. ‘You have money?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I go sick, they don’t pay me. I need thirty dollars a day. You also buy the food, a place to stay, everything. Trato hecho?’

  ‘He wants to know if it’s a deal,’ said Yolanda.

  Hector said nothing. Then he nodded at an empty table nearby.

  ‘You mind?’

  Without waiting for an answer, he collected his glass and led Yolanda to the table. Diego had returned to his stew. He swallowed a couple of spoonfuls, then checked his watch. He tossed a five-peso note on the bar, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and walked out.

  Yolanda couldn’t believe it. She was on her feet already, heading for the door. Gómez called her back.

  ‘Leave it,’ he told her. ‘We’ll talk later. He just needs to make a point or two.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’ He reached for his beer. ‘I’m happy to oblige.’

  They all met again in the early evening, different bar. Yolanda had shouted down the phone at Diego between equally difficult visits to a handful of her relatives. Deep down, concluded Gómez, families are all the same. Leaving is an insult. Leaving means turning the page. Best leave the early chapters well alone.

  This time the place was better: a crowd of drinkers at the bar and live music in the shape of a gypsy-looking guitarist with a gaucho hat. Not a dead songbird in sight. Yolanda took charge, organising the drinks and ordering plates of black beans with corn and rice. Whatever she’d said to Diego on the phone appeared to have done the trick. He even offered a nod of thanks when she refilled his empty glass.

  Gómez had no interest in small talk. He’d given Yolanda as much information as he could to pass on. Donovan was married to a woman called Francisca. She came from a city called Guaymas. According to the Bureau of Immigration, her family name was Muñoz. Donovan drove a lime-green Cadillac. He and Francisca and the three kids might have made an appearance recently. Yolanda had passed all this on to Diego and now Gómez wanted to know what he’d done about it.

  ‘I made a call,’ he said. ‘I have a friend in Guaymas.’

  ‘A cop?’

  ‘Sí. We used to work together. Here in Ensenada. A good man. Tough.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He makes enquiries. He may have found the family. Tomorrow we go down there and find out.’

  He wanted to know about the money. Thirty bucks a day plus Gómez picking up all other expenses.

  Gómez nodded. Trato hecho. Diego extended a hand. Gómez shook it.

  ‘I meant the money.’

  ‘You want it now?’

  ‘Sí.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘Sí.’

  Gómez began to shake his head. He was happy to pay half. Not a dollar more. Half now. Half at the end of the week. Diego shrugged, sitting back from the table, and Gómez waited for him to consult his watch. Yolanda stirred. She was sitting beside Gómez, squashed behind the table, and when her hand strayed towards her purse, Gómez shook his head. He didn’t want her making any kind of peace here. This wasn’t about money, about her making good the shortfall.

  ‘Well?’

  Diego was a hard man to pin down. His eyes roved around the bar, tallying faces, exchanging the odd nod of greeting, avoiding Gómez’s gaze. Finally, he said he’d take half the money now, half later. Ninety dollars would buy Gómez three days of his time. Not a minute more.

  ‘Three and a half days.’

  ‘Three days.’

  It was Gómez’s turn to shrug. He reached for his glass, emptied it, then stood up.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ he said. ‘Adiós.’

  They left for Guaymas at dawn next morning. The night’s drinking lay heavily between them. Afterwards Yolanda had towed Gómez back to the cheap hotel where they were staying and after two hours’ sleep he’d left her in bed while he went downstairs to wait for Diego in the street below. It was still dark. Diego was driving a black sedan, newer than Gómez had expected, and after the car had come to a halt outside the hotel he’d got in without a word. Diego looked as wrecked as ever. Gómez had never seen a man drink so much tequila and stay on his feet.

  Guaymas was 160 miles away. The road skirted the coast. Inland were the mountains of the high sierra and the thin, grey light of dawn gave way to a spectacular sunrise over the topmost peaks. The potholed blacktop was barred with shadows from the spindly roadside trees and, apart from the odd truck, there was little traffic.

  They hit Guaymas in time for a late breakfast. The city spread inland from a pretty bay, cupped by outcrops of unforgiving rock. The sea was an intense blue and Gómez could see warships moored alongside as they drove along the waterfront looking for somewhere to eat. Navy town, he thought. Probably rough.

  They ate eggs and ham under the curious eye of the café’s owner. Two strangers, largely silent, drinking one cup of coffee after another. Gómez settled the bill and after asking for directions Diego drove across town to the police station. There was a public telephone wired to a lamppost up the street and Diego parked alongside to make a call. A couple of minutes later, still parked up, Gómez watched a short, fat figure step out of the police station and waddle along the sidewalk towards them.

  ‘Gonzalez.’ Diego had seen him, too.

  Gonzalez stopped beside the driver’s door. He bent to the window and leaned in. The two men shook
hands. There was a brief conversation, then Gonzalez passed Diego a scrap of paper and pointed a finger down the road.

  There was an address on the paper. Diego had trouble reading it. Then he turned to Gómez.

  ‘Ten dollars. For my friend here.’

  Gómez extracted the note from his wallet and handed it across. Seconds later, Gonzalez had gone.

  ‘Francisca?’ Gómez was looking at the note.

  ‘Gabriela. Her sister.’

  Diego offered no other explanation. He started the car, the address on his lap, and drove back down towards the waterfront. Twice he stopped for directions, shading his eyes against the sun as strangers bent to inspect Gonzalez’s scrawl. Then they were coasting down a narrow street in what looked like a slum area near the docks. Most of these houses had windows but no glass. Some of them had no doors either, just a yawning gap where the entrance should have been. In one, he saw a donkey tethered by a hank of rope. At the end of the street, a line of washing hung between the upper floors, grey-looking sheets and a woman’s skirt that might once have been pretty.

  Diego braked to a halt, peering at a door. The door was old, badly made, hanging from its hinges. The bottom half had been crudely braced where someone had tried to kick it in. The dusty outline of a number on the peeling stucco beside the frame.

  ‘Here,’ Diego grunted. ‘Siete.’

  Diego opened the glove compartment. There was a handgun inside, a big automatic. He got out of the car and told Gómez to stay close. He paused in the sunshine to check the gun and then gave the door a kick. The door burst open and he stepped inside. Gómez followed. There were three rooms downstairs, squalid, empty. He could hear nothing but the buzzing of a million flies. Then came the steady trickle of water from the single tap in the room that served as a kitchen. The adjacent lavatory was thick with excrement. From the kitchen, wooden steps led to the upper floor. At the bottom of the stairs was a pair of man’s trousers. Gómez paused to look at them. They’d been discarded in a hurry. He was beginning to get the picture.

  At the top of the stairs, Diego paused. Two doors, one of them an inch or two open. He glanced back at Gómez, then nodded at the open door. Moments later, they were both inside the room, Diego’s gun levelled at two figures on a mattress on the floor. The man, naked, was lying on his back. He was hairy and fat and the noises downstairs had done nothing for his erection. He stared up at Diego, at the gun. He wanted to be anywhere in the world but here. The other figure was a woman. Gómez judged her to be in her early thirties. Her body was going the same way as her client’s but she had a fullness that some men found irresistible. Unlike her client, she showed no fear. Another shakedown. What a surprise.