“Oh. Capt. Rafael Barrera.” He shook Hector’s offered hand. “I’m doubly — no, trebly — sorry for this sloppiness tonight.”
“It happens. Again I ask, who is dead?”
“Many. Mostly women, though a few men, too. Terrible murders. Bizarre. Things that defy description. They’ve been going on at least four months...maybe longer. They seem to echo works of art. The fact of the murders is bad enough. But they’re also taken on political dimensions.”
Hector said, “What do you mean? How are they political?”
“One victim might have a military medal clutched in one hand...a Soviet medal, as if, in her death throes, the victim had torn a medal from the tunic of her killer. A killer, that by obvious inference, we are to take to have been one of the Republic’s Soviet military advisors.”
Hector crossed one leg over the other, feeling chummy and nonchalant now — so long as he didn’t look left or right to the floor. He said, “But that could be so. It could be just what it appears.”
“But for the fact that some of the murder victims have also been found with evidence that would indicate their killer was a fascist, Mr. Lassiter. Many more of those than the other, frankly. These atrocities are being used to demonize the Nationalists.”
“Are you a Nationalist?”
A shrug. “I’m a professional. I haven’t the luxury of being a partisan. Not outside my head. What about you Mr. Lassiter?”
“I’ve got no politics. But I have some experience with killings like you describe.”
“Yes, in Florida, in 1935. That’s why you’re here. There were such killings in Florida, where you lived.”
“And now I’m here and you have these other murders, and yeah, I get the shitty logic.” Hector blew smoke. “Who fingered me? Not that I truly need you to tell me.”
“These things are confidential anyway.”
“Sure. Well, let’s approach it this way, Rafael. I’m not the only one currently in Madrid who was in Key West two years ago. There’s Hemingway. I take it he’s not a suspect.”
“Of course not.”
“There’s also an old surrealist painter who could be taken out by a stiff wind. I won’t give you his name, because I’ve eliminated him as a possibility...he’s frail and harmless.”
“You speak of Bishop Blair. Yes — he’s not a suspect.”
“And there is a man named Quentin Windly, the seeming bullfight critic.”
“Yes, there is Windly.”
“He’s the one who should be sitting in this chair now,” Hector said.
“Based on what I know now — because you are in that chair — I concur. But I have no evidence. And he is an American and a journalist. Those things make it...complicated. Particularly because his family is rich and also has many Spanish business investments that cut to both sides of the war.”
“You have pictures of any of these bodies?”
The man walked around his desk and pulled out a file folder. He handed several glossy black-and-white photos across the desk to Hector.
Gray-faced, Hector sorted and surveyed each of the photos. Apart from the new political dimension the killer had incorporated into his work — the apparent bid for anti-fascist propaganda — the killer was also combining elements of various surrealist works known to Hector. There were indications of some effort to synthesize the works of various surrealist artists.
Hector handed the photos back across the desk. “It’s just like Keys. Of that I’m certain.”
The police captain ground out his cigarette and put his feet up on his desk. He stared at the body of the gutshot guard. “So, Mr. Lassiter...”
Hector looked at the photos on the desk between them. He took a deep breath, thinking of Rachel. He massaged the back of his neck and said, “So I’ll solve your problem for you, Jefe.”
Rafael searched Hector’s face. “Why?”
“Because this cocksucker killed a woman who was important to me.”
The man shook his head slowly. “Then I will reward you for what you propose. There has been a second allegation against you. An accusation that you’re here as a spy for your government. Normally, that would be grounds for summary justice. A bullet behind the ear, just like this rubbish either side of you.”
“I need two days’ grace,” Hector said.
“It would take you that long to kill a man?”
“No. It might take me that long to convince a woman to go home with me after I kill a man.”
“Ah, the pretty painter whose apartment you were leaving when you were arrested.”
“That’s right.”
“All right. For two days, I will ‘lose’ the second denunciation complaint. I’ll find it when I hear you’ve crossed over into France. When I do, you may be persona non grata in Spain for a generation. Perhaps more. There may be a standing death warrant issued. But I will do this.”
“That’d be swell of you.”
“Just so. You’re given your two days, hombre. For both our sakes, I hope you kill well and cleanly.”
“I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality...I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”— Frida Kahlo
RECOGER
20
When they saw Hector turn the corner, Alva and Hem rose together. Hem, fairly drunk, kissed Alva on the mouth. “You see, daughter, I was right,” he said. “You saved Hector.”
Hector gave Alva a long hug. She squeezed back tightly and Hector, close to blacking out from the resulting pain, said, “Raise your hands just a bit, honey, won’t you? My right kidney is pure misery.”
Hem said, “I figured you for a dead man, Lasso.”
“It sure enough could have gone that way,” Hector said, wincing.
“Sure. Except for this one here.” Hem squeezed Alva’s neck. “She hauled your ass out of the fire.”
Hector nodded. He hoped that Alva hadn’t been needlessly suborned into some tawdry act — exploited by a horny functionary. But Hector wasn’t about to disparage whatever gratuitous dirty thing she might have done to win him his already earned freedom. He hugged Alva again and said, “What did you do to save me, Alva?”
Meeting his inquiring gaze, she said softly, “I said we are lovers. I said we were together, in bed, on several of the nights in question.”
Hector nodded slowly. “That is a lot to have taken upon yourself for the likes of me.”
Alva said, “I don’t really have a reputation to destroy.”
Hem, drunkenly exuberant, said, “To further the cause and to sell the alibi, I thought it best you spend the night at Alva’s place. Dos and me packed for you, Lasso. He’s getting your stuff moved in to Alva’s now. You can sleep on the couch or some damned thing. At least until we can get you on a train to Paris. You know — get your ass out of here before they change their minds.”
And hustling Hector out of Hotel Florida left Hector in no position to “spy” on Hem and Martha.
“Well, Hem, it’ll please you to know that I’m leaving day after tomorrow,” Hector said. “But it’s going to be a busy two days getting there.” He cupped Alva’s chin. He said to her, “I can find somewhere else to sleep, appearances or alibis be damned.”
Alva said, “No, it’s fine, Hector. Let appearances be damned. Besides, you paid for it...you should get pleasure from your wood, as I intend to.”
Hem looked confused, but pleased, by Alva’s words.
***
Dos and Hem waved over their shoulders as their truck tore off back toward the Hotel Florida.
Alva had worn Hector’s long leather coat to the station house. She said suddenly, “Oh, I should have given you your coat back — for the ride home.”
Hector smiled at home. He said, “No way. I like it better on you and I have another leather coat — an aviator’s jacket. That one is more manly. Besides, getting beaten by some bloodthirsty bastard in a long leather coat has turned my thinking on them — long leath
er coats for men, I mean. So you keep that one. Maybe we can get the shoulders and waist altered. Even if you don’t do that, you look damn fine in it.”
“It seems all I do is thank you, Hector.”
“No, I have you to thank, Alva — for saving me from torture...from execution. For saving me from being ‘disappeared.’ Can’t truly repay that flavor of favor, not ever.”
“It wasn’t a favor, Hector. It was a thing to be done. There was no choice involved.”
“There are always choices, Alva. That’s what passes for what we call our lives — just one long, unending string of goddamn choices, good and bad.”
Alva considered that. She gave a last wave at the departing truck. “How does he get access to those vehicles — Papa, I mean? With the gas shortages and the rationing...?”
“He’s Hemingway,” Hector said, flatly. “Your war is Hem’s oyster. Now, what do you say we get inside before someone else decides to ‘denounce’ my sorry ass.”
He followed her up the steep, narrow steps, presuming to put a steadying hand to the small of her back as they made their way up the dimly lit stairwell.
“You can have my bed tonight, Hector,” she said. “I really meant it about sleeping by the fire tonight...I want to be warm. It’s been a long time since I’ve been truly warm.”
Hector didn’t agree or disagree. He said, “We get in there, I’ll get that fire going. No point in being stingy with the wood — like I said, there’s more coming mañana.”
Alva again went about her routine with her weak flashlight — moving around the room, lighting oil lamps. Hector made a mental note to buy her some fresh batteries. He shrugged off his sports jacket and draped it across the back of a chair set before a writing desk. Dos had placed Hector’s Underwood there, opened — a hopeful gesture on Dos’ part, Hector guessed. The writer checked his pocket watch — 11:50 p.m. He wound the stem a few times. If his body clock awakened him at 4 a.m., there’d be no writing. Alva’s drafty apartment was little better than one big room. In the cavern of her loft, Hector figured that his typewriter would sound like a machine gun firing.
Hector bent to work at the fireplace, stoking up a big fresh fire and then piling on an extra log or two. It had been colder upon their return and the draw of the chimney was quite strong.
Alva said, “With all you’ve been through, you must be very tired.”
“More like wired,” Hector said. “It’s like walking away from a plane crash — there’s a giddiness.”
“Good. Good for me that you’re ‘wired’ and awake. I was hoping to learn what exactly happened to result in your arrest for murder, Hector. Here,” she said, coming up behind him and pulling his shirt from his pants. She lifted the tails of his shirt and he heard her sharp intake of breath as she examined his back. “That’s a terrible bruise. You must be in agony.”
That was true enough; Hector was also dreading the days of bloody urination almost certainly ahead of him. She said, “I could give you some ice, but I don’t know what else to do for you.”
“Time,” Hector. “Just have to give it time.”
“So tell me about the murders.” She let go of his shirttails.
He slipped off his necktie and draped it across the chair over his discarded sports jacket. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves, two turns above each elbow. “It’s perhaps a little late for that story,” he said. “It’s nightmare stuff, Alva.”
“All the same.” She smiled. “We left most of a bottle of wine untouched earlier. I destroyed the cork getting it out, so we should drink it now or have it be lost.”
“Some wine would be nice,” Hector said.
“I have some cheese, too.”
“You see to that, I’ll pour the wine,” he said.
He kicked off his shoes and padded across the creaking hardwood floor to her kitchen.
They tapped glasses again. Alva said, “It’s your turn to toast.”
He winked. “Salud, dinero y amor... ¡y tiempo para disfrutarlos!”
“Can’t say no to any of that,” Alva said, smiling. “You speak Spanish very well. After your arrest, I wouldn’t have guessed.”
She sipped her wine then picked up a plate piled with cubes of cheese and carried it to the couch close by the fire. “Put on some music if you’d like,” she said. “But something quiet — the floors are thick, but...”
“The neighbors,” he said. “And what they might think.” He suddenly got this little chill up his back, but he couldn’t figure out why. He said, “I don’t think we need music.”
He sat down on the couch, a cushion between them, and Alva pulled a throw from the arm of the couch and urged him to scoot over, closer to her and the fire. He did that and she tossed the throw over their legs and placed the plate of cheese on his lap. She said, “I keep thinking of what Bishop Blair said...about his wife being his real audience. And now his audience is gone, and so — or it at least it sounds this way — the rest of the world loses a fine painter.”
“It does sound so in Bishop’s case,” Hector said. He was nursing his wine. “That’s the risk of investing so much of yourself outside yourself. You have two hearts.” He picked up a slice of cheese and paused, the cube halfway to his mouth. “I’ve known writers who say they write for a single person, just like Bishop said. They write for a wife, or for a sibling.”
“Who do you write for, Hector?”
“I write for myself. Or so I tell myself. At least that way, when I stop, the writing stops. As long as I go on, there’s the possibility I’ll always have something to say.” He sipped some wine. “After Key West, and that thing with the surrealists, I made quite a little study of surrealism. I came across a quote, by a guy named Yves Tanguy. Not sure why it speaks to me, but it does. He remarked, ‘Very much alone in my work, I am almost jealous of it.’” He sipped more wine and nibbled some cheese and said, “Who do you paint for, Alva?”
“Myself, too, I suppose,” she said. “At least at first. I’m not sure I really have a wider ‘audience’ — not such a defined audience — in mind.”
“I notice the women in your paintings all look like you.”
“I can’t afford models,” Alva said, shrugging. “So I have the mirror.” She took a cube of cheese from the plate and held it to his mouth. He nibbled from the cheese. She held the rest poised to her lips. “What about you, Hector, are you all of your own characters?” She popped the cheese in her mouth and sipped some more wine.
“I’m everyone I ever loved or have known,” Hector said. “There’s some of me in all of them — the ones I create.”
“The murders, Hector. What are these murders that got you arrested?”
He took a deep drink of the wine and then set the glass on the end table before them. Cheap though it may be, the wine hit the spot, but with his damaged kidney, he knew he’d have to switch to water soon. “It’s something I’m still coming to terms with. It’s déju vu all over again. It’s Key West, and those murders, redux.”
“What!”
“There have been many murders in Madrid, committed over a period of several months,” Hector said. “Men and women. They were all killed in ways that evoke imagery from surrealist works of art — paintings and photographs.”
“Just like Key West, as you said.” Alva shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Yet it’s happening. The only difference is, the killer is now using the murders toward some end — a political end. He’s working very hard to see to it that the fascists are blamed for the killings.”
Alva said, “You don’t think that Bishop Blair...?”
“Oh, God no,” Hector said. “Bishop least of all. I’d make Ernest for the killings before I’d consider that old man to be a candidate for them.”
“So who do you suspect?”
“Quentin Windly. He was in Key West. He was in Mexico. There were similar killings in Mexico last year...I kept that from you when you asked me if I�
��d heard of crimes like the ones in Key West. I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe there was a connection until tonight...until I saw the evidence of the crimes here. Windly was in Miami when a woman was killed — her disarticulated torso posed on park bench on South Beach. He was in Matecumbe when your sister’s friend, Beverly, was murdered. And he was in Key West. The last time I saw him, just before I broke his nose, he spoke of a plan to go to Mexico to study the bullfights there as preparation for a trip to Spain, to see and eventually write about the Corrida de Toros. Quentin accused me of the murders — denounced me. The secret police all but confirmed that.”
“So the secret police will arrest him now, right?”
“Wrong,” Hector said. “Politics preclude that.”
Alva took Hector’s hand and squeezed it hard. “If you truly believe he killed Rachel...well, he can’t get away with that, Hector. I’ll kill him.”
Hector felt this shudder: he believed she meant it. He took her other hand and squeezed it back. “I’ve already arranged to do that myself.”
Alva narrowed her eyes. She started to speak, once, twice...then she set her glass down next to Hector’s. She brushed a comma of hair back from his forehead. She wet her lips, then her hand went to his neck, gripping at its nape. She urged his face to her own.
***
A savage coupling — hungry and desperate.
Still panting, sensing he hadn’t peaked, at one point she rolled over and moved to all fours on the couch and said, “Like this, now.”
It wasn’t one of his favored positions, but Hector obeyed. After several minutes, he still hadn’t come and she rolled away from him.
Alva padded naked across her loft and dragged a thick bearskin rug over from the other side of the room and placed it by the fire and then stripped the bed of blankets and pillows and pulled Hector down onto the rug. She mounted him again. They rolled over and she gripped the bottom of the sofa for leverage, thrusting hard against him. She was a glistening, straining torso, her head hidden in shadows. Hector was suddenly seized again by a terrible vision of Man Ray’s Minotaure.
That did it:
Toros & Torsos (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 14
