The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

by Mark Oldfield

  ‘No, but the motive behind it is obvious,’ Guzmán said. ‘They’re doing it for Positano. Ruin Valverde’s business and then take over. And who’ll supply the stuff they’d sell? Positano’s chums in the Mob.’

  Peralta nodded, but Guzmán hadn’t finished. ‘I couldn’t give a fuck about Valverde’s business interests but this is going to draw attention and that’s the last thing we want. If it gets Spain a bad press abroad, that will piss off Franco mightily. Questions will be asked and it will end up being us who have to answer them. And then people may begin to wonder if we’re still up to the job. We need to get these Dominicans off the streets before things get uncomfortable for us.’ Guzmán glared at Peralta. ‘By us, I mean me.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll be able to do that tonight, jefe,’ Peralta said. ‘If we’re lucky.’

  Guzmán smiled. ‘Puta madre, I hope so, Teniente. I could do with some good luck.’

  MADRID 1953, BAR DOMINICANA, CALLE DE TOLEDO

  A light snow was falling as the truck stopped at the end of the street. The sarge turned off the engine. Peralta slumped between Guzmán and the sarge, sucking on a cigarette. In the pale light of the distant street lamp he looked even more grey and cadaverous. From time to time, he clutched at his stomach. Guzmán checked his pistol and holstered it.

  ‘I hope you aren’t going to be sick,’ Guzmán said. ‘I’ve already told you about that.’

  ‘Something wrong with my belly, that’s all. Rich food or something,’ Peralta said, miserably.

  ‘That’s good, Teniente,’ Guzmán opened the cab door, ‘because I’d hate you to miss any of the action.’

  Peralta slid across the seat and followed Guzmán into the freezing night. Fifteen guardia civiles were getting out of the back of the truck, threatening and angular in their cloaks and tricorne hats. Guzmán spoke to them quietly, describing the layout of Bar Dominicana, showing them the side alley leading to the courtyard at the back.

  ‘Five minutes, Cabo, then come in and secure the place,’ Guzmán told the corporal.

  ‘Vamonos, señores.’ Guzmán strode down the street, Peralta half running to keep up with him, while the sarge strolled nonchalantly behind, whistling softly through the gaps in his remaining teeth.

  As they neared the entrance, Guzmán turned to repeat their orders.

  ‘I’ll speak to Mamacita at the bar, Sarge you go out the back, make sure the door’s open for the guardia civiles. Teniente, you check upstairs. When the uniforms come crashing in, there will be a sudden rush as the whores and their customers try to do a runner. If any of them try to get away…’ he raised his hand, index finger outstretched, ‘stop them.’

  The sarge sniggered, clearly happy. Peralta remained miserable.

  ‘Better dead than Red,’ the sarge called as Guzmán pushed open the door and entered. The door closed, cutting off the brief murmur of a piano above a background of voices and clinking glasses. The sarge counted ten and followed him.

  Peralta waited, anxious and numb from the brittle cold. He began to count but gave up. He pushed the door and stepped into the Bar Dominicana.

  The place stank. The air was humid and drenched in the smell of sweat, the ceiling wreathed in pungent clouds of black tobacco smoke. Another burst of sharp pain flickered in Peralta’s stomach as he moved through the crowded bar towards the rear exit. Guzmán was already at the bar, pushing through the throng of customers. Behind the bar, the faded ruin that was Mamacita was holding court, sloshing a variety of coloured drinks into glasses, shouting obscenities and putting on a performance that eclipsed the pianist’s stumbling attempts.

  Peralta shoved through the tipsy crowd to the door at the back of the club. He pushed open the door and stepped into the empty hallway. He heard the faint sound of a door banging, probably the sarge opening the back door for the guardia. The hubbub of the bar faded as Peralta made his way up the stairs. A floorboard creaked and he hesitated before continuing upwards. At the top of the stairs was a long corridor with doors on either side. Long ago this had been a hotel: Peralta saw faded fire regulations on the wall, dating from the turn of the century. From one of the rooms down the corridor he heard laughter. A door opened and a fat man emerged, hurriedly pulling on his jacket. The man ambled down the corridor, carefully avoiding eye contact. As he hurried past Peralta he spoke quietly, ‘If it’s Carmela you’ve come to see, be careful. She’s in a hell of a mood.’

  The fat man shuffled down the stairs and Peralta heard the noise of the bar for a moment as the man opened the door. Somewhere down the corridor, there was a man’s groan followed by a woman’s laughter. Peralta walked slowly and carefully, listening to the noises of corporeal indulgence. It made him feel strangely sad. Not cynical, like Guzmán, but genuinely sad. He would mention it at his next confession.

  ‘Oye, coño, who the hell are you? What’re you doing sneaking around here?’ The voice was sharp, confident and came from behind him.

  Peralta whirled round. He knew that face. It was the fat Dominican. His suit was outrageously tailored, the colour too bright not to stand out against the sepia blandness of Spanish life. ‘Who’re you, hombre? You deaf?’ His Spanish was heavily inflected by traces of the Caribbean and his face was angry and shining with sweat. He was very drunk.

  Peralta was only about two metres away from him. He felt unsure about trying to draw his pistol. The big man looked like he could move faster than he could.

  ‘I’m looking to buy some stuff,’ Peralta said.

  ‘Oh? And who said you could get anything here?’

  ‘A friend,’ Peralta said quickly. ‘Fat guy, civil servant, balding, a maricón.’

  The man looked unconvinced.

  ‘Mamacita said any friend of his was all right by her,’ Peralta added, suddenly inspired, ‘she told me to come straight up.’

  The man relaxed and grinned. ‘If Mamacita sent you up here, caballero, that’s cool. Qué quieres? Stuff just for yourself or you planning to have a party?’

  ‘Just for me. Morfina. I use it for the pain in my leg.’

  The man grinned. ‘Yeah. No doubt. Old war wound maybe? That’s what they all say, señor mio, but that’s cool. We just sell it, we’re not your mamá. You shoot up all week and twice on Sunday if you want. No one here’s going to say a thing.’

  ‘That sounds good to me.’

  The man turned towards the half-open door. ‘If you got the money, that is? Because if not, then you a time-waster man. No time for time-wasters here, brother. No time at all.’

  ‘I can pay,’ Peralta said, listening for the sound of the guardia civil arriving downstairs. Once the raid began it would be easier to reach his weapon.

  ‘You pay twice, man,’ the big Dominican grinned, ‘once in cash and once with your immortal soul. But all I need from you, brother, is your cash.’ He laughed loudly and pushed open the door. ‘Come on, it’s all here, man, whatever you need, whenever you need it.’ The man entered the room, turning his back on Peralta. Quickly, Peralta reached inside his jacket, pulled out his pistol and transferred it to his overcoat pocket as he followed the Dominican through the door.

  The room was surprisingly warm. Peralta saw a wood-stove in one corner, its light welcoming and cheerful, a distinct contrast to the atmosphere as he looked across the green baize of a large card table at four unsmiling faces. Peralta nodded, mumbling good evening. No one replied. He scanned the faces. None of them were the Dominicans in the photographs at the comisaría. That was a relief.

  ‘Who are you?’ A thin-faced bald man with round glasses peered at him intently.

  The big Dominican cut in. ‘Mamacita says he’s cool. Civil servant. Wants morfina. For his leg.’ He guffawed.

  The thin man didn’t laugh. ‘This isn’t a pharmacy. It will cost you. Got any money?’

  Peralta nodded, feeling himself start to sweat. The four men at the card table continued to stare. The big Dominican frowned at Peralta. ‘Don’t I know you?’

  ‘I’ve been h
ere before,’ Peralta said. ‘With my friend.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ The Dominican scrutinised him. ‘Yeah, I knew I’d seen you before.’

  Peralta thought the man was putting too much effort into trying to remember him. His right hand closed tightly on his pistol.

  The Dominican’s face changed, the smile was gone now. ‘Course I seen you before.’ His voice was icy. ‘Now I remember you, pendejo.’

  Guzmán stood at the bar, allowing himself to be jostled by the lowlifes dancing attendance upon Mamacita. Up close she – or more accurately he – was a study in ruin: the make-up applied inaccurately and too thickly, the effect of the vivid blusher spoiled by his thick stubble, the mouth a careless gash of colour around ruined teeth. She paused from pouring cheap champagne into the collection of glasses on the filthy bar. Her eyes narrowed in recognition from beneath the shadow of her cheap wig. She was, Guzmán noted, steaming drunk.

  ‘Oh no. Not Señor Policeman again.’ Her voice was too loud, alerting the customers in the vicinity. ‘Can’t you leave a girl alone, copper? Police.’ She began to shout, this time in a much louder voice. Guzmán suddenly realised it wasn’t the decaying bunch of losers around him that she was trying to alert. He snatched up a bottle from the zinc counter and leaned quickly across the bar, smashing it over Mamacita’s head, knocking her backwards into the shelves. She slid to the floor in an exploding shower of cheap liquor bottles and dirty glasses as the shelves collapsed around her. Customers began heading for the exit. Guzmán drew his pistol and fired once into the ceiling. A rain of plaster and debris showered down.

  ‘Police. Everyone stay where they are,’ Guzmán shouted. The rear door burst open and the guardia civiles crashed in, bayonets fixed – a little excessive, Guzmán thought, even for men under his command.

  ‘Two men on that front door,’ Guzmán instructed. ‘Get these people sat down until we get a truck to take them away.’

  The guardia civiles herded the shabby clientele of the Bar Dominicana into the centre of the dance floor. They stood, skeletally malnourished, meekly obeying the shouted orders of the guardia. The sarge, no less dissolute than his prisoners, grinned a broken smile at Guzmán.

  ‘Everything’s under control, jefe. Where’s the teniente?’

  A series of shots came from upstairs. Guzmán ran towards the rear door yelling to the sarge to follow.

  From downstairs came the sound of shouting and the crashing of tables and chairs being overturned. Then there was a gunshot and muffled sounds of chaos. Someone was shouting outside the door. For Peralta, time slowed, his focus becoming clearer as thought was overtaken by action. The Dominican turned to the door, reaching inside his jacket. Peralta pulled the revolver from his pocket and aimed it. The thin man shouted out a warning as Peralta fired, trying to shoot the Dominican in the chest. He would have succeeded if his aim had been better; instead, the bullet hit the man just below his Adam’s apple. The Dominican crashed against the wall and slid down it in a spray of arterial blood, his gun clattering on the floor while he clutched at his throat, trying in vain to arrest the haemorrhage that was now choking him.

  The men behind the card table leaped to their feet, heading for the window, the table toppling towards Peralta in a flurry of cards and cash. Peralta fired as the first one struggled to open the sash window. The bullet hit the man in the back of the head and he fell forward against the window before slumping to the floor, the bloodied glass shattering noisily around him. Peralta fired at the three others as they vacillated for a moment, fatally indecisive as to whether to escape through the shattered window or turn on their attacker. Two of the men went down, but the thin man remained for a second, trembling – whether it was rage or fear, Peralta would never know. The man faced him, eyes ludicrously wild through his round spectacles and Peralta shot him twice in the chest, the impact throwing him back against the wall, still struggling to stay on his feet. Peralta took a step forward as the man sagged, hands clasped across the growing stain on his chest. Peralta aimed slightly above the man’s hands and fired again. The shot was harsh and final. The man’s hands fell from his chest and he dropped heavily to the floor. Peralta’s ears were ringing and the lieutenant briefly wondered if he might have been deafened. With luck, it would be grounds for retirement.

  The door crashed open and Guzmán stepped into the room, pistol raised. He walked slowly, taking in the sprawled bodies, shaking his head at the blood.

  ‘Coño,’ he laughed, ‘I can’t take you anywhere.’

  Peralta stared at the dead Dominican sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, a long thick smear of gore on the shabby wallpaper marking his descent. Around him was a growing pool of blood.

  ‘They thought they could escape,’ Peralta said, looking round at the carnage.

  ‘Well, they got that wrong,’ Guzmán chuckled, lighting a cigarette. As an afterthought he passed the cigarette to Peralta and lit another. ‘You might be able to buy some downstairs before we leave,’ he added.

  The sarge appeared at the door. ‘Hostia, you got them then, jefe?’

  Guzmán snorted. ‘I got no one, Sargento. The teniente did this all by himself. And luckily these don’t look like our Dominican friends, except…’

  He bent forward over the big corpse by the door. ‘Fuck.’

  The sarge moved closer to get a better look. ‘He’s one of them all right.’

  Guzmán sighed. ‘Nice work, Teniente. The Head of State orders us not to go near these bastards and you almost shoot the head off one of them. Where did you learn to shoot people in the neck, by the way?’

  ‘You did that on purpose?’ The sarge was momentarily impressed until he saw Guzmán’s face. ‘Nah, thought not.’

  Peralta put his pistol back in its holster. He seemed to be withering in front of them. His shoulders were hunched, his thin frame melting into the layers of shabby clothes.

  ‘He tried to pull a gun.’ Peralta’s voice was faint. ‘Then they tried to escape.’

  ‘Well, it’s done now,’ Guzmán said, looking round at the dead men. ‘Sargento?’

  ‘A sus ordenes.’ The pile of corpses had cheered the sargento up enormously.

  ‘Teniente Peralta entered the room and was obliged to shoot three desperate criminals. That clear?’

  The sarge shook his head. ‘There are four of them, jefe.’

  Guzmán sighed. ‘Imbécil. There are three, count them again. And get rid of this.’ He kicked the dead Dominican’s leg. ‘Get his wallet, any identification and destroy it. Get rid of his clothes and get rid of the body. Somewhere where it won’t be found for a long time.’

  ‘Understood, Comandante.’

  ‘And you,’ Guzmán turned to Peralta, ‘had better come with me.’

  Downstairs, the bar was milling with guardia civiles, checking identity documents, poking frightened customers with their rifle butts as they herded them against the bandstand. ‘Anything?’ Guzmán asked indifferently.

  ‘A couple of lowlifes we’ve been looking for, a few small-time thieves, nothing more.’ The corporal sounded disappointed. ‘The men with the whores were here because it’s cheap. And you can see why.’ He nodded over to a small group of women sitting around a table smoking. They were in various stages of undress, their dressing gowns and nightdresses even more tawdry under the baleful lights of the Bar Dominicana.

  One woman looked over at Guzmán, her face a mask of thick make-up. ‘When can we get back to work, officer?’

  Guzmán lit a cigarette. ‘When I say, señorita. Think of it as a little coffee break and enjoy being upright for a few minutes. We’ll need you to answer a few questions.’

  The woman swore, although she took care Guzmán didn’t hear.

  Guzmán looked at Mamacita, sitting bedraggled and handcuffed, the wig askew, quietly weeping, lines of mascara running down his face and mixing with his stubble.

  ‘Take it back to the comisaría,’ Guzmán told the corporal, ‘and, while you’re at it, anyone else w
ho seems even the slightest bit suspect.’

  The corporal saluted and barked orders at his men. A truck was waiting outside and the prisoners were led to it. Guzmán walked over to the ramshackle bar, reaching for an unopened bottle of brandy. He took off the top and drank from the bottle before handing it to Peralta. The lieutenant swigged the brandy gratefully, but then choked and spluttered most of it onto the floor.

  ‘It’s a bit rough.’ Guzmán smirked.

  He motioned for Peralta to sit down at one of the filthy tables. Peralta sat with his head down, morose, periodically tugging at the brandy. Guzmán took the bottle from him.

  ‘You did well, Teniente,’ he said. ‘You were in a tight spot and you did what you had to. No one can ask for more.’

  Peralta shook his head. ‘I let you down, jefe. I should have kept them covered, called for help so we could have interrogated them.’

  ‘In which case you’d be dead now,’ Guzmán said. ‘You did the right thing. You stayed alive.’

  ‘But you said Almirante Carrero Blanco ordered us not to touch them under any circumstances,’ Peralta muttered.

  ‘And no one has.’ Guzmán smiled. ‘You shot three criminals in the execution of your duty. There was no Dominican here, Teniente, do you understand? There was no fucking Dominican.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’ Peralta looked grey and much older.

  Guzmán and Peralta sat, drinking brandy, watched by the hostile whores, while the guardia civiles carried out the bodies wrapped in sheets and laid them by the front door to await a truck. Peralta noted there were only three bodies. From the rear of the building he heard the low rumble of an engine.

  ‘The sarge will do a good job,’ Guzmán said. ‘He’s had lots of practice.’

  ‘I’ve never killed anyone before,’ Peralta said quietly.

  ‘Well, there you are,’ Guzmán was suddenly cheerful, ‘you’ve got an interesting story to tell the wife when you get home.’