“Every son of a bitch needs a biography,” declared Mataix. “It’s the most dishonest genre in the entire catalog.”

“I’m not going to contradict you, Señor Mataix. Do you want to hear the good news?”

“Do you mean the bit about staying alive?”

“One hundred thousand pesetas deposited in an account in your name in the National Swiss Bank of Geneva on acceptance of the job, and a hundred thousand more on publication.”

Mataix stared at him in astonishment.

“While you take in the figure, please let me explain the procedure. Once you’ve accepted and signed the contract, you’ll begin to receive a biweekly emolument through my office, which will continue during the development of the work, without affecting the global total of your fees. Furthermore, you’ll receive, again through me, a document that apparently already exists, containing a first version of my client’s biography.”

“So I’m not the first?”

Brians shrugged again.

“What happened to my predecessor?” asked Mataix. “Have they also sent him to you in little pieces?”

“I don’t know. I believe the client’s wife thought his work had no style, class, or savoir faire.”

“I don’t know how you can joke about this sort of thing.”

“It’s better than jumping in front of a train. In any case, this document, which from what I’ve been told is in a very rudimentary state, will serve as a source of information and something to work from. Your task is to write an exemplary biography of this person based on the pages you’ve been sent. You have a year to do this. After going through the notes sent by the client, you’ll have another six months to incorporate the required changes, polish up the text, and prepare the manuscript for publication. And if you’ll allow the comment, the best thing is that there’s no need for you to sign the book. Nobody need ever know that you wrote it. In fact, your silence and mine are essential requirements for the transaction.”

“Why’s that?”

“Perhaps I should have said from the start that the book is in fact an autobiography. You will ghostwrite it in the first person, and my client will sign it.”

“I imagine it already has a title.”

“The working title is I, XXXXXX: Memoirs of a Spanish Financier. I believe they’ll admit alternative suggestions.”

Then Mataix did something that neither he nor Brians expected. He burst out laughing. He laughed until he cried, and the other people in the café turned to look at him askance, wondering how anyone would want to guffaw like that when things were going from bad to worse. When he recovered his composure, Mataix took a deep breath and looked at Brians.

“Am I to understand that that was a yes?”

“Is there any alternative?”

“That you and I get a bullet in the head tomorrow morning, or the day after, as we walk down the street, and that they do the same to your family and to mine, sooner rather than later.”