Vargas replied with a grunt. Alicia was engrossed in her mysteries, perhaps plotting the formidable lie she was surely going to try to shove down their throats, Fermín suspected. His friend Daniel seemed too dazzled by the contact between the crafty vamp’s thigh and his right leg to articulate a single word or thought.

Realizing that he was the only adult in full command of his senses, Fermín decided to call the shots. “Look, boss,” he said, “kindly drive us to the Raval quarter and leave us by the door of Can Lluís.” The very mention of his favorite restaurant in the known universe, a spiritual refuge of sorts in trying times, restored his vitality. A brush with law-enforcement officers likely to blow his brains out always kindled his appetite.

Cipriano reversed the car as far as the Vallvidrera road and initiated the descent back to Barcelona. As they slid down the hillside, Fermín discreetly studied the character sitting in the passenger seat, scooped up by Alicia from God knows where to play the forbidding strongman. His entire persona smelled of police—the heavyweight variety. Vargas must have sensed Fermín’s eyes boring into the back of his neck, because he turned around and gave him one of his searing looks, the sort that would stir up the guts of any miscreant and leave him in a state of severe constipation. The little man Alicia called Fermín seemed to him like a creature escaped from the pages of a picaresque epic.

“Don’t get overconfident on account of my wimpish appearance,” Fermín said, eying him defiantly. “All you see here is ironclad muscle and killing instinct. Think of me as a plainclothes ninja.”

You think you’ve seen everything in this line of work, Vargas thought, and then the Good Lord sees fit to send you a golden nugget as a farewell present.

“Fermín, isn’t it?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Call me Vargas.”

“Lieutenant?”

“Captain.”

“I hope Your Excellency holds no conscientious objection to fine dining and gourmet Catalan cuisine.”

“None whatsoever. To tell you the truth, I’m starving. Is this Can Lluís good?”

“Sublime,” replied Fermín. “Like one of Rita Hayworth’s thighs in net stockings.”

Vargas smiled.

“Those two have already made friends,” said Alicia. “What brings men together are the urges of their stomachs and their loins.”

“Pay no attention to her, Fermín,” said Vargas. “Alicia never eats, at least not solids. She feeds herself by sucking from the souls of the innocent.”

Fermín and Vargas reluctantly exchanged a conspiratorial smile.

“Did you hear that, Daniel?” said Fermín. “Confirmed by a captain of the police department, no less.”

Alicia turned to Daniel, who was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Foolish words fall on deaf ears.”

“Don’t worry,” said Fermín. “I don’t think he’s registered anything after the word sucking.”

“Why don’t you all shut up so we can ride in peace?” Daniel suggested.

“It’s the hormones,” said Fermín. “The boy is still growing.”

And so, each in their own silence, accompanied by the drone of the radio’s grandiose account of the soccer league, they arrived at the doors of Can Lluís.