“Earth to earth,” murmured Linares. “One of ours?”

Vargas checked that the judge was out of earshot. “Something like that. I’m going to need a bit of time.”

Linares looked down. “Twelve hours, maximum. I can’t give you any more.”

“Hendaya . . . ,” said Vargas.

Linares nodded.

“Is Manero in the morgue?”

“Waiting for you. I’ve already told him you were going there.”

Vargas smiled in gratitude.

“Anything I need to know?” asked Linares.

Vargas shook his head. “How’s Manuela?”

“Fat as a hog, just like her mother.”

“That’s how you like them.”

Linares nodded solemnly.

“I don’t suppose she remembers me,” Vargas said.

“Not by name, but she still refers to you as ‘that son of a bitch.’ Fondly.”

Vargas offered his friend a cigarette, but he declined. “What’s happened to us, Linares?”

Linares shrugged. “Spain, I suppose.”

“It could be worse. We could be in the bag.”

“All in due time.”

18

He knew he was being followed without needing to look behind him. As he turned the corner and headed up toward the cathedral, Fernandito glanced over his shoulder and saw them: two figures that had been trailing him since he left the police station. He quickened his pace, adjusting his course to keep close to the shadows of the front doors until he reached the end of the esplanade. There he paused for a moment, hiding under the canopy of a closed café, and saw that Hendaya’s two henchmen hadn’t lost him. He had no intention of leading them to his home, much less to Alicia’s, so he decided to drag them along on a night tour of Barcelona, hoping he would eventually either tire them or shake them off by sheer good luck or an unlikely stroke of genius.

He set off toward Puertaferrisa, sticking to the middle of the road, as visible as a target in a firing range. The road was practically deserted at that time of night, and Fernandito wandered unhurriedly, passing the occasional drunk, a nightwatchman on duty, and the usual contingent of lost souls who prowled the streets of Barcelona into the early hours. Every time he looked back, Hendaya’s hounds were there, keeping the same distance whether he walked faster or slower.

When he reached the Ramblas, he considered breaking into a run and trying to lose them in the narrow streets of the Raval, but that would give him away, and given his followers’ patent skill, his chances would be slim. He decided to continue down the Ramblas until he reached the entrance to the Boquería market.

A cortege of vans had congregated outside the market doors, where, beneath a garland of lightbulbs, a large group of workers were unloading crates, supplying the stalls for the following day. Without thinking twice, Fernandito slipped between the columns of crates, his silhouette melting into those of the dozens of workers moving through the market’s corridors. As soon as he felt he was out of sight of his pursuers, he scuttled off toward the rear of the enclosure. As he ran, the huge market with its vaulted ceiling opened up before him like a cathedral devoted to the art of fine foods, where the smells and colors of the universe conspired to form a great bazaar to meet the city’s appetites.