“Any preference?”

“Surprise me.”

The waiter nodded and expertly took a wineglass, without making eye contact.

“May I use the phone?”

“Of course, miss. It’s over there, at the end of the bar.”

Alicia waited for the waiter to disappear again behind the curtain, took a sip of wine, and walked over to the telephone.

* * *

Fernandito was looking out of the window, trying to catch sight of Vargas among the pedestrians walking up Calle Aviñón, when the phone rang again behind him. This time he didn’t hesitate before picking it up. “Where on earth are you? Weren’t you coming?”

“Who was coming?” asked Alicia at the other end of the line.

“Sorry, I thought you were Captain Vargas.”

“Have you seen him?”

“He called to say he was on his way here.”

“How long ago?”

“About a quarter of an hour, more or less. He said he was at the Civil Registry.”

Alicia let a moment of silence go by. Fernandito interpreted it as a moment of bewilderment.

“Did he say what he was doing there?”

“No. Are you all right?”

“I’m all right, Fernandito. When Vargas arrives, you must first tell him what you told me and then tell him that I’ll be waiting for him in the bar next to the Tibidabo funicular station. La Venta.”

“That’s right next to El Pinar . . .”

“Tell him to hurry up.”

“Do you need help? Do you want me to come over?”

“Don’t even think of it. I need you to wait there until Vargas arrives, and do what I said. Have you understood?”

“Yes . . . Señorita Alicia?”

Alicia had hung up.

Fernandito was staring at the silent receiver when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye: a movement behind the windows of Vargas’s rooms, on the other side of the street. The policeman must have gone up while he was on the phone to Alicia. The boy went over to the window to make sure that he was right. Vargas was on the street, walking up to the Gran Café.

“Captain Vargas!” Fernandito called out.

The policeman disappeared through a doorway. Fernandito looked again at the windows on the other side of the street, just in time to glimpse a figure drawing the curtains. Suddenly he was seized by a dark, cold certainty. He went to the door and started running down the stairs as fast as he could.

25

Vargas noticed it right away. His room key slid into the lock with difficulty, as if it had come across sharp edges in the mechanism, and when he turned it, the spring barely offered resistance. The lock had been forced.

Pulling out his gun, he gently pushed the door inward with his foot. The apartment—just two rooms separated by a curtain—lay in semidarkness. The curtains were drawn, and Vargas clearly remembered having left them open.

He cocked the hammer. A silhouette stood motionless in a corner. Vargas raised the weapon and aimed.