Сантьяго Ронкальоло - Barcelona Noir

“Remember Delgado?”

“The Vietnam War hero who was tortured in the Gulf War?”

For a moment, the nocturnal tango clown disappeared and I felt I was caught in the gaze of a man who perhaps had a couple of corpses to his credit.

“Pibe, you’re never going to learn. You mustn’t believe everything you hear at night. The ones trying to figure things out are cops, or worse. Don’t be fooled by appearances. I come off like a fool because wise guys always lose. But don’t tell me you’re the fool and you haven’t heard yet.”

“If you’re going to make me listen to your philosophy lessons, then at least buy me another whiskey.”

“Fair enough,” he said, and with a wave of the hand he conjured a couple of double shots. “I don’t know if you’ve bumped into El Delgado lately...”

“Why would I?”

“Why would — No, you wouldn’t. But, since your girlfriend told me you’d been to an African ‘holding cell,’ I thought you might have run into him. Delgado is like God, he can show up anywhere, whether among junkies or barefoot Carmelites.”

“I’ve noticed. A black guy told me he sleeps up by the three chimneys and a Moor told me he’s gone to heaven... Why are you interested in Delgado?”

“If you come with me, I’ll tell you.” He took off, with his canine gait, toward the bathroom.

He carved three lines on the sink and after he sucked up two, he was more explicit.

“The Russians have it in for him, and I have to get along with the Russians. You follow me?”

I shrugged as I leaned on the sink.

“It seems he worked as a heavy in some whorehouse. Sometimes the customers... you know, they get out of line and have to be set straight.”

“I figured he worked with his hands somewhere.”

“Something like that. The problem is, he fell in love with the Russians’ little star. Some girl who had been an Olympic champion on the parallel bars. You know, one of those girls who spins in the air as if she doesn’t give a shit about the laws of gravity.”

“So?”

“Nothing. Except the girl was older, though she was so small she looked like a schoolgirl. So what can I tell you, some guys will pay a fortune to get into bed with a schoolgirl.”

“Right, and that animal surrendered to her slender charm—”

“It’s worse than that. The Russians are fuming, they say the idiot stole her from them.”

I don’t know if it was the coke or instinct, but I had a sudden illumination. “Cavalcanti, you’re talking in circles. It’s clear from your description that it’s the little Russian girl who was found on the beach, raped and strangled.”

He stared at me hard. “And what if it is? The Russians are looking for Delgado, and I’m going to hand him over.”

“The big guy killed her?”

“The big guy is obsessed with skinny women with Asian eyes.”

“That doesn’t mean much.”

“Since when are you judge and jury?”

“What am I getting out of this?”

“Now you’re talking,” he said, and mentioned a sum that, for my drooping pockets, was simply exorbitant.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Cavalcanti: I’ll look for him, but I don’t want anything to do with the Russians.”

“That’s reasonable.”

“I’ll look for him, but once I find him, what do you want me to do?”

He must have known how our conversation was going to go because he stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a card with a phone number.

“I’ll be there anytime you need me. You tell me where he is and then forget about it. We never had this conversation.”

“And they’re gonna pay just for that?”

“I swear on my blessed little mother. Moreover, and so you won’t think I’m messing with you, I’ll put up the money myself. I have business with the Russians and I don’t want to fuck up the relationship. You have to be generous with investments in order to make the little coins multiply.”

“Cavalcanti...” I said sincerely, “you’ve never seemed as suspicious to me as you do now.”

“Young man,” he said sympathetically, “anybody who lives to be old is suspicious. I thought you already knew that.”

We had to interrupt the conversation because Paty came in all of a sudden and, before heading back out to the streets, handed me a napkin with a phone number scribbled on it and a flier surely taken down from a wall somewhere.

“The Algerians with the missing girl have offered a reward. I wouldn’t turn anybody in but you guys are cut from a different cloth. They’re looking for a big guy with a stupid face who sounds like a friend of yours. If you know where he is... I don’t want to know.”

The girl on the flier also had almond-shaped eyes.

I took the napkin, only to see Cavalcanti wink my way and shake his head with his index finger pointed at his own chest. “You call me first,” he said.

That’s when I remembered the skinny vendor with beer, hashish, and coke at the three chimneys. And that’s why, the next morning, I went back to the plaza where half of Europe’s skaters could be found; the skinny guy didn’t take long to make his appearance.

I repeated my question, doubled my bribe, and got the same answer and a gesture toward Montjuic. That’s when I understood he didn’t mean heaven when he said Delgado “went up,” and I gazed over at the rolling green that, indeed, went up behind the buildings.

The Montjuic has a military fort at the top where tourists have their pictures taken; its paths are crowded with trees and bushes. Those paths have always been the refuge of drug addicts and immigrants who are poorer than dirt. Every now and again, the cops raid and disperse them, but they come back like mushrooms after a rainfall.

I left civilization behind and climbed up to test my luck. I’d never been there before, and a part of me warned that I was headed toward anger’s nesting ground.

I was breathing hard and my knees were buckling when I ran into a tent made of plastic bags, garments rescued from the trash, and clumsily crossed branches.

I don’t know how many people were housed under that roof, but the smell of old dirt and bodies in need of washing was overwhelming.

They barely spoke Spanish and, after their initial surprise, offered me, for very little money, the favors of a girl who was, at most, twelve years old. When I said no they pulled down the pants of an eight-year-old boy, but as soon as they saw my disgust they simply asked me for cigarettes.

As lost as I was, I continued up. How would I ever find Delgado if I couldn’t even figure out how many of these settlements there might be? Trees and all sorts of surprises in the landscape hid them from me, and I ran into them without warning. I soon realized that if I didn’t stop, somebody would probably knife me.

And I wouldn’t have made it at all if it hadn’t been for the calm man.

I named him that because, from the moment he appeared in the midst of the weeds, he gave me the impression that he was beyond good and evil.

“Can I help you?” he asked. “This place can be very inhospitable to unexpected guests.”

I looked him over, which he allowed. He didn’t smile but his eyes permitted my inspection and sought trust. So I went along; I decided to trust him.

“I’m looking for a man in a lot of trouble. If I find him in time, it might do him some good.”

The calm man had thin lips, like a monk, and a slightly foreign accent, which I couldn’t quite place.

“Do you know his name?”

“They call him Delgado, or El Delgado.”

The man nodded. “I know who he is. I know pretty much everybody here... and I make sure that nobody’s problems take us all down. But you still haven’t told me anything that would make me help you.”