Arturo Perez-Reverte - Queen of the South

Then he laid an envelope full of money on the table, paid the bill, stood up, and wished her good luck. He said those words-"Good luck"-and was leaving when Teresa, grateful, tried to tell him her name. The man interrupted, saying he didn't want to know it-couldn't care less what it was, in fact. He was just helping out some Mexican friends of his by helping her. He indicated the envelope on the table, and said she should use the money well. When it ran out and she needed more, he added in a tone of objectivity clearly not intended to give offense, she could always use her cunt. That, he said in farewell, apparently regretting he didn't have one of his own, is the advantage you women have.

She was nothing special," said Dris Larbi. "Not pretty, not ugly. Not par-ticularly quick, not particularly stupid. But she was good at numbers

I saw that right away, so I put her at the register." He remembered a question I'd asked before, and shook his head before continuing. "And no, the fact is she didn't work on her back. At least not when she worked with me. She was recommended by friends, so I let her choose. One side of the bar or the other, your choice, I told her… She chose to stay behind it, as a waitress at first. She didn't make as much, of course. But that was fine with her."

We were walking along the border between the neighborhoods of Hippodromo and Real-straight streets that ran down to the ocean, colonial-style houses. The night was cool, and filled with the fragrance of the flowers in window boxes.

"She may have gone out now and then. Two, three times, maybe. I'm not sure." Dris Larbi shrugged. "It was her decision, you understand?… A couple of times she went off with somebody she wanted to go with, but not for money."

"What about the parties?" Cespedes asked.

The Rifeno looked away, suspicious. Then he turned to me before he looked over at Cespedes again, like a man who prefers not to talk about delicate matters in front of strangers.

But Cespedes didn't care. "The parties," he repeated.

Dris Larbi looked at me again, scratching his beard.

"That was different," he conceded after thinking it over. "Sometimes I organized meetings on the other side of the border…"

Now Cespedes laughed sarcastically. "Those famous parties of yours," he said.

"Yeah, well. You know…" The Rifeno was looking at him as though trying to remember how much Cespedes really knew, and then, uncomfortable, he turned his eyes away again. "People over there…"

"'Over there' is Morocco," Cespedes noted for my information. "He's referring to important people: politicians and police chiefs." He smiled foxily. "My friend Dris always had good contacts."

The Rifefio smiled uneasily as he lit a low-nicotine cigarette. I asked myself how many things about him and his contacts had wound up in Cespedes' secret files. Enough, I figured, for Dris Larbi to grant us the privilege of this conversation.

"She went to these meetings?" I asked.

Larbi made a gesture of uncertainty. "I don't know. She may have been at some. And, well… You should ask her." He appeared to reflect for a while, studying Cespedes out of the corner of his eye, and then at last he nodded unhappily. "The fact is, toward the end she went a couple of times. I didn't want to know, because these particular meetings weren't to make money with the girls-they were another kind of business. I just threw in the girls for free. Compliments of the house, you might say. But I never told Teresa to come… She came because she wanted to. She asked to."

"Why?"

"No idea. Like I told you-you should ask her."

"And she was going out with the Gallego then?" Cespedes asked.

"Yeah."

"They say she did certain things that he needed done," Cespedes prodded.

Dris Larbi looked at him. Looked at me. Looked at him again. Why is he doing this to me? his eyes said. "I don't know what you're talking about, don Manuel."

Cespedes laughed maliciously, arching his eyebrows. He was clearly enjoying this. "Abelkader Chaib," he said. "Colonel. Gendarmerie Royale… That sound familiar?"

"I swear I don't get it."

"Don't get it?… Bullshit, Dris. I told you, this man is a friend of mine."

We walked a few steps in silence while I tried to figure all this out. The Rifefio smoked, silently, as if unhappy about the way he'd told the story.

"While she was with me she didn't get involved in anything," he suddenly said. "And I didn't have anything to do with her, either. I mean I never fucked her." He lifted his chin toward Cespedes, tacitly saying, Ask him.

It was, as I said, public knowledge that Dris never got involved with any of his girls. And he had said that Teresa was good at keeping the books. The other girls respected her. La Mexicana, they called her. La Mexicana this and

La Mexicana that. She clearly was a good-tempered girl, and although she hadn't gone to school much, her accent made her sound educated, with that big imposing vocabulary Latin Americans have, that makes them sound like members of the Royal Academy. Very reserved about her private life. Dris Larbi knew she'd had problems back in Mexico, but he never asked. Why should he? Nor did Teresa talk about Mexico; when somebody brought up the topic, she'd say one or two words, as little as possible, and change the subject. She was serious at work, lived alone, and never allowed customers to be confused about what her role was in the bar. She didn't have any girlfriends, either. She minded her own business.

"Everything was fine for… I don't know… six or eight months. Until the night the two Gallegos turned up." He turned to Cespedes, gesturing at me. "Did he see Veiga?… Well, that one didn't have much luck. But the other one had less."

"Santiago Fisterra," I said.

"Right. And I can still see him: a dark-skinned type, with a big tattoo here." He shook his head disapprovingly. "Something of a troublemaker, like all Gallegos. One of those that you never know what they'll do next… They came and went through the Strait in a Phantom-Senor Cespedes knows what I'm talking about, right?… Winstons from Gibraltar and chocolate from Morocco… Back then they weren't working the smack, although it was right around the corner… So…"

He scratched his beard again and spit straight at the ground, bitterly. "So what happened was, one night those two came into the Yamila, and that's when I began to lose the Mexicana."

wo new customers. Teresa glanced at the clock beside the register. Less than fifteen minutes to closing time. She saw that Ahmed was looking at her questioningly, and without raising her head she nodded once. A quick drink before they turned on the lights and threw everybody out. She went on with her numbers, finished balancing the cash drawer. These two probably wouldn't change the bottom line much. A couple of whiskys, she thought, sizing them up. A little chat with the girls, who were already swallowing their yawns, and maybe a date outside, a while later. Pension Agadir, half a block down the street. Or maybe, if they had a car, a quick trip to the pine groves, alongside the walls of the Tercio headquarters. Anyway, none of her business. Ahmed kept the list of dates in another book.

The two new customers sat at the bar, leaning on their elbows, next to the beer pulls, and Fatima and Sheila, two of the girls that had been talking to Ahmed, went over to sit with them while the waiter poured two putative twelve-year-old Chivases with a lot of ice, no water. The girls ordered splits of champagne, with no objection from the customers. The men at the broken-glasses table were still toasting and laughing, after having paid the tab without so much as blinking. The guy at the end of the bar couldn't quite reach an agreement with his companions; they could be heard arguing softly, through the sound of the music. Now it was Abigail singing for nobody on the deserted dance floor, whose only sign of life was the monotonous spinning of the disco ball. I want to lick your wounds, she was singing. I want to hear your silences. Teresa waited for the last line of the final stanza-she knew all the songs of the Yamila's repertoire by heart-and looked again at the clock beside the register. Another day down. Identical to yesterday's Monday and tomorrow's Wednesday.