Javier Marias - Your Face Tomorrow 3 - Poison, Shadow and Farewell

And so I stationed myself exactly where I had waited two days before, at the top of the short double flight of steps leading up to the monstrous cathedral, behind the papal statue that seemed always about to join the dance, and once there I paced back and forth between that point and a point nearby, behind the railings and to the left of that shop incomprehensibly selling souvenirs of the monstrosity; it was only a few steps between those two points and from both I could see the four corners formed by Calle Mayor and Calle de Bailen, as well as the ornate wooden door that was immediately opposite the shop, albeit lower down, and so whichever direction he came from I would be sure to see Custardoy arrive, although I was convinced he would take the same route as when I had followed him, if, that is, he had gone back to the Prado, though it was quite possible that he hadn't yet finished his note-taking or his sketches of the four faces painted by Parmigianino, each of them looking in a different direction, or that, on another occasion, he would have to study the portrait of the husband and father, in which the Count stands alone and isolated, like me, or that he would have to study other paintings for some other commission or project. And if he hadn't gone out that morning, it was likely that, just before lunch, he would stroll over to El Anciano Rey de los Vinos to enjoy his usual couple of beers and some patatas bravas (it was hardly surprising that, despite being thin, he had a bit of a belly on him), so I would be able to observe him there too if he went and took his usual seat. I would, at any rate, see him enter or leave his house, whenever he did that, and I would have time to go down the steps, cross the road-there wasn't much traffic along that stretch-and meet him at the front door as he was opening it. At first, I was surprised to see that, for the first time, the door stood open, and I deduced that there must be a doorman, but that could present me with a problem, a witness. However, after a few minutes, I saw the man come out and shut the door (he obviously lunched early) and this reassured me, because the seconds it would take Custardoy to put his key in and turn it and push or pull the door open and then give it a shove from inside or a tug from outside could prove vital, my idea being that he would complete neither action. I was trusting that he would not arrive or leave with anyone else, certainly not with Luisa. 'You'll never see her again,' I thought, 'unless she happens to be with you today,' it's odd how we address our thoughts to anyone we have it in for or whom we're preparing to harm in some way, addressing them familiarly as 'tu', as if what we were about to do to them were incompatible with any form of respect or as if any show of respect would, in view of our plans for them, seem utterly cynical.

I waited and waited and waited. I paced from one side to the other and back again, between steps and railings, looking down on each of the four corners and the eight stretches of sidewalk, Custardoy might come from the direction of the viaduct or pass beneath my eyes, staying close to the Cathedral or to the wall, or he might come from the direction of the Istituto Italiano or walk up Cuesta de la Vega from the Parque de Atenas; I kept a tight grip on the pistol hidden in my pocket and sometimes felt overwhelmed by nerves, I had a clear view of the whole scene, but there were too many fronts to keep watch over simultaneously and I constantly had to change my vantage point, I noticed that a few devotees were starting to eye me with interest-they didn't look Spanish, they were perhaps Lithuanians or possibly Poles, like their former boss-and, even worse, they were starting to copy me in my pacing back and forth as if they feared they might be missing out if they didn't do the same-people's tendency to imitate others' behavior is becoming an international plague-I felt slightly beleaguered and longed to be able to leave. And that was when I saw him in the distance, the unmistakable figure of Custardoy walking along Calle Mayor, on the same side as the Capitania General and the Consejo de Estado, that is, on the same side as his apartment or workshop or studio. I stayed where I was, I didn't move, I waited until he had reached the traffic light, just in case he crossed over to take his usual seat outside the bar, but it was a cloudy day and not really warm enough for that. He was wearing a raincoat too, a good quality one, black and very long, almost like a dustcoat, and that, together with the hat he had chosen to wear that day, a kind of Stetson, but broader brimmed and cream or white in color like the hat Tom Mix used to wear in those ancient silent movies (the man really was a fool), gave him the appearance of a character out of the Wild West; he and his friend, the female Daniel Boone or Jim Bowie, would have made a fine pair. Fortunately, though, he was alone, striding along, the tails of his coat, and doubtless his ponytail too, beating the air (he was still a follower of fashion even at his age, with enough energy to try and keep up), walking as resolutely as I had done a short while before, but then I'd had a pistol in my pocket. 'He won't be easy to bring to heel,' I thought, 'he won't be easy to intimidate or even kill. Besides, he has the kind of strength that comes from pure energy and impatience and a desire to be many, this man accustomed to spending hours alone with his brushes, focused and still, concentrating on tiny details and staring at one canvas in order to make an exact copy of it on another canvas, and when he stops and finally gets up and opens the door and goes out into the street, he'll be filled by a vast amount of accumulated tension and be ready to explode. No, he won't be the kind to beg, he'll put up a fight, he isn't timid or easily scared, so one thing is sure, I have to instill him with fear, more fear than he might try to instill in me, he's not going to freeze and draw in his neck and close his eyes as De la Garza did, nor am I Tupra, who seems to instill fear whenever he wants to, quite naturally, nor am I the two Kray brothers Tupra told me about and who taught him the value of the sword, and to whom a cellmate had, according to Reresby, given a very condensed lesson in how to get what you want: "Now these people, they don't like getting hurt. Not them or their property. Now these people out there who don't like to be hurt, pay other people not to hurt them. You know what I'm saying. Course you do. When you get out, you keep your eyes open. Watch out for the people who don't want to be hurt. Because you scare the shit out of me, boys. Wonderful," that's what Tupra had said,' I thought and remembered, 'in a fake accent which was perhaps his real accent, as he sat to the right of me in his swift silent car, in the lunar light of the streetlamps, with his hands still resting on the motionless steering wheel, squeezing or strangling it, he wasn't wearing gloves by then, but I've been wearing mine since I left the hotel and won't take them off until I return, having removed Custardoy from the picture, having done the deed.' 'That's the thing, Jack. Fear,' Tupra had added before urging me to go to his house to watch those videos that weren't just for anyone's eyes, and, after showing them to me, had asked again: 'Tell me now, why, according to you, one can't go around beating people up and killing them? You've seen how much of it goes on, everywhere, and sometimes with an utter lack of concern. So explain to me why one can't.' And it had taken me a long time to give him an answer, one that turned out to be no answer at all.

I hurried down the steps and very nearly collided with or, rather, almost flattened a devotee, Custardoy wasn't going to the bar, but to his studio, he had kept straight on and stopped at the traffic light on Calle de Bailen, and I knew that when the light turned green, it was only forty-nine steps from there to the door of his house, which was where we had to meet, not before he arrived and definitely not after, because afterwards the door would be closed again, with him inside and me outside. I decided to cross the road, taking advantage of the fact that the stoplight was in my favor; now we were on the same side of the street, I saw him set off when the cars stopped, one, two, three, four, five, I lurked for a few seconds behind a tree, not a very wide tree, hoping that he wouldn't see me before putting his key in the door, a matter of only a few moments, it would be best if he didn't notice me while he was putting the key in the door either, it would be best if I remained behind him for as long as possible and for him to feel as frightened as possible because he wouldn't know who it was threatening him, because he wouldn't be able to see his assailant's face, my face, and would wonder whether this was going to be a quick doorstep mugging or a slow ransacking of his whole apartment or a swift and then eternal kidnapping Mexican-style, or whether I was alone or there were several of us, whether we were white, copper-colored or black (although our blacks don't go in much for mugging), or an unexpected settling of accounts, a tardy act of revenge on behalf of someone he didn't even recall, which, in a way, was the case with me, he probably didn't even remember that Luisa had, or once had, a husband, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight and forty-nine, and just as he put the key in the lock and the door opened, I stuck the pistol in his back without taking it out of my pocket (that way he wouldn't know if it was cocked or not, even if he spun round, which he wouldn't, not that it was cocked of course, and my finger was resting on the guard, I was very careful about that), but pressing the barrel of the gun hard against his spine, so that he would haven't any doubt that it was a gun and would feel it.