Barcelona Shadows by Marc Pastor Read Free Book Online Page A

screams, and a second man comes in with a young bloke, both in rigorous black, like someone heading to a funeral. While the little guy beats Mr Dalmau on the floor, the second man asks his wife, in terrible Spanish, to give him everything, I mean everything, that she can grab. And even though what she can grab is none other than the lad, who keeps manhandling her while ignoring her screams and moans and begging, the poor woman leads them to the back of the store. It was in that moment that Moisès Corvo came in, sweaty, panting, and threw himself on the Apache with the bigbowler hat, who wasn’t hard for him to pin down given their size difference. One, two, three punches, and when he started bleeding from the mouth it was time to rein himself in, there had to be enough to go around. Trusting, he didn’t realize that two other Apaches were coming out from inside the store, and when they saw their partner laid out, with a big ole bloke on top of him, pulled out two revolvers and started shooting. Only one of the bullets hit Moisès Corvo’s body, in his neck, grazing his carotid, enough to splatter everything with blood, including the Apache with the oversized bowler, and leave him unconscious. I was about to take him, but Moisès Corvo’s soul clung to life. I went with him to the Hospital Clínic where he awoke a few hours later, anaemic, weak and hung-over. Sometimes there are people I go to collect who resist and get away from me. It doesn’t happen very often, but when I find one, I feel drawn to them. I follow them and savour the taste of their survival. Moisès Corvo woke up awfully close to the autopsy room. Those few metres of distance between a cold bed and a warm one are like kilometres, but they can be covered in the blink of an eye.
    And that’s why, on the roof now, watching the people come in and out through the Santa Madrona gate, while Blackmouth talks and talks and says that Negroes have a special smell, like sulphur because the devil breakfasts on sulphur and biscuits, now, Moisès Corvo feels a stab in his neck and remembers me vaguely, and the last thing he wants to do is splatter any damn foreign thief with his blood. If any of the Negroes went out that dawn, they’ll go in there and pull them out of bed, out of their coffin or wherever the hell they sleep. If they sleep at all.
    Corvo and Malsano wouldn’t have continued investigating One Eye’s death if he hadn’t been drained of all his blood. Deaths likethat happen every night, and Corvo has enough experience to determine which ones are worth the bother and which ones aren’t. During the day it’s the gangsters who are the copper’s favourite customers, but at night the knives, razors and pillow smotherings multiply, oblivion in kilos of piled-up shit, and bodies floating in the port. I killed him because I love him, I can’t take it any more and I’m going to hang myself, give me back my money ya bastard, you won’t live to see the dawn. I guess that’s why I like Corvo: we know each other so well, when we look into each other’s eyes I know he understands me. He respects me, but he doesn’t take me too seriously, and that makes me feel at home, because I’m not always welcome everywhere, and I usually keep my distance.
    The arrest, in the end, is quicker than anyone expected, and it’s all wrapped up in the blink of an eye. Literally, because Blackmouth was already sleeping when Malsano pinched him to confirm whether the guy who’d come out to piss on the street, who?, that Negro, imbecile, was one of One Eye’s murderers. Yes, yes, he lies, and then it’s all a chase and a pipe in the hand, stop police, the Negro is still, ironically pale, a punch to the temples and we’ve got him on the ground. Searching through his colourful clothes, Malsano grabs the keys to his flat, Corvo cuffs him and both are up. Key, lock, door, kick and two more men to the ground, with their heads amid hens clucking in fear. The policemen find