Tattoo by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán Read Free Book Online

him out.’
    ‘I’ll come looking for you!’ growled the pimp, angrily but in a weak, shaky voice.
    ‘You’ll need to get your eyes back first,’ said Carvalho drily as he left. Charo was waiting for him in the doorway. They said nothing as they went down in the lift, or when they were out in the street. Carvalho seemed lost in thought. When they reached the centre of the Rambla, Charo hung on his arm.
    ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘Would you like me to come to your house? Are you going to be abroad long?’
    Carvalho shrugged. They walked on until they came to the bar she had mentioned.
    ‘I ask the questions. You keep quiet,’ he warned her.
    The raids had at least added some brightness to almost all the bars in Raval. As if by magic, the red and green lights had disappeared, and new hundred-watt bulbs made everywhere as garish as shopfronts. In the harsh white light, everything looked unfamiliar. Carvalho and Charo sat on a couple of high swivel stools up at the bar. Despite Pepe’s encouragement, the barman kept his mouth tight shut. He knew nothing about the raids. Or what was behind them. But Pepe only had to glance despairingly at Charo, and she closed her eyes, leaned across the bar towards the barman, and whispered to him:
    ‘Look, I’m worried about a girlfriend of mine. I don’t know if they’ve picked her up or not. I’m talking about Frenchy.’
    In Charo’s body and voice, the barman heard the call of his tribe. Until then he had thought she was just Carvalho’ssidekick. He knew his stuff, and almost without turning his head, made sure that nobody else was going to hear what he was about to say.
    ‘Frenchy doesn’t work round here any more. She went up to the Sarriá highway about six months ago. The cops have been up there too, but not as much.’
    Carvalho left him a tip. The barman winked his thanks. When they were out in the street, a proud Charo hung on his arm again and gave her verdict on all that had happened to them that evening:
    ‘See? All you need is to be a bit friendly, and you get what you want.’
    Carvalho nearly burst out laughing. Charo saw him, and sneaked into what she thought was a crack in the Pepe monolith.
    ‘That’s right, laugh! Laugh if you want to, I’m not going to charge you!’
    Carvalho paid her no attention. He was considering the situation. One trail led to Holland, a specific job, a specific place. Another led to a woman on the game who had probably put away all her creams and pillows until the storm had passed.
    ‘Charo, I’m off to Holland. Look for this Frenchy for me while I’m gone, will you? Be calm and patient about it, and make sure you take no risks.’
    By now Charo was giving him short pecks on his shoulder-pad. Carvalho could feel her kisses penetrating this layer of protection and exploding all over his skin.

 
    T he plane landed at Nice for a stopover. Carvalho feasted his eyes on the spectacle of the mountains above the Côte d’Azur. Kilometre after kilometre of hills with villas nestling among well-tended vegetation. Carvalho compared this rational speculation of tiny paradises with the unbridled destruction of the Spanish coastline. His mind began to fill with the old logic that sought links between cause and effect, between good and evil. But as soon as this logic became demanding and insistent, an alarm bell went off in his head, and he dismissed all the arguments. He wanted nothing more to do with any analysis of the world he lived in. He had long since decided he was on the journey between childhood and old age of a personal, non-transferable destiny, of a life that nobody else could live for him, no more, no less, no better, no worse. Everybody else could go get stuffed. He had deliberately restricted his capacity for abstract emotion to what he could get from the landscape around him. All his other emotions were immediate, skin deep.
    Ten new passengers boarded the plane at Nice, and the blue-uniformed stewardesses of the