The Silent and the Damned by Robert Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

untrimmed, he looked beyond retirement age. Life had been kinder to Madeleine Krugman who was thirty-eight and looked no different from her passport photo taken when she was thirty-one. They could have been father and daughter, and many people would have preferred it that way.
    Marty Krugman was tall and rangy, some might say skinny, with a prominent nose which, face on, was blade thin. His eyes were set close together, well back in his head and operated under eyebrows which his wife had given up trying to contain. He did not look like a man who slept much. He drank cup after cup of thick espresso coffee poured from a chrome coffee- maker. Marty was not dressed for the office. His shirt was nearly cheesecloth with a blue stripe, which he wore like a smock outside his faded blue jeans. He had Outward Bound sandals on his feet and sat with an ankle resting on his knee and his hands clinging on to his shin as if he was pulling on an oar. He spoke perfect Spanish with a Mexican inflexion.
    'Spent my youth in California,' he said. 'Berkeley, doing Engineering. Then I took some years out in New Mexico painting in Taos and taking trips down to Central and South America. My Spanish is a mess.'
    'Was that in the late sixties?' asked Falcón.
    'And seventies. I was a hippy until I discovered architecture.'
    'Did you know Sr Vega before you came here?'
    'No. We met him through the estate agent who rented the house to us.'
    'Did you have any work?'
    'Not at that stage. We were playing it fast and easy. It was lucky that we met Rafael in the first few weeks. We got talking, he'd heard of some of my New York stuff and he offered me some project work.'
    'It was
very
lucky,' said Madeleine, as if she might have flown the coop if it hadn't worked out.
    'So you came here on a whim?'
    Maddy had changed out of the white linen trousers into a knee-length skirt which flared out over her cream leather chair. She crossed and uncrossed her very white legs several times a minute and Falcón, who was sitting directly opposite her, annoyed himself by looking every time. Her breasts trembled under her blue silk top with every movement. Hormonal sound waves seemed to pulse out into the room as her blue blood ticked under her white skin. Marty was impervious to it all. He didn't look at her or react to anything she said. When she spoke his gaze remained fixed on Falcón, who was having trouble finding a resting place for his own eyes with the whole room now an erogenous zone.
    'My mother died and I inherited some money,' said Maddy. 'We thought we'd take a break and be in Europe for a while… visit our old honeymoon haunts: Paris, Florence, Prague. But we went to Provence and then Marty had to see Barcelona… get his Gaudi fix, and one thing led to another. We found ourselves here. Seville gets into your blood. Are you a Sevillano, Inspector Jefe?'
    'Not quite,' he said. 'When did all this happen?'
    'March last year.'
    'Were you taking a break from anything in particular?'
    'Just boredom,' said Marty.
    'Your mother's death, Sra Krugman… was that sudden?'
    'She was diagnosed with cancer and died within ten weeks.'
    'I'm sorry,' said Falcón. 'What was boring you in America, Sr Krugman?'
    'You can call us Maddy and Marty if you like,' she said. 'We prefer to be relaxed.'
    Her perfect white teeth appeared behind her chilli- red lips in a two centimetre smile and were gone. She spread her fingers out on the leather arms of the chair and switched her legs over again.
    'My job,' said Marty. 'I was bored with the work I was doing.'
    'No you weren't,' she said, and their eyes met for the first time.
    'She's right,' said Marty, his head slowly coming back to Falcón. 'Why would I be working here if I was bored with my job? I was bored with being in America. I just didn't think you'd be interested in that. It's not a detail that's going to help you find out what happened to the Vegas.'
    'I'm interested in everything,' said Falcón. 'Most murder has a