Once Departed

peseta in a bar for a copa of wine, and the nibble of tapa that came with it, in his case, a bit of cheese on a bit of bread. The despair of knowing it to be the last. The despair of clothes that could no longer be kept neat, and hence an advertisement of his worthiness to be employed. The despair of knowing that this night there was to be no bed, no alternative to roaming the streets, other than a hiding place, away from the Guardia Civil, in some dark doorway.

And then the stranger. The well dressed stranger. The foreigner who still spoke such excellent Castilian. The generous patron. And the food! And the drink!

And then, somewhere, where? the falling away into bottomless sleep.

And now this. The languor. The weakness of body and will, even as he returned to reality. To the consciousness that he lay stretched on some hard, though not uncomfortable, surface. In a darkened room. In a room so lit through the flickering of sun through slatted windows that it could scarce be made out.

He seemed to be coming from a sleep that had lasted eons but left him limp and resistless. Weak and not caring. Doubtful of the necessity for tomorrow. Doubtful of all necessity.

And then from the far distances across the room there was a new gleaming, a new reflection, pin points of gleam flickering but occasionally, but nearing, nearing…

… nearing, nearing. Two pin points of gleam, reflecting the sun through the shutters, depending on their gleam for the sun through the slats of the shutters. Nearing, nearing, now descending toward. Toward where ?

Deep, deep, impossibly, uselessly deep within his feeble consciousness came up the cry of terror. The cry to resist, to survive, to live, to live, to live. Nothing could matter but life. To live, to live. But so faint, so far.

Barely he could feel the prick of the dual points of gleam upon his throat. No pain. Only the knowledge of penetration of his life.

And then the feel of drain. Of slow gentle drain of the juice of existence. The red warm juice of existence.

Away, away. And far away the realization that there was no more poverty to be. No more a last desperate peseta. No more the employment that would never come. No more the nights without the warmness of bed. No more. For the warm juice of life was draining away…

… away, away…

Quentin Jones parked his Renault 4L on Calle de Alcala, one block up from the Plaza de la Cibeles, and hoofed it from there in the direction of the Puerta del Sol. It was pushing two o’clock and the streets were pedestrian packed as streets can be packed only in a modern city where the institution of the automobile is unknown to nine persons out of ten. In a matter of minutes the stores were going to close, and the present bustle would melt astonishingly, and remain melted until the siesta period ended and business resumed, somewhere between four and five o’clock—all according to how the individual businessman was reacting to the government’s attempt to cut short the three or four hour lunch period.

He cut across Alcala and up the side street Calle Marques de Cubas for one block, turned right for another block to emerge on Calle Jovellanos. The Edelweiss was up at the end of the street. Inwardly, Quint shrugged. The man had been in Madrid for only a couple of weeks, no more. And here he was eating in a German restaurant two meals out of three.

Quint had a sneaking suspicion that if the other were to move to Germany for a time, he’d seek out a Spanish type establishment for his meals. Maybe it was travel snobbery, he decided wryly, but Quentin Jones ate Italian food in Italy, French in France, Spanish in Spain. And in the States, steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs and other American specialties, which if ordered abroad meant disaster. He had never had an edible hamburger outside the borders of the United States and had long since given up the project.

The Edelweiss even managed a Teutonic air. A breath of Germany exported to Castile. There was a heavy richness in the decor; a feeling that the businessmen bellied up to the bar, drinking their dark dunkles beer, averaged a good twenty or thirty pounds more than would the clients of a more typical Madrid establishment; an absence of the ever present odor of olive oil without which a Spanish restaurant is just not Spanish.

Quentin Jones let his eyes drift around the room, as though looking for a table. Tables were scarce this time of day.

Somebody waved to him, “Hey, Quint.”

He waved back. Twisted his mouth as though in consideration, then made his way through the tables to the other, who had one all to himself.

Quint said, “Hi, Bart. Mind if I join you? Privacy, you might prefer, but if I know the Edelweiss, in about yea many minutes the waiter is going to unload a couple of tourists on you. Tables are shared here.”

Bart Digby had half come to his feet. “Sure, sure,” he said. “Have a seat. Glad to have somebody to talk to.” He grinned his boyish grin. “Wow, was that a party last night. You wouldn’t happen to know a guy named Dave Shepherd, would you? Well, there was this girl Joanne something-or-other, and she went looking for the bathroom and opened the wrong door and…”

Quint grimaced. “I heard about it,” he said. “By this time, evidently all Madrid has heard about it.”

“Oh,” Digby said.

The waiter came around. Digby was already into his liver dumpling soup, but Quint ordered Hose im Topf, a rabbit pate that was good in the German restaurant, and Weisswurst, a white sausage made of veal, calves’ brains and spleen which he considered the best single dish ever dreamed up by the herrenvolk. To wash it down he asked for a half bottle of Niersteiner.

There was a watchful something in Digby’s manner. Knowing the man’s background, Quint Jones wondered how he could have ever been taken in by the other’s camouflage as a more average than average young American businessman on the make. Crew cut and overly aggressive voice to the contrary, Bart Digby had obviously, now that Quint really looked at him, got more of his education from Hard Knocks University than he had from such as Harvard Business School.

Quint said idly, “I suppose you heard the other news too. About your friend.”

Digby looked at him for a long moment. “I’d heard about it,” he said evenly, “but I’m surprised that you have.”

“Newspaper folk have special sources,” Quint said. The wine had arrived, and he watched as the cork was pulled and a small amount poured for his approval. He sipped it and nodded, and the waiter half filled the wineglass.

Quint looked up at his companion. “But, so have folk connected with the U.S. Embassy. So I suppose that’s how you found out about Brett-Home’s being killed. The police are evidently trying to hush the whole thing up. Bad for the tourist trade.”

Digby said, “I have no connections with the American Embassy. Not any longer.”

Quint said nothing, very politely.

Bart Digby scowled at him, but dropped the point. He said, “What’s your interest?”

But the waiter was approaching with Quint’s food, and for the moment, both of them held silence.

When he had gone, Quint shrugged. “You know the business I’m in. I get paid for being curious about things and then commenting on them if they’re interesting enough.” He took a bite of his sausage. “This has all the earmarks of being very interesting indeed.”

Bart Digby thought about it for awhile. “I wouldn’t rush into print on this thing, Quint.”

“So who’s rushing? All morning my work’s been interrupted by characters digging into my relationship with Brett-Home.”

“Oh?” The other’s eyes narrowed again. “Just what was your relationship? You told me last night you knew him.”

“I knew him vaguely. Which brings to mind, what was your own relationship?”

Digby pursed his lips. His answer came too pat. “We ran into each other once, in a while on various assignments when I was still with the C.I.A. So when I got here to Madrid and ran into him, we got together to have a few drinks. That sort of thing.”