“I know him,” he said, trying to fake a degree of offended dignity, “from the Centre for Cultural Heritage. Why?”
“Two reasons. First, because Alexis Arayan was murdered yesterday. Second, because we’ve heard you two were very close.”
The painter tried to stand up, but desisted. It was obvious he had no plan of attack, or perhaps they had really taken him by surprise.
“Was murdered?”
“Last night, in the Havana Woods. Strangled.”
The painter looked into his house, as if fearing some unexpected presence. The Count stood up while Salvador stared and formulated a question, but decided to wait.
“You really want to talk here?” persisted Manolo.
“Yes, of course, why not?… So he was murdered. But where do I come in?”
Manuel Palacios smirked.
“Well, Salvador, this is very delicate, but some people claim your friendship was a touch more than friendship.”
Then he did get up, very offended, his muscular arms tensed.
“What are you implying?”
“What you just heard. Do I need to spell it out? People are saying you and he sustained a homosexual relationship.”
Still on his feet, the painter tried to look disaster in the face: “I will not allow you…”
“That’s fine, don’t allow us, but go into the street and shout it out publicly and see what people say.”
Salvador appeared to contemplate the possibity and reject it. His muscles began to lose momentum and he sank into the lower reaches of his chair.
“They’re jealous. Gossips, slanderers, envious…”
“Of course, you’re right… But the fact is Alexis was killed dressed as a woman,” said Manuel Palacios and, not giving Salvador time, he manoeuvred round a bend in the conversation: “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Yesterday morning at the Centre. I took some paintings to sell. Was he really dressed as a woman?”
“What did you talk about? Try to remember.”
“About the paintings. He wasn’t too keen on them. He was like that, meddling in other people’s business. I expect that’s why someone murdered him.”
“And what can you tell me about the relationship you had with him?”
“That’s pure slander. Just try to get someone to come and say to my face that he saw me…”
“That would be more difficult, you’re right. So you deny it?”
“Of course I do,” he said, and seemed to gain in confidence.
“What’s your blood group, Salvador?”
His confidence evaporated again. The Count looked daggers at Sergeant Palacios. He’d never have asked him that question at that point, but the one buzzing round his head. Manuel Palacios was definitely better.
“I really don’t know,” he said, and he did really seem not to.
“Don’t worry. We can find out in the Policlinic. Which one do you go to?”
“On the corner of Seventeenth and J.”
“And you didn’t see him last night?”
“I told you I didn’t. But what’s my blood group got to do with it?”
“And where were you last night between eight and midnight?”
“Painting in the studio I’ve got on Twenty-First and Eighteenth. Hey, I don’t know anything…”
“Oh… And who saw you there?”
Salvador looked at the floor, as if searching a point of support that continually eluded him. His fear and embarrassment were as prominent as his muscles.
“I don’t know, who might have seen me? I don’t know, I work alone there, but I arrived at around six and worked until around midnight.”
“And nobody saw you. What bad luck!”
“It’s a garage,” he tried to explain. “It’s outside the building and if nobody’s parking nearby…”
“Twenty-First and Eighteenth are very near the Havana Woods, right?”
The man didn’t reply.
“Hey, Salvador,” the Count then intervened. He thought it a good time to move the direction of the dialogue on a little… “What does the K mean?”
“Oh, my surname is Kindelan, that’s why I sign K.”
“Predictable. Something else I’ve been wanting to ask you for some time. I only see reproductions of famous paintings, but no works by you. Don’t you think that strange?”
The painter smiled, at last. He seemed back on firm ground and breathed loudly.
“Have you never heard the anecdote about the friends of Picasso who go to his place to eat and don’t see a single work by him? And one of them asks, intrigued: ‘Maestro, why don’t you have any of your work here?’ And Picasso replies: ‘I can’t afford the luxury. Picassos are too expensive…’ ”
The Count faked a smile, to accompany Salvador’s.
“I get you, I get you, and the other day, did he mention the day of the Transfiguration to you?”
The painter looked down, making it clear he was making an effort to remember. The Count saw that he was deciding what would be the best reply.
“I don’t know, it doesn’t ring a bell. But I do remember he had a Bible on his desk yesterday… And so what?”
“Nothing, police curiosity pure and simple… By the way, Salvador, why do you think Alexis dressed up as a woman last night?”
“How should I know… I told you, it’s just gossip…”
“Of course, there’s no reason why you should know. Well, that’s enough for today,” the Count added, as if tired, and his sergeant was the man most surprised by this denouement. The Count sighed exhaustedly as he stood up, and looked the painter in the eye. “But we’ll be back, Salvador, and get this into your head: try to be straight, for I can see you’ve got a few numbers that might win you the jackpot. Good evening.”
As the painter voiced his final protests, they went into the street and got into their car. Sergeant Manuel Palacios turned the first corner tightly.
“So the Transfiguration… Why did we leave, Conde? Didn’t you see how I’d got him?”
The Count lit a cigarette and lowered the window.
“Softly, softly,” he urged his sergeant, and added, “What did you expect, that the man would say yes, he’s a bugger who took advantage of the other guy to sell his work and that last night he killed him because Alexis said his paintings were a load of shit? Don’t fuck around, Manolo, you extracted what there was to extract and he had nothing else… Let them check his blood group and investigate him at the Centre and in the studio he’s got on Twenty-First and Eighteenth, and see if anyone saw him last night. Tell Headquarters to give you a couple of guys, better still if they’re Crespo and El Greco, and let me stay at home, for I’ve got a book I have to read. You get an early night, tomorrow we’ll go and see Faustino Arayan and ten other people… I’ll tell you this: you’re a much better policeman than I am… Pity you’re so skinny and sometimes go squint-eyed.”
The Count realized that while reading he couldn’t get out of his mind the image of the mask behind which Alexis Arayan hid, the closest he’d ever come to a transvestite. And that he was searching not only for explanations to a mystery, but to something definite: his desire to return to talk to Alberto Marques. Each paragraph in his book became a weapon for a possible verbal duel with the Marquess, an idea with which to scale his heights and level the dialogue. It gave him a knowledge of the subject that would let him close in on that sordid business which had finally begun to attract him the way he preferred: as a challenge to his apathy and prejudice. Mario Conde the policeman was a bad case of idees fixes and the pursuit, in each case, of his own obsessions. And the story of that dead transvestite (perhaps symbolically transfigured into ephemeral significance) contained all the ingredients to fascinate him and lead him to its resolution. Consequently Alexis Arayan’s fake female face appeared at every moment as a graphic complement to the treatise on metamorphosis and bodily self-creation penned by Muscles,
