He smoked and tried to count the lights on the chandelier. He knew he’d killed another dream but must accept the consequences. Inaccessible Tamara, the more beautiful of the twins, now slept the sleep of a carefree lover, and her round heavy buttocks brushed against the Count’s hips. I don’t want to think, he told himself, I can’t spend my life thinking, when the telephone rang, and she gave a start on the bed.
She clumsily tried to slip into her long pullover and finally made it to the passage where the telephone was still ringing. She came back to the bedroom: “Hurry. It’s for you.” She seemed confused and anxious.
He wrapped a towel round his midriff and went out. Tamara followed him to the door and watched him talk.
“Yes, who is it?” he asked, then listened for more than a minute before adding: “Send a car and I’ll come straightaway.”
He hung up and glanced at her. Went over to her, wanted to kiss her but first had to tussle with her wayward lock.
“No, Rafael hasn’t turned up,” he said, and they started on a long peaceful kiss, tongues gleefully intertwining, saliva mingling, lips beginning to hurt. It was their best kiss, and he said: “I’ve got to go to headquarters. They’ve found Zoila. I’ll call you if anything involving Rafael crops up.”
Zoila Amaran Izquierdo watched them enter the cubicle. Her eyes hovered between indifference and suspicion, while Mario Conde savoured her lusty femininity. The young woman’s skin wore a healthy animal sheen; and her mouth, her face’s most striking feature, was fleshy, shamelessly attractive. She was a self-confident twenty-three- year-old: the Count anticipated it wouldn’t be easy. That girl was streetwise and then some: she’d been hardened through contact with all kinds, and one of her sources of pride was that she could say I don’t owe anybody anything, and I’ve a fine set of what it takes, as she must have been called on to demonstrate more than once. She liked the good life and wasn’t worried about flirting with the illegal to get it, because, apart from having what it takes, she had a sharp enough brain to avoid crossing boundaries that were too dangerous. No, it wouldn’t be easy, he warned himself after taking one look and concluding she was one of those women who are so beautiful you felt like kissing the ground they walked.
“This is Zoila Amaran Izquierdo, Comrade Lieutenant,” said Manolo, and he walked over to the woman who stayed seated in the middle of the cubicle. “Our colleague spotted her returning home in a taxi and asked her to come to headquarters for questioning.”
“We only want to ask you a few things, Zoila. You’re not under arrest, and we want you to help us, OK?” explained the Count as he headed towards the door, seeking out an angle from which she’d have to twist round to see him.
“Why?” she asked keeping still, and her voice was equally beautiful, clear and resonant.
The Count signalled to Manolo to start.
“Where were you on the thirty-first?”
“Do I have to answer that?”
“I’d like you to, but it’s not compulsory. Where were you, Zoila?”
“Round and about, with a friend. This is a free sovereign country, they tell me?”
“Where?”
“Oh, in Cienfuegos, a house belonging to a friend of his.”
“And the name of those friends?”
“What’s this all about, for heaven’s sake?”
“Please, Zoila, name names. The quicker we get this over with, the quicker you leave.”
“Norberto Codina and Ambrosio Fornes, I think, all right? Can I go now?”
“That’s fine, but there’s still… Wasn’t there another friend by the name of Rafael, Rafael Morin?”
“I’ve already been asked that, and I said I don’t know who he is. Why should I?”
“Isn’t he a friend of yours?”
“I don’t know him.”
“Where does your Cienfuegos friend live?”
“Around the corner from the theatre, I don’t know the name of the street.”
“Are you sure you don’t remember Rafael Morin?”
“Hey, what
“All right, just as you like. You clam up, but we can keep you shut up here, awaiting investigation, on suspicion of kidnapping and murder and…”
“What
“It’s an investigation, Zoila, you know? What’s the name of the friend who went to Cienfuegos with you?”
“Norberto Codina, I told you.”
“Where does he live?”
“On Linea and N.”
“Does he have a phone?”
“Yes.”
“What number?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Ring to find out if it’s true you were with him.”
“Hey, the guy’s married.”
“Give me his number, we’re the souls of discretion.”
“Please, comrades. It’s 325307.”
“Give him a call, Lieutenant.”
The Count went over to the phone on the filing cabinet and asked for a line.
“Look at this photo, Zoila,” Manolo continued and handed her a copy of the Rafael Morin photo they were circulating.
“Yes, well, what has happened…?” she asked, trying to catch the Count’s whispered exchanges with Manolo.
“Don’t you recognize him?”
“Yes, I went out with him a few times. Some three months ago.”
“And you don’t know his name?”
“Rene.”
“Rene?”
“Rene Maciques, why?”
The Count hung up and walked over to his desk.
“Zoila, are you sure that’s his name?” the lieutenant asked, and the girl looked at him with the slightest hint of a smile.
“Yes, I am entirely sure.”
“She was with Norberto Codina,” stated the Count before returning to the door.
“You see. I told you so.”
“Where did you meet Rene?”
Zoila Amaran Izquierdo signalled her total incomprehension. It was clear she understood nothing but was scared of something, and now she really did smile.
“In the street, he picked me up.”
“And why did he call you on the thirty-first, if not the first?”
“Who? Rene?”
“Rene Maciques?”
“I don’t know, I’d not seen him for ages.”
“For how long?”
“I’m not sure, October time?”
“What did you know about him?”
“Well, very little, that he was married, that he travelled abroad and when we stayed in hotels he always booked the rooms.”
