The Club Dumas

“There might be.”

Borja was silent again. Corso counted five seconds by his watch.

“I’ll leave it in your hands.”

They didn’t say much else after that. Corso didn’t mention his conversation with Pinto, and Borja didn’t inquire into how Corso was going to solve the “problem,” as he had euphemis­tically put it. He only asked if Corso needed more money, and Corso said no. They agreed to talk again when Corso reached Paris.

Corso then dialed La Ponte’s number, but there was no an­swer. The blue pages of the Dumas manuscript were still in their folder. He gathered his notes and the black leather-bound book with the pentacle on the cover. He put them back in his canvas bag and slipped it under the bed, tying the strap to one of the legs. That way, if anybody got into the room and tried to take it, he’d have to wake Corso however soundly he was sleeping. Rather an awkward piece of luggage to carry around, he thought as he went to the bathroom to turn on the shower. And, for some reason, dangerous too.

He brushed his teeth. Then he undressed and dropped his clothes on the floor. The mirror was almost completely steamed over, but he could see his reflection, thin and hard like an emaciated wolf. Once again he felt a burst of anxiety from the distant past, swamping his mind in a painful wave. Like a string vibrating in his flesh and his memory. Nikon. He remembered her every time he undid his belt. She’d always insisted on un- . doing it for him, as if it was a ritual. He shut his eyes and saw her sitting on the edge of the bed in front of him, slipping his trousers and then his underpants down very slowly, savoring the moment with a conspiratorial, tender smile. Relax, Lucas Corso. Once she’d taken a photo of him secretly, while he was sleeping. He was facedown with a vertical crease on his brow and his cheek darkened by stubble. It made his face look thin­ner and emphasized the tense, bitter lines at the corners of his half-open mouth. He looked like an exhausted wolf, suspicious and tormented in the deserted snow plain of the pillow. He didn’t like the photograph. He’d found it by chance, in the fix­ing tray in the bathroom that Nikon used as a darkroom. He’d torn it and the negative into little pieces. She’d never men­tioned it.

When he stepped into the shower, the hot water scalded him. He let it run over his face, burning his eyelids. He put up with the pain, his jaw clenched and his muscles taut, sup­pressing the urge to howl with loneliness in the suffocating steam. For four years, one month, and twelve days, Nikon al­ways got into the shower with him after they made love and soaped his back slowly, interminably. And often she put her arms around him, like a little girl in the rain. One day I’ll leave without ever really knowing you. You’ll remember my big, dark eyes. The reproachful silences. The moans of anxiety as I slept. The nightmares you couldn’t save me from. You’ll remember all this when I’m gone.

He rested his head against the dripping white tiles, in a steaming desert that seemed a kind of hell. Nobody had ever soaped his back before or since Nikon. Nobody. Ever.

After his shower he got into bed with the Memoirs of Saint Helena but managed to read only a couple of lines:

Returning to the subject of war, the Emperor continued: “The Spaniards en masse acted as a man of honor.”

He frowned at Napoleon’s praise, two centuries old. He remem­bered words he’d heard as a child, perhaps from one of his grandparents, or his father. “There’s one thing we Spaniards do better than anyone else: appear in Goya’s pictures.” Men of honor, Bonaparte had said. Corso thought of Borja and his checkbook. Of La Ponte and widows’ libraries plundered for a pittance. Of Nikon’s ghost wandering in a lonely, white desert. Of himself, a hunter who worked for the highest bidder. These were different times.

He was still smiling, desperate and bitter, when he fell asleep.

when HE woke, the first thing he saw was the gray light of dawn through the window. Too early. Confused, he tried to find his watch on the bedside table when he realized that the phone was ringing. He dropped the receiver twice before managing to lodge it between his ear and the pillow. “Hello?”

“This is your friend from last night. Remember? Irene Adler. I’m in the lobby. We have to talk. Now.” “What the hell...”

But she’d hung up. Cursing, Corso searched for his glasses. He threw back the sheets and pulled on his trousers, groggy and disconcerted. With sudden panic, he looked under the bed. The bag was still there, intact. He made an effort to focus on the things around him. Everything in the room was in order. It was outside that things were happening. He just had time to go to the bathroom and splash water on his face before she knocked at the door.

“Do you know what time it is?”

The girl was standing there in her blue duffel coat and with her rucksack on her back. Her eyes were even greener than Corso remembered.

“It’s half past six in the morning,” she said quietly. “And you have to get dressed right now.” “Have you gone crazy?”

“No.” She came into the room without being asked and looked around critically. “We don’t have much time.” “We?”

“You and I. Things have got rather complicated.” Corso snorted, angry. “It’s too early for jokes.” “Don’t be stupid.” She wrinkled her nose with a grave ex­pression. Despite her youth and boyishness, she looked differ­ent, older, and more self-assured. “I’m serious.”

She put her rucksack on the unmade bed. Corso gave it back to her and showed her the door. “Go to hell,” he said.

She didn’t move, just looked at him intently. “Listen.” Her light eyes were very near, like liquid ice, so luminous against her tanned skin. “Do you know who Victor Fargas is?”

Corso caught sight of his own face in the mirror above the chest of drawers, beyond the girl’s shoulder. He was open-mouthed, like an idiot. “Of course I do.”

It had taken him several seconds to answer, and he was still blinking, confused. She waited, not entirely satisfied with his response to her words. It was obvious that her mind was on other things,

“He’s dead,” she said.

She said it neutrally, as if she’d just told him that Fargas had coffee for breakfast or went to the dentist. Corso took a deep breath, trying to take in what she’d just said. “That’s not possible. I was with him last night. He was fine.” “Well, he’s not now. He’s not fine at all.” “How do you know?” “I just do.”

Corso shook his head, suspicious, and went to get a cigarette. En route he saw the flask of Bols, so he took a swig. The gin hitting his empty stomach made him shudder. He waited, forc­ing himself not to look at the girl until he’d inhaled his first puff of smoke. He wasn’t at all happy with the part he was being forced to play this morning. He needed time to think. “The cafe in Madrid, the train, last night, and now this morning here in Sintra...” He counted on the fingers of his left hand, his cigarette in his mouth, his eyes half closed be­cause of the smoke. “That’s a lot of coincidences, don’t you think?”

She  shook  her  head  impatiently.   “I  thought  you  were smarter than that. Who said anything about coincidences?”

“Why are you following me?”

“I like you.”

Corso didn’t feel like laughing. He twisted his mouth. “That’s ridiculous.”

She looked at him for a time, thoughtfully.

“I suppose it is,” she said at last. “You don’t exactly look breathtaking, always in that old coat and those glasses.”

“What is it, then?”

“Find another answer. Anything would do. But now get dressed, will you? We have to go to Fargas’s house.”

“We?”

“You and I. Before the police get there.”

the DEAD leaves crackled beneath their feet as they pushed the iron gate and walked up the path lined with broken statues and empty pedestals. The gray morning light cast no shadows, and above the stone staircase the sundial still showed no time. POSTUMA necat. The last one kills, Corso read again. The girl had followed his gaze.

“Absolutely true,” she said coldly and pushed the door. It was locked.

“Let’s try the back,” suggested Corso.