"You're late," said the old man.
Gavira knew, without even glancing at his expensive watch, that he wasn't. It was just that Don Octavio liked to keep up the pressure. Indeed, Gavira himself used the tactic having learned it from Don Octavio. Peregil, with his ridiculous hairdo, was his victim.
"I don't like people arriving late," Machuca insisted loudly, as if he were telling this to the waiter standing by the table waiting to take his order. They always reserved the same table for him, by the door.
Gavira nodded, calmly taking in Machuca's words. He ordered a beer, unbuttoned his blazer and sat down in the chair the chairman of the Cartujano Bank indicated next to him. After bowing his head abjectly a couple of times, Peregil went and sat at a table further off, where Canovas was putting documents away in a black leather briefcase. Canovas was a thin, mouse-like man, a father of nine and morally beyond reproach. He had worked for the banker since the days when Machuca smuggled cigarettes and perfume from Gibraltar. Nobody had ever seen Canovas smile, maybe because his sense of humour had been crushed beneath the weight of family responsibility. Gavira didn't like Canovas and secretly planned to dismiss him as soon as the old man decided to vacate his office on the Arenal.
Like his boss and patron, Gavira looked in silence at the passing pedestrians and cars. When his beer arrived, he leaned forward and took a sip, taking care not to let any drip on his perfectly pressed trousers. He dried his lips with a handkerchief and sat back.
"We have the mayor," he said at last.
Not a muscle moved in Octavio Machuca's face. He stared straight ahead, at the green-and-white sign of the PENA BETICA (1935) on the second-floor balcony across the street, beside the neo-mudejar building of the Poniente Bank. Gavira considered the old financier's bony, claw-like hands covered with liver spots. Machuca was thin and tall, with a large nose and eyes circled with dark rings as if from permanent insomnia. He scanned his surroundings like a bird of prey. The years had imparted not tolerance or mercy to those eyes but weariness. A lookout and smuggler in his youth, later a moneylender in Jerez and, by the time he was forty, a banker in Seville, the founder of the Cartujano Bank was about to retire. Now his only known ambition was to have breakfast every morning at the cafe on the corner of the calle Sierpes, opposite the Pena Betica and the head office of the rival bank. Which the Cartujano had recently annexed, having engineered its gradual downfall.
"About time," said Machuca, still staring across the street. Following the direction of his gaze, Gavira wasn't sure whether
he meant the Poniente Bank takeover or the fact that they now had the mayor's support.
"I had dinner with him last night," Gavira said, glancing
at the old man's profile out of the corner of his eye. "And this morning I had a long friendly chat with him on the telephone."
"You and your mayor," muttered Machuca, looking as if he was trying to place a vaguely familiar face. Anyone else might have thought it a sign of senility. But Gavira knew his chairman too well.
"Yes," he said, appearing keen, alert to nuances exactly the kind of attitude that had got him where he was. "He's agreed to reclassify the land and sell it to us immediately." He might well have allowed a note of triumph into his voice, but he didn't. This was an unwritten rule at the Cartujano Bank.
"There'll be an outcry," said the old man.
"He doesn't care. His term of office ends in a month and he knows he won't be re-elected." "What about the press?"
"The press can be bought, Don Octavio. Or it can be fed more tasty morsels."
Machuca nodded. In fact Canovas had just put away in the briefcase an explosive dossier obtained by Gavira about irregularities in welfare payments by the Junta de Andalucia. The plan was to make it public at the same time as the deal went through, to act as a smoke screen.
"With no opposition from the city council," Gavira added, "and with the Heritage Department in our pocket, all we have to sort out is the ecclesiastical side of the matter." He paused, expecting some remark, but the old man said nothing. "As for the archbishop"
He left the sentence hanging, giving Machuca the chance to respond. He needed some response a hint or warning.
"The archbishop wants his share," Machuca said at last. "Render unto God the things that arc God's, you know what I mean."
"Of course," Gavira answered cautiously.
The old banker now turned to him. "Well, give him what he wants and get it over with."
He knew as well as Gavira that it wasn't as simple as that. The old bastard.
"I agree, Don Octavio," said Gavira. "So there's nothing more to discuss."
Machuca stirred his coffee and went back to regarding the PENABETICA sign. At the other table, unaware of the conversation, Peregil and the secretary were eyeing each other with hostility. Gavira chose his words and his tone carefully.