Quart smiled, sure of himself, once more strong, firm and remorseless. Once more he saw only the priest's threadbare, stained cassock and unshaven chin. It was strange how calming contempt was, he thought. Like an aspirin, a drink, or a cigarette. He decided to ask another question.
"A refuge. From what?"
He knew even before he'd finished the sentence that he was going to regret asking. Small and hard, Father Ferro looked up and fixed Quart with a stare.
"From all the bullshit," he said.
Horse-drawn carriages, painted black and yellow, were lined up waiting for customers in the shade of the orange trees. Leaning against the window of a souvenir shop, El Potro del Mantelete watched the entrance to the archbishop's palace. His hands were in the pockets of his tight, checked jacket which he wore over a close-fitting white polo-neck jumper that showed off his hard, lean pectorals. He moved a toothpick rhythmically from one side of his mouth to the other. He narrowed his eyes beneath his scarred eyebrows, his gaze fixed on the gap between the twin columns of the baroque portico. Don't let him out of your sight, Don Ibrahim ordered before he went into the shop to browse. They would look too conspicuous if all three of them hung around outside on the pavement. But they'd had to wait a long time -Don Ibrahim and La Nina Punales had looked through all the postcards, T-shirts, fans, castanets and plastic models of La Giralda and the Torre del Oro under the suspicious gaze of the shopkeeper. El Potro was trustworthy, so they had decided to repair to the nearest bar, on the corner opposite. La Nina was already on her fifth Manzanilla. El Potro, lacking new orders, wasn't taking his eyes off the entrance. The tall priest had been inside a whole hour, and in all that time El Potro had looked away only twice when a couple of policemen walked past him on their way up the street and back down again. Both times he stared hard at the tips of his shoes. A certain character had been imparted by four gorings in the bullring, two stints in the Spanish Legion and a brain that ran on fixed rails, stunned by blows and the ringing of bells in round after round. Had Don Ibrahim and La Nina forgotten about him, he would have stood there motionless day and night, come rain or shine, his eyes fixed on the entrance to the archbishop's palace until they came to relieve him or he dropped dead. Twenty years earlier, during an awful quarrel in a third-rate bullring, his manager said something like, "If the bull doesn't kill you, you creep, the crowd'll kill you at the exit," and El Potro, sweat on his face and fear in his eyes, went back out into the ring with his red matador's cape at his waist and stood motionless until the bull, known as Butcher, charged and gave him his fourth and final goring, ending his bullfighting career. Later, during similar episodes in the boxing ring, the Legion and prison, his body and brain acquired more scars. El Potro was an idiot, but he had the makings of a hero.
Suddenly the tall priest emerged from the palace. He paused for a moment at the entrance and looked back, as if someone had called him from inside the building. A young man with fair hair and glasses followed him out, and they stood talking at the door. El Potro glanced at the bar where Don Ibrahim and La Nina were waiting, but they were engrossed in their Manzanillas. So he spat the toothpick from his mouth and went to let them know. He walked round the square past the archbishop's palace, and as he came nearer, he got a better look at the priest. But for the dog collar and crew cut the man could have been a movie star. The young priest was scruffy, pale, and spotty, like a teenager. And he looked more like a priest than the tall one.
"Leave him alone," El Potro heard the fair-haired priest say.
The tall one frowned. "Father Ferro's crazy," he said. "He's living in a fantasy world. If it was you who sent the message, you didn't do him, or his church, any favours."
"I didn't send anything."
"We have to have a talk about that, you and I. A quiet talk."
"I have nothing to tell you," said the fair-haired priest, his voice trembling but defiant.
"People keep saying that." The tall priest smiled unpleasantly. "You're wrong. There's a lot you can tell me. For instance"
The conversation faded out of earshot as El Potro moved past. He quickened his pace and entered the bar. Prawn shells and sawdust littered the floor, and sausages and hams hung over
the counter. At the bar Don Ibrahim and La Nina drank in silence. On the radio, Camaron was singing:
Wine kills the pain and the memories
Don Ibrahim, separated from the bar by his paunch, was smoking a cigar and dropping ash on his white jacket. Beside him, La Nina had progressed from Manzanilla to Machaquito anis. She raised the lipstick-rimmed glass to her lips. She wore silver earrings and a blue dress with white polka dots. Her eyes were heavily made up and a kiss-curl stuck to her withered forehead: a down-at-heel flamenco singer like the pictures on the covers of the old singles that Don Ibrahim hoarded like gold dust in his room at the boarding house. He had records by Nat King Cole, Los Panchos, Beny More, Antonio Machin, and an antediluvian Telefunken gramophone. The former bogus lawyer and La Nina turned to look at El Potro, who jerked his head towards the street. "There," he said.