Off Side (30 page)

‘Relax. Do you want a coffee? It’s gone cold because we let you sleep for a bit.’

She shrugged her shoulders and drank the milky coffee, sipping it first, and then drinking greedily. Why drink a coffee like that? Is it a cultural norm? A ‘manner’, as Princeton would say? Or is it not a ‘manner’ but a simple response reflecting an elementary need made urgent by force of circumstance? And she was devouring the roll. When all’s said and done, the girl’s got a good appetite, Lifante thought, and he was glad for her.

Sánchez Zapico let it be known that an insuperable wall of obstacles stood between him and Carvalho, but when his secretary filtered to him two of the words which had emerged from the lips of his visitor, he gave them some thought, and finally decided to see him: the words were ‘Contreras’ and ‘investigation’. Most particularly ‘Contreras’. However, he prepared himself to receive him in the manner of a man who was extremely busy, looking as if he was expecting simultaneous telephone calls from Tokyo, Singapore and San Francisco, whereas in fact he was overseeing his plurality of interests in scrap iron, sugared almonds and building sites, which were manifested in a series of phone calls that bounced around the walls of a cheap office, and orders shouted to a pair of hapless secretaries. He explained that Carvalho would have to keep it brief, and so would he. He had needed a player who was good, but cheap. Centellas couldn’t run to the luxury of big names, so he had approached a middleman who had once had something of a reputation: Raurell. Did he remember the name? Well, never mind, because in the 1960s, when it seemed that the only foot-ballers you could sign up were Latin Americans, Raurell had filled Spain with self-styled sons of Spanish fathers, who in fact had been nothing of the sort. Now he had run into hard times, was more or less retired, and his list of footballers ditto. When Carvalho asked him what references he had had for Palacín, he replied that he had relied on his own memories of the man. Palacín had no current form as a footballer, and Centellas hadn’t even had enough money to buy a video of his past performances. He had seen some photos, and a few newspaper cuttings from the Mexican press, which said that Palacín had won himself a reputation as a gentleman with the Oaxaca fans — ‘I repeat, a gentleman!’

‘Did you really think you would be able to solve your team’s
crisis by hiring a player who’s basically clapped out?’

‘I didn’t know that the man was finished. He was a name. A ground like Centellas could very easily be filled by the likes of Palacín, and in fact he played some very good games. He still had something of his old self.’

‘How do you explain the business of the drugs, and the involvement of the four other players?’

‘I can’t explain it. Can you? No, I can’t explain it at all. I’m going to have to pack it in. We were already on the verge of shutting up shop under the previous management, when the players decided to go on strike. Ever since I became chairman of this club, we have paid our players on the dot … Sometimes I might be a couple of weeks behind, but the professionals always get their money.’

‘I find it odd that the three players who’ve been implicated in the drugs business are your amateurs, not the older professionals, who might have needed the money.’

‘All this is extremely delicate, if you know what I mean. The investigations are under way, and if you want you can wait around to see what comes out. As for me, I’ve had enough. I’m going home, I’m going to revoke the club’s contracts, and we’re going to have to sell the ground. The days of Don Quixote are past and gone; I’m tired of being a Quixote.’

This would not have been the first case of a man deceiving himself by his own rhetoric, and as far as Carvalho was concerned Sánchez Zapico was more a Phantom of the Opera or a Napoleon Bonaparte than Don Quixote. There was too much bitterness in what he was saying, as if not only had life not been what he had hoped, but it hadn’t even been what he deserved.

‘The hours and hours that I’ve spent on this club are hours that I could have spent on my family.’

Carvalho imagined the man’s family being horrified at the prospect of having the old grouser around the house all day.

‘Every Sunday I’m a slave to the game, and my poor wife
doesn’t even get to go out like a normal couple for a trip to the country or something.’

He spoke the Castilian of a comic opera villager, from some village which could have been anywhere in the Spanish interior, but spattered with phrases in colloquial Catalan. He sounded like a latterday propagandist for bilingualism, an interesting case for Contreras’s ‘polysemic’ inspector. The more he protested the impossibility of maintaining his loyalty to the club he so loved, the less credible he became.

‘I owe everything to this barrio, and to Barcelona, and to Catalonia. It was here that I made myself what I am, and for me Centellas was the heart and soul of the barrio. But today the barrios have lost their soul, you know what I mean? People no longer live in the streets. They drive everywhere these days. Home … work … home … work. Then every weekend they take off for a drive in the country, and the only football they ever watch is on telly, with the likes of Maradona. What can you do with a modest little club like ours? I’ve had it up to here.’

Carvalho tried to convince him not to give up his presidency of Centellas, saying that he couldn’t desert all those fans, after they had put such trust in the spirit of sacrifice of a grateful immigrant.

‘They’re going to miss you.’

‘Well, they’re going to have to sort themselves out. Like they say, nobody is indispensible. Mind you, it’s only people who are useless who say that, the kind of people who are no good for anything. Of course they’re going to miss me, of course.’

‘It’ll be an irreparable loss.’

‘Well, we’re going to have to do it. All things have a beginning and an end. That’s what my wife tells me: “You always get yourself too tied up in things, and one day you’re going to come unstuck.” ’

‘But you can’t just leave. I can’t imagine this city without you as chairman of Centellas.’

‘Nobody will even notice!’ Sánchez Zapico complained, with
more than a hint of bitterness, but at the same time slightly intrigued by Carvalho’s evident interest in the matter.

‘I didn’t realize that Barcelona was so dependent on me.’

‘This morning nobody’s talking about anything else.’

‘Where?’

‘All over the place. In fact, Inspector Contreras is particularly concerned.’

‘Contreras? What’s my resignation got to do with the police?’

‘It might turn into a public order problem. Can you imagine how the people of Barcelona are going to react when they hear that Centellas is about to disappear from the scene?’

He wrinkled his nose. There was a definite hint of sarcasm buried somewhere in the conversation, but Zapico couldn’t fathom out quite where, and before he had time to work it out, Carvalho was on his feet and preparing to leave.

‘Why did you say that about Contreras?’

‘Don’t worry about it. It was a comment of no importance.’

‘No, no. I want to know. Why am I being talked about at the police station?’

‘You’re going to have to ask Contreras. He’s worried. That’s all.’

Carvalho left Sánchez Zapico annoyed with himself, with Carvalho, and with the situation as a whole, and as he left via the reception desk, he recognized the man who was waiting there. He smelt of something very expensive, and was sufficiently well dressed to clash seriously with the mediocre decor of this second-rate office. Carvalho sensed a certain interest in the sideways glance that the dandy gave him, and as he emerged from Sánchez Zapico’s office he remembered where he had seen him before. He was the man who had introduced Basté de Linyola at the conference on the future of urban planning in Barcelona.

‘Who’s the gentleman who’s just gone in to see your boss?’

‘The lawyer, Dosrius.’

‘Is he Sánchez Zapico’s lawyer?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Señor Zapico told me to ask you for the address of the gentleman who supplied players for Centellas. Raurell, that’s the name, Raurell.’

Carvalho imagined her turning to a tattered old book containing the entire affairs of the Centellas club, but instead she spun round in her seat and switched on a computer, which she proceeded to interrogate. The screen went blue and provided implacably linear answers in strings of letters which the woman scrutinized attentively, as if she didn’t trust the truth of anything that might emerge from the magic box. When she was finally satisfied with its replies she pressed a button. Then the secretary tore off the piece of paper which had come out of the printer and handed it to Carvalho. There, in letter-quality print, he read: ‘Frederic Raurell Casasola. Mare de Déu de Núria Geriatric Residence’.

‘Will he still be alive when I get there?’

Either the secretary was in no mood for irony, or she didn’t know what a geriatric residence was, and anyway she was more interested in a half-eaten tuna sandwich in the drawer where she kept her diskettes. Carvalho emerged onto the street and set off in search of a phone box. The first one he found was occupied by a fat women who was ringing her mother and was having to shout because her mother lived in a small village somewhere in Andalucia. In the second box somebody had removed the entire contents of the earpiece. The third box seemed to be suffering from terminal depression and suicidal tendencies. It wouldn’t accept his money, not even hundred-peseta pieces, and not even if they were new. Finally, at the fourth box, Carvalho was able to ring Fuster.

‘Don’t tell me — you’ve decided to pay!’

‘I haven’t been to ask for a loan yet.’

‘What are you waiting for?’

‘Someone told me that if you go to borrow money from a bank these days, not only do you get the loan, but they also give you a free trip to the Caribbean.’

‘You must think that bankers are stupid. Anyway, you don’t have any collateral.’

‘Do you know a lawyer called Dosrius? He appears to be a man of many parts. I’ve seen him around with Basté de Linyola, and I’ve just seen him with one of the city’s nouveau riche. He’s his lawyer.’

‘If we’re talking about the same Dosrius, he’s a bit of a go-getter. About the same age as me. Started life as a socialist and now he’s earning loads of money. Very good connections. He’s got an open door to all the left-wing councils, and the right wing are happy to roll out the red carpet too. You’ll find he does a lot of work for the large building contractors.’

‘What do you make of him?’

‘There’s a lot to the man. But if you want more detailed information, I’ll have to drop it through your letterbox tonight.’

‘Just by way of back-up.’

The Mare de Déu de Núria Geriatric Residence was over by San José de la Montaña, and from the outside it looked like a hotel that had been converted into a boarding house for old people with money. It had two palm trees in the garden and a fountain in the shape of a Hercules who would once have been pissing but now appeared to be afflicted with incurable prostate problems. However, once you crossed the threshold the place was lit like a dingy basement and smelt of stew and the left-overs of the previous day’s supper. The residents were mostly engaged in playing cards or reading newspapers, and seemed to be waiting for no visitor other than Death himself. The matron was equally short on humour, and her sense of humour evaporated still further when she learnt that Carvalho was wanting to see Raurell.

‘Have you asked for an audience? You should always ask for an audience to see important people, you know.’

‘We important people never ask for an audience.’

She was about forty-nine, but looked fifty. Carvalho had often observed that people who looked a year older than they really
were were very bitter people.

‘Has anyone seen Raurell?’

Answer came there none.

‘Even if they had seen him, they wouldn’t tell me. Look, go try your luck. If he’s in, you’ll find him in his room. It’s room twenty-two, on the first floor. Knock before you go in. Señor Raurell is a stickler for protocol.’

Carvalho’s nose followed the smell of the stew, and as he passed by the kitchen door he couldn’t resist taking a look. There he found an old man with his hand in the stewpot, in the process of lifting out a piece of meat and wrapping it in silver foil. He had a shifty air, as if in fear of being discovered, and when he saw Carvalho he froze.

‘It’s not for me. It’s for a dog that waits for me outside every morning.’

‘Take another piece. I’m sure the dog deserves it.’

‘I don’t think I should.’

‘I’ll keep an eye out. Take another piece.’

By now he’d half emptied the stewpot, and the greasy package would no longer fit into his jacket pocket. He was cursing the fact that he was going to end up with grease spots all down him, but he clung onto the package and passed in front of Carvalho on his way out into the street, without so much as a thank you. The detective continued on his way, up a marble staircase with a wrought-iron banister, topped by a modernist angel, and at the end of the corridor on the first floor he saw a door which sported the number twenty-two on a porcelain plaque which was chipped and half hanging off. He knocked on the door, and from the other side came the voice of a man with a sense of his own self-importance: ‘Who is it?’

‘Raurell? Is that señor Raurell?’

The door remained firmly closed, and a slightly irritated voice from behind it said: ‘I’m very busy. What do you want?’

‘Sánchez Zapico sent me.’

‘Come in.’

Raurell was wearing a dirty felt hat, over a face that could have been the face of an Indian chief. He was in a double-breasted blue suit, a tie with a gold tie-pin, a silk handkerchief in his top jacket pocket and two-colour spats, and he had a cane walking stick between his bony hands. He was listening to the radio, and on an old office desk he had a cardboard file-box and an Underwood typewriter which looked as if it had been stolen from some museum specializing in artefacts of the Industrial Revolution.

‘I’ll make an exception for you. I don’t usually do business in the mornings. Mornings are reserved for thinking.’