The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory) (73 page)

Peralta felt the pain twisting inside him as he crossed Calle de Robles and headed for the
comisaría.
The bottle of pills Liebermann had prescribed for him were still untouched in his pocket. He had decided he would only take them when the pain became unbearable, since the side-effects sounded appalling. Then the pain came again, a soul-burning flame of agony. Peralta felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead. He stopped, reached for the bottle of pills and took two, feeling them stick in his throat before he managed to swallow them. He fumbled with chilled fingers for a cigarette and found one tucked away in his jacket pocket. He straightened it, taking care to keep the loose tobacco from spilling out as he lit it. He inhaled the strong dense smoke and it comforted him. It was one of the few things that did these days. The church bell chimed the half hour, sending deep, ominous notes shimmering down the narrow street. There was something about the atmosphere of the area around the
comisaría,
Peralta thought, a sense of malevolence and hostility. Even the local church was run by a drink-sodden madman. The whole area was beyond redemption.

In the regular police, Peralta had a real purpose, to protect society, to enact its laws, track down murderers, arrest thieves, pimps and sodomites, and to harass gypsies or Protestants, all the activities that kept a Christian society healthy and stable. He had soon realised his work here had nothing to do with a healthy society. Though Guzmán at first seemed monstrous, Peralta had thought he was the one who needed to adapt and become tougher. But now, he not only questioned the worth of what they did, he was repulsed by it. Perhaps many of those who Guzmán dealt with had been dangerous once. But that was in the war and the war had been won fourteen years ago. Most of the men Guzmán hunted were no longer interested in armed struggle, they were beaten and cowed, fearful of the long memory of the regime. They had seen what happened when the victors took their revenge. Peralta understood how such things happened during the fighting. But things had to return to normal, surely? Let the vanquished slink back into society, try to rebuild lives shattered in the pursuit of the misguided politics that ended with the destruction of the Republic. It was time to rebuild Spain, to replace this fragmented society in which the divisions of the Civil War were sustained by a perpetually enforced memory. And, while that memory was enforced, the present was forever a prisoner of the past.

There was no building a new society. The old men who fought the war remained in power, embedded in every ministry and department, in key industries and commerce. The country was run by men who had waged bloody war in a crusade to return Spain to a mythical golden age in which a cowed and obedient population lived lives shaped by the prescriptions of the powerful: the
Caudillo,
the military and the Church. The war had taken Spain back two hundred years. He ground his cigarette into the snow.

Peralta paused. He was thinking like a traitor. Guzmán would certainly say so, but then Guzmán would, because the corruption of this regime, its malice, its implacable intolerance of any challenge or change, all these were what gave men like Guzmán a purpose in life. Although, Peralta observed, Guzmán had several agendas. At first, he’d thought Guzmán was just a fanatic like so many others. Now, he was not so sure. Not since he had listened to Cousin Juan’s story at the Hotel Barcelona. And now, Cousin Juan had disappeared, as had Guzmán’s mother. Peralta didn’t believe Guzmán had freed Juan. He didn’t believe Cousin Juan had ever left Calle de Robles.

Things were going wrong for Guzmán. He had told Peralta repeatedly you had to take sides. You had to choose the winning side. What if Guzmán no longer was on the winning side? What if Valverde was right and Guzmán was a loose cannon who needed to be checked? Or if Guzmán lost Franco’s patronage? But worst of all, Peralta thought, was what would happen to María and the baby if he were not there. Would her uncle take care of them if Peralta went down with Guzmán? That thought stayed with him as he reached the dark wooden doors of the
comisaría.
Above him, the weather-beaten flag hung limp and lifeless. As he opened the door, Peralta began to realise what he must do.
Look after number one,
Guzmán had repeatedly told him. For once, Peralta would take Guzmán’s advice.

Guzmán sat at his desk. He looked tired. His ashtray was full. Peralta had the impression he had been there for hours before he arrived. Peralta and the sarge waited for him to speak.

‘So you two came up with nothing,’ Guzmán said contemptuously.

The sarge took a breath to speak and changed his mind. Peralta said nothing.

‘We need to look at this case again,’ Guzmán said. ‘In the morning, they start the trade talks. If something happens to spoil those talks, we’re all fucked. Me. This unit. You two.’

Peralta frowned. He was worried enough about his future without adding to it further.

‘There’ve been some developments we should consider,’ Guzmán said.
‘Teniente,
you’ve been writing everything down. Tell me where we are with all this.’

Peralta shuffled in his seat, feeling like a child back at
colegio.
‘It seemed pretty clear to begin with,
jefe.
Our information suggested the Dominicans were a gang of serious criminals working for
Señor
Positano – a man with connections to organised crime. Our conclusions were based on the criminal histories General Valverde supplied to you,
Comandante,
and after that, I also obtained details of Positano’s early involvement in crime from Exterior Intelligence.’

‘Clear cut, as you say.’ Guzmán nodded.

‘It was fucked up from the start,’ the sarge growled. ‘The
Caudillo
and
Almirante
Carrero Blanco both said not to interfere. That we shouldn’t piss off the
Yanquis.
We never had a chance to get hold of the Dominicans and stop them in their tracks.’

‘Exactly.’ Guzmán snorted smoke. ‘We couldn’t do anything. Gutierrez gave me the same message as well. Mess with the Dominicans and get the chop.’

‘But then—’ Peralta began.

‘But then,’ Guzmán continued, ‘it turns out Don Enrique, that gold-toothed bastard, has some high rank in the Dominican armed forces. What does that tell you, Sarge?’

‘Valverde’s intelligence was wrong?’

‘Absolutamente.
The
teniente
found that out days ago and what did we do, Sargento?’

The sarge scowled.
‘Joder,
I thought he made it up to get out of that trouble downstairs.’

‘You bastards were thinking of killing me,’ Peralta snapped, ‘and yet I’m the only one who came up with anything worthwhile on this investigation.’

‘I agree,
Teniente.
We should have been more interested. And particularly in why Valverde’s information was wrong,’ Guzmán said.

‘Intel’s often wrong,
jefe,’
the sarge protested.

‘It is indeed,’ Guzmán agreed. ‘Though not when it’s from the
Capitán-General
of Madrid.’

‘You’re forgetting the stuff I got from Exterior Intelligence,’ Peralta added.

‘No, I was coming to that.’ Guzmán breathed out a cloud of smoke. ‘That was what did it, coming on top of the information Valverde gave us about the Dominicans. It seemed straightforward: a top trade official with links to the Mob, getting his dirty work done by a bunch of Caribbean hoodlums.’

Peralta looked puzzled. ‘You don’t sound too sure,
jefe.’

‘I’m not. Tell me something,
Teniente.
What’s stopped this investigation from getting any further? In your opinion.’

Peralta shifted in his chair. ‘You really want to know?’

Guzmán nodded.

‘The problem,
mi Comandante,
has been your obsession with these Dominicans. You’ve been determined to get them at all costs. Even when warned off by the Head of State himself you persisted with this vendetta. You thought killing them would solve everything. And because of that, you’ve compromised your standing with the people at the top.’

‘Qué coño eres,’
the sarge spat. ‘What do you know?’

‘I know about policing.’ Peralta turned towards the sarge, angrily. ‘All you know is killing. Face it, your job is like Missing Persons. You find people. And when you find them, you kill them. You get leads from informers, beat the shit out of suspects and then find some poor sod who fought on the wrong side years ago and kill them. That’s all you do. Which probably accounts for us being in the shit with all this now.’

‘So it’s all my fault?’ Guzmán asked. He didn’t seem too displeased, Peralta noticed.

The
sargento
sighed. ‘If I’m honest, boss, you did let them get to you. And of course, you’ve had woman trouble.’

‘The fuck I have,’ Guzmán shouted. ‘Leave that out of this, Sarge.
Teniente,
it pains me to admit it, but you’re right. I thought it was the Dominicans we needed to take down all along. But there are other things we need to consider.’

‘What? More evidence?’ Peralta was affronted. ‘You could have shared it with us.’

‘Hostia, jefe,
if you don’t tell us stuff how are we to know?’ the sarge grumbled.

Guzmán pounded his fist on his desk. ‘I was about to fucking tell you, but you never shut up long enough.’ He took a deep breath to calm himself. ‘Someone has been giving us the runaround,
señores.’
His voice was tight with anger. ‘Everything we’ve done so far on this case has been a waste of time. A massive decoy operation and we fell for it.’

‘Decoy operation?’ Peralta asked in surprise. ‘Which part of it?’

‘All of it,’ Guzmán spat. ‘One big operation to fuck us up. To fuck me up. And it worked.’

Peralta frowned. ‘If that’s true, this bunch of thugs must have had a great deal of intelligence on us. And on you in particular.’

Guzmán smiled. ‘I agree,
Teniente.
Where do you think they got that?’

‘We’d no reason to suspect the reliability of the information the general gave you. At least initially. Of course, I did get the information about Goldtooth being in the army, but you ignored it.’

Guzmán scowled. ‘Yes, you’ve already reminded us of that, thanks.’

‘And Positano? The newspaper cutting showing he had a criminal history?’

‘We believed that because you got the information from the same reliable source.’

‘Servicios de Inteligencia Exterior y Contra Inteligencia?’
Peralta protested. ‘You can’t get more reliable sources. ’

‘Unless your ex-school friend gave you false information?’

‘Posadas? False information? He wouldn’t have the ability to do that,’ Peralta spluttered. ‘Not newspaper clippings. You’d need specialist equipment to forge stuff like that. Specialist staff…’ His voice trailed away.

‘The penny dropped?’ Guzmán asked.

‘I was set up,’ Peralta said unhappily.

‘We all were,’ Guzmán said. ‘We thought the Dominicans were muscling in on Valverde’s business interests. I was certain they’d cut the heroin with poison to discredit him as a supplier – yet the bastard was in on it. He knew we’d take two and two and make five.’

‘The shooting outside the Bar Dominicana as well. It seemed a clear attempt by them to show Valverde had lost his grip,’ Peralta said.

‘I agree,’ Guzmán nodded, ‘and what happened? I became more determined to get the Dominicans. I was sure if I got them, everything else would sort itself out. And,
Teniente,
your uncle made me think he was so threatened by them, he needed my help. And all the time the fucker was funding them. And working with
el Americano.’
Guzmán pulled another cigarette from his packet of Ducados. ‘Positano killed Alvarez at the Almeja and then he put a bullet through Posadas while I was at his
piso.
Talented man, this
Americano.’

‘Brilliant,’ the sarge said. ‘I’d never have suspected any of it.’

‘You wouldn’t suspect anything if your dick dropped off,’ Guzmán muttered.

He opened his drawer and put the report Posadas had given him onto the desk. The paper was bloodstained down one edge. ‘Here, look at this, it’s the intelligence report on Positano that your school chum never gave you,
Teniente.
Positano was in the OSS during the war – paratroopers: secret operations, commando stuff, assassinations. A tough bunch. His record tells us he never actually left the army. The OSS became the CIA in 1947. I reckon he’s either Military Intelligence or CIA. Christ knows what he’s up to, though.’

‘So how come he’s got these Dominicans working for him?’

‘They’re in the army – just as you said,
Teniente.’
Guzmán placed the photograph Gutierrez had given him onto the desktop. ‘The army of
La Republica Dominicana.
I expect
Presidente
Trujillo loaned them to the
Yanquis
. I’ll bet he was only too glad to do a favour for them.’

‘But Trujillo’s our ally,’ Peralta said. ‘More or less.’

‘I’d say less. His country’s thousands of kilometres away from us, it’s tiny and it’s next door to the US,’ Guzmán said patiently. ‘Who’s he more likely to do favours for?’

‘And General Valverde?’ Peralta asked. ‘If they weren’t trying to muscle in on his drugs business, what’s been going on?’

Guzmán breathed out a cloud of smoke. ‘The Dominicans bought up property using anonymous young men to do the buying. They made it look like a typical underworld operation. Except it wasn’t. All the time we were trying to keep track of the properties they’d acquired, the drugs they were selling came from Valverde’s warehouse on Calle Maestro del Victoria. All paid for by Valverde. It was a front, a big fucking front to keep us occupied. It only started to make sense when the sarge checked out the warehouse’s owner – it’s the general. Even the brothel where they recruited the young blokes for the property acquisitions is owned by Valverde. Whatever he’s up to, it’s something big – it’s got to be if he’s gone to so much trouble to keep us off his scent.’