Hugo Marston 04 - The Reluctant Matador Read online

  “I could,” Hugo said with a smile, “but it’d be harder to talk to you then, with all that music and wiggling.”

  “True, but we talked already. Forget something?”

  “Yes. Anyone from Spain offer you a modeling job?” Hugo asked. Behind him, Tom maneuvered for a better vantage point.

  “Spain? You better come in,” she said. Tom all but knocked Hugo over to get into the changing room. One other girl sat at a vanity, wearing a silver dress and white boots. She was in the middle of applying makeup and glanced over as the two men came in, apparently unconcerned at the intrusion. Alice walked to another vanity and opened a drawer. “We get offers all the time. For modeling, pornography, private parties, everything. We all put the business cards in here so anyone can go in and choose something if they want.”

  Hugo walked over and looked into the drawer, stuffed full of brightly colored business cards, as well as leaflets for health services, adoption and modeling agencies, and adult-film producers. “May I?” he asked.

  “Take a look, sure, just put them all back.”

  Tom wandered over, dragging his eyes away from the still-topless Alice. Hugo piled the cards and brochures on the vanity, and the two men began sorting through them. After two minutes, Hugo pulled a business card from the heap and held it up.

  “Looks fancy,” Tom said.

  “I know. And just like Emily described.” It was a thick card, white in color with black edging, and cursive black font. Hugo showed the card to Alice. “You know the guy who hands these out?”

  “Non,” she said. “Maybe I’d recognize him, but a lot of people come through, handing crap out. Sorry. You’re welcome to take it.”

  “Thanks,” Hugo said, turning to Tom. “Well, my friend, looks like you’re getting your field trip after all.”

  “Excellent.” Tom put down an adult-film brochure. “So where are we going?”

  Hugo eyed the card and then smiled at his friend. “Ever been to Barcelona?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Back at his apartment, Hugo called his office, then remembered it was the weekend and called Emma, his secretary, on her cell phone. “Sorry to bother you on a Sunday,” he said.

  “You should be.” Emma was, as ever, brusque and to the point. The model of efficiency, Hugo had a hard time imagining what she did on her weekends, and other than the occasional polite inquiry he knew better than to pry. “Not for my sake,” she said, “but because you don’t need to be working every day of the week.”

  “That’s kind of why I’m calling. Do you know off-hand how much vacation I have left this year?”

  “Not exactly, but I’m certain that if you took a two-week walking tour of Turkey, followed by a three weeks in the Seychelles, you’d have plenty of time left over.”

  “Good. I need to take a trip with Tom.”

  “Uh-oh, that sounds like trouble. Although he’s behaving himself these days, isn’t he?”

  “Occasionally. We shouldn’t be gone long. Can you let the ambassador know tomorrow?”

  “He’s stateside for another four days—you’ll be fine.”

  Hugo thanked her, promised to check in within a few days, and rang off. He then called Claudia.

  “You’re breaking our date. I knew it!” Claudia said.

  “I’m sorry,” Hugo said, “Really, I am, but Amy might be in trouble.”

  “Amy?”

  Hugo spent a few minutes filling Claudia in on his special relationship with Amy, his friendship with Bart, and the concern about her silence and sudden departure.

  “Tom and I are off to Barcelona to see if we can find her. It’s probably nothing, but I need to check it out,” he said.

  “Understood. Call me if you need anything, or as soon as you find out what’s going on,” Claudia said. “And be careful.”

  They rang off, and Hugo went to his bedroom and pulled a bag from his closet, slowly filling it with clothes and toiletries for the trip. When he was done, Hugo knelt beside his bedside table, a piece of furniture that doubled as a small safe. He opened the front and reached inside, fingertips brushing against the two guns on the top shelf, then to a handheld tape recorder. He looked at the tape though the little plastic window, its faded green paper a clue as to its age. He’d not listened to this for . . . what? Almost two years, he thought. Then again, neither had he disposed of it. He looked up as Tom appeared in the doorway.

  “What’s that for?” Tom asked.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Right. That’s why you keep it in a safe and are now praying to it, holding it like it’s some kind of religious relic.”

  “Well, it kind of is.”

  “You’re being weird, dude. What is it?”

  “It’s the tape from an old answering machine. Back when the world had answering machines.”

  Tom cocked his head. “Oh. Back from when . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Yes.”

  It was Ellie’s voice. Her jaunty, happy voice inviting some unknown caller to leave a message. Hugo wasn’t entirely sure why he’d kept the tape, he’d disposed of all her other belongings over the years, in dribs and drabs, as gifts to friends and family, to charity, or just the trash can. But this was different, this was actually her. When he listened to the tape, she was there again, for those few seconds, alive and in the room.

  “This business with Bart’s daughter,” Hugo said softly. “Made me think of her.”

  “Of course,” said Tom. “Totally natural. You know, we never really talked about what happened, the accident.”

  “You know the worst thing about losing someone you love?” Hugo asked.

  “No, man, I’ve been lucky that way.”

  “It’s the moment that you can’t remember what they look like. One day something reminds you of them, and yet their face, it doesn’t come to you. Makes you feel disloyal, like a traitor.”

  “Like I said, I’ve been lucky that way.”

  “You know, I listened to this a lot when her face started to fade. Somehow it was better than a photo. I guess a picture captures just that moment, but her voice, that brings her back and not just her face. Memories, things we did together.”

  “We should’ve talked about this before,” Tom said quietly.

  Hugo smiled. “You’re not the sensitive type, Tom. I don’t know how to talk to you about her.”

  “Yeah, well, I think that says more about you than it does me. You’re allowed to have a friend as well as be one, you know.”

  “Yeah, sorry, Tom. That sounded harsh. It’s hard for me to talk about, you know I’m . . .” Hugo cast about for the right word.

  “Inhibited? Bottled up?”

  “Something like that.” Hugo put the recorder back into the safe. “Ready to go?”

  “Flight leaves in three hours, and we have a place to stay.”

  Tom had taken over the travel arrangements, being used to last-minute excursions like this. They were taking a commercial airline, but the apartment belonged to the CIA and Tom had assured Hugo no one minded them using it.

  “Three bedrooms, and on the only street in the old quarter with no name,” Tom said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Seriously. I mean, it has a name when you’re there, but look at a map and you’ll see this one tiny alleyway with no name. CIA owns the buildings on each side of the alley, which leads from the seafront road into the old quarter. Cool little place, cobble stones and all that old shit. It also has metal gates at each end which get locked at ten p.m. We’ll have the code so we can come and go as we please, but it stops nosy people from wandering through at night.”

  “Nosy people?”

  “Yeah, you know. Terrorists, foreign agents, those kinds of nosy people.”

  Hugo grabbed his bag. “We likely to come across any of those?”

  Tom grinned. “Hope springs eternal.”

  They took a taxi from the Barcelona airport, the driver nipping in and out of the nighttime traffic. As
they reached the city center, the car slowed and Hugo lowered his window. The October air was soft and cool, with the faint tang of salt and fish to it.

  “I got us here, so I assume you have a plan?” Tom asked.

  “We’ll go to the address on the business card first thing in the morning.”

  “Guns blazing?”

  “Flash grenades first.”

  “You’re going to be all ingratiating and polite, aren’t you?” Tom said.

  “Yep. If that doesn’t work, you can chopper onto the roof, slip down the chimney, and shoot everyone.”

  “You’ve never been to Barcelona, have you?”

  “No,” said Hugo. “Why?”

  “They don’t have chimneys.”

  “Then we’ll have to hope my way works. In the meantime, I don’t see any reason why we can’t scout around a little. Maybe check the place out and find a nice, quiet restaurant nearby.”

  The taxi let them out by the small Hotel Medinaceli, two blocks from their apartment. They’d given the driver that location partly because of their street-with-no-name but mostly as a security measure, ingrained into Tom’s daily habits—should anyone ask the cabbie where they got out, he would point them directly to the hotel, a place that would have no record of them, nor any employee who’d recognize them.

  As Tom paid the driver, Hugo looked around to get his bearings. The streets were narrow, the high and wide sidewalks taking precedence over the thin, one-way roads. Buildings four and five stories high surrounded them, old buildings of wood and stone. They walked slowly to their alleyway, which Tom had dubbed “Secret Street.” When they reached the entrance, Tom punched in the four-digit code and swung the gate open. No creak, no squeak.

  “Hear that?” Tom grinned. “That’s the sound of efficiency. Takes a secretary nine weeks to send a fax, but the Company sure knows how to keep a foreign gate oiled.”

  They walked the thirty yards down the clean, cobbled street until they reached the apartment building. Tom waved a key fob at the iron-grill door and let them into the foyer. Ahead, a new-looking marble staircase wound its way around a glassed elevator shaft. They walked up the stairs to the apartment on the second floor and took a quick tour. Its main living room looked out over the cobbled alleyway, while the three bedrooms sat at the back of the apartment, each with its own small bathroom.

  “Pricey real estate,” Hugo said, looking at a map. “We’re right on the edge of the Old Town.”

  “And the harbor,” said Tom. “And a central highway. And some great restaurants. Shall we?”

  “Yeah, I’m starving. Let me leave Bart another message, though.” Hugo dialed his number and it went straight to voicemail. “It’s Hugo, with an update. We know Amy used her passport to enter Spain via Madrid. And it looks like she was offered a modeling job by a company in Barcelona. I just got into the city with my friend Tom Green. If you’re thinking of coming over still, I’m sure you can stay with us.” Hugo glanced at Tom and saw him shaking his head vigorously. “On second thought, let me know if you’re coming and we’ll book you a hotel room in the old part of the city. It’s a paperwork thing.” Hugo rang off.

  “Sorry,” Tom said, “but I don’t know the guy, and I can’t be inviting strangers into Company apartments.”

  “Yeah, no worries,” Hugo said. “I totally forgot what a stickler for the rules you are.”

  “Screw you. Now let’s go eat.”

  They turned left out of the apartment, walking slowly to the end of the alleyway, where they let themselves out through the iron gates. Two women in green overalls and reflective vests walked toward them, one carrying a broom and the other a long hose that was attached to a beast of a vehicle, squat and growling. The machine inched its way along the street, scrubbing the road as its minions ahead power-washed and swept the sidewalk.

  Hugo and Tom crossed the street to avoid being sucked up with the trash, although as far as Hugo could tell the street was already impressively clean. They meandered down the narrow, and therefore amusingly named, Carrer Ample, then cut left through an even smaller connecting street. The smell of cooking meat wafted out to meet them, and both men paused to inspect the menu.

  “You know what looks good?” Tom asked, licking his lips. “Frigging everything.”

  “Smells great, too,” Hugo agreed. “But we’re supposed to be checking out the address from that card. It’s close, so I don’t think you’ll starve to death.”

  “Nutrition expert, huh?”

  “You’ve lost weight since you stopped drinking,” Hugo said, with a grin. “But you’ve got a few stores left. Same as I do.”

  Tom muttered as they moved off, winding their way deeper into the Old Town, drifting past and through the packs of revelers looking for their next watering hole. Hugo kept an ear out for the languages being spoken and was pleased that most people seemed to be speaking Spanish. This was October, several months past the height of the tourist season, and so far Hugo had heard no English, a little French, and a surprising amount of Russian.

  The streets and buildings were fascinating too, the shop fronts little more than squares, packed in side-by-side along the wriggling stone streets. Most were closed up for the evening, their metal shutters spray-painted in bright colors. Hugo couldn’t tell if the closed stores were abandoned or merely shut for the night, but the random squares of color gave him the impression of an advent calendar; pretty facades hiding unknown delights, bakeries, flower shops, and toy stores that would spring open for the residents and tourists in the morning.

  They turned a tight corner and found themselves in a large square, a playground taking up its center, parents chatting and laughing together as their kids scampered and climbed.

  Tom ignored the group, his eyes fixed on a young couple on a bench thirty yards away. “Smell that?” he said.

  Hugo twitched his nose. “Ah, your old friend Mary Jane. You didn’t give that up with alcohol?”

  “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Sure smells good, though.”

  Hugo was consulting his phone. “According to my map, it’s one street over. Let’s check the place out, then you can come back and ask for a toke.”

  “Me? No. I really shouldn’t, they say it’s a gateway drug. Although we are on vacation . . .”

  “No, Tom, we’re not.” Hugo started for the far side of the square, and Tom trotted to catch up with him.

  “Can I see the damn business card at least?” he puffed.

  Hugo took it out of his wallet as they walked and passed it to Tom. “Can’t pronounce the street name, but what the fuck’s ‘Estruch Entertainment Enterprises’?”

  “I did an online search before we left, obviously, but it didn’t tell me much. They bill themselves as an entertainment company, giving tours and helping foreigners find work in Europe.”

  “Employees?”

  “No clue, the website doesn’t have their profiles. In fact, it had two pages. The home page, which was vague about what they do, and a second one with testimonials from happy clients. First names given only.”

  “Sounds like a front,” Tom said.

  “Yeah, and not a very sophisticated one.”

  “Nice business cards, though.”

  Around the corner, the street narrowed briefly before flaring out in the middle, like a snake with a full stomach. The buildings around them could have been homes or businesses, Hugo couldn’t tell. An ornate water fountain, almost like a sculpture, sat on a stone plinth in the middle of the bulge. Hugo and Tom stood beside it, looking around for street numbers.

  “Here you go,” Tom said. “Oh look, they want us to come in.”

  Hugo looked over to see what Tom was talking about. Estruch Entertainment Enterprises took up the ground floor with three apartments stacked above it, judging by the laundry on each balcony. Hugo pressed his nose to the storefront, but the tint of the windows prevented him seeing anything inside. The main door was on his right, a wooden door with glass panels and, like most entrance
s he’d seen, covered with an iron grill. He couldn’t see the invitation Tom meant, so gave him a quizzical look.

  Tom grinned, dug into his pocket and stood close to the locked grill. “These metal doors, man, they put all the effort into the ironwork and use sloppy locks that an arthritic granny could open with her middle finger.” Metal objects flashed in his hands, and Hugo heard them clinking inside the lock.

  “Tom, hang on, no need for that, we just came to scope the place.”

  “Oh, is that right? You think if we show up tomorrow and ask politely, they’ll tell us where Amy is?”

  “They may not even know. We’re here because this place is our only lead, not because it’s a good one.”

  “If it’s our only lead, the sooner we explore it, the better.”

  “Or, instead of spending the night in jail for burglary, we could check out as many strip joints in the city as we can and hope we find her.”

  Tom paused. “As much as I like that idea, as an expert on the subject, I can promise you that not only would we fail to cover a hundredth of them, but chances are we’d get delayed at the first and never leave.” He turned back to the door. “Sad as I am to admit it, this is a better option.”

  Hugo looked nervously over his shoulder, knowing that Tom had a point but not wanting to get caught breaking into a building on his first night in Barcelona. He flinched as he heard peals of laughter and the strains of a guitar, but the noise faded quickly away and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Tom, I mean it, we can just—”

  “Done.” Tom swung the iron door open.

  “What about the inside door?” Hugo asked.

  “Better locks on that, I’m afraid.” Tom winked at Hugo, slipped off a shoe, and used a heel to punch out the window nearest the door handle. “Stealth, dexterity, brute force. I’m the complete package.” He reached in and unlocked the door from the inside. “Shall we?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They stood inside and listened for a moment. No shouts of outrage came from the street, nor were there any startled voices inside the building. Light from the street outside filtered through the window, giving them enough visibility to operate without a flashlight.