Balance of Power

NINE

During the months that Congress was in session, Deputy Isidro Serrador lived in a two-bedroom apartment in the very fashionable Parque del Retiro section of Madrid. His small seventh-floor rooms overlooked the spectacular boating lake and beautiful gardens. If one leaned out the window and glanced toward the southwest, Europe’s only public statue of the devil was visible. Sculpted in 1880, the statue commemorated the only place where eighteenth-century Spanish ladies were permitted — by tradition, not by law — to defend their own honor in duels. Very few women had ever done so, of course. Only men were vain enough to risk their lives in order to reply to an insult.

Serrador was sitting in a divan and looking out the window at the lamplit park. He had come home after working on congressional business for the rest of the day, content in the knowledge that things had gone exactly as planned. Then he had taken a hot bath and briefly fallen asleep in the tub. When he got out, he turned on the oven to heat the dinner left for him by his housekeeper. He enjoyed a brandy while his pork shoulder, boiled potatoes, and chickpeas warmed. While he ate, on the hour, he would watch television and see how the news channel interpreted the shooting of the American “tourist.” Then he would check his answering machine for calls and return them if it wasn’t too late. He just didn’t feel like dealing with people right now. He simply wanted to savor his triumph.

Watching the news, he thought, will be very amusing.

The experts would talk about the impact of the shooting on tourism without having any idea what was truly going on — or what was going to happen over the next few weeks. It was astonishing how little political and economic forecasters ever really knew. For everyone who said this, someone else said that. It was all just an exercise, a game.

His back was settled comfortably in the thick pillows and his bare feet lay crossed on the coffee table in front of him. The last of the brandy was settled comfortably in the back of his throat and reflections of the day’s developments were resting comfortably in his head.

The plan was ingenious. Two minorities, the Basques and the Catalonians, would unite to take over Spain. The Basques would contribute their arms, muscle, and experience at terrorist tactics. The Catalonians would use their influence over the economy, winning political converts by threatening a massive depression. Once control over the nation was established, the Catalonians would grant autonomy to the Basque country, allowing those — like Serrador — who wanted self-rule to have it. And the wealthy Catalonians would continue to run Spain, keeping the other nonautonomous groups in check by controlling commerce.

It was ingenious — and foolproof.

The telephone rang a moment before there was a knock on the door. Serrador started as his reverie was interrupted — on two fronts, no less. Grumbling unhappily, the politician slid his feet into his slippers and rose. As he shuffled toward the telephone he shouted roughly for whoever was at the door to wait a minute. No one could come upstairs without being announced by the concierge. So he wondered which of the neighbors wanted a favor at this hour. Was it the owner of the grocery chain who needed to expand his stores? Or the Castilian bicycle manufacturer who wanted to ship more units to Morocco, the bastard. At least the grocer paid for favors. The bicycle maker asked for them just because he happened to live on the same floor. Serrador helped them because he didn’t want to make an enemy. One never knew when the neighbors might see or hear something that could be compromising.

Serrador wondered why he was never visited by one of the beautiful concubines who lived here. There were at least three that he knew of, kept by government ministers who went home to their wives each night.

The antique telephone sat on a small drop-leaf table in the carpeted foyer. Serrador finished tying the red sash of his smoking jacket and picked up the receiver. Let them wait at the door another minute, whoever it was. He’d had a long and exhausting day.

“Sí?” he said.

The pounding on the door grew more insistent. Someone outside was calling his name but he didn’t recognize the voice.

Serrador couldn’t hear whoever was speaking on the telephone. Annoyed, he turned from the mouthpiece and yelled at the door. “Just a moment!” Then he scowled down at the phone. “Yes? What is it?”

“Hello?” said the caller.

“Yes?”

“I’m calling on behalf of Mr. Ramirez.”

Serrador felt a chill. “Who is this?”

“My name is Juan Martinez, señor,” said the caller. “Are you Deputy Serrador?”

“Who is Juan Martinez?” Serrador demanded. And who is at the door? What the hell is going on?

“I’m a member of the familia,” Martinez said.

A key clattered against the door. The bolt was thrown back. Serrador glared over as the door opened. The superintendent stood in the hallway. Behind him were two police officers and a sergeant.

“I am sorry, Señor Deputy,” said the concierge as the other men entered around him. “These men I had to let up.”

“What are you doing?” Serrador demanded of them. His voice was indignant, his eyes unforgiving. Suddenly, he heard the phone click off, followed by the dial tone. He froze with the buzzing phone pressed to his ear, realizing suddenly that something had gone terribly wrong.

“Deputy Delegado Isidro Serrador?” asked the sergeant.

“Yes—”

“You will please come with us.”

“Why?”

“To answer questions regarding the murder of an American tourist.”

Serrador pressed his lips together. He breathed loudly through his nose. He didn’t want to say anything, ask anything, do anything until he’d had a chance to speak with his attorney. And think. People who didn’t think were doomed before they started.

He nodded once. “Permit me to dress,” he said. “Then I will come with you.”

The sergeant nodded and sent one of the men to stand by the bedroom door. He wouldn’t let Serrador shut it but the deputy didn’t make an issue of it. If he let his temper go there’d be no getting that genie back in the bottle. It was best to suffer the humiliation and stay calm and rational.

The men took Serrador down to the cellar and out through the garage of the building — so he wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of being arrested, he assumed. At least they didn’t handcuff him. He was placed in an unmarked police car and driven to the municipal police station on the other side of the park. There, he was escorted into a windowless room with a photo of the king on the wall, a hanging fixture with three bulbs in white tulip-shaped shades, and an old wooden table beneath it. There was a telephone on the table and he was told he could use it to make as many calls as he wished. Someone would come to speak with him shortly.

The door was shut and locked. Serrador sat in one of the four wooden chairs.

He phoned his attorney, Antonio, but he was not in. Probably out with one of his young women, as a wealthy bachelor should be. He didn’t leave a message. He didn’t want Antonio coming home and some talkative nymph overhearing the message. There hadn’t been any press waiting outside so at least this was being done quietly.

Unless they were at the front of my apartment? he thought suddenly. Maybe that was why the police had taken him out through the garage door. Maybe that was what the concierge had meant: These men I had to let up. The press often tried to get to people who lived in the building, and the staff was good about insulating celebrity tenants from reporters. And his telephone number was changed regularly so they wouldn’t be able to bother him.

But the caller had had it. He still wondered who that was and what he had tried to warn him about. No one could have known that he was involved with the people who had killed the American. Only Esteban Ramirez knew that and he wouldn’t have told anyone.

It occurred to him then to telephone the answering machine in his office. It also occurred to him that this telephone might be bugged, but that was a chance he was willing to take. He didn’t have much of a choice.

But before he could place the call, the door opened and two men walked in.

They were not police.