Read Online At Close Quarters by Eugenio Fuentes - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eugenio Fuentes
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office and threw on his desk an envelope containing a dozen pictures showing him entering and leaving a hotel with his new employee, his arm around her waist.
A little later he was asked to work on relatively uncomplicated cases; he accepted them because he was extending his stay in thecoastal town and it would be good for his finances, which were suffering considerably although he couldn’t quite tell what he spent his money on. He looked into an insurance claim by someone who was pretending he’d sustained an injury; searched for a girl who had run away from home, never finding her; investigated yet another case of adultery, which made him think that it’s impossible to be a private eye without encountering deception and lies, passion and jealousy. The saddest part was the discovery that the people who hired him were almost always right, their suspicions astonishingly accurate.
But he had always been discreet. He never divulged anything a client told him in confidence, and only when the law was broken did he encourage the intervention of the police. He guessed it was his reserve, as well as the fact that he was a stranger in town, that had driven the dead colonel’s daughter to approach him to see if he could uncover the truth behind her father’s death.
As she waited for an answer at the other end of the phone line, Cupido remembered what he’d read in the local press a few days before. The story appeared on the front page, and he’d been surprised that a military man had committed suicide, because although suicides were not rare among troops who were under pressure, Cupido had the impression they were infrequent among officers. The paper spoke of ‘puzzling circumstances’, the usual euphemism when something illegal was suspected, but also reported that a note had been found suggesting it was suicide. Cupido half remembered the picture of a man in his early fifties, dressed in uniform, with cropped hair and that air of energy so common among army men on active service.
‘You’ll take the case, won’t you?’ she’d asked after a few seconds of silence, only to add: ‘I’d like to speak with you.’
Cupido gave her the address and they arranged to meet in an hour.
Alkalino came back from the street, from one of his solitary and slightly mysterious walks, and when he saw Cupido underlining a piece of news in an old newspaper, he asked:
‘More work?’
‘Yes.’
‘What member of the family hired you?’
‘How do you know it’s a family member?’
‘Because I doubt it’s a colleague. I can’t imagine a soldier hiring a private detective. Soldiers don’t usually like civilians and prefer to solve their problems within the walls of their own institutions. To ask for help would be like admitting professional incompetence.’
‘Sometimes I think you should be the detective and I your assistant,’ said Cupido, smiling at Alkalino’s sagacity.
But Alkalino wasn’t smiling. On the contrary, his expression suggested that this was one of those days on which he surrendered to apathy and tiredness – he whose nickname referred to his resistance to fatigue and his inability to stay quiet – and terribly missed the drink, the old feeling of oblivion and the pleasure of the cognac bathing his tongue, the velvety heat going down his throat and swaying in his stomach. In those moments he was torn between his thirst and the guilty desire of quenching it, and none of his dialectical ingenuity could get him to break out of it: it was painful to hear the loud call of booze, but he knew he would feel even worse if he answered it. A few months before, in Breda, he had succumbed: every night he vowed not to drink the following day, and every morning he cursed himself after taking the first sip. But he’d managed to overcome it, and since then his sympathy for the weak seemed to have increased, as had his scepticism towards those who boasted of their virtue and strength of will.
‘That would be as
A little later he was asked to work on relatively uncomplicated cases; he accepted them because he was extending his stay in thecoastal town and it would be good for his finances, which were suffering considerably although he couldn’t quite tell what he spent his money on. He looked into an insurance claim by someone who was pretending he’d sustained an injury; searched for a girl who had run away from home, never finding her; investigated yet another case of adultery, which made him think that it’s impossible to be a private eye without encountering deception and lies, passion and jealousy. The saddest part was the discovery that the people who hired him were almost always right, their suspicions astonishingly accurate.
But he had always been discreet. He never divulged anything a client told him in confidence, and only when the law was broken did he encourage the intervention of the police. He guessed it was his reserve, as well as the fact that he was a stranger in town, that had driven the dead colonel’s daughter to approach him to see if he could uncover the truth behind her father’s death.
As she waited for an answer at the other end of the phone line, Cupido remembered what he’d read in the local press a few days before. The story appeared on the front page, and he’d been surprised that a military man had committed suicide, because although suicides were not rare among troops who were under pressure, Cupido had the impression they were infrequent among officers. The paper spoke of ‘puzzling circumstances’, the usual euphemism when something illegal was suspected, but also reported that a note had been found suggesting it was suicide. Cupido half remembered the picture of a man in his early fifties, dressed in uniform, with cropped hair and that air of energy so common among army men on active service.
‘You’ll take the case, won’t you?’ she’d asked after a few seconds of silence, only to add: ‘I’d like to speak with you.’
Cupido gave her the address and they arranged to meet in an hour.
Alkalino came back from the street, from one of his solitary and slightly mysterious walks, and when he saw Cupido underlining a piece of news in an old newspaper, he asked:
‘More work?’
‘Yes.’
‘What member of the family hired you?’
‘How do you know it’s a family member?’
‘Because I doubt it’s a colleague. I can’t imagine a soldier hiring a private detective. Soldiers don’t usually like civilians and prefer to solve their problems within the walls of their own institutions. To ask for help would be like admitting professional incompetence.’
‘Sometimes I think you should be the detective and I your assistant,’ said Cupido, smiling at Alkalino’s sagacity.
But Alkalino wasn’t smiling. On the contrary, his expression suggested that this was one of those days on which he surrendered to apathy and tiredness – he whose nickname referred to his resistance to fatigue and his inability to stay quiet – and terribly missed the drink, the old feeling of oblivion and the pleasure of the cognac bathing his tongue, the velvety heat going down his throat and swaying in his stomach. In those moments he was torn between his thirst and the guilty desire of quenching it, and none of his dialectical ingenuity could get him to break out of it: it was painful to hear the loud call of booze, but he knew he would feel even worse if he answered it. A few months before, in Breda, he had succumbed: every night he vowed not to drink the following day, and every morning he cursed himself after taking the first sip. But he’d managed to overcome it, and since then his sympathy for the weak seemed to have increased, as had his scepticism towards those who boasted of their virtue and strength of will.
‘That would be as
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