Read Online The Seville Communion by Arturo Pérez-Reverte - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, detective, Suspense, Thrillers, Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Mystery, Mystery & Detective - General, Clergy, Catholics, Seville (Spain), Catholic church buildings
Ads: Link
"What I mean is, we have to go and take a look at that church and all the rest of it." He glanced at La Nina, knowing she was devout. "With due attention to the fact that it is a sacred building, of course."
"I know the church," she said in her gravelly voice. "It's old and always has the builders in. I go to Mass there sometimes."
Like a good flamenco singer, she was highly religious. For his part, although he professed to be agnostic, Don Ibrahim respected freedom of worship. He leaned forward enquiringly. Rigorous research was mother to all victories, he'd read somewhere - Churchill, perhaps, or Frederick the Great.
"What's he like, the parish priest?"
"Old-school." La Nina frowned in concentration. "Ancient, bad-tempered . . . He once threw out some tourists, young girls, who came in during Mass. He got down from the altar, in his chasuble and everything, and gave them a real scolding for wearing shorts. This isn't the beach, he said to them, off you go. And he chucked them out."
Don Ibrahim nodded, pleased. "A holy man, I see. A man of God." "To his fingernails."
After a thoughtful pause, Don Ibrahim blew a smoke ring and watched it float away. He appeared preoccupied. "So what we have here," he said, "is a clergyman of character."
"I don't know about character," said La Nina. "He certainly has a temper."
"I see." Don Ibrahim blew another smoke ring, but this time it didn't come out right. "So this honourable priest may cause problems. I mean, he may hinder us."
"He could ruin the whole thing." "And the young priest, his assistant?"
"I've seen him helping during Mass. Nice and quiet he looks. Not so tough."
Don Ibrahim glanced across the street, at the knee-high leather boots from Valverde del Camino hanging outside the La Valcnciana Shoe Shop. Then, with a melancholy shudder, he turned back to El Potro and La Nina. At any other time he would have told Peregil where to put his little job. Or, more likely, he would have asked for more money. But as things were, he had no choice. He stared sadly at La Nina with her fake beauty spot, her chipped nail varnish, her bony fingers clasping the empty glass. He looked to his left and met the faithful gaze of El Potro. Then he regarded his own hand resting on the table. The ring he wore was a fake. Every so often he managed to sell one - he had several like it - for five thousand pesetas to some sucker in a bar in Triana. El Potro and La Nina were his people, his responsibility. El Potro, for his loyalty in adversity. La Nina, because Don Ibrahim had never heard anyone sing "Cape of Red and Gold" the way she sang it, in a tablao , on his arrival in Seville. He didn't meet her until much later. She was playing a really seedy club and was already wrecked by alcohol and by the years, the embodiment of the songs she sang in a cracked, sublime voice that made the hairs stand on the back of your neck. "The She-Wolf", "Ballad of Bravery", "False Coin", "Tattoo". The night they met, Don Ibrahim swore to himself that he would save her from oblivion, to do justice to her art. For despite the calumny heaped upon him by the Lawyers' Association and the articles in the local papers when he was thrown in jail over an absurd diploma that nobody else gave a damn about, and despite the scams he'd had to set up to earn his living ever since, Don Ibrahim was not a scoundrel. He held his head high as he adjusted his watch chain. He was simply an honourable man who'd had no luck.
"This is merely a matter of strategy," he said thoughtfully, to convince himself more than anything else. He felt his companions' hopes pinned on him. Peregil had promised three million, but Don Ibrahim had heard that he worked for a banker who was really loaded, so there might be more money where that came from. And he and his companions needed funds to make a long-cherished dream come true.
Don Ibrahim had read extensively - how else could he have practised law for so long in Seville without being exposed? - if
"I know the church," she said in her gravelly voice. "It's old and always has the builders in. I go to Mass there sometimes."
Like a good flamenco singer, she was highly religious. For his part, although he professed to be agnostic, Don Ibrahim respected freedom of worship. He leaned forward enquiringly. Rigorous research was mother to all victories, he'd read somewhere - Churchill, perhaps, or Frederick the Great.
"What's he like, the parish priest?"
"Old-school." La Nina frowned in concentration. "Ancient, bad-tempered . . . He once threw out some tourists, young girls, who came in during Mass. He got down from the altar, in his chasuble and everything, and gave them a real scolding for wearing shorts. This isn't the beach, he said to them, off you go. And he chucked them out."
Don Ibrahim nodded, pleased. "A holy man, I see. A man of God." "To his fingernails."
After a thoughtful pause, Don Ibrahim blew a smoke ring and watched it float away. He appeared preoccupied. "So what we have here," he said, "is a clergyman of character."
"I don't know about character," said La Nina. "He certainly has a temper."
"I see." Don Ibrahim blew another smoke ring, but this time it didn't come out right. "So this honourable priest may cause problems. I mean, he may hinder us."
"He could ruin the whole thing." "And the young priest, his assistant?"
"I've seen him helping during Mass. Nice and quiet he looks. Not so tough."
Don Ibrahim glanced across the street, at the knee-high leather boots from Valverde del Camino hanging outside the La Valcnciana Shoe Shop. Then, with a melancholy shudder, he turned back to El Potro and La Nina. At any other time he would have told Peregil where to put his little job. Or, more likely, he would have asked for more money. But as things were, he had no choice. He stared sadly at La Nina with her fake beauty spot, her chipped nail varnish, her bony fingers clasping the empty glass. He looked to his left and met the faithful gaze of El Potro. Then he regarded his own hand resting on the table. The ring he wore was a fake. Every so often he managed to sell one - he had several like it - for five thousand pesetas to some sucker in a bar in Triana. El Potro and La Nina were his people, his responsibility. El Potro, for his loyalty in adversity. La Nina, because Don Ibrahim had never heard anyone sing "Cape of Red and Gold" the way she sang it, in a tablao , on his arrival in Seville. He didn't meet her until much later. She was playing a really seedy club and was already wrecked by alcohol and by the years, the embodiment of the songs she sang in a cracked, sublime voice that made the hairs stand on the back of your neck. "The She-Wolf", "Ballad of Bravery", "False Coin", "Tattoo". The night they met, Don Ibrahim swore to himself that he would save her from oblivion, to do justice to her art. For despite the calumny heaped upon him by the Lawyers' Association and the articles in the local papers when he was thrown in jail over an absurd diploma that nobody else gave a damn about, and despite the scams he'd had to set up to earn his living ever since, Don Ibrahim was not a scoundrel. He held his head high as he adjusted his watch chain. He was simply an honourable man who'd had no luck.
"This is merely a matter of strategy," he said thoughtfully, to convince himself more than anything else. He felt his companions' hopes pinned on him. Peregil had promised three million, but Don Ibrahim had heard that he worked for a banker who was really loaded, so there might be more money where that came from. And he and his companions needed funds to make a long-cherished dream come true.
Don Ibrahim had read extensively - how else could he have practised law for so long in Seville without being exposed? - if
Similar Books
