Roberto said nothing, all his focus on the man across from him as he weighed up his next move.
Careful,he thought.Be very careful now.
“From one artist to another?” he finally said.
“From one artist to another,” Varatorta said, all smiles. “Oh, I knew it! I knew I should have talked to you sooner, when there was more time! All the incredible work we could have done together! But now—”
“Now the curtain’s about to drop.” Roberto sighed. “The authorities will surely be here soon, probably no more than half an hour.”
“I know.” Varatorta, with a sad smile, reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of bloodstained gold teeth, and dropped them on the table.
Roberto picked one up, with a mixture of disgust and horror.
“I was actually held up because I met someone down at the beach, by the speedboat,” Varatorta said conspiratorially. “He had a mouthful of these things. I didn’t like the way they looked on him, so when I cut off his head, I thought it’d be nicer to take them out.”
Roberto suppressed a shudder, forcing a smile. “Lovely—really nice.”
He squeezed the tooth in the palm of his hand so hard that it hurt, while Varatorta calmly gathered the rest of the gold teeth and put them back in his pocket. In the midst of his madness, he exuded serenity, like a kamikaze pilot about to embark on his final flight.
“I have something else,” Varatorta added, as if this were all the most regular thing. “A little something for you, Mr. Lobeira. A token of admiration and friendship.” He reached for his backpack and offered it to Roberto.
“What’s this?”
“Go on, open it!” Varatorta said, eyes sparkling. He looked jubilant, gleefully expectant, like he was the one now presenting a long-hoped-for present.
Roberto took a deep breath, wincing at his broken ribs, while at the same time trying to avoid letting on just how much pain he was in. The pain, more than anything else, served to clear his mind.
He didn’t know what was in the backpack, but he could be pretty certain it wasn’t going to be something pleasant. Precisely as he’d anticipated, it was very much a Varatorta kind of gift. As he unzipped the backpack, it was all Roberto could do to keep himself from vomiting, while Antía, looking over his shoulder, let out a horrified scream.
There inside the backpack was Luis Docampo’s severed head, staring up at him with lifeless eyes, the mouth half open and the swollen, bluish tongue poking out between nicotine-stained teeth.
“If I’m really honest,” Varatorta enthused, tittering, “I wasn’t planning on using him for one of my pieces. Such abrutishman. No sparkle, if you know what I mean. But then I bumped into him on the road, and he was stumbling along—”
Because I’d just hit him over the head with a big piece of wood ...
“And I remembered that he was the one who pushed you down that shaft ...” Varatorta shook his head, looking like a displeased schoolteacher. “And he shouldn’t have done that. So I just thought—”
“That I’d like you to take care of him,” Roberto said, finishing the sentence. “Another gift for me, like the rabbit’s head.”
“That’s right!” Varatorta drummed his hands on the table in delight. “See? See how you and I really understand each other? I realized I maybe went over the top when I tied you up, and probably that would have been unpleasant for you, so ...”
Roberto closed the backpack, his mind whirring. From Varatorta’s perspective, this was the greatest peace offering possible. What Varatorta didn’t know was that, in his twisted attempt to ingratiate himself with Roberto, he had inadvertently done away with the only other person onthe island with blood on their hands. He had avenged Víctor Pampín’s murder. But for it to have been done in such a manner ...
“What about the body?” Roberto said. “Is that also ...?”
“Oh”—Varatorta waved his hand dismissively—“fish food, like the guy at the beach. Trash, second-rate material, nothing like what’s coming in now.”
“Now?”
“Of course! I’m just going to say hello to my old colleague Borja.” He stood up and winked again, before giving Antía a hair-raising, head-to-toe look. He appeared to be evaluating her. “Later on, we can discuss how to use what time we have left.”
“Sure,” Roberto said, managing, despite everything, to maintain a faint hint of a smile.
“Oh, and by the way, the passageway.” He jerked a thumb at the sideboard behind him. “At the far end, there’s a steel door, three inches thick. I’ve got the only key. Just mentioning it in case our lady friend here felt like making an early exit.”
To make completely sure, Varatorta now produced the key, shoved the tip into a crack in the countertop, and brought the palm of his hand suddenly and violently down on the bow of the key, succeeding in snapping it.
“Nobody’s going through this door,” he said, looking at them both. “Whatever happens, this thing ends here.”
