Conspiracy (32 page)

“Did the man speak this morning?”

“He said one word I thought I understood, but I don’t know what it means in gypsy talk. That was just before he let me go. He led me to this wall at the top of the hill and showed me where one of the olive trees was growing beside it close enough to climb up and over. Then he took out this big ugly-looking knife and cut the ropes on my wrists. He pointed to the tree and said, ‘Win.’ Then he turned and walked away.”

“What did you do?”

“I just scrambled up and slid down the other side and looked around for somebody. The place seemed to be deserted, so I walked on through the gardens and saw that there was a guards’ station farther on down the hill. I told my name to the first uniformed man I saw, and he kind of stared at me and then grabbed for his phone.”

Captain Maracall had more questions about the gypsies. Then he asked about the man in Madrid who had first abducted Keith. “Perhaps we can trace them down from that end,” he said. “Can you describe the man?”

“A little shorter than I am, and stockier. Pleasant face. He was wearing a guard’s uniform and hat. I really didn’t look at him too closely.”

Further questions gave the captain a hazy description of Raul’s car, and knowledge of the arrangement he had made with the gypsies to take Polaroid photographs each morning. Hearing this, the captain promptly called Madrid Airport to alert the Guardia and flight attendants there.

Then he turned back to Keith and Sharon. “What I would like to do,” he said, “means I must ask for your kind cooperation.”

He went on to explain. The gypsies of the Sacromonte were plainly the pawns of someone more important—possibly this
Patrón
Keith had heard them speak of. Even now the
Patrón
and his underlings might be looking for Keith to try to kidnap him once more. Maracall wanted to lay a trap: to leak word that Keith was hiding here in town in a certain apartment. Guardia undercover men would wait to see who showed an interest. Possibly the men they attracted would lead them to the
Patrón
.

“In the meantime,” he said, “if you and the lady would do me the service of remaining incommunicado from the news people for twenty-four hours?”

21

Though Captain Maracall’s plan to entrap Palermo’s kidnappers seemed both plausible and necessary at the time he conceived it, the fact remains that it did not work. No one was attracted to the Granada apartment where the Guardia waited. Moreover, as investigators jealous of Maracall’s success were later to point out, Maracall’s plan actually hindered progress in the case. By isolating Palermo, Maracall cut off the opportunity for Keith to be taken to Madrid to look over the security guard staff at Bernabeau. 

Having no means to prove that one of his staff had conspired to abduct the U.S. star, Luis Joaquin, security chief at Bernabeau Stadium, contented himself with the assumption that the crime had been done by an imposter. “When Palermo returns after Saturday’s game, though,” he told Maracall on the phone, “I should appreciate it if you would make him available to me for a short while. At present all my men are accounted for, and I must consider them all innocent.”

At the time, Sharon and Keith were unaware that the plan to kill Keith continued to move forward. They were too much occupied with the idyllic prospect of a full day to be spent in each other’s company, without interruptions. Maracall’s influence had gained them a suite in the Alhambra Palace, the luxury hotel meticulously restored from the original Moorish retreat. The Guardia bought fresh clothes for Keith and packed them in a suitcase, so that “Mr. and Mrs. Foster” checked in as ordinary tourists. 

The rooms were bright and airy, the furniture and decorations antique and magnificent, the view of the gardens enchanting. Sharon thought it looked like fairyland, and said something about picture books she remembered from when she was a little girl. The porter, a Guardia plainclothesman, set down their luggage and waved away the offered gratuity. Keith put his arm around Sharon as the man closed the door.

“Hey, Sheherazade,” he said as they looked out at the garden, “we’re home.”

“Home for a day,” Sharon said. She very nearly said more, but he was kissing her.

Keith’s only complaint about the room was that the soap in the bathroom of the suite was heavily scented. When he came out of the shower he grunted something about what the guys on the team would say about him smelling like flowers. Sharon told him to come to bed.

Later she propped herself up on her pillow and looked at him. “It wasn’t so bad being without you,” she said.

“No?”

“I kept thinking there were lots of other things to do besides be in love with someone.”

“Darn right,” he said.

“I heard it’s just chemicals in your brain.” She traced her fingertip along the curve of his forehead. “There’s a part of your brain called the limbic system.”

“Yep,” he said. And then, “The thing about it is, I want you to marry me.”

Both of them played it cool. Sharon said she’d say yes if he’d ask her, and he waited till she said yes before telling her that he’d wanted to marry her six months ago. They decided on an appropriately short engagement. Keith would play his last game on Saturday in Seville; Sunday they would see the championship match together; Monday they would take a Mediterranean cruise boat from Barcelona and be married on shipboard.

Later that afternoon they saw some of the Alhambra as tourists. With Guardia plainclothesmen hovering nearby, they looked at the colorfully tiled baths where the palace harem had once prepared for the night under the sultan’s selective eye. They saw the Court of Lions with its cascading waters, and the adjoining gallery where, one year before Columbus first sailed for America, the entire family of a powerful duke had been massacred. 

Their guide pointed casually at the room’s central basin with its picturesque fountain. “There, Sultan Boabdil piled the severed heads of the Abancerrajes family,” he intoned. “At the end of the alcove is the king’s chamber.”

Sharon and Keith drifted away from the group at that point. 

Nearby, in the palace of Carlos V, a London orchestra here for the festival was playing airs from Mozart. As they stopped to listen, Sharon tried to etch the scene in her memory. “It’s so beautiful,” she said, “and it lasts for such a little time.” 

A lady beside her overheard and said the festival was held every year in July for nearly two full weeks.

After supper that night, they walked from the palace up to the gardens of the Generalife, the Sultans’ summer quarters. The evening air was fresh and warm and scented with the fragrance of the orange groves. Open-air theaters were set among the fountains and waterfalls of the gardens; tonight, because of the festival, they were lit with floodlights and candles for a ballet performance. Sharon and Keith watched for a while. The heroine died beautifully at the end of the first act.

When the lights came up for intermission Sharon’s fingers tightened on Keith’s hand. “I want to see the wall where you climbed over,” she said.

“Let’s not think about it,” he said. “We’re on a holiday.”

Both of them woke before dawn. Soon afterward they decided to go for a walk before breakfast. As they were leaving their room they heard soft music in the distance, coming from the direction of the Generalife gardens. They walked that way. Behind them strolled two men of the Guardia, dressed as tourists. 

Soon they found the source of the music: on a walkway between two long, tunnel-like rows of cedars stood four men in working dress. Two carried bells; one held a cymbal he tapped lightly with a brass rod; the fourth played a guitar. The music they played in the gray mist was hauntingly poignant. 

Keith asked one of the Guardia, and learned that the four were groundskeepers. They were known as los Campanilleros de la Aurora: the bell ringers of the dawn. Their songs were older than the palace itself.

“They sing each morning,” said the Guardia plainclothes man. “The management permits them, so long as they do not disturb the guests in the hotel.”

“Why do they sing?” Sharon asked.

“Their fathers did so,” was the reply. “And their fathers before them. It has always been done.”

At eleven that morning, Keith met with reporters in Captain Maracall’s office. He told how he had been gassed and abducted and released, and then answered their questions. He held nothing back. Yes, he would play tomorrow in Seville. Yes, he credited the Guardia with his being set free, because of the fear the gypsy guard had shown. No, he had not heard that two in the gypsy settlement had been killed yesterday. No, he had no fear of reprisals.

The reporters rushed off to phone in their stories, in time to make the evening editions on both sides of the Atlantic.

22

Friday afternoon, Raul began packing to drive to Seville. Maria had pressed his spare uniform; she handed it to him on its wooden hanger, the lapels still warm from the heat of the new electric steam iron she had bought.

“I will miss you,” she said.

He touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Early Sunday morning I’ll return. Then we’ll take a drive in the country. Have a picnic. Get away from the city for a while.”

She smiled. “Just the two of us.”

“No, Miguelito too. I think a family outing. A Sunday in the country.”

“Don’t be disappointed if the boy doesn’t want to go,” Maria said. “He’s got his heart set on something else that day.”

Raul’s head came up, his eyes suddenly intent. Maria hadn’t planned to tell, but now there was no keeping back the news of her gift from the American senõrita.

“It’s the championship game,” she said. “I got a ticket from the TV network. A gift. Miguelito’s been in seventh heaven. He’s looking forward to sitting in a real seat instead of being jostled and knocked down trying to stand on the terraces.”

She couldn’t understand why Raul was so adamant that Miguelito not go to the game. He gave no reason, even when she pressed him. He just insisted that they would have a family picnic away from the city. After he rejoined his family, he kept repeating, he would want them nearby.

When he came back Sunday morning he would change his mind, Maria thought. After all, a boy could see a World Cup in Madrid only once in a lifetime.

23

Shaving that afternoon, Alec Conroy had an idea. As he scraped the lather from his face, Alec looked at his reflection with sadness. Five years of living off women had turned him to flab inside, he thought, and the change was becoming visible in his features. The eyes were soft and lazy now. The facial muscles that had once made for an impressive, chiseled profile, had gone pudgy.

Later he decided his insight was really true. He needed the competitive turmoil of the entertainment marketplace to shake him back into fighting trim.

At dinner that night he told Rachel. He chose the moment carefully, as he had chosen the restaurant—Bogui’s, with its Casablanca-in-the-thirties decor and its fashionable clientele. Waiting until they had both finished their
brocheta solomillo
, a barbecued skewered lamb, and ordered dessert, he put it to her directly.

“I’ve been thinking about making a comeback,” he said.

Her eyebrows arched slightly. “You’re not happy with the way things are?”

“I’m not happy with myself. And I want you to help me.”

“How?”

He explained. Rachel had said she and Dan Richards would be doing field-level coverage in Seville tomorrow. The broadcast would be going live to America. Millions would be tuning in to see if the U.S. youngsters could salvage third place; if Keith Palermo could put it together again after being kidnapped and held prisoner. 

If just one out of four of those viewers went out and bought a new Alec Conroy record-

“Get to the point,” Rachel said.

Alec blinked, annoyed at her lack of empathy. Their desserts came: chocolate mousse with orange liqueur.

“You might show a little sensitivity,” he said, taking a mouthful.

“Sensitivity, crap. You’re the one who’s asking for a favor.”

“Is that it? You’re going to make me come right out and beg?”

She nodded. “Your first step in making a comeback, kid.”

24

That night, Captain Maracall himself knocked on the door to Keith and Sharon’s suite in the Alhambra Palace. He apologized most profusely for disturbing them, but there was a problem. An anonymous demand had been received in Madrid concerning the television coverage of the championship game; he had not been informed of the exact substance of the demand, but it was being taken most seriously by the American TV network. 

More to the point for Keith, the anonymous caller had promised to stage an “incident” tomorrow in Seville. The idea was to prove an ability to do far worse the next day in Madrid if the TV network did not cooperate.

Captain Maracall did not want to take chances that the “incident in Seville” might happen to Keith. 

The Guardia would therefore drive Keith and Sharon directly to Seville’s Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium instead of to the Americans’ hotel. As a further precaution, they would depart one hour before the originally scheduled time.

PART FOUR

July 10-11

1

The Zaragosa apartment building stands on the outskirts of Seville across the National Highway from Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium, roughly four hundred yards from the playing field. A drab yellow brick structure built as public housing, it rests on foundation pillars sunk in landfill above what was a malaria-breeding swamp until the middle fifties, and what was for ten years thereafter a garbage dump. At that time the building emerged, along with the stadium, as a part of Franco’s urban beautification program. 

Officials planned the unit as a haven for a few fortunate low-income families. Quickly, however, it became apparent that the poor could neither afford cars to commute to the outer borders of Seville, nor fully appreciate the Italian-designed apartments, nor bribe the housing officials as well as could their more affluent fellow citizens.