“What’s wrong?”
Maite looked over her shoulder at the women who were talking excitedly, but Rubén was leading her out of the office at a quick pace. Rather than exiting the way they had come, he pulled her to the back of the room, where there was a door that led to a narrow set of stairs.
Rubén moved so fast Maite almost tripped and fell. She protested, but he didn’t relent. They got in the car. He tossed the paper bag on the dashboard, and she asked him what was wrong again, but he didn’t reply.
The idea of villains who tied women with a thick rope returned to her, perversely knotting itself around her brain. She eyed the paper bag and bit her lip, turning her head to look out the window.
16
IF IT HADbeen one of the bozos from the art collective with a knife, Elvis would have chanced it and tried to fight him off, even with the threat of a close-range attack. But when Elvis got up and raised his hands, he realized three other young men had come running down the stairs.
“Come on, son of a bitch,” one of the men said, and Elvis allowed himself to be taken to a storage room, because he could do basic math and one against four guys and one of them with a knife would have been stupid, especially when the fucking knife was pressed against his neck. A knife against your neck wasn’t negotiable.
Once they reached the storage room, one of the men told him to take off his jacket, which Elvis did, and the other two ordered him to sit down and tried tying him to a chair. They had no idea how to do it, and Elvis almost chuckled at their fumbling fingers as they pinned his hands behind his back.
Meanwhile, the guy who had been expertly holding the knife against his neck began emptying the contents of Elvis’s jacket and carefully setting them on a table with a lonely radio. Something about his bearing, about the way he worked—cool, composed, while the other two were still trying to tie a knot—seemed out of place.
The storage room was full of boxes. There were no windows. Once Elvis was tied, the man with the knife tucked his weapon away.
“I want to talk to him alone,” the man said. “Step outside and don’t let anyone bother me until I come out.”
The men closed the door behind them. Elvis could hear the muffled sound of music and loud stomping coming from the floor above. He looked up at the ceiling, frowning.
“Dance studio,” the man said, still looking at Elvis’s possessions. He was holding up his driver’s license. It was a fake, of course. “You dance much?”
“Not really.”
“No, I didn’t peg you for a dancer, and I don’t think you’re here for the art gallery. So, what’s your angle?”
“Sorry?”
“Your angle,” the man said, putting the driver’s license down and turning to Elvis. “Who do you work for? DFS? Or you a judicial?”
“Who doyouwork for?” Elvis shot back. “You speak Spanish like you learned it from a Spaniard, but you’re not from there.”
“How would you know?”
“I knew a real Spanish dude,” he said, thinking of El Gazpacho.
“There’re several regions in Spain, you know. Not everyone sounds the same,” the man said, swiping a newspaper from a tall pile and opening it, his eyes scanning the contents instead of focusing on Elvis. “But I’ll give you a point for being observant. And maybe I’ll even tell you where I’m from if you answer my questions. What’s your name? Your real name.”
“Elvis.”
“Your real name, I said.”
“It’s as real as it gets.”
It was true. There’s nothing that Elvis loved more than being Elvis. The loser he’d been before was best forgotten. Elvis wasn’t a code name, like it might have been for the others. Elvis was him. His interrogator must have appreciated the honesty in his voice, because he nodded.
“You can call me Arkady,” the man said. He was tall and dressed nicely in a suede jacket and a turtleneck. Sharp, but not overly fussy. His shoes were of shiny patent leather. With that fashionable outfit he could as easily fit in at a trendy cocktail party or a hippie’s birthday bash.
“Sure, Arkady.”
The man plugged in the radio. “Who do you work for, Elvis?”
“It’s all the same garbage. What difference does it make?”
“Ah, you think you’re clever, don’t you? Answering my questions with questions. Well, I can’t waste all my day with a sloppy man like you.”
