5. MARIQUITA

It's the kind of place you can walk past and never even know it was there. Tucked in the corner of a side street that sweeps down from the eccentric sprawl of Park Güell, it's a place the locals know well. Especially Pepito. It was the first place he came to when he discovered the clothes, the first place he'd stop on his rounds of the bars and clubs that littered the city. Sometimes, you would find them in the most obvious places and sometimes, like this, they were the last place you would think. But most importantly for Pepito, it was the place where he had first laid eyes on Mariquita. Six years ago, almost to the day, when he stepped over the threshold and into that place.

He stops the Vespa outside and pulls it up onto the curb. He checks his watch. 9.16am and scans the street. A couple of women dragging their shopping barrows behind them pass on the other side, their heads down and their faces twisted against the morning glare that slips between the buildings. Pepito watches until they are out of sight before he dismounts and steps towards the door with his finger outstretched. He presses the buzzer, no hesitation. He waits, tapping the outside of his thigh with a nervous hand until he hears the click of the intercom and a voice, low and challenging barks through the speaker. He gives his name, Detective Pons, slowly and clearly, relishing the shape of the syllables in his mouth, the sharpened T's and the pop of the P. He leans in close to the door and flexes his fingers until he hears the grating rasp of a bolt being pulled aside and the door swings open. A slab of a man in a track suit stands before him and beckons him forwards with a flick of the head.

He's in. He stands at the side of the main room and watches the receding expanse of man-made fibres disappear behind a curtain at the back. He takes his time and looks around noting the changes since his last visit. The bar, larger and centred in the middle of the room is lined on both sides by a stage, like a catwalk. The tables are larger too, solid looking, substantial and each has its own pole which rises from the middle like a monstrous erection, buffed to perfection and glinting in the overhead lights. He flicks his eyes upwards and notices the ropes which hang down almost touching the floor and the trapezes which are placed in strategic points around the room. He reaches up and grasps one of the metal bars suspended above his head. He holds the cold length of steel in the palm of his hand before releasing it with a push from his fingertips. All in all, it's an impressive sight. If he stretches his imagination he can fill the place with naked women and braying punters. He shakes his head, a smile creeping up from the corners of his mouth and runs his hand over the back of his neck. He has to admit, she'd come a long way from those early days. Days when she was a dancer herself, working in some seedy dive downtown for a couple of notes and all the tips she could make. She had indeed come a long way and she'd worked hard, it was obvious. Hard enough to scrape up the deposit for this place, although rumour had it she'd had a helping hand. A lift up the ladder, so to speak. But even so, she'd made the changes herself (that much was clear) she'd made her mark, expanded her empire in the mass marketing of flesh which was designed to keep you coming. Designed to keep you coming back.

From the corner of his eye he catches sight of her. She is moving towards him, gliding almost, her feet obscured by a long, burgundy dress which wasn't tight exactly, just clung to her body in ways you'd never expect. Small, dark, compact, with a shock of russet hair that stretches half way down her back. She is beautiful, although not conventionally speaking, her eyes are too deeply set, her mouth too wide and her nose a little crooked. But to Pepito, she is beautiful. As beautiful as he remembers. She stretches out her hands as he turns and takes him by the shoulders, her fingers releasing a fleeting pressure before removing them and standing back. She appraises him, her eyes moving slowly downwards from his face to the floor and back up. And then she nods her head, just slightly. Just enough for him to feel that out of all the men in the whole damn city it was him, Detective Pepito Pons that she wanted. This was her special gift. This was her success.

They sit in her office, a large room, carefully arranged with unerring taste in creams and expensive tones of polished dark wood. It's set behind the main stage with a window, one way of course, which runs the length of the stage giving excellent views of the floor in front. From here, you can see everything and he wonders, with a pleasant knot in the pit of his gut, if she had stood here and watched him.
"Been a long time," she says, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She's standing by the sleek black lines of a coffee machine, tipping the liquid into a cup, her back turned and the remark thrown casually over her shoulder. Pepito thinks back to the last time they met, or rather, the last time he had seen her snaking her way through the tangle of men to the stage, her hands lingering on the faces of a few who craned to whisper in her ear. She would laugh, that explosive burst of pleasure in her throat and playfully push their faces away. The she would take to the stage. She would dance. She would dance as if she were the only living soul in the room, eyes closed, oblivious. She would dance, it seemed to Pepito, for no-one else but him. She crosses the floor towards him, cup in hand and sets it down on the table beside him before moving towards her desk. Pepito leans forwards, reaching for the coffee and tips it to his mouth.
"Thanks," he says, placing the cup back on the table, "I needed that."
"Glad to hear it," she opens a drawer, pulls out a photograph and returns to Pepito.
"Rosa," she says dropping the photograph with a plop on the table beside him, "she's one of my dancers, last time anyone saw her was three days ago, no-one's seen her since."
Pepito picks up the photo and looks at the girl; nineteen years old, perhaps twenty, clear-skinned, dark eyes, cute face. He leans back in his chair and stretches his legs out in front, crossing his feet at the ankles.
"Have you called the police?" He has to ask but guesses that this is something in which she'd rather not have the police involved and who can blame her? In her line of work she's just about tolerated as long as she keeps her nose clean, her head down and safely out of sight.
"Do you have to ask?" she says, crossing the room to the window. But we know that he did.
"Look," she says suddenly coming towards him. Pepito flicks his eyes down and notices for the first time that she is barefoot. "I think we understand each other, I need this to be kept .." she turns, moves towards her desk, decides against it and returns to the window. "Carlos is the only one who knows you're here besides me." He guesses Carlos is the gorilla in the track suit who ushered him in with such rare finesse.
"Aren't you forgetting someone?" She turns her head quickly and fixes him with a startled look.
"Raphael?" Pepito ventures.
She stifles a laugh. She moves towards the desk having regained some of her composure and leans forwards with a flirtatious tilt of hip. "I'd say he doesn't really count."
"So I've been told but don't worry, he won't be a problem." He slips the photo into his pocket and stands up. "Mind if I keep this?"
She shakes her head.
"Good." He stoops to pick up his coffee cup and moves towards the machine. "Mind if I have a refill?"
She shakes her head again and sits down on the edge of the desk, her eyes following his movements. She's trying to work him out. Trying to put her finger on just what it is about him. His hair, his age, the way his feet splay outwards when he walks? Or is it the clothes?
"You want me to track her down?" He throws the question out casually as his hand works the spoon in circles around the cup. "I presume that's why I'm here." He flicks his eyes up to gauge her reaction although he has a hunch he wasn't far off the mark.
"Isn't that obvious?" Her mouth almost breaking into a smirk.
"Nothing's obvious in my business .." He crosses the room towards her and hands her a cup. "Let's say she's been laying low for awhile, spending time with a boyfriend .. I assume a pretty girl like that has a boyfriend?"
She regards him for a moment, an eyebrow raised to the ceiling and a hand poised on her hip.
"So she's shacked up with her boyfriend, unless ..." He takes his time, slides his butt up on the desk with one leg hitched up beside her and the other propped on the floor for support. "Unless ... you have some reason to be worried."
He was setting a trap she could smell it, he was trying to draw her out but it wasn't necessary really, she was ready to tell him everything. Everything she thought he wanted to hear.
"I suppose .. " She stops herself and rising, suddenly, turns towards the window with a dramatic twist. "Carlos is her boyfriend, in fact, they were going to get married."
"The guy in the track suit?"
She nods.
He dips his head and slurps his coffee. Of course, this changed things slightly. But it didn't put him off.
"And when was the last time he saw her?"
"Wednesday morning I think, you'd better ask him that."
"Was she working that night?"
"She was meant to ... she never showed up."
"How did Carlos feel about her working at the club?"
"How should I know? Ask him" She turns around sharply, her fingers reaching for the strands of hair that fall across her face.
"I intend to."
"He wasn't jealous if that's what you mean, he knew the score .. maybe things would be different once they were married."
Pepito nods his head, he can understand that. It would be difficult for a man, any man to watch his wife naked in front of other men, even if it was her occupation. A professional hazard, so to speak. Although Pepito himself had never been married he sometimes thought of it. Imagined what it would be like to be bound to a woman for the rest of his life, tied to her by church and state. He shudders at the thought, slides off the desk and moves towards the window to stand beside her.
"Tell me about Carlos." It's a command more than a question but she doesn't seem to mind. Instead, she throws her head back and laughs, her throat vibrating with the effort.
"You think he's got something to do with this? You must be crazy."
Pepito shrugs.
"Look I've known Carlos a long time and he does what I tell him ... besides, he's as gentle as a lamb."
Pepito watches Carlos from the window as he lifts a crate of lager like it was a dishcloth and swings it onto his shoulder.
"You sure about that?" he asks, flicking his head to the window.
"Yeah, I'm sure." She dips her head and smiles.
"Maybe he slapped her around?" He's still watching Carlos but he can feel her presence beside him. She's close, so close he can smell her perfume; a cloying, feral scent, subtly intoxicating, it claws at his throat and makes his head swim. He closes his eyes. He steps back and when he opens them to look at her she's already shaking her head.
"No," she says, her voice suddenly flat. "No."
"Why not?" He's taken off balance, maybe it's the perfume still swimming inside his head, he can't be sure. Feeling a desperate need to regain control and resurrect his composure, he decides to press her buttons and push it a little further. "A big guy like that ... maybe there's something he hasn't told you, maybe they had a fight, the fight got out of hand and he scared her off ..." He reaches for the desk and clutches the side, back straight and head flipped to one side. "Or worse."
"No," she repeats, turning to face him. "He didn't touch her ... never has and never would."
"How do you know?"
She gazes at him coldly, her lips set in a stifled grimace and her hands pulling on the sides of her dress.
"I know because he loved her."
"Loved?"
"You know what I mean."
Pepito shrugs. "Sure .. stranger things have happened."
Her mouth twitches at the corners but she manages to tease them into a half smile and moves towards the desk. She sits down heavily beside Pepito and swings one leg over the other so that a portion of her calf is exposed. "Poor bastard ..." she dips her head towards him, her breathing brushing the side of his cheek, "but trust me on this one and believe me, I know ... he didn't touch her, wouldn't so much as ruffle a hair on her head. He loves her, it was his idea they get married."
"And Rosa?"
"Oh, she knows a good thing when she sees it .."
"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of her."
Now it's Mariquita's turn to shrug. She slips off the desk with the skill of a cat and moves towards the window. Her back is turned towards him as her eyes float absently over the stage in front.
"Let's just say that I've met her type .."
"And what type is that?"
She turns around to face him, resting her back against the window, a smile curling the edge of her mouth. "Why detective Pons," she purrs playfully. "You must know the type .. the professional manipulator? It's almost an art ... quite something to watch one in action, they bend you and twist you with just the right amount of pressure so that in the end you're not sure who is controlling who."
"Did she control Carlos?"
"You figure it out."

He felt quite sure that he would, eventually. For now, he had enough to be going on with and a talk with Carlos was the most obvious place to start. He moves towards her flicking the hem of his jacket behind him as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a card. For a moment, her eyes skip down to the gun snug in its holster and back up to his face, in a heartbeat, so fast that Pepito almost missed it.
"Call when you need me, day or night." He hands her the card with a flourish and as she takes it from his fingers she dips her head just slightly, so she can spare him the smile that is tugging gently at the corners of her ruby stained lips.