“Then you lied to us,” Montserrat said. “You didn’t say there was any danger—”
“I didn’t realize there was any danger,” Abel said earnestly. “I thought it through, I tried to remember the sort of things Wilhelm had taught us. It made perfect sense.”
“Why would José tell Alma anything? I thought he was your friend. Does he have something against you?”
“I don’t know. José had money problems a few years ago, and I think Alma helped him out. Maybe he thought he owed her something. It could be she found some other way, too.”
“What other way?”
“Spells, magic.” Abel was nervously palming his jacket. “Do you have a lighter?”
“I don’t smoke. Now tell me what she said exactly.”
Abel took out a cigarette case and placed it on the food court table. He finally produced a lighter and lit the cigarette with a huff. “She said I needed to return all the items that had belonged to Ewers, or I’d be sorry. She accused me of being a thief. I had a right to that bit of film, you know. I directed the damn thing, and I’m no thief. She probably thinks she can hex me, the bitch.”
“Well, did you steal the film from her?”
Abel emphatically shook his head and let the ashes of his cigarette fall on the glossy plastic food court table. “Never.”
“But you did take that book from Clarimonde Bauer.”
“What are you talking about?”
Montserrat produced the mangled copy of The House of Infinite Wisdom and placed it on the table. “This book was meant for Clarimonde. You intercepted it or stole it. He hid a letter for her inside the binding. It was never meant for you.”
“What letter?” Abel said. “If you found something you better hand it over.”
“Tell me how you got hold of that book and that print.”
“I don’t have time for your bullshit!”
He stood up, tugging at his jacket and giving her an irate look. Three teenagers who were munching on fries at a nearby table chuckled.
“The letter is at my apartment and the silver nitrate print is at the Antares vault, so you better watch your language and sit down.”
Abel muttered a curse under his breath, but he sat down and took out a monogrammed handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead.
“The book and the nitrate print were in Wilhelm’s apartment. I wasn’t supposed to take them, but I did. Alma didn’t confiscate the film reels, she destroyed them. This was what I could salvage. If I stole from anyone, I stole from him.”
“So you could cast the spell.”
“I wasn’t thinking about spells back then. I was angry.”
“Because the film collapsed?”
“The film was over, Clarimonde had been cheating on me, the whole of it.”
Abel gave her a weak smile and scooted forward, leaning his elbows against the table. He took a drag.
“I should have known. She helped finance the printing of that book of his when Alma wouldn’t. Clarimonde’s family was in the book business. Alma was getting fed up with Ewers. The film cost so much money, and Ewers kept on with his talk of spells and alchemy, but there were no results. Endless spending, spending. Anyway, Clarimonde financed his stupid book, even printed it in record time. She insisted it was for us. Ewers was a powerful magician, and he was going to do so much for us, one day. I had no idea she was seeing him behind my back, not until José told me about it.”
“What happened next?”
“The weekend Ewers was shot, Clarimonde was in Puebla, visiting friends. Hours after it happened, I heard Alma Montero was seizing film reels and shutting us down. I knew Ewers had a safe in his apartment. We were going to do our dubbing in a couple of weeks, so he was storing the print there. I went to the apartment, found the reel and the book and took them with me. Alma didn’t know, and neither did Clarimonde.”
“You said you did it because you were angry.”
Abel rested a hand flat against the table, then closed it into a fist and smiled wryly. “I didn’t think it was fair I was about to be left without anything. I took the reel because I wanted something. Mementos, right? Everyone wants a memento.”
“Alma Montero certainly wants yours. Did she say she’d kill you and specify the time?”
“She said I needed to return the things that belonged to Ewers. She said she’d be stopping by.”
“Then she didn’t threaten to kill you.”
“I saw it later,” Abel said. “I was standing in front of a mirror and I saw it, and the time it would happen too. Someone is going to slice my throat at 2:29. I know you don’t quite believe in magic, but once upon a time clairvoyance was my talent.”
“But you could not bet on the ponies nowadays,” Montserrat said, remembering his words. “You said your talent atrophied.”
“When he died, yes. But maybe it’s all come back. I must do something, I must go, I’ll die—”
Before he could stand up she pointed behind him. “It’s after two thirty.”
“What?”
He turned his head and looked at the clock in the food court, then he glanced at his wristwatch. He put out his cigarette and sat back, pressing his hands against his face, then ran his fingers through his hair and let out a sob.
The teenagers who had been smirking at them now looked worried.
“I need to lie down. Montserrat, can you give me a ride back to my apartment?”
“Sure,” she said immediately.
When he stood up and they began walking, he threw a couple of nails on the floor. “Throw nails behind you when you walk so you cannot be followed,” he mumbled.
“A spell?”
“A counter-spell.”
He stopped once in front of a store with faceless mannequins to fetch more nails from his pocket and sprinkle them on the ground, and to light another cigarette. The glass of the shop window reflected Montserrat’s worried face. Behind her someone had stopped to stare at them, probably alarmed by the old man who was throwing nails on the ground as though he were tossing crumbs to pigeons. She couldn’t see the stranger’s face, only the outline of his silhouette, the shape of a trench coat.
She grabbed Abel by an arm and pulled him quickly through the doors of the mall and onto the street before someone called security on them.
Montserrat let Abel smoke inside the car because it seemed to calm him down, and by the time they reached his building, he was quiet and serene. Once inside his apartment, Montserrat set the kettle on a burner and prepared a cup of coffee. They sat at the table together.
“You think I’m mad, but I’m not,” he said, his voice low, as she pushed the cup his way. He pressed his hands around it without drinking.
“I don’t think you’re mad. I’m simply trying to understand what is happening. Why would Alma care if you cast a spell?”
“I don’t know and I can’t ask her or José, assuming that it was José who informed her of my comings and goings. Magic was a game for me, a youthful impulse. But others took it seriously.”
He sipped his coffee, then contemplated the many photographs and memorabilia in the glass cases behind Montserrat. “What did the letter you found say?”