She had a martini already and was smoking a cigarette.
“I’m not late, am I?” he asked. His voice was perfectly poised, despite his nerves.
“Not at all. Just on time. I like a man who’s prompt.”
Marisa raised her hand, summoning the waiter with a casual motion of the wrist. Tristán asked for mineral water. He was still trying to steer clear of alcohol.
“You do smoke, don’t you?” she asked, opening her silver cigarette case and offering him a slim cigarette.
“I’m trying to quit my vices.”
“But I like a man with some vices.”
“Prompt, but with vices, then? What a combo.”
She smiled. Tristán mimicked the gesture. This part was easy. He could flirt with his eyes bandaged and both hands tied behind his back. It had been helpful, back when he’d started. He caught the eye of men and women alike. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but he had secured his first few gigs like that. Flirting and sleeping his way through the auditions. It felt a bit cheap, now, and Karina had never had to do that. She was quality goods, she came from the top. A father who was a producer, a mother who was a former movie star. He, on the other hand, was a nobody who got lucky. Until the luck ran out.
“I’m glad you came alone,” Marisa said. “Your friend is a little rough around the edges.”
“Montserrat is very dedicated to her work,” he replied, toying with the menu. The special of the month was bacalao, a necessary element for the December festivities. He felt hungry but at the same time did not want to order any food, not with someone he didn’t know. He’d suddenly become superstitious, afraid of people slipping poison into his food or cursing it. It was the reason why he wouldn’t take one of her cigarettes, either. Who knew what could be rolled inside it.
“Documentaries must be awfully complicated projects. How long have you been working on this one?”
“We only knew Abel a short while.”
“It’s a pity, his passing,” Marisa said, but her tone was flat. Polite, but with no warmth. Announcers spoke like that when they read the news. “Well, I wanted to thank you for meeting with me on such short notice. I talked to my aunt earlier today. She wants to know if you have any of Ewers’s things. Your friend, she mentioned that she’d read The House of Infinite Wisdom.”
“Abel let Montserrat read a copy of that.”
“Does she still have it?”
Tristán was a decent actor, and now he was sliding into the part, so he gave Marisa a shrug that looked perfectly innocent. “I don’t think so.”
“Perhaps you have something else that belongs to Ewers. Items you might be utilizing for your research. If that’s the case, I’d like to buy them off you.”
According to Montserrat, Alma Montero had ordered Abel to give her Ewers’s film and other possessions before he was murdered. But Marisa had denied the two of them had been in touch recently.
“Why do you want them?”
“It’s my aunt who wants them. She wants to destroy any artifacts connected to that movie they worked on.”
“Is that so?”
Marisa rested an elbow on the table and leaned forward. “Yesterday I saw one of Ewers’s runes near my home. My aunt believes his cult is more active than ever, and more dangerous.”
He might have grimaced, but the waiter arrived at that moment and set a glass of mineral water in front of Tristán. He glanced down, glad for the brief interruption, and looked back at Marisa.
“I don’t understand.”
“My aunt suspects Abel did something. He cast a spell. And it’s made Ewers’s old acolytes restless.”
“But why does she want to destroy Ewers’s things?”
“The same reason why she burned his film all those years ago: Ewers was a dangerous man. Perhaps he still is.”
The present tense Marisa utilized did not sit well with him. He thought of Montserrat back in the car, all alone, with sorcerers lurking around dark corners. He debated getting up and leaving immediately, but he stayed still. Montserrat would want him to find out as much as he could.
“How did Ewers die?” he asked.
It was not a question Marisa had been expecting. She raised an eyebrow at him as she took a drag of her cigarette. The silver case lay on the table, next to her martini glass. There was something subtly wrong about this woman, a sour note he could not pinpoint. It unsettled him.
“Stabbed. He was robbed,” she said, picking up her drink and nibbling at an olive.
“An important sorcerer and he didn’t have any bodyguards? Any charms to keep him safe?” In his pocket there was the handkerchief he’d smeared with his blood. He slid a hand into that pocket as he spoke.
“He grew cocky. Perhaps he was also distracted. He was ill, you know?”
“Yes, I heard. That’s why he wanted to cast a spell in the first place. Although, to get his financing, he told your aunt the spell would be for her.”
“You know a lot about Ewers, but you’re playing innocent. I think you’re only pretending not to have items that belonged to him. There was a film,” Marisa said, and then she was quiet, as if expecting him to fill the gap.
“Oh?”
“Yes, there was.” She was not amused by his evasiveness. She was not charmed. Not anymore. “Abel had been casting spells again, he’d been using Ewers’s old things.”
“How do you know that?”
“My aunt found out.”
“Then she spoke with him before he died. You said they were not in touch.”
“There are ways to find out about things without picking up a phone, young man. Especially when you remember a few spells.”
“Your aunt is a practitioner still? She follows Ewers’s teachings?”
Marisa shook her head and looked him straight in the eye, a quiet fury in her steady gaze. “Are you joking? She despised Ewers.”
“You didn’t say so before.”
“I thought it was implicit. Listen, Mr. Abascal, I don’t know why you’re interested in Ewers or his film, but I can tell you the only thing you’ll get if you hold on to anything that belonged to that man is grief. The rune I saw, it’s a warning.”
“Why would that cult be after you?”
“After my aunt, not me. Perhaps they mean to frighten her, to let her know she must not interfere in their business. My aunt thinks they are incredibly dangerous and the only way to be safe is to destroy those artifacts. I want you to consider selling them to me. I’ll pay a good price.”
“Wait a second, I didn’t say I had anything,” Tristán replied, but he knew she didn’t believe that.
They sat in a silence that was not quite hostile but was not friendly either. The tide had turned. She wouldn’t give Tristán anything else; still he tried one last question.
“You said Ewers is a dangerous man. What did you mean by that? He’s been dead for decades.”
Marisa smiled then. “Spells can last for a very long time. Ewers’s power remains. And perhaps, a part of him remains, too. He was trying to cheat death, after all. Who says he didn’t manage it somehow? Give me that film, Mr. Abascal. I think you know the one I mean. If you don’t, you and your friend might be in a very risky position.”