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“He says,” explains Leon, “that he's had a shitty day. One of those shitty days that make you want to drill into things that move and gush blood.”

Donald Duck chatters on with his voice synthesizer.

“He says that drilling works like a painkiller,” translates Leon. “Better than a painkiller.”

Donald Duck chatters on with his voice synthesizer and puts both hands in front of his belly in a broad gesture that suggests that he is holding a very large ball against his belly.

“He says,” translates Leon, “that his wife doesn't wanna fuck. It's one of those superstitions Russian women have when they're knocked up. Something to do with the fact that if you let your husband fuck you while you're knocked up the kid will grow little horns or something. And it's been a couple of months already. Russian women are usually superstitious,” he adds in a wise tone. “That's one of the disadvantages of Russian women. Who for the most part have a lot of advantages. Obviously.”

The imminence of the interrogation with torture doesn't manage to dispel Pavel's sensation of decidedly un-Rastafarian weariness. In some part of his mind circulate images of secluded beaches and jungle settings. Images of him floating faceup on crystal-clear waters under a sky much bigger than any sky he's ever been under before. Letting the late-afternoon tropical sun warm him. Letting the pleasant feeling of warmth and humidity bathe his skin. Soaking his clothes and filtering through his pants. Someone clears their throat. Pavel opens his eyes and blows to get the dreadlocks out of his face.

“I never thought you'd be one of the ones that piss themselves, Pavel.” Leon gestures with his head toward the wet spot that is beginning to spread from Pavel's fly down his right pant leg.

Donald Duck chatters on with his voice synthesizer and places a small drill bit onto his electric drill.

“Donald Duck says he never imagined you'd be a pisser,” translates Leon. “That you're the last person in the world he thought he'd see piss himself.”

Donald Duck chatters on with his voice synthesizer for people who have had their vocal cords operated on and opens up his box of drill bits organized by size on the floor, in front of Pavel's tied-up feet.

“He says he doesn't have to tell you that the pissers are the scum of the earth,” translates Leon. “That even little kids know that.”

Pavel wrinkles his face into a disgusted expression as Donald Duck finishes fitting the bit into Donald Duck's Electric Drill, kneels in front of his crotch and turns it on. In the back of Pavel's mind an idea begins to emerge, an idea that isn't in the least reassuring. The electrical sound comes closer and closer to his soaked right leg. Until the tip of the drill makes the fabric of his pant leg tremble.

“Wait a minute,” he says, speaking up over the whir. He can feel Donald Duck's breath on his damp crotch. “Tell this moron to stop that thing.”

The sound of the drill stops. Pavel can feel the bill of Donald Duck's hat touching just below his belt buckle.

The guy that's too far from the light to be visible clears his throat again and takes a step forward. His torso and face materialize above his Really Expensive pants and shoes. Pavel looks at him with his eyes squinted. Beneath a mop of white hair the vaguely reflective surface of a metal plate appears, where the right part of the guy's forehead should be, and beneath that a black fabric patch covering his right eye. Pavel frowns. It's the same guy. The one from the house. The one that's screwing his sister. Pavel feels a new wave of weariness and negative feelings toward the world in general. Whatever mess Bocanegra has gotten him mixed up in this time, it doesn't exactly look like he's going to be able to get out of it with every part of his body intact.

“I love that you're asking me to wait a minute.” Leon lights another cigarette with a match and shakes the match out with more force than necessary. The size of his arms seems to indicate a muscular strength that is potentially dangerous in most everyday situations. “Because I'm dying to hear what you have to tell me. Now in my life I've seen people up to their necks in shit, but you take fucking first prize. First of all, I find out you broke into a house. And not just any house. My boss's house. Second, you let yourself get caught by the cops. And third, I find out that you are having a coffee with the cops and they slap you on the back and let you go free.” He exhales a new mouthful of Russian black tobacco toward Pavel's bruised face. “So I have three good reasons to leave you here with Donald Duck and come back tomorrow to scrape up what's left of you.”

Pavel realizes that while he was paying attention to Leon's words, a rat has started chewing on the tip of his shoe. Other rats observe from a prudential distance.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” says Pavel, shaking his shoe. “I swear I won't try to escape.”

Donald Duck is adjusting the bit on Donald Duck's Drill as he chatters on with his voice synthesizer that brings to mind cartoon characters. The guy with the metal plate in his forehead and the patch on his eye remains just outside the reach of the lightbulb's light, in such a way that his head goes in and out of the darkness creating a vaguely flickering effect. Leon holds his cigarette between his index finger and his thumb and blows the smoke out with his eyes half closed.

“And yet,” he says with a pensive face, “my boss tells me it's not a good idea to leave you here with Donald Duck and come back tomorrow to scrape up what's left of you. In fact, he tells me that it makes no sense to interrogate you or let Donald Duck get any information out of you because in fact we already know who the idiot is that paid you to break into his house. In fact, and he's got a point, we don't have anything to ask you. What he tells me is that we should untie you and let you go, but that we shouldn't let you get too far. Like when you go fishing. Like when you're fishing and you let out the line, but not too much.”

Pavel tries to imagine the implications of the fact that the guy with the metal plate and the eye patch is Leon's boss while at the same time trying to kick the rats away.

“Don't kill me,” he says finally. “Think of my sister and my poor sick mother.”

Leon smiles a wide smile with a smattering of gold.

“If you don't shut up,” he says, “I swear we're gonna leave you here with Donald Duck. I'm serious.”

Donald Duck holds up his drill sadly. And takes a poignant look at Pavel's knees.

CHAPTER 19. The Most Exciting Adventure

Shortly after the sun sets over the fairground glow of Christmas lights, Lucas Giraut gets out of a taxi on the anonymous block of banks and office buildings where Hannah Linus has her gallery. He leans forward a bit to help Marcia Parini out of the cab. She's wearing a backless sequined evening gown. With a matching bag. All by Givenchy. The Lino Rossi suit that Giraut has chosen for the opening is the brandy herringbone and he's added the festive detail of a white rose in the buttonhole. A girl with a green Lycra minidress and in-line skates skates over to Giraut. She stops in front of him with an expert turn of her legs and skates and hands him a promotional brochure. Giraut looks at it: on the brochure there is the same smiling koala as on the young woman's green Lycra dress. “BIOSPHERE PARK,” says the brochure. Or perhaps it's the smiling koala that's saying it. “THE ENVIRONMENT IS THE MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE.”

Lucas Giraut looks up, but the young woman in the green Lycra dress is already skating away down the street.

“Damn it to hell,” says Marcia Parini. Looking with a frown at the group of people gathering in front of the gallery doors. “Don't tell me that bitch has the same bag as me.”

The scene on the sidewalk in front of the gallery doors is a slightly better-attended and slightly more exciting version of all the openings the important antiques dealers in Barcelona hold. With the same thirty-odd guests. With the same journalists feigning somewhat snide indifference. With the same cluster of surly waiters. The only thing that makes this opening exciting and special, filled with nervous laughter and conversations in furtive tones and clandestine cell phone calls, is that Hannah Linus is at its center. That vortex of envy and illicit admiration and hatred and desire. That gravitational center of the world of Barcelona antiques dealers.