On The Track of El Bizco—The Outskirts—The Ideal of Jesús After spending the day at work in the printing shop, Manuel reported at nine in the night at Ortiz’s home.
“That’s the way I like it,” said the chief to him. “With military punctuality.”
Ortiz armed himself with a revolver, which he placed in his belt; a stick, which he secured to his wrist with a thong; a rope. To Manuel he gave a cudgel, and they left together.
“Let’s make a round of these chop-houses,” said the guard to Manuel. “And you keep your eye peeled for El Bizco.”
As they walked up the Calle de Arganzuela they struck up a conversation.
Ortiz was a member of the police who was genuinely enamoured of his profession. His father had belonged to the force before him, and the instinct of pursuit flowed as strong in their veins as in the veins of a hunter dog.
According to the tale he told, Ortiz had been a carbineer on the Málaga coast, eternally at war with the smugglers, until he came to Madrid and joined the police department.
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“I’ve done more than any one else of them,” he declared, “but they don’t promote me because I haven’t any pull. It was the same way with my father. He caught more thieves than the whole police department of Madrid put together, but nothing doing. He never advanced beyond the grade of captain. Then they transferred him to the sewer district and he saw to every squabble they had down there.... Yet he never carried a revolver or a stick, like me. Only his blunderbuss. He was a soldier, he was.”
They happened to be passing a tavern, so they went in, had a glass of wine, and in the meantime Manuel scrutinized the men who were gathered about the tables.
“There’s nobody here that you’re looking for,” said the tavern-keeper to the policeman.
“I see that there isn’t, Tío Pepe,” answered Ortiz, extracting some coins from his pocket to pay for the drinks.
“My treat,” said the man behind the counter.
“Thanks. Good-bye!”
They left the tavern and reached the Plaza de la Cebada.
“Let’s go over to the Café de Naranjeros,” suggested the captain. “Though it’s not likely that our bird is flying thereabouts. Still, often where you least expect....”
They entered the café; there were only a few men chatting with the singers. From the doorway Ortiz shouted in:
“Hey, Tripulante, can I see you for a second?”
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A young man who looked as if he came from good family arose and came over to Ortiz.
“Do you know a thug called El Bizco?”
“Yes, I believe I do.”
“Does he hang around this district?”
“No, not hereabouts.”
“Really?”
“He really doesn’t. He must be down below. You can take my word for that.”
“I do, man. Why not? Listen, Tripulante,” added Ortiz, seizing the youth by the arm. “Watch out, eh? You’ll slip, if you don’t.”
Tripulante burst into laughter, and placing the index finger of his right hand upon his lower eyelash, he whispered:
“On the track!... And mum’s the word, comrade!”
“Very well. Keep your eyes open just the same, in case he shows up. Remember we know you.”
“Leave that to me, se?or Ortiz,” replied the youth. “I’ll keep a sharp watch.”
The officer and Manuel left the café.
“He’s a slippery article, as clever as any crook. Let’s go further down. Perhaps El Tripulante is right.”
They reached the Ronda de Toledo. The night was beautiful, atwinkle with stars. Afar, some bonfires lighted the sky. Out of the chimney of the Gas House belched a huge black swirl of smoke, like the powerful exhalation of some monster. They sauntered along the Calle del Gas, which, as if to provide a contrast to its name, was illuminated by[330] oil-lamps; skirting the Casa Blanca they descended to Las Injurias. They crossed a narrow street and fairly stumbled against the night watchman.
Ortiz told him what mission brought them there; he gave him a description of El Bizco. The sereno, however, informed them that nobody answering to that description was to be found in that vicinity.
“We can make inquiries, if you gentlemen wish.”
The three penetrated a narrow passageway that led to a mud-strewn patio.
There was a light in the window of one of the houses, and they drew near to reconnoitre. By the illumination of a candle stub that was placed upon a kitchen shelf they made out a tattered old woman squatting on the floor. At her side, blanketed with rags, slept two boys and a little girl.
They left the patio and walked down an alley.
“There’s a family here that I don’t know,” said the sereno, and he knocked at the door with the tip of his pike. There was a delay in opening.
“Who is it?” asked a woman’s voice from within.
“The law,” answered Ortiz.
The door was opened by a woman in tatters, with nothing underneath. The watchman walked straight in, followed by Manuel and Ortiz; the place was filled with an atrocious, overpowering stench. Upon a wretched bed improvised out of shreds and paper refuse lay a blind woman. The sereno thrust his pike under the bed.
“You can see for yourselves. He isn’t here.”
Ortiz and Manuel left the Las Injurias district.
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“El Bizco lived over in Las Cambroneras for a time,” suggested Manuel.
“Then there isn’t much use in looking for him there,” replied Ortiz. “But no matter. Heave, ho, my lads! Let’s try it, anyway.”
They strolled along the Paseo de Yeserías. On both sides of the Toledo Bridge gleamed the gas-lamps; here and there a narrow ribbon of the river sent back reflections from its dark waters. From the direction of Madrid, out of the Gas House chimneys issued red flames like dragons of fire. From the distance came the whistle of a locomotive; along the banks of the Canal the silhouettes of the trees writhed upward into the gloom of the night.
They found the sereno of Las Cambroneras and asked after El Bizco.
“I’ll talk tomorrow with Paco el Ca?í and find out. Where shall we meet tomorrow?”
“In La Blasa’s tavern.”
“Fine. I’ll be there at three.”
They crossed the bridge once more and went into Casa Blanca.
“We’ll see the administrator,” said Ortiz. They entered a causeway; to one side, they knocked at a place the half-opened door of which showed a chink of light. A man in shirt-sleeves came out.
“Who is it?” he shouted.
Ortiz gave his credentials.
“No such chap is around here,” answered the caretaker. “I’m positive as to that; I have every one of my tenants listed in this notebook, and I know them.”
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Leaving Casa Blanca, Ortiz and Manuel made for Las Pe?uelas, where Ortiz had a long conversation with the sereno. Then they visited a number of the taverns in the neighbourhood; the places were filled with customers, though the doors were closed.
As they went through the Calle del Ferrocarril, the sereno pointed out the spot where they had discovered the quartered body of the woman in a sack. Ortiz and the watchman discussed this and other crimes that had been committed in the vicinity, then they separated.
“That watchman is a corker,” said Ortiz. “He’s cudgelled every bully and thug out of Las Pe?uelas.”
It was already late when they had left the taverns, and Ortiz thought that they might postpone their hunt to the next day. He remained in the Campillo del Mundo Nuevo and Manuel, tramping across half of Madrid, returned to his house.
Early the next morning he went to work at the printery, but when he told them that he could not come that afternoon, he was discharged.
Manuel went to La Fea’s for a bite.
“They’ve fired me from the printing shop,” he announced, upon entering.
“You must have come in late,” snapped La Salvadora.
“No. Ortiz told me yesterday that I’d have to go along with him this afternoon; I told them so at the printery and they fired me on the spot.”
La Salvadora smiled with sarcastic incredulousness, and Manuel felt his cheeks turning red.
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“You needn’t believe it if you don’t want to, but that’s the truth.”
“I haven’t said a word, have I, man?” retorted La Salvadora, mockingly.
“I know you didn’t, but you were laughing at me.”
Manuel left La Fea’s in a huff, sought out Ortiz, and together they made their way to Las Injurias.
It was a mild afternoon and the sun was glorious. They took chairs just outside La Blasa’s tavern. In a lane opposite to them the men were sprawling in the doorways of their houses; the women, with their ragged skirts gathered about them, were skipping from one side to the other, their feet splashing in the stinking sewage that ran like a black stream through the middle of the street. Here and there a woman had a cigarette in her mouth. Big grey rats darted about over the mud, pursued by a number of gamins with sticks and stones.
Ortiz exchanged a few words with the proprietress of the resort and shortly afterward the sereno of the Cambroneras district appeared. He saluted Ortiz, they drained a few glasses, and then the sereno said:
“I had a talk with Paco el Ca?í. He knows El Bizco. He says the fellow’s not hereabouts. He believes he must be in La Manigua, or California, or some place of the sort.”
“Quite possible. Very well, gentlemen, see you later.” And Ortiz got up, followed by Manuel. They walked up to the square at the Toledo Bridge, crossed over the Manzanares river and set out on[334] the Andalucía cart-road. A few days before, Manuel had gone there for lunch with Vidal and Calatrava. There were the same gangs of thugs in the doorways of the restaurants; some knew Ortiz and invited him to a glass.
They reached a district bordering the river,—a heap of wretched hovels, without chimneys, without windows, with wattled roofs. Clouds of mosquitos hovered above the grass on the banks.
“This is El Tejar de Mata Pobre,” said Ortiz.
These miserable shacks housed some ragpickers and their families. All the denizens of the poverty-ridden settlement,—a dirty, yellowish crew they made,—were consumed by fevers, whose germs thrived in the black, muddy waters of the river. Nobody there had ever heard of El Bizco. Manuel and Ortiz went on. At a short distance from this spot appeared another, upon a rise in the ground, composed of huts and their poultry-yards.
“The Tinsmiths’ quarter,—that’s what this is called,” informed Ortiz.
It was like a village reared upon dung and straw. Each of the houses, built of all manner of débris and offal, had its yard, delimited by fences made of old, rusty cans flattened out and nailed against posts. Here, urban poverty blended with the poverty of the country; upon the ground of the yards the old baskets and the cardboard hat boxes rubbed against the notched sickle and the rake. Some of the houses gave the impression of relative comfort; these had a look of industriousness about them. Heaps of[335] straw were piled up in their yards and hens scratched the soil.
Ortiz approached a man who was repairing a cart.
“Listen, friend. Do you happen to know a chap named El Bizco? A red, ugly....”
“Are you from the police?” asked the man.
“No. Oh, no, sir.”
“Well, you look as if you were. But that’s your affair. I don’t know this Bizco,” and the man turned his back upon them.
“We’ve got to have a care around here,” whispered Ortiz. “If they ever find out what we’ve come for, we’ll get a drubbing that we’ll remember.”
They left the Tinsmiths’ quarter, crossed the river by a bridge over which the railroad ran, and continued along the banks of the Manzanares.
On the meadows by the stream, which were dazzling with verdure, the cows were at pasture. Some ragged figures were walking slowly, cautiously along, hunting crickets.
Manuel and Ortiz reached some country houses called La China; the officer made inquiries of a gardener. The man did not know El Bizco.
Leaving this place, they sat down upon the grass to rest. It was growing dark; Madrid, a............