Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [148]
‘One moment, Santos. Allow me to introduce you to an impregnable fortress. Chief Ren!’
Paúl Santos had heard about Chief Ren. He’d come from Barcelona. Two years’ intense work experience in Crime. Every police station had an unusual character who became famous further afield and Chief Ren was one of those veterans. The only reference he had was the inspector’s name. Nothing else. ‘You’re from Galicia? Then you’ll know Chief Ren.’ ‘No, I don’t.’ ‘Well, you’ll meet him.’ ‘What’s so special about him?’ ‘You’ll meet him soon enough.’
What did surprise him was that the station chief should call Ren chief, albeit colloquially. People on top don’t tend to fool about when it comes to hierarchy. But Santos soon learnt that Ren moved in a different orbit. Had his own circle of power. Which he carried with him. The chief, that is the station chief, had been right when he described him as a fortress. Aside from a few details of clothing, such as his hat and his tie, which he wore tight as a hangman’s rope, splitting his neck in two, and which Santos would have loved to pull loose, apart from such details, Ren looked like a large, medieval defence work.
‘Chief Ren, this is Paúl Santos Unknown, who’s joining Crime. The first year to graduate in Modern Criminology. We’re getting old, Ren.’
‘You just got out of school?’
Santos knew he was walking a tightrope. There was no way he was going to call him chief.
‘I’ve come from Barcelona, Ren. Two years on the streets.’
‘Listen, Santos,’ said the station chief. ‘In this building, Chief Ren carries a lot of responsibility. He’s in charge of the Brigade of Politico-Social Investigation. But you should also know he’s one of the greats. This is one of the greats, Santos. Hierarchies aside, in our view he’s the best. In terms of information and in terms of application. Did you hear what the Minister said when he was decorated?’
‘That’s enough, boss! I’m getting overweight.’
‘He called him Great Captain. A great captain of State security. Now what do you say?’
‘It’s a great honour.’
‘It is. He called him something else. A soldier of God and the State. Sometimes you have to recognise things for what they are. Listen to this, Santos. If our archives ever disappeared, there’d be no problem. We’d have Chief Ren’s brain.’
‘Thank you, that’s enough. I think Mr Unknown is like me. He’s not easily impressed. Doesn’t give words great importance.’
‘No, no. I give them every importance.’
Ren’s head was very wide. So was his body. But not his eyes. His eyes were small, didn’t stop moving in their sockets, seemed to suffer from a deliberate squint in contrast to the amimia of his podgy face. The boss’s deference went beyond mere courtesy and momentarily pulled in his large body, which was wide and asymmetrical. The structure of his torso was still that of a strong man, but taken together, Paúl Santos reached the conclusion he was in the presence of a body that was seriously dysfunctional, starting with a belly that had long since stopped trying to be discreet. As for his face, it was noticeably swollen. Santos was meeting him for the first time, but it was a work in progress and he assumed it had something to do with the abuse of alcoholic drinks. It could also be a physical strategy since, when they shook hands, Ren’s face revealed a hard kernel, the scrutinising look of those sunken eyes. His hand was almost twice as big as Santos’, but he didn’t hold back on the handshake.
‘At your service, Mr Ren.’
‘I’m in a dilemma. I’m not sure which you like better, Santos or Unknown.’
‘My friends call me Unknown.’
‘Then I’ll call you Santos. Let me tell you what a confessor told my rather gullible spinster aunt, “Listen, Milucha, even saints have pricks.”’
They burst out laughing. Santos felt his colleague’s slap. A slap of intimacy, which knocked him forwards. Ren seemed to feel better, having got this off his chest. He crossed his arms and his body regained a certain symmetry.
‘Till now, the only Unknowns I’ve met were criminals. Santos, right?