11. Death in the Afternoon

There are a lot of ways to see Spain. In my expert opinion, the very worst of them is to be standing in the middle of the arena at the Plaza de Toros while a bull named El Diablo is pawing the dirt about twenty feet away and planning to use you for target practice.

But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself.

If you ever go to Madrid, you're going to make two discoveries right quick: all the women wear black, and all the men think they're bullfighters. Beyond that it's pretty much like any other city, except that the people there don't speak much American, and they all go crazy for this kind of Spanish tap dance which is always being done by guys in tight pants called Juan or Jose or Diego.

I'd left Berlin with a healthy supply of money in my wallet, so I decided to check in at the finest hotel in town, which back in them days was the Palace. There were posters all over the lobby about something called the Fiesta de Toros, which as near as I could translate meant that the restaurant had bought too much steak and was trying to find ways to get rid of it, but I wasn't hungry anyway, so instead I moseyed out onto the street and wandered around until sunset, and then, because wandering can be pretty thirsty work, I stopped by a little tavern about a mile from the hotel.

The place was just about empty, except for this tall, athletic-looking feller with slicked-down hair and a big black mustache who was sitting at the bar, and when he saw me he sort of waved me over to join him.

“May I buy you a drink?” he asked.

“Why, that's right neighborly of you, Brother,” I said, sitting down next to him.

“You are English?” he asked.

“American,” I said. “The Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, at your service.”

“You have come a day too soon,” he said morosely. “The service will be held tomorrow night.”

“Yeah?” I said, wondering what service he was talking about.

He nodded. “The women will be wailing in the streets, and they will throw themselves upon the coffin. Ten thousand candles will be lit at the cathedral, strong men will weep, and little children will lose their faith in God. The line to the cemetery will be two miles long, and the Cardinal himself will speak at the graveside.”

“Sounds impressive,” I allowed.

“It will be a funeral they will talk about for years,” he agreed.

“Uh ... pardon my ignorance, but I'm a stranger in town,” I said. “Who's about to die—some president or general or such?”

“Me,” he said glumly.

“You?”

“I am Pablo Francisco de Varga,” he said. “Perhaps you have heard of me?”

“Didn't you used to play third base for the Brooklyn Dodgers?” I said.

“I am the greatest bullfighter of all time,” he said.

“Excuse a personal question, Brother Pablo,” I said, “but why are you figuring on dying tomorrow?”

“El Diablo,” he said.

“What is that—some kind of disease?” I asked, backing away a bit just in case it was catching.

“El Diablo is the bull I must face tomorrow in the Fiesta de Toros,” he said. “He has already killed three matadors.”

“Well, I'm right sorry to hear that,” I said. “But if you're the greatest bullfighter around, what makes you think you're gonna lose?”

“I have broken a bone in my foot,” he said. “I am completely unable to move to the side. El Diablo will kill me on my very firstveronica .”

“Why don't you call it off, then?” I said.

“Tens of thousands of people have come to see Varga face El Diablo in the arena,” he said with dignity. “I will not disappoint them.”

“Seems to me you're just about guaranteed to disappoint them what ain't rooting for the bull,” I said. “If I was you, I'd get a doctor's excuse or whatever it takes to postpone this thing.”

“That is because you are not a Spaniard,” said Varga. “You do not understand the concept of honor. This is a matter between El Diablo and myself. I will not be the first to back down.”

Well, we got to talking and drinking, and he kept explaining the Spanish concept of honor, which seemed an awful lot like the American concept of stupidity, but after a couple of hours I gave up trying to talk him out of it, and after he'd finished a whole bottle of whiskey and paid for mine as well, I figured the least I could do to thank him was help him hobble back to his hotel. He was right insistent that no one see him limping, so we snuck around to the back door and went in through the kitchen and found a freight elevator, and a few minutes later I left him and returned to the Palace.

It seemed to me that as long as I couldn't talk him out of canceling the fight, there wasn't no reason why I shouldn't make a little profit out of it, since me and God still planned to build our tabernacle and I didn't know what construction costs were like in Madrid, so I walked up to the desk clerk and asked him where the local bookmaker had set up shop. He must have misunderstood, because what he sent me to was a publishing company, but as I was walking back to the hotel I passed by a casino, and I figured if anyone knew where I could lay some bets on the bullfight, this was the place.

I walked in, and sure enough, along with poker and craps and roulette tables, they had a guy in the corner taking bets on the big bullfight, but the only odds he was giving was on whether Varga would be awarded one ear, both ears, or both ears and the tail.

“Good evening,” I said, walking up to him.

"Buenos noches,"he replied.

“Well, that's right kind of you, but I've already et,” I said. “I'm just here to make a sporting wager on the big bullfight tomorrow.”

“Yes,senor ?” he said. “And what do you choose?”

“I don't see no odds on El Diablo winning,” I said.

He laughed so hard I thought he was gonna fall right off his chair, and when he finally got ahold of himself, he wiped the tears from his face and smiled at me.

“You have a wonderful sense of humor,senor ,” he said.

“Yeah, I been told that many a time,” I said modestly. “But I still want to lay a bet on El Diablo.”

“Do you know that El Diablo is facing the great Pablo Francisco de Varga?”

“Who's he?” I said.

Suddenly he got a greedy gleam in his eye. “All right,senor ,” he said. “I will give you odds of ten to one.”

I pulled out my wad and counted out all but about two hundred dollars of it.

“Okay,” I said. “I'll put twelve thousand on El Diablo to win.”

Suddenly there was a hushed silence in the room. The guy I'd been talking to looked at me like I was crazy, but finally he shrugged, took my money, and wrote me out a receipt.

“You are a fool,” he said. “Varga is the greatest matador of all time, greater even that Juan Belmonte.”

“Well, for all you know, El Diablo is greater than Babe the Blue Ox,” I said.

“Thanwho ?”

Well, I could tell I was talking to a cultural illiterate, so I just bade him good-bye and went back to the Palace, where I had a couple of drinks to wash down the whiskey I'd had with Varga, and then went up to my room and took a shower. I had just climbed out of the tub and dried off when I heard the door open, so I looked out from the bathroom and found three well-dressed Spaniards sitting around the room, one of ’em normal-sized and two of ’em looking like gorillas with suits on.

“Howdy, Brothers,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“You are the Reverend Lucifer Jones?” asked the normal one.

“The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones,” I corrected him.

“Then we have come to the right place,” he said. “We have some business to discuss.”

“Well, given the time of day, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to charge you time-and-a-half for salvation,” I said. “Though if any of you are lately bereaved, I got a group rate for funerals.”

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Manuel Garcia, and these are my two associates. You may call them Mr. Crush and Mr. Smash.” Mr. Crush smiled at me, and from where I sat it looked like he had steel teeth; Mr. Smash just glared sullenly. “Did you just bet twelve thousand dollars that Pablo Francisco de Varga would be killed in the arena tomorrow?” continued Garcia.

“You make it sound kind of morbid,” I said. “I didn't so much betagainst him as I betfor El Diablo.”

“My colleagues and I would like to knowwhy you bet against the great Varga.”

“Because I think the bull will win,” I said.

“Do not play games with us, Reverend Jones,” said Garcia. “We represent some of the most powerful men in Madrid.”

“You're the lawyers for a bunch of weightlifters?” I asked.

“Enough of this foolishness!” snapped Garcia. “You have bet a substantial sum on El Diablo. We, too, are gamblers, and we want to know if you are privy to some inside information that would lead you to make a wager that, on the face of it, seems laughably foolish.”

“Well, I don't see no point in lying to you,” I said. “But to be totally honest and even-handed about it, I don't see no point in confiding to you, neither. I mean, it ain't as if you was regular parishioners who had promised to donate, say, five thousand dollars apiece to the Tabernacle of Saint Luke once this here contest betwixt man and beast reaches its possibly tragic conclusion.”

“All right, Reverend Jones,” said Garcia. “We agree to your terms. Give us your information, and if we elect to make our wagers based upon it and Varga should lose, we will deliver fifteen thousand dollars to you at the conclusion of the event.”

“Well, that's mighty agreeable of you,” I said, “but how do I know I can trust you to keep your word?”

The three of ’em looked like I'd just stabbed their mothers.

“We are Spaniards,” said Garcia. “We live and die by our code of honor.”

“All right,” I said. “But I want to sit with you guys at the bullfight, just so it don't slip your minds.”

“Men have died for lesser insults, Reverend Jones,” growled Mr. Crush in broken English.

“Painfully,” added Mr. Smash.

“And men have gone hungry for lesser precautions,” I said. “Have we got a deal?”

They whispered amongst themselves in Spanish, and finally all three looked at me and nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “I happened to run into Pablo Francisco de Varga in a bar earlier tonight, and he's already making plans for his funeral.”

“But why?” demanded Garcia. “Surely the great Varga has not lost his courage!”

“Unthinkable!” added the other two.

“What he's done is gone and busted a bone in his foot, and for some crazy reason he don't want to tell no one or call the match off,” I said.

“Well, of course not,” agreed Garcia. “He has lived by the code; he will die by it.”

“You don't find that a mite peculiar?” I asked.

“Absolutely not. We shall pass along your information to our principals, and I'm sure they will act accordingly.” He stood up. “Thank you for your time, Reverend Jones.”

“Where will I meet you guys tomorrow?” I said.

“We will be waiting outside the box office at the Plaza de Toros,” said Garcia, and then the three of ’em walked out, and I finished drying myself off and spent a little time figuring out just how much money I'd be worth after poor Varga went off to the great bullfight plaza in the sky, and finally I climbed under the covers and went to sleep and dreamed about building my tabernacle right next to Varga's grave as a way of thanking him for putting me onto this opportunity.

I woke up bright and early at about noontime, got dressed, and caught a cab out to the Plaza de Toros, where true to his word, Manuel Garcia was waiting for me with Mr. Crush and Mr. Smash. The four of us went to his private box, where we had a few beers and watched a couple of warm-up fights, and by the time the Big Event rolled around the score was Matadors 2, Bulls 0.

We sat there and chatted about this and that, and after awhile we became aware of a kind of uneasy murmuring in the crowd, and when half an hour had passed Garcia said something to Mr. Crush, who left the box and returned about five minutes later to whisper something in Garcia's ear.

“Come with me,” said Garcia, getting to his feet.

“I think I'd rather stay here, sipping my beer and getting a little sun,” I said.

“Come with me!” he repeated, and suddenly Mr. Crush grabbed me by one arm and Mr. Smash grabbed me by the other, and I didn't have no choice but to accompany them, since they were holding me a few inches off the ground and rushing to keep up with Garcia.

We came to a door beneath the grandstand, and Garcia nodded to the guard, who let the four of us in. Then we went down a long corridor past a number of dressing rooms, and stopped at one with Varga's name on the door. Garcia pushed it open, and there on the floor lay Pablo Francisco de Varga, still in his street clothes.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“Drunk,” said Mr. Crush.

Garcia knelt down next to him and slapped his face a few times. He didn't move a muscle.

“We have a serious problem,” said Garcia, standing up and facing me.

“Seems to me that Varga's the one with the problem,” I said.

“We have bet more than half a million dollars on El Diablo,” he said. “If Varga does not appear in the arena, they will cancel the fight.”

“Well, it ain't a consummation devoutly to be wished,” I allowed. “But on the other hand, it beats losing our money.”

“You do not understand,” said Garcia. “I have promised some very powerful men that they would increase their money tenfold by wagering on El Diablo. These are not men who like to be disappointed.”

“Well, El Diablo is gonna win by a forfeit,” I said.

“The bookmakers do not pay off on forfeits,” answered Garcia. “No,someone must go into the ring and lose to El Diablo. The question is:who ?”

Suddenly I became aware of the fact that he and Mr. Crush and Mr. Smash were all staring intently at me.

“Oh, no,” I said. “You ain't gonna getme in a ring with El Diablo! I ain't never fought a bull before!”

“Then you are precisely the person we need,” said Garcia. “I have guaranteed my principals that El Diablo cannot lose.”

“Then you tell your principals that they're gonna have to learn to live with disappointment,” I said. “Nothing's gonna get me to step into that ring!”

“My dear Reverend Jones,” he said, and suddenly Mr. Crush and Mr. Smash were pointing their revolvers right betwixt my eyeballs, “you have two admittedly unhappy choices: you can die in the arena amid the cheers of thousands, or you can die in the next ten seconds, alone and unmourned. I am afraid that there is simply no third alternative.”

Which is how I came to be standing in the middle of the Plaza de Toros in Madrid in a fancy bullfighting outfit while El Diablo stared at me through his beady little eyes and pawed the dirt.

Since I was supposed to lose, Garcia hadn't seen fit to give me a sword, so all I had with me was a red cape called amuleta . I was more than a little bit nervous at the prospect of hobnobbing with the Lord in person in the next few minutes, and my hands were shaking, and this made themuleta shake, and for some reason this annoyed the bejabbers out of El Diablo, who snorted and drooled a bit and then let out a bellow and ran straight toward me.

Well, I figured if he wanted themuleta all that badly,I sure wasn't going to argue none about it, so I just dropped it on the ground and ran to the far side of the arena while he shredded the thing with his horns and everyone started whistling, though truth to tell I couldn't spot no melody.

After he'd worked off a little excess energy on themuleta , El Diablo lifted his head and looked around, and when his eyes fell on me he pawed the dirt a couple of more times and then lowered his head and charged, and I made a dash for the grandstand and reached it about two steps ahead of him and flung myself into the first row while El Diablo plowed into the concrete wall that protected the customers and busted off one of his horns.

He looked a little bleary-eyed as he backed off, and I figured I might as well stay where I was for the rest of the afternoon, but then Mr. Crush and Mr. Smash made their way through the crowd and reached my side and tossed me back into the ring, and El Diablo shot them an appreciative look and started sizing me up again.

I climbed back onto my feet just as he charged, and as he lowered his head I grabbed ahold of his remaining horn on the assumption that he couldn't stab me with it as long as I kept it at arm's length, but then he tossed his head and lifted me way off the ground, and suddenly I found myself sitting on his back. He came to a stop and stared all around the arena, looking for me, while I stayed where I was and tried to figure out what to do next.

Well, neither of us moved for the next couple of minutes, and all of a sudden the crowd started throwing popcorn boxes and beer bottles into the ring and whistling some more, and finally El Diablo charged at a piece of paper that was fluttering on the ground and I fell off with a thud, and he wheeled around and started snorting and drooling and bellowing at me again. Since I didn't have nomuleta left, I quick slipped off the little jacket they had made me wear and held it out to see if maybe he wanted to eatit instead ofme , and he bellowed again and charged straight at it. I let go of it just before he reached it and started running again, only this time I didn't hear no galloping footsteps behind me, so I turned to see what was going on, and what had happened was that he'd stuck his horn into the sleeve of the jacket and pierced right through it, and the rest of it was covering his face so that he couldn't see nothing.

I figured this was as good as time to take my leave as any, and probably better than most, so I walked back to the door through which Mr. Crush and Mr. Smash had dragged me in, but when I got there I found a bunch of guys in bullfighting outfits all laughing their heads off.

“I never knew you could be so funny, Pablo Francisco!” guffawed one of ’em.

“It has been wildly amusing,” agreed another, “but now I see that you have come back for your sword. Here it is.” He handed me this long sword and kind of pointed me back into the arena and gave me a friendly shove.

El Diablo still hadn't gotten the jacket off his face, and I figured if I was ever gonna kill him and get out of this in one piece, now was probably the ideal time, so I walked cautiously up to him and got all ready to run him through when it occurred to me that I didn't know where his heart was. I had a feeling it was probably somewhere inside his chest, but there was an awful lot of chest in front of me, and I was pretty sure I was only gonna get one chance to do it right before El Diablo finally got rid of the jacket.

I finally made up my mind where to stab him, but then Mr. Crush jumped into the arena and pointed his pistol at me, still determined to win Garcia's bets for him, and just as he fired I ducked and then El Diablo jumped like he'd been shot, which he had, and fell over dead.

Well, the police surrounded Mr. Crush right quick, and he started jabbering something in Spanish and pointing at me, and by the time I'd finished taking a couple of bows and walked back to the dressing room there were a passel of police waiting there for me, and they took me down to the local calaboose and I spent the night there, still in my bullfighting outfit.

They left me in the cell for three days and three nights with no comfort except my well-worn copy of the Good Book, and let me tell you that it was a pretty morose time, since I soon realized that thanks to surviving my ordeal with El Diablo I was destitute again, which was getting to be a common condition but still not one that brought me any great comfort.

Then, on the morning of the fourth day, I was pulled off my cot and out of my cell, and then handcuffed and brung into court and made to stand before the bench, which was being presided over by a judge named Alberto Coronado, who had kind of a lean and hungry look to him, like maybe his shorts were too tight or someone had just got him out of bed.

“Soyou are Lucifer Jones,” he said.

“The Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones,” I corrected him. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Are you really?” said Judge Coronado. “I'm fascinated to make yours.”

“Well, I'm right flattered to hear it,” I said. “Maybe if you could see fit to remove these here handcuffs, we could slip off to a local bar and lift a few and swap stories.”

“I think not,” he said. “It seems we have a little business to get through first.”

“We do?”

He nodded. “You have been charged with conspiring to fix the outcome of a bullfight, and to make an enormous profit thereby. How do you plead?”

“I didn't make no profit at all,” I pointed out. “El Diablo lost, may the Lord have mercy on his poor bovine soul.”

“That in no way alters the fact that you did everything within your power to predetermine the result. I am afraid I am going to have to find you guilty. Your three friends admitted everything, and are currently serving their own sentences.”

“Well, it seems mighty single-minded and unfair to me, Your Honor,” I said, “considering that I wound up dead broke and almost got killed in the process.”

“I have taken that into account,” said Judge Coronado. “I have even made inquiries to see if one of our European neighbors would let us send you there on the condition that you promise never to return to Spain.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“It sounded good to me, too,” admitted Judge Coronado. “Then we started receiving replies from the various governments we contacted.” He looked at me and smiled. “You lead quite an interesting life for a man of the cloth.”

“Well, you know how it is,” I said modestly.

“I truly had no idea how it was,” he replied. “Though I do now.” He began riffling through some papers. “It seems that you are wanted in Roumania for grave-robbing, and in Germany for running a bawdy house.”

“Yeah, well, I can explain that,” I said.

“The Italians want you for pretending to be an exorcist, and the Hungarian SPCA wants to question you about your treatment of a certain showdog.”

“A series of misunderstandings,” I said.

“The French are after you for running an illegal gambling operation in the Cathedral of Notre Dame.” He paused and looked at me."Notre Dame?"

“I thought it was a football stadium.”

“The government of Crete wishes to speak to you about your complicity in the death of a Professor Zachariah MacDonald, the Scotch claim you are an undesirable who left the country over a game-poaching scandal, the British have decided you had something to do with the break-in at a jewelry store on Bond Street, and the new democratically-elected government of Sylvania is after you for impersonating a member of the former Royal Family.”

“Theyasked me to!” I said heatedly.

Judge Coronado held up a hand for silence. “Finally, the government of Greece has issued a warrant for your arrest for illegally removing salvaged treasure from their country.”

“I didn't remove nothing!” I said. “Wait til you hearmy side of it!”

“Doctor Jones, I'm sure hearing your side of the story would prove most entertaining,” said Judge Coronado, “but it doesn't negate the fact that you are a walking disaster. As a responsible member of the European community, I could not in good conscience turn you loose upon our neighbors.”

“Then send me somewhere else,” I said.

“That is my intention,” he said. “Unfortunately, it appears that you have been barred from the continents of North America, Africa and Asia.” He paused and stared at me. “You have lived less than half your alotted span of years, Doctor Jones, and you are already in danger of running out of land masses that will accept your presence. Fortunately, no one in South America seems to have heard of you, and since that is sufficiently far from Spain, I have elected to send you there. I must confess that I feel enormous sympathy for the remnants of the once-proud Aztec and Mayan civilizations, but this is a matter of survival, and I would be betraying my high office were I to turn you loose in any Western country. Case closed.”

“When do I leave?” I asked.

“You will be transferred to Barcelona tomorrow morning,” he said. “You ship leaves two days later.” Suddenly he smiled. “And now that the case is officially closed, let me say that I would be delighted to stop by your cell this afternoon and listen to you explain how thirty-three governments on four continents have so erroneously interpreted your good intentions.”

Well, true to his word Judge Coronado stopped by, and we lifted a few while I told him of all my adventures and exploits and encounters, and the next day they shipped me to Barcelona, which I hear tell is a lovely town but ain't much to write home about when viewed from the inside of a prison cell, and then they put me on a boat bound for Brazil.

I had done my best to bring the Word of the Lord to the depraved citizens of Europe, and this was the thanks I got for it. Still, I ain't one to discourage easily, so I started making plans to build my tabernacle in South America, which I finally did do four years later. But before me and God set up shop, I stumbled upon more than my share of lost civilizations and high priestesses and strange voodoo rites and revolutions and the like, and I plan to tell you about ’em someday, but writing your memoirs can be pretty tiring work, so I'm heading off now to find some friendly and sympathetic soul of the female persuasion and renew my artistic energies.