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Merchant Marine, where he could sit for three or four hours with a book and his Walkman for the price of a beer. He also told her about the long weeks he had ahead of him, about the frustration of finding himself ashore, without work and money. At that moment he thought he saw, at the far end of the arcade, the short, mustached individual with the gelled hair and checked jacket who had been at the auction house that evening. He watched him a minute to be sure, and turned to the girl to ask whether she had recognized him too, but her eyes were empty of expression, as if she'd noticed nothing in particular.
    When Coy looked back, the little man was still there, strolling with his hands clasped behind his back, casual as you please.
    By now they were at the door of the Club de la Pipa. Coy quickly calculated how much he had left in his wallet and decided that he could invite her for another drink, and that in the worst case Roger, the manager, would run a tab for him. The girl seemed surprised by the look of the place, the bell at the door, the ancient stairs, and the room on the second floor with its curious bar, sofa, and engravings of Sherlock Holmes on the walls. There was no jazz that night, and they stood at the deserted counter while Roger worked a crossword puzzle at the other end. She wanted to try the Sapphire gin because she liked the smell. She declared her enchantment with the place, adding that she never would have imagined there was anything like it in Barcelona. Coy said it was going to be closed down because the neighbors complained of the noise and the music; a ship soon to be scrapped, one might say. She had a drop of gin and tonic at a corner of her mouth, and he thought of how fortunate he was to have only three drinks in his belly, because with a couple more he would have reached out and wiped that drop off with his fingers, and she didn't seem the kind who would let anything be wiped away by some sailor she had just met and whom she studied with a mixture of reserve, courtesy, and gratitude. Finally he asked her name and she smiled again—this time after a few beats, as if she had pushed herself to do it—and her eyes met Coy's for a long, intense second before she spoke her name. It was a name as unique as her look, he thought, and he pronounced it once aloud, slowly, before the distant smile was erased entirely from her lips. Afterward Coy asked Roger for a cigarette to offer her, but she didn't want to smoke anymore. She raised the glass to her lips and he saw her white teeth through the glass, and heard the ice tapping against them with a moist clicking. His eyes traveled to the silver chain quietly gleaming at the open neck of her shirt, on skin that in that light seemed warmer, and he wondered whether anyone had ever counted those freckles all the way to Finisterre. Whether they had been counted one by one, on a southerly heading, just as he longed to do. It was then, when he raised his eyes, that it was evident she had sensed his look, and he felt his heart skip a beat when he heard her say it was time to go.

    ONthe landlady's daughters radio the same voice was now launching into "La reina del barrio chino." Coy turned off his Walkman— Miles Davis was soloing "Saeta," the fourth theme on "Sketches of Spain"—and stopped staring at the stain on the ceiling. The book and headphones fell to the bed when he stood up and walked across the narrow room, about the size of the cell he had occupied for two days in La Guaira that time the Torpedoman, Gallego Neira, and he, fed up with eating fruit, had left the ship to buy fish to make a bouillabaisse. Neira had said, "Have a cup of coffee and wait for me, just fifteen minutes for a quickie and I'll be back." After a while they'd heard him call for help through the window, and had run inside and busted up the bar, busted everything— tables, bottles, and the ribs of the thug who'd taken the Galician's wallet. Captain don Madas Norena, mad as hell, had to