I took a drink. It tasted of licorice and warmed all the way. I could feel it warming in my stomach.

“Where the hell is Cohn?”

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “I’ll ask. Where is the drunken comrade?” he asked in Spanish.

“You want to see him?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Not me,” said Mike. “This gent.”

The Anis del Mono man wiped his mouth and stood up.

“Come on.”

In a back room Robert Cohn was sleeping quietly on some wine-casks. It was almost too dark to see his face. They had covered him with a coat and another coat was folded under his head. Around his neck and on his chest was a big wreath of twisted garlics.

“Let him sleep,” the man whispered. “He’s all right.”