“Does a police officer by the name of Ortiz live here?”
Out of the depths of a gloomy corner where two men were toiling near a furnace, came the answer from one of them:
“What are you bothering me about? Ask the janitor.”
The two men were making rolled wafers. Out of a caldron that was filled with a white pasty mass, they were extracting ladlefuls and throwing them on to a pair of boards that closed like nippers. Once these nippers were closed they placed them in the fire, heated them on one side, then on the other, withdrew them, opened them, and on one of the boards appeared the wafer as round as a seal. Rapidly the man would roll it up with his finger and place it in a box.
“So you don’t know whether Ortiz lives here or not?” asked El Garro again.
“Ortiz?” came a voice out of the black depths, where nothing was visible. “Yes. He lives here. He’s the manager of these houses.”
Through the black hole Manuel glimpsed two men lying on the floor.
“Well, if he’s the manager, he was in the patio a moment ago.”
El Garro and Manuel went into the courtyard and the agent caught sight of the captain on the gallery of the first floor.