The Nautical Chart by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

had asked how the devil she thought she could call him, since he had no home, no telephone, no nothing in Madrid, and his seabag was checked at the station. Then he saw Tanger laugh for the first time since he'd known her. It was a generous laugh that encircled her eyes with tiny wrinkles, making her, paradoxically, look much younger, more beautiful. Then she asked him to forgive her stupidity, and for a couple of seconds looked at him, his hand in hers, the last trace of laughter fading from her lips. She gave him the name of an inn on the Plaza de Santa Ana, across from the Teatro Espanol, where she had lived for two years when she was a student. A clean, cheap place. I'll call you, she said. I'll call you today or tomorrow. You have my word.
    And there he was, staring at his coffee and wetting his lips with the gin and tonic—they didn't have Sapphire in the bar—the waitress had just set before him. Waiting for her to call. He hadn't moved all afternoon, and had eaten dinner there, a bit of overcooked beef and a bottle of mineral water. It was possible she might come in person, he thought, and that possibility made him keep an eye on the plaza, not to miss her approaching along calle de las Huertas, or any of the streets leading up from the Paseo del Prado.
    Between the benches on the plaza, some beggars were talking loudly and passing around a bottle of wine. They had begged for money at the tables on the terraces and now were counting up the nights take. Three men, a woman, and a little dog. From the door of the Hotel Victoria, a guard costumed as RoboCop watched them like a hawk, hands crossed behind his back, legs spread apart, standing exactiy where he had ejected the female beggar shortly before. Chased off by RoboCop, she had zigzagged among the tables to where Coy was sitting. Give me something, friend, she'd said in a listless voice, staring straight ahead. Give me something. She was still young, he thought as he watched her counting the take with her buddies and the mongrel. Despite the blemished skin, the dirty blond hair and vacant eyes, there were traces of a former beauty in her well-defined lips, the curve of her jaw, her figure, and the red, chapped hands with long dirty fingernails. Terra firma rots people, he thought once again. It overpowers and devours them. He searched his own hands, resting on his thighs, for the first symptoms of aging that accompany the inevitable leprosy of city pollution, the deceptively solid ground beneath your feet, contact with people, air with the salt sucked out of it. I hope I find another ship soon, he told himself. I hope I find something that floats so I can climb aboard and be carried far away while there's still time. Before I contract the virus that corrodes hearts, disrupts their compass, and drives them rudderless onto a lee shore.
    "There's a call for you."
    He leapt from the chair with an alacrity that left the waitress wide-eyed and bounded down the hallway leading to the lobby. One, two... he counted to five before answering, to slow his pulse. Three, four, five. Hello. She was there, her calm, well-bred voice apologizing for calling so late. No, he replied, it wasn't late at all.
    He'd been waiting for her call. Just a bite out on the terrace, and he was about to have his gin. As good a time as any, he insisted. Then a brief silence at the other end of the line. Coy laid a broad, square hand on the counter, contemplating its rough network of tendons, nerves, and short, strong, widespread fingers and waited for her to say something. She's relaxed on a sofa, he thought. She's sitting in a chair. Lying on a bed. She's dressed, she's naked, in her pajamas, in a nightgown. She's barefoot, with an open book in her lap, or she's watching TV She's lying on her back, or on her stomach, and the lamplight is picking up the gold of her freckled skin.
    "I have an idea," she said finally. "I have an idea that might interest you, a proposition. And I thought maybe you could