A cold bright light lit the space and a cassette recorder played at top volume the mournful songs of Jose Feliciano, whose voice did its best to drown out the drinkers’ voices. By the sink, two metal tanks sweated ice against the heat. Candito walked over to a table in one corner, occupied by two awesome-looking specimens. He spoke quietly. The men agreed to give up their seats: one was huge, fair-haired, a good six feet tall with long, dangling arms, a face as cratered as the moon’s surface; the other was smaller, his skin so black it was blue, and he just had to be a direct grandson and universal heir to Cro-Magnon man himself: Darwin’s theory of evolution was reflected in the exaggerated jutting of his jaw and the narrow forehead where the eyes of a wild beast of the jungle glinted yellow. Red Candito gestured to the Count to push Carlos’s chair nearer and to the men to bring three beers.

“What did you tell that pair of troglodytes?” the Count mumbled as they sat down.

“Calm down, Conde, calm it. You’re anonymous here, right. Those guys are my business legs.”

The Count turned to look at the big blond, who was now approaching the table with their beers; he placed them on the table and then, without a word, walked over to the tanks.

“They’re your bodyguards, you mean?”

“They’re my legs, Condesito, and they have a hundred uses.”

“Hey, Candito,” Skinny butted in. “What’s a lager cost these days?”

“Depends how you get it, Carlos. Right now it’s tricky and I sell it for three pesos. But yours is on the house, and no arguing, OK?” And he smiled as Cuqui appeared with a plateful of strips of ham, and cheese with biscuits. “All right, darling, carry on relaxing with that soap.” And he stroked her backside farewell.

The ice-cold beer restored a degree of peace to the Count’s over-heated spirit, and he regretted gulping down the first bottle almost in one go. Now he was only irritated by the aggressive volume of the music and the sensation of vulnerability he felt at turning his back on the other customers, but he realized it was Candito who had to survey the remaining tables and decided to stop worrying when the blond guy replaced the empty bottle with a full one. Efficiency was returning to the island.