Perejil is chased down and beaten by his creditors

Celestino Peregil is caught by the Gitano Mairena and Pollo Muelas while carrying money he cannot afford to lose and facing debts he cannot plausibly repay. Their pursuit along the dark quay ends beneath the Triana Bridge, where an apparently friendly compliment gives way to the first bone-breaking blow of the night. The episode makes Peregil’s predicament physical: every scheme he has accumulated has narrowed into a single choice between surrender, flight, and violence.

The meeting on the quay

Peregil is walking toward the docks with four and a half million in banknotes concealed beneath his shirt, tucked into the elastic of his underwear. He has also taken another half-million from his employer, Pencho Gavira, under the pretext of expenses necessary to bring a job to a successful conclusion. The cash forces him to walk stiffly, as if he were wearing a corset. He is in a hurry to finish his business and get to the casino, with some money set aside for a celebration with Dolores la Negra.

The otherwise deserted riverside promenade offers little warning of what is coming. Peregil hears frogs in the reeds and sees the moon rising over Triana. Then someone greets him, and two men rise from a stone bench: the tall, sinister Gitano Mairena and the small, elegant Pollo Muelas, whose movements are precise as a dancer’s. The sudden encounter interrupts Peregil’s optimism so completely that his vision clouds, black spots dance before his eyes, and his ulcer flares. He thinks he is about to faint.

A deadline measured in minutes

The Gitano asks Peregil to guess the day. Peregil answers Wednesday and insists that he has a day left. The Gitano corrects him: Thursday begins at midnight, so Peregil has only one hour and five minutes. A lit match briefly reveals the Gitano’s amputated little finger and the face of his watch, making the deadline visible as well as spoken. Peregil swears that he will pay.

Pollo Muelas answers with amiable laughter. The two men propose sitting together on the bench to keep Peregil company until Thursday arrives. Their courteous phrasing makes the threat more, not less, definite: they are not accepting his promise or discussing a repayment plan; they are waiting out the final minutes of the agreed reprieve.

Peregil weighs his possible escapes against the many liabilities already attached to him. The money on his body might temporarily placate the lender, but it would not cover the whole debt, and he could not explain its disappearance to Pencho Gavira, to whom he already owes eleven million. Nor can he ignore the kidnapped parish priest, the appointment with a woman and a tall priest, or the trouble waiting from Don Ibrahim, Potro del Mantelete, and Niña Puñales if he abandons them. A death in a church and the police add to the ruin gathering around him. Looking at the dark river, he considers drowning himself as perhaps the cheaper option.

The attempted escape

Instead of negotiating or jumping into the river, Peregil takes out a packet of cigarettes and asks whether the men have a light. The request buys him a moment of apparent normality, but before the Gitano has struck a match, Peregil is sprinting along the quay toward the Triana Bridge. The narrative’s abrupt turn—from resigned calculation to sudden flight—makes the escape a last reflex rather than a plan. As he runs, he believes his life is at stake, and the chase confirms that fear.

Peregil runs almost blind in the darkness, listening to the Gitano’s curses and Pollo Muelas’s labored breathing behind him. He imagines the stairs leading up from the quay to streets, cars, and people, and veers toward the wall in search of them. His pursuers seem close enough to brush his back or legs. The lights on the bridge draw nearer, but so does his exhaustion: his lungs burn, his legs lose coordination, and his body pitches forward as he reaches the foot of the staircase.

The beating

Peregil collapses to his knees, then turns onto his back on the first step. The banknotes beneath his shirt are stuck to his body with sweat. The stars seem to move around him as he tries to keep his heart from leaping out of his open mouth. Beside him, the Gitano and Pollo Muelas are also bent over, trying to catch their breath. The chase has cost them effort, but it has not changed who controls the encounter.

The Gitano acknowledges that Peregil runs like a bullet. Pollo Muelas, crouching under the bridge lamp, praises him with an almost tender smile and pats his face gently. That praise briefly frames the chase as an athletic contest, but the gesture is a feint: Pollo stands, gives Peregil two more friendly pats on the cheek, then jumps on his right arm and breaks it with a crack. The injury is described as the first of the bones they will break that night. The scene ends not with repayment or escape, but with the beginning of a punishment whose full extent is still ahead.