As I write this, Madrid is sweltering, but when I visited this spring the weather was ideal, as it will be again in the fall. All the more reason to visit this great capital city in  those seasons, especially since all the massive construction work in its center has finally been accomplished, opening up the avenues, so that Madrid is more beautiful and scrubbed cleaner than ever. Its position as one of Europe’s cultural capitals has been assured since the 1990s, with museums and artistic events expanded well beyond the great Prado and Thyssen museums, boosted by its industrial sector but increasingly dominated by a strong service sector. On my trip I “discovered” the Bellas Artes de San Fernando, a large collection that includes 13 Goyas (left) and a vast number of his etchings and plates for "Los Caprichos." Other recently enhanced institutions include the Palacio de Linares, seat of the Casa de América; the Muséo Arqueologico Naçional; and the Muséo Naçional del Romanticismo.
    Today Madrid’s stock market is the third largest in Europe and the city is ranked fifth most important leading Centre of Commerce after London, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
    As a result, like Barcelona, Madrid has become a very expensive city to live in,  and tourists, with 11.2 million visitors last year, gobbled up the BnBs that were once apartments and spent more than 16 billion euros, with Americans leading the invasion.   
     Responding to this increasingly affluent market, major luxury hotel groups have been popping up on or off the main avenues to compete with longstanding institutions like The Ritz, Gran Hotel Ingles and  The Palace, now joined by the thoroughly modern JW Marriott  Madrid (above; Sevilla 2), a block from the main avenue, Calle Alcalá, with 139 rooms, most with private balconies.  Rates are considerably below other deluxe properties like The Four Seasons up the block.
    My room was quite spacious, very quiet––Madrid is not a raucously loud city––with a balcony set with chairs and small table, a king-size bed and very well equipped modern bath. The expansive lobby has a separate area for the concierge’s desk.
    There are now several hotels in Madrid that have first-rate restaurants rooms, and the JW Marriott’s Qú by Mario Sandoval joins them with an à la carte dining room focusing on local products (Madrid has splendid markets from which to choose the best provender and meats). Sandoval is head  of the Croque Group and comes from three generations of chefs. In 2013 he won the Spanish National Gastronomy Award, and his primary restaurant, Croque, has garnered two Michelin stars.
    Q is a simpler, more casual affair, with a smart décor and lounge, antique pillars, tall mirrors and star-like hanging lights.   
    I had been eating a fair amount of Spanish ham on my trip, but only Q was offering  Cinco Jotas Jamon Ibérico de bellota 5J, which is considered the finest in Spain, founded in Jabugo in 1879,  using only an ancient breed of acorn-fed black pigs (most producers use crossbreeds), and it has a sweet flavor and a satiny sheen of white fat. My friend and I also shared some cod fritters with aji amarillo mayonnaise and a plate of softly grilled artichokes. 
    Lubina is a sea bass grilled à la  bilbaina, with its characteristic, bold garlic and chile oil. For dessert there was a millefoglie of pineapple and cream with ginger ice cream; some perfect springtime strawberries slightly pickled and served with a rich vanilla mascarpone and both strawberry and mint ice creams; and a chocolate, liquid center coolant with pistachio and violet ice  cream,  finishing off with glasses of Sherry.
    Afterwards, at about ten o’clock I took a stroll down the Avenida, which was teeming with young people returning from a huge Netflix kick-off party in Retiro Park  buoyed as much by the music as by the moonlight over Madrid.

    In my next report on the city I’ll recommend  more restaurants.  

        “So, where’s the car?” asked David.
         “It’s coming. I have a man driving it over," said Marciano. "He should be here in a minute. Sit down. You want a beer?”
         The Americans refused the offer.
         “So, what kind of car is it and what’s the price?” asked David.
         With that, Marciano pressed a button to lower the garage door shut. David instinctively looked for another open exit. The room led only to the office towards the front.
         “First, we talk a little, okay?” said Marciano. “I was wondering, a lot, about why you want this car. You see, I deal with a lot of very rich clients and none of them look like you. Plus, they would never just drop by to rent a car. They’d send someone to make a deal. Such people don’t come here to talk to a mechanic.”
         “We’re not that kind of rich, Monsieur,” said Katie. “This vacation is our big splurge, and we just thought it would be fun for a few days to drive to Paris in a great car. That’s all.”
         “And who told you to come here to see me?”
         David said, “The concierge at the hotel.”
         “The concierge at the hotel says he knows me and knows I rent out fancy cars?  I do not believe you, Monsieur.”
         There was silence for a few moments, then David said, “You know what, Monsieur, if you have a car, let’s see it; if you don’t want to rent us a car, fine. As a matter of fact, I think we’ll just pass on the deal, okay? We are out of here. Please open the door.”
         David realized there never was a car coming and that he and Katie had to leave as quickly as possible. Then, from the office came a large man in his thirties, maybe 220 pounds, wearing jeans and a windbreaker.
\         “Who’s this?” David asked, looking back and forth between Marciano and the new man.
         “My associate,” said Marciano. “He’s the one who is going to go with you on, shall we say, a test drive. You drive, he sits in the back, oui?”
         David almost spat, saying, “No way.”
         Marciano came close to David’s face, laughed, then went over to Katie and grabbed her from behind. The other man picked up a crowbar hung on the wall.
         “Get your goddamn hands off her!” shouted David.
        Marciano tightened his grip on Katie’s arms. “You said you wanted to drive a fancy car to Paris, well, my friend here won’t take you that far, I’m afraid.”
    “What’s this all about?”
    “It is about you asking too many of the wrong questions yesterday. I knew when you walked in you had no interest in renting a car you could have gotten at Avis with two days’ notice.  Then you started this bullshit asking me about hotels in Paris, like I’m some travel agent. This was not good, mes amis, not good at all.”
    Then, nodding to the other man to get closer to David, Marciano said, “Who the fuck are you two? You’re not the French police. You’re even too stupid for that.”
    “No,” said David, “we’re not the French police, we’re just American tourists—”
    “Stop the bullshit, Monsieur. I already know who you are.”
    He told the man with the crowbar to get David’s wallet and passport and Katie’s handbag. The man took out their passports and showed them to Marciano, who quickly looked at the photo and ID pages then put them into his pocket.
    “I have many friends in Marseille, even some among the police. Did Iacovino tell you I sometime give him information about things that go on in this city?”
    “Something tells me everybody gives information to the police in this city,” said David.
    “You may be right. We love to gossip. As long as you know who to believe, some of it is useful.”
    “You saying Iacovino gave you information about us?”
    “Even if he did, I would be stupid to tell you, eh? Not that it matters now. You won’t be seeing any more of him.”
    The other man was now wagging the crowbar in front of David’s face and said, “You go with me. Now.”
    “Think again,” said David and rammed his knee into the man’s groin then wrenched his arm to his back, breaking away the crowbar from his hand. Marciano then grabbed a screwdriver from the workbench and stuck it into Katie’s neck.
    “I don’t care how you two die,” he shouted at David, “but it will be a lot less painful if you do what I say. Or I could just kill your girlfriend right now.”   
    The other man was still doubled over in pain from David’s knee kick and David held the crowbar’s claws at the man’s neck.  Marciano sensed that David would not slit the  throat of his accomplice and pushed the screwdriver deeper into Katie’s skin.
    “I give you five seconds to let him go,” said Marciano. “Otherwise, it doesn’t matter to me how she dies, then we see if you are next or not.”
    Marciano began a slow count. David’s mind was racing, when, at the count of three, two figures burst from the office while three others stood outside the garage with weapons aimed at Marciano.  The team was led by Iacovino, who shouted at Marciano to let the girl go and get down on the floor. Marciano had no choice. He dropped the screwdriver, pushed Katie forward and got down on his knees. The other man crumbled to the floor, still sick to his stomach. David let the crow bar drop on the floor. Katie ran to David and held onto his arm.
    “Thank God you’re here, Iacovino.”
    “I told you that you would not be safe after what you told me about Marciano. We’ve been doing surveillance on him since you got here, David. So, you see, we did take your—what do you call it? a hunch?—seriously.”
    “And use us as bait?” said Katie, rubbing her neck, which showed a mark of blood.
    “Madame, we have had our eyes on you from the beginning. There was no real danger.”
    David laughed and said, “This asshole was down to three when you burst in!”       
    “Two more to go after that,” said Iacovino. “I doubt he would have murdered Madame in cold blood. It would have interrupted his plans.”
    “Yeah, I’m sure that made him real disappointed.”
    “Alors, now we have him on attempted murder, maybe kidnapping. I’m sure he’ll want to talk about what he was doing in Paris in order to make a deal with the court.”   
    As grateful as Katie and David were about the last-second rescue, they thought Iacovino had cut their time way too short.
    “Our man outside the garage had his rifle aimed right at Marciano’s head,” said the detective. “Pas problème.”
    By then Marciano and his man were in handcuffs and led away through the garage to a police van parked up the street. Iacovino drove the two Americans back to their hotel and they talked in the lobby.
    “So,” said Iacovino, “two down and one to go.”       
    Katie thought that sounded like the police were satisfied that their arrest of two of the perpetrators brought the case close to being closed.
    “What about finding out where the virus was obtained and who hired these guys?” asked Katie, who realized that her story now had legs if she were given the time to follow how the French police were able to track the movement of a supply of virus from a Russian laboratory to Paris. Was it one theft by one individual who gave it directly to three other individuals who did not know of each other’s existence? And who masterminded the theft and who wanted those hotels hit with the virus. Katie felt that the police had only captured two pawns but hadn’t come any closer to the king.
             Iacovino shrugged and said, “We arrested a suspect. The Paris police and Interpol will take it from here. And now I wish you a safe return to Paris.”