Carcinus' Malediction

by Pablo Poveda

  “But she wasn’t my girlfriend,” he argued. “Besides, she was crazy.”

  “Bunch of losers,” I said, forgetting that if I spoke my mind, they would hear me. “Have you been to the ‘Monkey’ “?

  “That place is for the elderly!” said the one in glasses.

  “Besides, there are only blokes at that place,” added the plaid shirt. “And my brother goes there often.”

  The “death squad” was beginning to spoil the night for me. My hormones were warming up at the same rate as the beer at the bottom of the bottles. There was no doubt that those three would not take me anywhere to find narcotics.

  Out of options, I dragged them to an obscure bar and told the barman that it was the bearded one’s birthday, and the drinks were on him. We drank three rounds of cheap alcohol. The intern and his friends began to move like retards, scaring the girls stuffed in tight dresses who danced to the beat of reggaeton.

  I grabbed Bordonado by the shoulder, took him to the entrance, and told him that that night would be different for we were in the middle of a journalistic investigation. The kid blushed, unable to contain the emotion that that caused him.

  “Really?” he yelled. He was drunk. We raised our arms. Queen played on the background, and he patted me on the shoulder. “Like fucking Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote! Sherlock and Watson!”

  “Batman and Robin!” somebody in the bar yelled.

  “More or less, more or less” I told him, trying to lower his euphoria. “Whoever you want, but I need your help,” — Bordonado looked at me skeptically — “No, don’t get me wrong. I want to help you too. We are a team. I can trust you, can’t I?”

  He nodded.

  “See? you have to trust me too. That’s how partners work,” I concluded. “Strange things are happening, Bordonado. This is going to catapult us to the limelight, and you know that. Cachet. You know what I’m talking about.”

  The kid scratched his belly and then his head.

  “All right,” he finally agreed. “I am ready.”

  “Great,” I said. “Do you have the keys to the newsroom in your pocket?”

  “Uh?” he mumbled. “Of course not. They are at my home.”

  “Then, let’s go. Come!”

  “Are you crazy, man?”

  “Not at all,” I answered. “I need to get into the archive. There are two photographs there that relate to what is happening.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Let’s go pick up the pictures, and I’ll tell you the story.”

  “I can’t do that,” he replied. “I’ll get caught.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Bordonado. Show me what you are made of!”

  At the back of the bar, an argument started. One of his friends had groped the girlfriend of a waiter. Their voices got louder. The barman turned up the music.

  “They’ve already gotten in trouble,” he said embarrassedly.

  “Your friends are going to get worked over,” I said, looking through the door.

  “They earned it. Come! let’s go before I regret it,” Bordonado hurried me. “If we stay, I’m pretty sure I’ll get punched... I always do.”

  “Come on mate,” I told him, and we started walking down the street. “Besides, somebody has to pay for the drinks, don’t they?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, just walk,” I concluded the conversation laughing within. The night was still young.

  4

  Bad humor is voluntary. Bordonado was reluctantly heading toward becoming a spiritless, grouchy, and conformist old man with a stable job. The typical example of someone who — in his thirties — ends up married with children, and whose wife cheats on him when she decides that it is not Coca-Cola what makes life taste good.

  He came out the gate complaining that he had woken up his parents.

  “I’ll be in trouble tomorrow,” he said. “My mom asked me if I had been drinking.”

  The syndrome of the grown man who needs permission to do anything. What goes on in mothers’ heads to believe that their cherubs lead a healthy life full of fruit juices and grenadine? This is nothing new. The lack of values lies with mothers who think of their children like eternal pre-teens.

  I knew other cases, for example, my own. However, it always feels good to shoot advice at someone else, and the kid made good target practice.

  “Grow a pair, you are not a child,” I told him. “Tell your mother to leave you alone. You are a man already.”

  “You don’t know what my mother is like,” he responded.

  “I know what mine is like,” I replied. “Do you have the keys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tomorrow will be another day,” I said. “In the meantime, we have work to do.”

  We got to the newsroom and spotted the unguarded entrance. Jacinto, the building guard, must have gone to take a nap. Nothing ever happened there. It was not the first time that that poor man had used a Saturday night to nap by the TV in the back room. It was preferable to dealing with reddish gazes, stumbling walks, and obscene comments from the young — and the not so young — who lived in the rest of the building. Jacinto was soon to retire, had two more years to go, and knew how to keep secrets like a monk with a silent vow.

  I walked determinedly, swiped the key card, and opened the door. I heard a few steps and a TV set on. The old man was awake. I alerted Bordonado with a wrist gesture and went down the stairs to reach the mezzanine.

  The intern followed me and was faster than the guard.

  The alcohol I had taken became a ball that bounced on the inner walls of my skull. The walk had relaxed me. The effect was dwindling, and I started to feel a hangover concocting under my temple.

  We walked into the newsroom. There was nobody there. I went straight to the archive and opened the door. Bordonado stayed behind.

  “What are you doing?” I inquired. He was rummaging in Natalia Lafuente’s drawers.

  “Nothing, nothing,” he responded hurriedly.

  The archive room smelled of dust and photographic paper. I opened the window. I heard the noises of the night — the faded music coming from clubs nearby, engines of cars passing by, conversations between drunkards and prostitutes.

  I found a thousand one-century-old photos that would soon be incinerated. The archive was to become a kitchen, and everything in there would be turned into digital ones and zeros.

  What a pity, I thought.

  I dropped folders onto the floor, shoeboxes full of photos, notebooks, and dusty filing cabinets. Shaken, I searched and searched like a rodent until I found what I was after. A plastic case full of negatives from 1994 and 1995.

  “Here they are,” I thought aloud. I skipped until the summer months.

  I could not believe it. I checked the negatives in the backlight. Our time was running out.

  Suddenly, we heard steps.

  “Come on, hurry up,” Bordonado whispered. “I heard something.”

  “Me too,” I answered. “It must be the old guard.”

  “No, it is not,” he muttered. “Shit, we are in trouble.”

  Without a second thought, I threw the case out the window.

  The door opened.

  I struggled to understand who had caught whom.

  Bordonado was sweating again.

  His steamed glasses kept him from looking into the newcomer’s eye.

  “What’s going on?” Matías said.

  It was the first time I had seen him in such unpresentable attire, his hair was ruffled, and his shirt wrinkled. Behind him, the young intern, wrapped in a black silk dress that reached her knees and showed her small but perky breasts.

  Cañete — whose lips were still smeared with lipstick and held a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand — adjusted the collar of his shirt and tried to calm down.

  “Soooo, I caught you red-handed, Cañete,” I said mockingly. “Don’t your parents have a loft available in Santa Pola?”

  “You!” he shouted while
pointing furiously at Bordonado. “I told you to get out of here! I am calling the police right now! You two are spending the night behind bars!” —

  I could not hold the laughter back. “What are you laughing at, imbecile?”

  “Tomorrow, all four of us, on the front page of the newspaper.”

  “You are a whore,” Bordonado spurted at the girl.

  “Shut up, fatso!” she talked back to him.

  “Shut up, both of you!” Cañete shouted. He was nervous, upset, and his nose itched. He moved fast, making circles with his feet like he had snorted something on his way to the newsroom to invigorate himself. The girl, frightened, took her things, forced by her boss. “Don’t come in tomorrow — I’ll call you.”

  “Give me something for the cab,” she asked him.

  Cañete gave her 20 euros and shut the door.

  “You, lard ball, get out of here at once. And you... shit... you! You are a pain in the ass.”

  “Don’t worry Matías. Everything stays in the family,” I said nonchalantly. “We will turn a blind eye, you will keep your job, and end of the story. You don’t want to deal with an unnecessary scandal, do you? That being said, of course you will have to put the kid on the payroll — ”

  “This dumbass?”

  “What did you — ?”

  “I want my own desk,” Bordonado intervened.

  “Don’t get clever with me!” Cañete replied threateningly. He caressed his chin, combed his hair back with his fingers, and walked to his desk. He opened the bottle in his hand, pulled out an old-fashioned glass, and filled it to the top. “If I hear that you opened your mouth, I’ll break your legs. Understood?”

  The intern had just gotten his first paid job. He could not believe it. His smile went from one ear to the other and threatened to tear the corners of his mouth. Meanwhile, I was thinking about the box of photographs lying on the street.

  “It is getting late, Matías,” I said. “We are leaving.”

  I left the building running toward the other side of the street. The plastic case was still in the same place, just perhaps, a little dirtier. It had not been easy to get it back.

  “Thanks, partner,” Bordonado exclaimed excitedly. “It’s been an awesome night.”

  “We make a good team,” I told him. Now, I had a sidekick. Whether he was a Robin, a Watson, or a Sancho Panza, was still to be seen. Whatever the case, he was endearing. “Tell your mother the good news in the morning.”

  “Yes! It’ll earn me some points,” — he suddenly recalled our mission — “Where are the pictures?”

  “They are safe,” I assured him. “Good night.”

  * * *

  I woke up with a dry and bitter mouth because of the alcohol; my head felt heavy, and the heat of the night had made it worse. I had fallen asleep in the sofa of the living room with the TV on. They were showing a special report on sects and serial killers. A poorly timed joke. A clairvoyant was talking about the relationship and misuse of the zodiac signs that usually take place in cults. I paid attention to what that woman was saying because I was still immersed in a dream nebula that was either about to make me fall asleep or vomit. I tried to find a relationship between the crustacean and the crimes.

  The screen displayed the faces of men whose teeth had been pulled off.

  Why a fucking crab? I wondered.

  Images of hand-cuffed and disemboweled girls appeared on the TV set.

  It must be a fad, some kind of trend — crab tattoos, crab-stamped pills, crabs in my dreams.

  The presenter got serious before he introduced the following guest.

  Was this a counter-revolution? One of the seals of the apocalypse? A new conspiracy by the Illuminati?

  The camera panned to the other side of the table. Officer Rojo was their guest.

  I turned up the volume and looked at the clock. It was six in the morning.

  I wrote a note to myself — Call Rojo.

  The officer talked about the different types of sects that existed in the region, their modi operandi, and interests.

  I held the negatives in my hand, still in the plastic case.

  Rojo answered the banal and impertinent questions of a group of The X-Files fans.

  The sun was coming through the window. I took a negative out of the box and looked at it in the backlight.

  The presenter gave way to a series of news related to the content of the report.

  The officer kept quiet and scratched his chin as he reviewed the cases on the TV show.

  “We have no evidence they are related,” he said with a serious expression live on national television.

  “Is there a cause?” the presenter inquired.

  “No. As I have stated, they are isolated instances.”

  The clairvoyant took out a deck of tarot cards. A huge crab appeared on the screen.

  “Can it be a prophecy?” one guest asked. “Nostradamus once warned that — ”

  “I highly doubt it,” said the officer. “Whatever this guy said or whatever you are thinking. We work based on facts, and there is no proof that indicates otherwise.”

  “In ancient cultures, the image of the crab was associated with pregnancy — ” commented another guest.

  “I am sorry,” said the police officer. “I don’t know where you want to get, but you’re on the wrong track.”

  “Being a crustacean,” said the presenter, “do think that is the reason why it is occurring on the coast?”

  A phone number appeared on the screen. I took my mobile phone and dialed. A prerecorded message. The show was not being transmitted live.

  Rojo answered all the questions, impassive, the same tone, the same modulation. Since the events on the island of Tabarca, his appearance on local radio and television programs had increased. He impersonated the voice of experience, and also, the face who stood on behalf of the corps.

  “The police are investigating the leads,” he said. “We are here to protect the citizens, that is our purpose.”

  I turned off the TV set. I looked at the negatives again. The girl’s body, the crab tattooed on her side. Rojo was right, but he guarded the truth like a shellfish.

  If the crimes in the mid-90s were related to whatever was going on, it meant that someone had returned for a reason.

  I walked to the bathroom, stuck my head in the sink, turned on the tap, and then I made some coffee. I played a Baker record on the turntable and started taking mental notes.

  Someone was smuggling the drug in order to either get rich, or harm somebody else. The north of the region was famous for being the home of a large community of Eastern European citizens. From the south upwards, the rivalry between cartels that imported chemical drugs from Russia was well known. However, until then, the only documented case was the infamous krokodil, a downgraded substitute for heroin that devoured the flesh and turned the addict into an undead, although never into anything related to a crab. As authorship was not clear, I deduced that I should call their attention.

  I turned on the computer and checked the local news. The brief reports that had been published so far were nothing but aimless whips of isolated cases. The press seemed not to give it too much importance or did not know how to approach the story. It became clear and necessary that someone bait our guest of unknown identity.

  Full energy under the spell of Baker’s trumpeting and a cup of scorching coffee, I started typing. My fingers moved like tiny jackhammers, carried away by the rhythm of the music and the words that came and went like notes, providing a text with color and imagery typical of horror literature.

  The commentators on the TV show helped me fill my narration with fantasy, conspiracy, and fear, the brief but round paragraphs, incisive like a biting sharp sword.

  Eager but satisfied, I put the document away. With my phone, I took a picture of the negative and transmitted it to my computer. I opened a photo editing software and reversed the colors in the image. Then I made a phone call.

  “Yes?”
said a sleepy voice.

  “Wake up Bordonado,” I said. “It’s almost noon.”

  “What’s the matter? Damn, what a headache — ” he murmured.

  “We have to meet,” I said.

  “Today? It is Sunday. Impossible,” he sentenced. “I have a family meal.”

  “Well, skip the dessert,” I replied. “Tell them you have work to do.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Do you want to be a loser for the rest of your life?”

  * * *

  An hour later, I was at the metal counter of a dim-lit bar with white tiling, aluminum tables, and a blue awning. Couples drank vermouth while I, impatiently, waited to surprise Bordonado when he walked out of the gate.

  I savored the atmosphere of the place — a mix of festiveness, respect, not being understood by anyone other than ourselves. The tranquility of mid-afternoon, knowing that soon, the racket of twilight will engulf the deep depression of a tough week — that is just like all the other oncoming ones for as long as one is working. From the entrance, that place resembled a living movie screen, with all its secondary actors, the lights, scenery, and technicians. All the actors entered scene and yet, nothing happened, like in the life of someone who dedicates their life to following the guidelines set by the years basked in habit. A decaying status quo and yet more alive than ever despite the appearances, because behind the happy façades were but youngsters reaching the boiling point — a lost generation without a compass nor direction. Appearances that no one needed for we all guided ourselves to the same beat, the rhythm of the street, the numbing, and anodyne policy that would eventually turn into songs about decadence and alienation.

  I saw the kid walk out the door. I rehearsed an approaching move, a casual and passing approach. When I was about to perform my move, I saw the young man greet a long-haired brunette with Italian sunglasses. Shorter than him but more energetic. From the shelter of that shack, I saw Bordonado awkwardly flirting with the girl, nervous and with his thumbs in his pockets. He did not have a meal with his family, or perhaps he did, but it did not matter. They kissed twice, and he approached her clumsily, snail-slow, arrhythmic but without pausing. The two silhouettes disappeared into the distance. I became aware that I had to face Cañeta again, with his slick hair combed backward, beefroll loafers, and well-pressed trouser creases.