by Pablo Poveda
The doorbell rang. I walked to the door, looked through the peephole, and also around me. It was Rojo.
“Come in,” I said.
“Argh! What is that stench?” he asked. I slammed the door shut. The officer came in with long strides, following the intoxicating putrid smell, and ignoring the girl in the couch.
“Mother of God!” he exclaimed. “Have you called an ambulance?”
“No. He is dead.”
“How do you know?” he asked and pushed me aside with his muscular arm. He slapped some crabs away and searched for a pulse in the neck. “You are right. How awful.”
“What should we do?” I inquired with a trembling voice.
“Let me think,” he responded while inspecting the rest of the apartment. “I have to call the headquarters.”
“No, you can’t,” I said dejectedly. Rojo looked at me intrigued. “Whoever did this has been watching us.”
“Go on.”
“Very strange things have happened tonight,” I said. “Someone seems to have been working out a way to get revenge. The drug or whatever they are distributing, is rendering people mindless.”
“What did you see?”
“Put simply, undead people.”
“We have to do something about him,” said Rojo, gesturing at the body. The smell was getting unbearable. The stench had filled the house. In a few hours, it would reach the rest of the building.
“It is up to you.”
“In fifty minutes, I will call the corps,” he said. “By then, you will have already taken off to another apartment. We’ll figure out a reasonable alibi before the police officially reaches you. Do what you consider best with Miranda, but she was never here. I hope you had been cautious and don’t have too much to account for... I still have to observe the code. I’ll see you in two days. I will be waiting for you at a pub named Texaco on the beach in San Juan, around dinner time. They are friends of mine, and the place is safe haven.”
“As you wish,” I agreed. “I don’t know where I can go.”
“I am afraid you will have to figure that out yourself,” he answered squarely. “You are resourceful. In the meantime, of course, you can’t call me, nor try to reach me. Someone has been trying to end my career since Tabarca’s incident.”
We had not talked about it since.
The bonding adventure that we had shared had been no more than a summer escapade — a set of battles to tell, and that would start gathering dust in the storage room of our memories. I had not been able to forget the dark episode that I experienced twelve months before, the year of the Spanish team, the loss of my friend Hidalgo, Clara, and Blanca Desastres. None of the three of us mentioned what happened again. It was like that teenage movie where a fisherman was killed in the middle of the road. Everyone kept the secret and the murderer killed them all in two-hour long footage. Our experience did not get that far. On the contrary, we lost contact. Each one of us turning their back on the rest, ignoring the only thing that had united us forever, running away from our history. Much like me, the officer continued the labyrinthine episodes of his life — searching for answers, hunting witches, and trying to enjoy some calmness.
I always had the feeling that Violeta — that attractive therapist I slept with, and who tried to kill me hours later — was not the be-all and end-all of the case. We were facing a network, a well-lubricated machine, consisting of countless sprockets, and it was just a matter of time before the moles came out of their burrows.
“We have to get moving,” I said disheartened, with the sole intention of leaving my home. Soon, the place would be flooding with agents looking for evidence who would put me under surveillance and prevent me from continuing my investigation for a long time.
“Hold on,” Rojo said, grabbing me by the shoulder. When I turned around, I saw a disk in his hand. “Do you have a video player? I need to show you something before you leave.”
We walked into the living room, and I turned on the TV set. The light of dawn was starting to filter in through the balcony.
“You’ll have time to tell me how she ended up here,” Rojo said, pointing to the girl. “She didn’t look like the kind of girls you normally — ”
I snatched the DVD from his hands and inserted it into the player.
I hit the play button.
“Do you still believe everything your eyes see?” I asked rhetorically while looking at the screen.
* * *
The screen turned blue. It was a homemade recording, taken by a cameraman out of frame. In it, were a spacious room and a door that led to another room. A country house. The audio sputtered and then only static. Suddenly, two very thin women appeared. Their hair was platinum blond, maybe ash. The poor quality of the recording seemed to have saturated the colors.
The camera made a close-up of the women and then zoomed out for a general shot.
They wore loose flowing white dresses. I recognized the face of one of them — it was Rojo’s wife, the same woman I saw on the picture frame on the desk the first time we met at his office. She looked different, but I could not put my finger on what had changed. Perhaps she had aged, although she continued to hold a youthful appearance. Both women had attractive physiques, but death peered through their faces. It may have been the drug, who knew. I looked to my left and noticed the officer engrossed in the images, absent. It must not have been the second nor third time that he had seen that video.
He must have watched it dozens of time before calling me.
The women walked barefoot on the wooden floor of the spacious hall. It was a room in which there was no sofa, chairs, nor even shelves. It was simply a neat room in which the two women began to dance. Rojo’s wife looked at the camera, subdued by the directions someone behind it dictated her. The other woman — possibly the mother of children and wife to an abandoned husband — seemed more involved in the ritual. The woman suddenly jumped, revealing her torso — a crab. To our surprise, Rojo’s wife followed, but her body was still clean of tattoos. An initiation ritual? I thought that Rojo would have the answer to many of my questions. He would know when that footage was filmed because it was impossible to determine a time frame given the absence of objects. Everything seemed calculated in detail.
The sound sputtered again. A male voice was heard above the static. Whoever had staged it lacked complete knowledge of video production.
“Stay away, there is nothing you can do,” said a voice with an accent. “You wife is out of your reach. Give up and don’t interfere. There is nothing you can do.”
The locution had a foreign accent, native, but certainly not Iberian.
“Do you know who this is?” I asked. His face was tense, his muscles tight. For a moment, Rojo looked at the verge of exploding.
“Mexican,” he replied. “That is a Mexican accent, that’s all I know.”
“They are blackmailing you, Rojo.”
“Are you not watching the video?” he said. “It is not intended for me to see.”
Rojo was flustered and confused, staring at a frozen image of his wife on the screen. As much as I tried, I could not imagine what he felt. We were so close to a lead that invited action, even if it was wrong. Whoever had contacted him had also contacted me. I had no doubt that that person had been watching us before we realized the things that were going on around us. Drug trafficking is a big, thriving, and profitable business. It was only a matter of time before more and more people sought it. Where was the merchandise coming from? From abroad, from the east. Synthetic drugs came with the Russian-made stamp. Heroin usage in the old Soviet Union was a sure business — Moscow had banned the use of methadone. The profits dwarfed the salary of a state officer. The shortage of natural drugs in cold countries caused an increased demand for substitutes.
We needed to buy time, quickly. Think as a team again, connected. Two heads were not enough, even less so when Rojo could falter at any moment because of melancholy.
The third head.
&nb
sp; Thinking of her made my insides churn, and I felt like a piece of manure.
The idea must have been very tempting because I finally said it.
“I know someone who can help us with all of this.”
Rojo looked away from the screen for a moment.
“It was about time you finally decided to call her,” he responded. “Grow a pair and make that phone call. We need her.”
We were talking about the same person — Blanca Desastres.
The sun lit up the room. The roller shutters of nearby cafés squeaked as they were being raised on the street. Traffic sounds came to our ears — sirens, passing cars, and honks — the smell of coffee came in through the open windows.
“It is time to go,” I said turning around. I walked to Miranda. She was asleep. I crouched down, getting close to her dirty and stinky face. I grazed her cheeks. “Wake up, we have to go.”
Miranda rolled her eyes without opening her lids.
She growled.
“Five minutes, please,” she mumbled.
“No, not today,” I replied. “Wash your face and let’s go. The police is here.”
She opened her left eye and saw Rojo. She rubbed her other eye with the fingers and yawned.
“Shit,” she said. “Damn, what about the body? It was only a dream, right?”
“There is no time for explanations,” Rojo said, turning off the TV set and removing the disk from the player. “Miss, listen to what Gabriel tells you. Will you?”
“No way, I am going home,” she answered overwhelmed. “What happened, Gabriel? What’s going on?”
“Miranda,” Rojo said threateningly. “Don’t make me take you to the police station. You’ll get in real trouble if you give your statement. Obey and get out of here with him.”
The girl’s jaw dropped.
“Wash yourself in the kitchen, come on,” I ordered her. “We have to get out of here at once.”
Miranda stood up in a very sensual fashion under my shirt, showing off a pair of thin pink thighs, like the legs of a gazelle.
“And put on some trousers, please,” Rojo added.
I gave her a pair of tight jeans that fit her well. I said goodbye for the last time to that apartment and the short period of my life I had spent in it, though without much sorrow.
I said goodbye to Rojo with my thoughts, and we left the place, locking arms, as though I were dragging a mannequin. Miranda was still under the effect of a hangover that was becoming more and more evident.
I wiped the dry blood off of her nose, and she smiled at me.
A reminder of the battles of yesterday. Maybe it was not even a drug. Supply and demand, trends, the idea of feeling different, unique — the last thing one wants during puberty. A cluster of factors that lead us to an absurd spiral of consumption linked to fads — that we thought part of a current at first, just to become the current in it of itself — and that takes us to a trough where half of us laughs at the rest, while the other half does the same with us.
“Where are we going?” Miranda asked.
7
Hiding was the only thing I knew how to do; it was something that I was naturally good at. A whirlwind of hot air blew through the Porsche. Miranda stared blankly at the horizon — mountains of brown earth and a beach. I was leaving the city and the port, letting myself be carried away by the landscapes of the country roads, truck drivers’ bars, and a distant perspective of the planes landing on and taking off from Altet airport. An eighties song I knew but did not remember was playing on the radio.
“Where are we going, Gabriel?” Miranda insisted, withering on the seat, dying, and undone.
“Good question,” I replied, hitting the gas.
Twenty minutes later, I was parking in a narrow street, next to a beach that had not yet awakened. Several octogenarians walked with their shirts thrown over their shoulders toward the coast. Under their arms, an umbrella, the symbol of the summer religion. The ritual of the cult consisted of setting up the umbrella, taking a seat, exercising, smoking a cigarette, and going home. The family sacrifice, suffering paid for the enjoyment of others. My generation was not like that. We were selfish, and our families could not send us to the beach in a pack like that flock of grandparents. They never knew the meaning of freedom; life for them meant working as youngsters, working as adults, and working in the deathbed. If I ever had children, I would not be the one to plant the umbrella for them, I thought.
“It’s here. We’ve arrived.”
I looked up through the window.
It was crucial we not draw attention, although we had already done so. The family beach home, the only place to find oneself. It was an apartment close to the coast that overlooked a bright and warm beach shore stoked by the sun rays.
No one would recognize me there.
We went up the apartment, opened the windows, and I invited Miranda to take a shower and have a good nap. We both needed to sleep but there was something keeping me from it. When I told her to get into the shower, I waited until I heard the water running and then walked out on the balcony.
I turned on an old radio, tuned my favorite station, and varnished that cloudy summer morning with music. The flapping of the seagulls overflying was enough to realize that I needed Blanca’s help. On the one hand, I did not want to involve her in another of my stories. On the other, sooner or later, she would get splashed by the carnage.
“Yes?” her voice said on the phone. “Who is this?”
“Hello, Blanca. It’s me,” I replied, “Gabriel.”
“Hello, Gabriel,” a frigid voice answered back. “What do you want?”
There was a silence. I took a deep breath. My voice trembled.
“I didn’t call to apologize, Blanca” — I started off.
“You didn’t? she replied. “Then you can fuck off.”
“Wait! Don’t hang up!”
“...”
“I can hear you breathe.”
“...”
“I need your help,” I pleaded. “Not just me, Rojo does too.”
“A little too late, Gabriel,” she replied disappointed. God knows how long she would have been waiting for that apology that would never come. “I am on vacation and don’t have time for your stories.”
“I’m telling you the truth, Blanca,” I repeated. “Something strange is happening on the coast. Rojo found someone who knows his wife’s whereabouts.
Blanca was silent again. From the beginning, she had been intrigued by the mystery behind the disappearance of the officer’s wife. Not only because of her, but also all the other women who had become invisible to society.
“I don’t know, Gabriel.”
“You know you’re the last person I’d bother,” I said, “but we are desperate and have no choice. There’s a very difficult situation all over the coast. People are dying from a new drug, no one knows anything, and the police can’t stop it either. You have a gift for intuition, Blanca. Without you, we won’t be able to piece it together — ”
“What about money?”
“I’ll leave the story to you,” I said resignedly. I did it for Bordonado. “I promise.”
“I want one hundred percent, Gabriel,” she said. “Money is tight right now.”
I was about to ask about her family but refrained from it.
“As you wish,” I agreed. “When are you coming?”
“Give me a few hours,” she said, “I know the way.”
Suddenly, I heard a door slam. It came from inside the apartment. I walked in. Miranda had left and locked me in from the outside.
“Shit!” I cursed and ran to the balcony. “Miranda!”
The girl had gotten in my car and disappeared in the crossroads.
“Who are you talking to?” Blanca repeated.
Then she hung up.
I reflected for a second.
“I told you not to call me” — Rojo’s angry voice reprimanded me. “What do you want?”
“Miranda escape
d,” I replied, “and took my car. Notify all the patrols, have them locate and follow the vehicle. She’s an infiltrate!”
“Wait a minute — What are you saying, Caballero?” he asked in disbelief. “How are you so stupid?”
He was right.
It was an accident.
“There’s no time to explain, tell them to cover all the exits,” I said. “It won’t take her more than ten minutes to leave town.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At the beach apartment.”
“I’ll send someone, don’t move,” he said. “Send me your location.”
Rojo growled and hung up.
The beach, from that balcony, looked like a squirt of crystal-clear water. The sun reflected on the surface producing white sparks that extended until the horizon, the tiny boats fit between my fingers.
I went back inside the apartment, messed up the drawers and closets, looking for a duplicate of the keys to the house. I searched and searched. I kicked the table, desperate. If I had to wait for someone to arrive, we would lose her irremediably. I went to the balcony and estimated the distance to the ground. If I jumped from a second floor, I would probably break my leg. The neighbors on the first floor had the awning open. Sliding down the awning would make for a softer landing.
Shaky, I jumped over the railing and dropped into the void until I touched the cloth with my feet. I did not go unnoticed. I did not get to set a foot in the awning when a little girl started screaming.
“A jumper! He’s going to kill himself!”
The rest of the neighbors went out to their balconies, upset for interrupting their nap.
“Don’t jump yet!” one man on the street shouted. A few meters separated me from the ground. “Hold on, kid! I’ll catch you!”
I let go of my hands from the aluminum bars paying no attention to the warnings. I felt a tingle in the lower end of my buttocks, the canvas of the awning on my feet, and a slight bounce that helped me slip to the end. It all happened so fast that I did not even feel the fall. I head a collective “Oh” coming from the balconies in the street. For some, that would be the highlight of the day. My body slid like a rubber worm until I hit my fingers with the railing of the balcony below my apartment and fell on the pavement of the yard.