Carcinus' Malediction

by Pablo Poveda

  “Listen,” Rojo said. “Let’s turn them against each other. One of them works for the Finn. It’ll suffice to make them doubt for them to panic. And I trust that he’ll give himself away when he hesitates. When the exchange has been made, they’ll unscramble the phone signal.

  “And we’ll turn into fish fodder,” I said.

  “Don’t let the pressure get you,” he said earnestly. “We must act with a cool head. Captain, do not disobey, whatever happens, I promise you’ll make the port alive.”

  “On my boat.”

  We both went outside.

  A go-fast boat approached us, dazzling us with a spotlight. We could barely see how many of them were on the vessel. They were five, maybe six. When the ship was next to ours, one of the men boarded our boat. A second man followed, escorting him. The spotlight went out, and we saw, under the moonlight, four heads who awaited restlessly on the other side.

  “Good evening,” said the first man. “Let’s do this quick. Where’s the money?”

  Rojo showed them the briefcase.

  “Well, how practical,” he said, “but I don’t trust you.”

  He made a sign with his hand, and one more man jumped onto our boat. “Count it.”

  The man in charge looked at us with the corner of his eyes and his arms akimbo. Rojo interjected while the man did numbers.

  “It’s all in there,” he said trying to distract him. “It is not me who is going to betray you.”

  “Say what?”

  “One of your men — ” Rojo continued “is a mole. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

  The escort was undeterred.

  “Very clever,” he said with a scoff. “Don’t try to play with me. I told you that everything was under control. We have scrambled the phone signal, there won’t be interruptions nor unexpected visitors. My men are trustworthy and well paid... what’s is wrong with your captain?”

  The captain squinted at the man. He could not hold back any longer.

  “There is a bomb on the boat, kid,” he said.

  The man counting the money got distracted. The escort grunted in anguish and gulped. “We are going to blow up like champagne corks.”

  “Shit!” the man counting the money shouted.

  “What’s the matter?

  “I need to start over again.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” cursed the crook and raised his weapon. “Shut up!”

  “We’ll turn you into shark chum if you don’t shut up!” the escort shouted.

  I felt an electric shock in my spine.

  I had heard that expression before.

  Without hesitation, I lunged at the escort and threw him to the floor.

  I heard two shots.

  The weapon fell, I stood up and punched him hard on the nose. And did it again. He looked weaker. He had started to bleed. Then he kicked me off of him. I regained my balance, grabbed the gun, and hit him again with the hilt in the face.

  He was knocked out.

  I got up and saw another puddle of blood lying on the deck. Officer Rojo and the captain, aimed to the two men who remained on the other boat. I frisked the thug’s body while he remained unconscious on the deck and found an old mobile phone.

  “Here it is,” I said victoriously, raising an old Nokia.

  “How did you know?” said the captain in a trembling voice.

  “I had heard that expression before, from the Finn.”

  “Whatever you say,” Rojo replied. The police officer ordered the two remaining men to jump into the sea, and they so did. He grabbed the briefcase containing the money and jumped onto the other boat.

  “Let’s go!” he ordered.

  “I’m not leaving this vessel,” said the captain.

  Rojo did not answer.

  “I have no time for drama or nostalgia,” he replied. “Get on the boat or meet your end.”

  I grabbed the old sailor by the arm before jumping onto the other boat. The captain refused to leave what had been his home for many years. It was not easy. I could understand him. Rojo was not a sailor.

  The man turned on the lights of the boat, bid farewell by kissing the tips of his fingers and placing the kiss on the stern where the word “AGATHA” was painted in blue letters on white, and jumped onto the other boat.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “It’s late.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked in the dark.

  “The captain had better take the helm wheel,” Rojo instructed. “They’ll catch up with us soon. Do you have the phone at hand?”

  “Yes,” I said and handed it to him. “There aren’t any phone numbers in the contacts, so it’s useless.”

  “The only one useless is you, Caballero,” he sneered. “Look, in the missed call log, there is a number. There you have it.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Let’s check it out,” he said and dialed. Nothing happened. Rojo pressed the handset to his ear. “Shit! It’s an answering machine.”

  “We’ll never know.”

  “What does it matter at this point?”, said the captain.

  We looked at the boat for the last time, in the distance.

  Suddenly, a loud explosion came from inside of the ship, turning her into pieces that flew through the air.

  “Goddamn it!” said the captain in a trembling voice.

  “That was the number after all,” said Rojo.

  That was a singular picture, a ship in full decline, sinking into the sea, and us — the three of us — lit up under the dying flames moving away on a go-fast boat. Ironically, there was beauty amid so much misfortune.

  “Where are we heading, Captain?” Officer Rojo inquired, trying for the umpteenth time to use the maps application on his phone.

  “I don’t know,” said the old man. He looked back, then turned ahead again. “I can’t see the lighthouse. If we go back to the boat, we may make it to port.”

  “How are you so sure?” I asked.

  “You are asking me, aren’t you?”

  “If everything goes as planned, we’ll have to worry about other things soon,” Rojo said.

  “Nothing has gone as planned,” I replied.

  “Shut up!” the sailor interjected. “The sun won’t rise until six thirty, although we may see something in the dim light.”

  Suddenly, another fishing boat was approaching in the distance with its lights on.

  “We’re lucky,” said Rojo.

  “Don’t be so sure,” he answered. “Boats don’t set sail to fish on Sundays.”

  “Then it must be them — ” Rojo said.

  “Don’t be stubborn, Rojo,” I replied. “The best thing will be to turn and continue toward the boat.”

  “Caballero, if you are going to piss yourself, I beg you to jump into the sea first,” Rojo said. “Right now, we have an advantage over them. They think the boat has blown up with you inside. I highly doubt that Hämäläinen knows all the men who work for him, so we will approach the boat and you will turn me in.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “When they lower the guard,” he replied, “we’ll shoot them down.”

  “Just like that?”, I said. “Like a Steven Seagal movie.”

  “We are running out of time and options,” said the policeman. “One of my men has already betrayed me. I suspect the coastal patrols are trying to attract the case. In any case, the Civil Guard is the only corps who could give us a hand, but the operation would pass to somebody else and would be made public.

  “People ditch the laws on the high seas,” said the captain. “I wonder if you journalists will one day deign to tell the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “Even if I get out of this alive, I won’t be the one to tell the story, kid,” he said, “but I know someone who would do it for me.”

  “We’ll talk about it,” I said. “Let’s land first.”

  “Stop the chitchat,” said Rojo. “We have to board them like true pirates.”
<
br />   “What! You’re losing your mind, Rojo!”

  “Let’s do it with courage! Fuck!”

  * * *

  We turned off the spotlight and headed to the boat at speed until we were close. The captain killed the motor, and we drifted to the starboard of the vessel. Under the gloom, it was difficult to see anything, a movement, or even a shadow. They were not expecting us.

  “Now it’s the time,” Rojo said.

  We propelled him with the arms, and he jumped onto the boat. Then, I did the same.

  The boat rocked.

  “Come on, Captain,” I whispered, reaching out for the old man.

  Once he had climbed, a metal blow was heard.

  “Now!” Rojo commanded.

  We crawled several meters until we spotted a watchman at the stern.

  Rojo walked to him from behind and knocked him out with a dry blow to his neck and left his body on the floor. We heard chains. Then I felt a presence. We were not alone.

  High-powered spotlights illuminated the ship. From the bridge, there was a silhouette.

  “Well, well, well,” said the voice from the bridge. It was him. it was Heikki Hämäläinen. “I’m surprised, officer.”

  “You’ve got me,” Rojo replied. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Now, leave them alone.”

  “Bravo! Quite heroic — Are you done yet?” the Finn asked. “Get rid of them,”

  I heard a grunt.

  The captain fell to the floor. When I tried to turn, the pain of a heavy blow, in combination with the cold metal of a bar, opened a second wound in my head. Everything got darker and began to spin, faster and faster like a carousel. I tried to hold on to something but could not. I closed my eyes and gave in.

  14

  My head was still spinning. A stinging burned at the back of my skull. I opened my eyes with difficulty. We seemed to be on the move, not only me, but the boat. It smelled of fish, that smell that enters the nostrils and never comes out. For God’s sake, I was getting sick of it. I tried to stretch and realized that my feet and hands had been tied. At least I could yell, even though it would not do much good. Next to me, I discovered the presence of the old captain, who was sitting on a chair, semi-conscious and helpless. When I realized he was opening his eyes, I tried to draw his attention.

  “Captain! Captain!” I said, trying to encourage him. “Are you all right?”

  “Where the hell are we?” he asked with his raspy voice. “I am having the worst of hangovers.”

  “They must have put us in the cargo hold,” I said.

  “Can you move?”

  “I can try.”

  “Then — ” he said, “we have to untie ourselves before one of those bastards walks around here.”

  We looked around us. At first glance, there was nothing around us that could possibly help us. The captain approached, dragging the chair, to a glass bottle. He pushed it to the floor where it shattered to pieces.

  I feared he would have drawn their attention.

  Without asking, as quickly as I could, I tried to pick up one of the shards of glass. It was complicated. I had not been tied to a chair, but crouching and getting up was complicated, especially when that headache was killing me.

  On a first try, I scratched my arm with one of the shards.

  “Shit!” I shouted.

  “Careful,” the old man said, “you almost got it.”

  With all my skill, I retrieved one of the pieces and held it as tightly as I could while the old man rubbed the zip ties on his wrists against it.

  “Well for you, kid,” he said when he cut the lock. He took the piece of glass and cut the zip ties that held my wrists together. The rest was a kids’ play. I grabbed another shard of glass and kept it with me for defense.

  “Now, let’s go find Rojo,” I said.

  “What’s going on here?” a sentry shouted.

  I pounced against him and then I realized that he was armed. We struggled on the floor, he punched in the face, and I gave him an uppercut, proper of an amateur boxer. In one of the blows, the weapon fell to the floor. The captain picked up the gun, aimed and fired, provoking a very loud shot, but the bullet missed its target. The sentry managed to throw me to the floor where he connected a kick.

  “Watch it!” I shouted.

  The captain aimed again and shot. Another thunderous shot was heard. This time he hit the bullseye. The projectile had hit the thug’s chest.

  The movement of the ship and the sudden lack of strength made the body fall on top of the old sailor. I got up to help him, but the captain was already on the floor, lying under the weight of the cadaver.

  “Oh, my God, Captain,” I said. “We made it by the skin of a tooth.”

  “Kid... “ he said in a hurt voice. When I managed to remove the body off of him, I found a big bloodstain on his shirt. At first, I wanted to think that it was not his, but the captain’s bad luck made him fall on the shards of glass. A sharp piece of several centimeters pierced his ribcage.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be all right,” I said, holding him.

  “How funny is life, huh?” he said. “When it’s your turn to die, you die. What saves you once, kills you next.”

  “Don’t say nonsense,” I told him holding him in my arms. “You’ll get well. You’ll see.”

  Suddenly, I heard another bang, even louder. Someone was coming.

  “Take... the... gun,” said the old man, gasping.

  “I don’t know how to shoot.”

  “Think it’s a harpoon... and your prey... a shark,” he said. “Breathe... focus... don’t think too much.”

  I took the gun with one hand and held the captain’s body with the other. The footsteps got closer.

  I looked at the door.

  My hand was shaking.

  * * *

  How long had we spent there, inside the boat? Where were we? After the blow, the boat stopped. I leaned the man against the wall, making sure he did not get any worse. I held the weapon in my hand, holding it tight but fearfully. I never liked weapons.

  “We have docked at the port,” said the old man. “Don’t hesitate, shoot.”

  But I could not do it.

  The door slammed open.

  “Gabriel!” shouted a female voice. It was Blanca Desastres, as alive as she was beautiful. Her eyes illuminated when she saw me like she had found an angel within the deepest of my being. “You’re alive!”

  Blanca talked to me like she had thought that I was dead. She took my face with both hands and we melted in a gentle unexpected kiss. We hugged. The smell of her hair was still as I recalled it. With time, each person acquires a fragrance, an aroma of their own. That essence is like a sign of identity that adheres to the skin and the memory and learns not to disappear but to remain perennial. I could distinguish that delicious smell amidst the stench of rotten fish. It was Blanca. Even blind would I have recognized her.

  “We have to help him,” I told her, pointing to the captain. “He’s wounded, we’ve had some setbacks.”

  “I see” Blanca said, looking at the sentry on the floor.

  “How did you escape?”

  “It’s a long story, Gabriel,” she said. “We’ll have time to talk it over. Right now, we have to get out of here. We’ve arrived in the port of Palma de Mallorca.”

  “What?” said the old man.

  “Palma?” I asked confused, “My God.”

  “Yes,” she said agitatedly. “Something serious happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was in a cabin, guarded by a thug,” she explained. “Suddenly, we heard gunshots and the guard walked out to see what was going on. I took advantage to sneak out, and I found the crew dead. Someone must’ve killed them. They all have a crab tattooed on the body, Gabriel. The ship is empty. There are no survivors — ”

  “What about Rojo?”

  “There is no trace of him,” she said, “nor Hämäläinen.”

  “If we hurry,” I said, �
�we may be able to catch up with them.”

  Blanca looked at the captain.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said, gasping. “Catch that bastard — ”

  We heard voices coming from the outside.

  They sounded like agents.

  “We don’t have much time,” said Blanca.

  “I’ll keep them busy,” the captain muttered. “Kid, I’ll see you on the outside, understood?”

  “So be it,” I said and left the cabin with Blanca.

  Outside, we snuck through the snoops and a port patrol that had been alerted about the landing of an unregistered boat. Blanca approached a fisherman to ask him to call an ambulance. In the distance, I saw two silhouettes boarding a taxi together — Rojo and Hämäläinen. What the hell was going on?

  I raised my hand to stop one of the cab drivers around. The same landscape turned out so familiar that I thought that I was experiencing a déjà vu.

  “Are you available?” I asked.

  The man stuck his body between the driver and passenger seats. He was wearing a cap that advertised a brand of orange juice.

  “My God! I thought I’d never see you again!” the cab driver said. “Where are we going? “

  * * *

  The randomness of life, who would have said it? It’s like he was the only taxi driver in town. The man seemed happy to see me again, behind his pilot sunglasses.

  “Who is after us this time around?” he asked jokingly.

  “Please, follow that car,” I told him. “Today it’s us — ”

  “So be it, young man,” the driver said.

  “How do you know this man?” Blanca asked me in a whisper.

  “It’s a long story,” I said with a grin.

  The wind blew in our faces, a flamenco guitar sounded from the speakers, and the upholstery was impregnated in an intoxicating fragrance of pine trees.

  “Olé, olé!” said the man, tapping the car’s door with his hand. “Second hand. First class. Are you comfortable?”

  The man laughed at his own jokes.

  “Please, go with caution,” I told him. “I don’t want them to notice us — ”

  The vehicle exited the docks and entered the highway. The landscape that surrounded us consisted of an arid desert, mountains, occasional opuntias, and the asphalt of the road.