Carcinus' Malediction

by Pablo Poveda

  “This is weird, kid,” the taxi driver commented. “We are heading back to the docks.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Like I’ve been a cab driver all these years,” he replied. “Now, that’s not a problem for me.”

  We arrived at a loading and unloading port where dozens of colorful and large containers were stacked into an intricate maze. The car pulled over, and the two men got out of the car. Our driver carried on and furtively pulled over about two-hundred meters apart.

  In the distance, I saw Hämäläinen holding a gun to Rojo’s back and forcing him to walk.

  “Thank you,” I told the taxi driver and handed him a 50-euro note.

  “Do you want me to wait?” he asked as he put the money away in his wallet.

  “It won’t be necessary,” I said. “We’ll take it from here.”

  “Good luck, kid,” the man said. “Don’t get into much trouble.”

  He pulled off leaving a skid mark.

  We looked up at the sky, the afternoon sun warmed less and less. In a few hours, the sun would set, and if it got dark, there would be no way for us to find anyone.

  “I’m afraid,” said Blanca, grabbing my right arm. “I think we should call the police, Gabriel.”

  “No,” I said and pulled the gun out of my waist. “I’m fed up, Blanca. It is time to end this story.”

  The squawking of the seagulls reverberated among the cargo containers. It was a setting as colorful as it was eerie. I held the weapon, trembling, and walked ahead. Suddenly, we heard a metallic blow.

  “What was that?” Blanca asked.

  “Stay here,” I said and started running.

  I advanced several meters in a few strides, looked both ways and saw no one. The knot in my throat was like a tennis ball.

  That maze was too big for me and looked endless. All the exits were identical. The containers conformed infinite corridors that ended in the distance, bordered with the ocean on one side and the horizon on the other. I kept walking, trying to map the maze in my head, but it was useless, I felt like I was just walking in circles.

  “Gabriel! Blanca shouted, pointing at something.

  I turned following her finger, raised the gun, and saw a silhouette that hid behind a metal blue deposit.

  “Rojo!” I yelled and ran in the same direction, but when I got to the corner, the shadow had disappeared. “Shit! Rojo!”

  “Run!” I heard an echo from one of the corridors of that maze.

  I raised the gun, an arm appeared out of nowhere. I distinguished a human paw, clad in a black leather glove that held on to a weapon. The fingers pulled the trigger and I dropped to the floor.

  That was close.

  “No!” Blanca yelled in the distance.

  I took out the gun and shot. The gunshot pierced my ears.

  “Blanca?” I said.

  I did not see anything.

  I heard another shot from afar. Instinct dragged me to the ground. A strong burn appeared in my right thigh.

  “Oh, Fuck!” I shouted with fury. A bullet had grazed my leg. “Fuck! It burns like fuck!”

  The leg weighed a ton, I felt paralyzed, unable to walk. The torture just increased. I knew the wound was not fatal, but I had to do something before I bled to death. The injury could affect the rest of the leg.

  “Gabriel!” Blanca yelled as she ran to me. I saw the panic in her eyes, the tears trickling like two rivers. She covered the few meters that separated her from me, crouched down, and kissed me while she held me against her body. “Are you okay?”

  It had been worth it.

  “My leg is shaking,” I answered nervously. “It must be the adrenaline.”

  “We have to ask for help, Gabriel,” she said after having a look at the wound. “It’s dangerous.”

  “But that bastard — ”

  “Gabriel — ” she said, putting her index finger on my lips “leave it! please. We have gone too far — ”

  “Blanca, don’t you understand?”

  “You need an ambulance!”

  “Listen to me,” I said. “I don’t care about the story. I’m doing this for him, he’s my friend.”

  Blanca held my hand and squeezed it hard. She was about to break into tears again, just thinking of losing me. In her face, I found an answer — she still loved me.

  She had always loved me.

  When our lips were about to melt into one last kiss, we heard two shots.

  “No! Rojo!” I bellowed and got up, dragging my leg.

  However, the ending I witnessed was not the typical of a film poster. About twenty meters away from us, Hämäläinen lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood. A man with albino hair, wearing a hat, was turning away from me, holding a gun and pointing at Rojo while he said his last words to him.

  The police looked at him kneeling on the floor.

  I raised the gun once more, pointed at that man in the distance, and got ready to shoot.

  Rojo saw me and his expression changed. Before I pulled the trigger, he raised his hands trying to tell me something.

  “Don’t do it. Don’t shoot!” he shouted repeatedly.

  The man in the hat turned to me and pointed his gun at me. The bullet ricocheted on one of the steel containers and the man disappeared between them without leaving a trace.

  “Rojo!” I shouted as I approached him.

  Blanca came running behind me. The officer stood up with his hands on his head.

  He did not look happy to see me.

  “I told you to run! What the hell are you doing here?” he exclaimed embarrassedly.

  There was something strange in his countenance.

  “It is that man — ” Blanca uttered.

  The man in the hat got on a boat where a thug awaited him. Without any haste whatsoever, they started the engine and got lost in the sea.

  “What is happening, Rojo?” I asked in confusion, pointing at the Finn’s body. “Uh? Goddamn it, tell me!”

  “Calm down,” he answered with authority.

  I raised the gun and pointed between his eyes.

  “Gabriel! Calm down!” Blanca screamed.

  “You know? I am fed up, really. I am fed up with you, with your stories, with your lies!” I uttered. “I thought we were friends. The kind of friends who tell each other the truth, or at least, what matters. But I was wrong with you... Francisco, Joaquin, or whatever your name is! I’m fed up! Real fed up! Who was that man? Who are you? How did we end up like this, officer?”

  Rojo combed his hair with his hand.

  “Come on, put the gun down.”

  “Is that it? Are you going to ignore me? Fine then!”

  “I’ll tell you everything when it’s right,” he said amicably. Defeated, I put the gun down. The three of us knew that I could not pull the trigger. “Now, give me that. This isn’t yours. We haven’t been here, at least, you two haven’t. Understood?”

  The officer took the gun away from me, wiped it with a handkerchief that he pulled out of his pocket, and left it in the Finn’s hands. Then he looked at his watch.

  “So, you are establishing the rules again.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic, Caballero.”

  “Someday, they’ll find out,” I replied. “You can’t go through life — ”

  “Just stop it, will you?” he interrupted me. “You have your story, so, you had better go to a hospital now, because that leg looks really bad.”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to arrest you?” he asked. “This temper tantrum can cost you dearly.”

  “This is about your wife,” I continued. “He knows something, that’s why he let you live.”

  “Don’t start — ”

  “Hämälmäinen was part of the structure, wasn’t he?” I asked. The officer shook his head negatively. “He was a sprocket in the clockwork, and you knew that he could take you one step higher in the hierarchy.”

  “You’re not on the wrong track,” he said with disda
in. “For the moment, the drug problem ends with Hämäläinen. I just put the story on a silver tray for you. What else do you want? This was one of the most relevant operations against drug trafficking and one that required the least men in history, and it will go unnoticed, both by the state and by the media, and it’ll be better this way. Don’t quote me, but you can use the phrase.”

  “What’s your role in all of this?” Blanca asked. “You’ve shown too much interest.”

  “I’m just doing my job,” he replied. “Things are getting harder and tougher, so I’ve had to refine my methods and become somewhat less conventional. The last thing I need is to lose my job.”

  “This has been a sham,” I deduced.

  “Not at all.”

  “Who are you, Rojo?” I asked again.

  “You know that already.”

  “No, I don’t,” I replied annoyed. “I don’t think I will ever know.”

  “Then just shut your mouth, will you?” he said. “A patrol car is coming; someone must have called them. Take that road, it will take you to the trucks’ exit.”

  Before we left, Blanca grabbed me by the shoulder, and guided me to face Rojo. Rojo fixed his gaze on my forehead, expecting me to leave.

  “See you... officer,” I said and looked at Blanca. She looked back at me with a confused and sad expression, worthy of a romantic movie ending where the girl leaves and the boy dies. An expression that summarized our adventure.

  15

  Even if it was only an appearance, the story had come to an end. Heikki Hämäläinen’s death delivered both a hero and a villain for the local press that — at the same time — brought closure to a bloody summer in the Mediterranean that had unleashed panic among tourists and hoteliers. The city of Palma de Mallorca became the scene of a drug trafficking operation led by the Homicide and Narcotics Brigades of the Valencian Community, the Region of Murcia, and the Balearic Islands. The press soon emphasized that the State Forces had been after Heikki Hämäläinen and his organization for months. The chief inspector of the Palma police station declared the end of a dark episode for the city and the success of the operation after the apprehension of more than 50 delinquents with operations throughout the Iberian coast. One ton of compressed narcotics and half a million euros hidden in sports bags were seized. The shipment was located in the seaport of Palma after an officer from the Alicante Homicide Brigade notified of its existence after chasing the ringleader of the cartel.

  The news was greeted with pleasure among the police forces after the bloody summer the region had experienced. However, there was no report on the whereabouts of the man in the hat.

  Blanca decided to stay a few days on the coast while she organized her feelings, and I was in favor of her doing so. We decided that once arriving in the Peninsula, we would return to that little hotel on the shore. Then we were to hit pause on our story and rewind the tape until we found the moment when she would wake up, and we were happy.

  Fortunately, the wound was nothing more than a scratch produced by the bullet grazing my leg. The doctor said that it could have been much worse had the bullet penetrated the muscle, but there was no reason for concern. As a consequence, I had trouble walking, and that also motivated Blanca to stay with me a few more days.

  “What’s wrong, Gabriel?” she said. “You look worried. Is it because of money?”

  “No, that is the least of it,” I replied. “Of course, it’s frustrating that we lost the opportunity of a lifetime, but this is about Rojo, you know.”

  “Forget about it. That policeman is a sociopath.”

  “He might be, Blanca, but he knows that his wife is still alive. In fact, all of this is about her.”

  “And so, what?” she said resignedly. “If you keep meddling in things that are none of your business, you’ll end up badly, very badly.”

  “It matters, Blanca, a lot.”

  “You are a journalist, Gabriel,” she replied. “Not a cop. Your thing is to tell stories, not to cause them”

  “My job is to tell the truth.”

  “Perhaps the world doesn’t want to know the truth about some things.”

  I looked her in the eye with contempt, but Blanca was just trying to make me understand that there was more to life than work.

  “I am sorry,” I apologized.

  The sky was getting dark, it was nighttime, and the breeze blew delicately. An enormous moon illuminated the land like a lighthouse reflecting on the ocean, drawing a luminous path toward the infinite.

  “What are you going to drink?” a waitress asked.

  We ordered shrimp, grilled fresh squid, a tray of steamed mussels, and two glasses of cold white wine.

  The girl left with an expression of bewilderment on her face, revealing a diner who had been sitting in the corner, right behind her. His hair was blond, nearly white, albino. He looked foreign, but I no longer trusted looks. I got nervous and accidentally hit the table with my leg.

  “Easy,” said Blanca, taking my hand, “it’s just a coincidence. The psyche can be very treacherous.”

  The man, who was accompanied by a green-eyed, long-haired blonde woman in a white dress, turned a glance at our table. Then, he paid attention to the rest of the diners and finally, to the girl who accompanied him.

  “You are right,” I admitted. “It must be the damn stress; I need that wine.”

  The friendly waitress returned with two glasses and a bottle. I tried to conceal it from Blanca so that she would not realize it, but I could not take my eyes off of that man, who watched me back, cheerfully and stealthily.

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you have any plans?”

  “Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it,” I answered. “Another summer that passes by. Anyway, now that it all has come to an end, I guess that I’ll get back to the apartment, and everything will go back to normal, although I suppose normality is the exception in my life.”

  “You should take a break.”

  “It certainly wouldn’t hurt.”

  “We could try it again,” she said nervously in a broken voice. A beam of hope eclipsed my attention and made me forget about that man and focus on her eyes and lips. “I have thought about it, Gabriel. It is not that I had forgotten what you did to me, but I am also aware that I was in part responsible. I know the relationship with my family was to blame too. I didn’t know how to handle the situation, and I admit that I demanded too much from you.”

  “But Blanca — ”

  She squeezed my hand, signaling to let her finish.

  “Gabriel,” she said with a broken voice, “if you are going to say something stupid, you had better say nothing.”

  “Just one thing — ”

  “I love you, it’s something that I can fight no more,” she continued. “These days have helped me realize it.”

  I turned her hand to hold it, grabbed her by the back of the head, approached her eyes to mine, and kissed her in the lips tightly. A long, loving, sweet, and delicate kiss. The kiss that I had enjoyed the most until then.

  Her crystalline gaze broke into a shimmering tear that rolled down her face.

  “I’ll order us a bottle of chilled wine for the room,” I whispered in her ear.

  She laughed.

  “You’re crazy, Gabriel.”

  “Crazy for you, Blanca Desastres.”

  When I called the waitress, the table at the back was already empty, but I did not care in the slightest.

  We went to our room, uncorked the bottle, and drank anxiously amid whispers, silence, sneaky glances, while — on the radio — Sam Cook sang for us and turned that night into a classic. When we finished the bottle of wine, the night had just surrendered to us. Melted in kisses, we got naked with desperation like there was a time that we had to make up for. Blanca was wearing black underwear and waited in bed while I unbuttoned my jeans. Our tenderness turned into kisses, our caresses into gr
oping that got firmer and firmer, going up and down our bodies and made us sweat. I grabbed Blanca by the ass and pushed her against the window. She moaned. Blanca grabbed my penis and drove me inside of her. The temperature rose, turning us more and more savage, licking each other like animals until we ended up making love next to the room’s window.

  We fell asleep next to each other, and she lay on my chest under the sheets.

  16

  The phone ring woke me up. I opened my left eye and glimpsed at darkness of a starry night. From the beach, a gentle breeze moved the white curtains. I looked at the bedside table and saw the screen of my phone lit. I had a new message.

  “Let’s have a walk on the beach. I’m waiting outside.”

  The message had been sent from an unknown number with a foreign prefix. It did not bode well for me, but curiosity got the better of me, and silently and, carefully, I got dressed quickly and left the room without disturbing Blanca, who was still asleep in the bed. As I crossed the reception, the man who guarded the area, looked at me with a sleepy countenance in front of the TV set.

  “I’m going to my car,” I whispered. “I forgot something.”

  The man nodded and returned to meet with Morpheus.

  The nights by the beach grew chilly as August was coming to its end. The moist air ran through my bones, and I began to shiver. The message did not specify the location, so I walked around the building and ended up on shore, where the terrace was located.

  There, under the moon’s glare and the restaurant’s lamppost, I saw a male figure smoking a cigarette. From afar, it could be anyone, but he did not look dangerous.

  He hid behind a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap.

  I dragged my feet, shivering with cold and fear.

  “What do you want?” I said shakily.

  “I was about to leave,” he replied. It was Rojo. “It’s freezing cold, and you didn’t even bother reply my message.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Are you still asking me at this point, Gabriel?” he called me by my name. “I am a policeman, I always know where you are, you idiot.”

  “Did you tap my calls too?”