Turned to Stone

by Jorge Magano

  He hurried through the door that Clark had pushed open, hoping to reach safety as quickly as possible, but his new surroundings didn’t look any more promising.

  The windows were devoid of glass, and nothing in the room resembled furniture. The remains of wallpaper hung from the walls. Rain was streaming in through every opening, soaking the floor and making the room uninhabitable. The only door was the one they’d come through, and nothing suggested this was somebody’s office.

  Preston looked at Clark. “What’s happening now? Where’s this boss?”

  “I lied, Oscar. I’m the only boss here.”

  A clap of thunder sounded at that moment, making it seem as if they were in a scene from a horror movie.

  Preston spun around, suddenly fearful someone was hiding behind him. Seeing no one, he turned back to face Clark again. “I don’t understand what all this is about.”

  “Consider it a farewell. You’ve done your job, and it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to be seen together anymore.”

  In the neon-tinted light, confusion reflected back from Preston’s eyes. “But—you can’t mean you’re going to kill me. I called Amanda, I kept your identity a secret, and I handed over the document. I did everything you asked!”

  “That’s all true. Unfortunately for you, we don’t need the document anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time to chat, Oscar. I’m sorry. You seem like a stuck-up nitpicker, but over time I’ve grown quite fond of you.”

  Another thunderclap. Preston felt a shudder. Clark’s icy tone and the sudden contempt in his voice could mean nothing good. He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. He swallowed hard. “Look, Clark. I don’t know what you want or who you are. You asked me to do something and I did it. I don’t understand why you’re saying now that—”

  “Hands in the air, shithead!” Clark whipped an automatic pistol out from under his arm and aimed it at Preston.

  “What are you doing? There’s no need for that!”

  “Then don’t make me do it.”

  “I don’t know what any of this is about, I swear to God. Please, don’t kill me!”

  “Like I said, we don’t need you, Oscar. The boss already has what he was looking for.”

  “He has it? But you asked me to get it. And I did! It’s there, in your car, in the fold—”

  “I’ve got my orders. The boss was quicker than you were. I’m sorry, Oscar, but you’re excess baggage now.” Clark pointed the weapon at Preston’s head. “Stand in front of that window facing the street. The views are awesome from here.”

  Preston was trembling. He put his hands on his head and walked toward the glassless window. Nine floors below, the storm-battered Plaza de España looked deserted. “Don’t do it,” he said. “I don’t know who you are, I don’t know anything, I won’t say anything, please don’t kill me, don’t—”

  “I’m not going to kill you. I just want you to jump.”

  Preston closed his eyes against the fate that awaited him. He began to sob uncontrollably.

  “Come on, Oscar. It’s just a little jump. Just one! Don’t make me help you.”

  “No, listen. We can make a deal. Let me live and—”

  “Aw, fuck it.”

  There came the thud of a silenced pistol and then a cracking sound. Preston felt his strength fail and sensed he was falling forward into the void. Then something clutched him by the back of his neck and stopped him from tumbling through the window. Preston dropped onto the dirty floor and lay there in shock alongside the unconscious body of the man who’d been about to kill him.

  33

  Clark hadn’t expected his time to come so soon. He’d known that, extraordinary endurance notwithstanding, he bled like anyone else, and one day his luck would run out. It was simply a question of whether the weapon would be bullet, bomb, or blade. But the funny thing was, he couldn’t recall any of those fates befalling him.

  The cold rain dripped down his face. He opened first one eye, then the other, and he was left staring into the blackness before him, feeling stunned and confused. Pain seared the base of his skull and a terrible burning sensation raced across his face. The water was running in the direction of his forehead, and his body seemed to be swinging without touching the ground. Despite the darkness, he could just make out a face in front of him. A man with a mustache and a nose in plaster. He was looking at himself, reflected in a windowpane.

  Something wasn’t right. He tried to look up and saw the surface of the road some distance away. He looked toward his feet, and saw that they were tied to a rope that hung from a glassless windowpane. Beyond that was a stormy sky full of clouds.

  He understood that he was hanging upside down from the ninth floor.

  He wanted to scream, but no sound came from his mouth. He looked back toward his feet again; now the sky was partially blocked by a dark, oddly shaped head.

  Clark blinked again, convinced his eyes were playing tricks on him. The head was black and it had two pointy ears at the top. Despite the darkness, the treacherous height, and the fear he felt, Clark recognized that he was looking at a mask with holes for the mouth and eyes.

  “Good evening,” the man in the mask said.

  Clark blinked furiously.

  “Who are you? Where am I?”

  The stranger seemed offended. “What do you mean, who am I? I’m fucking Batman!”

  “Batman?”

  “Are you blind?”

  “Please, get me down from here. I mean, pull me back up! This isn’t funny.”

  “Tell that to your friend.”

  “My friend? What friend?”

  “The one you tried to kill a moment ago. It’s not nice to play with people’s lives like that.”

  “I know, I know. Please, pull me up and we’ll talk.”

  “We’re already talking. Tell me why you were going to kill him.”

  “I was following orders. Please, pull me up. My mouth’s filling with water.”

  “So’s your nose. That plaster cast is pretty handy.”

  “I’m begging you . . .”

  “You said you were following orders. Orders from whom?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “You don’t know or you don’t want to know?”

  Clark’s body suddenly dropped two meters down the exterior wall and then stopped again. “Bastard! Son of a bitch!” he yelled. “Let me go!”

  “As you wish.”

  Clark fell another meter. He screamed. “No! Get me up, get me up!”

  “Are you going to play nice or not?”

  “Pull me up.” Clark began to make sniveling noises. “I’ll tell you everything! Everything!”

  He groaned and screamed a bit more before he noticed that the man was pulling the rope and his body was beginning to climb back up the wall.

  “Now give me your hands,” Batman instructed him when he was fairly close. “And don’t try anything stupid, or I’ll send you straight to Arkham Cemetery.”

  “Okay, okay . . . but don’t let me go, please. Just don’t let me go.”

  Clark stretched out his arms and bent at the waist in order to reach the man’s hands. Once the man had him, he pulled Clark through the window into the building. Clark lay on the ground, trying to get his breath back as he looked at his captor in astonishment.

  He was a broad-shouldered, heavily built man wearing a Batman suit that was too small for him. Below the bat printed on the chest, Clark could see a bulging stomach and lint-filled belly button sticking out.

  “Who are you, clown?” Clark challenged him as soon as he’d recovered from his fright.

  “I told you once. Don’t make me repeat it.”

  “Batman, huh? More like some perverted old queen.”

  “
Whatever. Just answer my questions. Where’s Amanda’s son?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Oh, so it’s going to be like that. You want me to string you up by your feet again?”

  “Do what you want. I won’t tell you a thing.”

  “You don’t need to. I know everything about you.”

  “You don’t know shit about me.”

  “All right.” Batman feigned indifference. “I know that shithead on the floor’s named Oscar Preston. You kidnapped Amanda’s son and you’re blackmailing her to get your hands on Paloma Blasco’s work. Suddenly it occurred to you to search Paloma’s music CDs, and, once you found what you were looking for, you decided you didn’t need either of them anymore and planned their murders. Have I left anything out?”

  “I don’t know anything about any CDs. How do you know any of this? Was it that son of a bitch?” Clark gestured toward Preston.

  “No need. Paloma and Amanda filled me in. You were about to do away with Preston with your little pistol when I arrived and smacked you in the head with a metal bar.”

  Clark gingerly felt the bump while a distant memory struggled to the surface of his consciousness. “Azcárate . . . You’re Jaime Azcárate, Paloma’s boyfriend.”

  “Me, that scrawny poseur? Don’t insult me or you’ll find yourself back out the window.”

  “No, you can’t be him.” Clark looked pointedly at the human bat’s bulging paunch. “The other guy looked like he was wasting away, and you’re a fat bastard. I’m gonna kill you.”

  “And I’ll take you to my cave so you can try Alfred’s soup,” the masked man said dryly. “Enough dicking around: Where’s the boy?”

  “Ha! At Disneyland.”

  “I see. And the sculpture?”

  “What sculpture?”

  “The Medusa everyone’s looking for. Where is it?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t know anything about a Medusa.”

  “Who’s paying you?”

  “Go fuck yourself!”

  “It was a serious question.”

  Voices and the sounds of running could be heard through the door. Batman smiled. “It seems we’ve woken up the tenants.”

  “Then you’re about to get your ass whooped, asshole.”

  “Or you are.”

  Clark was beginning to think he could make it out of this. He looked like a normal guy, while the other man looked like some kind of freak. A gang of angry beggars would see him as a clear target. “You’re an idiot,” he said to buy time. “While you’re here making a fool of yourself, your friend Paloma’s about to be killed.”

  For a moment, Clark thought his captor was going to lose his temper, but the guy’s relaxed body language made him realize he was mistaken. “Right now, two of my men are heading to your friend’s apartment to give her a nasty surprise,” he tried again. “We have what we wanted, so she has to disappear. The attempt in the metro went wrong, but this time there won’t be any mistakes. Do what you want with me, but you can kiss that whore good-bye.” Clark looked closely for the man’s reaction. First the guy looked up thoughtfully, as if he was reflecting on what he’d just heard. Then he stared Clark in the eyes, his expression inscrutable behind the black mask.

  “She’s a pain in the ass, that woman,” he said finally. “She has it coming.”

  Clark was thrown. Suddenly the door opened and five young squatters in raincoats burst in, two of them brandishing lead pipes. “Fuck me!” one of them exclaimed. “It’s Batman!”

  With bemused looks on their faces, the other four surveyed the scene from the entrance, then burst into laughter. As did Clark.

  “Oh my God, I’m glad you guys showed up. This crazy man cornered me up here and he’s trying to kill me.”

  The first squatter took a step forward and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”

  The man dressed as Batman walked toward them. “Of course not. Our friend here’s a thug who tried to murder that man sleeping there on the floor. He’s also kidnapped a little boy. I’m trying to find out where he’s hiding him.”

  “Don’t listen to him!” Clark snapped. He’d begun to sweat. “Just look at him. It’s obvious he’s out of his mind.”

  The squatter and Batman looked intently at one another. “Man, I’ve seen some crazy people in this building, but you might just be the craziest.”

  “I’m telling you the truth: he’s the criminal. By the way, that’s one cool badge. Coprophagous Sphincters, am I right?”

  The squatter looked down at his chest and smiled. “2012 Tour. You into them?”

  “I was a bouncer at one or two of their gigs. Their cover of Karina’s ‘El baúl de los recuerdos’ is off the charts.”

  The squatter grinned again and turned to his friends. “He might be nuts, but this Batman seems okay.”

  Clark’s expression changed. “What? Are you as insane as he is?”

  “Shut it, dick! Is it true about the boy?” the squatter asked Batman.

  “I swear on the Sphincters’ bass player.”

  The squatters formed a circle around Clark, who curled into a ball against the wall.

  “Let’s hear it, asshole. Where’s the boy? Spill it or we’ll send you down the elevator shaft.”

  While they kicked and Clark screamed, Roberto Barrero lifted Oscar Preston’s limp body onto his shoulder. The first squatter came over to him.

  “That piece of shit says the boy’s in a warehouse between Calle Aníbal and Calle Sofora. Will that work?”

  “That’ll work. Thanks.”

  “Is Batman going to go rescue him?” one of the other squatters asked with a grin.

  “I think Batman’s done enough for one night.” Roberto exhaled, feeling the weight of Oscar Preston’s body across his shoulder. “It’s time to hand things over to Commissioner Gordon.”

  34

  The police found Hugo at ten past two in the morning, in a warehouse belonging to a bar that had closed down four months earlier. The commissioner on duty had been right to take the anonymous call seriously, and he was delighted he’d made that decision when he reunited the boy with his mother. Aside from a slightly upset stomach—his captor had fed him on a diet of Orangina and potato chips—Hugo was physically safe, and he narrated his adventure to the police as if it were the plot of a movie.

  Amanda was shocked and overcome with emotion. She hugged and kissed her son, not wanting to let him go even for an instant, and told the commissioner about the kidnapping, the kidnappers’ warning not to report it, and the attack on Señora Julia without mentioning Oscar Preston’s role in the affair. Though her first instinct was to tell them everything, doing so would have put Paloma in a predicament. She and Jaime had specifically asked Amanda to be discreet and stick with the story of Paloma’s mother being sick, in order to justify her absence from the museum for a few days. If Amanda had told the police about Preston, all the beans would have been spilled.

  But so what? What loyalty did she owe to Paloma? Paloma hadn’t behaved like a true friend. She’d put her interests before their friendship—and before Hugo. Still, Jaime Azcárate seemed to know what he was doing, and it was possible that Paloma remained in danger. It was clear to Amanda now that Preston wasn’t the bad guy—or at least not the worst guy—in this matter, so the threat was still real. She also had reason to believe that Hugo had been saved by Jaime and that friend of his, Roberto Barrero. Who, incidentally, hadn’t seemed at all bad. When he returned from his secret mission, maybe she would ask him out.

  The policeman promised her he’d investigate the kidnapping and catch those responsible, and she assured him she’d contact him if she remembered anything. Once he was gone, Amanda cried for a while with Hugo in her arms, until the boy asked for permission to play video games. As usual, his mother gave it to him and lay on the sofa to enjoy a few moments
’ peace after all the tension.

  The sound of the telephone made her jump.

  “Jaime?” she said upon hearing the voice at the other end.

  “Hello, Amanda. Sorry to call at this hour, but I’m guessing you have good news.”

  “Hugo’s here,” she said happily. “How did you do it?”

  “It’s best if you don’t know too much. Did the police pester you for long?”

  “No, it all went fine. Where are you?”

  “With Paloma. Getting ready for tomorrow’s trip. I just wanted to make sure everything had gone the way we hoped.”

  “Thanks, Jaime.”

  “We’ll talk when we get back. Have a good night.”

  “You, too.”

  After she’d hung up, Amanda wondered how Paloma had never before mentioned this extraordinary guy who seemed just as likely to threaten to smash someone over the head with a vase as to phone her to make sure everything was all right. Though he hadn’t admitted it, she was sure he’d had a hand in freeing Hugo. She closed her eyes and smiled at the sound of laser pistols and insults coming from her son, who was settled into a beanbag chair in front of the television.

  She let him play for another hour and then decided it was time for him to go to bed. She was ready to do the same. All she wanted was to climb under the sheets and forget the nightmare they’d been through. She was putting Hugo to bed when she heard someone banging on the door.

  “Señora Escámez?” came a voice from the hallway.

  “Who is it?” she said, frightened. Through the peephole she could see a blurry human form.

  “It’s Inspector Serrano. I have a couple of questions for you about the kidnapper.”

  A few seconds later Amanda would regret her carelessness, but at that moment she saw no reason to be distrustful, even though the person she’d spoken to an hour before was named Commissioner Carneiro. As soon as she opened the door, someone shoved a foot inside. A man with a face full of bruises, his nose in plaster, burst into the apartment. He pushed her against the wall and locked the door.

  “I lied,” he said. “I’m not a policeman. But I do have a couple of questions for you.”