No Trace

by Donnefar Skedar

  –And the burn, what would it be?

  – The dealers caught James, and he almost died because he reported the traffic.

  – Who did save him? – Armando just asked questions as, if a questioning with a simple and fine questionnaire were in his hands.

  – Nobody knows – answered Max being skeptical. – Many people say that a woman alike a boy showed with some motorcyclists and shooted everywhere. Another one's say that it was the traffic's people set him free.

  – But, it doesn't make sense.

  – Wait to listen to it. After this burn, the only news about James, it was this report to make the surgery and after it all the other ones disappeared.

  – You said that he didn't have any surgeries’ reports.

  – And he didn't, like it in your hands, the only folders about the surgeries are false and after the ninth surgery, James vanished off the face of Brazil.

  – I didn't understand?

  – Nobody knows anything about James Fel now. He disappeared and didn't get off Brazil.

  – Are you saying that he may have died?

  – No, even if Dan had made a risk surgery, it wouldn't have any reason for doesn't have any report about the death. My informer said that, James had changed from another clinic to rest after he had made another surgery, and he couldn't rest here like he should, and after it he disappeared; both the reports and the clinic.

  – So, can't we find him?

  – Don't worry; I already took care of it.

  – And what did you find? – Armando was very anxious, by this time he wasn't understand the information as well as before.

  – I'm going to meet mu informer, in one hour and only then I'll have all the necessary information about what really happened and if it will be possible, I could give you the information about where James is.

  He received the news like it was a tea chamomile for his ears. When Max left the restaurant he guaranteed the information will be send him by e-mail as soon as possible, and if it would be necessary he came back to meet him in that same night, his thoughts became calm.

  Now everything he could do was waiting in his apartment, where he would look at all that papers to try to find what happened with his friend during that fourteen years he got away from him.

  Before to face with that information, Armando decided to take a long and hot shower to rest, after many information that didn't seem to be real. The bath was full of bath salts which he wouldn't know to explain what it was made of. His naked body sank into that white bubble and only a part os his mouth and his nose was above of the water.

  Armando just imagined darkness while he was lay down listened the sounds of the bubbles bursting. He didn't have his clear and investigative thoughts as a few minutes before. Armando was motionless inside the water for long minutes trying to forget the world towards that bath. It wasn't a ritual, but he knew that when he felt his spirit light and clean, he would be ready to face any situation ahead.

  CHAPTER 14

  The dream was so real that it seemed a memory coming to light.

  With the sun shining on his face, Armando was sitting down on the railroads vehicles grass in Three Forks. James, his big friend; was by his side reading some magazine that Armando didn't see which was it.

  Both were in the same grass that they spent the summer afternoons. The train tracks always were the best place they could hide, nobody in the neighborhood went that place, at least not in the same hour they went there every day.

  James was sitting with cross-legged staring at the magazine. Armando was lying down on the grass looking at the old train track; any kind of vehicle has been passed in that place for more than a decade.

  Armando stared at the light clouds which passed in that moment when James broke the silence.

  – Do you think one of our will have a wife one day?

  – A wife? – I didn't understand? – Asked Armando looking at James who was looking at the magazine yet.

  – Ah you know, like our fathers.

  – Well I think so, we already have enough age to think in it, do we?

  – Sure. We already have pubic hair.

  – Do you think it'll last much time for we find a girlfriend to kiss?

  James laughs so loud and lay down to look at the sky.

  – And do you know how to kiss?

  – Yeah I know, don't you?

  – Ah what’s up Armando, we are fourteen and we spend all the time together, so how do you know to kiss?

  – Well, I have been practiced.

  – Did you kiss the mirror?

  – No, I wouldn't do it.

  The two boys laughed a lot turning to each other to laugh a more.

  – Okay.

  – But I know how to do it.

  – You don't know and we know it.

  – Do you think it'll much time for we learn it?

  – I don't know, I read in a magazine that the girls kiss each other before kiss a boy – said James didn't care of what he was saying.

  – Is it truth? But it's strange, isn't it?

  – They don't care about it; moreover it's just to learn it not to do all the time.

  In this moment they stared at each other for a minute, they didn't know which would be the next subject.

  – Do you think we could do it? – said Armando.

  – We?

  – It's only to know how it is.

  –Nobody would know. – said James.

  – No, only we.

  – Right, maybe it's cool– answered James looking around the place, but he only thing he saw were flowers and some cars in a few kilometers from there.

  Armando looked at another side and saw the same scenery.

  – Let's go? – said Armando.

  – All right.

  The two boys lay down on the grass, approached themselves with difficulty stopping in front of each other, they looked at each other without no smile and approached their faces more and more. When their ruby lips met each other, they closed their eyes and let the sun burn with that innocent and clumsy kiss.

  After a strange movement of tongues, they stopped looking around, like they were looking for somebody, but they saw the same thing before.

  Armando sat down looking at the sky.

  – It's different – said James after a moment.

  – Yeah – Armando looked at his friend who was lay down yet. – At least we already know how to kiss.

  – Yeah and this is our secret.

  – Sure.

  When he arrived at home, Armando was ready for dinner when his dad arrived with a smile on his face kissing and hugging his mom and him.

  He didn’t understand what was happening, he asked to his father the reason he was so happy, and when his father answered, Armando felt a sentimental pain in his teenager heart for the first time.

  – We are going to move to Brazil son.

  Answered his dad hugging him.

  ***

  A flash made Armando woke up from his nap in the bath. It wasn't only a dream, it were memories of his childhood and maybe the answers for many questions were in these memories.

  That was the answer for the first question, the reason he thought he wasn't complete, even before he got marriage or reached the success in business. Armando didn't miss only the frienship with James, there was something stronger that made he has been suffered many years trying to live another life, it was Love.

  Love, it was the right word. Armando has been loved James for fourteen years even he hasn't got in touch with him.

  But was it possible? He had loved Glória, they had sex like a normal couple, they made plans and dreamed of have children.

  He has never felt any interest for another man, but he remembered that he has never given his opinion about nobody's sexual orientation and he never talked about it.

  Now he knew, now he was sure. He didn't change only because a friendship when he was so young. All his work and all his achievements were made for just one goa
l, to live in peace close to someone he really loved.

  But, there was something wrong in that history. James got involved with drugs and was attacked, he lived in Brazil, but Armando didn't meet him. What about James? Which would be these feelings? Had he felt the same thing, or it would be a futile search? Had James felt the same thing when he kissed each other in an innocent way which marked the two friends? Does James love Armando in the same way he loves James?

  They should meet each other, it would be the only way he would answer this question.

  CHAPTER 15

  Armando was in front of his computer waiting Max to send a message while looking at the local news.

  He wasn't worried about his new discovery; he wasn't worried about his new sexual orientation, not in that moment. Armando was thinking in a way to say to James why he decided to give up of everything and back behind his relatives' decision which was left Three Forks fourteen years ago. It was five to twelve p.m. when Armando lost his reading concentration because of the computer's sound; it was an e-mail from Max. There were more than one page of words in the computer's screen and Armando thought it would be everything well explained there.

  From: max_olhonice@net.com

  To: armandoliztt@net.com

  Subject: INVESTIGATION

  ...Armando, I'm sending you through this e-mail all the information it were collected last hours. I'll tell you everything I found, but I can that this is the most complicated case I have already worked. I got scared with I found and I ask you that if you aren't waiting something obvious, please, don't continue to read this e-mail...

  He settled down on the couch and thought that there weren't anything to get him more surprised than he has already seen until that moment. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath he continued to read

  ...My informer returned to me very satisfied with the favor I did for him, his friend James is alive sure, but as I have already told you, he isn't like before in this country, it means that, he is here, but nobody knows about him, nobody besides some people, sure.

  James still made two surgeries this month and my informer said to me that it was the last one of a total of seventeen. My informer has the information that it wasn't a common surgery and some doctors refused to do it because they thought it was an amazing modification.

  To be clearer, nobody wanted to make many surgeries in his face, maybe it were too dangerous, it was what my informer said.

  But I can say that everything is too strange, everything that James has been doing hidden. As my job was only to find his friend, I can say to you that I accomplished my goal successfully; because I have the information you wanted, but it's a pity that I can't say more than it was given to me. I would like to dedicate more time in this case, but I have another clients and I already finished my job in this case. I'm sending you the address where you'll meet James.

  Armando, be prepared for it, because my informer said that, James isn't just a rich foreign man; there is something bad with him.

  To meet him, go to the Ibirapuera Park on Monday at seven o'clock a.m., James will get out of a red car driven by an unknown person. He walks on the park during, exactly forty minutes before the car came back to pick him up again. Don't worry, because he doesn't have security and he usually talks with the people.

  To identify him if you have doubts, he always wears the same kind of sports clothes; it's a black pant with three white stripes in the left side of his leg and a shirt or a jacket written Amazonas.

  Remember that he stays there for forty minutes, nothing more and always on Mondays, nobody knows where he goes after it and according to my informer, this is just the only exercise he must do.

  Giving you all the information, I let in your hands the next steps, and I'm getting ready to do any job in the future, and in doubt, please, call me with total confidence.

  Hugs and good lucky in this meeting.

  Thanks for this opportunity, Max.

  Armando didn't want to think in possibilities, he just closed his computer and lay down in his bed and fell into a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER 16

  The alarm clock made a noise sound showing in his screen that it was six o´clock a.m. on Monday. Armando didn't complain at turn off the alarm clock and got up from his bed, he didn't wait the second alarm which would sound in ten minutes again.

  Looking at him in the bathroom's mirror, I noticed for the first time, each detail of his face. He didn't have any wrinkle like his father did either a signal of he'll have it in the future, his beard was well done an it'll take about two days to grow again, he had a curiosity look in his face and his mouth was almost open, it seemed he was making question to himself, but he didn't say anything and he wasn't looking in a strange way at himself.

  He was a little bit nervous and anxious to this meeting. He wasn't sure if he'll meet the old James like he was in fourteen years ago or if he would be a different people instead of that sweet boy and a companion who he spent his friendship together.

  The only certainty he had each minute, was that he loved James like he hasn't loved anybody this way during the time he was far from his friend. It wasn't matter now, if his parents will repress him because of this sexual orientation chose or if everybody he knew gets boring with him, at least he was twenty-eight years and had a financial condition which he could live about forty years alone or a half of it with a family.

  His heart didn't beat like a signal he was alive; an excited beating was showing him the life. Leaving the bad thought behind, Armando got out the hotel and took a taxi to go to the Ibirapuera park, which wasn't far from here. Arriving at the park, Armando looked at his watch and saw that he was on time. He didn't think twice and seeing there were many people there, he started to walk with that people in order to find James; his plan was bump into James and after start a conversation.

  Walking among the people who seemed were excited with that beautiful and sunny morning, Armando saw a person with the same description that Max sent to him by the e-mail. A black pant with three white stripes in the left side of his leg and a shirt. Armando wasn't seeing anybody near him and walked quickly to approach the people.

  When he was by his side, tired because of the distance, noticed that the person didn't have the same features. The man of average height was with a blue pant instead of a black one like Armando had seen.

  Armando has completed a whole back in the hiking trail and looking at his watch he noticed it has passed seven o'clock a.m.

  – Oh no, did Max say the wrong day to me?

  Asking to himself with his hand on his head turning around to look the route he had never walked in before. It was when he looked on his back he saw on the bridge, a person stretching out with a black pant, a shirt and a jacket tied on his waist with the word "Amazonas".

  – It's him – said Armando running to the bridge's entrance.

  When he stepped on the bridge and saw he was near the person, his mind played a dirty trick on him. Questions come from all forms and directions. Will James accept him? Should I apologize to him? Would he accept him? Does James feel something about him? Would it be common to meet him again? Would James still be his friend yet?

  These questions hadn't helped a lot and walking slowly getting his breath back, he moved on trying to ignore the information that his mind brought to him.

  As near he had been near the person, his hands sweat more and more, this feeling was worse than the day he got marriage. Yeah, he was nervous in his marriage, but he had known he wasn't his fate to get marriage with her, instead of Glória were a pleasant person with everybody.

  The day of Armando's marriage, it also had been the day he noticed that his feelings about Glória, weren't true and pure like he had thought. Something more than love he had felt for her, made his heart beating even without knowing what made it. He was aware of this marriage would end one day but even being this way, he got married with her.

  It were only less than a half meter to achieve his goal when he hesitated. Ar
mando stopped a few steps from James, or someone dressed like the person Max described. He didn't know if he should change his friend life, like he had changed his own.

  Something pushed his body along, but his thoughts pushed him back. He had only a few minutes, and he had to make a decision.

  He chose take the chance, whatever it was.

  When he arrived close to the person to speak something to the same described as James, he noticed that fate was kidding with him, he didn't notice anything before, but soon he regretted running to the bridge without checked it. He wasn't the person who Armando was looking for, was not even a man; it was an impeccable pretty woman who never would be compared with a man.

  Armando blushed and he didn't sure if it was because of his anger or if he was ashamed to stop so close to a pretty woman like that one.

  – Is there something wrong? – asked the pretty woman stopping stretching herself staring at Armando.

  It was a young woman without thirty yet, she had a straight blond hair like a newborn japanese girl. Her eyes were green like an emerald, very familiar to Armando. Her skin was white and straight, her full and semi-open lips showed her perfect white teeth.

  –Sorry, I thought it was another person – told him when he noticed she was still waiting an answer.

  Without looking again to her face, Armando turned on to come back to the bridge’s top sure that he wouldn't find James Fel in that park.

  – Armando?

  It was the same voice he heard seconds ago, Armando paralyzed when he listened to his name. Would she was someone who knew James? Would she was his new wife in Brazil? He wasn't sure about anything more, and then he turned to see if she had talked to him.

  – Armando? – asked her again staring at the confused man who was walking in her way.

  – Do you know me? – He was trying to remember someone so beautiful.

  – Maybe, you thought I was another person, who would be this person?

  – Well. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't be a woman...

  Armando wasn't sure about if it was the right answer for that situation.