Wonderful World

by Javier Calvo

  “We really don't want to disturb you,” says the guy in shirtsleeves. Smiling. He points to the group made up of Fonseca and Fanny Giraut with his lollipop. “You go on with your work and we'll go on with ours. I'm Commissioner Farina, by the way. We've never met, but you could say I've been following your career. I'm a fan.” He makes a wide gesture around him. Toward the dozen men in suits with latex gloves that are going from one side of the gym to the other, emptying closets and moving furniture. “And I love your house, of course. Don't mind us. We'll be done soon, maybe.”

  Fonseca takes another cigarette out of the pack he carries in his pocket and puts it between his lips and leaves it there. Without lighting it. Several of the men in suits seem to be sucking on candy or chewing gum. It isn't clear if this coincidence is the result of some sort of coordination.

  “Listen, clown.” Fanny Giraut moves her head toward Commissioner Farina. Not the way people normally turn their faces, first moving their gaze and features and then adapting their posture. The way she moves her head is more like the rigid rotation of submarine periscopes or tanks' rotating turrets. “You're putting your job on the line. You might still manage to get sent to a desk job or wherever if you take all these lunatics and get out of here. You don't know who you're dealing with. All I have to do is this.” She snaps her fingers. “Fonseca, call Aguirre. Tell him what's going on here.”

  There is a moment of silence. Commissioner Farina's expression of intense pleasure and satisfaction with life in general grows by the minute. His lollipop creates a vaguely spherical lump inside his cheek. From the other side of the staircase that connects the gym with the main building of the house comes the unmistakable sound of furniture being dragged. From the spot in the gym where Fonseca and Fanny Giraut are standing, looking away from the breakwater, over the heads and bodies of the men with latex gloves, the house's car entrance can be seen. With half a dozen patrol cars parked and another few unmarked cars that don't belong to any family member. Near the opposite corner of the gym, a guy in a suit with a spiral cable coming out of his ear is eating sunflower seeds and throwing the shells into the bougainvilleas.

  “This is more complicated than it looks.” Fonseca lowers his voice, perhaps unconsciously. But not enough that Commissioner Farina can't hear him. “It seems that Judge Aguirre is the one who signed the search warrant. The search warrants. They've also sent officers to the apartment in Barcelona and to my law firm. We have to talk,” he adds in a pressing tone. “Now.”

  Fonseca and Fanny Giraut go up the stairs that connect the gym to the main building of the house. The contingent of Philippine cooks and domestic servants is gathered in the entryway with collectively contrite expressions. With those contrite expressions often seen on the faces of people who live on the poverty line. Fonseca and Fanny Giraut go into Fanny's office on the first floor, and they find that it is also being searched by a group of men in suits with latex gloves. The desk and file cabinet drawers are laid out in neatly organized piles on top of the Persian rug. Each pile with a numbered label. The lamps dismantled on the rug. The vases emptied. One of the officers is emptying the shelves of books and placing the books in piles on the floor. After flipping through them with his latex gloves. With jaw movements that indicate he's chewing gum.

  “Who the hell was it?” Fanny Giraut goes up the stairs to the second floor with vigorous strides. Followed closely by Fonseca. “Chicote? Have we talked to Chicote yet?”

  Fanny Giraut opens the door to the second-floor study. A member of the forensic police with latex gloves and a fingerprint kit is dusting a fine white substance over the study's wooden surfaces. With a spherical lump in his cheek. Another man in a suit with latex gloves is putting the contents of the paper shredder's wastebasket into several Ziploc bags for evidence. Fanny Giraut and Fonseca go through the door that connects the study to the Fishing Trophy Room. Fanny Giraut's face doesn't look exactly like a skull, or like a mask. It's more like the faces of second-or third-degree burn victims who, after getting a series of skin grafts, are left with a face covered mostly by unnaturally smooth and shiny tissue that bears little in common with normal facial skin tissue. Fanny Giraut and Fonseca go across the Fishing Trophy Room, dodging officers in suits who are rolling up the rugs and examining the wooden floorboards. They take the hallway that leads to the bathrooms.

  “Chicote's clean,” says Fonseca. “We've already talked to him. This comes from some other direction.”

  Fanny opens the door to her private bathroom. She holds it open so Fonseca can enter and bolts it closed when they are both inside. She sits on the closed toilet and gestures for Fonseca to give her one of his cigarettes. Fanny Giraut's private bathroom is larger than a lot of apartments in Barcelona and has three different kinds of Chinese porcelain. A television with a plasma screen hangs on the wall in front of the bathtub.

  “What the hell do you mean by some other direction?” she asks.

  And suddenly it happens. Even before she can finish formulating the question. The perpetually frozen and surgically constructed expression on her face breaks down for the briefest fraction of a second before recomposing itself automatically. And what he sees instead of the mask for that fraction of a second doesn't make Fonseca instinctively back up a few paces, but it does make his entire body replicate the configuration of a scared body about to instinctively back up a few paces. Fanny Giraut's voice drops an octave. The hand with which she lights her cigarette becomes a tense claw.

  “That bastard,” she says, exhaling a mouthful of smoke between two rows of gnashing teeth. “That little monster. I should have drowned him at birth. How the hell did he do it? What does he think he's trying to do?”

  “He's got something.” Fonseca sits on the edge of the bathtub. “Something he thinks he can use against us. And he sent a blackmail note. Along with a page from a certain accounting ledger. It seems to be a ledger that belonged to your husband. And the note is signed by you.” He pauses, perhaps to verify the lack of expression on his main client's burn-victim face. “The note in and of itself can't hurt us. The forgery is good, but not good enough. The accounting ledger is more distressing. I can't figure out where Lucas could have found it. And that's not the worst of it.”

  Fanny Giraut's private bathroom is not only much larger than many apartments in Barcelona and has three kinds of Chinese porcelain and more lines of cosmetics than many specialized stores. There are also three original prints by Mario Testino on the main wall that show models in their late teens dressed in almost invisible underwear. Fanny Giraut inhales an anxious mouthful of smoke. The way that her rage arouses a certain degree of fear isn't the way that classical goddesses aroused fear with their majestically haughty attitudes. It's closer to the way certain hybrid mythological creatures aroused fear. Women with snakes for hair. Men with a single eye. Beings with human torsos and octopus tentacles. Things with a lot of heads.

  “The worst part is where he put the blackmail note.” Fonseca grabs the edge of the bathtub with both hands and shakes his head. “He put it in Koldo Cruz's mailbox. I never imagined he'd get this far.”

  Fanny Giraut makes a gesture with her hand that manages to be belittling in spite of its lack of concrete elements that are belittling in and of themselves or even together. The toilet she is sitting on is one of those toilets that have some sort of soft velvety cushioning on the seat.

  “The note threatened to take the ledger to the police,” says Fonseca. Seated on the edge of the bathtub. “The note that Lucas wrote pretending to be you. The ledger supposedly incriminates Cruz in some business dealings with your husband, thirty years ago. Except Cruz is in the clear, of course. The statute of limitations ran out long ago. So Cruz took it to the police.” He makes a throbbing expression of concern. “Luckily for us. He must be getting old. Or they would've just found me and you floating in the sea.”

  Fanny Giraut takes a long drag on her cigarette.

  “My son is ridiculous,” she says finally. “As ri
diculous and idiotic as his father. Makes me want to vomit.” Her lips retract and reveal the two strips of frightfully pale and enamel-like flesh of her gums. “Just like the mental midget his father was. Like a stupid puppy showing his teeth. But he's wrong if he thinks that this is the end of this.” She is interrupted by a noise coming from the bathroom door. The click of the door handle turning fruitlessly because of the bolt on the door.

  Fonseca gets up from the edge of the bathtub and smooths his clothes with the palms of his hands before approaching the door and unbolting it. On the other side of the door there's a policeman in a suit. He is wearing rubber gloves up to his elbows and is carrying some sort of toilet plunger topped with a black rubber suction cup.

  Wonderful World

  CHAPTER 44

  It's Only Sporting

  As executive director and principal shareholder of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD., there is no reason why Lucas Giraut shouldn't go to work each day in the private company car. Yet, because of his fondness for private moments in public spaces, Giraut prefers to walk every day to the Plaza Catalunya and take the train from there to Reina Elisenda. Every morning. The 9:16 train to Reina Elisenda. Giraut always takes a lateral seat in the first car. With one of the many professional magazines he subscribes to. Antique Trader and Art and Antiques, the local versions of Galeria Antiquaria and Arte y Coleccionismo and, of course, Antiques. The world's magazine of reference in the field. With his reading glasses and once in a while barely looking up from his magazine to scrutinize the people that come in and out of the car. Giraut likes that feeling of isolation in a crowd. One of those feelings that for some reason he finds genuinely Barcelonian.

  Today Lucas Giraut leaves the former ducal palace in the Gothic Quarter at five minutes to nine and slams the metal door shut. With his attaché case with its combination lock in his right hand. It's Monday. Lucas Giraut's favorite day. The day that marks the end of the vaguely comatose desolation of Barcelona Sundays; the day when the city comes back to life. Lucas Giraut stops in the middle of the street and frowns. The black Volvo in the plaza at the end of the street isn't so much parked as it is just left in the middle of the plaza with the motor turned off. Diagonally. With its nose pointing to the church and its tail illegally pushing aside a group of Dumpsters. A muscular arm covered in powder blue and white fabric is sticking out of the driver's-side window. Loud, rhythmic music is also heard. A couple of old women observe the car from the balconies of their houses, their brows furrowed. They talk to themselves the way old people do when they are watching other people from their balconies. Like people on a muted television. The hand that is sticking out of the window drums on the car door to the beat of the music.

  Lucas Giraut walks up to the car in the middle of the plaza and leans down to talk to the face that is looking at him from the driver's-side window.

  “This is the third day I've seen you around here.” Giraut inspects the inside of the car as he speaks. There are remains of food and bottles on the backseat. Mixed with clothes. “I guess that means you have something you want to tell me. Your name is Saudade, right?” His gaze takes in the baseball bat with “I KILL BARÇA FANS” written on it in the passenger seat. “Does Mr. Bocanegra know that you're following me?”

  Juan de la Cruz Saudade shows Lucas Giraut a wide smile filled with pieces of food in varying states of decomposition. Giraut can see that his powder blue and white Umbro sweat suit is very dirty and has various stains on the front and sleeves, as if Saudade has been wearing it for several weeks without a single trip to the Laundromat. His breath smells of carrion sprinkled with high-proof liquor.

  “Mr. Bocanegra,” says Saudade, in a mocking tone that imitates both Giraut's intonations and inflections, “doesn't know everything, little rich Mr. Snotnose Booger Eater. There's a lot of stuff he doesn't know. For example, he doesn't know that you've been putting things in Mr. Pirate Patch's mailbox. I also don't think he knows that the cops have been searching your offices. And I'm not the only one following you. At this point, Farina must know everything about your little painting scam. Just imagine what would happen if Bocanegra found out. You're lucky he doesn't know. But I do know.” He pauses. He takes an open can of beer out of some invisible spot between his legs and brings it to his lips.

  Giraut looks around him. The plaza at the end of his street is empty at that hour of the early morning, except for the occasional neighbor walking hastily to work. Shortly the groups of tourists with their guides will start to arrive. The patrolling police. The business owners. The unemployed bohemians. The roof of the Volvo is covered with pigeon droppings and pigeons, who are either drowsy or move in circles to the rhythm of their mating rituals.

  “What do you want?” Giraut switches his attaché case from one hand to the other.

  Saudade tosses the empty beer can and wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his Umbro sweat suit. The part of the sleeve that he uses to wipe his mouth already has a long beer-colored stain between the wrist and the middle of the forearm.

  “I want respect,” says Saudade. “That's the first thing. Then we'll talk about money. I want you to show me some respect, rich little Mr. Booger Eater, thinks his boogers taste better than other people's.” His mouth opens in an expression that smells of carrion sprinkled with high-proof liquor, and which somehow gives the impression that he's appreciating the wittiness of what he has just said. “Now, get in the car.” He grabs the baseball bat with its threatening inscription and throws it onto the backseat.

  Giraut gets into the passenger seat. He places his attaché case with the combination lock on his knees.

  “Good boy.” Saudade burps and turns the ignition key. “Now leave your wallet and cell phone in the glove compartment. We're going to the beach. What better place. The people in this city don't appreciate their beaches.”

  Five minutes later, Saudade's black Volvo heads out of downtown along the Coastal Road toward the beaches near the mouth of the Besós River. Beyond the fish-shaped sculptures of the Olympic Port. Beyond the not-quite-identical towers of the Hotel Arts and the Mapfre insurance company. Like those puzzles in puzzle magazines where the reader has to mark in pencil the differences between two drawings. Saudade handles the steering wheel with his right hand and brings a can of beer to his lips with the left. Between his feet is a box of twelve cans of beer with at least four missing. There is a smashed empty can beside the gas pedal. It crashes into the side of Saudade's sneaker at regular intervals. Seen from close up, Saudade's powder blue and white Umbro sweat suit is much dirtier than it looked from outside the car. On his right wrist, partially visible under the sleeve, Saudade has a tattoo that reads “BB BB.” In the green ink of discolored tattoos.

  “You like my tattoo, huh?” Saudade finishes the beer and tosses it out the open window. The black dashboard is filled with traces of white powder that makes you think of a cement surface with traces of snow once the snow has almost completely melted. “I did it back when there were still people in this city with balls. Oh, yeah.” The way he nods his head is that clichéd way people nod to transmit nostalgia for the good old days. “We made everyone respect us back then. Ten years ago. That was our best period. Especially when the team traveled. Fear traveled with us. And not one fuckin' Barça fan dared to come near our stadium. In the good old days when we had a stadium.” He spits through the open window. It is not clear whether the spitting is related to the story he's telling or not. “Milan, Bratislava. When we were runners-up for the UEFA. But in those days people had balls.”

  Saudade inhales and puffs up his chest. Giraut watches as he raises his eyebrows high and adopts a pose somewhat like an opera singer getting ready to sing. A pose that is vaguely reminiscent of Russian choirs. Of boatmen on the Volga.

  Real ees.

  ¡Tu nobleza justifica el adjetiii-vo!

  Eres cluuub

  A pesar de tu grandeza solo un cluuuub

  Deportiii-vo.

  ¡El deporte es tu único objetiii-vo!


  A coughing fit interrupts Saudade's vaguely Russian song. He turns the wheel and exits the Coastal Road at Bogatell. Some sort of no-man's-land of lots filled with garbage and remnants of construction separates the neighborhood from the beachfront bars and restaurants. There is not one single open place in sight on this Monday morning in February. Some of the places have sculptures made up of outdoor chairs piled up into complex shapes and chained together. Others have graffiti and varyingly threatening messages that probably haven't been cleaned off since the beginning of the summer season. Saudade parks the Volvo in a lot located right behind the row of beach restaurants and puts the keys in his pocket. Then he takes out several fifty-euro notes from Giraut's wallet and sticks them into the pocket of his sweatpants along with his cell phone. Giraut takes his empty wallet and watches as Saudade hides the baseball bat inside his sweatshirt and signals for him to get out of the car.

  “Out,” he says. As if the sign he had made toward the outside of the car had left any room for doubt.

  They both walk a few minutes along the sand with no apparent destination. The wind lifts papers and litter and every once in a while tosses a gust of sand onto the men. In spite of his being cold with his wool coat and Lino Rossi suit, Giraut doesn't notice any sign of cold from Saudade, who is only wearing his extremely dirty powder blue and white sweat suit.