Mala Vida

by Marc Fernandez

  A car horn startles her out of her daydream. It’s time. She walks, quickly now, to her third rendezvous with death. She glances to the right and to the left. No one is around. She is alone in the narrow, dimly lit street. Isabel takes out her pistol, attaches the silencer to the barrel, releases the safety, and then puts it back in her handbag, which she leaves open. She has already thought to tie back her long hair, so it doesn’t get in the way. A door opens behind her: Ramírez. She turns around and walks slowly in his direction, looking to make sure his music teacher is back inside. One hundred feet. Her heart starts to pound. She takes a deep breath. Fifty feet. She reaches into her bag. Fifteen feet. He suspects nothing. She puts her hand on the grip of her P38. Six feet. Her breathing is becoming quicker and shallower. She draws her weapon at the same moment she comes alongside him, leaving him no time to react to what is about to happen to him. She pulls the trigger once. The gun makes a muffled grunt. Juan Ramírez falls to the sidewalk. Isabel does not even break her stride. She continues walking, unhurriedly. At the corner, she stops to turn around, wanting to make sure Ramírez is dead. The good doctor and bandoneon student lies motionless, face down, near the gutter and a trash can. Where he belongs. With the garbage.

  It’s too late to catch the train back to Madrid. The lawyer decides to spend the night at the bed-and-breakfast. Before Isabel gets there, she sends a text to her grandmother. A short message composed of a single number: 3.

  5

  IT’S TWO MINUTES past two in the morning. Diego leaves the studio, his usual cigarette hanging from his lips. This week’s show, on the death of the APM councilman the night of the elections, was a hit. The audience numbers will confirm that tomorrow, Diego has no doubt about that. Radio Uno’s phone lines were jammed with a record number of calls. The interview with the victim’s mother worked its magic, no matter if Diego’s investigation has gone cold. Even the best private detective in Madrid, Ana, hasn’t found him anything. No witnesses. No clues. Just a man shot in the back of the head in the middle of the capital city. And no one who has claimed responsibility. It is bizarre. Truly bizarre. And it makes no sense, for the moment, at least. He’s skeptical. Was Gómez murdered for financial gain? For political motives? Diego’s going to have to keep searching. He won’t stop until he gets some answers. In the meantime, he has other irons in the fire.

  He knew going into the show that the current news cycle would play in his favor. Speaking live on a national radio station about an assassinated member of the ruling party, whose family was close to Franco, in the midst of a scandal ripping open old wounds in the collective memory of the country and the government, was sure to net a healthy catch of listeners. And it did. Hundreds called in, eager to talk about one thing only: the stolen babies. Among the callers there were the classic conspiracy theorist cranks accusing the National Association of Stolen Babies of being a left-wing cult and there were also die-hard supporters of the government, but there were also ordinary listeners who called to share stories they had heard in their families, or to recount episodes they had lived firsthand in those sinister days but that had taken on a whole new meaning for them in the light of recent revelations. Finally, more rarely, a few callers urged Diego to get to the bottom of the story as quickly as possible and to tell them if there was any truth to it. As always, he had to make choices. There were so many calls that Diego had to abandon his running order. No musical breaks or the book review. Only Prosecutor X was allowed to keep his three-minute spot to report on a case of sexual harassment implicating a Socialist city councilor. The show quickly became a debate stage. The story about the stolen babies is white hot, and a lot of people risk getting burned.

  Alone in the hallway leading back to his office, Diego stops in front of the coffee machine, searches his pockets, locates some change, and slides the coins into the slot. The espresso is strong. And horrible. He’ll dilute it with a finger of rum that he brought back from Venezuela and keeps in a drawer in his office. The bottle is a souvenir from a recent trip he made there to report on a rum plantation that hires only former gang members. They cut sugar cane in the morning and play rugby in the afternoon. The plantation is proving to be a clever way to keep them off the streets. For once, Diego had a feel-good story on the show.

  Tonight, his thoughts are elsewhere. Still riding a post-show buzz, he’s not ready to go home yet. After all, no one is waiting up for him there. And the story of the stolen babies keeps running around in his head. Diego pushes open his office door, turns on his desk lamp, gets settled in front of his Mac, plugs in an external DVD drive, and plays the recording of the show that just aired. Not to listen to himself—he’s not such an egomaniac as that—but to make notes on the more significant stories that were part of the call-in section. Not the ones about stolen babies, per se, but about inexplicable events, strange meetings, and envelopes silently handed over. The stories were told with so many precise details that they could not have been made up. Diego’s betting he might find something in all that. And if someone has some information that deserves a closer look, it will only be too easy to find them: everyone who calls into the show has to leave their phone number, and their identity has to check out.

  He spends the rest of the night with his headphones on, scribbling notes. Finally, with his ears ringing and his mouth dry from the mix of too much coffee, rum, and nicotine, Diego decides to go home, take a shower, and sleep a few hours to give his brain a rest. His appointment with Ponce is tonight, and he’s curious to find out why his friend asked to meet him near Ponce’s office. Before leaving, Diego can’t resist checking the latest news bulletins online. There is a breaking news flash, then another. From EFE, Spain’s international news agency, and Agence France-Presse. The headlines are identical: terse, brief, and evidently a placeholder until more facts are known: PEDRO DE LA VEGA, RESPECTED NOTARY, MURDERED.

  The subject of a future show, no doubt. Diego sighs deeply. There is also a message from Ana: the same news, and a request to return her file on De La Vega. Odd coincidence, he thinks to himself. But he’s too tired to dwell on it. The sun is rising as Diego closes his office door. The beehive that is Radio Uno is starting to buzz. The morning journalists, who have been there since the middle of the night to prepare their shows, are going into the studio to broadcast on morning prime time. The midday teams are hurrying in, already stressed out, looking for any news they can put on the air as quickly as possible. An odor of cologne, warm croissants, and coffee suddenly grabs Diego by the throat. He feels sick to his stomach. He needs fresh air fast. It isn’t until he is standing on the sidewalk in front of the station that he starts to feel better. A wave of fatigue washes over him. He hails a taxi. He could have taken the subway, as he always does in this city whose mass transit, chaotic at times, runs 24/7. But his legs feel as though they could go out from under him at any moment.

  When he gets home, he doesn’t even have the strength to take off his shoes. He collapses onto the couch and falls into a deep but agitated sleep. Ever since his wife died, Diego doesn’t sleep well and suffers from sleep apnea, so much so that he never really feels rested in the morning. This explains the circles under his eyes and why he always looks half asleep, even in the middle of the day. The warmth of a sunbeam falling on his face, which sports a two-day beard, thick and black but speckled with gray, wakes him with a start in the middle of the afternoon. He feels as if he has cotton in his mouth, and his eyes are still blurry, but he grabs his phone. No response. Dead battery. When he plugs it in, it lights up with messages. Ana has called him a dozen times and sent him as many texts. She sounds amused at first, but her tone becomes more insistent with each new message, and she finally sounds pissed off that he hasn’t returned her calls. She left her last missive only ten minutes ago. “Meet me at Casa Pepe. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he fires back without making any excuses for his silence.

  When Diego rushes into Casa Pepe, their usual bar, his hair is still wet from a fast shower. Ana is sitting
at the bar, and she doesn’t look pleased to see him.

  “Where the hell have you been, coño? I was starting to worry. I almost came looking for you at your apartment!”

  “Well, you could have. You’ve got a set of keys. You would have found me crashed on the couch, snoring. I worked all night, and I was tired, OK? And my phone died. So you saw that your De La Vega got his head shot off. You think it’s worth looking into, I suppose.”

  “That’s an understatement,” she answers him, rummaging through her purse and pulling out a thick folder. “Here, first of all, this is a copy of the file I gave to the lawyer. She seems to have fallen off the face of the earth, that one. No one has seen her since the press conference. But I’ll find her. I’m not giving up hope. She’ll have to turn up sooner or later.”

  “She’s screwing around with us. Let’s wait and see when she comes back from her vacation and with what news. In the meantime, what can you tell me about the notary?”

  “Just read the file,” Ana says with a note of agitation in her voice. “Take your time, but there’s something that’s bugging me. Someone I know at the morgue told me he died almost a week ago. But the family only made it known last night. I wonder why they kept the news to themselves for so long. I have a feeling they needed to put some order in the old man’s affairs before going public with his murder.”

  “He was close to the APM—he must have had information on every member of the government, don’t you think?” Diego asks.

  “And on plenty of other people too, you have no idea. It’s all in my report. You’re going to freak out. We’ll talk after you’ve read it. You’re going to be able to do a nice show on this, just the way you like. A bit like last night’s, if you see what I mean. You really nailed it, and it was great.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” replies Diego. “I didn’t do anything special other than hound the mother until she granted me an interview. The story didn’t need any help from me. And then the callers had a field day with the stolen babies story. I have the impression we’re going to hear a lot more about that. It’s going to go on for months. Which is fine, because it gives us time to dig into it. I’m really pretty curious about it myself.”

  “You don’t say. Well, I’m off,” Ana says as she gets up to leave. “I have a job, you know, señor. I don’t just talk into a microphone at night. I have clients who want answers to their questions.”

  “Oh sure, everyone knows about me: all I do is talk bullshit on the radio.”

  Laughing, they say goodbye, and Diego has two more coffees alone. It’s still early, so he decides to walk to his appointment with David Ponce. Diego likes to wander the streets of the capital, avoiding the busy thoroughfares, strolling the narrow streets that are still unchanged by time, those that remain at least, moving at his own pace, his hands in his pockets, his mind working. He gets some of his best ideas while walking in the city like this. When they come, he writes them down in a little black Moleskine notebook he keeps in his jacket pocket, along with the Montblanc pen that Carolina gave him before they were married. He keeps it to remind himself of the past.

  He still has time to kill, so he sits on the steps of the courthouse, which also houses the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s second highest court. Diego smokes a cigarette and plays a game with himself, imagining the lives of the people exiting and entering the symbolic building. Lawyers, judges, cops, defendants, witnesses, victims: theirs is a world where the worst is always happening, involving everyone from shady politicians and Basque terrorists to pedophiles, cheats, and wife beaters. After a little while, he walks into the café across the street, spots a quiet table in the back, takes out his Nagra and microphone, and orders a beer. He has felt the eyes of the other patrons on him since he walked in and has heard their incessant whispers since he pulled out his recording equipment. Everyone in this unofficial annex to the courthouse knows who Diego is. He’s not exactly behind enemy lines, even if not everyone in the police and justice departments is his friend, but he rarely walks into the lion’s den like this. David must have wanted them to be seen together, here, probably to give himself cover. But from what? Providing a journalist with his association’s official position on the stolen babies scandal is a good pretext. Diego knows the judge well enough to guess that, somehow or another, David’s going to pass him a message. What Diego doesn’t know is whether it will be about this latest case or about a different one.

  The two men exchange a firm handshake, polite smiles, and pleasantries. Their friendship is close but not well-known, and they can’t show any familiarity. After a few minutes of small talk, just enough to take a few sips of their beers, they get started. Diego picks up his microphone and presses the record button.

  “Judge Ponce, you are the president of the Association of Magistrates, your profession’s second largest union. What is your position, as the representative of a Socialist-leaning organization, after the announced creation of the National Association of Stolen Babies?”

  “As magistrates and professionals in the areas of law and justice, we’re not entirely surprised. For some time, there have been rumors, some more reliable than others, about the trafficking of children. In addition, we know all about the crimes perpetrated by the Francoists during the Civil War and after, when they were in power. However, in this case, the accusations are so serious that we are asking in very official terms for an investigation to be opened. We understand and approve of this new association’s request. The time has perhaps come for this country to finally examine this part of its recent history, as painful as it may be. The Amnesty Law, which was introduced at a time when the country needed to rebuild and close old wounds, cannot excuse every crime. We are also going to consult several elected officials on the left to gauge the likelihood of passing a bill proposing to abolish this iniquitous law and to put an end to forty years of impunity.”

  Simple, short, effective. It wasn’t anything unexpected. David recited his official statement convincingly, as he does so well. Then, almost immediately, he left, citing work and an urgent case he needed to wrap up by the next day. As he stood up from the table, he took a packet of cigarettes and a lighter out of his jacket pocket, then shook Diego’s hand and hurried out.

  The journalist feels the piece of paper immediately. He makes a fist and sits back down, trying not to show his excitement. Impatiently, he finishes his beer and reaches his hand into his pocket to pull out some money while he drops the precious message in. It’s not until he gets into the subway and satisfies himself that no one is following him that he reads it. A wide smile is still on his face as he taps the entrance code for his building.

  The offices of the National Association of Stolen Babies are buzzing. The atmosphere is nearly riotous. Ever since Isabel’s press conference, the phones haven’t stopped ringing. The website, which went live the night of the announcement, has crashed several times: the object of a high volume of simultaneous hits, and also the target of an anonymous hack the previous night. The job had all the markings of the far right. On the home page, the association’s introduction and menu were replaced by a huge black-and-white photo of Franco wearing, rather crudely, a slogan, or rather an insult, that leaves no doubt as to who ordered the hack: “¡Viva Franco, cabrones!” (“Long live Franco, you bastards!”). The NASB’s volunteer IT team succeeded in taking down the message and the image, but they are still working on restoring the site’s full content. They’ve been at it for hours.

  The working conditions, however, are not ideal. The association’s headquarters are small, much too small, and the computer programmers have been pushed to the back of the room where the press conference took place. There, they’ve had to make the best of it between tangles of cables, screens, power strips, and hard drives set up on two small tables and a few unsteady chairs that look as if they will buckle under the combined weight at any moment. Some programmers are seated on the ground, feverishly typing out hundreds of lines of code. One of them has been tasked with establishi
ng some semblance of order so that no one makes the fatal error of walking on or tripping over a cord, which would shut everything down. Knowing such an eventuality could happen, they are wasting valuable time saving their work every ten minutes. The pandemonium is interrupted periodically by shouts of victory as team members restore a new page, a new sidebar, or a new article, incrementally bringing the NASB’s website back to life. It was a cunning attack that forced them to rebuild the association’s interface with the rest of the world from the ground up and to verify the security of its every nook and cranny.

  A separate, smaller room barely holds another group of people. Their names are María, Ima, Daniel, Pablo, Josefa, and Elvira: the NASB’s founding members. Some of them knew each other already, others met only a few weeks ago, if that. They have one thing in common: they are all looking for someone close to them, whether a child, a brother, or a cousin, who disappeared and was never seen or heard from again. They all believe their loved one to be alive, and each member is convinced that these people who have dropped completely out of sight are out there somewhere in Spain, living under different names, not knowing that their real families are looking for them or that they were the innocent victims of an inhumane, iniquitous system put in place by Franco and his henchmen. In age, they could be in their thirties or forties now; the oldest would be sixty-seven. That their numbers span several generations is proof that the Francoist machine was still working well after the death of El Caudillo. All the members knew they were exposing themselves by joining the association. They hoped that their lives would be changed by it. They knew it would be tough. But today, it’s becoming too much. They are overwhelmed, by people just like themselves who are looking for answers, ordinary people to whom something truly unusual has happened. And by the media, too. Journalists are camped out on the doorstep of the NASB’s headquarters, and they harass the volunteers for the one thing they want most: an interview with Isabel Ferrer. Some are even prepared to pay, and pay well, for the opportunity to scoop their colleagues. They are offering mind-boggling sums, large enough, some think, to put the association’s finances in the black and finance a serious investigation that could uncover the truth. However, for the last three days, the lawyer has fallen off the radar. The situation is becoming worrisome at the same time the media is becoming more and more insistent, even aggressive. And so it goes in this kind of situation.