Traces of Ink

by Antonio J. Fuentes García

  In spite that inside the car was hot, he couldn’t stop shacking, he had never got along well with the cold, but now with age it was harder to face it.

  In front of them two headlights appeared boring the darkness mad becoming bigger and intense as they came nearer. When the car reached them, it placed next to them in parallel, and before it had stopped completely, a door open and a silhouette got out at full speed.

  —Sir —he cheered when he sat beside him in the hot in the rear of the Mercedes—. What a night.

  —We could have met at a restaurant —he answered with acrimony—, and not in the parking of a dirty abandoned canning.

  —Excuse for the melodrama, but I’m not very sociable —he gave a grimace of displeasure—. The places where they gather more than four or five persons drives me crazy.

  —This seems to the scene of a bad spy movie —he grumbled.

  —And what are we, Mr. Asensio? —even at the darkness of the rear seat a white perfect denture could it been seen with clarity, and it made a half smile.

  —I’m only a poor old man with bone pain —he massaged his shoulder—. To which by the way, this cold is not making well at all.

  —Don’t we lengthen it more than necessary —he dropped a thick folder over the tapestry—. There it is all.

  The old man checked it quickly under the car’s weak reading light and made a grin difficult to explain. Shortly after he left again the folder on the tapestry —between his listener and him—, as if it established an invisible barrier between both.

  Some things are missing —he synthesized in a dry way.

  —Sir, this archive is the only one that exists with the names, dates, transactions, and the complete operation —he explained—. When you have in your possession that folder you’ll be the unique person on earth that will do and undo whatever he wants regarding this topic.

  —That seems very good to me —the tone had nothing to do with that one of an old man aching —, but I haven’t asked for this.

  —With all my respects, I don’t know exactly whom you are, and sincerely I don’t care, there you have it —he pointed at the folder—. We are finished.

  The old man tapped his mouth with a tiny hand and he choked a childish giggle.

  —It is missing here a photo archive —he indicated—. We will have finished when I say.

  —Complain to my superiors —he grabbed the door handle to get out of the car—. I’ve already finished.

  In the vehicle veiled in darkness a silvered light shined like a ray, and suddenly the tapestry was full of a hot and viscous liquid. The man dropped the door handle and turned around so slowly that it seemed a slow-motion reproduction. He faced the old man, that was cleaning a sharp and long blade that seemed a stylet, and he put his hand on his neck, trying to stop the vital fluid that escaped between his fingers. When the man was still bracing trying to stop the hemorrhage, the old man took a last generation mobile —totally extemporaneous in his hand— and dialed a number.

  —I’m Billy. I need a favor —he said briefly when they answered—. Your boy hasn’t made the complete work —he listened for an instant—. Ok, no, he has been... “fired”.

  He pulsed a command and a crystal lowered. The man that was at the steering wheel turned around and raised his eyebrows. The old man pointed the body that continued to bleed over the Mercedes’ luxurious tapestry, and the chauffer agreed without opening his lips. The crystal came up again and the old man continued with the conversation. Outside two low detonations were heard simultaneously, almost one after the other one, and in a few seconds the door open and the chauffer took out the body from the rear without even stopping to look at the old man.

  —What I need is the photographs’ archive —he continued saying at the phone—. I thank you for the Gladio and the operations, but what I really need is that album.

  The Mercedes started to move slowly, and he turned around for an instant to see that the other vehicle continued where it had been parked, now covered with a dense smoke that it gave off some fine orange tongues the flames licked the sides of the windows and the roof, rising majestically between the dark od the gelid night. The conversation came to an end and he turned off the mobile.

  ****

  —We should have bought lanterns too —Juandi insinuated dragging the flexible lamps as much the cables allowed him.

  —We’ll have to manage with what we have. Hey colleague...

  —Forget it.

  Jonás had managed to apologize with his friend due his reaction and the words that he had dedicated him some minutes before they found that hidden trap, but Juandi had rejected all the explanations arguing that he too had behaved as an idiot, so they were tied.

  —Well, I think we should go out and by something —Juandi stretched the cable so much that it seemed it was going to break—. And we can catch some electric extensions cords for these fucking flexible lamps.

  —Perhaps it’s only an empty basement or it is full of the printing office’s rubbish —Jonás expressed, that he didn’t want to have illusions again—. And we lose again our time.

  Hey buddie —Juandi seemed to be losing his patience again with his friend’s pessimism—. I don’t give a darn if down there we only find bats’ shit, but I don’t plan to leave without discovering it —he rubbed his stomach—. Besides, we haven’t eaten nothing in the whole morning, I need proteins.

  Jonás thought that he had a great idea in bringing his friend, as he gave the push and the determination that he sometimes was lack of.

  —All right —he acceded—. We have lunch and we go to the hardware store for our Indiana Jones’ kit.

  —At last we are understanding each other.

  ****

  After lunch —that it became an earlier dinner—. They obtained two powerful LED lanterns of the Varta commercial brand, a portable lantern of 9 W that functioned with rechargeable batteries; in the last moment they decide also to buy two shovels, a folding ladder, several struts and some helmets used in construction. They haven’t the faintest idea for what they might need all that, but they felt better when they came out with those articles perfectly packed in boxes.

  —Colleague, I feel like the very same Howard Carter —Juandi exclaimed proudly—. Now I only need the mummy.

  —From those you have plenty in your record —Jonás joked, that he was now in a much better mood.

  —And that you say it —he answered shaking hands—. I have battled with more Orcs than Frodo!

  The first to come down was Jonás, that armed with a strut in one hand, one of the lanterns in the other and the miner helmet he felt as the most ridiculous man on the earth’s surface.

  Three steps about only some centimeters died abruptly in a bend of ninety degrees, that twisted sinuously and conducted other three steps equally exiguous. As they came down, humidity allied with cold and created a gelid atmosphere that numbed the joints. For their surprise, the cellar was not so deep as he had expected and was no so abandoned as in the beginning he thought that it was. On the steps he had seen glimpses of one or another insect that ran under the powerful light of the lantern, but already downstairs, all was in order. He called Juandi, so he came down with the bluff, since in the dark was so opaque that the lantern’s beam barely managed to illuminate a pair of meters in front of him. When the giant came down through the narrow opening (not without difficulties) and put the lantern in his mouth and increased the bluff’s intensity. In less than one second, the chamber was bathed with a bluish light that made all the shadows escape to the furthest corners. Jonás dropped the strut and the lantern, and his friend was about to drop the bluff. They were almost a minute without saying a word, with mouths opened and admiring what they had in front of them.

  —But who the hell was your grandfather? —Juandi babbled.

  —I don’t know —he answered completely amazed—. I really don’t know.

  Chapter 18

  The man approached to the reception counter and gav
e a seductive smile that pretended to be friendly, but that caused other impressions in women. God had blessed with an attractiveness that he never had to prescind, getting the most that he could out of it.

  —Good morning miss —his face, next to his accent, created an irresistible combination—. I feel a little bit ashamed, but I need to ask you for a favor.

  —Tell me —the girl answered smiling.

  —Well look, the point is that I’ve arranged with a friend to meet here, but I don’t remember the hour neither the room —he composed his best dislike pout—. I’m getting older.

  The girl stared him upside down and let out a restrained blow, disagreeing with him.

  —But at least you remember his name? —she asked with a spark of fun in the eyes.

  —Yes, of course —he exhibited his perfect teeth—. In this moment he is Cristóbal, Cristóbal Asensio.

  He felt a heat that extended through his stomach as he ended the phrase. How he could have committed that mistake? Maybe she would not realize.

  In this moment? —she asked weirded out—. What is he, a spy?

  He cursed himself for that carelessness. Anger begun go up through his throat and he noticed a bad flavor in his palate.

  —Of course miss —he answered ashamed, this time truly; he did not need to compose a false grimace—. But don’t say anything or I’ll have to kill you.

  She smiles at his grace and inclined with coquetry over the computer. She started to type without looking the screen, centering her attention in that guy’s blue eyes.

  —If it’s what I told you —he replied and was beginning to calm down—. I’m getting older and I say nonsenses.

  The girl reviewed him again and precise that that man shouldn’t have more than forty.

  —Yes, here is your friend —she informed—. Cristóbal Asensio, room 209.

  —Perfect!

  —Do I leave him a message?

  —No, no —he answered shaking hands—. I’m thinking in giving him a surprise. For sure he thinks I’m not going to come to the date, so I’m going to wait for him seated here —he pointed a modernist design armchair that seemed especially comfortable.

  She looked at him, and although she had fifteen years less than him, she imagined herself with him in one of that hotel’s rooms in which she had always desired to spend the night. She licked her fleshy lips.

  —You know what? —he suddenly exclaimed—. I’ll better go and buy him a present and come back soon —he gave her a rogue wink—. Could you give me one of those cards with the hotel’s telephone number?

  —Yes of course —she answered emboldened—. And I’ll write you mine too, you know, in case you forget it again.

  When she went into a small room where they kept the advertising material, the man turned around with the speed of an athlete and he sneaked upstairs.

  ****

  That was the first day in his life that Antonio José Ulloa could not accomplish with his work as usual. Each and everyone in the editorial office were delivered in a feverish job that in spite that it had them exhausted it kept them happily busy. However, Antonio José couldn’t stop in brooding over to what that old man had confessed him, and its complicated implications in all that. He was a methodic and organized man, given to the maximus with the issue that he addressed in a determined moment, and in that instant his principal conflict wasn’t the newspaper.

  He stood up, incapable to take a slightest decision of which the two headlines that he had in front will be in the cover page, and he wandered restlessly through his office. He had gotten into a mess, and he must get out with the least possible damage.

  He decided that he would stop being a pawn in that game and that he should take an active part. He buttoned his jacket in the American way and took his Burberry’s coat from the coat rack. After giving instructions to his secretary, he abandoned the editorial office with his mind fixed in one direction.

  Chapter 19

  The intensive bluish light of the bluff made the machinery shine as it was not real. Jonás gave a step forward and touched the lectern with one finger that was in the center of the room, being afraid that it would vanish at any moment. Juandi —that was recovered from the initial surprise—, had begun to open the metal file cabinets that crowded completely the four walls. From upstairs that room seemed not to measure more than three or four meters, but everything occurred because the effect of its reduced entrance. That room had been designed in a conical shape, concentrating the smallest part of the funnel in the threshold and the stairs, but enlarging dramatically in the center and in the extremes. It must measure either way fifteen meters length by about ten wide and based in Juandi’s approximate height —that almost touched one meter ninety-eight—, the stone roof should be two meters and a half. Besides the mysterious machine that was in one of the sides, there was a wall with metal file cabinets where on top of it a gigantic corkboard was hanged. Jonás asked himself how his grandfather could have put all that inside that room, and more considering the small size of the entrance. In the lectern of the center there was a small crystal cabinet in which a heavy book and a pen drive were resting, so out of place in that grotto of the past that his brain denied to immediately register. He looked also at the secluded table in one of the corners, the modern wheel chair, and in several boxes that were gathered under them. One was opened, and from its interior many sheets came out in papers of different weights, and many rolls of smaller sizes that were used in a rotating machine. Jonás came near the device and saw some cardboard boxes pull with plates of a line made of metal. When he started to realize what all that meant his heart accelerated and he felt a knot in his throat that went in memory of his grandfather through his chest.

  —Colleague —Juandi whispered overwhelmed—. I don’t know what your grandfather did here, but this is full of “El Caso” newspapers, and I swear you that they have nothing to do with what we have seen upstairs.

  Jonás turned himself and situated himself in front of the huge corkboard that was covering three of the metallic file cabinets. He started to read with difficulty the names and the hotchpotch of dates and data that were written in the surface, and one more piece of that puzzle returned to fit with an almost audible sound.

  —Jonás —Juandi called— What is this machine?

  He turned and went to the place where his friend examined the intricated mechanism of guides and escapes situated in the rear part of the room. He looked at a small cable that emerged from one of the drawers and follow its way to the next wall, where it went in a small hole. He opened the rack and found a switch. When he pulsed it, the room was full of a deafening buzz of metal against metal; suddenly, the mechanism of that strange contraption and several halogen lights came alive in the resurrected basement.

  ****

  The diesel oil smell inundated immediately the small room, and the sound of the small generator became more continuous as the engine catch up optimal revolutions to function. Jonás examined with admiration the machine that he had in front of him, that he didn’t stop to blow as a fighting bull waiting to go out to the arena.

  —This, my dear friend, is a modified linotype device —Jonás explained.

  —But that is as an old printing machine no?

  —It’s more like a rotating machine —he clarified—. This machine used a foundry system to create the complete text lines, interweave and afterwards print them.

  —And it functioned with a Mac!

  Jonás smiled looking at the small white keyboard attached to the main machine’s panel, and once again he felt an absolute admiration towards his grandfather.

  —No, an authentic linotype functionated with a keyboard very similar to those of the type writers —he passed his finger gently over one of the rolls—. This must have been installed by my grandfather to be able to insert different types of typographies.

  —Super smart the old man! —Juandi exclaimed—. He was not a fool this dude.

  —It seems that no.
<
br />   —What I don’t understand is for is all this —Juandi inquired—. Upstairs he has more modern tools, bigger, and on top of all more comfortable to work.

  —Well I Have different theories —Jonás exposed—. But the main one is that my grandfather needed something to print and he wanted that nobody new.

  —Don’t you tell me Sherlock! that has been quite clear for me as we entered in a basement hided inside a closet, that by the way, its camouflaged in an abandoned printing office.

  Jonás busted into a laugh that rumbled on top of the generator’s noise.

  —What I want to say my friend is that my grandfather didn’t chose this gadget for sentimentality. The linotype method is much more expensive to do than the offset printers, but on the other side they are undetectable —seeing at his friend’s frowning expression he continued—. This piece of junk creates typography lines through a metal melted. Once this type is used, is melted again and a different one is created.

  —And your grandfather had to do all this every time he created a line?

  —No, the machine does it by itself, but in that way, there is way to find a complete plate with a finished text.

  Juandi understood what his friend was trying to say.

  —That is, if the bad guys came in here with the intention to steal some old newspapers they would only find a lot of letters without sense.

  Jonás didn’t miss his friend’s ironic point.

  —Or in any case only one typography line.

  Juandi meditated it some seconds and he went to one of the filing cabinets; he searched between the different folders; and when he founded what he needed he came back to his friend.

  —Now it’s my turn to surprise you —he said smiling. He gave him one of those newspaper to his friend—. That was one of the copies that your grandfather kept.