Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction (26 page)

The Indian almost grabbed it from his hands.
His mouth was dry, but the game had been delayed for too long.

“
Not necessary, sir. I’ll
take it rough.”

The officer smiled for the first time. His
teeth were so white that he seemed to be wearing a tooth guard.
Padovani felt the pill move slowly down his throat. If it had been
necessary, he would have pushed it with his fingers into his
stomach. He wanted to shout for joy. But he still had to hide his
euphoria for a while. How long? He still felt nothing in his
head.

“
When....” he began to
say. At that moment someone knocked on the door. The Indian clung
to the chair to avoid jumping. Fortunately, the officer seemed
annoyed by the interruption. He went to the door and turned a lock
in the handle.

“
Occupied!” he
shouted.

The knocking on the door got louder.
Padovani closed his eyes and clenched his teeth hard enough to
hurt. He felt a buzzing in his head.

“Open the door! It’s
us!”

The Europol officer’s face
looked confused. He hesitated a couple of seconds, and then turned
the lock into its original position. He had no time to do more. The
two men on the other side came storming in, his local
“colleagues.”

“
What the fuck do you
want?”

“
Has he left yet?” One of
the two new arrivals motioned toward the chair. “What’s his
name?”

The officer looked at the
person sitting there. All the muggy heat of the whole damned
country seemed to have suddenly entered the room, accompanied by a
pair of sons of bitches from District Six. Mendoza and Salinas,
although he didn’t remember which was which. They wore
plainclothes, always the same rumpled suits. They never took off
their jackets but they managed to make sure their guns were plainly
seen. The worst part about seeing them again, the officer thought,
was knowing that, whoever governed next month, liberals or
conservatives, those two creeps would still be in the police. They
wouldn’t even have to change uniforms.

Their questions only meant one thing:
someone had fucked up. On occasions like that, he thought about
taking out his gun, starting to shoot, and sending a few people to
hell ahead of time. No sense dreaming: they were even more used to
shooting. No one in this country took risks, and even children were
more dangerous than he was.

The officer sighed deeply,
wiped the sweat off his face, and touched the man in the chair on
the arm. It was too crowded to move in the room, but Mendoza and
Salinas didn’t take one step back.

The man in the chair
jerked, opened his eyes, and looked around. The officer thought the
look on his face answered the first question they’d asked, but in
any case he decided the best thing to do was to make it clear to
the two jackals. They weren’t going to make him nervous and get the
wrong guy.

“
Señor, do you speak
Spanish?”

The man in the chair swallowed a couple of
times before nodding.

“
Can you say your name out
loud?”

“
Julian....” The man
cleared his throat. “Julian Marfleet. This is... weird.”

The Europol officer turned to his colleagues
and waited to see if they had anything to add. One of them moved
his lips until he forced a smile that was worn out by the
effort.

“
Welcome, Señor Marfleet.
Let me accompany you.... You have to fill out some forms, but soon
you’ll be able to enjoy your vacation. Ready?”

He helped the man rise, offering his arm to
help hold him up as he took his first shaky steps, until he could
stand fully upright. They left the room together, leaving the other
two alone.

“
The other one was George
Bartolomé.” The Europol officer sighed. “Are you going to explain
what just happened, or would it be better to forget it?”

The man in the suit
—Mendoza or Salinas— said nothing, but showed that he knew how to
imitate a smile just as well as his partner.

Take off the latex gloves,
ball them up, throw them into the garbage
:
that was what the Europol officer wanted to do about George
Bartolomé.

II

Commissioner William
Jefferson Polanco. That’s what he wanted on his business cards, on
his electronic signature, and on the door of his new office. He had
already spent a month heading District Six. “I’m not one for
exaggerated formality,” he had said to his subordinates, then
added: “But let’s never lose respect for the democratic dignity of
my position.”

Mendoza and Salinas entered without
knocking. The first one settled into the only chair for visitors,
put feet on up the desk, crossed them, and knocked over a pencil
holder.

“
Watch what you’re doing,
bastard.”

Mendoza took his feet off the table
unwillingly. His partner gathered up the pencils and then grabbed
the little frame that held a family photo.

“
Little Laura is sure
cute.” He showed the photo to Mendoza. “Old Willy J is a lucky
dad.”

The commissioner took the
photo from Salina’s hands and put it face down on the table. It was
going to be hard to impose his new rank on Mendoza and Salinas. The
three had known each other since paramilitary times, although he’d
moved ahead faster these days since he knew English. He decided to
show them how it’s done: seriously and professionally.

“
What are you doing here?
Who’s watching the hotel?”

“
Carlitos and that other
black guy who’s with him.... We’re on break time now.”

“
The little Spaniard is
very boring,” Salinas added. “He hardly even goes out.”

Polanco searched among his papers.

“
Marfleet is
Spanish?”

Salinas shrugged.

“
Spaniard, from Madrid,
right? That’s where he’s from.”

“
Now everyone’s
European.”

“
And we’re hardly
Americans.”

Polanco stayed serious, concentrating on his
papers.

“
Have you visually
identified anyone suspicious?”

Mendoza twisted his lips.

“
Affirmative, Willy J.
Visual identification, as they say. And besides that, we’ve seen
them.”

Salinas laughed at his
partner’s joke. Polanco strangled the papers to contain
himself.

“
Old associates of
Sink-Tooth who’ve never been arrested,” Mendoza continued. “I think
that everyone who isn’t in jail has paraded through the lobby.
Including that lawyer, the fucker in suspenders.... You know who
I’m talking about? I think he’s with the Italian Mafia.”

Polanco couldn’t suppress
a sigh. “Yes, I know... the faggot in the suspenders.”

“
We’ve talked with him.
Calmly. It’s not worth fighting over nothing. We need to wait until
the little Spaniard finishes his vacation.”

Polanco nodded. The
situation was under control, at least for a month. Between
Sink-Tooth’s old gang and the police, probably no one in the
country was better guarded than the tourist Julian Marfleet. He
wouldn’t be better protected locked in a safe. Because if that man
died, the Indian Padovani would enter a legal limbo and be retained
in Europe forever.

“
I’m happy that you talked
with the lawyer. They should be aware of something: We,” Polanco
took a breath, “the bodies and forces of security that support the
new democratic government, have to have to make sure laws are
obeyed, and we have to capture Padovani to put him in prison.” He
paused. “What might happen in jail is something else entirely,
which I don’t give a shit about.”

“
That’s right, Willy J.
The lawyer thought the same. But I think there are others on
Sink-Tooth’s side that aren’t sure if the Indian turned on them.
Those are the ones that worry me.”

“
Good, let them kill each
other, but the Indian goes to jail, okay?”

“
Okay, Willy
J.”

“
When they make him
return, he’s ours,” Salinas added.

The commissioner scratched his chin
thoughtfully.

“
The gringos can help us
with Europol so that Padovani returns before the month is over. For
now, go back to the hotel. I don’t trust Carlitos. He’s probably
drunk already.... And you say that Marfleet doesn’t leave the
hotel? Then why did this bastard shit bother to come?”

“
Yeah, he’s pretty
strange.”

“
Take a girl to the hotel.
But be discrete.” Polanco looked at the ceiling for a moment. “And
if not, try a boy. He’ll like something.”

“
How about Veronica, the
mulatta? Will she do?”

Veronica. Polanco’s tongue
reflexively licked his lips. But he didn’t find the taste of the
curves there that his imagination supplied.

“
Perfect,” he
croaked.

Mendoza blinked, which bothered him.

Never
, he thought.
They’ll never stop
calling me Willy J
.

III

“A wiry, Native suntanned
body.” Julian Marfleet had no doubt: the travel agency had cheated
him. It was difficult to guess the age of the man he’d exchanged
with, but he certainly exceeded the “maximum of thirty-two” that he
had been promised in the contract. With a lot of effort, there
might have been room to squeeze another wrinkle on that face. And
worse: after he met the mulatta and took her to his room, he
discovered the Native was impotent. A total swindle. If Veronica
hadn’t been able to revive the lunch meat between his legs, no one
could. He smiled as he remembered the scene because, in spite of
everything, Julian felt like the happiest man on Earth.

He had good reason, which
it made it impossible to file a complaint about the travel agency,
a division of FarmaCom: He wasn’t going to stay in Europe. In fact
he couldn’t. He’d always had heart problems, a degenerative disease
that he had resigned himself to, accepting the decline of his body
because he had no choice. But when the doctors finally talked to
him honestly, and what remained of his life was a tangible figure,
he discovered something that he had never suspected: he was willing
to do whatever was necessary to stay alive. Including to dump his
death sentence on another man.

He bribed a European
government worker to be permitted to make an exchange. He wouldn’t
have passed the medical test any other way. He spent the rest of
his money on a contract for a month of vacation with FarmaCom. It
was enough. It had to be. His exchange partner would die in Europe
before the month ended, and he could go to South America legally
and get a second chance. Not even impotence would spoil that
trip.

Although he intended to
buy some pills to solve that problem. Veronica was worth it. As he
wandered through the hotel lobby, he wondered who he could trust
with a secret. He wasn’t going to just go out on the street and
look for a pharmacy. No one would notice him unless he opened his
mouth. He’d spent a lot of years living in Madrid and spoke Spanish
almost perfectly, which wouldn’t help him because the accent would
identify him as a European. It could be dangerous to wander through
unknown streets without a bodyguard.

In fact, he was beginning
to think he actually had a bodyguard. Every time he left his room,
it didn’t take long to spot one of the two plainclothes policemen
who had welcomed him to the country. They never came up to talk to
him or greet him, but they didn’t bother to hide their presence
either, as if they were debt collectors who wanted to remind him
that the debt was about to come due. Julian supposed that was
normal, that FarmaCom took care of all its clients in foreign
countries, but he thought they ought to warn them in the fine print
that the officers of the law looked like criminals.

He remembered Veronica and decided he had
nothing to lose. He gestured to the police officers that he wanted
to speak with them. One of them slowly approached while the other
remained in place, looking around.

“
Can I help you with
something, Señor Marfleet?”

Julian spent a long minute
explaining his situation, beating around the bush and speaking in
such a low voice that he worried that he wouldn’t be understood.
When he finished, he told himself that his attitude was absurd.
Impotence affects a lot of men, especially at that age. What the
hell, that body wasn’t even his. But the embarrassment the officer
made him feel was real.

“
The thing isn’t
working?”

Without waiting for a
reply, the officer returned to his partner and, with a lot of
gestures, shared Julian’s problem, laughing. But that wasn’t all.
Another man appeared who had to be a guest at the hotel because
Julian remembered seeing him before. He recognized his suspenders.
The two officers called him over and then all three laughed at his
expense.

Nothing was going to spoil
his trip, but he had to admit that this was starting to annoy him.
And he didn’t even know if that bastard was going to get him the
pills. He turned to the elevators. As he waited, he breathed
deeply. Don’t worry, he said, they don’t want to offend you.
Cultural differences, that’s all it is. Luckily, he had a lot of
years ahead of him to get used to it.