Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction (30 page)

He let his head fall back
on the chair. The pill dissolved in the water wasn’t agreeing with
him. He’d never had a heart attack and didn’t have anything to
compare the pain to, so he didn’t know if he had time to announce
that he was dying or if it was worth the effort. He needed the
inhibitor or the police would find him, and that would be as bad as
death.

If it was all a trap by
Sink-Tooth, Terry would have already said so. They’d want to know
what he knew and for him to know who was killing him and why. But
Terry didn’t seem to know any more than him what was
happening.

“
What’s wrong with
you?”

“
My arm....” he moved his
head toward the left.

“
Do you have heart
trouble?” Terry adjusted his glasses and took another look at the
monitor, where Ringo was still waiting. “You don’t know, of course.
The truth is that I didn’t read the instructions for the analgesic.
I hope there weren’t warnings.” He added under his breath, “That
would be fucked up.”

The doorbell rang again.
Terry held the tongs halfway toward Padovani’s nose.

“
Finish it now,” the
Indian begged.

“
I’m thinking about
whether this guy,” he pointed to the monitor, “hasn’t actually
exchanged.... Probably he’s an undercover cop who infiltrated the
nursery. They do those kind of things.... Of course, that’s why he
wanted to find me.” He began to puff. “We’re both
fucked.”

Padovani couldn’t breathe.
The pain in his chest and arm was unbearable.

“
Hurry....”

Terry’s hands trembled. He
missed the nostril and the little spider fell on the ground. He
didn’t try to look for it.

“
I can’t do it! I have to
get out of here. I’m sorry.”

He threw the tweezers on the table. Padovani
shouted.

“
Listen....”

Terry didn’t wait for him
to finish. He ran from the room, leaving him tied in the chair. If
he hadn’t left, the Indian might have sworn at him, something not
too elaborate but very sincere about his mother. He also wanted to
point out the illogic of his hypothesis: if Ringo was a cop, and
the person who had entered Leidi’s body was a cop, why the hell had
they fought in Retiro? He could have said all this if he had had
the breath to do so and if someone had been there to listen to him.
But that wasn’t the case.

He tried to cough hard
because he’d read that this was what you should do in the event of
a heart attack if no one can help you. Suddenly something began to
buzz in his skull. He clenched his teeth. The doorbell rang again,
but by then he wasn’t there to hear it.

X

His hands were still tied, but now he was
lying on a bed. From the corner of his eye he saw a shadow that was
moving to his right. He turned his head that way and found himself
looking into the eyes of someone he knew. A second later, silent as
a ghost that had just been frightened, the man slipped out of the
room and shut the door.

He easily freed his wrists from the head of
the bed. They had used a silky-feeling handkerchiefs to immobilize
him. He sat up in the bed. At his side was a naked woman with a
slender brown body and long black hair, laying face down. She
seemed to be sleeping.

He was also naked. Even a
little more to see waist-down. His eyes stopped on the erect penis,
which pointed straight up at the ceiling. He hadn’t passed enough
time outside to fail to recognize his own dick, although he hadn’t
seen it that tense for many years. His client must have taken
advantage of the lack of cardiac problems swallow a pill to achieve
such a prodigious effect. The quality of his companion must also
have had some effect —and her experience, judging by the silk
handkerchiefs.

Padovani sighed. He was back. In what seemed
like a hotel room, bigger than many of the houses he had lived in
as a boy.

He heard the noise of running feet in the
hall. Hand banged on the door.

“
Police!”

Shit
, he thought. The voice was familiar. He got out of bed and
ran to the window. He couldn’t open it. They pounded on the door
again. He looked at the bed. The girl with the long hair kept
sleeping in spite of the noise. Padovani swallowed. He realized she
was dead.

Double shit.

“
Open the door or we’ll
knock it down, Indian!”

That was
Mendoza
, he said to himself. He took
advantage of the few seconds he had left before they smashed open
the door to get a towel from the bathroom and cover his erection.
Since he couldn’t escape, at least he could surrender with dignity.
Mendoza and Salinas knocked down the door and came in at the same
time, pistols drawn and pointing at him.

He wanted to welcome them
with some ironic comment to keep his reputation up, but they didn’t
even let him open his mouth. Mendoza smacked him with the pistol
butt on the jaw and sent him right down to kiss the
floor.

“
Son of a big bitch....
What did you do to Veronica? I’m gonna to kill you!”

That was the voice of Salinas, who was
usually the more reasonable one. Padovani made an effort to move
his jaw again so he could say something in his defense before they
did him in.

“
I didn’t do it. I just
got here.”

The two police officers
had by then picked him up, grabbing him by his arms, and got ready
to kick the shit out of him, when a light went on in the Indian’s
head.

“
It was
Ruggeri!”

Salinas slapped him on the
face and asked, “Who’s that?”

Mendoza added, “Answer,”
and slapped him again.

“
Sink-Tooth’s lawyer, the
one with the suspenders. I saw him leave the room right when I
arrived.”

The policemen dropped him
on the ground, just in case he wanted to kiss it again. He lay
curled up, his senses alert. He’d told the truth, but if they
didn’t believe him, they’d forget all about their old friendship.
He’d try to bite one of their ankles and kick the others in the
balls. Although it didn’t seem like they were going to attack him
at that moment. Mendoza and Salinas looked at each other with an
expression filled if not with intelligence, then at least with
malice.

“
That spaghetti faggot....
We passed him.”

“
And he seemed nervous. I
think droopy here is telling the truth.”

“
You’ll find out when
Willy J does. But why did he do it?”

“
He’ll want us to blame it
on the Indian.” Mendoza looked down. “I might like
that.”

“
Get a grip. Lets not fuck
up everything.”

Droopy
, thought the Indian. It seemed that during his absence
they’d changed his nickname. Assholes.

“
Can I go now?” he
asked.

The police officers
laughed. At least they didn’t hit him again.

XI

He had to admit that the
crime scene looked good: lying beside a girl whose throat had just
been slashed, and the police about to enter. Ruggeri had prepared
it for him, but Padovani doubted he was the only director of the
show. The synchronization of the lawyer with the person or people
who had prepared his exchange had been almost perfect. The “almost”
was what had let him live to tell about it.

As far as he knew, only FarmaCom or Europol
could have made him return. So Ruggeri had to be related to one or
both of these organizations. What did Sink-Tooth have to do with
this? He guessed that, now that he was locked in the same jail as
his former partner, he was going to find out traumatically.

His previous history was
enough to condemn him to death —or, from the perspective of the
previous regime, to merit a medal— without needing to add
Veronica’s murder. While he was in preventive detention awaiting
trial, the days passed with the blessing of solitude. After the
trial, they sent him to a jail as dirty and overcrowded as in any
other country, but it was obvious that this one hadn’t been chosen
at random.

It wasn’t like the
FarmaCom nursery. They bathed once a week, organized by decks, in a
room with tiles halfway up the walls and in which there were a
couple of showerheads spewing freezing cold water. The experienced
pariahs hung together in the corners and tried not to call
attention to themselves. But there was always someone who was still
learning.

“
I’m innocent!”

A short, bow-legged half-breed kept
blabbering on. From the moment they entered the showers, it was the
same song. Padovani looked at the poor bastard. He tried to guess
how long until someone got tired of him and smashed his head.

And while he did that, he
let down his guard. Someone came up to him from behind. He didn’t
realize it until he heard a voice whispering in his ear.

“
Go to Sink-Tooth’s cell
at four o’clock.”

The hair on the back of
his neck stood up. The Indian felt the order like a punch in the
kidneys. He could only study the back of the boy who had
transmitted the message. He wore a muscle shirt and low-hanging
jeans. Padovani hadn’t seen him come.
I’m
a foolish old man
, he thought,
worse than this screaming half-breed.
In any case, it was a good sign that Sink-Tooth
wanted to talk to him. He wouldn’t kill him in his own cell. If
that had to happen, it would be somewhere else. Probably in the
showers.

At two minutes before
four, he entered the cell of Gonzalito Mendieta, alias
Sink-Tooth.
“Because if he sinks his teeth
into you, he doesn’t let go,”
Padovani
recalled, the explanation given many years ago, almost a
millennium. It was best not to make him wait. He sat on the cot
that faced the one occupied by his former boss, comrade, partner,
and during some brief time, maybe six or seven days during thirty
years, friend.

Sink-Tooth smiled, and the Indian almost
choked to see a gold tooth. He had thought about the best way to
greet Mendieta, but in his surprise, he forgot about that
completely.

“
Buddy... more sunk in
than ever, Sink-Tooth.”

“
What?”

“
You bit a gold
brick.”

“
A tooth fell out. Age is
unforgiving. They’ve told me the same about you, that there’s no
danger anymore about little Indians being born into this
world.”

Sink-Tooth’s laugh showed
the gold tooth again. Padovani had no urge to laugh or to beat
around the bush.

“
What do you want from
me?”

“
What do I want, sucker?
They told me you were looking for me, that you wanted to chat about
something.”

“
That’s a lie.”

Sink-Tooth shook his head.

“
Look, Indian... I know
you were hoping I’d take the first step, and I
understand.”

Padovani wanted to interrupt, but Sink-Tooth
waved his hand.

“
No, it’s okay, let me
talk. I deserve it. That big asshole Ruggeri told me all sorts of
tall tales about you. He wanted me to order you liquidated so he
could run the organization without anyone fighting him while I
rotted in here. I know what happened at the hotel. Ruggeri must
have contacts in the Agency, that’s the only explanation. He found
out what was going to happen and wanted to try to make sure you
didn’t get to jail alive and couldn’t talk to me. But his bet
didn’t work out, and he’s going to pay for it. Willy J was halfway
in love with the dead whore.”

Padovani shook his head.
Willy J had been on the CIA payroll since paramilitary times, and
he didn’t bother to hide it. Up to a certain point it was logical
that Europol had collaborated, bringing him back. It was also more
than probable that Ruggeri had tried to take advantage of the
opportunity to get him out of the way. What Padovani didn’t
understand was why he was thinking about all this inside
Sink-Tooth’s cell.

“
The boy with the white
muscle shirt and the falling-down pants,” he said. “Do you know
him?”

“
They all dress like that
here, old man. No sense of style.”

“
He told me you wanted to
see me at four o’clock.”

Sink-Tooth snorted.

“
I don’t know anything
about that. But I’m happy you’ve come.”

Padovani didn’t understand
anything, and that was very dangerous. He fidgeted on the cot, and
as he did so, his had touched something hard under the
blanket.

“
What’s this?”

“
What’s what?”

He put his hand under the blanket and took
it out. It was an enormous knife. Sink-Tooth scooted back on his
mattress until his back was against the wall.

“
Son of a
bitch.”

Padovani dropped the knife onto the cot.

“
Listen... I
didn’t....”

He didn’t finish the
sentence. The buzzing wouldn’t let him speak. He rubbed his eyes,
and when he looked again, it was night. He was sitting at a table
in a restaurant. The tablecloth had wine stains and the remains of
a dinner for two. There was a lit candle. Soft violin music.
Sitting on the other side of the table, Ringo was checking the time
on his watch. Then he smiled.