Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction (31 page)

“
I think it’s you now.
Isn’t that right, old man?”

Padovani opened his mouth,
but he couldn’t speak when he saw his hands. He raised them to get
a better look. He had very slim fingers... and polished
fingernails.

XII

As Ringo spoke, he passed his fingers over
the tablecloth, rounding up stray crumbs. Padovani, the Indian, had
to make a big effort to concentrate on his words and ignore the
rest of the stimuli and sensations that clamored for his attention.
Such as the rub of the brassiere on his skin. The cup had to be a
size too small, and it was squeezing his tits. His own tits. This
was demented. He also felt a little drunk. There were wine glasses
on the table, emptied to the dregs. He interrupted Ringo with a
gesture to clear up a question.

“
This is... Leidi’s
body?”

His tongue stumbled on alcohol.

“
Yes it is, old man,”
Ringo said. “I’ve gotten to know it very well these
days.”

His laughter caught the attention of the
next table. Padovani missed his fists. He could have smashed his
face. He tried to forget what he was feeling and focus on the
explanation he was getting. Things went more or less like this:

Leidi’s client, a tourist
named Abramov who wanted to pass his vacation in the body of a
Venezuelan mulatta, was the director of the European Agency of
Medical Evaluation. The same Agency that —among many other things
that affected every bit of FarmaCom’s business— regulated the use
of the vacating pills for exchanges.

The owners of the
multinational corporation liked to organize pleasure trips and
invite their friends and collaborators. These trips were common
knowledge, but they were organized so discretely that anyone,
including the best-known politicians of Brussels, could indulge any
fantasy without leaks. It involved an “exchange of favors” that was
hardly ethical, if not openly corrupt and criminal. Anti-corporate
groups, Eurosceptics, and civil rights groups that fought to
re-establish neutrality on the Internet... they would have been
delighted to leak those bribes to the public with proof in
hand.

And what better proof than Leidi herself,
speaking from the body of Abramov.

“
But FarmaCom reacted
right away. When they found out we’d escaped, they sent one of
their own to occupy Abramov’s body. It was funny. They didn’t use a
vacating pill. They’re not stupid enough to believe their own lies.
We thought that as long as we held the director hostage, they
wouldn’t dare force the exchange. We were wrong about
that.”

“
I saw what happened in
Retiro. The fat man almost killed you.”

“
I thought you’d return
for the jacket. The only clue you’d given me about how to find
Terry was that you’d need money.”

“
A friend told me that you
two were network police for sure or from some other Europol
department. But that’s absurd or you wouldn’t have fought. You
can’t both be in the same side.”

“
Terry thought that? I’m
not surprised. They say he’s paranoid.”

“
Now I think that if the
other side was FarmaCom, you must be the cop.”

Ringo smiled but said nothing.

“
Why did you want to give
Terry the information about Abramov?”

“
For the same reason that
anything happens in Brussels. Someone decided that the little fat
man shouldn’t run in his party’s primary. It was also to get
FarmaCom’s attention. Terry would have managed to distribute the
information. The anti-capitalists know how to do it without using
the Internet because they don’t have any choice now. But FarmaCom
would have known it was us.”

“
Because they already knew
what your job was in the center and who you were working
for.”

“
Let’s say they
suspected.”

“
Can I ask a personal
question?”

Ringo looked at his watch.

“
Go ahead.”

“
Do you have a IPv12
implant?”

“
Of course not. They’re
too insecure.”

There wasn’t the slightest
hint of irony in his answer. Ringo stopped playing with the crumbs
and shook his hands clean. Then he glanced at his watch
again.

“
I have to admit that I
was plenty scared when I saw the body in Terry’s office. They
hadn’t warned me about that exchange, the order came from high up.
At first I thought it was you, old man.”

I’m glad I saved you from
that unpleasantness
, Padovani thought. His
eyelids were drooping. Leidi had drunk too much. He dug the
polished nails into the palm of his hand to wake up. He broke them
all.

“
How did you find the
dentist’s office?”

“
I already told you. The
only clue I had was that you needed some money. It’s always worked
for us to follow the money.”

Nanoscopic locators. In
every one of the bills. Padovani had made a beginner’s mistake, and
it wouldn’t have been that hard to get twenty euros some other way.
At least he had the consolation that his pursuers thought he was
smarter than he was because he hadn’t even gotten rid of the
clothing they’d given him.

“
You found the
florist.”

“
Yes, after losing a lot
of time with the money that the Africans had. It took less time to
get that little man in the store to tell me where they’d taken
you.”

“
You tortured
him....”

“
Please, don’t offend me.
Those things only happen in your country. We don’t need that. We
have all the information... at least all of it that circulates on
the Net, of course. That’s why Terry got away from us. But almost
nobody resists one hundred percent. Did you know that the florist,
even with how bad business is for him, keeps his family and a
lover?” Ringo raised his hands. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not
judging him. I know he’s a responsible father who brought his kids
up right. The oldest, Sara, almost never gets into
trouble.”

“
I get it.”

“
That was just one
example, old man. Normally we don’t even have to hint at it. The
anti-capitalists, people with records, they know what’s what. They
don’t bother to hide anything from us.”

Padovani cleared his throat.

“
What can I say?” He spoke
slowly to pronounce his words correctly. “It’s a good story. But
that doesn’t explain why I’ve grown breasts.”

That provoked a coughing fit from Ringo
that, without benevolence, could have been taken for barking
laughter. He put his hands on the tablecloth and sneaked another
look at his watch.

“
Some friends wanted to
take advantage of the situation of having you in jail with your
IPv12 almost like new to send a message to Sink-Tooth. Leidi is
giving it to him right now.”

He looked at his watch again. Padovani
rubbed his eyes.

“
What friends?”

Ringo shook his head.

“
The kind that returns
favors.”

They did you a big favor
bringing Leidi to Europe
, the Indian
thought. Ringo had bright eyes, as if he had drunk too much wine.
He didn’t stop looking at his watch.

“
Is it a very long
message? It seems like Leidi is entertaining herself.”

The expression on Ringo’s
face got hard. He took out a mobile phone and put it on the
table.

“
Don’t worry. They’ll let
me know soon.”

They fell silent. Padovani looked at the
telephone. It seemed to be the same one that the Northern Group
driver had given Ringo. He remembered that scene, and he had a
question.

“
Do you still have the
papers that the director signed for you? The file for Abramov and
his exchange with Leidi. That was a good move. I’m sure they’re
worth a lot of money.”

Ringo looked away briefly before
answering.

“
I don’t have them any
more. Why? I delivered them a while ago.”

Another lesson that the
Indian would have given his children was this:
If an honest and sincere conversation goes on long enough, it
will always end with a lie.

A tall young woman got up
from a neighboring table and passed them on the way to the rest
rooms with a little bag in her hand. She wore a very short evening
dress, and both men couldn’t help following her legs with their
eyes. Padovani pushed back his chair, dragging its feet, and stood
up.

“
I’m going to pee, too,”
he said loud enough to be heard by at the tables around
them.

He had trouble keeping his balance. He
adjusted the bra to see if it would help keep him from falling.
Ringo wanted to take his hand, but he pulled it away.

“
You can’t go where I need
to go.”

He winked, and Ringo
shrugged as if it weren’t important.

“
It’s okay.” He caressed
the telephone. “You’ll ‘return’ anytime now.”

Padovani didn’t even try
to walk straight on high heels and followed the girl with the nice
legs as fast as he could, considering that with his first step he’d
twisted both ankles. He entered the women’s room with a smile and
went to a sink to splash cold water on his face. In the mirror he
saw that his makeup had run. He dried his face with a paper towel
and waited until the girl finished in the stall to talk to
her.

He said that he was sick, which was obvious,
and asked to borrow her phone to call someone to take him home. The
girl hesitated but finally rummaged through her little purse and
took out a mobile. The Indian thanked her and punched in the number
for the director of the nursery. He still remembered it.

It wasn’t hard to explain
the situation. He was in a restaurant dining with a man who could
ruin Abramov’s career, FarmaCom’s good friend in the European
Agency. The director showed again that she was pragmatic: it didn’t
take them long to reach an agreement that benefitted both sides.
Now the Indian wondered how to enjoy it.

“
Ringo is waiting for a
call. I’m not sure, but I suppose it would help me if he couldn’t
get it.”

“
That’s easy. Tell me
where you are.”

Padovani hesitated a
second, but he had no other option. He had to do his part and hope.
He asked the girl in the short dress the address of the restaurant.
The owner of the telephone looked as if she hadn’t understood
anything. She was slow to react, but finally she gave the
information. Padovani thought that she’d get scared soon, so he
quickly passed on the information and hung up. He returned the
telephone to the girl, who ran out of the restroom without waiting
for him to thank her for saving his life.

XIII

Maybe Leidi had been
drinking to give herself courage. The advantage of a knife wasn’t
definitive against Sink-Tooth. Padovani decided to take advantage
of being in the restroom to empty his bladder. He lifted up the
toilet seat and stood there, still, confused, until he realized
that there was nothing that his hand could grab and point with. He
sighed. There are worse things in life, he thought, while he sat
and peed.

After that, he washed his
face again. Leidi’s smile was beautiful, much better in real life
than in the photo in her file. He felt good to see it. On the way
back to the table he rehearsed it. Now he had to entertain his
dinner partner until the FarmaCom people appeared. Ringo looked at
his telephone with a worried expression as if it wasn’t working
properly.

“
You took too
long.”

“
You won’t believe what
happened to me in the restroom.”

He looked around for the
girl in the short dress and fortunately didn’t find her. The Indian
blinked exaggeratedly, sat down without pulling in his chair, and
crossed his legs.

“
The girl from before. She
fondled my breasts and we kissed.”

Ringo stopped looking at
the phone. Padovani stretched his back and stuck out his chest. If
he was going to spend the rest of his life as a woman in a foreign
country, he’d have to get used to it. At least he had first-hand
experience about what heterosexual men liked. He began to invent a
story about what could have happened in the bathroom.

“
Wow,” Ringo repeated.
From time to time he glanced at his mobile, but he didn’t pay as
much attention to it as he had before.

A new waiter came, one
that hadn’t been seen before, and offered them a nightcap of
liquor.

“
On the house.”

The waiter winked, and Padovani knew he
could finish his story.

XIV

Ringo lay halfway over the table,
unconscious. The rest of the diners had been asked to leave, with
the excuse of a kitchen fire.

Just as he had agreed with the director,
they put an inhibitor in his nose right there in the restaurant. To
make it faster, he asked them to do it without anesthesia, since it
was well known that women could bear pain better.

Then he saw that the
FarmaCom men had begun to search Ringo’s body.

“
I doubt he carried the
papers on him.”

The waiter, the same one
who had served them the nightcap, smiled at him. Padovani returned
the smile, delighted to see how friendly everyone was toward him
now that he was a pretty young woman.
Who
knows
? he said to himself.