Zig Zag (6 page)

"Well,
it's my neighbor, you see... She's got a teenage son, a really nice
kid... Anyway, she just found out that he really loves those word
puzzles ... you know, those rebuses you do from the paper? Turns out
he's got all kinds of books and magazines. So, I told her I'm friends
with the number one rebus puzzler. And it turns out that he's been
trying to solve one, and he can't do it. He's really worked up about
it, and his mother's worried that he'll give up on this wholesome
hobby and take up something more questionable instead. And when she
told me about the specific puzzle in question, I realized that I knew
that one because you'd told me about it, but I can't remember the
answer. So I thought, 'I need
help.
And
Victor's the only one who can
help
me.
Do
you understand?"

"Of
course. Which one is it?" Victor had picked up on Elisa's
strange intonation and felt shivers descend, like unexpected visitors
from another planet. Was he imagining it, or was she trying to tell
him something else, something he could only pick up on by reading
between the lines?

"It's
the one with the steak and the atom, remember?" She burst out
laughing. "You do remember that one, don't you?"

"Sure,
that one was..."

"Listen,"
she cut him off. "I don't
need
you
to
tell me the answer. Just do what it says,
tonight.
It's
urgent. Do it as soon as you possibly can. I'm relying on you."
Suddenly she cackled again. "The kid's mother is relying on you,
too. Thanks, Victor. Bye."

There
was a click, and then the dial tone.

The
hair on Victor's neck stood up as if the phone had given him an
electric shock.

RARELY
in
his life had he had this feeling.

His
sweaty hands slid down the steering wheel, his heart was pounding
harder and harder, his chest hurt, and he felt like no matter how
deeply he inhaled, he couldn't get enough air into his lungs. For
Victor, this had only ever meant the possibility of sex.

The
few times he had gone out with girls who he knew, or suspected, he
could end up in bed with, he'd felt the same sort of torment.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, none of them ever made passes at him,
and his dates had always ended with a quick peck and the promise of a
phone call.

But
what about this? What kind of bed could he end up in tonight? This
date was with none other than Elisa Robledo.

Whoa!

He'd
been to her house before, sure (they were friends, after all, or he
liked to think they were), but always with other colleagues and never
so late at night; the other times being for some sort of celebration
(Christmas, the end of the semester) or to work on organizing a
seminar together. He'd fantasized about this ever since they met, ten
years ago, at an unforgettable party on the Alighieri campus. But
he'd never imagined it might come about in such a strange way.

Besides,
he would have sworn sex wasn't exactly what Elisa was at home waiting
for.

Thinking
about it, he laughed, and it did him good, put him slightly more at
ease. He pictured Elisa in her underwear, giving him a hug when he
arrived, kissing him and whispering provocatively, "Hello,
Victor. Glad you got the message. Come on in." His laughter
swelled like a balloon in his stomach, until finally it popped and
his customary serious nature returned. He ran through all the things
he'd thought, done, and fantasized about since the bizarre phone call
an hour ago: doubts, nerves, the desire to call her back and ask for
an explanation (but she'd told him not to), the rebus. Paradoxically,
the word puzzle was, in this case, the easiest thing to understand.
He remembered the answer perfectly, though he'd still rushed to pull
out his photo album and find the clipping. It was a recent one, and
showed what looked like a side of beef, an atom, an eye, and finally
the word "how" repeated three times. The question was
"Where's the party?" He'd solved it in less than five
minutes the day it was published. The words "meat," "atom,"
"I," and the repeated "how" made the sentence
"Meat+Atom+I+Hows"; said quickly, it was "Meet at my
house."

That
was the easy part. What he couldn't figure out was why, for example,
Elisa couldn't just ask him to come to her place. Why not tell him
straight out that she needed him to come over? What was the matter?
Could there be someone with her (no, please, God), someone there
threatening her?

Then
there was another possibility. One that was even more unsettling.
Elisa might be mentally ill.

The
best possible explanation, the most likely, was one he didn't care
for. He pictured it would go like this: he'd arrive, she'd open the
door, and they'd have a ridiculous conversation. "Victor, what
are you doing here?"

"You
told me to come over."

"Me?"

"Yes,
you said I should do what the rebus said."

"Oh,
no, you didn't think...!" And then she'd burst out laughing. "I
told you to
do
the puzzle
tonight,
to solve the riddle, not do what the
answer
said!"

"
But
you told me not to call..."

"I
just meant not to go to any trouble, I was going to call you later."
And Victor would stand there in the doorway feeling ridiculous as
Elisa laughed at him.

No.

That
was impossible. He was sure.

Something
was wrong. Something terrible. In fact, he knew Elisa had been going
through something terrible for years.

He'd
always suspected it. Like all reserved people, Victor had an uncanny
ability to gauge things that interested him. And few things
interested him more than Elisa Robledo Morande. He watched her when
she walked, talked, and moved, and he thought, "Something's
wrong." Whenever she passed by, her past was like a magnet to
him. He couldn't help but be attracted to her long black hair, her
athletic body, and he never doubted it. "She's hiding
something."

He
even thought he knew when and where the secret began. Her time in
Zurich.

He
navigated a detour and turned down Silvano. Slowing down, he began to
search for a parking place. No luck. He saw a man behind the wheel of
a parked car, but the guy waved him on, signaling that he wasn't
leaving.

Victor
passed Elisa's building and kept looking. Suddenly he saw a great
spot, braked, and started to back up.

That's
when it all happened.

A
moment
later, he wondered what made the human brain react the way it did in
these extreme situations. Because the first thing that occurred to
him when she appeared out of nowhere and knocked on the passenger
window was not how petrified she looked, or that she was as white as
a sheet; nor was it how odd it was that she'd practically leaped into
the car the second he leaned over to open the door. She whipped her
head around to look behind her as she shouted, "Go! Go! Drive!"

He
did not stop to think about the irate honking that his maneuver had
caused, or the headlights in his rearview mirror, or the screeching
of tires behind him that brought to mind—oddly—the parked
car he passed moments earlier, with its lights off, its driver behind
the wheel. He
felt
all
of those things, but none of them made it above his spinal cord.

There,
in his brain, his intellect was entirely focused on one thing.

Her
breasts.

Elisa
was wearing a low-cut T-shirt under her leather jacket, something
she'd clearly just thrown on at the last minute, too summery for the
cold March night. And her magnificent, round breasts were in plain
view. He couldn't tell if she was wearing a bra. When she leaned in
the window before climbing into the car, he'd stared at them. Even
now, as she sat beside him and he breathed in the smell of her soap
and leather jacket, feeling dizzy, he couldn't stop himself from
glancing sidelong to peek at her gorgeous chest.

He
didn't think it was wrong. He knew it was the only way his brain
could deal with the situation, set the world back in its place after
having suffered the terrible experience of seeing his friend and
colleague leap into the car, crouch down, and begin shouting
desperate orders. Sometimes men have to clutch at straws in order to
preserve their sanity. He'd clutched at Elisa's breasts. Correction:
he used the image of her chest in his mind to help himself calm down.

"Are
we... are we being followed?" he stammered as they reached Campo
de las Naciones.

She
turned to look back and said, "I don't know."

"Where
do you want me to go?"

"Take
the Burgos highway."

And
suddenly she crumpled, her shoulders shaking spasmodically.

Her
howling was horrific. Seeing her like this, the image of her breasts
vanished from Victor's mind. He'd never seen an adult cry like that.
Forgetting everything, including his own fear, he spoke with a
determination that surprised even himself.

"Elisa,
you've got to calm down. Listen to me. I'm here for you. I always
have been. I'm going to help you. Whatever it is, I'm going to help
you. I swear."

She
recovered suddenly, but he had the feeling it wasn't his words that
had that effect on her.

"I'm
sorry to drag you into this, Victor, but I had no choice. When I'm
scared to death, I'm evil. A total bitch."

"No,
Elisa, I..."

"Anyway,"
she cut him off, "I don't want to waste time apologizing."

That
was when he noticed the long, flat, plastic-wrapped object in her
hand. It could have been anything, but the way she held it was
intriguing: her right hand wrapped around one end of it, and the left
one stroked it almost imperceptibly.

THE
two
men, having just arrived at Madrid's Barajas International Airport,
were not asked to show any identification or go through security.
They didn't take the same tunnel to the terminal as the rest of the
passengers, either. Instead, they walked up an adjacent stairway. A
van awaited them. The young man in the driver's seat was polite,
courteous, and kind; he clearly wanted to practice his night-school
English on them.

"In
Madrid, there isn't so much cold, eh? I mean, now."

"You
said it," replied the older man, good-naturedly. He was tall and
thin, with snowy hair and a bald spot on top that he hid with a
comb-over. "I love Madrid. Come whenever I get the chance."

"In
Milan, I think it was cold," the driver continued. He knew where
their plane had come in from.