Shadows Across America

by Guillermo Valcarcel

  Outside the hotel the next morning, the sight of Adrian Calvo in a suit tucked over a Kevlar vest was both amusing and ominous. He was accompanied by three men wearing the same protective gear over sweatshirts, black pants, and military boots. They were carrying two AK-47s and an MP7, making them indistinguishable from a team of drug traffickers or special ops. Their aggressive paramilitary appearance didn’t overly impress Ethan. When Calvo saw him, he jumped back.

  “What happened to you? Did you get into a fight with a cat?”

  “A domestic accident.”

  “You’re not doing a very good job of going incognito.”

  “You might call it a lot of effort with little reward.”

  “Let’s hope that doesn’t apply to all your ventures. Do you want one of these?”

  He held out a vest, which Ethan took reluctantly. “Do you really think it’s necessary?”

  “Not at all, but it looks intimidating. Don’t wear it if you don’t want to—you know how much they make you sweat.”

  The party got into a pair of black Range Rovers that only enhanced their military aesthetic. Ethan noticed that the license plates were factory issue.

  “They’re not registered?”

  Calvo smiled. “We won’t have any trouble with that here. Better this way, don’t you think?”

  They drove out of the capital and up into the northern hills, which were sprinkled with high-end residential areas linked together by malls. Soon afterward they came to more dispersed, villagelike settlements and turned down a street blocked by a barrier with a guard post manned by a bored security guard. Ethan saw the signs posted on every corner: THIS COMMUNITY IS PROTECTED BY PRIVATE SURVEILLANCE. The guard came out to question the driver of the first vehicle, and they had a brief conversation finished off with a friendly smile and the handing over of several bills. The employee lifted the barrier, and the small convoy got through the checkpoint. They parked close to a small country house surrounded by enormous hedges. It looked idyllic. The commandos got out and pulled on balaclavas, exuding violence from every pore. Ethan came last, just behind Calvo, who was mopping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, gasping in the heat.

  “Oh, the heat, it’s so draining . . .”

  “Are we just going to knock on the door? I thought we were going to break it down.”

  Calvo smiled under his hood. “It’s all just for show.”

  A small explosion blew the lock open. The three assistants set out running, pointing their guns and shouting as they searched each room. Ethan heard the detective’s stifled laugh.

  “We like to use the plastic explosives with foreigners. It scares them shitless.”

  They followed their companions inside while Calvo expounded on all the different ways in which one could intimidate a suspect. Ethan looked around the house. It was cool and colorful, with plenty of plants, tasteful blinds, and ethnic decor: an intimate, inviting space. As he walked through a bedroom, he noticed a camera tripod and shivered. In the living room, a large window looked out onto the jungle. The three hooded men were holding down a man in his thirties. One of them pressed his head against the floor with his knee. His boss gestured to let him go. Next to him was a pair of hard drives he had been trying to hide when he was caught. Calvo gestured again, and one of his men opened a backpack and took out a laptop, which he then connected to one of the drives.

  As Ethan watched, he realized that no one was in any hurry. They didn’t appear to be expecting the police or for anyone around to report them. He suddenly understood the culture of impunity in which he found himself: right now it was working in his favor, but that situation could change at any moment.

  The target didn’t look like a stereotypical pedophile: he wasn’t morbidly obese, covered in acne, or lacking in personal hygiene. In fact, in his designer glasses he looked like an attractive surfer. His naked torso was shaved and toned, his beard was carefully trimmed, and his mat of red hair gave him a dreamy look. He wouldn’t have had any trouble attracting the company of either sex. Instead, he was sweating, begging them not to access the secrets on the hard drives. The second hooded man came back from another room with another laptop belonging to the detainee.

  “The password, you bastard.”

  He tried to play dumb.

  “The password, you son of a bitch!”

  Sobbing, the man spelled it out, and Ethan noticed that they weren’t doing him any harm. Even the way they held him down was gentle enough not to leave any marks. They were professionals and knew exactly the purpose of their mission. They were limiting themselves to verbal violence, and it seemed that was more than enough.

  The two specialists searched through the computers while the third stayed on the ground; Calvo searched the house, more out of curiosity than because he was looking for something in particular. They opened hundreds of folders and focused on the ones dated around the time that Michi had gone missing. Each of them contained thousands of pictures of girls posing clothed and naked in many different positions, most of them obscene. For a few minutes, the owner denied that they belonged to him. Then they started to delete them, and he screamed at them to stop. His whine attracted Calvo’s attention from his iPhone. The detective looked up at Ethan and felt that he needed to explain himself.

  “I wasn’t chatting—I don’t do that kind of thing. I don’t know how to work these devices.”

  Their prisoner was still whimpering. Calvo addressed him, still struggling with his phone. “So they are yours after all? We’re deleting every single one.”

  “No, please. They’re my angels. I don’t hurt them. I give them things; I help them. I just take photos dishabille. They know; their mothers know; they’re so pretty . . . they’re completely safe . . .”

  His voice was trembling. His captors responded to his pathetic display with disgust. Calvo finally found what he was looking for.

  “Here it is!” He turned to Ethan. “I was about to ask you if you had any photos of the girl. I couldn’t find them.”

  This made Ethan realize that, oddly, he hadn’t asked for a picture of Michi, as though the image were somehow already fixed in his brain. Somewhat apprehensive, he went over to Calvo, who showed him the screen.

  “This should be good enough for him to recognize her, shouldn’t it?”

  Ethan nodded, knowing that he shouldn’t let his accent give him away but mostly because his fears had been confirmed. He hadn’t seen her in six years, but five minutes ago he could have described her in detail and would have been spot on. Disoriented by a disturbing sense of déjà vu, he realized that he knew exactly what her voice sounded like as well: he’d spoken to her only a couple of nights ago.

  Oblivious to his discomfort, Calvo started his interrogation in Spanish, clearly trying to upset the subject, who had difficulty understanding.

  “Where is she? Where have you stashed her, cocksucker? Tell me, or I’ll rip your balls out through your mouth!”

  The abuser cried out, swearing that he’d never seen her before. He had no idea what they were talking about. Unfortunately, he was quite convincing.

  “We know you sell them, you motherfucking son of a bitch. To other perverts like you, you sack of shit. Tell us who you sold her to, or we’ll give you something to remember us by.”

  Sitting on the ground, the abuser tried to speak as best he could. “No . . . I’ve never seen her before. I promise. They . . . no one, no one here paid for that girl. I promise—”

  “We want the names of your customers! They’ll tell us the truth once we’re done with you!”

  “They’re all here on my phone, in my pocket. And on my computer. But I promise you none of them did anything to that girl. You can check.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “She’s . . . too old.”

  Calvo stepped back in disgust and went outside. Ethan followed him after making sure that the computer searches didn’t turn up anything. Calvo took off his mask to smoke a cigarette.


  “We’ll take the material to search further, but you saw his face. I told you.”

  “Yeah, this isn’t the guy. Aren’t there any other leads? Is there anyone else?”

  “There always are, but this was our best bet.”

  “The police aren’t coming.”

  The detective smiled his mischievous smile. “They gave us an hour, and we still have half an hour left. Let’s go back inside and make him squeal like the little shit he is.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that we go home. It’s lunchtime. I’ll let you know what we do from here.”

  “No, I mean him. Aren’t you going to hand him over to the police?”

  “To who? The captain we paid before coming here? The same guy that bastard pays every month to cover up his disgusting ways? Who makes sure that no one ever sees the photos or that a judge never gets wind of it? Then he really would be fucked. If you ask people around here, they’d have nothing bad to say about him. He’s generous to the girls and their families; no one has complained. You’re telling me this doesn’t go on in other places? Hypocrisy isn’t exclusive to the first or third worlds. But that’s not what prevents me from killing him here and now. You can do it if you like.”

  Calvo unfastened his vest, stuck his hand underneath, and took out a medium-caliber handgun. “Here’s the gun you asked for. It’s clean, filed, untraceable. We’ll leave and let them know that he’s free and unharmed. He’ll call the guards that keep him safe, and they’ll come by to console him—‘Why didn’t you call before, man?’ ‘We’ll protect you, my liege’—and they’ll take money from everyone, him and us. If I don’t hand him over or something happens to him, tomorrow I’ll turn up in a sewer somewhere wrapped in plastic. But no one knows about you. We can leave you in an unmarked car; then you wait until we leave and do it. No one knows you. No one will come looking for you. You go in, shoot, leave. It’d be as simple as that.”

  Ethan didn’t answer.

  The detective threw away his cigarette and stepped on it before going on. “There’s another reason to keep him alive. It might sound terrible, but he’s useful. It’s not the first time we’ve had to find a child. He’s at the center of all the networks of foreign pedophiles. At least we know where we can find him and that he’s weak. It’s awful, isn’t it? The world isn’t how we’d like it to be, I know. It’s tough.”

  The drill bored into his head, filling it with light. It was about to pierce his brain. Ethan realized he was asleep, or at least he had been. The sun was flooding through the curtains. The shrill motor continued to pound at his skull until he finally realized it was the vibration of his phone from the drawer in the nightstand. What a way to be woken up. He opened it and realized that it was the phone Suarez had given him dancing from one corner of the drawer to the other. The voice on the other end of the line was just as grating as the drill.

  “We have a problem.”

  Ethan yawned as he answered. “Have you been exposed already?”

  “Don’t be stupid. I have some information about your tail. You know her.”

  “Uh-huh?” Ethan said. The only thing on his mind was that he needed to take a piss.

  “Her name is Leidy Durán Zamora, girlfriend of a kid named Beto, whom I assume you know because he’s the missing girl’s youngest uncle. The girl was following you and then met up with her brother, a boy named Jonathan. He runs with rather unsavory characters. What does that suggest to you?”

  Ethan sat up, now fully, almost painfully awake. “What’s the problem? What do they know?”

  “Nothing so far. Yesterday, I paid a girl to hook up with Jonathan at a bar, slipped a little something in his drink too. She came back out with everything, including his phone. The kid’s still probably passed out somewhere with no idea what happened to him or that he’s missing anything. That could work in our favor.”

  “I’m getting tired of this. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Once I’d got confirmation, I talked to Don Andrés and told him. I asked him to be patient and wait for us to decide what to do.”

  “Why didn’t you call me before? Why don’t the three of us meet up? Of course we have to wait; we need to follow them and turn the tables.”

  “Don Andrés agreed, but it doesn’t sit well with him. He went to talk to his pastor, and he told him that he had to deal with the situation through dialogue and by letting the truth come to light. Only the serpent deals in lies and works in the shadows. He called me a few minutes ago to tell me. Now I’m calling you.”

  “Andrés can’t talk to them!”

  “No, he can’t. I told him so.”

  “You should have stopped him.”

  “That’s why I’m talking to you. I’m working as fast as I can, but you didn’t answer your phone.”

  “You should have called me first!”

  “I’ve done my duty in accordance with my instructions. Nobody changed them.”

  “You fucked up!” Ethan shouted in a rage. “You know it. Admit it!”

  “Nobody here has made a mistake, not even Andrés. Each of us has made a decision, and we must accept that. These are what are known as consequences. Now, do you want to go on arguing or resolve the situation?”

  Ethan hung up before he said something he’d regret. He looked for the other phone to try to stop Andrés. It took him a few minutes, which felt like a lifetime. He remembered Andrés’s moral scruples well, and it seemed he’d only grown worse having found religion. Finally, he got through, and after a couple of rings, Andrés answered. He was driving.

  “Good morning, Don Ethan.”

  “Andrés! Andrés, listen, stop for a moment. Where are you?” He tried to get dressed as he spoke, hopping from one side of the room to the other.

  “Suarez called you. I know. I know that you don’t agree with what I’m doing, but you must forgive me. The Lord knows what’s right, and he’s never wrong.”

  “OK, OK, you’re right. It’s not like that. I think it’s the right thing to do, too, but give me half an hour, and we’ll sit down and talk about it. Let’s meet, without Suarez. We don’t need to involve him in this.”

  “I understand: you’re detectives, and this is how you work, but there’s another world, one more important than your investigations—”

  “Andrés, this could be very bad for Michi, do you understand? Think of her and what we’re trying to do. We have a very good lead—”

  “My brother. My own brother, her uncle. Forgive me, Don Ethan, but that little kid . . . oh, praise be the Lord, he wanted this to happen because it’s best for us. We shall never understand his plan, but . . .”

  Ethan thought he heard a repressed sob.

  “I knew . . . I always knew, but I couldn’t set him right. I need to talk to that unfortunate young man. He—he always . . . he isn’t to blame. He grew up without a father, and our mother couldn’t . . . but . . . forgive me, Don Ethan. I need to deal with this myself.”

  “Do me a favor: wait for me. I’m going over there right now. Just give me a chance; we’ll all sit down together and say what we need to say. Please, just wait for me.”

  “I’m almost there, Don Ethan. I’ll talk to my mother first, but with or without you I’ll talk to him just the same. It’s God’s will.”

  Ethan couldn’t stand his evangelical sanctimony. He couldn’t help thinking that it was suffering that pushed people into believing in promises of a better life. He picked up his local telephone and weighed the pistol in his hand for a few moments. He didn’t want to bring it to Michelle’s home, but he knew that talking to Leidy and her brother would lead to a confrontation, and he had no idea what the consequences might be. He looked at it and put it back down, reassuring himself with the thought that he wouldn’t need to pacify Beto and Jonathan at the same time.

  When he arrived at Michelle’s house, he saw Beto’s ride and Andrés’s car, leading Ethan to believe that they’d all be together for some time. He went to knock on the
door but saw that it was half-open already and pushed it. He heard a muffled conversation coming through the closed kitchen door. The remaining rooms were empty. He knocked, asking permission to come in, and found Andrés and Doña Maria inside. They jumped when they saw him.

  “Did Beto let you in?”

  “No, the door was open. I didn’t see anyone.”

  “Betito, are you there?” Michelle’s mother called from her seat.

  The sound echoed without response. Andrés, surprised, called out too.

  “Beto! He was here a moment ago; where is he?”

  Ethan got straight to the point. “Andrés, have you spoken to him?”

  “No, I was waiting for you, like I said. I was telling Mom—”

  “Listen, I don’t like accusations—”

  “Let’s go!” Ethan said, ignoring Doña Maria. “We have to get to Leidy’s house!”

  Andrés jumped up, and both men ran outside.

  “Here, we’ll take the car.”

  “Where’s the house?”

  “Over there, it’s the one on that corner—”

  Ethan was off and running. Andrés tried to keep up, but he didn’t have the stamina and soon fell behind. The brief run was enough to attract the attention of the entire neighborhood. It was used to such scenes, but they generally featured half-naked Mara, not a pair of well-dressed men.

  When Ethan was about 150 feet away, he saw a guy leaning haughtily in the front entrance, wearing a string vest, sweatpants, and designer sneakers, his eyes glaring. It was Jonathan. Ethan stopped. A neighborhood audience watched expectantly. Trusty Andrés came trotting along, sweating and surrounded by gawkers. Some of them started to ask what was going on.