A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  “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.

  IV

  The official name of the center was the FarmaCom Tourist Exchange Residence, but everyone called it “the nursery.” Some were willing to stay there and wait until the moment when they could return to their country and earn the rest of the money stipulated in their contract. Others wanted to escape and become immigrants in Europe—something harder to do than ever.

  Inside the walled premises of the residence, there were two blocks, one for men and another, smaller one, for women. A lot of people worked there: nutritionists, trainers, coaches, beauticians, cooks, physical therapists, doctors, psychologists . . . who cared for the bodies of the clients while they were elsewhere enjoying their vacations. They made the exchangers go on diets, take beauty treatments, and exercise, a lot of exercise. There were also guards armed with electric prods and tranquilizer guns. They were the “jailers.”

  Normally, the guards didn’t mix with the exchangers or talk with them unnecessarily. But if one of the clients was important, they guarded his body closely, to the point of accompanying him to the showers. They had to, because the showers had no surveillance cameras. FarmaCom guaranteed its clients that no one could film them inappropriately while they were on their trip, and this included any kind of nudity. The exchangers showered in groups of fifteen, always the same shifts, so they got to know each other well, and as in any consolidated group, they paid special attention to new arrivals.

  “What the hell’s going on with him?”

  The black man, Vladimiro, pointed to a fat man, new to the group, who was acting strange. He had turned toward the tiled wall as if he was ashamed to be naked. Which was ridiculous, Vladimiro thought, because it wasn’t his own nakedness and he wasn’t responsible for how he looked. A pair of guards, their faces covered in sweat from the humidity, didn’t take their eyes off him.

  “The jailers told me he’s a woman,” Ringo answered quietly and kept soaping himself up.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “She’s named Leidi. She’s from Margarita Island . . . Venezuela.”

  “Fuck. . . . How did that happen?”

  Ringo shrugged.

  “Some degenerate faggot wanted to be a woman and check out Carribean dicks. And the client has to have a lot of cash because the jailers won’t let her be alone.”

  The men finished soaping up in silence. Then Vladimiro shook his head.

  “Poor girl. . . .” He grabbed her dick and pulled hard. “I don’t think I could stand a month with this white wanker, but at least they didn’t give me a cunt.”

  They wailed with laughter. The guards came over and warned Vladimiro about twisting the penis of a client. If he did that again, they’d dock his payment. Vladimiro raised his hands.

  “Okay, I’ll leave it alone. I won’t touch it again.”

  Ringo took the opportunity to complain loudly.

  “And aren’t you ashamed to bring her here? We all know she’s a woman. She should be in the other block!”

  There was a general murmur. The looks on the faces of the rest of the group were unmistakable: Despite what Ringo had said, they’d just learned about Leidi at that moment. They couldn’t imagine that inside that blushing fat man was the mind of a woman.

  One of the guards put his thumb in his weapons belt and got in Ringo’s face.

  “Don’t worry about her. We’re here to be sure you don’t get do anything funny and rape her.”

  The other guard laughed. Behind him, someone muttered “son of a bitch,” which was heard perfectly. The jailer who had approached Ringo turned around. One of the exchangers, the one they called “old man” or “Indian”—although he didn’t look old or Indian—stared back at him without blinking. His hands were curled into fists, and the water bounced off his pale skin covered in blond hair.

  “What are you looking at?”

  Ringo got between the two men and said he was going to file a complaint with the director. The guard pushed him away, his eyes locked on Padovani. No one breathed. A male voice, low and weepy, broke the silence.

  “Please, I’m done. . . . Please.”

  Everyone turned toward the fat man who seemed to be called Leidi. Then, without a word, t
he guards accompanied her to the dressing room. The only one there was.

  V

  “We have to take her with us.”

  Ringo spoke quietly, keeping his eyes on the cards, but glanced at the Indian Padovani and at everything that passed in front of the cell that the two shared. The Indian threw a card on the bed where they were seated and took another from the stock. He hardly moved his lips to speak.

  “They guard her closely.”

  “She can’t stand much more, old man. She’s going crazy.”

  “What will she do outside? Who’ll take care of her?”

  “You know who. Your friend.”

  The Indian shook his head.

  “Too many people. My friend’s shy. In fact, I don’t think you should come with me, either.”

  Ringo swallowed.

  “That’s okay. I’ll go with her on my own. But help me get her out of here, old man. . . . We’ll fuck these jailers alive. Let them laugh their asses off. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  Padovani looked up at the ceiling. The tourist he’d exchanged his body with didn’t seem Spanish: he had blue eyes and blond eyelashes. But the fire behind the pupils was Indian. To include Leidi in the escape plan seemed like an unnecessary risk. She was too fat and not very agile. Still, he got an idea that might even improve the chances of success for all three if she came with them. In any case, he remained cautious and didn’t promise anything.

  Ringo stopped insisting, as if the decision had already been made in Leidi’s favor. Padovani asked himself if, after just a couple of weeks, he had become too transparent to his cell mate. He didn’t want to have to trust a stranger, but Ringo wanted to escape just as much as he did, and he seemed to be a resourceful guy.

  “I’ll need some money to find my friend.”

  The Indian said that more to himself than in hope of a reply. Ringo asked him how much money he would need. Padovani searched through the Parcheesi pieces that they used to bet and picked out a yellow one.