by Jorge Magano
The darkness seemed blackest when he was alone with his pillow at night. He spent his days working at the magazine and busied himself searching for mysteries and hidden treasures. But when he finished an article or returned home from an expedition, he felt as if the earth was swallowing him up. His mother, the few times she’d seen him recently, had noticed the change. She had attributed it to a single cause, asking: “Why don’t you find yourself a nice girlfriend?” Jaime had burst out laughing. He didn’t think that was a good solution. At best, he’d simply infect someone else with his pessimism. Instead, he’d sold his old Renault 21 and was learning to shoot a gun. A positive way to deal with what he was feeling? Who could say?
And now there was this business with the Medusa . . .
God knew Jaime had tried to forget about the damn statue and enjoy his weekend, but good intentions weren’t enough. From the moment he’d arrived back at his guesthouse, he had been lying on the bed, looking at the drawing of the sculpture and thinking about the university study. He hadn’t exactly lied to Amatriaín when he said he’d never written an essay on Italian baroque sculpture, but that didn’t mean that no such study existed. A person who Jaime once had been very close to kept popping into his mind and then disappearing again after delivering a look of disdain and a single message:
Moron.
That one word, mysteriously conjured from the past, tormented him now just as it had after arriving by text message more than a decade earlier.
He grabbed his gin and tonic, leaned back against the bar, and looked around the room. On the dance floor in the back, just visible through dense smoke tinted with green light, a group of girls dressed in skimpy Friday-night attire danced to Shakira, Britney Spears, and El Canto del Loco. Jaime wondered whether they were just there to dance or they had something else in mind. It made no difference to him either way. He’d never been the type to approach a woman in a bar.
Or almost never: the one time he’d tried, his friend Roberto had been forced to step in to keep him from making a fool of himself. Since then, Jaime had always waited for women to take the initiative—something that, men know, almost never happens.
As he was mulling this over he felt a presence next to him at the bar. He turned to find himself next to one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.
She was tall, almost as tall as Jaime, with wavy black hair, bronzed skin, and bright, almond-shaped eyes accentuated by violet eye shadow that gave her an exotic look. Her sleeveless black dress was cut low enough to drive the bartender’s cleavage from his memory, and her legs were long and strong-looking. If she had looked any more appetizing, thought Jaime, she’d have to be served up on a toothpick.
“Hello!” she said with a disarming smile. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Jaime racked his brain, but it was pointless. If he’d crossed paths with this woman before, her image would have been etched into his memory. He could have said that, but he replied, “Nah. You’re mistaking me for my womanizing brother. I’m the intellectual one.”
The girl laughed, and Jaime, seeing the effect humor had on her, relaxed and readied his weapons of seduction: a series of silly phrases and amusing stories that usually worked on girls who were easily entertained. “That was a lie,” he corrected. “Actually, I have a sister, but she doesn’t look anything like me.”
“Too bad for her.”
“That’s what I always say.”
Jaime tensed when the stunning brunette began to flirt with her eyes. What was this? It wasn’t unusual for women to notice him. He was tall and slim—handsome even, his mother would say—but this was too easy. He wondered if the girl was Vicente Amatriaín in disguise, and he was tempted to stick his hand under her dress to find out. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Sandra.”
“Nice. I think you’re the first Sandra I’ve met.”
“Shame. They say good things come in threes.”
“Maybe they don’t in my life.”
Sandra laughed again. “And you are . . . No, wait. Let me guess. Jorge.”
“Almost: Jaime.”
“Hey, I was only . . .” She counted with her fingers and laughed again, “three letters off. But I could still swear I’ve seen you before.”
“You’re sure?”
“When you say it that way, I guess not.”
There are few things more stupid than a conversation between two strangers in a bar, Jaime thought. Which was precisely why he decided to relax and play the game. He put on his most carefree expression and bought the woman a drink. After all, that was what she was looking for.
After two martinis and a couple more gin and tonics, Jaime gleaned that Sandra was of Milanese origin, which explained her musical accent, and that for several years she had been living in Soria. She worked as an administrative assistant for an insurance company and had travelled to El Burgo de Osma for the weekend to get away from work pressures. She also mentioned a lawyer she’d been living with for two years, who had left Sandra for a colleague who was five years younger than her. Since then, Sandra said, she had stopped taking men seriously and now only used them for sex. This last part, said in such a self-assured, natural way, came as a pleasant surprise to Jaime, who in a short span of time had come to know all about the private life of this stunning brunette. She hadn’t even bothered to ask where he was from.
She drained the contents of her glass through lips painted violet to match her eyelids, then slowly leaned toward Jaime’s ear and whispered something.
“What did you say?” he asked over the crowd noise and music. “Speak louder!”
Sandra’s sudden laugh was a bit too enthusiastic. Clearly the martinis had gone to her head.
“I said, shall we leave? It’s so hot in here!”
“If you like. I’m easy prey today.”
She laughed again, and as she stepped back, bumped into a girl who was arguing with her boyfriend. Jaime recognized them as the angry couple from the restaurant, but he had no chance to acknowledge them, because Sandra had grabbed him by his belt and was dragging him, stumbling, toward the door.
The night was cool, and Sandra covered herself in the red overcoat she had reclaimed from a peg on the bar. As they walked together, Jaime listened to the rhythmic clacking of her heels and tried to guess her age. She might have been four or five years older than him, but her beauty and spirit made her age irrelevant. When they’d reached Casa Genaro, he opened the guesthouse door slowly to avoid any creaking sounds. “Don’t make any noise. The landlady might not like me bringing a drunk woman back to my room at this time of night.”
Sandra could not contain herself and let out a burst of laughter just as Jaime put one hand over her mouth. He scooped her up, one hand behind her knees, and carried her up the stairs. She smelled good, like berries. At the door to his room, he stopped and put her down. “It appears that you like me,” she said, giggling at the bulge below his belt.
“Don’t get too excited,” he replied, reaching into his pocket and taking out a big key that was chained to a domino. “But my pants are starting to feel tight.”
Sandra ran her tongue over her lips. “Maybe you should take them off.”
“Shh, be good for a minute. Once we’re on the other side of this door, you can be as bad as you like.”
Under the alcohol’s influence, Jaime wasn’t even surprised by his good luck. He hadn’t expected to go to bed with anything but his pillow and his own drunken self, so the unforeseen encounter was boosting both his self-esteem and his virility. However, the thrill was short-lived. He hadn’t yet managed to get the key in the lock when an alarm bell rang in his mind. Something was not right.
He looked at Sandra. Her expression had turned cold, and the “sweet girl” mask was gone, leaving a face as hard as granite. Jaime still didn’t understand what was happening until he felt a metal object p
ressing into his side over his leather jacket. Slowly, he dropped the key into his pocket then held up his hands.
“Very good, Einstein,” she said in a deep voice Jaime hadn’t heard before. “Now walk in front of me and down the stairs. Slowly and quietly.”
3
Sandra’s Italian accent had moved to the foreground, as if she’d suddenly reclaimed her ethnic roots. Jaime walked down the stairs, encouraged by the gun barrel pressing into him from behind. Adrenaline began to overcome the dulling effect of the alcohol on his brain and he became more aware of what was happening. His arms and legs trembled and his heart was beating at twice its normal speed, but his fear didn’t paralyze him. His biggest regret was having taken such obvious bait. Sandra was a textbook femme fatale.
Who do you think you are, fool? Brad Pitt?
He made an effort to breathe deeply, trying not to let panic set in. Near the bottom of the stairs he turned around with his arms still raised.
Sandra didn’t even blink. “Keep walking.”
“What is this, anyway? A holdup?”
“Just turn around and walk.”
Seeing that she wasn’t in a talking mood, Jaime obeyed. When they reached a closed door at the opposite end of the guesthouse lobby, Sandra shoved him inside. After waiting a few seconds to make sure all was quiet, she followed him in and closed the door behind her. “Very good. Now tell me who you’re working for.”
Jaime blinked as he tried to take in the absurd question. “Working? I’m here on vacation.”
Though he was past the initial shock, he was still dazed and confused. He feared that the alcohol’s effects would make him appear braver than he really was and he’d end up with a bullet in him for talking too much.
Looking around, he saw that they were in the guesthouse kitchen. Strings of garlic hung from the ceiling, and the remains of a rabbit rested on the countertop. The only light came from a streetlamp, filtered in through the translucent glass of the door to the outside.
“If you’re on vacation you must work somewhere.”
“All right, I’ll tell you.” Jaime took a breath and, without thinking first about what he was going to say, he let the alcohol do the talking. If she got mad, so much the better; the more noise she made, the more likely she was to wake the guesthouse owners or some other guest. “I’m police. The chief asked me to investigate all the horny brunettes in Castilla-León and find out whether they’d be prepared to screw our informers to make them talk. Or the captain, to help him let off some steam. Or all of us, so we stop demanding a Christmas bonus . . .”
The whole thing didn’t come out as witty as Jaime would have liked. Fearing imminent payback, he threw up his hands to protect himself. But the woman was no fool and she didn’t make a move toward him. Instead, she started laughing. He felt ridiculous.
“You’re wasting your breath. No one’s coming down here until tomorrow morning, so I have all night to find out what I want to know.”
“Oh yeah? Well I warn you, I charge by the word.”
“For me you’ll do it for free.”
“You wish.”
“Oh, you’re going to tell me what I want to know and you’re going to be quick about it. There are plenty of things in this kitchen I can use to help with your interrogation.”
“You’re going to gouge my eyes out with a spoon? If you do that I’ll scream.”
“If you scream, I’ll blow your head off.”
“And if you blow my head off . . .” Unable to think of a way to finish the sentence, Jaime abruptly thrust his hand under her dress. Sandra turned red and slapped him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing, just checking something.” Jaime stroked his chin.
Sandra pushed her pistol against his forehead.
“Enough games. I’ll repeat the question: Who are you and who are you working for?”
It occurred to Jaime that he could save himself a lot of misery if he just followed this psychopath’s instructions.
“If I tell you, will you explain what all this is about?”
Sandra stood motionless, still holding the weapon as Jaime looked back in a stupor. She cut a striking image: a beautiful and dangerous woman in a black dress and red overcoat, pointing a gun at him. All that was missing was the wailing of a saxophone. And a Dashiell Hammett signature.
“All right,” she said, lowering the pistol.
“My name’s Jaime Azcárate. I work for the magazine Arcadia and I’m here to see the Ars Homini exhibition. I’m a Libra, I live in Madrid, I don’t have a girlfriend, and my mother insists I should find one. Though if she met you, I’m certain she’d change her mind.”
“A sensible woman. What’s your relationship with Vicente Amatriaín?”
There it was. The little light that had been flickering in his mind began to blaze. Two events as unusual as these happening in one day? Of course they were related.
“Amatriaín? If you’d asked me that earlier you could’ve saved me the trouble of reaching under your dress.”
Ignoring the comment, Sandra deftly dug through her purse with her free hand and took out a crumpled piece of paper.
“And he gave you this?”
Jaime winced upon finding himself face-to-face again with Medusa. He had done his best to forget all about the business of the statue, but everything was working against him.
“If I’d known you were already acquainted with my hotel room, I’d have suggested going to your place.”
“Did Amatriaín give you this drawing? Yes or no?”
Jaime quickly explained that Vicente Amatriaín had approached him in the restaurant and asked him for help in the case of the stolen sculpture. He emphasized what he’d told Amatriaín: that all he wanted to do was relax and forget about things. That, Jaime told her, was why he had gone into that bar at such an unlucky moment.
Sandra regarded him silently for a few seconds, looking not at all convinced. “You’re saying you didn’t already know him.”
“I’d never seen him before. I’d remember those white teeth and nasty scars.”
“Yet you both happened to be in El Burgo de Osma at the same time, and then in the same restaurant, where he took a liking to you and gave you a drawing of the statue he’s searching for. Either I’m stupid or I’m missing something here.”
“Or both. What does the sculpture have to do with you?”
“It’s a long story—one I’m not about to tell you.”
Jaime considered the possibility that this was a case of mistaken identity and that, despite how things looked, Amatriaín, not Sandra, was the villain in the story. He recalled that Amatriaín had not shown him any identification. What if all that stuff about the EHU was a lie and he wanted Jaime to help him find the sculpture for some other, unknown purpose? He decided to resolve the matter directly. “Are you a cop?”
Sandra smiled at his naiveté.
“Do you really believe that’s a possibility?” She looked at the clock and then aimed at Jaime again. “Sorry, caro. Time’s up.”
Jaime tensed. The woman’s stony glare could mean only one thing. “You wouldn’t shoot me here,” he said.
“Shoot you? What we have in store for you is far more subtle.”
“We? Who’s we?”
Her weapon still pointed at him, Sandra made her way to the walk-in freezer located at one end of the kitchen. When she opened the door, a cloud of frosty air floated out, then quickly dissolved. She signaled for Jaime to step inside. “You’re going to freeze me?” he asked in disbelief.
“You know the castle on the hill, at the entrance to the town? In three hours your lifeless body will be outside it. You’ll be taken for a foolish, drunken homeless person who fell asleep out in the open and froze to death. The autopsy will reveal nothing abnormal and there’ll be no investigation.
How’s that for subtle?”
“No, no, wait. You’re making a mistake. Amatriaín gave me the drawing but I don’t know anything about it and I never wanted to. I left it in my room, wadded up in a ball, just the way you found it. I don’t want anything to do with that Medusa’s head! What else do I have to say to convince you?”
“To tell you the truth, this plan was for Amatriaín, but he’s managed to get away. Don’t worry, though. He’ll join you soon enough.”
Jaime began to breathe heavily. He lifted his arms and walked around the kitchen, trying to hide the fact that his legs were trembling again. “They’ll never believe I was a drunken tramp.”
“I don’t give a damn what anyone believes. I’ll be long gone by the time they discover the truth, if they ever do.”
“Why are you doing this? I’m telling you—I have nothing to do with Amatriaín. What is it about this Medusa that’s so important?”
Just as she was about to reply, the translucent glass in the door lit up, and a dreamlike shadow was projected onto it.
Someone was coming. Jaime took his chance.
Quickly, he launched himself against Sandra, who could not keep her balance in those heels and immediately fell backward and hit the wall. The pistol flew out of her hand and Jaime managed to grab it. Suddenly the rules of the game had changed: now he was the one aiming the weapon at the startled woman in the red overcoat. “You should be more careful,” he said, smiling.
“You don’t say,” she said, smiling back.
Her lack of concern alarmed Jaime, but his apprehension came too late. By now the door had opened and the figure he had seen through the glass was standing beside him, holding a long object. The man was dressed in black and wore a demented smile beneath his mustache. “Buona sera,” he said. “Can I help you?”
