5—Lucia, as a child.
Lucia was nine when she witnessed a fact that would change her life forever.
It happened on a Saturday afternoon, while swinging in a small park across the street, in front of the building where she lived with her parents. It was an old building block of four storeys. It had three flats per floor. Lucía lived in the 2nd B. On the ground floor the Jomer was exhibited shining a 500-square-meter space dedicated to the game, camouflaged under the appearance of an elegant cafe. Its owner, Mr. Isaac Jiménez, was known for his good hands with the cards. He presumed to be the best poker player in the city despite being only thirty-two years old, as well as being famous for being the second coach of football club Orense Sports Club in whose spheres he was known by the nickname "Softie".
That afternoon, as she was swinging, Lucia watched as Isaac Jiménez parked his brand-new Porsche 911 next to the Jomer, leaving three meters of space between the nose of the Porsche and an old Iveco van, enough to take another utility, without any need to dent the bumper Of the Porsche. But before Isaac and his companion Diego Suances, better known by his albino appearance as "the Swede", put a single foot out of the car; A driver of about forty years of age and with a face of desire to fight had hit his Seat 131 Super suddenly against the Porsche of "Peluso", making a sudden manoeuvre of parking, more typical of a blind, than an adult with driving license in order. Then everything happened. Isaac got out of the car, dressed elegantly as usual in a classic black suit, his nervous gaze first observed his companion Diego Suances who began unbuttoning his leather jacket letting glimpse the head of his revolver in case there was trouble. Then he walked along the street, at that hour there seemed to be no soul. The people stayed in their houses busy with their daily chores. At last his eyes met with Lucia's. It wasn’t the first time that the brat went out to play at siesta time, except she didn’t have any other children to play with in the park.
—It's your fault, for not giving me enough parking space, because you have a Porsche do you think the whole street is yours? —Rudesindo said, wielding a baseball bat in his hands.
Isaac Jiménez was furious when he saw a beacon of his newly acquired broken Porsche.
—You stupid shit! You broke my car and you insult me.
—Of course! Dumbass! Learn how to park! —Said Rudesindo, brandishing the bat, slammed into Isaac's gleaming Porsche's hood, producing an insulting dent.
This action filled his patience, Softie grabbed his Star wielding the weapon with the precision of a Swiss watch, directed the barrel directly into the heart of Rudesindo, doing a balancing exercise simply perfect; He pressed the trigger with three shots at point-blank range. Then he picked up the gun, put it back in the holster, before loading the corpse into the trunk of the Porsche and disappearing at full speed down the street making a sudden manoeuvre to the left to join the merging traffic that travelled at those hours on the street Río Búbal.
Lucia began to shake hard on the seat of the swing, like a leaf drawn by a strong blizzard, trying to forget what she had seen. The weapon was especially silent so no one seemed to hear anything inside the Jomer, nor in the adjoining buildings. Except Lucía Marquez, who at the young age of nine was faced with the responsibility of being the only witness to a crime.
Rudesindo Estévez was a neighbour of Lucía Márquez, residing in the 1st B and had reported Isaac Jiménez several times for noises at untimely hours, so that Softie had been forced to make extensive renovations in the premises until it was completely soundproofed. His body appeared at dusk floating on the Barbaña river face up. Police found his car parked next to the Jomer with the dented rear bumper and shattered rear headlights. After spending several hours questioning the neighbourhood, no one seemed to have seen anything. The widow of the deceased assured the inspector in charge of the case that it had been Isaac Jiménez who had murdered him.
In the morning the inspector assembled seven men, all of whom used to be regular customers of the Jomer. Lucia knew most of them by having seen them enter and leave the premises with Isaac Jiménez several times. The men were stiff as infantrymen lined up on the sidewalk in front of the cafeteria.
—Please, gentlemen, look to the front! —The Inspector said sharply.
Then, turning to Lucia, he asked:
—Is this one?
The girl stared at the first at the suspects. He was a man in his mid-fifties, grey-haired, thin moustache, elegant in spite of the roughness of his features, his name was Pablo Álvarez Gómez.
—Was he? —Asked the inspector.
—No, —Lucia said, her heart pounding in her toy chest.
The next was a stocky man of about forty-five with a history of drug trafficking, especially heroin. He was known by his nickname, Don Silvio. His real name was Jesus Alonso Aurelio.
—Was it him? —The inspector asked again.
—No, —Lucia said, calmly observing the ferocious scars on the man's face.
Number three was a very old man whose slow rounds made him look intellectual, he had been a sports journalist, after retiring, Softie had hired him as a dealer for his skill in handing out letters. Everyone knew him as Abellás.
After acknowledging it, Lucia denied once more.
The fourth was Ramon Gonzalez, also known as Uncle Sam was an officer and trainer of fry; As well as an accomplished specialist in slot machines. He used to traffic with Maria in his spare time. Lucia denied it again.
Fifth, he was an incredibly tall and strong guy. He was in charge of the personal protection of Isaac Jiménez. Lucio Sánchez, besides being a personal bodyguard of Softie, he was a great bookmaker. Lucia looked at him frightened as she made another negative gesture with her small jaw, then the last two men arrived. This was of course the band's bosses.
Diego Suances and Isaac Jiménez exchanged glances of fear.
Lucia stood in front of Diego. Her heart was beating so hard that when the inspector asked, “Is this one?" she was about to faint; However, she tried instead to reassure herself. She held her breath and stared at Diego in the eyes, she denied again, to find herself suddenly face to face with the real killer, the man who would change her life forever. She had only to answer with an affirmative gesture and that man would pay for his crime. However, Softie was very handsome. As a child she'd wanted to have a boyfriend like him, wearing those expensive costumes, with those blue eyes of Robert Redford, driving luxury sports cars. He was her idol, the greater she wanted to be like him: A gangster. For a few seconds Lucia stared at him as hypnotized, so the inspector was forced to repeat the question again:
—Was it him, Lucia?
—No, —said Lucy, addressing to the inspector.
—Are you sure? —Added the policeman.
Lucia looked back at Isaac. She was radiant with her golden hair brushing her delicate complexion.
—It's not him, —he said at last after a brief pause.
—Come, gentlemen! Go away! — ordered the inspector.
The men melted away in the Jomer. Lucia ran to her house. Her father was waiting for her at the entrance to the apartment. Embracing his knees, the child burst into tears.
—Whatever you have said, my child! Surely that was the right thing to do. We must all act accordingly to our conscience. I don’t want to see you play in that park again. Do you understand, my girl?
—Yes Dad.
Lucia wasn’t interested in how to earn her bread like her father. Driving a truck was a very absurd and boring way of sightseeing. The school wasn’t interesting too much neither, she never believed that something could be achieved in life by personal sacrifice. The only books she liked were the adventure and police novels, especially those by Agatha Christie. She didn’t share the same aspirations as her friends Mireia, Susana and Ruth, who wanted to be journalists; her dream was to become a thief of jewels. She would only abandon that dream years later, when she discovered that drug trafficking brought more money.
Lucia ignored her father's orders to go to the
park again, while her father spent weeks away from home doing long routes with the truck, she played with her best friends at school, she especially liked Swings and slides cylindrically. Four long years passed. Lucía had become an attractive teenager of seventeen, with delicate features, bathed in a half-mane. She had stopped going down to the park for some time to play on the swings. Now she did it to sit with her friends on a wooden bench and smoke sly blond tobacco and if there was luck some hash or weed.
—Why don’t you study more? —Susana asked Lucia on a hot autumn afternoon.
Susana wore a plaid skirt and a black T-shirt. She was almost as tall as Lucia and equally attractive.
—I hate that filthy school. I would like to be someone important. No one has become a millionaire at work, —Lucia replied.
— What don’t you have other values? —Susana asked again.
—For me, the only thing worth having is money, —Lucia replied.
Ruth was the smallest of the three. She was brunette, just like Lucia and Susana. Mireia, unlike her friends, didn’t smoke and hardly drank alcohol. She was also the only blonde in the gang and the tallest of the four. Mireia was six years older than her friends, so she had unwittingly become a kind of mother to the rest of the girls.
—Why do they call you Amoebas in class? —Lucia asked, addressing to Susan and Ruth.
—It's envy, —Ruth answered—. As we always study together, the answers that one knows also the other knows, so we always get similar notes in the exams.
—Oh! Is that why you are compared to those mutable cells?
—Yes, a very scientific nickname, which we don’t dislike at all, —Susana said this time. We are like twin sisters, flour of the same sack.
—I prefer to have my own identity, —Lucia replied.
—Yes, that's why you get such mediocre grades. In fact, if it were not for your father's insistence, you would not even get the courses forward, —Susana attacked again.
—I have other aspirations higher than to obtain matriculation of honour, I will be satisfied to finish the institute. I prefer to spend my time on something more exciting than hoarding useless knowledge. I've thought about starting work for Isaac Jiménez.
—You're crazy, —Susanna said—. They will not allow a brat like you to their elitist gang.
—They will, —Lucia said—. They will be delighted, they owe me a favour for years and it is time to go and collect it. I'll just tell him I saved his neck once. From now on, I won’t give you more details. Today I plan to go to his place and ask for work.
—Your father will kill you, —Mireia said.
—He doesn’t have to know. My old man is a very old-fashioned man. I aspire to much more in life than to earn my bread honestly. Anyone who likes to work doesn’t have much. People always insist on making it difficult. It is much more productive, for example, to be an official or political.
—Yes, but that's what we must study for, —Susana said.
—Yes, but only what is necessary. I will continue with the studies. I will find the way to go beyond the courses, although for this I must bribe some professor.
— How did you do it with the Chemistry exams in September? —Susana asked.
—I don’t mind exploiting my body, —Lucia replied.
That afternoon she and Mireia headed toward the Jomer, while Susana and Ruth disappeared to their respective homes. Lucia wore tight jeans, a white blouse and a denim jacket to match the Levi's. Mireia wore a black miniskirt and a white T-shirt with Estrella Galicia's advertising, they sat at the bar on a pair of tall stools, ordered two Coca Colas, both looked at the table at the bottom, through a small screen of Red cloth could hardly distinguish the faces of Isaac Jiménez, Diego Suances, Don Silvio and Ramón González. The latter noticed the presence of the girls and warned Isaac. Isaac said something to Don Silvio. He put his muscular body in motion. He wore a blue silk shirt and black dress trousers, a chain with a Byzantine Christ of solid gold hanging from his neck, like the rest of the scrap that adorned his fingers.
He approached the girls quietly and only stopped when he was near the youngest girl. Lucia was astonished by his bulkiness. Though she had observed him several times, she had never seen him so close. He must have been about forty-five, his skin brown and his hair dark.
—Lady, the chief wants to see you, —he said in a husky, masculine voice, in a tone that seemed, more like an order that didn’t allow reproaches, rather than a friendly suggestion.
Isaac made a place for Lucia to take a seat beside him.
—This is my girl, —he said—. We are all indebted to this brave young woman, surely that her father will be proud of her.
Lucia had to play her cards well. She had waited a long time for that occasion and perhaps it would not appear again, so she chose to leave preliminaries aside and went straight to the point. Looking directly into Softies’ eyes with an improper coldness of a girl of her age, and said:
—I'm at your service for whatever it takes. All I ask is that you give me a chance. Just like I didn’t fail you four years ago, I won’t fail you this time. I need a job. You know important people, I can move material. I'll be the best mail girl you ever had. I'll do whatever it takes. I can also sell, buy merchandise ... you know what I mean.
The four men were stunned, as if subject to their seats by invisible arms. -“That brat had it well," thought Diego Suances.
—This man, —said Softie, referring to Diego Suances—, is a great friend, like a brother to me. He can start you in our business, but I must warn you that we are not pizzas that we share.
—Isaac, —said Lucia—, I assure you that I haven’t come here to wash dishes, nor to distribute chocolates, nor do I want to spend fourteen hours in the cabin of a truck like my father. I will know the risks, don’t hesitate.
—At the moment, —said Diego—, you can take the post of a mule, which I long ago wanted to get rid of. You will take small shipments. You must be careful with the family and with the astonishment, I will pay you five thousand per trip.
I'll give you a motorcycle. You must be clear that none of us here this afternoon know anything. If they catch you, it's your problem. You must also give us a mobile number. You'll never call us again, we'll get in touch with you. If you are a smart girl, you will open an account in a bank and you won’t go around making expenses out of the ordinary nor attracting attention, you are still a minor. We are not interested in problems. He paused to take a long drink from his glass of water. Otherwise Welcome home! He added, holding out his hand.
Lucia took that strong hand of the man between her tiny fingers. She had just concluded a deal that meant farewell to her boring and insignificant existence, on the other, much more worthy and fruitful. Ramón González wiped the sweat from his forehead, not believing what he had just witnessed. He had the impression that if I continued this way, that girl would go very far one day.
—Goodbye gentlemen, —Lucia said, rising from the table and saying goodbye to the rest of the gang—. My friend is waiting for me. I leave you my cell number. — She tapped the number with a black pen on a napkin—. Thank you very much. I have the impression that someday we will do big business together.
—We're here to serve you, Princess, —Isaac said in a farewell tone.
The four men returned to their business. They never imagined that their destinies would once again cross the path of that young brunette with a tender and wild aspect, who years ago had saved Isaac Jiménez from spending a good season in the shade, then they didn’t suspect that in the not too distant future Lucia Marquez would become one of the most important personages of the history of the narco-traffic of this country.
6—Some of Mireia’s tales.
Mireia Martín spends her days writing at a frenetic pace. In her room, at dusk, she turns off her computer and leaves the smithy to go home to Nicholás. At night they cuddle together like two brown cats on the brown leather couch, listening to the crackling of the oil as if it we
re the artillery fire of a Republican brigade, resisting the advance of a Falangist division from a privileged observatory, high in the sierra Of Cavall, during the battle of the Ebro. The enemy falls fried to shots. There are two beef steaks that suffer on the weight of the shrapnel. Nicholás kisses softly the softness of Mireia's gooseneck. From the ceiling hangs a lamp covered with a printed cloth, with the silhouettes of three ducks of colours, red, blue and yellow.
She opens the top buttons of her bluish black shirt, making it easy for her neck, until she shows the thin thread of her bra. The whiteness of her breasts seems to explode inside her. Then he gently strokes her hair, twirling her hair with his fingertips, searching for a motorway through which to enter her mind. He now kisses the gutter, through which tiny infantry soldiers crawl through. They are legionaries, men tanned in many battles. A machine-gun battalion will now be fired from the glass-ceramic by spitting bullets. Ratatatatata, incessantly. Mireia has no choice but to get up to try to stop the fire. She does this by reducing the power of the cooker. The strategy has worked. Soon the shots stop being heard, now the meat is made to simmer. The crackle, now, resembles more the harmonic sound of the engines of a trolley. She returns to the sofa. She has opened a bottle of Albariño. Pours the contents into two glossy blue glasses. You can hear the snapping of Bohemian glass containers when they collide. Chin, chin, toast to an unknown and uncertain future, while emptying the glasses of a solid drink, before their lips are founded in a long and wet kiss, which lasts for several seconds.
Then they rise. While she puts the meat on a tray among a handful of chips, he collaborates by dressing a tuna salad. Setting up the table is also up to him. The squared tablecloth does not honour such exquisite delicacy. She reproaches him. He nods. It is still far from being up to the small details, which make the home the best place for a romantic evening. Details such as a pair of candles on the table, suitable tableware, if possible with gold details and above all a hand-embroidered cloth tablecloth. At least he has the delicacy of serving dinner. Mireia believes that he does not try harder because he is not really in love with her. Once again, it seems that the shadow of The Queen is over them. But tonight Nicholás is especially affectionate. While dining, they chat amiably about stories whose protagonists are Isaac Giménez and his men, stories that Mireia had published in the newspaper "The Region" during the first Sundays of 2003. Nicholás was very interested in re-reading them.
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