Caballero Read online

  Caballero

  Pablo Poveda

  Copyright © 2020 Pablo Poveda

  Copyright © 2020 by Pablo Poveda

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN-13: 978-1974420803

  ISBN-10: 1974420809

  Pablo Poveda Books

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Copyright Page

  Caballero

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  How did you like it?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  To Jim. You made it possible.

  To Kathleen, for the final touch.

  1

  A PALL HUNG OVER THE city, like hiding a corpse. Traffic noise was the soundtrack from that hot summer day. A fresh breeze that smelled of sea and suntan lotion, making everything easier, like notes pouring from Coltrane’s sax. I drifted along with the human tide, walking the length of Maisonnave, enchanted by the beautiful young faces of Alicante women, their tanned skin, the freckles under their eyes, and dresses that barely reached their knees. It felt like I was living the dream and the only thing I could ask for was a cold beer at the terrace bar to sooth my throat. I strolled through the shopping mall doors, flanked by shop assistants all wearing their suits with an air of superiority. What education couldn’t achieve wasn’t going to be accomplished with a cheap suit.

  Days were being planned like a half-finished Rubik’s cube; my relationship with Patricia wasn’t in its best moment. We had our differences, but despite that, we loved each other. However, she searched for something every woman wants from a relationship at some point. Patricia called it commitment, I’d rather call it redemption: the fear of losing what we already had for the desire to have more. Those conversations never ended well: not hers, not ours. It was one of the many mistakes we humans make and I couldn’t blame her for her upbringing. Sadly, Patricia hoped for me to become something I would never be; the perfect and ambitious boyfriend all her girlfriends talked about. The regatta boy, of weekends at the Golf Club of San Juan, the handsome hot shot who just finished his MBA, the same jerk she always watched from the sidewalk, driving an Audi convertible and sitting next to some blond. That was what she looked to get, a pose, a sensation of wellness, of pretending and social approval, shouting it from the roof tops to believe that we were doing it right. Nothing more than that. Weak people tend to listen to external opinions and end up believing them. The problem is always the same, that in most cases those comments come from the last people we should be listening to.

  I walked in a straight line towards Federico Soto Avenue, at a slow but lively pace like the star in that music video walking down the fifth avenue in New York. I felt well, we were in my favorite part of the year and I could say I was living in the best place on the Mediterranean. Walking by an ordinary but lovely cafe, I bumped into a nice-looking brunette with a slim body and round breasts. She dressed in black like her eyes. Sometimes angels work too, and she was one of them. The young woman watched my steps, paying attention to what I was going to do. I smiled and lowered my face as a greeting, like the old-fashioned way. The men of my time paid more attention to their muscles and expensive watches than the ladies appearing at their doorway.

  The girl smiled back at me showing perfect white teeth that matched her full lips. I fell in love with her as I had fallen in love with life, her smile and her reason for being. I fell in love with the sun shining on my forehead making me sweat. I continued and passed by a kiosk and I noticed the newspaper headlines.

  Appearances are always deceptive: mine, that girl’s, my journalist job. Informing was an abstract term, idealized like love, death and the absence of a loved one. They say love is what happens when the one we desire is absent. Journalism wasn’t any different and being a reporter in a city like Alicante, where nothing ever happened, became craft work, something that had to be done well, made of implausible fiction.

  Dressed in my black Wayfarer to protect myself from the sun, I stopped at a zebra crossing. The cell phone vibrated inside my pocket. I took it out, unfolded the case and put it to my ear.

  “Where the hell are you? That’s not your desk” a voice in pain yelled, roughened by black tobacco. It was Ortiz, the chief editor of Las Provincias in Alicante. My boss.

  “What’s going on?” I replied, “I went to buy something.”

  “Bullshit, Caballero!” said the one on the other side. He seemed irritated. “You should be here, writing that damned university article. How is it that I can see your chair collecting dust?”

  I had totally forgotten about it. A cold sweat ran down my back. Ortiz was giving me an ultimatum and I couldn’t afford to screw up again.

  “I’m on my way, I’m on my way...” I said, grabbing a smashed Malboro out of my back pocket. “I have the article ready, boss...”

  “You’d better!” He replied and then hung up, offering me no time to answer.

  “Damn you...” I said to the machine.

  I lit a cigarrette and took a deep drag. It was going to be a long day.

  2

  THE ELECTION TO CHOOSE the dean of the University of Alicante had filled the front pages of the newspapers for the past few days. It seemed the students would not be the only ones affected by the changes made by the person elected. Monica Llopis, a young woman in her thirties with a PhD in biochemistry, long brown hair and plastic frames, had every chance to become the first female dean of the university. Besides a good pair of ovaries, Llopis seemed to have everything she needed to give orders without backing down. Educated in Valencia, she was fluent in three foreign languages, a social butterfly who knew how to dress well and, of course, had connections. Behind her delicate and timid appearance, Monica Llopis knew how to seduce the audience, both professors and students, to convince them that what the university really needed was an economic boost.

  Up until that moment, she had given a decent and measured image: she knew what she was talking about and one didn’t have to be very smart to understand that woman was what we all needed. The economic boom was transforming faculties into political monuments. Within a hundred kilometers, it was possible to find cloned empty faculties with detestable teaching staff. In a few years, the province would be infested with graduated lawyers selling telephone contracts door to door.

  The reason Ortiz had tasked me with this story was the close friendship between me and the second candidate in the election: Antonio Hidalgo.

  Hidalgo was a vocational journalist, a graduate with years of experience in El Pais and public television. A decade older, although as rotten as any other corsair of the night. Our first contact happened in one of those damned summer courses. I had to complete my curriculum so I took a creative writing class. Between the heat and the desire to go home, Hidalgo was a good coach during my writing blocks, encouraging me to write my first novel. After all the coffees at the faculty, the talks with long drinks in our hands, Bukowski’s short stories and the mystery of Thomas Pynchon, Hidalgo and I forged a relationship that would take us to the underworld.

  Months went by and we stopped our meetings at the cafeteria and took them to the bars in the town center. I was in my last
year at the university and he was in the last year of his marriage. A little later, his divorce would be a fact and so was a trilogy called Pause that made it to the cover of the Sunday edition of El Pais.

  Hidalgo was the eternally young professor, handsome and cool, that got along with everybody. The night waster who loosened his tie every night he stepped in Castaños Street. The mermaids, lost in the search for themselves, were an easy target for a man who dreamed and idealized the opposite sex. Hidalgo, the cursed writer, the abandoned man of letters, lost in every corner of every street like a provincial Oscar Wilde, drunk and with a numb smile.

  We considered ourselves two libertines from another time, the blonde and the brunette. We shared a similar moral code and we knew how to burn the money on our hands.

  Hidalgo was the second candidate in the election to arouse the interest of the university students. For him, it was a challenge; to take charge of something after the downfall of his marriage. Maybe that could save his marital situation and his wife might give him a second chance before making him go bankrupt. Maybe not. Whatever it might be, Hidalgo believed in magic and miracles. Taking advantage of the situation and getting the young voters on his side wouldn’t be a problem for him.

  Ortiz was bent on me taking charge of following up the elections and getting the most of our friendship. I had barely worked there for a year and I was already aware of what would come next. The journal was in the doldrums. The lack of economic support and the low public interest were dragging us down like a shipwreck. The looming crisis would bring cutbacks. Ortiz had worked his whole life in journalism, he didn’t know how to do anything else. He would still write his articles using old black and white word processors despite having top technology at his disposal. Having the exclusive in El Levante would help us gain ground to the competition. On the other hand, it was more and more frequent to find students swarming the office, interns with no remuneration to feed themselves and angry bosses who direct the orchestra. Ortiz was an old dog and didn’t like very much Hidalgo’s disposition. However, he understood that a journalist becoming the dean of the University of Alicante would be a good springboard for him to end up teaching there.

  Seated in front of the screen, I took a bite off the cheese sandwich I had ended up buying from the corner shop. Dust covered the letters on my keyboard.

  “Did you find out anything?” Ortiz said, approaching from behind, intoxicating me with his scent, a mix of cologne and black tobacco.

  “No. What did you expect?” I asked. “It’s the university elections, not the one to become President of the United States.”

  “Don’t give me that, Caballero.” He replied. “For our own good, you’d better find out about your friend Hidalgo’s plans. With a little luck, you might wind up marking the tests of your old classmates.”

  But Ortiz wasn’t talking about me; he was talking about himself.

  “The voting is tomorrow and the investiture in two days,” I commented, “I hope you have someone to cover that because...”

  Ortiz put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Caballero, we are going til the end with this.” He interrupted. “I need you at your best the next few days. You know how to do it. You started it and you’ll finish it.”

  “Don’t screw with me, Ortiz.” I reproached. “That wasn’t what we talked about. I told you I had plans this Friday. I was going to take care of the pre-elections and someone else...”

  “There’s nothing else to discuss, Gabriel.” He interrupted again. “I can’t let an intern ruin it. Not this one.”

  I clenched my fist and smashed the sandwich on the desk. Ortiz patted me on the shoulder. An overwhelming silence took over the room. The second pat went slowly down from my shoulder and sounded harder than the previous one.

  “Go get ‘em tiger.”

  Then he turned around, went back to his office and slammed the door closed.

  My boss knew how to do it. Another argument and I’d lose my job forever. Writing was the only thing I was good at and, even though it didn’t pay well, I didn’t have the reputation yet to get myself inside one of the big journals.

  I grabbed the phone and weighed my options before doing it. I’d never forgive myself for it. I thought about standing up, going to his office and telling him I quit, but I didn’t. I unlocked the terminal and summoned the muses to give a poetic touch to the bad news I was about to tell to Patricia.

  Our plans, once again, were going to be postponed in the name of work. My relationship was sinking like the Titanic and I was drowning like DiCaprio inside the office walls. I made another cup of coffee and decided to focus on Monica Llopis. For some reason, her story seemed more interesting than that of my old buddy.

  Besides checking official sources, an avid reporter must search inside himself. The on-line world had become a deep well of information with no expiration date. In the past, the story could be distorted quite easily. In the age of Internet, digital information never forgets.

  So, I put the press releases and academic files aside to focus on social network profiles. In times like this, when fantasizing about anything is just one click away, I had no doubt I could find what I needed in Llopis’ Facebook profile.

  A bland profile picture among palm trees, ordinary and with no signs of a hidden agenda, a page concealing from strangers what she was: scheming, cold and premeditated. In front of the screen, I felt like Alice following the rabbit, just about to fall down the hole. “What are you hiding, Monica?” I thought to myself.

  I took her academic file and, in ten minutes, I had the list of students who had gone to her Molecular Biology class in the University of Valencia. A name and surname took me to another page that connected me to an old student group. I then saw her name next to an email address. Thanks to several lessons learned when covering a conference on digital safety in the CAM cultural center, it didn’t take me long to access her private photo album.

  “Bravo, Gabriel.” I said aloud. Nobody heard it. By then, Ortiz was playing on-line poker or watching a movie in his office.

  I couldn’t feel any less disappointed when I confirmed Monica Llopis knew how to play her cards. The only photos in that album were nothing but cuts from digital journals and stored images from different public events.

  Monica in a conference.

  Monica smiling at the camera.

  Monica surrounded by men.

  The clock would strike seven in the evening. I had wasted the whole damned day and had nothing. The excitement vanished like stardust on the black keyboard. Someone would appear there soon demanding an explanation. My nerves were fraying under the pressure that had been building up lately. “Crap, Llopis. You played me.” I said to myself.

  I closed the browser window and went back to the Word text when something sparked in my head. I opened the private photo album on the candidate’s Facebook page. Among the men, one face showed up over and over. One, two... three times. A man taller than her, dressed in a blazer, in his thirties and with his hair back.

  Unlike Antonio Hidalgo, Monica Llopis was well known in her circle for being a woman that would choose business over pleasure. Finally, I had slipped down the rabbit hole.

  3

  ONCE AGAIN, THE HANDS of the clock were faster than my legs. The damned morning vermouth at Sento’s bar, one my favorite tapas bars in town, caused me lose track of time when suddenly the phone rang. It wasn’t Ortiz but Pacheco, our staff photographer. He was at the university hall. Monica Llopis was about to be invested as the first female dean in the history of the university.

  I had one hour to get there. Hidalgo hadn’t won and I had taken the time to celebrate it for him. Things had all happened so quickly and in an unusual way that I was struggling to even know what day it was. I paid the bill and left, looking for a taxi to take me to the San Vicente campus. The sticky June sweat was beginning to drip down my back like a waterfall. I assumed I had a stain as big as the number on Ronaldo’s jersey.

  As so
on as the taxi cab had dropped me off next to the main hall, I ran, bumping into the curious faces all around. The university hall was a great auditorium divided into three areas, including an amphitheater and a stage about twenty meters long. The hall was full of guests. When passing over the lobby, I observed familiar faces from the distance: press mercenaries, politicians, the Mayor of Valencia and Pacheco, holding his camera.

  I snuck between the seats, drawing the attention of speakers and disturbing guests and listeners to the mind numbing speech that the former dean was giving in praise of his successor. Monica Llopis was wearing a discrete blue night dress, highlighting once again her personal brand, a philosophy that would mark the future of students and the staff salary.

  I looked her in the eye. She seemed nervous but enthusiastic. Among the shadows caressing the audience, I recognized Hidalgo, seated in a corner next another professor from the Faculty of Humanities. He didn’t seem to have taken it well.

  “I’m here...” I mumbled next to Pacheco who didn’t seem to want to get out of there. “Did I miss anything?”

  “In the nick of time, Gabriel.” He said with concern. “What’s that smell?”

  “Just take the photos. That’s what we pay you for.” I replied. “I’ll take care of the questions.”

  Avoiding my eyes, he kept silent and went on shooting flashes of light. Then, Monica Llopis stood up and headed to the stand to say a few words. An unbearable empty silence filled the room. With the delicacy that characterized her, she cracked a smile and cleared her throat sweetly. She glanced at the notes in front of her and lightly tapped the microphone. It was her moment; the star was about to shine. But something happened.

  “Get pictures of this!” I exclaimed, grabbing Pacheco by the arm.

  The woman held the stand tightly. She was wilting in front of everybody. She couldn’t breathe. I looked at her face and sensed she was fighting not to collapse right there. Suddenly, her face went pale and her muscles trembled. Llopis didn’t seem able to cope with whatever was happening to her. First, she kicked the air and then she stepped back. In a matter of seconds, the new dean fell unconscious on the stage.