“GET IN!!”
Whether spellbound by the ruby flask, which seemed to make the rain more liquid in the space around it, or frightened by that madman’s anger, or because they really had nowhere else to go and were getting soaked, the girls obeyed. They had been warned so often, ever since they could remember, against the temptation of getting into a stranger’s car, there was really no excuse for yielding to it now. But people quite often do exactly what they shouldn’t, automatically ignoring every sensible and reasonable course of action. And the man wasn’t actually a stranger, which is what made it really strange. Unfortunately Vanessa was stuck in the middle, between her friend and the policeman, and this would lead to mutual recriminations later on: Vanessa would say that she had been pushed in by Jessica, who would claim, in all sincerity, that she had simply followed Vanessa’s lead. In any case, once they were in, Cabezas stretched out his arm in front of them and yanked the door shut as he stepped on the accelerator and released the clutch. The car shot away.
“Do you remember me?”
Vanessa had lost her voice somewhere in the back of her throat but finally she found it again:
“Yeah. You’re Cynthia’s dad, right?”
The familiarity of her tone wasn’t really surprising; she had the manners of a typical convent-school girl.
In the darkness, Jessica’s face twisted into a grimace of astonishment. She had met Ignacio Cabezas, Cynthia’s father, and this wasn’t him. Vanessa must have been getting mixed up. But when she heard him say, “That’s right,” the first thing she thought was that he must have been the father of a different Cynthia, and since there was a girl at their school with that name, apart from the one who got killed, Jessica guessed that she was this man’s daughter. In any case, it was a relief to learn that there was some connection, and she relaxed a bit, but not for long.
“Where were you going, in a storm like this?”
“We were going home,” said Vanessa.
“Don’t lie! You think I was born yesterday?”
“I swear!”
“Save your swearing, little Miss Innocent! You were following your brother.”
Jessica intervened, not because she wanted to help her friend but because she hated to be left out of a conversation:
“We wanted to find out what he was doing, how far he goes with the collectors.”
“And you had to do it tonight? In the rain?”
“How were we supposed to know it was going to pour?”
It was a good answer; a moment of silence ensued. The car was plowing through a choppy sea (the streets had flooded), throwing up big curved screens of water on either side. Cabezas drove boldly, taking the corners at top speed, as if he were on a race track.
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t you worry; we’ll be waiting for him when he gets there. I know where he’s going, even if you don’t.”
“You know Maxi?”
“You two are going to introduce me. I’d like to say a few words to him.”
That explained it all satisfactorily, so now it was just a matter of waiting for events to unfold. The windshield wipers were shucking masses of water off the glass, without really improving the visibility. Vague and shifting shapes could be glimpsed through the momentarily transparent semicircles, and the beams of the headlights vanished into the raging whirl. That’s why the girls stared with saucer-like eyes when the car, which was still accelerating, came out into an open space of some kind, and they saw a dawn-like radiance ahead, rising up to the clouds. They were dazzled and shaded their eyes with their hands. It was a ring of yellow light, or rather a dome, made of pure illuminated night air, in which millions of moving points created a golden texture with a marvelous depth.
“What’s that?” they shouted.
“The shantytown,” said Cabezas.
“Are they bees?” asked Vanessa.
“No, you moron!” said Jessica. “They’re raindrops.”
When their gazes descended from this wonder, they discovered that they were in a very wide, completely flooded avenue (it would never have occurred to them that it was Calle Bonorino, the street on which they lived). It was a rectangular lake, its surface ruffled by gusts of wind and pricked by rain. There was, of course, no longer any difference between street and sidewalk; both were under water. But it looked as though there was no sidewalk on the right anyway, because there were no houses on that side, just a broad parking lot for trucks and a very long wall. And in the middle of that desolate, rainswept space was a motionless figure, which they all noticed at the same time. Although their vision of this person through the windshield sluiced with water was dim and blurry, all three were sure they knew who it was.
“There he is!” shouted Cabezas, wrenching the steering wheel around with all his strength. “What did I tell you? How’d he get here so quick, the bastard!”
But as they drove toward him, he looked wrong in the headlights, and even Cabezas had to admit that Maxi couldn’t have beaten them on foot. Vanessa was the first to see who it really was:
“It’s the Pastor!”
At the same time, succumbing to a resurgence of hysteria, Jessica yelled:
“Careful! Don’t run him over!”
The two cries entered the inspector’s consciousness simultaneously, and their effect was to set him thinking. He also took his foot off the accelerator and stepped on the brake, and since the vehicle wasn’t responding as well as it would have on dry ground, gave the steering wheel a spin. The car pulled up right next to the Pastor, who was drenched to the bone and clearly resigned to it. He was young, chubby, dark-skinned, and had the look of an Indian from the Andean plateau. He was trying to see who was in the car, but couldn’t because of the tinted windows and the dazzling headlights, so in his uncertainty he maintained a politely expectant attitude. He had apparently been waiting for someone, but must have begun to suspect that the person he had arranged to meet was not in the car.
“So this is the famous Pastor,” said Cabezas. “The one who sells drugs to you lot. No wonder you were scared I’d run him over.”
“No!” shouted Jessica. “I just didn’t want him to get hurt. I’ve never seen him before.”
“And you?”
“I’ve seen him around, that’s all. He’s always going to the police station near my place. . I’ve never bought anything from him!”
Cabezas’s mind was racing, as if it had taken over from the motor of his car, which had now come to a stop. For him this chance encounter was like winning the lottery. But he was also realizing how much he didn’t know. So his colleagues in the police force were in contact with the Pastor? What a time to find out! They were using the Pastor as an informer, behind his back, but it was really a way of getting into the trade, which was supposed to be his area; tacitly, they’d let him have free rein, just so he could flail around without cracking the secret, and then, when the time was ripe, they would use him as a scapegoat. They were going behind his back. . and the judge’s back too, because they’d put her on his trail, knowing it wouldn’t lead anywhere.
But now by the most amazing and fantastic stroke of luck he had come to the place that no one had thought he could reach on his own, where no one wanted him to be: the very center of the action. There must have been a reason why that scarecrow was standing out there in the rain. Maybe the storm was the signal the Bolivians had been waiting for to launch their big operation. Or maybe not. Maybe the signal was something else entirely. But that didn’t matter: by the power of sheer action he could shape the circumstances to fit any format. All he had to do was collect the prize for his triumphant decision to be bad, or to occupy what was left of his life — as a liquid fills a receptacle — with the hyperplastic element of evil.