Dance With Snakes by Horatio Castellanos Moya

Author:Horatio Castellanos Moya
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2011-09-08T05:00:00+00:00

THREE

Eight-twenty A.M.

Anxious, her curly hair still damp from the shower, Rita arrives at the newspaper office. She wears a flowing summer skirt and a sleeveless blouse.

Dr. Abraham Ferracuti has died.

She heard the news five minutes ago on the bus, when they interrupted the musical programming for a special news update.

She looks for Matías, the news editor, but he hasn’t arrived yet.

El Zompopo hurries in with his camera dangling from his neck.

“I’m on my way over there right now,” he says.

She asks him to wait a second, takes her tape recorder from her desk, grabs her walkie-talkie, and runs after him.

They get into the Volkswagen Beetle. Víctor, one of the newspaper’s drivers, is at the wheel.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“Towards the volcano, past Escandón,” El Zompopo tells him.

Rita is in the back seat, chewing her nails. Ferracuti’s death has just wrecked the angle she was working for her article for the Sunday supplement. She’ll have to rethink it now. Shit!

“The snakes again,” the driver says.

“But there were shots fired, too. There was a confrontation,” El Zompopo answers.

Maybe one of those disgusting snakes died, she thinks to herself. She hates them. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she ever saw one. Probably die of fright.

“Your pictures of the gas station came out great,” she compliments El Zompopo, pointing at the newspaper she’s leafing through. Last night, when she finally managed to get to the scene, the firefighters had nearly finished putting out the flames.

A helicopter flies over the slope of the volcano.

The street in front of Dr. Ferracuti’s house is blocked off. There are police cars, the forensic unit’s van, and luxury cars on the scene.

They hurry out of the Volkswagen. They pass police officers and bodyguards. An absent-minded officer asks to see their press passes, as if he doesn’t know who they are.

El Zompopo takes pictures indiscriminately. The bodies are still fresh. Rita notices that the narcotics squad appears to be taking charge of the case. The DICA chief and his team of maniacs are moving around as if they’re going to cordon off the crime scene.

Her colleagues from Radio Red, Sistema YSA and Canal 12 are there. Her competition from El Gráfico hasn’t arrived yet. She looks around for Jonás and Arturo, the other two reporters assigned to the case by Ocho Columnas.

She walks over to Deputy Commissioner Handal. He’s talking to Chele Pedro. Detective Flores stops her.

“The boss can’t make any statements now.”

Things are heating up.

The Police Commissioner himself comes through the front gate. She tries to approach him, tape recorder in hand, but his bodyguards stop her.

The Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner Handal, and Chele Pedro stand around Dr. Ferracuti’s body, near the front door.

“He killed them all,” Detective Villalta says in her ear. She flinches. She didn’t see him coming.

Mirna and Epaminondas from El Gráfico arrive, followed by more colleagues.

“The wife, both girls, three maids, the security guard, the driver, and the bodyguards,” Villalta whispers. “Ten in total, including the doctor. A total massacre.”

The lead officers go into the house.

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