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SOMOS EN ESCRITO
FICTION
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 Giggles y Yoby Tommy Villalobos Giggles walked like she was dancing to Oldies But Goodies, Volume One. But she also looked sad all the time. It was like she wanted to be sad. Her friends already had a Sad Girl so they called her Giggles. People called me Gordo. I wasn’t fat. Maybe just a little. But let me get back to Giggles. She was the finest one in the Projects, 1950’s. One day, Lil’ Chango, skinny with a face that not even a madre could love, tried talking to her. He was barking like a seal up the wrong playa. I looked at her face when she was listening to the bato. Her lips were twisted. Like he was making funny noises with his nariz. He walked away with his head looking down, like he didn’t care if a carucha hit him. She looked at me and I made a serious face. Inside, I was laughing like when I saw that cartoon where the coyote gets hit by a giant rock when he’s chasing the pájaro loco. Giggles started walking again with that special wiggle. I wanted to tell her something like a priest. I walked fast. “Hija, you can tell me,” I said. She turned to look at me like I was a cucaracha walking around her sopa. “I don’t know you.” “I want you to.” “I like someone.” “Never saw you with someone. Never saw you with anyone.” She looked at me like I was another cucaracha but this time in her sopa. “Are you following me around?” “Even when I sleep.” I was trying to sound romantic like in a song. “Don’t!” “All girls like being looked at.” “Not me.” “We’re meant to be.” “Uh-uh.” She walked quickly away. Almost ran. People could ask me why I didn’t give up. You know, chase other girls who liked gordos. I would tell them that girls act in different modos. They can hate you but then you say or do something they really like, they grab you and put your arms around them. You feel like an octopus wearing a Pendleton. “Where have you been, Felipe?” said my mother as soon as I walked in the door. “Getting fresh air.” “There isn’t any.” I wanted to tell her about Giggles but she might not like her walk. “Áma, I like this girl and—” “She won’t be the last.” “This one is the first and only. She is special.” “She lives in Beverly Hills?” “Huh?” “Take out the garbage.” I took the garbage outside. A chavalo called Freddie saw me. “Hey, Phillip,” he yelled. He was the only one who called me by my name. “What?” I said to the mocoso. “You want to play baseball?” He didn’t see that I was grown up. Baseball was for chavalos. Girls were more fun now. “Freddie, I like girls now,” I said like I was confessing to a priest. “What?” Freddie was stunned, making a cara like I said I liked wearing dresses now. “One day, you’ll throw your baseball to your sister because you won’t be able not to.” I really thought of saying that because his sister Lydia was a better baseball player than him and she was only seven. “You’re talking crazy, Phillip. Go get your mitt, let’s play.” “Maybe later,” I said, knowing “later” really meant never. He turned and walked away. He turned back to look at me as if he wasn’t sure who I was. Then he disappeared into the Projects. I felt kind of sad. Like my childhood was disappearing with him. Then I thought again about Giggles and I wanted to kick Freddie and my childhood further into the Projects. God made something more fun than baseball. Then my friend since I forget how long, Jimmy, saw me. We were the same age. He was more serious than me. Of course, my mother would say everyone was more serious than me. Jimmy loved math and collecting baseball trading cards. His cards took up most of his life. And the girls all looked at him like he was Elvis. It didn’t seem to matter to him. He spent his time with his math books and cards. Everything else was for other guys. “Gordo, why are you standing there?” he said. “Thinking.” “About what?” “Not sure. Where are you going walking all fast?” “My mom needs butter.” “You still run mandadas?” “Sure. You don’t?” I nodded slowly. “Jimmy, oh, Jimmy!” said a high voice belonging to a running flaca with flying pelo. It was Lorna Ritas. She was in a race for Jimmy with Sally Lomenez, Linda Mistasosa and Maria Lobermie. They had a better chance with the real Elvis. Jimmy barely said “Hi” to them but each time they took it like he wanted to make out with them at Belvedere Park. Like that song, Jimmy only had eyes for Rachel Apenuz. Rachel Apenuz had no personality I could see. Jimmy saw something the rest of the world didn’t, like in those spooky movies. Compared to Rachel, Giggles was a shiny pair of spit-shined calcos. Rachel was like my sister’s paper dolls she used to play with. She was like cardboard. Her hair looked tired. In fact, she looked tired. But I was glad Jimmy didn’t see Giggles. Then I panicked, my mouth turned dry. Maybe he hadn’t seen her glide like a lowered carucha down Brooklyn and Mednik. “So, are any new girls waving at you?” I said, my mouth even drier now. He looked at me like I said something in Chinese real fast. “New girls?” “Yeah, like hot off the comal?” “What are you talking about?” “Is Rachel still your, you know…?” He nodded with a strange smile. “I still like Rachel.” I could breathe normal, again. Jimmy’s sister whistled for him from away off. She had the loudest whistle in the Projects. Jimmy ran off. I went back inside. I played “Earth Angel” by the Penguins on my sister’s record player. I played it over and over. The title said what I wanted to sing to Giggles. Then I fell asleep on my sister’s cama. The record player needle was stuck on the end of the record. “What are you doing?” my sister screamed, making me jump. My heart wanted to leave my chest and jump out the window to find somewhere better to live. “Man,” I screamed back, “you nearly gave me a heart attack.” “And I hate to fail. Now I’m really mad.” She got good grades in school. I think that’s why she said that. But she also had a big mouth my mother was always trying to slam shut. Hearing my sister’s big mouth, my mother came running like my sister was on fire. “¿Qué está pasando?” she screamed louder than even my sister. “I have to wash everything,” my sister said, looking around the room like I spread pulgas all over. “Don’t exaggerate,” my mother said. “He’s a pestoso,” she screamed in her chavala voice so all the Projects could hear. I think all the people in the Projects were smelling the air. My mother was quiet as if my sister said something like the president. “I was only playing a record,” I said, explaining things to the judge, my mother. Like a bailiff, my mother escorted me out of the room. My hermana had a crooked smile. The door slammed behind us. I would aim pedos into her room next time she wasn’t home. To feel better, I went back outside. In the Projects you always ran into someone who either made you laugh or was madder than you. Right now, it was Pete. He never made you laugh or mad. But he always had a problem to share. I tried telling him that was why he had a mother. That’s how they got gray hair. But today, I think I caught him at a moment when people feel like unloading a problem on the first person they catch. “Gordo,” he said, “I have a problem.” “You’re the last bato I would guess had one.” “What?” “What happened?” “I met the finest weesa ever made.” “Ever?” “Ever.” “Why?” “When you see her walk, it’s like seeing the ocean at Long Beach.” “Go write a poem.” I said. It sounded like he was talking about Giggles and I didn’t want to hear. “I have to win her heart first.” Pete wasn’t a bad looking guy like some of the truly ugly ones around, but right now he looked like the ugliest feo of all time. “I love Giggles,” he continued and I wanted to give him a Popeye-sized cachetada. “Who is ‘Giggles’?” I said with a shaky voice. I was a nervous liar. “She is a walking angel, like in the song, ‘Earth Angel’.” He said this with a stupid, faraway look. “You okay?” he then said. I felt mad then sick then mad again. “Sure.” “Are you sure-sure?” “Sure.” “My problem is that she is related to Jimmy and likes Loco.” I sat on the sidewalk. I saw Loco’s crooked right eye. I think he hated the world and everyone in it because of that eye. He was born that way. God wanted him to look loco so he took the hint and became one. “You look weird, man.” “Why Loco?” I croaked. “That’s what I want you to tell me. He is one ugly bato with an even uglier way with people.” “And she is Jimmy’s cousin?” He nodded weakly. “How do you know that?” “My sister.” “Oh, yeah. Your sister Rosie talks with everyone about everyone. The Queen of Maravilla Chisme.” “Hey, that’s my hermana.” “Everyone knows Rosie, Pete.” “Yeah, but you’re wise.” All those times talking to Pete, I was mostly trying to get rid of him. “So, what do you think?” he said. He wasn’t going nowhere till he got an answer. “Loco has that name for a reason. Jimmy is probably thinking of a way to stop his prima from getting hooked up with him.” I said that for myself. “What do you mean?” “He wants to stop him.” “Oh.” I always liked hearing Pete say “Oh.” It meant he was accepting what I said and would go away. Not today. “You know, Jimmy invited Loco to the show with Giggles?” I lost my words and thinking. Pete batted for me. “I saw them walking back to the Projects after they got off the Kern bus. Loco was laughing like a hyena.” My mother said life has surprises. One just kicked me in the head. “Should we jump him?” said Pete. “He would wrap you around me like a pretzel.” “So, what are you going to do?” he said. What I wanted to do was pluck Loco’s good eye out and do a pachuco hop on it. “It’s up to you.” “Then what should I do?” I felt like I was running his life when he should be running his own. “Find another one.” “Another what?” “Chavala.” “There ain’t no other around,” said Pete, looking around as if to prove it. “All good times don’t lead to Giggles.” At this point, I think I was again giving advice to myself. “Yes they do.” “What if she hates you? And your family? And your dog.” “She don’t know me. Or my family. And this is the Projects, we can’t have a dog.” “Maybe she has a drinking problem. She’ll start making ojitos at other batos.” “How do you know she has a drinking problem?” “Just looking at all angles.” “She could wet her bed, chew food with her boca wide open, have a voice like Jimmy Durante, and I would still like her.” “What if she has a record?” “Even if she was serving life at juvie, I would still visit her every day.” He was almost as crazy over her as I was. “Don’t you have a girl you liked? What about Edith?” “Edith was in the second grade. Her family moved out of the Projects when I was nine.” “Too bad.” “Huh?” He looked at me real let down. He walked away. I went and sat on my porch. I saw a girl coming toward me on the sidewalk. She was walking like a wave at Long Beach, like Pete said. It was Giggles. “Hello,” I said, trying to sound like some actor I heard in a movie. She kept walking like I had been a squawking perico. I was hoping for a “Hello” back or at least her head to turn up all conceited. But she kept walking. But then for a little bit, she turned her head toward me. Not mad or happy. Jimmy would make everything right. He would talk to his cousin and tell her that he and I were closer than gum under a zapato and she should grab me, crying. Jimmy said that they were cousins when he came to the door. “So, she just likes him like a cousin?” I said. “She and Loco are closer than gum in your hair,” said Jimmy. “So she likes him like a favorite cousin?” “She likes him like she likes to kiss him.” “That’s all?” “He kisses her back.” “You know Loco. You know what he’s like.” “Since we were babies.” I swallowed hard. Then I swallowed hard again. Then a third time and maybe a fourth. “You look like you swallowed a moco,” he said. “Why do you even know him?” “He’s my step brother.” Jimmy didn’t even say that like he was sorry. “Why?” “I don’t make the rules. Loco’s dad married my mom years ago. My mom had kids. He had one, Loco.” “So he can’t love Giggles?” I said. “Why can’t he?” “Because.” “She is my cousin but she is nothing to Loco. Well, that could change, but that doesn’t keep them from liking, maybe loving each other and making a whole bunch of kids to spread around Maravilla.” “That shouldn’t be allowed.” “What?” I walked away, stomping on the ground like it was Loco’s ugly ojo. I went to Pete’s house to report. He opened his door then smiled like if I was going to say that Giggles loved him. I broke the news over his head. But it was my own cabeza that hurt.  Tommy Villalobos was born in East L.A. and also raised there. He thinks of the lugar daily and love the memories while remembering the tragedies of his neighbors and of his madre. Tommy’s mother had a great sense of humor and he inherited about ten per cent of it. She had a quick wit and response to all verbal attacks, whether to herself personally or to her Catholic religion that she loved. Tommy dedicates all his works to her, knowing she had him when she had no idea how she was going to feed him and his four siblings. She was a single mom until the day she died. He lives in a boring suburb now, outside of Sacramento, but his heart and soul will always be in East Los Angeles where his mother was always by his side to protect him.
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Rinconcito is a special little corner in Somos en escrito for short writings: a single poem, a short story, a memoir, flash fiction, and the like.  Pictured is an open cannister of Scho-Ka-Kola, a caffeinated chocolate produced in Germany starting around 1935 and distributed to many German soldiers during World War II. The protagonist of “Out of Range” recalls widespread starvation in the years following the Spanish Civil War, coinciding with World War II, and a fortuitous encounter with Nazi chocolate. Out of Rangeby Olga Vilella It happened sin darse cuenta apenas. One minute, Josefina Corrada was the exceptional mujer she had always been. A responsible professional. Puntal of the eight o'clock Mass de San Aloishús, even in the worst snowstorm in February. A mother who never disappointed. And the next day, she consigned everybody to hell. “Se me van a hacer puñetas, todos. Y el que me esconda las llaves, me va a oír.” Which is how she came to be waiting for Dr. Haddad, that day. Maybe she should send la familia that funny meme of the cat. Pa’l carajo…a mí nadie me manda. Even Joey, the only among her relatives she could stand these days. But el guaifi seemed to be down. Certainly not to Josie, there was no reasoning with Josie lately. When Josefina thought of her eldest, she had to ask los cielos what sin was she paying for in this life, to have been saddled with such an ingrate of a daughter. Who never called, unless she needed something. Trite, trite, and verging on the caricature, but oh-so-true. A flash of memory sparked in Josefina's mind. She blinked then, assaulted by a draught of icy air and un recuerdo. The pinkie finger in Josie’s left hand, curved slightly inward. The dedo that was a replica of her own. And then she closed the screen pa'quick. No thinking of la Josie. La que me va a armar cuándo se entere. Swipe screen left. Not for anything Josefina was the only one among her friends that Twittered and Instagrammed and Facebooked and TikToked. A brief smile lifted the corner of her perfectly drawn mouth!--Cherris-in-de-esnow de Reblon—with the next image popping up in her head. A circle of silvery heads, jostling around, whenever she showed las amigas how to get on? in?—maldito inglés—social media. Yet again. A small whoosh brought her back to her surroundings. Another blast of frigid air fell on her shoulders from above, like a shower at Varadero Beach Club, on a morning in August. Dios mío, ese aire acondicionado me va a matar de pulmonía. Y esta camilla. A little face, all eyes, peered then from around the curtain of the cubicle. An orangey tube—¡cómo el presidente!—was poised firmly between his lips and a bag dangled from a grubby paw. ¡Un Chito! Food from the gods. Now forbidden by Josie. The sight made her stomach rumble, not for the first time. Josefina tried her nicest smile. Kids usually responded to her abuela charm, but this one was not parting with one curly bit. El niñito left quickly, but the curtain of the cubicle had parted long enough for Mrs. Cou-rra-dah to catch a glimpse of a group in scrubs planted around the nurses’ station. Call me “mom” one more time, anda. See what’s going to happen to you, mija. Will you look at the size of those culos? People are really unattractive these days. “Body shaming, grandma.” “Don’t call her china, grandma, she’s Korean.” The list of her many social sins clacked like dominoes in her memory. Swipe definitely left. But Joey’s gently reproachful face, a caramel Mater Admirablilis, refused to budge, once invoked. “Grandma, be nice. I love you, but be nice. Te quiero mucho,” repeated to signal no bad intent, pronounced in that cute gringuita accent of hers. Joey, tan bella, mi niña. Joey qué no salió a su mamá, that’s for sure. “If those people are Italian, I’m china. Coreana,” Josefina spurted out loud, almost choking, on a breathy yelp. Look at the time, caballero. Deja, que estos van a trinar cuando yo termine con el presidente del hospital. ¡A mí! Qué me hagan esperar a mí, Josefina Corrada, la primera doctora hispana de Jersi Sity. But the memory of her granddaughter’s brown eyes still hovered, stubbornly, before her. It was getting late. And Josefina was so tired. And more shook up than she had thought when the car stopped spinning. Tired, hungry, in need of reviving. “Latte with an extra shot,” she heard Joey order in that papery hoarse voice of hers. Even Joey, even her. “Un café con leche, mijo. Cargadito.” These days, saying those words, en español, felt like an act of resistance. En español, like it or not. Café con leche. Y tu MAGA que te la metes por dónde no te da el sol. Besides, calling out for a café con leche at el Estarboc also conveyed, loudly she hoped, what she thought of people willing to pay más de cinco pesos for a latte. Café con leche, guanajos. “Well, dear heart. It is a fallen world,” as Catalina always repeated, while dusting her bolster of a chest. She knew las niñas would worry about her when she didn’t show up. But she was also sure they went ahead and ate. At this point in their lives, not one of her friends was going to delay ordering lunch because one of them didn’t show up. They would never eat. Maldita vejez. ¿Quién te prepara para esto? ¡Nadie! As if there were any medical textbooks that could prepare you for the indignities of old age. The carefully calibrated contempt in the voice of los jóvenes at the cellphone store. The looks of disdain when you don't put away your wallet fast enough. As if they were never getting old. As if. As if. That movie with la rubita de Beberli Jills. How they had laughed, she and Joey, escapadas, both of them. “No PG-13 movies for her until she's old enough, mom.” As if Joey didn't hear worse every day in school, so guanaja. I wonder what's taking Dr. Haddad so long. Had she been in her right mind, she would have refused the ride to the ER. What had she done instead? Let them wheel her, in while making un chistesito. And not even a good one. “What happened to la ambulancia de los guapitos?” At least, one of them—dominicano by the looks of him—had laughed. “Lady, that's the next crew. And they won't be here for a while.” “You think you’re really funny, don't you, abuela?” As a matter of fact, yes, she thought she was pretty funny. Even Joey turned on her these days. For nearly seventy years, she had been a good girl. Not anymore. ¡Se acabó! She was now primed for war. Ready a dar guerra like the warrior she had once been. The buena hija who told her father she was going to medical school during that lunch, so, so many years ago. Dios mío, cómo se puso, loco furioso. Contrarian, contrarian, cómo eres, Enrique used to say. The faces from other days of conflict crowded the small space around the gurney. Her father hitting the lunch table with a fist, the afternoon she told him Enrique was coming to talk to him. Certainly, she was marrying him. And she was moving to La Habana con él. Y mamá, llora que llora. Why couldn't she understand? She left México con papá. Igualitica, igualitica que tu padre, Enrique used to say. David Juño, cerrado cómo un puño. The man who refused to ever go to el paseo once the war was finally over. “Cara al sol/con la camisa abieeeertaaaaa.” Somebody would intone the anthem of the Nacionales in the middle of la Alameda and the crowd would pause, as if paralyzed. Shifty eyes taking note. Black shirts and a sea of raised hands, saluting. An arm lifted, stiff like a gravestone, like el Caudillo's, meeting Hitler in Hendaya. Not that don David had any use for the other side. Not after what they had written on the doors of the apartment building in Madrid. “Muerte al dueño de este edificio.” And Lelia's daughter dying during the siege. She died of a pneumonia, they said. We knew it was hunger. “Recuerda, Pepiña. En este pared, unos españoles asesinaron a otros españoles.” Y el hambre por todos lados. As many maids as any house would want, to be had for a pair of alpargatas and their keep, during those years of darkness. Niñas, niñas todas. And then the years of that other war. Grey uniforms, all over the city. The whole of the province, all of Galicia, was overrun by them. On leave from the German submarine base in El Ferrol, la tata Rosalía would whisper, moving away from their Nordic raptor eyes. And Amelia, all blonde trenzas and blue eyes, pretending she was a refugee. “Kinder, kinder, schokolade.” After all these years, those words remained fresh in her memory, as bittersweet as the taste of that chocolate long gone. Better make sure next time Joey took her to el Cosco she bought enough garbanzos. And a big bag of those small Esniqers. “My dear colleague, what is this I hear about you still driving?” El doctorcito Haddad. Here we go....  A native of Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, Olga Vilella is currently at work revising Los que llegaron, a historical novel based on the unsuccessful attack by the English to San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1797, a work that seeks to upend Caribbean notions of race, religion, and ethnicity.
Winner 2nd place Extra Fiction 2022 Photo by Lupita Velasco Garden Peopleby Shaiti Castillo Listen to Shaiti Castillo perform "Garden People" My grandmother would tell me about the little bug people that would roam her garden back in her small pueblo deep in México. This was only when Mamá wasn’t in the room because she’d scold her from spreading tales of brujería in a house that worshipped God. Even as the disease ate away at what was left of my grandmother’s brain, her stubbornness had continued to grow. Rooted deeply within her like an oak tree. I would trade cups of cafecito for tales of the little bug people while Mamá was out running errands. “Who were they?” I would ask in a whisper, as if Mamá would barge in at any moment and catch us exchanging sins. “They didn’t have names. They didn’t speak either.” She would reply. I’d sit there patiently, processing the information before asking another question. Time with her was precious. The more questions I asked, the more lost she seemed to get. “How do you know they weren’t just normal bugs?” I’d ask. She would sit there for a moment and take a small sip of her hot coffee, surely burning her tongue. “Because they looked like people.” The answer was simple, but it wasn’t enough for a curious child like me. “How so?” The slight tapping of my feet against the tile floor exposed my growing impatience. She didn’t seem to notice. “They had faces. Eyes, a nose, a mouth…” She would go on to list general anatomy. I bit my lip. “Bugs have faces.” I interrupted and she stopped speaking. Then a hoarse laugh escaped her thinning lips. It was an unpleasant sound, like tv static. Her childhood spent working in factories had caught up with her lungs. “Smartass,” She said just loud enough for me to hear in her thick accent. It caught me by surprise. “Nana!” It was my turn to scold her. She never cursed, always said it wasn’t very lady-like. “As I was saying,” She paused to let me settle down. “They had faces. But not bug faces. They looked like you and I. Except they were little.” She slightly pinched her fingers together to show me an estimated size of the bug people. I nodded. “They had the body of the bugs, but they all could stand on two feet. Like you and I,” she explained, pushing herself off her seat. I scrambled next to her in case she fell but she swatted my hands away. She set down her mug and proceeded to put her hands on her hips. Stretching her back just a bit to stand proudly. I couldn’t help but giggle at her display. “How’d you find them?” I asked as she slowly sat herself back down. Retreating back to her caffeine. “They were stealing,” She shook her head in a feigned disappointment. “I had planted some sweet grapes for the summer and I caught them in the act!” “Maybe they were hungry, Nana.” I said in defense of the bug people. It’s not a crime to be hungry. “That is no reason to steal.” She sighed. “I forgave them, of course.” “Then what?” I began to grow eager. This was the most I had gotten out of her in a while. “Then we became friends. I would visit them every day after work and bring them whatever I had left over. Even if it was a few beans.” She smiled to herself. “I would make them little chairs and tables out of sticks and leaves I found around the yard. I would sew together little dresses using paper magazines. I left them gifts, and they would leave me some as well.” “What did they bring you?” My hands were resting under my chin. Eyes wide like an owl at midnight. “Random trinkets they would find. Shiny stuff. Sometimes it’d be silverware, sometimes jewelry. Sometimes it’d be a coin or two which made a big difference at the time.” Her smile grew, but stayed closed. Her wrinkles stretched themselves across her face, but the glossiness in her eyes brought a sense of youth. “Then what, Nana? Where are they now?” I jumped up a little in excitement which startled her. She dropped the mug and it shattered across the floor, spilling what was left of the brown liquid. She stayed silent. “I’m so sorry! Be careful and stay there while I clean it up, there’s glass!” I stood up immediately. She sat there, unfazed. I slipped on the sandals that were beneath my chair and stepped out back to grab the broom. When I slipped back inside, Mamá had made her way into the kitchen. “What happened?” She let out a dramatic breath. Throwing the groceries she had carried inside onto the counter. She ripped the broom from my hands and began to sweep. “¿Estás bien, Ma?” There was still no response from my grandmother. She sat there, frozen in time. Her frail hands still shaped around the non-existent mug. “What did you do?” Mamá turned to face me and I stuttered. “Her mind is very fragile right now, you know this.” “I didn’t do anything, I swear! We were just talking.” I aimed to defend myself but the weight of guilt sat itself like rocks, heavy in my stomach. I had asked too many questions. “I’m sorry.” My grandmother spoke a few words for the rest of the day. Simple responses that would please Mamá. I had refrained from speaking to her in fear of only hurting her more. She would trade sweet glances and small smiles with me over dinner. Her way of letting me know things were okay. That night I joined my grandmother in her bed. The window was open and it let a cool enough breeze in that encouraged us to be under the covers. I laid my head on her shoulder, adjusting my weight so as to not crush her feeble body. We laid there in silence as we usually did. There was a full moon out and the sound of crickets chirping lulled us to sleep. As my eyes grew heavy and my breathing became steady, she spoke. “I’m going to die,” She faintly said. My eyes became watery saucers at her sudden statement. When I gained the courage to look at her, she had already fallen asleep. Her eyes were closed, thinning lashes falling over her cheeks. Paired with the same small smile she had given me earlier. To her, everything was going to be okay. She didn’t wake up that morning. The doctor said she had died peacefully in her sleep and that in her position it was the best way to go. I stood at the doorway as Mamá wept at the foot of the bed. A blanket had been thrown over my grandmother’s body as we waited for someone to take her. My puffy eyes looked out the open window. The sun was bright and it was a beautiful day. Something that my grandmother would have appreciated dearly. She hated sad events. The sounds of chirping crickets had transitioned into the chirping of sparrows. Light and airy. At the corner of my eye, I noticed a pop of color. I tilted my head in curiosity, walking over to hover over the windowsill. Sitting there were two red grapes. Perfectly ripe and gleaming. I looked up to the sky and smiled.
 Frida |
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Manuel Ramos is the recipient of several literary awards and the author of numerous books, including The Golden Havana Dream: A Sherlock Homie Mystery (Arte Público Press, 2018), My Bad: A Mile High Noir (Arte Público Press, 2016), Desperado: A Mile High Noir (Arte Público Press, 2013), The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories (Arte Público Press, 2015), Brown-on-Brown: A Luis Móntez Mystery (University of New Mexico Press, 2003) and The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz (St. Martin’s Press, 1993; Northwestern University Press, 2004), an Edgar Award finalist. He lives and works in Denver, Colorado.
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The Beast of Cabo Rojo
Part Three
by Arnaldo Lopez Jr.
The man who had just introduced himself sat in a motorized wheelchair, his index finger rested on the small joystick near his right hand. His large dark eyes and dark hair were in stark contrast to his pinched, pale features. He wore a lab coat, and was covered from the waist down by a thin, white blanket. White gloves covered his hands, and a white scarf was wrapped around his neck.
“It’s good to finally meet you, Professor,” Jones said, extending his right hand. “And it’s Detective Jones by the way.”
Lamboi glared at the proffered hand until Jones put it away. “I wish that I could say the same,” he said. “I’m not used to the police barging into my facility and questioning my employees.”
Lamboi turned his formidable glare on his assistant before whipping his chair around and soundlessly scooting away. “Follow me,” he said as he rolled down one of the corridors.
Annoyed, Jones hurried to catch up. “I didn’t just barge into your facility,” he said once he’d caught up to the professor and his chair. “I’m here on official police business.
Lamboi ignored him and continued past the doors of what were obviously offices and meeting rooms.
“Why don’t we just stop at one of these offices?” Jones asked. “What I need to ask should only take a few minutes. And, by the way, I have to admit that I’m impressed at how quiet that chair is, it makes absolutely no noise.”
“The offices are the domain of my assistant and the other drones,” Lamboi answered dismissively. “I prefer to conduct my business in the labs.”
Lamboi ignored the detective’s observation about the chair.
They passed through two sets of double-doors that opened automatically into what the professor described as the main lab. Then he spun the chair around so that he now faced Jones.
“So what business is it that brings the police to my facility unannounced and unwelcome?” Lamboi asked.
Jones hid his annoyance and sighed inwardly. “I apologize for the intrusion, Professor,” he said. “But I’m here investigating a series of murders…”
“And what does that have to do with me?” the professor asked shortly.
“Have you heard about the recent killings that have taken place right here in Cabo Rojo?” Jones asked.
“I’m a very busy man, I don’t have time for television or newspapers,” Lamboi sneered, “Or the garish goings-on of the internet.”
“I understand,” Jones said as he glanced around at the rows of stainless steel and plastic contraptions that filled the enormous lab. “Well it appears that these killings may have been committed by a very powerful creature—an ape in fact.”
Lamboi rolled his eyes, “There are no apes here,” he said.
Jones took out his notepad and flipped through the pages. “According to a Mr. Benitez, your facility received a donation of a large, adult chimpanzee…”
“Oh yes, that creature,” Lamboi sniffed. “I accepted that animal mostly as a favor to the desperate young man that runs that particular facility, but once I’d received it—and after a thorough examination—I’d concluded that the creature was far too damaged to be of any use to me.”
“So where is it now?” Jones asked.
Lamboi smirked. “Follow me,” he said as he spun his chair around and headed to the far end of the lab.
Jones followed.
Lamboi stopped his chair in front of a bank of stainless steel racks filled with glass containers of various sizes. “There’s your ape,” he said, indicating one of the large containers with a thrust of his chin.
Jones looked and was immediately repulsed and sickened. Floating in the fluid that filled one of the larger jars was an ape’s head, its face frozen in a perpetual scream.
“What happened to it?” Jones asked once he’d composed himself.
“I euthanized it, of course,” Lamboi said matter-of-factly. “As I said, it was far too damaged for it to be of any use to me.”
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“What’s left of its body is a pile of ashes in our on-site crematorium,” Lamboi said. Then he added with another smirk, “Feel free to take its head with you if it will help with your investigation.”
“No thanks,” Jones said, irritated with the professor’s condescending attitude.
“Very well then,” Lamboi said as he spun away and headed towards the doors through which they’d entered the lab. “In that case, I assume that our business here is finished.”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Jones said as he snapped his notepad shut and put it away.
Lamboi led Jones back to the lobby where he and his personal assistant, Anna Vasquez, watched Jones exit through the front door and go out to the parking lot. Lamboi then turned his chair towards Anna Vasquez, his face twisted in rage.
Detective Perfecto Jones stepped out into the parking lot and walked the short distance to his car. The day had become overcast and Jones could hear the boom of thunder in the distance. The incoming weather matched his mood—this path of his investigation had basically come to an end—his theory, as crazy as it was, of a rogue ape being somehow involved in the killings in Cabo Rojo had ended in a pile of ashes, and a pickled head in a jar…
Suddenly a terrified scream came from inside the facility, followed closely by a loud thud and an even louder inhuman shriek that made the hairs on the back of Jones’ neck stand on end.
Jones yanked his pistol from its holster and ran back into the lobby of the facility…and into a nightmare!
Anna Vasquez’s body lay on the tiled floor in a rapidly spreading pool of her own blood. Her head was missing. Crouched over her, his gloved hands covered in blood, stood Professor Lamboi—his wheelchair lay on its side.
“Hold it right there, Professor!" Jones yelled. “Don’t move!”
Lamboi slowly turned his head, looking first at Jones’ raised gun, and then directly into Jones’ eyes. He smiled. “It was your fault, you know,” he said calmly. “She knew how I value my privacy. She knew better than to allow the police to come nosing around in my business.”
Outside, thunder rumbled and announced the approaching rainstorm with a dramatic series of bass drumrolls. Inside, the two men ignored it and kept their eyes locked together.
“It was only a matter of time before you were caught, Professor,” Jones said evenly.
“Don’t you want to know why? Or how?” Lamboi asked.
“I can find all of that out once I have you cuffed and in a cell,” Jones answered. “Right now what I want is for you to lay face down on the floor right there.”
Professor Lamboi glanced down at the slowly congealing pool of Anna Vasquez’s blood. “That can be quite messy,” he said.
Jones quickly took a glance at the blood too, just as a sharp crack of thunder exploded outside.
Lamboi leapt at the detective, reaching for the pistol in Jones’ hand. Jones squeezed the trigger but at this close range he couldn’t tell if he’d hit Lamboi or not. As the two men struggled over the gun, Jones was able to fire off two more shots but they went wide; the bullets burying themselves in the fancy receptionist’s desk. Lamboi then succeeded in knocking the gun out of Jones’ hand, nearly breaking the detective’s wrist in the process.
The thunder, now accompanied by brilliant flashes of lightning and the staccato sound of rain, continued to boom outside even as the two men inside savagely fought for the upper hand.
Jones, although he was larger than the professor and trained in hand-to-hand combat by the military, could tell, to his horror, that he was losing the fight. He latched onto the professor in a futile bid to wrestle him to the ground, but Lamboi managed to knock his hands away and shove him back. Jones sprawled onto his back, tearing away the professor’s blood-spattered lab coat as he fell.
Jones quickly raised himself up onto his elbows; the lab coat still clenched tightly in his hand, and looked around wildly for the professor.
At first, Jones’ mind was incapable of processing what he was seeing, and he just sat there propped up on his elbows trying to will his eyes to see reason. But his eyes betrayed him, because what they insisted on seeing was the professor’s head attached to the thickly muscled body of an ape!
“Like it?” Professor Lamboi asked, puffing out his chest and standing a little straighter. “Quite by accident I found that the amalgamation of chemicals in the ape’s body not only negated its natural ability to reject foreign tissue while maintaining a more or less uncompromised immune system, but the ape’s physiology was such that it seemed to welcome and even embrace multi-tissue interfaces while still remaining capable of fighting off the typical microbial invaders that cause infection. I considered it a miracle that this animal found its way to my facility. Due to my unfortunate disability, I’d already conducted a massive amount of research on the probability of performing a successful head transplant, and after that it was a matter of programming my surgical robots to perform the surgery.”
Jones stood up on legs that felt like rubber, and tried to keep his hands from shaking. “I have no idea what you just told me,” he said. “But is all that the reason you killed those people—for some kind of research?” Jones inched his way to the door as he spoke.
“Oh no,” Lamboi said. His eyes, feverish and shiny, followed Jones’ every move. “Even though the surgery was a complete success, I’d made one slight miscalculation…I had opted to keep the ape’s brain stem intact, it’s the reptilian part of the brain that controls base functions such as breathing. Unfortunately this eventually had the effect of somehow transferring the creature’s substantial, and for the most part, uncontrollable rage to me. In essence, its madness became my madness.”
Jones could make out a viscous line of drool leaking from the professor’s mouth and making its way down to his chin. When he looked back up to the professor’s eyes, all he could see were the dizzying depths of his insanity. In desperation Jones threw the lab coat at Lamboi and ran out into the storm.
The wind and rain lashed at his face, blinding him. He fumbled for his car keys, but his trembling hands wouldn’t cooperate and he dropped them on the ground. Jones heard the building’s door open behind him, and he turned to see the monster that used to be Professor Lamboi framed in the open doorway. Lamboi tore the gloves from his hands and flexed his powerful fingers.
“Your head will make a fine addition to my collection, Detective!” Lamboi called out before bursting into maniacal laughter that ended in a series of ape-like hoots and shrieks.
“My God no!” Jones gasped before turning and running across the parking lot and out through the still open gate.
At first Jones ran along the road, but then he heard the beast that had been Professor Lamboi gibbering and shrieking insanely behind him, and he plunged into the darkening forest in a panic.
Jones soon lost his bearing as he crashed through the trees and underbrush, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He had hoped to somehow get to the lighthouse, with its promise of shelter and people, but now he had no idea where he was going and he was too afraid to care. All he knew was that every instinct, every sense, indeed every fiber of his being screamed at him to get away!
Another flash of lightning lit up the sky, burning the image of the forest into monochromatic relief before his eyes, and revealing the glint of water in its strobe. Jones stumbled towards it.
He’d almost made it when he was forced to stop short. He thought that he had been headed towards a beach and the possibility of more people, but instead he now found himself standing on a muddy knoll that abruptly ended right in front of him. The hurricane must have washed away a chunk of the land here, and created a ragged outcropping that jutted out about ten feet above the water.
Jones searched the immediate area desperately as he tried to figure out which way to go, but it was no use—he was trapped.
Jones turned towards a blood-curdling shriek that came from the forest behind him just as a bolt of lightning silhouetted the nightmarish figure of the professor hurtling towards him!
Professor Lamboi barreled into the detective, wrapping his long, powerful arms around his torso as both men flew off the knoll and into the water ten-feet below.
The shock of hitting the cold water caused Lamboi to loosen his grip on the detective who, despite having the wind knocked out of him, managed to kick and flail his arms until he found himself free and swimming towards the surface.
Once he’d broken through to the surface and had filled his lungs with air, Jones nervously scanned the surrounding water for any sign of Lamboi.
A few moments later, sputtering and coughing, the professor surfaced about three feet away from where Jones was effortlessly treading water. The detective could see that Lamboi was having trouble staying afloat.
“Help me you fool! Help me!” The professor coughed.
Jones could only stare.
Professor Lamboi let out a terrible shriek and reached out with one of his long, monstrous arms in an effort to grab Jones, but the sudden movement only caused him to momentarily sink beneath the water. He soon returned to the surface again, his dark eyes wide with fear. “What’s wrong?” He asked. “I can’t stay afloat!”
“An ape’s muscle-mass is too dense for it to swim,” Jones recited, remembering being told this earlier in his investigation. “It would just sink.”
“No!” Professor Lamboi spluttered past a mouthful of seawater, his arms beating frantically at the water around him. “Save me! You must save me-e-e…” And then he sank beneath the waves one last time, his pale face still visible for several feet under the sea’s covering before disappearing into the depths.
Jones looked away, noticing for the first time that the storm had passed. He saw lights and heard distant music coming from a strip of beach about 50 yards away and tiredly made his way in that direction. Back to the world of comparative normalcy, and away from the final watery resting place of the Beast of Cabo Rojo.
“It’s good to finally meet you, Professor,” Jones said, extending his right hand. “And it’s Detective Jones by the way.”
Lamboi glared at the proffered hand until Jones put it away. “I wish that I could say the same,” he said. “I’m not used to the police barging into my facility and questioning my employees.”
Lamboi turned his formidable glare on his assistant before whipping his chair around and soundlessly scooting away. “Follow me,” he said as he rolled down one of the corridors.
Annoyed, Jones hurried to catch up. “I didn’t just barge into your facility,” he said once he’d caught up to the professor and his chair. “I’m here on official police business.
Lamboi ignored him and continued past the doors of what were obviously offices and meeting rooms.
“Why don’t we just stop at one of these offices?” Jones asked. “What I need to ask should only take a few minutes. And, by the way, I have to admit that I’m impressed at how quiet that chair is, it makes absolutely no noise.”
“The offices are the domain of my assistant and the other drones,” Lamboi answered dismissively. “I prefer to conduct my business in the labs.”
Lamboi ignored the detective’s observation about the chair.
They passed through two sets of double-doors that opened automatically into what the professor described as the main lab. Then he spun the chair around so that he now faced Jones.
“So what business is it that brings the police to my facility unannounced and unwelcome?” Lamboi asked.
Jones hid his annoyance and sighed inwardly. “I apologize for the intrusion, Professor,” he said. “But I’m here investigating a series of murders…”
“And what does that have to do with me?” the professor asked shortly.
“Have you heard about the recent killings that have taken place right here in Cabo Rojo?” Jones asked.
“I’m a very busy man, I don’t have time for television or newspapers,” Lamboi sneered, “Or the garish goings-on of the internet.”
“I understand,” Jones said as he glanced around at the rows of stainless steel and plastic contraptions that filled the enormous lab. “Well it appears that these killings may have been committed by a very powerful creature—an ape in fact.”
Lamboi rolled his eyes, “There are no apes here,” he said.
Jones took out his notepad and flipped through the pages. “According to a Mr. Benitez, your facility received a donation of a large, adult chimpanzee…”
“Oh yes, that creature,” Lamboi sniffed. “I accepted that animal mostly as a favor to the desperate young man that runs that particular facility, but once I’d received it—and after a thorough examination—I’d concluded that the creature was far too damaged to be of any use to me.”
“So where is it now?” Jones asked.
Lamboi smirked. “Follow me,” he said as he spun his chair around and headed to the far end of the lab.
Jones followed.
Lamboi stopped his chair in front of a bank of stainless steel racks filled with glass containers of various sizes. “There’s your ape,” he said, indicating one of the large containers with a thrust of his chin.
Jones looked and was immediately repulsed and sickened. Floating in the fluid that filled one of the larger jars was an ape’s head, its face frozen in a perpetual scream.
“What happened to it?” Jones asked once he’d composed himself.
“I euthanized it, of course,” Lamboi said matter-of-factly. “As I said, it was far too damaged for it to be of any use to me.”
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“What’s left of its body is a pile of ashes in our on-site crematorium,” Lamboi said. Then he added with another smirk, “Feel free to take its head with you if it will help with your investigation.”
“No thanks,” Jones said, irritated with the professor’s condescending attitude.
“Very well then,” Lamboi said as he spun away and headed towards the doors through which they’d entered the lab. “In that case, I assume that our business here is finished.”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Jones said as he snapped his notepad shut and put it away.
Lamboi led Jones back to the lobby where he and his personal assistant, Anna Vasquez, watched Jones exit through the front door and go out to the parking lot. Lamboi then turned his chair towards Anna Vasquez, his face twisted in rage.
Detective Perfecto Jones stepped out into the parking lot and walked the short distance to his car. The day had become overcast and Jones could hear the boom of thunder in the distance. The incoming weather matched his mood—this path of his investigation had basically come to an end—his theory, as crazy as it was, of a rogue ape being somehow involved in the killings in Cabo Rojo had ended in a pile of ashes, and a pickled head in a jar…
Suddenly a terrified scream came from inside the facility, followed closely by a loud thud and an even louder inhuman shriek that made the hairs on the back of Jones’ neck stand on end.
Jones yanked his pistol from its holster and ran back into the lobby of the facility…and into a nightmare!
Anna Vasquez’s body lay on the tiled floor in a rapidly spreading pool of her own blood. Her head was missing. Crouched over her, his gloved hands covered in blood, stood Professor Lamboi—his wheelchair lay on its side.
“Hold it right there, Professor!" Jones yelled. “Don’t move!”
Lamboi slowly turned his head, looking first at Jones’ raised gun, and then directly into Jones’ eyes. He smiled. “It was your fault, you know,” he said calmly. “She knew how I value my privacy. She knew better than to allow the police to come nosing around in my business.”
Outside, thunder rumbled and announced the approaching rainstorm with a dramatic series of bass drumrolls. Inside, the two men ignored it and kept their eyes locked together.
“It was only a matter of time before you were caught, Professor,” Jones said evenly.
“Don’t you want to know why? Or how?” Lamboi asked.
“I can find all of that out once I have you cuffed and in a cell,” Jones answered. “Right now what I want is for you to lay face down on the floor right there.”
Professor Lamboi glanced down at the slowly congealing pool of Anna Vasquez’s blood. “That can be quite messy,” he said.
Jones quickly took a glance at the blood too, just as a sharp crack of thunder exploded outside.
Lamboi leapt at the detective, reaching for the pistol in Jones’ hand. Jones squeezed the trigger but at this close range he couldn’t tell if he’d hit Lamboi or not. As the two men struggled over the gun, Jones was able to fire off two more shots but they went wide; the bullets burying themselves in the fancy receptionist’s desk. Lamboi then succeeded in knocking the gun out of Jones’ hand, nearly breaking the detective’s wrist in the process.
The thunder, now accompanied by brilliant flashes of lightning and the staccato sound of rain, continued to boom outside even as the two men inside savagely fought for the upper hand.
Jones, although he was larger than the professor and trained in hand-to-hand combat by the military, could tell, to his horror, that he was losing the fight. He latched onto the professor in a futile bid to wrestle him to the ground, but Lamboi managed to knock his hands away and shove him back. Jones sprawled onto his back, tearing away the professor’s blood-spattered lab coat as he fell.
Jones quickly raised himself up onto his elbows; the lab coat still clenched tightly in his hand, and looked around wildly for the professor.
At first, Jones’ mind was incapable of processing what he was seeing, and he just sat there propped up on his elbows trying to will his eyes to see reason. But his eyes betrayed him, because what they insisted on seeing was the professor’s head attached to the thickly muscled body of an ape!
“Like it?” Professor Lamboi asked, puffing out his chest and standing a little straighter. “Quite by accident I found that the amalgamation of chemicals in the ape’s body not only negated its natural ability to reject foreign tissue while maintaining a more or less uncompromised immune system, but the ape’s physiology was such that it seemed to welcome and even embrace multi-tissue interfaces while still remaining capable of fighting off the typical microbial invaders that cause infection. I considered it a miracle that this animal found its way to my facility. Due to my unfortunate disability, I’d already conducted a massive amount of research on the probability of performing a successful head transplant, and after that it was a matter of programming my surgical robots to perform the surgery.”
Jones stood up on legs that felt like rubber, and tried to keep his hands from shaking. “I have no idea what you just told me,” he said. “But is all that the reason you killed those people—for some kind of research?” Jones inched his way to the door as he spoke.
“Oh no,” Lamboi said. His eyes, feverish and shiny, followed Jones’ every move. “Even though the surgery was a complete success, I’d made one slight miscalculation…I had opted to keep the ape’s brain stem intact, it’s the reptilian part of the brain that controls base functions such as breathing. Unfortunately this eventually had the effect of somehow transferring the creature’s substantial, and for the most part, uncontrollable rage to me. In essence, its madness became my madness.”
Jones could make out a viscous line of drool leaking from the professor’s mouth and making its way down to his chin. When he looked back up to the professor’s eyes, all he could see were the dizzying depths of his insanity. In desperation Jones threw the lab coat at Lamboi and ran out into the storm.
The wind and rain lashed at his face, blinding him. He fumbled for his car keys, but his trembling hands wouldn’t cooperate and he dropped them on the ground. Jones heard the building’s door open behind him, and he turned to see the monster that used to be Professor Lamboi framed in the open doorway. Lamboi tore the gloves from his hands and flexed his powerful fingers.
“Your head will make a fine addition to my collection, Detective!” Lamboi called out before bursting into maniacal laughter that ended in a series of ape-like hoots and shrieks.
“My God no!” Jones gasped before turning and running across the parking lot and out through the still open gate.
At first Jones ran along the road, but then he heard the beast that had been Professor Lamboi gibbering and shrieking insanely behind him, and he plunged into the darkening forest in a panic.
Jones soon lost his bearing as he crashed through the trees and underbrush, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He had hoped to somehow get to the lighthouse, with its promise of shelter and people, but now he had no idea where he was going and he was too afraid to care. All he knew was that every instinct, every sense, indeed every fiber of his being screamed at him to get away!
Another flash of lightning lit up the sky, burning the image of the forest into monochromatic relief before his eyes, and revealing the glint of water in its strobe. Jones stumbled towards it.
He’d almost made it when he was forced to stop short. He thought that he had been headed towards a beach and the possibility of more people, but instead he now found himself standing on a muddy knoll that abruptly ended right in front of him. The hurricane must have washed away a chunk of the land here, and created a ragged outcropping that jutted out about ten feet above the water.
Jones searched the immediate area desperately as he tried to figure out which way to go, but it was no use—he was trapped.
Jones turned towards a blood-curdling shriek that came from the forest behind him just as a bolt of lightning silhouetted the nightmarish figure of the professor hurtling towards him!
Professor Lamboi barreled into the detective, wrapping his long, powerful arms around his torso as both men flew off the knoll and into the water ten-feet below.
The shock of hitting the cold water caused Lamboi to loosen his grip on the detective who, despite having the wind knocked out of him, managed to kick and flail his arms until he found himself free and swimming towards the surface.
Once he’d broken through to the surface and had filled his lungs with air, Jones nervously scanned the surrounding water for any sign of Lamboi.
A few moments later, sputtering and coughing, the professor surfaced about three feet away from where Jones was effortlessly treading water. The detective could see that Lamboi was having trouble staying afloat.
“Help me you fool! Help me!” The professor coughed.
Jones could only stare.
Professor Lamboi let out a terrible shriek and reached out with one of his long, monstrous arms in an effort to grab Jones, but the sudden movement only caused him to momentarily sink beneath the water. He soon returned to the surface again, his dark eyes wide with fear. “What’s wrong?” He asked. “I can’t stay afloat!”
“An ape’s muscle-mass is too dense for it to swim,” Jones recited, remembering being told this earlier in his investigation. “It would just sink.”
“No!” Professor Lamboi spluttered past a mouthful of seawater, his arms beating frantically at the water around him. “Save me! You must save me-e-e…” And then he sank beneath the waves one last time, his pale face still visible for several feet under the sea’s covering before disappearing into the depths.
Jones looked away, noticing for the first time that the storm had passed. He saw lights and heard distant music coming from a strip of beach about 50 yards away and tiredly made his way in that direction. Back to the world of comparative normalcy, and away from the final watery resting place of the Beast of Cabo Rojo.
Arnaldo Lopez Jr. was born of Puerto Rican parents, and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He’s sold articles to Railway Age magazine, The Daily News magazine, Homeland Defense Journal, and Reptile & Amphibian magazine; scripts to Little Archie and Personality Comics; and short stories to Neo-Opsis magazine, Lost Souls e-zine, Nth Online magazine, Blood Moon magazine, The Acentos Review magazine, Feed Your Monster e-zine, Fangs and Broken Bones horror anthology, Swallowed by the Beast horror anthology, Trembling with Fear horror anthology, Monsters Attack horror anthology, Mythic horror & Sci-fi anthology, and the A reflection of Me: An AAMBC Anthology. He was also editor of Offworld, a small science fiction magazine that was once chosen as a "Best Bet" by Sci-Fi television. His first novel, Chickenhawk, is the winner of two International Latino Book awards.
Read Part One
The Beast of Cabo Rojo
Part Two
by Arnaldo Lopez Jr.
Jones set out for Monkey Island the next morning. Cayo Santiago was located off Puerto Rico’s east coast and was accessible only by boat or helicopter. He’d called ahead and was told that a boat would be waiting to take him there.
The boat, operated by a young college intern, took him to a battered dock attached to a small “r” shaped island. He was met at the dock by a trim, studious-looking young man who introduced himself as Andres Benitez; a primatologist.
“Do you mind if we stay out here by the dock?” Benitez asked. “We have several scientists involved in a number of very sensitive studies right now, and it would help if we kept the human presence down to a minimum.”
Jones nodded as he produced his notepad and pen. “Sure, no problem,” he said. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“Great,” Benitez responded enthusiastically. “What little we had in the way of shelter or meeting space was blown out to sea by the hurricane. We have no permanent structures on the island since no one is allowed to stay overnight anyway.”
“And I imagine that’s also to minimize the human footprint here,” Jones said, while writing in his notepad.
“Exactly,” Benitez agreed. “Now, how may I help you officer?”
“Detective, actually,” Jones corrected. “I’m looking for a chimpanzee that I was told was donated to your facility. This was before the hurricane struck.”
“Oh yes, I remember that entire episode quite clearly,” Benitez said, a note of sadness creeping into his voice. “At the time we considered it to be a rescue type of thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well the zoo had literally run out of money, and so was rapidly trying to divest itself of all of its large animals,” Benitez explained. “The last of these was a very large adult chimpanzee that they had acquired as a donation from a lab.”
“So then you guys decided to take the chimpanzee in,” Jones said.
Benitez nodded. “It was a mistake,” he admitted. “The poor ape was severely traumatized and, even though you couldn’t initially tell by looking at him, his overall health had to have been compromised by all of the chemicals and drugs that were coursing through his bloodstream.”
“So where is the chimp now?” Jones asked.
Benitez sighed. “Look, you have to understand,” he said emphatically. “No other facility would take him in. We were hoping to temporarily house him in one of the large steel cages that some of our scientists eat their meals in while observing the monkeys, but he was too big and powerful. He destroyed two of the cages before we were able to sedate him. And even sedation was tricky since he didn’t react as expected, again, probably due to all of the chemicals already in his system.”
“Just how did he react?”
“The normal dose of sedative for an ape his size had no effect on him rather than causing him to become increasingly agitated and belligerent. The doses had to be increased to dangerous levels just to put him out.”
“So where’s the chimpanzee now?” Jones asked again.
“Wait, let me finish,” Benitez said. “The longer the chimpanzee stayed here, the angrier it became, with the vocalizations of the island’s resident monkeys seeming to irritate it. In turn its own screeches and its pounding on the floor and bars of the cages disturbed the monkeys to the point of ruining at least several months’ worth of scientific observation, entries, theories…
“I’m responsible for the 1,000 Rhesus Macaque monkeys that reside here, as well as for the students and scientists that study them.”
“Did the chimpanzee ever hurt any of the people here?” Jones asked. “Did it escape during or after the hurricane? Is it possible that it got out of its cage and swam back to Puerto Rico? Is that what you’re trying to hide here?”
“What? No!” Benitez insisted, before taking out his handkerchief and wiping his face. It had grown much warmer since their meeting started, and standing out in the open didn’t help things. “A chimpanzee’s muscle density would cause it to sink like a stone—it would have drowned.”
“So then where is it now?” Jones insisted.
Benitez sighed. “I gave it to a research lab back in Puerto Rico,” he stated dejectedly.
“I have no idea what happened to him after that, and I didn’t want to know.”
“Give me the name and address of that lab,” Jones insisted, writing it down in his notepad as quickly as Benitez recited it. His heart almost skipped a beat when Benitez told him that the lab was located in Cabo Rojo.
“A few more things,” Jones said still writing in his notepad. “Is a chimpanzee smart enough to erase its footprints from a crime scene? Can it be taught to do that? Can it be kept as a pet and taught to kill people?”
Benitez looked confused for a moment, but then answered the questions. “A chimpanzee is indeed smart enough to cover its tracks, but to answer your second question as well, it wouldn’t normally see the benefits of doing something like that, and so it would have to be trained to do so.”
“And the last question?”
“This reminds me of an Edgar Allen Poe story that I once read in high school, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ where an ape that was being kept as a pet commits murder…”
“So it is possible?” Jones pressed.
“Well, that was a work of fiction of course, but chimpanzees are often kept as pets,” Benitez said. “Unfortunately their owners soon find out that once a chimpanzee reaches adulthood, it becomes too unpredictable and dangerous to be safely kept as a pet any longer. As far as being taught to kill, I honestly don’t know. But a full-grown chimpanzee, and in my opinion especially the chimpanzee in question, is physically more than capable of killing a human being with its bare hands.”
After the short return trip from Monkey Island to the main island of Puerto Rico, Jones received a call from his captain: another headless body had been found in Cabo Rojo.
As soon as Jones pulled up to the crime scene, he was met there by a nearly frantic Sergeant Acosta.
“You seem to be spending more time working homicide scenes than recovering stolen vehicles,” Jones called out as he exited his vehicle.
Sergeant Acosta nodded and wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “The hurricane has pushed many of us out of our comfort zones.”
Jones clapped the Sergeant on his broad back good-naturedly. “Very true,” he agreed.
Acosta led him to the part of the forest that faced the grounds of the Los Morillos lighthouse; known simply as El Faro to the locals. The usually well-kept grounds of the lighthouse were littered with debris left behind by the hurricane. Volunteers armed with little more than hand tools toiled under the hot sun in an effort to clear away the mess. It was one of these volunteers, Sergeant Acosta explained, that had found the body partially hidden under an unruly pile of twigs and branches.
“It is like the others,” Acosta pointed out once they’d reached the body. “It has no head.”
Jones nodded absently as he searched the area near the body for clues—especially footprints.
“Perhaps the gargoyle has taken it?” Sergeant Acosta asked nervously.
Jones sighed. “If you want to remain a part of this investigation, Sergeant, then I suggest that you stop the superstitious nonsense.”
“Yes sir,” the Sergeant answered dejectedly.
Jones pointed at the area around the body. “No clear footprints,” he said. “Just like at the other crime scene, it looks as if they’ve been brushed away.”
Sergeant Acosta took a quick glance around and nodded in agreement.
“Apparently an ape would have no reason to do that on its own,” Jones added quietly as if in afterthought.
“Huh? I didn’t hear you, detective,” Acosta said.
“Never mind,” Jones said. “Arrange for this body to join the others in the refrigerator truck, and see if you can get Dr. Rivera to perform the autopsy.”
“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant said as Jones started walking back to his car. “Where can I say you’ll be if anyone asks?”
“Tell them that I’m with my wife and kids,” Jones said before driving away.
At the hotel where his family had taken refuge after the hurricane, Detective Jones sat on the room’s king-sized bed and used the remote to mute the sound on the television.
“The boys are finally asleep,” Jones’ wife Marisol said as she entered the room. “I wish I had half their energy!”
They laughed quietly as she climbed onto the bed and sat next to him. Jones rubbed her back, and she wiggled her toes in pleasure.
“How’s the house holding up?” She asked.
“About the same,” Jones answered. “I just had to take a break from that hammock!”
Marisol laughed again, “I can imagine,” she said. “Well at least tonight you can get a decent night’s sleep.”
Jones straightened up and put his hands in his lap. “I’m not sure I can sleep anyway,” he said. “This case I’m working on doesn’t make any sense.”
“You mean the gargoyle?” Marisol asked playfully.
Jones groaned and rolled his eyes, and then he sighed. “I hate to say this,” he said. “But I’m starting to wonder whether it is a gargoyle after all.”
Marisol laughed lightly, her eyes sparkling in the dim light. “I was only kidding, Perfe,” she said, using his nickname.
Jones sighed again. “I know,” he said. Then he told her about his search for an elusive chimpanzee that may also be a killer.
“I was so sure about the chimpanzee,” Jones said. “But at both crime scenes it looked like someone had deliberately tried to cover up the footprints there, and I was told that chimpanzees wouldn’t normally do anything like that, they would have to be taught to do that.”
Marisol bit her bottom lip as she processed the information that her husband had just told her. “Is it possible that someone is helping the chimpanzee hide its tracks?”
“I considered that,” Jones said. “But apparently this particular chimpanzee is too aggressive and dangerous to be led around on a leash or trained to do anything.”
Jones rubbed his suddenly cold hands together, “And I kept getting this feeling that I was being watched.”
Marisol placed her hand over both of his. “Like you told me happened to you sometimes during the war?”
Jones shook his head. “No, no. Not like that exactly,” he explained. “It wasn’t just a feeling of being watched—I could feel a terrible anger coming from whoever was watching me from the shadows. I can barely explain it. Actually the feeling may have been closer to hate than anger…it may have even been evil. Look, the hairs on my arms are standing straight up while I’m thinking about it.”
Marisol reached out and gently smoothed the hairs on one of his arms. “You’re tired, Perfe,” she said. “Looking after the house, sleeping on a hammock, this crazy case…you’ll figure it all out soon, you always do. All you need now is a good night’s sleep.”
Then, what started out as a goodnight kiss, ended in sweet lovemaking, and afterward he did have a good night’s sleep.
In the morning, Jones found himself on the road to Cabo Rojo before the sun had fully risen. He drove with the windows open, the air redolent with the astringent scent of the sea. In the distance roosters crowed while the distinct two-tone call of the Coqui tree frogs competed with the trilling singsong of the birds just waking from their nocturnal slumbers.
The drive down to Cabo Rojo was relatively uneventful. Jones nodded appreciatively at the road crews and volunteers still removing debris from the roads or directing traffic around the detours.
The drive through the forest to get to where the lab was located was a different matter altogether. The paved road soon disappeared, replaced by a pitted and rutted disaster that in some places was choked with near impenetrable barriers of hurricane engendered junk and debris. Jones had to backtrack and/or go off-road several times before coming to a well-maintained turn-off that led to a tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire.
Jones continued along the road running alongside the fence until he reached a small, circular clearing and a gate with a callbox mounted next to it.
Jones climbed stiffly from the confines of his vehicle and stretched the kinks out of his back and joints. As he was stretching, he looked around and took stock of his surroundings. The clearing and the entire area as far as his eyes could see, was surrounded by thick forest. Whereas earlier Jones had been able to smell the sea and had been serenaded by birds and frogs, the deep, jungle-like foliage that now surrounded him seemed to have the effect of dampening sound and blocking whatever breeze could have refreshed him, so that it seemed that in this place the day suddenly grew hot, humid and unnaturally quiet.
Jones then peered through the fence at the strange dome-like buildings beyond. The sight was surreal—three large dome-shaped buildings connected by what appeared to be external passageways. At one end of the compound stood what looked like a huge microwave antenna, pointed accusingly at the perfectly azure sky. If it wasn’t for the perfectly normal looking parking lot, the whole thing would have looked like something out of a science-fiction movie.
Perfecto Jones pressed the sole button on the callbox, and after a moment, a woman’s voice answered.
“Lamboi Labs.”
Jones identified himself and then added, “I believe someone from my office may have called you last night to let you know that I was coming?”
Several more moments passed, and just when Jones was about to press the button again, the voice returned.
“Yes, and I remember telling that person that the professor is not accepting visitors at the moment.”
“This isn’t a ‘visit’, Jones insisted. “And if the professor prefers, I can go back and get a warrant that would then involve more officers and which would also then be much more intrusive, I assure you.”
After a few more moments, the voice came through again. “Please drive up to the main building.”
This last direction was followed by a loud click, and a whirr as the gate retracted. Jones climbed back into his car, drove past the gate, and into the parking lot, where he parked next to the only other vehicle there.
As he exited his car again, Jones was met by a sharply dressed woman carrying a clipboard. “Detective Jones,” he introduced himself with his hand outstretched.
The woman, Jones assumed that she was the same person that he’d spoken with through the callbox, looked at his hand and avoided shaking it by gripping her clipboard even tighter. “Follow me,” she said curtly before turning around and disappearing through the doorway of the building.
Jones lowered his hand, shrugged, and followed her inside.
The inside of the building was much cooler than Jones expected, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. As the woman with the clipboard led him towards a semi-circular receptionist’s desk, Jones looked around at the ultra-modern, almost futuristic, décor.
“How long has this place been here?” Jones asked once they’d stopped at the receptionist’s desk.
The woman that had led him into the building took a seat behind the desk, and placed her clipboard carefully on top of it before answering. “The main building, this one that we’re in, was built six years ago. The other two, and the rest of the compound, were added later on, so the entire complex is relatively new.”
Jones gave a low whistle. “Six years? I never knew that this place existed until recently.”
“The professor values his privacy.”
“I guess so,” Jones said as he pulled out his notepad and referred to the notes he’d taken down during his research earlier. “And that would be Dr. Gustavo Lamboi?”
“Yes. He owns and runs this facility.”
“I see,” Jones said, tapping his pen on the notepad. “And who are you?”
“My name is Anna Vasquez,” she answered. “I’m Professor Lamboi’s personal assistant.”
Jones took a quick look around, “I’d like to speak to Dr. Lamboi,” he said.
“He knows that you’re waiting,” Vasquez said. “He will be joining us momentarily.”
Jones nodded.
“And he prefers to go by the title of professor,” she added.
“Professor of what?” Jones asked.
“Before his accident, he was a professor of spinal trauma and surgery at the medical college,” she answered. “His research led the way to making great gains in the areas of robotic and laser surgeries, not to mention his groundbreaking work in the areas of stem cell implementation, immunology, and micro-surgery.”
Jones stopped writing in his notepad and looked at her. “You really admire the, uh, professor,” he said.
A blush stole its way quickly over face and neck. “Of course I admire him,” Anna said. “He is a great man; a genius! I was his student at the college, and that’s where he first hired me as his research assistant. Once he received the grant to build this facility, he brought me onboard as his personal assistant.”
“That’s a lot of assisting,” Jones said, shutting his notepad and trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
Anna Vasquez skewered him with a sharp glance. “What are you implying?” She asked sharply.
“Nothing,” he said casually. “Nothing at all. I, uh, did notice the unique shape of the buildings here…”
“The dome shape of the buildings make them virtually hurricane-proof,” Vasquez explained. “The high winds have nothing to grab onto, and so ensure that damage is kept at a minimum. Each building and exterior passageway also utilizes a mostly gravity-based drainage system that automatically funnels potential flood-water away from the structures and out into the nearby mangroves…”
“Mangroves?”
“Mangrove trees are notorious for their ability to tolerate flooding and even the occasional saturation of seawater, Mr. Jones.”
Surprised, Jones abruptly turned around to see who had just spoken to him.
“I am Professor Lamboi, owner and administrator of this facility.”
The boat, operated by a young college intern, took him to a battered dock attached to a small “r” shaped island. He was met at the dock by a trim, studious-looking young man who introduced himself as Andres Benitez; a primatologist.
“Do you mind if we stay out here by the dock?” Benitez asked. “We have several scientists involved in a number of very sensitive studies right now, and it would help if we kept the human presence down to a minimum.”
Jones nodded as he produced his notepad and pen. “Sure, no problem,” he said. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“Great,” Benitez responded enthusiastically. “What little we had in the way of shelter or meeting space was blown out to sea by the hurricane. We have no permanent structures on the island since no one is allowed to stay overnight anyway.”
“And I imagine that’s also to minimize the human footprint here,” Jones said, while writing in his notepad.
“Exactly,” Benitez agreed. “Now, how may I help you officer?”
“Detective, actually,” Jones corrected. “I’m looking for a chimpanzee that I was told was donated to your facility. This was before the hurricane struck.”
“Oh yes, I remember that entire episode quite clearly,” Benitez said, a note of sadness creeping into his voice. “At the time we considered it to be a rescue type of thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well the zoo had literally run out of money, and so was rapidly trying to divest itself of all of its large animals,” Benitez explained. “The last of these was a very large adult chimpanzee that they had acquired as a donation from a lab.”
“So then you guys decided to take the chimpanzee in,” Jones said.
Benitez nodded. “It was a mistake,” he admitted. “The poor ape was severely traumatized and, even though you couldn’t initially tell by looking at him, his overall health had to have been compromised by all of the chemicals and drugs that were coursing through his bloodstream.”
“So where is the chimp now?” Jones asked.
Benitez sighed. “Look, you have to understand,” he said emphatically. “No other facility would take him in. We were hoping to temporarily house him in one of the large steel cages that some of our scientists eat their meals in while observing the monkeys, but he was too big and powerful. He destroyed two of the cages before we were able to sedate him. And even sedation was tricky since he didn’t react as expected, again, probably due to all of the chemicals already in his system.”
“Just how did he react?”
“The normal dose of sedative for an ape his size had no effect on him rather than causing him to become increasingly agitated and belligerent. The doses had to be increased to dangerous levels just to put him out.”
“So where’s the chimpanzee now?” Jones asked again.
“Wait, let me finish,” Benitez said. “The longer the chimpanzee stayed here, the angrier it became, with the vocalizations of the island’s resident monkeys seeming to irritate it. In turn its own screeches and its pounding on the floor and bars of the cages disturbed the monkeys to the point of ruining at least several months’ worth of scientific observation, entries, theories…
“I’m responsible for the 1,000 Rhesus Macaque monkeys that reside here, as well as for the students and scientists that study them.”
“Did the chimpanzee ever hurt any of the people here?” Jones asked. “Did it escape during or after the hurricane? Is it possible that it got out of its cage and swam back to Puerto Rico? Is that what you’re trying to hide here?”
“What? No!” Benitez insisted, before taking out his handkerchief and wiping his face. It had grown much warmer since their meeting started, and standing out in the open didn’t help things. “A chimpanzee’s muscle density would cause it to sink like a stone—it would have drowned.”
“So then where is it now?” Jones insisted.
Benitez sighed. “I gave it to a research lab back in Puerto Rico,” he stated dejectedly.
“I have no idea what happened to him after that, and I didn’t want to know.”
“Give me the name and address of that lab,” Jones insisted, writing it down in his notepad as quickly as Benitez recited it. His heart almost skipped a beat when Benitez told him that the lab was located in Cabo Rojo.
“A few more things,” Jones said still writing in his notepad. “Is a chimpanzee smart enough to erase its footprints from a crime scene? Can it be taught to do that? Can it be kept as a pet and taught to kill people?”
Benitez looked confused for a moment, but then answered the questions. “A chimpanzee is indeed smart enough to cover its tracks, but to answer your second question as well, it wouldn’t normally see the benefits of doing something like that, and so it would have to be trained to do so.”
“And the last question?”
“This reminds me of an Edgar Allen Poe story that I once read in high school, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ where an ape that was being kept as a pet commits murder…”
“So it is possible?” Jones pressed.
“Well, that was a work of fiction of course, but chimpanzees are often kept as pets,” Benitez said. “Unfortunately their owners soon find out that once a chimpanzee reaches adulthood, it becomes too unpredictable and dangerous to be safely kept as a pet any longer. As far as being taught to kill, I honestly don’t know. But a full-grown chimpanzee, and in my opinion especially the chimpanzee in question, is physically more than capable of killing a human being with its bare hands.”
After the short return trip from Monkey Island to the main island of Puerto Rico, Jones received a call from his captain: another headless body had been found in Cabo Rojo.
As soon as Jones pulled up to the crime scene, he was met there by a nearly frantic Sergeant Acosta.
“You seem to be spending more time working homicide scenes than recovering stolen vehicles,” Jones called out as he exited his vehicle.
Sergeant Acosta nodded and wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “The hurricane has pushed many of us out of our comfort zones.”
Jones clapped the Sergeant on his broad back good-naturedly. “Very true,” he agreed.
Acosta led him to the part of the forest that faced the grounds of the Los Morillos lighthouse; known simply as El Faro to the locals. The usually well-kept grounds of the lighthouse were littered with debris left behind by the hurricane. Volunteers armed with little more than hand tools toiled under the hot sun in an effort to clear away the mess. It was one of these volunteers, Sergeant Acosta explained, that had found the body partially hidden under an unruly pile of twigs and branches.
“It is like the others,” Acosta pointed out once they’d reached the body. “It has no head.”
Jones nodded absently as he searched the area near the body for clues—especially footprints.
“Perhaps the gargoyle has taken it?” Sergeant Acosta asked nervously.
Jones sighed. “If you want to remain a part of this investigation, Sergeant, then I suggest that you stop the superstitious nonsense.”
“Yes sir,” the Sergeant answered dejectedly.
Jones pointed at the area around the body. “No clear footprints,” he said. “Just like at the other crime scene, it looks as if they’ve been brushed away.”
Sergeant Acosta took a quick glance around and nodded in agreement.
“Apparently an ape would have no reason to do that on its own,” Jones added quietly as if in afterthought.
“Huh? I didn’t hear you, detective,” Acosta said.
“Never mind,” Jones said. “Arrange for this body to join the others in the refrigerator truck, and see if you can get Dr. Rivera to perform the autopsy.”
“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant said as Jones started walking back to his car. “Where can I say you’ll be if anyone asks?”
“Tell them that I’m with my wife and kids,” Jones said before driving away.
At the hotel where his family had taken refuge after the hurricane, Detective Jones sat on the room’s king-sized bed and used the remote to mute the sound on the television.
“The boys are finally asleep,” Jones’ wife Marisol said as she entered the room. “I wish I had half their energy!”
They laughed quietly as she climbed onto the bed and sat next to him. Jones rubbed her back, and she wiggled her toes in pleasure.
“How’s the house holding up?” She asked.
“About the same,” Jones answered. “I just had to take a break from that hammock!”
Marisol laughed again, “I can imagine,” she said. “Well at least tonight you can get a decent night’s sleep.”
Jones straightened up and put his hands in his lap. “I’m not sure I can sleep anyway,” he said. “This case I’m working on doesn’t make any sense.”
“You mean the gargoyle?” Marisol asked playfully.
Jones groaned and rolled his eyes, and then he sighed. “I hate to say this,” he said. “But I’m starting to wonder whether it is a gargoyle after all.”
Marisol laughed lightly, her eyes sparkling in the dim light. “I was only kidding, Perfe,” she said, using his nickname.
Jones sighed again. “I know,” he said. Then he told her about his search for an elusive chimpanzee that may also be a killer.
“I was so sure about the chimpanzee,” Jones said. “But at both crime scenes it looked like someone had deliberately tried to cover up the footprints there, and I was told that chimpanzees wouldn’t normally do anything like that, they would have to be taught to do that.”
Marisol bit her bottom lip as she processed the information that her husband had just told her. “Is it possible that someone is helping the chimpanzee hide its tracks?”
“I considered that,” Jones said. “But apparently this particular chimpanzee is too aggressive and dangerous to be led around on a leash or trained to do anything.”
Jones rubbed his suddenly cold hands together, “And I kept getting this feeling that I was being watched.”
Marisol placed her hand over both of his. “Like you told me happened to you sometimes during the war?”
Jones shook his head. “No, no. Not like that exactly,” he explained. “It wasn’t just a feeling of being watched—I could feel a terrible anger coming from whoever was watching me from the shadows. I can barely explain it. Actually the feeling may have been closer to hate than anger…it may have even been evil. Look, the hairs on my arms are standing straight up while I’m thinking about it.”
Marisol reached out and gently smoothed the hairs on one of his arms. “You’re tired, Perfe,” she said. “Looking after the house, sleeping on a hammock, this crazy case…you’ll figure it all out soon, you always do. All you need now is a good night’s sleep.”
Then, what started out as a goodnight kiss, ended in sweet lovemaking, and afterward he did have a good night’s sleep.
In the morning, Jones found himself on the road to Cabo Rojo before the sun had fully risen. He drove with the windows open, the air redolent with the astringent scent of the sea. In the distance roosters crowed while the distinct two-tone call of the Coqui tree frogs competed with the trilling singsong of the birds just waking from their nocturnal slumbers.
The drive down to Cabo Rojo was relatively uneventful. Jones nodded appreciatively at the road crews and volunteers still removing debris from the roads or directing traffic around the detours.
The drive through the forest to get to where the lab was located was a different matter altogether. The paved road soon disappeared, replaced by a pitted and rutted disaster that in some places was choked with near impenetrable barriers of hurricane engendered junk and debris. Jones had to backtrack and/or go off-road several times before coming to a well-maintained turn-off that led to a tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire.
Jones continued along the road running alongside the fence until he reached a small, circular clearing and a gate with a callbox mounted next to it.
Jones climbed stiffly from the confines of his vehicle and stretched the kinks out of his back and joints. As he was stretching, he looked around and took stock of his surroundings. The clearing and the entire area as far as his eyes could see, was surrounded by thick forest. Whereas earlier Jones had been able to smell the sea and had been serenaded by birds and frogs, the deep, jungle-like foliage that now surrounded him seemed to have the effect of dampening sound and blocking whatever breeze could have refreshed him, so that it seemed that in this place the day suddenly grew hot, humid and unnaturally quiet.
Jones then peered through the fence at the strange dome-like buildings beyond. The sight was surreal—three large dome-shaped buildings connected by what appeared to be external passageways. At one end of the compound stood what looked like a huge microwave antenna, pointed accusingly at the perfectly azure sky. If it wasn’t for the perfectly normal looking parking lot, the whole thing would have looked like something out of a science-fiction movie.
Perfecto Jones pressed the sole button on the callbox, and after a moment, a woman’s voice answered.
“Lamboi Labs.”
Jones identified himself and then added, “I believe someone from my office may have called you last night to let you know that I was coming?”
Several more moments passed, and just when Jones was about to press the button again, the voice returned.
“Yes, and I remember telling that person that the professor is not accepting visitors at the moment.”
“This isn’t a ‘visit’, Jones insisted. “And if the professor prefers, I can go back and get a warrant that would then involve more officers and which would also then be much more intrusive, I assure you.”
After a few more moments, the voice came through again. “Please drive up to the main building.”
This last direction was followed by a loud click, and a whirr as the gate retracted. Jones climbed back into his car, drove past the gate, and into the parking lot, where he parked next to the only other vehicle there.
As he exited his car again, Jones was met by a sharply dressed woman carrying a clipboard. “Detective Jones,” he introduced himself with his hand outstretched.
The woman, Jones assumed that she was the same person that he’d spoken with through the callbox, looked at his hand and avoided shaking it by gripping her clipboard even tighter. “Follow me,” she said curtly before turning around and disappearing through the doorway of the building.
Jones lowered his hand, shrugged, and followed her inside.
The inside of the building was much cooler than Jones expected, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. As the woman with the clipboard led him towards a semi-circular receptionist’s desk, Jones looked around at the ultra-modern, almost futuristic, décor.
“How long has this place been here?” Jones asked once they’d stopped at the receptionist’s desk.
The woman that had led him into the building took a seat behind the desk, and placed her clipboard carefully on top of it before answering. “The main building, this one that we’re in, was built six years ago. The other two, and the rest of the compound, were added later on, so the entire complex is relatively new.”
Jones gave a low whistle. “Six years? I never knew that this place existed until recently.”
“The professor values his privacy.”
“I guess so,” Jones said as he pulled out his notepad and referred to the notes he’d taken down during his research earlier. “And that would be Dr. Gustavo Lamboi?”
“Yes. He owns and runs this facility.”
“I see,” Jones said, tapping his pen on the notepad. “And who are you?”
“My name is Anna Vasquez,” she answered. “I’m Professor Lamboi’s personal assistant.”
Jones took a quick look around, “I’d like to speak to Dr. Lamboi,” he said.
“He knows that you’re waiting,” Vasquez said. “He will be joining us momentarily.”
Jones nodded.
“And he prefers to go by the title of professor,” she added.
“Professor of what?” Jones asked.
“Before his accident, he was a professor of spinal trauma and surgery at the medical college,” she answered. “His research led the way to making great gains in the areas of robotic and laser surgeries, not to mention his groundbreaking work in the areas of stem cell implementation, immunology, and micro-surgery.”
Jones stopped writing in his notepad and looked at her. “You really admire the, uh, professor,” he said.
A blush stole its way quickly over face and neck. “Of course I admire him,” Anna said. “He is a great man; a genius! I was his student at the college, and that’s where he first hired me as his research assistant. Once he received the grant to build this facility, he brought me onboard as his personal assistant.”
“That’s a lot of assisting,” Jones said, shutting his notepad and trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
Anna Vasquez skewered him with a sharp glance. “What are you implying?” She asked sharply.
“Nothing,” he said casually. “Nothing at all. I, uh, did notice the unique shape of the buildings here…”
“The dome shape of the buildings make them virtually hurricane-proof,” Vasquez explained. “The high winds have nothing to grab onto, and so ensure that damage is kept at a minimum. Each building and exterior passageway also utilizes a mostly gravity-based drainage system that automatically funnels potential flood-water away from the structures and out into the nearby mangroves…”
“Mangroves?”
“Mangrove trees are notorious for their ability to tolerate flooding and even the occasional saturation of seawater, Mr. Jones.”
Surprised, Jones abruptly turned around to see who had just spoken to him.
“I am Professor Lamboi, owner and administrator of this facility.”
End Part II
Keep a look out for the conclusion in Part III.
Keep a look out for the conclusion in Part III.
Arnaldo Lopez Jr. was born of Puerto Rican parents, and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He’s sold articles to Railway Age magazine, The Daily News magazine, Homeland Defense Journal, and Reptile & Amphibian magazine; scripts to Little Archie and Personality Comics; and short stories to Neo-Opsis magazine, Lost Souls e-zine, Nth Online magazine, Blood Moon magazine, The Acentos Review magazine, Feed Your Monster e-zine, Fangs and Broken Bones horror anthology, Swallowed by the Beast horror anthology, Trembling with Fear horror anthology, Monsters Attack horror anthology, Mythic horror & Sci-fi anthology, and the A reflection of Me: An AAMBC Anthology. He was also editor of Offworld, a small science fiction magazine that was once chosen as a "Best Bet" by Sci-Fi television. His first novel, Chickenhawk, is the winner of two International Latino Book awards.
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