Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

Several vaguely ballistic clicks punctuate the silence of the room. Images of paintings parade across the wall, and the assembled contemplate them with expressions ranging from skepticism to uncertainty. The various images are very dark and most appear to depict scenes associated with natural disasters. Some are so dark that it's hard to see what's going on in them. In general it seems to be fires and hordes of demons invading the Earth. The sky is invariably black. The human figures in the paintings seem to always be fleeing with their arms held high and their faces shaken with fear. After a minute, Giraut stops the slide show on an image that's slightly different from the rest. It's also a dark scene filled with terrified people, but at the same time it's somehow simpler and more impressive. Its simplicity somehow makes it more disheartening. And at the same time more appealing. A mountainous landscape collapsing into hundreds of cracks and bottomless abysses. As if the entire world were experiencing an earthquake of apocalyptic dimensions.

“This is the first of the St. Kieran Panels,” says Giraut. “The only one that I was able to find a slide of. The title by which it is traditionally known is a Latin phrase that means 'And, behold, there was a great earthquake.' Which is a verse from the Book of the Apocalypse. The expressiveness of the forms is stunning,” he adds, pointing with his head to the human figures in the painting, most of which are falling through the cracks in the ground and going over rocky cliffs. Frozen by the magic of art in free fall toward the center of the Earth.

There is a moment of silence as they all look at the painting. Saudade turns his head to look at a part of the image that's upside down. Aníbal Manta raises a hand.

“What does it mean?” he says. Fondling his hoop earring absentmindedly. “I don't much get art. Though I do like comic books.”

Lucas Giraut half turns so he can look at the slide of the painting. With a surprised expression. As if he had never thought of the question.

“I don't know exactly,” he says finally. “But I guess it means that everything is going wrong.”

“It's like that movie,” says Saudade. He starts snapping the fingers of one hand. “I don't remember the name.”

Bocanegra takes a pensive pull on his cigar while watching as an employee of the billboard rental company equipped with a harness and climbing gear hangs over one of the gigantic billboards on Diagonal Avenue. Changing the advertising message on the billboard. The new message that the employee with the harness is pasting onto the billboard of Diagonal Avenue, sector by sector, says the following: “ONLY SEVENTEEN DAYS UNTIL THE WORLDWIDE RELEASE OF STEPHEN KING'S NEW NOVEL.”

“Our plan is a masterpiece of planning, of course.” Bocanegra puts his hands on his hips and grabs the cigar with his teeth in a toothy grimace that momentarily intensifies the elements of cruelty in his already cruel facial expression. “As usual. As usually happens when I'm in charge. We have a three-week window of operations while the paintings are in the gallery. There will be a team of experts that will inspect them when they arrive, to reassure the buyers and all that. But no one is going to inspect them when the three weeks are over. And that's where we come in.” He makes a broad gesture toward the Meeting Room. Which, just like the rest of the Upper Level of The Dark Side of the Moon, is decorated with Persian rugs and fine wood and has special niches in the walls for statues. “Because the sucker who takes those paintings home and hangs them in his living room will be hanging the copies that we've had made and switched with the real paintings. Oh, they'll figure it out, sure. As soon as that sucker has them appraised or whatever. But by then we'll already have taken the real paintings out of the country, and we'll have sold them, and we'll have the money well stashed underneath our mattresses.”

There is a sudden noise at the end of the long table covered with small bottles of water. Similar to the sound of someone punching the table, followed by the damp, snotty sounds of someone bursting into tears inconsolably. Bocanegra turns toward the sound. Several faces now study the origin of the sound. Eric Yanel's ashtray brimming with smashed cigarette butts is now on the carpet. Eric Yanel is sobbing with his face buried in his arms. Amid his own cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Of course,” continues Bocanegra with a frown, “the plan wouldn't be a masterpiece of planning without someone able to make copies perfect enough to hang in the gallery for the necessary time without raising any suspicion. And I have to say that we have nothing to worry about in that arena. Because we have the best specialist in the field. Better than the best. We have the master. The guy who's taught everything to the current generation. The guy that's tricked half the experts at Sotheby's and Christie's. So good at what he does and so absolutely legendary that he's on Interpol's list of the hundred most wanted men. Well.” He shrugs his shoulders. His gesture introduces an element of uncertainty that's unable to completely superimpose itself over the backdrop of cruelty. “We don't exactly have him. He isn't the kind of person who advertises in the yellow pages. We know that he lives under various false identities and moves constantly among several European capitals. Where he has people who hide him. And I can't say that he's exactly agreed to work with us. But I can say”—his smile seems to make his mustache come to life—“that we know where he'll be in a few days. Thanks to certain contacts that have supplied me with an address and a couple of dates on the calendar. In exchange for certain past favors. His name is Raymond Panakian. Or at least that's what the people who sometimes need his services usually call him. And you”—he points with the incandescent end of the cigar toward the three men seated at the table. One of which continues crying with his head sunk between his arms and irregular columns of smoke rising around him—“you are going to have to convince him to come work with us. That it's worth it to come and work with us because we are fabulous people who are worth working with.”

Lucas Giraut still has the slide projector switch in his hand, but now it seems that the focus of his attention has moved elsewhere. Now he seems to be watching something located on the other side of the large windows. Far below the Meeting Room where the meeting is taking place. With a slight frown.

“I'm good at convincing people,” says Saudade in a tone completely devoid of irony. While he examines the residue beneath one fingernail with his brow gathered. All his fingers seem to have the same uniform amount of dark residual material beneath the nails. “I always end up completely convincing 'em.”

“There's a car out front that seems to be watching us.” Lucas Giraut points with his head at Commissioner Farina's lackeys' car that is parked across the street. “They have cameras. And it looks like they're watching us.”

“That car belongs to Commissioner Farina's lackeys,” says Mr. Bocanegra. Without looking at where Lucas Giraut is pointing. “The guy that put your father in jail. And who's been on my ass since the late seventies. A real psychopath. One of those cops, you know. Loves car chases. But you have nothing to worry about.” His tone is not reassuring in any kind or quasi-paternal way. It is a tone that mixes elements of quasi-paternal advice with a veiled threat. “That's all you need to know for now. In the next few days I'll give you all instructions and blueprints. Guidelines. The details of my plan. The fee is the usual one for this kind of job. In other words, a ton of money. So you can have some more fun and get yourselves in some more trouble. Except for Mr. Yanel, who has been so kind as to renounce his share in exchange for my taking lightly certain matters that he and I have pending.” He expels a puff of thick smelly cigar smoke and looks at the twisting distorted images of the faces of the four members of his audience through the cigar smoke. “Now is the moment where you ask all the questions you need to. And I hope that they'll be relevant and intelligent questions and that none of them will be too long or complicated, because it turns out that tonight I am having dinner with my nieces and nephews. The people I love most in the world. And I don't want to show up late for my dinner with them. So go ahead.” He makes a gesture slightly similar to the gesture one makes when, in a fistfight, they want to indicate to their opponent to come closer so they can give them a good slug. “Ask me your relevant and intelligent questions.”