Policemen Story

By Esteban Navarro Soriano

Five friends befriended the national police school in 1995.

After twenty years of profession, everyone converges in the city of Huesca. One night, one of them asks the rest of the teammates for one last favor. There's a body in the trunk of his car and he wants the others to help him get rid of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Nov 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667418896

Book preview

•   Chapter 1

To the ear of common mortals, that faint sound of boots crawling down the stairs from the bottom floor would have gone completely unnoticed. Just a leaf-like whisper sliding under a door. The board of a set of flies swirling in front of a glass window. But I, who had heard it on so many other occasions, was sure that those footsteps that went up the stairs of the jeweler's house were going after me. They, who were once my companions, friends, old acquaintances, did not speak to each other; but I could imagine them gesticulating those loud signs they threw with their fists up while pointing them at their partner, the one next to them, or the one they had in front or back, where they should go. The stations are silent. Headphones inserted into the ear while receiving accurate orders from the team leader.

Earlier, much earlier, in the early hours of the morning, the inspector gathered them in a police station office, looking at the other policemen, and gave them the necessary indications on a paper plane extended at one of the tables. He pointed to the key areas: the parking area, the access door, the living room, the ladder, the hallway on the top floor, and the room. The agents observed with enlarged eyes each of the segments, memorizing them, learning each of the positions.

It's awfully cold. The month of January had been baited with Huesca and you could walk through the streets without stepping on any puddles, ice rinks were erected instead, as were the pools that were transformed into glaciers. The cold slows everything down. My environment freezes, just like my heart. The cold makes me tingle, or afraid. I thought it was inconceivable that I might be afraid by now. But it's not the type those cops give me who stand in front of my door, but it's another kind of fear: uncertainty. I think about what happens next. Where they're going to take me. What will my neighbors say?  My teammates? What will become of my wife, my son..., my lover? I feel an icy terror, no concrete images, no facial expressions. I think that's how we all create our false memory: through irrational thoughts that pollute our memories and disfigure them.

I'm here, sitting on Ikea's indeterminately colored easy chair, which could be light brown, like ochre. I’m wearing the police dress uniform. On the front left hang my three medals: one red and two white. I loved them as a valuable object is cherished. I'm trying to feel its touch. I wish I was in my apartment with my wife reading in the living room and my son playing in his room. But my teenage passion and inclination to unravel unsolvable cases dragged me into this house, which I didn’t recognize as home, and where I found myself alone. Abandoned.

There were about five to ten cops, I calculate mentally. Five if they had sent the GEO, the Grupo Especial Operaciones. In that case they had to charter a helicopter from Guadalajara or from Barajas airport, where there was a small rapid response group. That helicopter should have traveled just over 300 kilometers at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour. It doesn't take any Einstein to determine that in an hour and a half they had enough time to fly from Guadalajara, or from Madrid to Huesca. They could have taken advantage of the helipad at St. George's Hospital to land, and from there they wouldn't have needed more than five or ten minutes to lend a car from the Huesca police station. The second possibility is that the Directorate-General of police would have chosen to send SOG, or which is the same: the Special Operations Group.

Immersed in the swaying of wheezing sounds coming from the hallway and the ladder, I remember that academy inspector who said that if GEO are the Madelmanns of the national police, GOES are Playmobil Clicks. A horny inspector. In the hypothetical event that those at the door of the room right now were GOES, the displacement would have been shorter, as GOES could have departed from Zaragoza in their van and arrived in Huesca in just 45 minutes. In both cases time is not important, at least for me; the important thing is the number of cops that are right now behind the door. five. Yes, five policemen equipped, armed and prepared with a single order: to capture me. I live, if possible; although it is not an indispensable requirement, but it is politically and ethically correct. Five. What ironies fate has. Because five of us were also before Antonio got his wires crossed that fucking night. Damn it, Antonio! But you didn't think about everything that would come at us. There were five of us who were welcome. friends. Real friends, of those who forge the same in hardship: Antonio, Joaquin, Juan Carlos, Jorge and me. Each with his things, with his way of seeing the world, with his interpretation of what it meant to be a policeman. With their dreams. Each with his own personal affairs. Their families, their lovers, their children. Each with his own private part of his own life, but united in the effort to form more than just a profession dedicated to others. Building a freer and safer society, but sometimes paying a high price: our own freedom.

We started becoming friends in the cafeteria of the General Police School, in Avila. It was 1995 and we sat around those round, pristine tables, and shared a coffee and a cigarette, at the time when you could smoke in bars and public buildings. All five of us were almost the same age; though Antonio was a little older than us. But that advantage didn't convey to him enough confidence to be more cautious and shit it the way he screwed up. Damn it, Antonio! Let's see how you screwed up, man! You screwed up to the bottom and dragged us all. During those school days, Antonio was 25 years old. He was the only one born in 1970, while the others were all from '73, each of a different month. One of the teachers, the police ethics professor, told us that recruiting such young police was recommended, since the corporation could shape it as they please and protect it from any vice it might have acquired in its civilian life. Although I remember that there were students in the academy who had almost turned thirty, and one of those was not Trigo Limpio afterwards either.

I know the colleagues in the Special Operations Group are right behind the door. I sense them. With their bulletproof vests, their faces hidden behind a balaclava with the police logo on their foreheads, as if it were an advertisement. And the helmet. With their SG 552 assault rifles ready, except one, the strongest, who must currently hold in his arms the black battering ram with which he will break down the door, if I don’t open it first. That battering ram weighs almost 16 kilos but hits with a force of approximately 9 tons. The door will give way like the lid of a yogurt that is sharpened at the slightest pressure of a finger. And they'll go into Olivia's room. They'll point at my head and chest with the beams of light on their rifles. They'll yell to cause confusion and, release luminous flashes preceded by smoke and noise - lots of noise. Damn Antonio, how you fucked us up.

1.    Chapter 2

After Antonio, I was the first to know what had happened. I've never believed in prophesies and predictions, but I don't know yet why. I knew that when Antonio phoned me that Saturday night in June 2015, we'd never get out of the hole we all got into.

That Saturday had been a regular day, like so many other weekends. At noon, after lunch, I went for a walk and stretched my legs. I went up the station round to the park street and then walked to the police station, avoiding walking past so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself by greeting anyone. I walked down Vicente Campo Street, opposite Miguel Servet Park, and noticed that they had opened a new bar - The Parra, I read in the label. I didn't even remember what trade was there before the bar, but the image of a hairdresser came to my memory. Behind the window I watched a pretty thick woman who saw me staring at her. I remembered a phrase from Nietzsche that says, "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also looks at you." In front of the bar was what is known as the Villa Isabel Group, a set of five rows of houses framed between Vicente Campo streets, facing the park area, and Avenida Martínez de Velasco, on the road that leads to the hospital San Jorge. The Villa Isabel Group could have become a Bermuda Triangle, where ships and planes disappear in unexplained conditions, as the triangle formed by Antonio's house, the jeweler's house, and the Parra bar could well be a cursed place.

In the afternoon I was reading, I don't remember which book, but knowing myself I'm sure it would be one by John Irving. We had dinner, each on his own. My wife put a salad on a tray and sat in front of the TV.  Me, a sandwich in front of the computer in my office. And my son dined at the living room table as he pinched his console. At ten o'clock, Ricardo went into his room, still chewing the last bite of dinner. Through the window of the hall, I saw two cars pass through the street, at full speed, with silent sirens, but with rotating lights on. Ten o'clock was nighttime, just like two o'clock at noon or seven o'clock in the morning. I figured the cars were going to a robbery. Nighttime is when the most crimes are committed. The crooks know them all and they've got us under control. It’s no secret that when the police officers are relieved of duty, few are in a willingness to act. Those who leave are already thinking about eating, dining or sleeping and tending to their service parts inside the police station while those who come in are thinking about having coffee. Drinking coffee at the beginning of their rounds had become an essential ritual.

Lorenzo, he told me in his characteristic fluted voice. Lorenzo, are you there? He asked after I had already said the typical ‘yes’ when picking up the phone.

I should have suspected that something wasn't going well when he called me on the landline at my house. It has been several years since anyone called with landlines; everybody did it with mobile phones. At the time my wife was reading a romantic novel which she read every day after dinner and before bed, while Ricardo played computer video games in his room. Carmen didn't like him playing that long, but it was June and he had finished classes and I didn't think it was appropriate to force an eleven-year-old to study. He’ll have time to study when he gets older, she'd heard me say at other times.

What's the matter, Antonio? Do you know what time it is? I asked him while looking up at the wall clock in the living room. At the time of the call, it was eleven-thirty at night and the engine of a car could be heard driving through the street. The sound slowed down when it stopped in front of the traffic light.

Yes, man. I'm sorry I called you at this hour, but I'm fucked, you know? Very fucked up.

His voice could have been heard from the wireless phone headset, because Carmen raised her eyes and looked at me with a curious expression.

Why are you calling me at the landline? I managed to ask. On the LED, his cell phone number appeared.

What's the matter, Lorenzo? My wife whispered uncomfortably while holding her reading glasses in her hand, sliding them back and forth as if she wanted to work with them. Carmen had pale, bony hands with a few rolled veins that were screwed all over the back.

Nothing, nothing, I told her while I would stand up and walk around with the phone glued to my ear to my small office right at the entrance to the floor. My son didn't even flinch when I walked past his door and tripped over his handle causing a thunderous nut-like sound when it breaks.

Say hello to Carmen and Ricardo for me, Antonio told me when we restarted the conversation, now quieter from the office.

That was a remarkable feature about Antonio, who, even at the worst moments was able to maintain exasperating courtesy, and which was also actually genuine. Maybe the one that wasn't faked was what was the most exasperating.

Yes, I replied somewhat uncomfortably because of the length of the conversation that seemed to have no end. But you know her, in her eyes I saw the worry, I said, referring to my wife. Antonio knew she didn't like those calls at such late hours. What's going on calling at this hour? It's too late, I said, then slightly screwing in the office door and closing the window so as not to hear the street noise. The car's engine was still purring in front of the traffic light.

I can't tell you on the phone, man. It's very bad, it's best if we stay. Can you go to the Royal Coso now?

The Royal Coso? At this hour it's closed, I said.

Yes, I know, man, but we can meet in the parking lot. In the back, where the high-tonnage trucks park. I'm in a bind, he snorted.

Carmen had stood up and walked into the kitchen, holding in her right hand the book she read when she was in the living room. Her glasses should have been left on the couch. I knew her well enough to know she'd come as close to me where she could snoop. Calls starting at eleven are always for something bad, I thought.

It's all right, Antonio. It’s ok. Give me some time to get dressed and we'll meet at twelve o'clock in the parking lot. I'll try to be punctual. I hope what you have to tell me is serious enough that it's worth going there, I told him jokingly.

I'm fucked, he replied in response. Very fucked up.

•   Chapter 3

Jorge Gastón was the most outgoing of the five. The first time I saw him was at the police academy local lobby trying to hook up with one of the receptionists, whose jeans couldn't hide straight legs. The girl spoke to the students with a certain disguised coquettishness, complete with almond eyes and long, blonde ponytails. She had intensified George’s lust, who stood talking to her until he took her to bed, only to forget her afterwards, as he always did with the dozen girls he's known since we met him. Jorge, who was twenty-two at the time, made us laugh in the cafeteria, days after that first meeting, about the Bromide purported rumor.

That bromide thing I think is a pure invention from the heads of the academy to scare us, he said sufficiency and exaggerating his Galician accent. My brother once told me that in the military they also told them about bromide, but in the end they all fucked like rabbits.

For George the word fuck was an irreplaceable part of his daily vocabulary. If he didn't say at least twenty times a day, it was not Jorge.

Well, my girlfriend hasn't protested yet, said Juan Carlos Egea, the most formal of the five.

Well, she will protest, sooner or later, he poked into the sore, Joaquin, noticing at that moment that years later Juan Carlos would have the horns with which she would later become his wife and that she replaced him with a security guard from the shopping center of Madrid where they were going to shop every Friday afternoon.

Joaquin was always a troublemaker and liked to irritate everyone. He even had a repetitive monotone singing style that constantly formed a hybrid between a faint whistle and a guttural sound that exasperated anyone next to him.

Jorge was originally from Vigo, but long before entering the police he had already assumed that it would take several years to ask for fate for his land. Vigo was as unattainable as Avila, Segovia or even any southern city, such as Cordoba, Jaén or Granada. There were policemen who had taken up to twenty years to go to Granada. Policemen who were first stationed in Barcelona and who married there, had children, their sons married Catalans and their daughters to Catalans and when the opportunity came to go to their land, they decided that it was too late to do so. The forced destinations to Barcelona in the 1990s contributed to the population of Andalusian police.  Cataluña, in the same way that in the 1980s the Basque Country of police and civil guards was populated. Jorge's advantage is that he could disguise his Galician accent with little effort, and that gave him several points in favor of his womanizing side. Someone who can disguise his accent is capable of anything.

Juan Carlos Egea was from Madrid; although his parents had been born in Jaén and emigrated when Juan Carlos was just three years old. Being from Madrid when the police academy was from Avila was a bonus to students that allowed them to go home every weekend. Of the five, Juan Carlos was the only one who had a girlfriend at the time of the academy. Patricia wasn't bad. She was pretty, but she had a sickeningly sweet beauty. According to Jorge, she was missing tits and left with her ass; though she never told him: for us our women were untouchable.

Joaquín Fábregas was born in Girona, but by avatars of fate he spent his childhood in Barcelona. Like Antonio, he was also a bully who lacked no reason to start a squabble with the most trivial excuse. Of the four of us, I was the one who fell the worst, and he knew it. We both knew that. Already in the cafeteria of the academy he had detected that he skipped his turn when it was his turn to pay, something he did on more than one occasion and that I think only I realized. The usual thing was that every day he paid for one of them, but Joaquin, the day it was his turn to pay him, took nothing justifying that he didn't feel like it. One day he told us a story that might seem funny, but that was only funny to him. The thing is, when he came home to go to the academy, he always tried to do the trip for free in the car of a colleague who lived in Barcelona, and he would get there by train, so that the companion would then take him to Avila. We didn't want to delve into the topic that Catalans are caught, but Joaquin was making it easy for us. Still, despite how touchy he was, he wasn't too angry when we told him he was stingy. Although he did when we told him he was an exploiter who had a nerve. The story he told us, and which said a lot about his way of being, meant that his friend stood for a few minutes in the service area of Alfajarín, in Zaragoza. He used to refuel the Ford Escort's depot and have a bite to eat in the cafeteria. Apparently, the friend was accompanied by another student from the academy he had picked up in Tarragona; though Joaquin told us he didn't know him. The three sat at a table, and Joaquin told them to do it where he was closest to the door, touching the parking lot where they had left the car. Why? The friend had asked him. To leave without paying, Joaquin replied without just blushing. The funny thing is that he didn't seem to have financial problems, rather I think he was an incipient kleptomaniac who ended up in an unhealthy obsession with saving money on everything. He wasn't a gambler, or a tough guy; he didn't even smoke, but he didn't spend time on anything hard.

Antonio didn't smoke when we met him either; though he had told us that before entering the police he used to smoke like a trucker driver. His vice and passion were martial arts. Surely it was part of blame for being an obese child with a horrifying squeaky voice that was the mockery of all his companions. Bullying in schools gets two types of children: the withdrawn and the scary, or the emboldened and the daring.  Antonio became the second. As early as adolescence, when he was just seventeen years old, he spent a few hours at Badalona police station making a statement as a minor by a fight with injuries, as he had told us one day when he talked about it. He had fractured the jaw of a boy of the same age and originally from Mataró, using the hardest part of the human body: the elbow. Although the experts said it's the femur, but with that bone you can't hit a jaw. As a minor, he didn’t have a police record, which allowed him access to the police in 1995. After all that happened, one day he gave me the idea that if when he got into a fight with that boy from Mataró he was eighteen years old, I'm sure he would have had a criminal record, being of legal age, and not going into the police. And then it wouldn't have happened either. It seems incredible that a simple action in our lives can determine the fate of many people around us. If Antonio hadn't gotten into the national police, I wouldn't be in the situation I’m in. Damn Antonio, how you fucked me up.

•   Chapter 4

Where are you going at this hour? Carmen asked me, standing at the center of the hall as if she wanted to prevent me from escaping without her consent.

Ricardo poked his head out the door of his room. Perhaps he had felt that the situation required special attention, judging by his mother's tone of voice.

I'm meeting Antonio, I replied, babbling.

Now? Do you know what time it is, Lorenzo?

Yes, I know. I don't think it'll take any time to get back. Stay calm.

She looked at me the way she looks at someone who's lying. Whatever Antonio wanted it wasn't good at all. A friend doesn’t call at eleven-thirty at night just to meet him in the parking lot of a shopping mall, if the subject to be addressed is not serious enough. And, by Antonio's frightening voice, he was. For an instant I felt like one of the mobsters of Las Vegas when they were meeting in the desert and only one of them came back while the other ended up buried under a meter of land. But I thought I hadn't done anything to fear Antonio. Or did I?

Since the disappearance of one of the hash tablets of the 2013 anti-drug operation, distrust among us had become unbearable. The operation had been carried out by Group II of the Huesca police station, but it was a joint investigation between several community police stations and two other groups, one from Malaga and one from Lleida. Among the policemen of Lleida was one who was nicknamed "the Porros. The fact that a cop had such a nickname was already symptomatic of what that cop should be like, and especially when he himself allowed them to tell him and he also agreed to be called with that nickname. Porros, David Orué, was a character in both the physical aspect and the way he spoke. Lleida's companions said of him that the police psychologists should have sneaked in, because it was incomprehensible that the selective process would have passed. But the thing is, Porros had not only accessed the police, but was also stationed in a group of narcotics - another success. Jaime Gil, a friend of Antonio's, and who shared destiny with Porros, had said of him that he held the record for open files. But all those files had been closed at the same speed as they were opened. I guess his brother was a sheriff who had a lot to do with it. Jaime told us that everyone at The Lerida police station knew who the Porros was, but despite his vagabond-like physical appearance, he even smelled the same, he was a good companion and a good cop. Orué alone had intervened, more than a hundred kilos of hashish and almost three hundred papers containing cocaine, in several anti-retail operations in the province of Lleida since 2009, when he was stationed there. As far as we knew, his bosses were happy with him, and it is that statistics is one of the biggest scourges of the police, since no matter how unpresentable or repudiable an officer is, if it goes well for statistics then he is a good cop. In the 2013 operation, three kilos of hashish were handed to a Renault Laguna that arrived in Huesca from Lleida and followed by the teammates from the central unit of Madrid, from Valencia. But the information had departed from Malaga police station, where the four traffickers were from. Huesca knew which car they would get from, where they came from and how many occupants there would be, but we didn't know where the drugs were hidden, or how much they were carrying. After the operation was complete, we learned that one of the four occupants was a police informant. His name was Francisco Villegas and he was originally from Melilla. Although those of the Commissioner General for Narcotics knew him as Paco the Moor". No one from Huesca or Lleida knew that Paco the Moor was an informant who would tell us where the drugs were hidden. We never knew what deal the Centrals made with him, but anything would be valid to seize the stash, although it must be acknowledged that three kilos of hashish is also not enough for one to be given the red medal.

On the night they were caught in Huesca, all four were arrested and spent 48 hours in jail until they were made available to the court. The snitch kept his word and told us where the drugs were hidden: in the air conditioning ducts of the Ford Escort. Even the Benemérita dog had found it without any impediment, no doubt. All the agents involved in the operation converged at Huesca police station. There were so many of us that it was impossible to determine who kept one of the tablets, because what