Crossover (Part 4)

In a town called Santa Rosa, Mariana was held in an empty house, on the fourth floor, top floor, with empty rooms and dimly lit corridors haunting the place. Castillo and a mate sat drinking and playing cards. Roco arrived biting on a chorizo bun.

“Get the girl out. Lose her at the Malibet. You go in the camper.”

Castillo unlocked the door and cried out, “She’s gone!”

Roco stepped in. She wasn’t in bed. She wasn’t in the room. “Find her!” Roco ordered. She couldn’t go very far. A search was carried out secretly. “She must be on the terrace.” It was too early to bother his boss. It could be a failure if she did escape. They searched the entire place. She wasn’t found.

 

They carried her to the second hideout in Santa Rosa under sedation. Castillo, twenty years old, treated her wash and feed. She woke up in the small room, lying in a bed and without clothes. She wrapped the blanket and ate little since she was abducted. She lost weight.

On this evening, at sundown, she was taken up the long corridor to a room Roco with two others were seated and he was talking on the satellite phone. They passed her the phone and she spoke briefly to Jose Lucero. After that Castillo pulled her from the chair and took her to the little room and locked up. Though for Mariana it never happened that way. She was holding back not to get up and she did not. She saw her body separating her true self and Castillo escorted her astral body to the room. Mariana remained on the seat. She was then invisible to those eyes.

Roco and one other guy left to collect. Castillo and the other remained. Poured Bocks and sat down to play cards. Mariana was standing against the wall fully aware of her nakedness in their presence but the awful truth was that nobody saw her. She stepped slowly to the door finding the staircase in the dark. She climbed down until she could see some light outside.

Shortly, she was standing on the road under a light post watching people pass by. Nobody noticed. She realized it was the best chance to escape. Mariana began to run. She reached a busy street. She saw a textile shop. She entered, picked a shirt and pulled on. The girl at the shop noticed. “That’s a gent’s shirt,” she spoke Spanish.

Mariana replied, “Puedo cambiar?”

The girl ushered her to a closet.

Mariana entered and for several minutes she didn’t come out. The shop girl opened the door to find nobody there but the clothes left behind. The truth was that she still stood there; invisible. Mariana discovered to her bewilderment that her image disappeared from the face of the mirrors when she removed her clothes.

It took a moment to absorb this phenomenal experience. She slipped away slowly, stole a shirt and a skirt from the racks.

She pulled on those clothes in an alley. Caught a cab and climbed, “Take me to my hotel, the Palmera Club, in Quilmes.” She spoke Spanish perfectly.

The driver said, “It’s far. Pay me good. Okay!”

She nodded, “How far?”

“Half an hour…”

When they reached the hotel she asked to stop at the Malibet.

The driver asked, “Where is it?”

“Go up the beach road.”

Finally, she stopped near the Malibet. The cab driver asked for pesos and she said, “I go and get.”

“Pay and go.”

Mariana shook her head.

The driver said, “Then you strip and get out.”

Mariana stripped and got out leaving the cab driver jaw dropped and froze in shock that she took his money with her.

The moon was shining pretty full in the cool night. Lying on the flat beach she decided not to return to the other side of life.

 

Moments later, Mariana began to walk barefoot, freely following paths and crossing roads. She walked over two miles. At one point she felt something peculiar behind the slums on Lugones bend. She headed straight to Lopez’s caravan. Groped for a light and switched on. She saw a voodoo doll hanging on a string. She found her photographs on a shelf top, clothes and sneakers that belonged to a man.

Diego Lopez was dozing in bed when he heard laughter outside the window and opened his eyes. He stirred and fell back to sleep. Again, laughter shook him and this time it cracked right inside the room just like breaking glass. He cried, “Who’s there?”

Suddenly, he was shaken to hear a voice cry out his name, “Diego!” Real fingers stroked his shoulder. He jumped up and staggered his way to the foyer. He saw a topless woman standing there in a black wrap, wearing golden ornaments and her eyes sparkling like a cat. She turned away and gradually floated into the dark. She was a ghost, he knew. It was the spirit that rose from the magic of orchids. Fantasma de la lujuria…enviado, he knew it.

He never witnessed this paranormal activity in the eye. Lopez followed the apparition to his makeshift caravan.

Mariana woke from a momentary trance as the subtle projection lured her body.

Lopez climbed the steps and muttered in utter disbelief, “Señora!”

“Call me Mary,” she said, “Who is doing this?”

“Carreon,” he mumbled.

“Why?”

“For attraction…”

“Then I will find him.”

He noticed she wore his jacket and sneakers. “What can I do for you?”

“Mind if I borrow these?” Mariana was holding the photographs.

“Please and stay here. It’s cold outside.”

Next morning he brought breakfast and served three meals but the food remained untouched. She was gone.

 

A day later, it turned out to be the Full Moon in the cold Wednesday morning. At two o’clock, Jamal was drained in the drinks at a bar somewhere in Montevideo. His eyes could not hold steady looking at the tall girl in the middle of the strippers on the table top. She was Mariana. He took pictures on his camera. He reached the dancer, trying to tuck a dollar on her hip and stumbled over. She lowered on her knees and whispered, “What is it that you want?”

“Damn you!” he tried to grab her.

“Get lost!” she said.

He developed the prints to find those images out of focus. Months later, he was arrested and charged for fraud of forgery and deception in identity. He was only a snitch in the kidnapping case but he claimed this last time seeing her.

 

Two years later, an international bank acquired Rogers Group and bound to rename its establishment. Zaid Falak had to withdraw his money and transfer to Abu Dhabi. He lost the million to the River Boat Casino mainly because they failed to capture Carlos Alvieri. Three weeks after the kidnapping, Castillo who was eagerly eyeing on the Daytona Spider where he left it in a parking lot outside a riot-looted grocery, attempted to pick and run. He was tailed and caught by the police on watch. This led to the arrest of Roco and his bandits but police were not prepared to believe that the girl could vanish just like that. Carlos Alvieri managed to escape. Danny Witt made a full recovery.

               

Records show ‘Mariana Devious’ was sighted in other spots.

 

 

~END~