Madalina was happy that she could appease her brother while consolidating her trust in him. Now she would not feel guilty about feeling for the little boy with the dark eyes. Now she could peacefully weave her plan to spring him from the terrible mother he was cursed with. Still, the alcohol drove her to absurd expectations of what she was and was not allowed to do to save the boy. Kidnapping is illegal. You know that, right? her inner voice warned. But her answer was already fixed. But I’m not planning to abduct him, am I? I just think his mother needs… a talking to, a polite warning.
After dinner the brother and sister did the dishes together in their small kitchen in the center of Sagunto while the hot Spanish night breathed into the open windows of their apartment. Below, the streets were alive with partygoers and secret lovers, but the din they caused by no means bothered Javier. He was exhausted. After some casual conversation over the last coffee, he gave his sister a kiss on the forehead and ruffled up her hair, just as he had done when they were teenagers. “Don’t stay up too late. You have an early day tomorrow,” he muttered as he walked away down the dark hallway.
“Sí, Papa,” she teased, swallowing the last of her cold coffee.
Fifteen minutes later, she was stealing along the stairs of the three flights down that led to the street below. Outside the scent of the sea melted into the smell of the take-away around the corner, but Madalina’s usual fetish for their spicy chips had no effect on her tonight. All she could think of was to make her way into that motel, to find that bitch, and to scare her into being a more compassionate mother than she would ever be without the rap on the knuckles she was due.
Under Madalina’s coat she harbored her late father’s pistol as a frightening aid. It was an antique heirloom she’d inherited from her father, a rusty old thing that looked scary to the untrained eye, though it was completely useless, as her father had assured her. And why wouldn’t it be? The thing’s barrel was rusted and the hammer was missing, but Madalina knew how to hold it in such a manner that her target would be none the wiser.
At five past one in the morning, the thirty-seven-year-old teacher found her way into the average little establishment. She had worked at the old, redone former brothel as a waitress several years before when it had been a restaurant and pub, so she basically knew the floors and stairs. By now, the place was almost void of movement with everyone asleep, but she knew where the awful woman and her boy stayed.
Still over-confident with the lingering effects of the vodka, Madalina decided that it was the perfect time to set the woman straight out of sight of her son. When her common sense begged to know why the small incident of the day before had made such an impact on her need to admonish the stranger, Madalina’s mind dismissed all reason. She had no idea why she was going to such extremes to execute this unnecessary plan, but she felt compelled to take it to its full fruition.
On the second floor the teacher stopped in the softly lit hallway, her shoes tracking on the newly vacuumed red fibers.
Room 208
The vision of the number made an imperceptible click in her brain as her heart sped up. The moment had arrived. What exactly she was going to do, or say, still eluded her, yet something urged Madalina on. In her conscious mind she was convinced that whatever she should do when the woman opened the door would come to her at that moment. She knocked on the door and stepped back to check both directions for any activity in the corridor. With no witnesses present, she felt more focused.
But when the woman opened the door, Madalina’s mind went blank.
2
The Smell
“Sí?” the woman said, frowning. She did not look sleepy or off her guard, as her caller had expected. “What is it?”
“Hola,” Madalina smiled, but when words escaped her for a valid excuse to call on the woman and her son, the teacher simply went primal. She lunged forward suddenly, shoving the woman back into the dark room. The door slammed behind them as Madalina kicked it shut, tumbling onto the floor with the woman.
“What are you doing?” the woman shrieked, but Madalina covered her mouth with an eager hand.
“Shut up! Shut up! Don’t wake the boy,” she whispered.
The child stirred in his bed, but he did not wake fully. “If you make a sound, I will shoot you in the face. Do you understand?” Madalina threatened in a low rasp that sounded authentic even to herself. She employed a few techniques she had seen in action films, but she had no idea how she was going to get out of this situation once the warning was stated. This was real, she realized at once. This was a criminal act she was perpetrating!
It’s too late to abort now. Her mind was stating the obvious, but it brought no solace. She was no criminal, and admittedly did not know what she was doing. “I saw you on the street with your son today,” she sneered in the woman’s ear. “Now, let’s go into the bathroom so that I can look you in the eye while I tell you what your fate is going to be.”
Reluctantly the woman obliged, hoping to keep the child from being traumatized by the intruder. In the bathroom off the bedroom they shared, the woman switched on the light and closed the door. She took off her black overcoat and looked even more wicked up close under the light, her black eyes as cold as the bare floor they stood on.
“Look, who are you and what do you want?” she whispered harshly. Madalina was a bit concerned by the woman’s apparent fearlessness, which would directly present a disadvantage to her efforts. It was time to prove herself the alpha female. From her pocket, she pulled the old pistol.
“I am an avenging angel and I am here to set you straight, sister,” Madalina growled softly, denting the woman’s cheek with the barrel. “I’ve been watching how to treat that boy of yours like an unwanted mutt, and if I see it again,” she huffed, “or if I see him even looking a bit distraught, I will use this bullet on you. Are we clear?”
Looking utterly perplexed, the woman nodded rapidly.
“This bullet is reserved just for you,” Madalina smeared on the malice with drunken shoddy confidence plastered on her face.
Suddenly a knock on the bathroom door interrupted the tense moment between the two women. The boy’s timid little voice muttered something from the outside, but neither woman could hear what he was saying.
“Go back to bed!” the thirty-something-year-old woman bellowed furiously.
“Hey!” Madalina reminded her with a nudge to her cheek. “Don’t speak to him like that, or else.”
The boy persisted in a weak tone, sounding very concerned for the commotion in the bathroom. “Tell him everything is fine,” Madalina commanded.
“You want me to lie?” the woman mocked her.
“Listen, bitch! The alternative is far worse,” she assured the woman with a lot more confidence than before. The teacher found that she had become more comfortable with her new role, but she still had no idea how to get out of the whole thing once she was done.
“Go to bed, Raul! I’m busy!” the woman shouted with the same indifference as before, which profited her a blow across the face with the butt of the pistol. From her nose, a splatter of crimson defiled the wall, secretly scaring her assailant. From the other side of the door the child began to sob — the worst thing for Madalina to hear. Her heart broke for him again.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart!” she called to the boy. “I am not going to hurt your mama. We are just talking about some stuff, alright?”
Without hesitation the boy replied, “She’s not my mother.”
Before Madalina could process what he was actually saying, the woman came at her with a small weapon that resembled a letter opener. Its silver tongue sank into Madalina’s solar plexus, but she hardly felt the deadly cut as the rage engulfed her. With widened eyes, she looked into the bruised face of the woman, who looked deformed by the massive blood spatter decorating her entire left cheek and brow.