He replies that that won’t be necessary because, for the next surprise, he plans to blindfold me, and he might also have to handcuff me. With a wide smile I tell him I’ve never been blindfolded or handcuffed, and I ask him if he is, by chance, the kind of sadist you see in the movies.
“I’m a depraved sadist a thousand times worse than the ones in horror movies, or hadn’t you heard, my love?” he whispers into my ear. Then he takes my face in both his hands and sits looking at it, as if it were a deep well where he sought to quench his most hidden longings. I caress him and tell him we’re the perfect couple because I’m a masochist. He kisses me and tells me he’s always known that.
When the day of the surprise arrives, Pablo picks me up at the hotel around ten at night. As always, a car with four of his men follows at a prudent distance.
“I can’t believe that a woman like you doesn’t know how to drive a car, Virginia,” he says, taking off at top speed.
I reply that any half-literate guy can drive a five-gear bus and that I, who am nearly blind, don’t need my IQ of 146 to drive a car but to cram ten thousand years of civilization into my head. Not to mention to memorize half-hour news programs in five minutes, because I can’t see the teleprompter. He asks me what I would guess his IQ is, and I say it must be around 126, if that.
“No, ma’am: my minimum confirmed is 156. So don’t be so cocky!”
I tell him he’s going to have to prove it to me, and I ask him to slow down, because at 110 miles per hour, we’re going to be two prematurely dead prodigies.
“We already know that neither of us is afraid of death. Or are you, miss know-it-all? Now you’re going to see what you get for being so arrogant. Today I’m in a very bad mood, and I’m sick of these bodyguards following us everywhere. They don’t leave us alone for a minute, and I’m bored with it. I think there’s only one way to escape them. You see on the other side of the highway, there to my left? You have your seat belt on, right? Well, hold on, because in thirty seconds we’re going to be down there heading in the opposite direction. If it doesn’t work, see you in the next life, Einstein! One . . . two . . . threeeeee!”
The car swerves and rolls over the grass-covered median. After rolling once and spinning three times, it stops ten feet below. I hit my head hard, twice, but I don’t make a sound. Pablo recovers in seconds, puts the car in reverse, and with tires squealing starts driving on the opposite lane of the highway, careening like a madman toward his apartment. We’re there in a few minutes, driving at top speed into the garage; the door clicks shut behind us and the car slams to a stop millimeters from the wall.
“Pheeew!” he says, exhaling air. “We’ve lost them now, but I think I’m going to have to fire those guys tomorrow. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if someone like me had tried to kidnap me?”
I smile to myself and keep quiet. I’m in pain, and I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of saying what he wants to hear, which is that another person with his sangfroid hasn’t been born yet. We go up to the penthouse, which is deserted, and I notice a camera across from the bedroom door. I sit down in a low-backed chair, and he stands in front of me with his arms crossed. With a threatening tone and an ice-cold expression in his eyes, he says to me:
“So now you see who has the higher IQ here. Not to mention who’s got the balls, right? And if you complain or make one false move while I’m preparing the surprise, I’m going to rip that dress in two, film what comes next, and sell the video to the media. Understood, Marilyn? And since I’m a man of my word, we’re going to start by . . . blindfolding you. I think we’ll also need a roll of duct tape.” He puts a black blindfold over my eyes, tying it firmly with a double knot, all the while humming “Feelin’ Groovy” by Simon and Garfunkel. “And some handcuffs . . . where did I put those?”
“Not that, Pablo! We agreed you would only blindfold me. I just nearly broke my neck, and it doesn’t make sense to handcuff a groggy featherweight. As for gagging me, you should at least wait until the circulation between my head and my body starts up again!”
“Agreed. I’ll only handcuff you if you try to jump up, because I never underestimate a panther with delusions of genius.”
“And I wouldn’t jump, because I would never underestimate a criminal with the delusions of a schizophrenic.”
After a long pause that seems to last an eternity, he says suddenly, “We’re going to see how true it is that the blind have extra-sharp hearing. . . .”
I hear his shoes treading on the carpet and a combination safe being opened. Then, the unmistakable sound of six bullets entering the chamber of a revolver, one after the other, and the snap of the gun when the safety is removed. After that, everything is silent. Seconds later he is behind me, speaking into my ear in a whispery voice while his left hand holds me by the hair and the other slides the barrel of the gun in circles on my neck, around and around:
“You know, people in my line of work are referred to as ‘the magicians.’ That’s because we work miracles. As the king of those magicians, only I know the secret formula to reattach this body that drives me crazy to that little head I adore. Abracadabra . . . imagine we’re gluing it with a diamond necklace . . . around this swan’s neck . . . so thin . . . so fragile I could break it in two with my bare hands. Abracadabra . . . once around . . . twice . . . three times. How do they feel?”
I tell him the diamonds are cold, and they hurt, and they’re very small for my taste. And that it’s not the promise he made me, and since it’s improvisation, it doesn’t count.
“Everything counts between the two of us, my love. You’ve never felt a gun on your skin before. This silken skin . . . so golden, so perfectly cared for . . . without a scratch . . . without a scar, isn’t that right?”
“Careful with the blindfold, it could fall off and ruin the surprise of the century, Pablo! I think you should know that I practice shooting with the police in Bogotá—with a Smith and Wesson—and that, according to my trainer, I have better aim than some officers with twenty-twenty vision.”
He tells me I’m just full of surprises, but that it’s one thing to have a gun in my hand and another for it to be held by a murderer and pointed at my temple. He adds that he’s been in that position, too, and he asks if it’s not absolutely terrifying.
“Quite the opposite: it’s absolutely exquisite! Ooohhh . . . what could be more divine . . . more sublime,” I say, throwing my head back and sighing in pleasure while he unbuttons my shirt dress and the gun starts to descend along my throat toward my heart. “And, in any case, you’re only a sadist . . . not a murderer.”
“That’s what you think, my dear. I am a serial killer. . . . Now tell me why you like it so much. You surprise me. . . . Go on!”
Slowly, I tell him that a gun is always . . . a temptation. Eve’s sweet apple. An intimate friend who offers us the option of ending it all and flying up to heaven when there’s no other way out . . . or to hell, in the case of . . . confessed murderers.
“What else? Keep talking until I give you permission to stop,” he says in a hoarse voice, lowering the upper part of my dress to kiss me on the nape of my neck and my shoulders. I obey and continue:
“It’s silent . . . like the perfect accomplice. It’s more dangerous than all your worst enemies put together. When it explodes, it sounds . . . let me think . . . like . . . like . . . the bars of San Quentin prison! Yes, yes, the bars slamming in a gringo prison sound like bullets, morning, noon, and night. Now, that must be absolutely terrifying, right, my love?”
“So that’s how it is, you perverse little creature. Now tell me what it’s like . . . physically.