Excerpt:

Chubbies (Gorditos)

Gorditos – Part One

The sun, barely visible through clouds of filth, sank into the horizon. A shrill cacophony of whistles, bells, and alarms signaled the end of the afternoon shift, and the columns of black smoke dispersed—if only for that night.

Hundreds of colossal factories opened their gates, releasing a gray tide of sweating bodies and weary faces that flooded the narrow streets of Aurinburg. Little by little they scattered, vanishing into grimy alleys, unsure what to do with those seven hours of freedom.

One figure moved against the current; his clean blue jacket stood out amid the throng as he zigzagged, careful not to touch anyone. A white glove covered his nose.

From the balcony of his office, Baltazar Vélez packed his pipe with mechanical motions. He frowned when he saw the salmon-pink dandy crossing the threshold. It was Lucien Monteverde: a member of one of the city’s powerful industrial families—owners, in fact, of several factories in the area.

By the time the door opened, Baltazar was already at his desk, surrounded by mint-and-tobacco smoke, reading important papers with feigned concentration.

He heard the door close softly.

“You’re not easy to find, detective,” said a delicate yet firm voice, accustomed to being obeyed.

Baltazar looked up. The blond young man surveyed the office with cold gray eyes, his lips twisted in a grimace of disgust…

“That is precisely the point of an office outside the precinct. Good afternoon, Mr. Monteverde,” the detective replied, setting the papers aside.

“I was under the impression the matter of the disappearances had already been resolved. The commissioner told me personally the case was closed,” the young man said, brushing away the minty smoke with his glove.

“That’s correct,” Baltazar nodded.

“Then you won’t mind explaining why you’re still stalking my workers and prowling around my offices, Mr. Vélez,” Lucien snapped.

Baltazar exhaled a plume of smoke without a word. His eyes flashed for an instant. Lucien sighed and lowered his voice, now soft as velvet.

“I see—you’re an idealist. Let me remind you that I am not the villain here, detective. My workers’ disappearance affected me as well. Productivity dropped by twenty percent. I, too, am a victim.”

Suddenly, a golden flash leapt from Lucien’s hand and struck the desk with a dull thud. A gleaming gold ingot lay among the papers.

“I’ll give you another just like it if you shut down this dump and leave the industrial zone,” Lucien said, his hand slipping inside his jacket. He produced a brown paper bag and set it beside the ingot with deliberate care.

“This is a gift. A token of my goodwill.”

Baltazar slowly unfolded the bag and peered inside. His left eyebrow rose slightly.

“Hm… where did you get this?”

“It can still be obtained, if one has a certain… standing. It’s from my personal reserve. Prepare it with the windows closed.”

Baltazar slid the bag beneath the desk.

“Give me a week.”

“Not a day more. Remember, all it takes is a letter.”

And with that, Lucien Monteverde left the office, the door ajar behind him.

Baltazar opened one of the many yellow folders scattered across his desk and spread its contents out with a slow exhalation. A sorrowful mosaic of photographs, accompanied by names and handwritten notes. Missing. He studied them through the wall of mentholated smoke swirling with his thoughts. His gaze lingered bitterly on a face he knew better than all the others: Lucia Vélez.

The pillars of the old viaduct groaned under the weight of the tram as it advanced amid screeches and sighs of scalding steam, weaving between black columns of smoke. Baltazar stood in the first car, accompanied by small stowaways huddled in the front seats to steal warmth from the boiler. He took out a small notebook filled with dense, rough handwriting.

Madame Sava: a renowned doctor in the city. She had invented a revolutionary surgical method by which patients could lose up to twenty kilos in just a few days. A brutal, painful operation—but the latest fashion among Aurinburg’s upper crust.

Madame Sava also ran a network of clinics and hospitals scattered through the city’s poorest districts, where free medical treatment was offered to those in need.

If Baltazar had learned anything in his years as a hunter of secrets, it was that the taller the tower, the more cracks its foundation had. Thus, his first stop would be SavaMed Clinic No. 134, in the Las Granjas district, on the city’s outskirts.

He looked out the window. They were leaving the industrial district and its eternal mechanical murmur behind. He closed the notebook and let sleep take him. There were still a few minutes until the next stop.

The shrill scream of the brakes jolted him awake. He adjusted his hat and stepped down onto the platform, shrouded in white vapor. He approached the railing as the tram resumed its journey amid metallic groans. Below stretched the district of La Granja. He still remembered the smell of the breeding pens and slaughterhouses, echoing with the hum of machinery and the screams of the souls whose flesh fed the city. Now silence reigned, and filthy shacks clustered haphazardly among the old slaughterhouses, most converted into housing. The sky was already stained a murky green. Baltazar reached for his watch in his trench coat pocket. It was gone.

“Damn brats,” he muttered as he descended the stairs.

Baltazar moved through the crowd along La Granja’s winding, narrow streets. Street vendors shouted their wares, children darted through puddles of filthy water, and adults hurried along with vacant eyes. In his frayed trench coat and unkempt beard, Baltazar hardly stood out.

“Extra, extra! Thelurian astronomers claim the stars are disappearing!” cried the newsboy.

“Hey, kid, you know where the clinic is?” Baltazar asked.

“Of course, sir,” the young vendor replied, staring at him without saying more.

Baltazar sighed and handed him a coin.

“Two streets up and then to the right. Want one?” the boy said with a grin, offering a newspaper.

“What do I care about the stars, kid? I haven’t seen them in years,” Baltazar replied, gesturing at the grime-choked sky.

SavaMed Clinic 134 rose at the end of the street—an old slaughterhouse, obviously. Its lampposts cast an unnatural whitish light, accompanied by a faint hum. The metal door stood open, the number 134 painted in red.

Baltazar braced himself. He hated hospitals. He held his breath before crossing the threshold, anticipating the usual stench of rot and death… but instead he was greeted by the smell of alcohol with a floral note. He was in a waiting room with white walls and gleaming green tile floors. Clean.

The only foul odors came from the patients, who waited on wooden benches lining the walls. They seemed entranced; a pleasant melody floated through the air. Some listened with eyes closed, others swayed to the piano’s rhythm. At the back of the room stood a reception desk, flanked by two metal doors with glass panes. Inside, Baltazar glimpsed the shadow of a monstrous crow—a doctor.

During the bovine plague, physicians had revived the garments worn during the Black Death as a protective measure. From time to time, new outbreaks still swept the population. Despite the doctors’ attire, patients were received by attendants in white coats.

“Sir?” a nurse called from the reception desk. Her mouth smiled; her eyes did not. “We attend in order of arrival. Please take a seat at the end of the line.”

Baltazar sat at the end of the right-hand bench, beside a man who muffled his coughing in a bloodstained rag. He observed. He would gain nothing by trying to approach Madame Sava directly. First he would dig for dirty secrets—and once he had them, he would drag her down from her ivory tower.

Every so often, a patient emerged through one of the two doors, accompanied by a doctor who shook their hand and smiled before turning to shout, “Next!” Another patient would enter. And so the line slid along the bench, which never had more than one empty seat. After a while, the music stopped. A nurse spoke over the loudspeaker in a sweet voice.

“SavaMed reminds its dear patients that the monthly check-up is mandatory. A healthy body performs better.”

Baltazar’s turn was approaching. Suddenly he realized that many patients never came out—at least not yet. Of course, it was well known that a high number did not survive the treatments. Or perhaps they rested inside, in beds.

A tall, sturdy woman stomped into the room, her face flushed. The nurse offered her a practiced, artificial smile.

“Ma’am, we attend by—” The visitor snorted with rage, cutting her off mid-sentence.

“Where is my husband? He came here this afternoon and no one’s seen him all day. Is he in there? Where is my Jorge?!”

The nurse’s smile vanished, hardening into a thin line. Her hands slipped beneath the desk.

“Ma’am, if you don’t calm down—”

A doctor emerged from the corridor with a warm smile, pushing a man in a wheelchair. He was missing a leg. Conscious, but heavily drugged.

“Please, don’t destroy the clinic, ma’am. I’ll return your husband to you right away. Unfortunately, we couldn’t save the leg.”

The woman stared, brow furrowed, mouth agape.

“But he only hurt his foot at the factory…”

“Yes, yes—a very nasty wound. It was turning gangrenous, and we had to cut higher up to be safe,” the doctor said, lifting the man from the chair. “Up you go, champ!”

“Higher up—? They took the whole leg!” the woman cried, pointing at her husband’s phantom limb.

The doctor pushed Jorge into his wife’s arms and handed her a small bottle.

“I assure you we did everything we could. Give him a sip twice a day and keep the suture clean. Come back in a week. Next!”

The woman left muttering curses, dragging her husband, who could barely hobble on his trembling leg.

The room fell silent for what felt like an eternity. The nurse smoothed her dress and smiled. Suddenly, the music felt irritating. Baltazar no longer heard the coughing man. He was next.

A yellow-gloved hand pushed the door open. A doctor stood there, her hair as white as her coat. Her shining black eyes scanned the room, then settled on Baltazar.

“Next,” she said.

Baltazar was no longer sure he wanted to go through with his plan, but he forced himself to stand, putting on his best pained expression. He had decided to fake a migraine, take a look inside, and leave with a bit of heroin and perhaps some useful paperwork—if he was lucky.

“Follow me,” the doctor said, offering a brief smile.

They entered the corridor, their footsteps echoing. They turned right; doors with numbers lined both sides. Baltazar followed close behind. From behind the doors came murmurs of conversation.

They entered Consulting Room Four. It was small and bright—too bright. A lamp on the left wall flooded everything with a piercing white light that stabbed at his eyes. The floor was wet, freshly washed. The furnishings consisted of a metal gurney with leather straps and several shelves loaded with amber glass bottles. A small table with blades, syringes, and forceps of various sizes sent an unpleasant shiver up Baltazar’s spine.

“Please, sit there,” the doctor said, pointing to the gurney. “Make yourself comfortable. Tell me how I can help you.”

Baltazar grew increasingly nervous. The doctor looked at him the way one inspects a piece on an assembly line. For a moment he felt naked, surrounded by sharpened metal. The cold of the gurney numbed his thighs, and he began to swing his legs, which didn’t reach the floor.

“I have a terrible headache,” Baltazar said—no longer entirely lying. The white light felt as though it were drilling into his skull.

The doctor proceeded with a cold interrogation that, in Baltazar’s opinion, had little to do with migraines. He also noticed her excessive focus on his family and relationships. Then she weighed him, and finally measured his height. Silence reigned as she jotted notes in pencil. Only the hum of the lamp and the scratch of graphite on paper could be heard. She nodded, as if satisfied. Suddenly she looked up.

“Sir, your brain is inflamed. I will perform a trepanation,” she said calmly.

Baltazar’s head snapped to the side as if struck, disbelief etched across his pale face. The harsh light deepened the shadows beneath his eyes and his grizzled beard, the mustache yellowed by tobacco’s kiss. His bony hands gripped the edge of the gurney.

“Wait a minute—I just have a headache!” he said, jumping off the gurney, his palms sweating, a growing buzz in his ears.

The doctor smiled.

“You are already under our care, sir. You must undergo treatment—it’s for your own good. I would prefer not to call for assistance.”

She moved her hand toward a red button.

Baltazar remembered the one-legged man from earlier, and his stomach churned. He decided to abandon his cover.

“Detective Baltazar Vélez, municipal police,” he said, producing his badge.

The doctor raised an eyebrow. Her hand relaxed for an instant.

“And what do you think you’re doing, detective? Our hospitals enjoy legal immunity.” Her tone was icy.

“I’m in the middle of an investigation. I’d like to speak with you, that’s all. I’m not here to arrest anyone—no need to worry,” Baltazar said, raising his hands and using his good-cop voice. The doctor frowned.

“I’m not worried.” She pressed the button.

Baltazar had barely finished cursing himself for leaving his Derringer at the office when the door opened silently. Two doctors entered, gliding like shadows. One held a syringe ready, the long needle gleaming silver.

Baltazar backed toward the shelf, grabbed a bottle, and smashed it against one of them. The room filled with a sharp chemical stench. At first it worked—but soon the other crows descended on him. He felt the sting in his hip, a cold wave like death spreading up his leg to his head. As he writhed on the floor beneath them, Baltazar managed to slip a shard of glass up his sleeve. His face pressed into the puddle of whatever had been in the bottle. His eyes and throat burned.

Before losing consciousness…

… "

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at fictograma.com , an open source Spanish community of writers–