Dossier - short story - Latin America: Private Eyes & Time Travelers

"I beg you to read page fifty-six carefully," Silvera said. "That's where the heart of the matter is."

"Sure, sure," replied Arozmendi.

The man rifled through a half dozen pages, grimaced with disgust and began to leaf through the manuscript from back to front. On his face was now exaggerated disbelief.

"Page fifty-six is missing!"

"Oh!" Benedetto exclaimed.

Silvera and Arozmendi looked at one another, startled.

"Was it an important page?" asked Gomez Cuevas in his decrepit voice.

"Didn't you hear what I said?" Silvera cried.

"I don't get it ... It was there this morning," stammered Arozmendi, gesticulating with his arms.

"I demand an explanation!" shrieked the man with the carnation.

"It was there ... It was there ...," proceeded Arozmendi. "This morning it was there and since then I haven't left that dossier out of my sight!"

Curiel arose very slowly from his chair and kneeled with his hands together. "It wasn't me!" He was rocking back and forth, sobbing. "This time, I'm innocent. It wasn't me. Please, I can't go through another living hell like that," he begged.

"Get hold of your dignity!" shouted the man with the carnation. "Go back to your seat, at once. No one's accused you."

Curiel stopped his wailing and with a quick step was back in his seat.

"It might be a very serious mistake," stammered Benedetto, hiding his face in his hands as if someone were trying to slap it.

"But of course," said the man with the carnation in a calmer tone, "it may be a mistake. But I believe you go too far in calling it very serious."

A sigh of spirited solace flowed through the room. But the muscles in the girl's neck did not relax and the pencil ran nervously across the stenographer's notebook. Then, the man with the carnation looked in his eyes.

"You've been very quiet this afternoon, Ricardo."

Occasionally the man with the carnation and he had met gazes, but always out of the corner of their eyes; the former's glance had slipped suddenly towards Arozmendi or Gomez Cuevas with the whirl of a sparrow hawk. While that idiotic meeting was transpiring, he had been slowing reaching the conclusion that he would not be consulted, that the time allotted would run out and that, as he left the room, he would recover his memory. A question about work would have been worse. Moreover, the man with the carnation had addressed him informally, prompting him to savor a vague sense of pride.

"I've been listening," he said, and his voice sounded surprisingly agreeable. He looked for the reflection of his face in the ashtray: he tilted it discreetly, but in the bottom saw only a caricature shaped like a blimp.

"Help me unlock this little mystery," the man asked him after an appreciative smile. "Arozmendi assures us that page fifty-six was not missing from the dossier this morning, which I might add has been with him up till about an hour ago," he continued, looking at his watch. "Surely you noticed that he gave it to me at the beginning of the board meeting, you're a good observer and probably haven't missed his hasty and solicitous gesture. While I study the papers, Silvera, our young knight-errant, impertinently points out to me that I should carefully read the page in question because that's where the heart of the matter is. Weren't those his words?" he said, wheeling around toward the girl, who, after searching deftly through her notebook, agreed, biting her lip. "Okay, let's move on. Anyway, I try my utmost to look through the manuscript, page by page ... to no avail. Page fifty-six does not appear in the report. Do you agree with my presentation?"