8. Spillers

160 pounds of loosely crumbled saltines blown into a taxidermied man suit

Previously—In episode 7, PORTREX, Captain Sepulveda revealed to Ramler that earlier in the year, several of his men died under mysterious circumstances during a work detail at New York Presbyterian hospital, and that he himself is dying of cancer. Ramler, who had briefly considered killing the captain while being held at gunpoint, instead decided to share bits and pieces of classified information regarding medical experiments that were being done at the hospital under the direction of the war department. He explained that in 1941, after a young Puerto Rican woman underwent an involuntary hysterectomy, her excised uterus was discovered to possess remarkable properties—namely, that the cells didn’t seem to age or die. Through a series of New York contacts, this information wound up catching the attention of the Los Alamos medical research group, at which point, the tissue samples were subjected to more thorough analysis. As Ramler was about to explain how all of this relates to captain Sepulveda’s men, in walked John Spillers.

In this episode—Spillers arrives at building one of the Grass Cutting Area, a secret interrogation facility nestled in the middle of Ramey Air Force Base. Spillers, who earlier killed Ramler, then reanimated him, seems unsure about whether or not he can count on the man’s loyalty. Sepulveda, having just found out from Ramler the unbelievable story of an indestructible uterus being kept in a jar… doesn’t trust anyone, and begins to wonder how Jesus Santiago fits into all of this.

Spillers is a pale slender man with noodley arms and a baseball glove-sized paunch, shuffling around the room like a hundred and sixty pounds of loosely crumbled saltines blown into a taxidermied man suit. Having just silenced Ramler, he sets his briefcase down on the floor, and settles to a stop, fastening both fists on his hips like magnetic suction cups.

Standing there, he slouches and frowns, panning his gaze right, left, then right again. His face is pinched up, with a look that goes back and forth from mild irritation to something that Sepulveda reads as barely-suppressed sexual arousal.

“Mr. Ramler.” Spillers says, intoning a question. His eyes widen and his mouth cracks open just a bit so that his tongue comes stabbing out like a pencil. It happens so quickly, Sepulveda almost doesn’t catch it.

Ramler, who seems perfectly at ease, rises up from his chair with the ‘45 still in his hand. On the way up, he sets it on the desk, barrel facing away from Spillers. “Mr. Spillers.” He doesn’t bother extending his hand. Just sits down on the edge of the desk to achieve a bit more altitude. The gun is resting there, in between the two FBI men.

Sepulveda looks to Ramler, who’s grinning like nothing’s wrong. Maybe the two gringos share history, he thinks to himself. Whatever the case, he’s never been in a room with Spillers until now, but after seeing him up close—just for a minute— he understands why Pedro Alvarez can’t bring himself to speak the man’s name. There’s a very real, but un-pinpointable defect emanating from him. Something ineffable and vaporous. As though every detail about him was crafted as a high fidelity reproduction of an amalgam of normal people—like an average of averages. But there was something there, something that didn’t sit well, that threw those averages off. His hair, for example—like a little square helmet of freeze dried bright blond pecorino had calved like an iceberg, fracturing at precisely the correct angles to form a man’s haircut. From a distance, it seemed normal. Almost like Ramler’s hair. But the closer you looked at the deep valley where it was parted along the side, the more it resembled the torn edges of hard cheese. And his body language. There was so much of it—facial tics, mouth twitching, nose scrunching, eyebrow wriggling—more parakeet than man—kinetic outbursts streaming out of him like bullets flying out of a high speed centrifuge—each one, a slight variant of a single garbled message: there’s something wrong.

Sepulveda could feel his ears getting hot again—telling him to take a closer look. Nudging him to realize what his body was telling him—that when most people look at Spillers, they’re bothered in the exact same way he is right now—they just have a problem describing why. The captain widens and narrows his eyes with ever finer micro adjustments, like finger-rolling the tilt wand of the window blinds in his office, trying to account for the visual incongruity of the man standing in front of him—a man who runs an FBI field office, but comports himself like a coked up mechanical bird in a constant state of low-grade malfunction—intricately damaged in some deep down way at the kernel of his being.

Spillers is staring at the gun on Sepulveda’s desk now. Ramler smiles and explains, “The captain and I were just swapping Army stories. And we got to talking about the old myth about what’s inside the hollow gold ball on top of military flag poles.”

Sepulveda realizes all at once. That word—hollow. That’s it. The one thing about Spillers that explains all the other things: he’s hollow—not literally of course. Something else. It’s like he radiates emptiness. Sepulveda thinks of all the shared experiences people presumptively ascribe to everyone around them. Things so basic, they don’t rise to the level of being called into question—like understanding the concept of humor, of enjoying a good meal, or the feeling of being admired. These small comforts that motivate our fellow humans are like a shared set of instructions we depend on. They explain without words—our silences, thoughts, smirks, gestures and throat clearings—even that crazy cabróna from West 59th Street, Bunny Bancroft. Spillers doesn’t seem to have the same instructions as the rest of us. Which is why trying to imagine him doing something recognizable or normal seems impossible. So he just winds up coming off as a hollow man stuffed in a dark suit—a man-sized Pinocchio with cheese for hair. Sepulveda looks at him with this fresh insight—sees him standing there, fists still clamped to his hips, glaring down at the gun as Ramler talks about military flagpoles. “At Benning, I remember hearing a crazy story about there being a razor blade, a match, and a single bullet stuffed in there.” He gestures to Sepulveda. “And the captain here was just telling me about their own local stories.”

Spillers aims his head at Sepulveda, emitting two or three facial tics along the way.

The captain almost misses Ramler’s flagpole cue entirely, but recovers quickly. His hands, which had been frozen in place for the last ten minutes, unlace, and softly tap the desk. “Yes,” he says. “Here in Puerto Rico, we have a joke. We have all the stuff you guys do. But we throw in a gun too. So the person who breaks open the gold ball actually has a fighting chance.”

Ramler and Sepulveda laugh. Spillers does not. His nostrils are flaring up and down like tiny sewer grates fashioned out of skin.

“Well I’m glad.” says Spillers, decoupling his fists from his hips and removing his hat.

Glad—about what, Sepulveda wonders.

Spillers is sitting on the edge of the bookcase by the wall now—arms folded up like spring-loaded scissors. “Captain Sepulveda, I hope you don’t mind me barging in your office like this. Corporal—I can’t recall his name—the one out in the hallway carrying all the reports—showed me in.”

The captain shoots a look out past his open door, toward the sound of typing. He sees Torres back at his desk now, feet up next to a pile of PMCS reports, on the phone again.

“Are you aware of my role at this facility?” Spillers asks through a flurry of blinking and eyebrow gesturing.

“Yes sir,” Sepulveda begins. “I’ve heard your name mentioned a few times at battalion. You’re the FBI station chief out of San Juan.”

“Very good.” Spillers says, his mouth elastically bouncing from a frown to a smile to a scowl. “Are you aware that this facility—the one you’re in—exists because of me? That this whole place was built because I made a phone call to DC?”

“Yes sir.” Sepulveda answers.

“Wonderful.” Spillers says, allowing a long pause to elapse, after which he adds, “And you’re aware of the reason why Mr. Ramler is here?”

“My paperwork from battalion—”

Spillers talks over him. “Let me get straight to the point. Mr. Ramler and I are here only to talk to Jesus Santiago. When that’s done, we will be gone. And you may go back to…” Spillers shrugs, pressing his lips together and shaking his head from side to side. “Your business.”

“Understood.” says the Captain, hoping Spillers will stop shaking his head.

“Perfect. Santiago’s in building two?”

“Yes sir.”

“Have you washed him?”

“Yes sir. And delousing. It’s SOP.”

“Do me a favor. Wash him again. It’s—” Spillers says, picking himself up from the bookcase and looking at his watch. “—still early morning. I’d like to see him at two o’clock. We’ll meet in your office at a quarter ‘til captain. Come Ramler, I need to speak with you.”

Ramler gives a quick nod, and reaches down to the floor for the straps of his kit bag. Sepulveda says nothing, not wanting to stretch out the conversation a second longer. Ramler’s about to stand, when Spillers places a hand on his back, gently signaling him to stay seated, then faces the captain. “One more thing,” he says. “Has anyone here questioned Santiago yet? Are there any transcripts?”

“No sir.” Sepulveda says.

This makes Spillers smile. “Outstanding.” he says, removing his hand from Ramler’s shoulder. “This should not be complicated. Or long.” He tilts his head up, and discharges an uncomfortably long eye blink toward the captain. Then he removes his hand from Ramler’s shoulder, and inserts his hat back on to his head. The muscles in Sepulveda’s face are straining.

Just then, Torres sidles up to the doorframe, holding a stack of PMCS reports in one hand saying, “Aquí están los putas informes capitán.” He rolls his eyes and adds “El cabron sargento Owens siempre me jode.”

Sepulveda starts shaking his head, and replies in English, “OK Torres, just put them here on my desk.”

Torres shuffles by Spillers and Ramler without looking at either man—weaves in between them without making eye contact, sets the slightly rumpled papers on the captain’s desk, and exits softly. Ramler is again, astonished by the young man’s noiseless and cat-like efficiency.

Spillers squints at Sepulveda. “He talks to you this way?” The captain begins to think of something to say, but Spillers turns forcefully, shaking his head and clicking his tongue on his way out the door. “Ramler, bring your things.”

When they’re gone, the captain rises from his chair, stands motionless for a second and cranes his neck so his ear points to the wall. He waits to hear the adjacent office’s door open and shut, then closes his own door, and sits back down at his desk to call the warden.

“Pedro,” Sepulveda starts in, “you were on to something earlier today—about that wooden crate business. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more time this morning. But right now, I need a big favor.”

“Well,” he says, sounding satisfied. “I’m just happy you’ve finally seen the light. How can I help?”

“I need to know everything you know about those brothers you mentioned. The ones who broke in to the hospital, who are somehow connected to Santiago.” As the captain speaks, he reaches into the top drawer of his desk and fishes out a sheet of paper and a ball point pen.

“Ah—OK.” the warden says, then adds quickly, “I got it. Hold on, hold on. I’m tired of calling them ‘the brothers’. Let me get my notes. I take very thorough notes—this will just take a minute.” Pedro sets the phone down and goes dark for a minute. Sepulveda looks down at his watch, sees it’s only 10:30. When the warden returns, there’s ten seconds of huffing, squeaking, and scraping as he squeezes back into his chair. Finally, he says, “Ortiz brothers. Omar and Rupert. Ages…twenty three… and twenty four. They live somewhere in La Perla, close to stop number 26. I don’t have a street address though. No known family.”

Sepulveda sits up when he hears this. He had lived in that neighborhood for the first five years of his life—before his parents had enough money to move to Santurce. The neighborhood was tiny—two hundred families, tops—a narrow strip of brightly colored shanty homes of tin and sheet rock, right outside the fortress walls of old San Juan, butt up against the water line. He scribbles this down quickly in large capped letters: ORTIZ BROTHERS. LA PERLA. #26—and for the next forty five minutes, listens to Pedro, learning things he wished he had known earlier when speaking with Ramler. For starters, all this hospital business began two months ago.

At 5am Monday morning, August 21, an x-ray technician at Presbyterian hospital noticed one of the lab doors had a broken lock. After looking inside, he saw file cabinets and drawers pulled open, and papers thrown on the floor. So he called the police. Around 6am, two uniformed officers from San Juan showed up, asked a few questions, took some photos of the door and the room, then drove back to the station. Not a high priority for them, figuring this was probably some petty thieves trying to score some fancy hospital equipment to sell on the black market.

By nine o’clock that same morning, half a dozen FBI agents rolled into the parking lot in shiny black Fords. The first thing they did was find the x-ray tech who originally reported the break-in: forty two year old Julio Purcell. They grilled that guy for four hours, until he was in tears. And while that was happening, they interviewed and fingerprinted everyone in the radiology, janitorial, and administrative staffs—asking questions like, How long have you been employed here? Who has the keys to the door marked HPS? What do you know about Mr. Purcell? What’s the nature of your job here? Have you ever served in the military? Do you know your blood type? They even asked about the police officers who showed up earlier that morning. Do you recall their names? What were their names? Did they look anxious?

During the interviews and fingerprinting, another pair of FBI men went to work in and around the door marked HPS. They spread fine black dust on and around doorknobs, doorjambs, drawer handles, and countertops—looking for fingerprints. They took photographs from several angles, in some instances holding up written placards denoting distances measured out with a trifold yardstick. By the end of the day, they confiscated six boxes of patient records, then stormed out single-file into the parking lot, tracking black dust along the polished white floors most of the way. When they peeled out, a chorus of sucios cabrones! went up.

When the warden finished speaking, Sepulveda looked down at his watch and saw that ten minutes had gone by. “I don’t get it.” he says. “How did the Ortiz brothers get busted at all?”

Pedro seems delighted at the question. Then reminds Sepulveda of the FBI’s enormous network of informants—J. Edgar Hoover’s shadow force of domestic spies that keeps tabs on subversive activities. “By the next day… Tuesday… an FBI informant finds out a kid named Omar Ortiz is trying to sell some information to a university professor affiliated with the nationalist party. Ortiz says he has some hospital files—crazy shit that has to do with radiation experiments. Stuff that will land like a fucking hand grenade if it gets out in the papers, and is sure to get people pissed off right before an election.”

Sepulveda nods, and thinks back to Ramler’s recounting of the indestructible pussy.

The warden continues. “That informant winds up writing down bits and pieces of this conversation into a carpeta and by the next day… you-know-who over at FBI headquarters finds out, and gets involved. He sets his agents loose to find out everything there is to know about Omar Ortiz, but there’s no records of him. He wasn’t born in a hospital, never went to school, never served in the army. The FBI only has a physical description of him from their snitch. So they grab the snitch, and put him in a room with one of their sketch artists to work up a picture of Omar Ortiz. Bang. They get a face drawn up one-two-three style, then make copies for every cop in San Juan. By that Saturday, two officers spot a guy matching the sketch—just walking out of Salón Boricua.”

“Oh shit, is that the place in Santurce, where—” Sepulveda starts to ask.

“Yeah, THAT place—where Campos gets his hair cut.” the warden says. “Any way, a guy matching Omar’s description walks out of the salon, and the cops stop to ask him a few questions—the usual stuff—and they see he’s acting strangely. They arrest him on the spot. A second man, who turns out to be Omar’s younger brother Rupert, walks up a minute later holding a coke. They arrest him too, stuff him in the car, and drive to the station. Before they even get there, both brothers start blabbing about the break-in. They tell the cops everything—including where they hid the crate—a little patch of sugar cane outside Hacienda Campo Rico—about ten miles away.”

Sepulveda shakes his head. It didn’t add up. La Perla’s not the kind of place that produces spontaneous confessors. People who grew up there were extremely kind, but hard. He thinks of a girl from the neighborhood he bumped into at a dance hall when he was a lieutenant at camp Las Casas. Her uncle beat a tourist to death with a deep fryer, because he didn’t like him taking pictures of his house. Pedro must realize how silly it sounds to suggest that the Ortiz brothers got so scared in the back seat of a police car, they decided to snitch on themselves.

Pedro’s still talking. “So the cops find the exact spot where the brothers buried the crate, and have them dig it up and put it in the trunk of their car. Then they head back to the station. They lock up the Ortiz brothers, and leave the crate on the floor. Next day—around 10am, a pair of FBI agents show up. They mention you-know-who, then grab the brothers and the crate, then they spend an hour questioning the police officers who arrested the Ortiz brothers. It was nuts. People were pissed. These fucking FBI guys—”

“Yeah, I get it.” says Sepulveda. “Listen Pedro, I don’t have a lot of time, so let me just… I need to tell it back to you so I have it all straight in my head. OK?”

The warden sighs into the phone.

“OK—” Sepulveda begins, setting down his ball point pen.

Monday, August 21—evidence of a break-in at the hospital is discovered by the x-ray technician early in the morning. The cops show up, take some pictures, then leave. Later on, the FBI shows up in force. They dust for prints, interview people, that kind of stuff. There’s no witnesses, so no physical descriptions of who might have broken in, but they harass everyone at the hospital for good measure. That’s day 1.

Tuesday, August 22—an FBI informant reports that someone named Omar Ortiz is trying to sell some information stolen out of a hospital. Information he thinks would be valuable to the nationalist party.

Wednesday, August 23—Spillers finds out about Ortiz by reading a carpeta. He has his guys try and dig up whatever they can about Ortiz, but find nothing.

At some later point—an FBI sketch artist, working with the informant, does a sketch of Omar Ortiz. Copies are made and passed around to local cops, who keep a lookout for anyone matching the drawing.

Saturday morning, August 26—Omar Ortiz is spotted exiting Salón Boricua. He and his brother Rupert are arrested and taken in for questioning. In the car, the brothers admit to the theft, and disclose the location of the stolen items from the hospital. The police head to that spot, recover the crate, and return to the station.

Sunday morning, August 26—Two FBI agents show up at the police station. They grab the brothers, the crate, and spend several minutes questioning the officers who arrested the Ortiz brothers. The cops are pissed. The FBI guys leave with the brothers and the crate.

“Does that seem right?” Sepulveda asks the warden.

“That’s it.” says the warden.

When Sepulveda asks the warden how he could have such detailed knowledge of these events, he smiles into the telephone and explains, “I came from the Insular Police. I still have a lot of friends there Sepulveda. Also, my aunt works as a bookkeeper at Presbyterian hospital. She was one of the people interviewed when the FBI showed up.”

Of course Pedro has an aunt who works at the hospital. Sepulveda shakes his head and quietly chuckles. “Just to be clear, the Ortiz brothers were never photographed or fingerprinted—at least by the cops at the station—is that right?”

“That’s right. FBI took them before any of that was done.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Nothing. FBI confiscated all the police paperwork. They loaded up the Ortiz brothers and the crate into one of their cars, and drove away.”

“Alright, thank you Pedro.” he says, looking at his watch again. It’s 11:15. He’s about to hang up, when he recalls something odd that Pedro had said during their first phone conversation in the morning—before Ramler had shown up at all. Something about those two FBI guys showing up at the police station. What did he call it—a pair of Billy Badasses? Pedro loved gringo movies. He probably got that from a movie.

“Pedro. One last thing actually.”

“Yeah.”

“The two FBI guys. What were their names?”

“Oh yeah. A skinny one and a big one… let me see, I wrote it down right here. Didn’t I mention this before? This morning?”

Sepulveda is clicking the top of the ball point pen. “Pedro, you did. I just—wasn’t paying attention though. Could you give me those names right now?”

“Of course, of course. The skinny one, his name was Widger.”

“Spell it?”

Sepulveda writes each letter in caps: W-I-D-G-E-R, underlining the name when he’s done. Just as he asks for the second name, he hears the sound of a knock. He looks up and sees Spillers’ face.

“Hello Captain.” he says, prying the door open wider.

“Mr. Spillers. Yes, could you give me one moment?”

“Absolutely.” he says, leaning against the door jamb and glancing at the sheet of paper on Sepulveda’s desk. “I’ll just wait right here for you.”

“Almost done sir.” he adds politely, then turns a bit to stare away, folding the sheet of paper in half. Spillers grins. With the telephone receiver still up to his ear, the captain can hear Pedro’s breathing.

“Is that puto right there?” the warden asks, sinking into his chair.

Sepulveda, not wanting to telegraph anything, just chuckles and says yes as woodenly as possible, then shoots a glance over at Spillers, who’s staring out the window now, toward the big tree with the radio antenna on it. This makes Sepulveda pause for a moment, and wonder if his phone lines might be tapped. “Look,” he says into the phone, “I need to wrap this up, so if you give me that last thing—”

After a long silence… “The second guy’s name was Ramler.” Pedro says quickly, dabbing at his top lip with a handkerchief.

“You’re sure about that?” Sepulveda asks, putting the ball point pen and the folded sheet of paper back into his desk drawer.

“Sure as shit.” Then in a lower voice, “How far away from the phone is he? No, no. Don’t answer that. Just tell me—is he at least ten feet away?”

“Yes.”

“Does he know you’re talking to me?”

“No.”

“Goodbye Sepulveda. Don’t call for a couple days.”

Sepulveda is nodding up and down just as the warden hangs up the phone. “Alright, yes, yes. Thank you ma’am. Have a nice day.” Sepulveda’s palms are sweaty. Which takes him by surprise. He cracks his knuckles and stands up.

“OK, all done sir. What can I do for you?”

Spillers laughs. “Let’s go for a walk captain.”