The People in My Head: Carlos Sebastian
Carlos Sebastian was a private detective, of a sort. He didn’t work out of an office and he didn’t advertise. He wasn’t licensed or registered, and he didn’t go to the big conventions on the latest surveillance techniques and gee-whiz technological gimcrackery. For one thing, his dole payments would have stopped if anyone knew he was working.
So when an unfamiliar man knocked on the door and said that a friend had said Carlos was someone who could check something out for him, Carlos was cautious. The man was well dressed, suit and tie, not the usual run of the mill client for him. But after a certain amount of idiosyncratic banter had satisfied him it wasn’t someone checking on him defrauding the government, he listened to the story. It was the usual deal, the guy thought his wife might be cheating, but he’s not sure, he wants to know before he confronts. Measure twice, cut once, the overcautious type who believes that sneaking around is better than an honest question and confrontation, perhaps over nothing but his own paranoia. Carlos’ stock in trade, in other words. Jealous men and women make the world of detectives go round. He took the case.
Sitting in a car all day is a boring task, so the detective cannot be an imaginative sort. You can’t let your mind wander, you have to stay focused, and you have to have a high boredom threshold. Carlos wasn’t a particularly active man in the mental department, which made him perfect for this kind of work. He could pay attention without losing focus, but it was a knack, not a practiced skill. His skill was the ability to appear authoritative when the nosy neighbour came knocking on the car window and asked what he was doing. The directive to call the local police station, telling them they knew he was there and that was all he could say usually diverted them. People respect authority and confidence, even if it’s all a lie.
There was another man, as it turned out. He would come during the day, go to bed and sleep, get up, potter around the house, whatever. He acted like he owned the place, and like he owned the woman too. There would be fights, shouting and screaming. This happened every day of the week with clockwork regularity. Carlos couldn’t understand it. So he broke in and installed a surveillance camera. He would watch the fights take place, the beatings, and he felt powerless for the first time in his life. Once the man left, the woman would put makeup on, hide the damage, and when her husband returned at night there was tenderness and love. He couldn’t work out why she would have an affair with someone who would treat her so badly. What was the appeal? Why did she seem to enjoy the rough treatment? Or was it simply that the husband spent every weekend away on some kind of business trip, and some nights would not even come home. Carlos speculated that attention of any kind was better than being ignored, at least maybe to the woman he was coming to pity.
He didn’t tell his client about the affair. The violence of the situation made him think it wasn’t a good idea to provoke the issue. And the more he thought about it, the more he realised that to confirm the man’s suspicions would leave the woman trapped in the abusive relationship she seemed unwilling to remove herself from. Or perhaps that he would not let her escape from. Carlos understood lies, and he knew how they trapped a person. If she left this man and he came back while the husband was around, then her secret would be out. She’d be stuck between a man who wanted to hurt her, and a man who would want nothing more to do with her. For a detective, empathy is a useless emotion, but Carlos felt like helping the woman. He had grown tired of letting people’s lies destroy their lives.
One night as the man left for work, Carlos followed and ran the car off the road on a deserted stretch of highway. As the man dazedly got out of the wrecked car, Carlos took a crowbar and beat the man to death. He dumped the body and torched the car.
He told the client he’d seen nothing, nobody was having an affair and he could rest easy. The man went away smiling, happy. Carlos felt good about his job for the first time in several years.
When the next knock at the door came, he hadn’t expected to see a uniform there. Fear gripped him with the conviction that seven years of welfare fraud had finally caught up with him. Several policemen came in with a detective and arrested him for the murder of a Mr James Haddon. Mrs Haddon was distraught, especially because they had initially believed that she was responsible for the murder. Apparently Mr Haddon was a shift worker who drank heavily and beat his wife. He was not a good man, but he had no known enemies and he had been murdered inexplicably. The only explanation that seemed reasonable was that she had hired someone to kill him. As the detective explained, once they had cleared her, someone had anonymously tipped them off to his actions. Carlos tried to explain that he’d done it because someone had hired him to check on her. But with no files, cheques or bank statements, he couldn’t prove anything. When he saw Mrs Haddon’s lawyer at the police station, he tried to say that it was the man who had hired him, but nobody would listen to a dole bludger the neighbours said was a creep who got off on stalking women in the neighbourhood.
He was sent to prison and hung himself several days later. He never understood what he’d done wrong, but he would never have been able to. Imagination and empathy are not useful tools to the detective mind.
So when an unfamiliar man knocked on the door and said that a friend had said Carlos was someone who could check something out for him, Carlos was cautious. The man was well dressed, suit and tie, not the usual run of the mill client for him. But after a certain amount of idiosyncratic banter had satisfied him it wasn’t someone checking on him defrauding the government, he listened to the story. It was the usual deal, the guy thought his wife might be cheating, but he’s not sure, he wants to know before he confronts. Measure twice, cut once, the overcautious type who believes that sneaking around is better than an honest question and confrontation, perhaps over nothing but his own paranoia. Carlos’ stock in trade, in other words. Jealous men and women make the world of detectives go round. He took the case.
Sitting in a car all day is a boring task, so the detective cannot be an imaginative sort. You can’t let your mind wander, you have to stay focused, and you have to have a high boredom threshold. Carlos wasn’t a particularly active man in the mental department, which made him perfect for this kind of work. He could pay attention without losing focus, but it was a knack, not a practiced skill. His skill was the ability to appear authoritative when the nosy neighbour came knocking on the car window and asked what he was doing. The directive to call the local police station, telling them they knew he was there and that was all he could say usually diverted them. People respect authority and confidence, even if it’s all a lie.
There was another man, as it turned out. He would come during the day, go to bed and sleep, get up, potter around the house, whatever. He acted like he owned the place, and like he owned the woman too. There would be fights, shouting and screaming. This happened every day of the week with clockwork regularity. Carlos couldn’t understand it. So he broke in and installed a surveillance camera. He would watch the fights take place, the beatings, and he felt powerless for the first time in his life. Once the man left, the woman would put makeup on, hide the damage, and when her husband returned at night there was tenderness and love. He couldn’t work out why she would have an affair with someone who would treat her so badly. What was the appeal? Why did she seem to enjoy the rough treatment? Or was it simply that the husband spent every weekend away on some kind of business trip, and some nights would not even come home. Carlos speculated that attention of any kind was better than being ignored, at least maybe to the woman he was coming to pity.
He didn’t tell his client about the affair. The violence of the situation made him think it wasn’t a good idea to provoke the issue. And the more he thought about it, the more he realised that to confirm the man’s suspicions would leave the woman trapped in the abusive relationship she seemed unwilling to remove herself from. Or perhaps that he would not let her escape from. Carlos understood lies, and he knew how they trapped a person. If she left this man and he came back while the husband was around, then her secret would be out. She’d be stuck between a man who wanted to hurt her, and a man who would want nothing more to do with her. For a detective, empathy is a useless emotion, but Carlos felt like helping the woman. He had grown tired of letting people’s lies destroy their lives.
One night as the man left for work, Carlos followed and ran the car off the road on a deserted stretch of highway. As the man dazedly got out of the wrecked car, Carlos took a crowbar and beat the man to death. He dumped the body and torched the car.
He told the client he’d seen nothing, nobody was having an affair and he could rest easy. The man went away smiling, happy. Carlos felt good about his job for the first time in several years.
When the next knock at the door came, he hadn’t expected to see a uniform there. Fear gripped him with the conviction that seven years of welfare fraud had finally caught up with him. Several policemen came in with a detective and arrested him for the murder of a Mr James Haddon. Mrs Haddon was distraught, especially because they had initially believed that she was responsible for the murder. Apparently Mr Haddon was a shift worker who drank heavily and beat his wife. He was not a good man, but he had no known enemies and he had been murdered inexplicably. The only explanation that seemed reasonable was that she had hired someone to kill him. As the detective explained, once they had cleared her, someone had anonymously tipped them off to his actions. Carlos tried to explain that he’d done it because someone had hired him to check on her. But with no files, cheques or bank statements, he couldn’t prove anything. When he saw Mrs Haddon’s lawyer at the police station, he tried to say that it was the man who had hired him, but nobody would listen to a dole bludger the neighbours said was a creep who got off on stalking women in the neighbourhood.
He was sent to prison and hung himself several days later. He never understood what he’d done wrong, but he would never have been able to. Imagination and empathy are not useful tools to the detective mind.
posted by Andrew Lee at 8:34 PM
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