Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

We got out a few feet past the Fonts' house.

"Something strange is going on here," said Pancho, as the taxi driver drove happily away, with a few choice words about our mothers.

At first glance the street looked normal, but I too noticed something different about the place I remembered so vividly. Across the street I saw two guys sitting in a yellow Camaro. They were staring at us.

Pancho rang the bell. For a few long seconds there wasn't any movement inside the house.

One of the occupants of the Camaro, the one sitting in the passenger seat, got out and propped his elbows on the roof of the car. Pancho watched him for a few seconds and then repeated, in a low voice, that something very strange was going on. The Camaro guy was scary. I remembered my first few times at the Fonts' house, standing at the door, gazing at the garden, which to my eyes seemed to spread before us full of secrets. That hadn't been long ago, and yet it felt like years.

It was Jorgito who came out to let us in.

When he got to the gate he made a sign to us that we didn't understand and he looked over toward where the Camaro was parked. He didn't return our greeting and when we were through the gate he shut and locked it again. The garden looked neglected. The house seemed different. Jorgito led us straight to the front door. I remember that Pancho looked at me inquiringly and as we walked he turned around and scanned the street.

"Move it, man," Jorgito told him.

Inside the house Quim Font and his wife were waiting for us.

"It was about time you showed up, García Madero," said Quim, giving me a big hug. I hadn't been expecting such a warm welcome. Mrs. Font was dressed in a dark green robe and slippers and it looked as if she'd just gotten up, although later I learned that she'd hardly slept the night before.

"What's going on here?" asked Pancho, looking at me.

"You mean what isn't going on," said Mrs. Font as she stroked Jorgito's hair.

After he hugged me, Quim went to the window and looked out surreptitiously.

"Nothing new to report, Dad," said Jorgito.

Immediately I thought about the men in the yellow Camaro and I began to form a vague idea of what was going on at the Fonts'.

"We're having breakfast, boys, would you like some coffee?" said Quim.

We followed him into the kitchen. There, sitting at the table, were Angélica, María-and Lupe! Pancho didn't even blink when he saw her, but I almost jumped out of my skin.

It's hard to remember what happened next, especially because María greeted me as if we'd never fought, as if we could pick things up again from where we'd left off. All I know is that I said hello to Angélica and Lupe in a friendly way and that María gave me a kiss on the cheek. Then we had coffee and Pancho asked what was going on. The explanations were various and heated and in the middle of it all Mrs. Font and Quim started to fight. According to Mrs. Font, this was the worst New Year's holiday she'd ever had. Think about the poor, Cristina, replied Quim. Mrs. Font started to cry and left the kitchen. Angélica went out after her, which prompted Pancho to make a move, though it came to nothing: he got up from his chair, followed Angélica to the door, and then sat down again. Meanwhile Quim and María, between the two of them, brought me up to date. Lupe's pimp had found her at the Media Luna. After a scuffle, the particulars of which I didn't understand, she and Quim had managed to escape from the hotel and make it to Calle Colima. This had been a few days ago. When Mrs. Font found out what was going on, she called the police, and it wasn't long before a couple of officers showed up in a patrol car. They said that if the Fonts wanted to make a formal complaint they would have to go to the station. When Quim told them that Alberto and the other guy were there, in front of the house, the officers went to talk to the pimp, and from the gate Jorgito could tell that they seemed more like old friends than anything else. Either the guy with Alberto was also a policeman, according to Lupe, or the police had been given a handout big enough to make them look the other way. That was when the siege of the Fonts' house formally began. The officers left. Mrs. Font called the police again. Different officers came, with the same result. A friend of Quim's, who talked to Quim on the phone, recommended that they wait out the siege as best they could until the holidays were over. Sometimes, according to Jorgito, who was the only one with the guts to spy on the intruders, another car would come, an Oldsmobile that parked behind the Camaro, and Alberto and his companion, after talking to the new besiegers for a while, would drive off noisily, even threateningly, making the car tires squeal and honking the horn. Six hours later they were back and the car that had replaced them would leave. There was no question that these comings and goings were wearing down the house's inhabitants. Mrs. Font refused to go out for fear that she'd be kidnapped. Quim, faced with these new developments, wouldn't go out either. He said it was out of responsibility to his family, although I think it was really out of fear that he would be beaten up. Only Angélica and María had crossed the threshold, once and separately, and the outcome was ugly. Angélica was heckled and María, who walked boldly right past the Camaro, was groped and knocked around. By the time we got there, the only person who dared to answer the door was Jorgito.

Once we'd been informed of the situation, Pancho's reaction was immediate.

He was going to go and beat the shit out of Alberto.

Quim and I tried to dissuade him, but there was nothing to be done. So after speaking to Angélica in private for a quarter of an hour, Pancho headed outside.

"Come with me, García Madero," he said, and like an idiot I followed him.

As we walked out, Pancho's determination to do battle cooled by several degrees. We opened the gate with the keys Jorgito had given us. Turning around to look back at the house, I thought I saw Quim watching us from the living room window and Mrs. Font from a second-floor window. This bites, said Pancho. I didn't know what to answer. Who asked him to open his mouth in the first place?

"It's all over for me with Angélica," said Pancho as he tried the keys one by one, unsuccessfully.

There were three people in the Camaro, not two as it had seemed before. Pancho strode right up to them and asked them what they wanted. I lingered several feet behind, the figure of the pimp hidden from me behind Pancho. I couldn't see him and he couldn't see me. But I heard his voice, resonant as a ranchera singer's, arrogant but not entirely unpleasant, nothing like what I would've expected, betraying not a hint of hesitation. The contrast with Pancho's voice was cruel. Pancho had begun to stutter and talk too fast, slipping too quickly toward insult and aggression.

At that moment, for the first time since everything that had happened that morning, I realized that these were dangerous people and I wanted to tell Pancho that we should turn around and go back into the house. But Pancho was already challenging Alberto.

"Get out of the car, man," he said.

Alberto laughed. He made a remark I didn't hear. The passenger-side door opened and it was the other guy who got out of the car. He was of average height, very dark, on the fat side.

"Get out of here, kid." It took me a minute to realize he was talking to me.

Then I saw that Pancho had taken a step back and Alberto was getting out of the car. What came next happened too fast. Alberto stepped up to Pancho (it looked like he was giving him a kiss) and Pancho collapsed.

"Leave him there, kid," said the dark guy from the other side, leaning on the roof of the car. I ignored him. I pulled Pancho up and we went back to the house. When we got to the door I turned around to look. The two of them were back in the yellow Camaro and it looked to me like they were laughing.