Matias Nespolo - Seven Ways to Kill a Cat

I’m thinking all this while I’m sipping my poison, and before I’ve even finished Chueco’s pouring me another. The fucker hasn’t said a word, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to any time soon.

‘Hey,’ I say, ‘that fat fucker’s riding for a fall —’

‘Finish the bottle with me. I’ve got a little business proposition for you.’

The minutes pass and still Chueco says nothing. Every now and then he glances back at the bar. Farías knows he’s doing it, but he obviously thinks he got one over on us because he’s got this big shit-eating grin. And whenever Chueco isn’t looking, he’s pointing and laughing with the other guys at the bar. Chueco’s got his back to them and he’s deep in his own shit, so he doesn’t notice and I’m not about to say anything. I don’t want him kicking off.

‘So, talk or I’m gone.’

Chueco drains his glass, glances round at the bar, then turns and stares out the window at the street. Finally, he leans back in his chair and looks at me.

‘Give us a cigarette before you go then. Probably for the best. You haven’t got the balls for what I’ve got planned.’

‘You calling me chickenshit?’ I say, and the urge to put my fist through his face makes me sound tense, which just makes me more furious because suddenly I realise it’s a set-up. Clever. But I’ve put myself out there now, I can’t back down.

‘I’m not calling anyone anything,’ he says soberly. ‘Just telling it like it is.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight. But right now I’m not sure. I mean, I’d like you as my backup, but if you’re just going to tag along with your tail between your legs don’t bother.’

‘What the fuck do you take me for, Chueco? You looking for a smack in the mouth?’ It’s not a threat, it’s an invitation for him to say something, give me a good reason to smash his face. But he’s a crafty fucker, he knows me too well. He’s got what he wanted. So he just gives a soft laugh and says nothing. I clench my fists and walk out, my heart hammering in my temples.

IN THE SPLIT second between Fat Farías putting the key in the lock and turning it, and the crowbar hitting the back of his head, which slams against the metal door and pushes it open, a thousand different thoughts burn through my brain. I’m off my face on coke. Chueco’s fifty-peso bill might have been dud, but it was real enough to get us three grams of merca , and we’ve already snorted the lot.

I think: what’ll happen if Farías recognises us? Chueco says we’ll be fine, but with him you never know. Not that I’d give a shit if we killed the fat bastard, but then I think about Yanina, Farías’s daughter. Supposedly she’s out dancing down at the local cumbia club like every Thursday — that’s why the job has to be tonight — but what if she’s inside watching TV? And even if she’s not, what if this shit goes bad? Farías might be a son of a bitch but he treats that kid like a princess. Yani’s mother died a couple of years ago and I don’t fancy leaving the kid an orphan. I say ‘kid’, but these days Yanina’s got one hell of a body on her. Far as I know, she hasn’t got any other relatives. If anything goes wrong and she’s left to look after the bar on her own, she’ll be eaten alive.

I think: what if someone sees us? I jerk my head round, check no one’s watching before I whack Farías. Chueco’s never had a moral code. Now I don’t either. But in the barrio, there is a code everyone lives by: you don’t shit on your own doorstep. Any shit that goes down in the barrio is generally the work of some dumb fuck who accidentally wandered onto our turf. The code in the barrio makes sense. Least you know when you send your kid down the bakery, your neighbour’s not going to mug him, because if he does he won’t live long enough to brag about it. And it means you’re not going to jump that girl walking down an alley at night because you don’t want someone else fucking your wife or your sister or your daughter.

I can’t see anyone, but you never know. In the darkness, there are thousands of restless eyes. All it takes is one person looking this way and we’re fucked. Well and truly fucked. Because we’d be better off getting beat down by the Feds than having the people round here remind us of the code.

As Farías’s head slams into the metal door, time starts up again. And I stop thinking.

‘Come on, come on, move it …’ Chueco hisses, trying to push Farías’s body inside. When I whacked him, he keeled over in the doorway. I step over the body, grab his shoulders and haul him inside. Chueco closes the door. A dog is barking somewhere and I can barely hear Fat Farías’s hoarse moan. He’s half conscious. Chueco wraps his head in a burlap bag he got from fuck knows where. He always comes prepared. He takes off his belt and lashes Farías’s hands behind his back.

I tiptoe down the corridor. The place is dark, deserted. I come to some sort of living room. The glow from the street lights streams through the half-closed venetian blinds. I turn a light on. A table, three chairs, a television balanced on a plastic beer crate, and everywhere you look, there’s rubbish.

Chueco comes in and starts poking around. There’s nowhere much in here to hide any cash. After couple of minutes, we move on to the kitchen. The place is filthy: dirty dishes, cockroaches, burnt saucepans. There are no doors on the cupboards or the cabinets under the counter. We don’t need to touch them to see what’s inside — just as well since I’m figuring they haven’t been cleaned since Yani’s mother died. And probably not for a couple of years before that. The fridge is empty, maybe broken. Chueco checks it out, then starts opening the pots and jars on the shelves. Pasta, beans, mate , sugar …

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I hiss.

‘What’s it look like, dumbfuck ? Misers always stash their cash in weird places. Don’t you know anything?’

When Chueco starts making like he knows everything, I want to strangle the bastard, but I don’t say anything. Anyway, maybe he’s right. Probably best to check everywhere. I leave him to it and head into the next room. It’s Yanina’s room. I can tell from the photos pinned on the walls and the clothes strewn all over on the floor: a cotton blouse, a bra and a pair of Lycra shorts. I pick up the shorts, stretch them, and picturing her tight arse in them gives me a fucking hard-on. I check the wardrobe, turn the bed over, rummage through the drawers in the bedside table. I know there’s no way Farías’s money is in here, but since Chueco’s being thorough searching the kitchen, I figure it’s a good excuse for me to go through Yanina’s stuff.

Her room is a tip too, but everything in it is impregnated with the smell of her. I like it. In a drawer in the dressing table, among the lipsticks, the make-up and the nail polish, I find a spliff and tuck it behind my ear. There’s a bunch of photos and papers in the other drawers and I’m reading them when Chueco starts shouting and distracts me.

‘What did I tell you?! That hijo de puta — come and see this — it’s fucking unbelievable.’ He sounds genuinely surprised. ‘It’s not even like Gordo works in a bank.’

I find him in Fat Farías’s bedroom looking so amazed it’s like he’s dislocated his jaw.

‘It’s just like in the movies, Gringo. I can’t fucking believe it!’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I hate it when he’s all mysterious, it makes me nervous. ‘Did you find the cash?’

‘Look,’ he says, pointing to the built-in wardrobe, the mesh screen door covered in fly shit.

He rips it open, pushes Fat Farías’s clothes along the rail and suddenly I see what’s got him all worked up. At the back of the wardrobe there’s a safe — one of those old green safes with a little black dial where you put in the combination and all that shit. I glance over at Chueco, and when I see the look of misery on his face, all my tension is released and I burst out laughing.