Matias Nespolo - Seven Ways to Kill a Cat

‘So what? We go round by the refinery, or take the old road: if Santi’s up for it, I don’t see the problem. Just take him the money, tell him what I told you. What, you think he’s chicken?’

‘He won’t do it, Gringo.’

‘Just listen to me and stop bitching. I’m telling you, he’ll be well up for it.’

Quique heaves a sigh, rubs his eyes. He’s not convinced. Neither am I, but it’s the only escape route I’ve got left.

‘Go on, loco , make like the Duracell bunny and fuck off,’ I say. ‘Once we get to Retiro, we can swing by the children’s hospital if you want. I know the way,’ I lie, taking advantage of the fact his kid sister’s sick. Keeping company with the local rats is clearly having an effect on me. All I need is a tail and I’d be one of them.

Quique looks at me for a second, then he says we might as well try and he leaves. I shout after him to give me a whistle if he spots anything dodgy on his way back to Zaid’s place, and I wait. I wait too long, because Quique’s warning never comes and, instead of getting my arse in gear, I sit there thinking about Chueco. And the arsehole who was tormenting me a while back shows up again and starts busting my balls. Before I realise, I’m talking to the dead like it was nothing weird.

‘Be careful what you’re doing,’ I tell Chueco. ‘Don’t fuck up …’

‘OH, IT’S YOU. Yeah, I remember …’ says Piti, one of Toni’s friends. ‘You showed up at Lezama Park the other day with a copy of Moby Dick under your arm …’

I agree with my eyes. A slight, slow blink. I’ve got my mouth full, my lips round the top of a bottle. And I can’t nod, because I’ve got my head back so I can neck a litre of beer in one go.

It took him a minute before he recognised me. I had the advantage because I spotted him straight off. He’s got the kind of face you don’t forget in a hurry. Covered in scars and pockmarks. He’s ugly as a hatful of arseholes.

‘So? How’s it going with the whale?’

‘Piece of shit, that book,’ I say, scanning the street. Suspicious.

No one’s coming up from the river, and on the other side there’s only a stray dog. I’m not the only one who’s worried. Zaid the Turk is peering anxiously through the bars of his stall. All this shooting has finally shaken him out of his apathy, which means that fucking photo of his dog gets a break from having to deal with the weight of his guilt. At least this shit has done something positive — it’s given Zaid something else to obsess about. I can’t get my head round someone obsessing over a fucking photograph. I don’t care if it’s a photo of a missing kid or his mother who betrayed him. I feel sorry for the guy, because if he wants to throw a pity party, he doesn’t need bad memories to do it. I don’t do memories, good or bad. I can’t be dealing with the past. But I’m being well and truly burned by the present. The fear, the dread, and all the beer in the world isn’t going to put that fire out.

‘What you saying, dude? Moby Dick is a complete fucking trip!’ Piti says.

‘It’s a bunch of bullshit, and if you don’t want to believe it, that’s your problem.’

‘Fuck sake, dude, you just don’t get it!’

Piti looks at me smugly. He takes a swig of beer, hands me back the bottle and sparks up a cigarette. He studies me for a bit longer as he takes the first couple of puffs, then launches into a big lecture waving his cigarette like a pointer, like he’s some professor. He gives me this whole spiel about the human condition, the hell of madness, the nature of evil and I don’t know what all, and every couple of minutes he tells me that the whale doesn’t really exist, that it’s a metaphor for something that, if the whale didn’t exist, would be nameless.

I let him ramble on, finish the beer and ask the Turk for another. The minute I see Piti’s running out of steam, I cut in.

‘You done?’

‘More or less, loco , but I’m still not sure you get the book.’

‘Metaphor my arse, you’re the one who doesn’t get it. All this horseshit is like some stoner tells you he’s seen the face of the devil. It’s bull … If someone really saw the devil, he wouldn’t come out with shit about horns and hooves, nobody believes it. If he really saw the devil he’d wind up putting a bullet in his head or a needle in his arm, or he’d end up in a rubber room in some nuthouse.’

Piti pulls a face, gives me this smug smile. I go on talking so as not to end up smashing his fucking face.

‘This whole story about the whale is a total crock too. We’re supposed to believe anyone who goes after Moby Dick never comes back. So what about Ishmael? He was there and he came back, didn’t he? The writer’s a bullshit artist. He cheats. Far as I’m concerned, if it ended with Ishmael at the bottom of the sea with old Ahab, with the little fishies eating his eyes, it would have made more sense. If you’re going to bullshit, at least make it convincing. Otherwise shut your arse.’

Piti lights another cigarette. He toys with the bottle, takes a couple of swigs, and tells me there’s no way the plot of Moby Dick could turn out like that because that would be fantasy literature whereas Melville — that’s the name of the guy who wrote the book, he reminds me — Melville’s all about literary realism.

‘Tell me something, professor,’ I interrupt him. ‘Did you come all this way to chat literature? Quit busting my balls about literary fucking realism.’

‘Nuh-huh, dude,’ he says gruffly. ‘Toni sent me to give you a couple of messages.’

‘Why didn’t he come and tell me himself?’

‘Ask him yourself, dude.’ The guy clearly doesn’t like being a messenger boy. And he sure as fuck doesn’t like me reminding him he’s one. ‘Toni’s waiting for you up in Zavaleta. Says not to believe the shit you’ve heard, says he had nothing to do with what happened to your old woman. Says you need to get the fuck out of the barrio asap. Charly’s going to do a little ethnic cleansing, so there won’t be much left standing.’

The air I’m breathing runs out of oxygen. I’m suffocating. The third gulp I take is a thick, smoggy hit that jolts my brain with a clarity I’ve never felt before. How the fuck does Toni know I’m after him to find out about my mother? All I told him was Mamina wanted nothing to do with him and that if I was going to go work with him, I needed to know what had gone down between the two of them. He’s hiding something. You start pleading innocent before you’ve been accused, you’re fucking guilty. Right now, the last thing I want is to know what really went down. It doesn’t matter any more.

It’s not like we were really close, but Toni was always like a brother to me … Deliberately or not, he betrayed me, he left me in the lurch. Left me an orphan. Someone’s got to pay for that.

The sudden fever I feel calms me and cranks me up. I’m dead. Just like Chueco.

‘Tell him I can’t go up there, because someone will cap me,’ I say to Piti coolly. ‘If he wants to get me out of this shit, he’ll have to come down here.’

Piti stares at me incredulous and shrugs his shoulders.

‘I can’t see that happening, dude. Your people are a bit amped right now. Someone pulled a gun on me at the station. By some miracle, I got away with my shoes, but they took every peso I had. If that’s how they treat strangers, I wouldn’t like to imagine how they’d treat the prodigal son.’ Piti finishes his beer, spits and concludes. ‘Look, I’ve given you the message. If you like, I’ll take a message back from you, but trust me on this, I don’t think Toni’s going to risk coming down here.’