“Rolando did things he never should have done,” said the Doctor, not taking his eyes off her, as if he hadn’t heard her. He spoke in a philosophical manner as he took another swallow of his coffee. “In the first place, trying to blackmail that millionaire for a paltry sum like a hundred thousand dollars. In the second, publishing those photos in a stupid fit of pique. And, above all, behaving irresponsibly without letting me know what he intended to do. If he had acted with more loyalty toward me, with greater calm, as these things should be done, he’d be alive and might even have made a nice profit.”
“I beg you not to tell me anything else, Doctor,” Shorty entreated. “I beg you, I don’t want to know another word about this matter.”
The Doctor made a curious face without looking away, and it seemed to Shorty that all of a sudden, he was doubtful.
“Since you’re going to work for me, you have to learn about certain subjects,” he murmured, shrugging, not attributing much importance to the matter. “You have to become involved. I trust in your discretion. For your own sake, it’s a good idea that everything you learn here you keep secret, as silent as a tomb.”
“Of course, Doctor,” Shorty agreed. And, almost without transition, knowing very well that she should ask the question, she added: “Do you believe that Enrique Cárdenas ordered Rolando killed?
The Doctor shook his head no.
“He doesn’t have the guts to kill anybody, he’s a weakling, a rich kid,” he affirmed, shrugging his shoulders again with a contemptuous look. “At this point knowing who killed him is irrelevant, Shorty. Rolando acted badly and paid for it. Well, let’s not waste time; we’ll get right to the point. What’s going to happen to Exposed?”
“It’ll disappear,” she said. “What else could happen to the magazine without Rolando?”
“Reappear with you as editor, for example,” said the Doctor immediately, looking at her with a mocking gleam in his eyes. “Can you do it? Rolando thought so. I’m going to take his good opinion of you seriously. I’m prepared to help you and to keep Exposed alive. You decide how much you want to earn as editor. We won’t see each other very often. I want approval of the finished issue before it goes to press, and sometimes I’ll give you the headlines. I’m a good headline writer, though you may not believe it. We’ll see each other only under exceptional circumstances. But we’ll maintain weekly communication by telephone, or if the matter is delicate, by messenger. Captain Félix Madueño, remember that name. I’ll tell you who has to be investigated, who has to be defended, and above all, who has to be fucked over. Once again I ask you to excuse the language. But I repeat it because it will be the most important part of your obligations to me: to fuck over those who need to be fucked over. Fuck them over the way Rolando Garro knew how to do it. That’s all, for now. You know already, from now on things will go very well for you. But don’t forget the lesson: I forgive everything except traitors. I demand absolute loyalty from my collaborators. Understood, Shorty? See you later, then, and good luck.”
This time, instead of shaking her hand, the Doctor said goodbye with a kiss on her cheek. Hooded once again, Shorty felt her heart pounding as she retraced her steps in the hallway and on the stairs and got into the car. She was frightened and excited, horrified and filled with hope. Contradictory ideas and impulses whirled around her head. For example, to call a press conference, and in a room filled with reporters, stirred by the flashing cameras, to publicly beg the pardon of Engineer Enrique Cárdenas and state that the real killer of Rolando Garro was the Doctor, that genius of evil. A second later, she saw herself occupying the chair of the deceased editor of the weekly, calling the reporters to prepare the week’s issue, and thinking about when she would move, into which neighborhood, and how good it would be to know that never again—never again—would she set foot in the shabby alleys of Five Corners.
20
A Whirlpool
“Relax, Quique, for God’s sake,” said Luciano, giving his friend an affectionate pat. “I can’t stand seeing you with that face of a beaten dog.”
“You’re hurting me.” Marisa tried to turn her face away from her friend, but Chabela, who was stronger, didn’t stop and kept biting her lips and crushing her with the weight of her entire body. “What’s wrong, you madwoman, what’s going on?”
“The only thing I ask of my collaborators is loyalty,” the Doctor repeated for the tenth time, hitting the table with the palm of his hand. “A doglike fidelity, I’ve already told you, and I’ll repeat it as often as I have to, Shorty.”
“I’m relaxed, I’m calm, Luciano, I assure you,” Quique said. But the bitterness on his face, the grimace of his mouth, the tone of his voice contradicted him. “I don’t feel like dancing with joy or shouting hurrah, of course. But now that the worst has happened, I’m getting better. I swear to God I am, Luciano.”
“What’s wrong?” Chabela finally freed herself from her friend’s mouth and reproached her with her eyes. “Do you really want to know? I’m jealous, Marisa, that’s what’s wrong. Because suddenly you’ve become Quique’s geisha. Your husband’s little whore. At this rate, at any moment you’ll dismiss me the way you dismiss a servant.”
“I don’t know why you say that, Doctor,” Shorty murmured in surprise. “I believe I’m fulfilling my obligations to you very well. It’s what matters most to me, I assure you. That you’re happy with my work.”
“I say it because I would never want what happened to Rolando Garro to happen to you,” the Doctor sweetened his bad temper. “It’s a warning, not a reprimand.”
Marisa laughed and threw her arms around Chabela’s neck, obliged her to lower her head, and kissed her with an open mouth, swallowing her saliva with pleasure. Then she moved her away and, still holding her by the neck, murmured with a smile:
“It’s the first time you’ve made a jealous scene with me. You don’t know how those jet-black eyes of yours are flashing right now. Black, deep black, and at the back a little blue flash. I love them!”
“Are you trying to buy me off with all that flattery, you wretch?” Chabela stammered, kissing her, too.
They were both naked, Chabela mounted on top of Marisa, each of them sweating from head to toe. The sauna was burning. The wood in the small space, dampened by the heat, emitted an aroma of eucalyptus, and a breath between human and vegetal hung in the air.
“Let us drink to happiness, my friends,” said Señor Kosut, raising his glass. “Bottoms up! Here you say seco y volteado, I’ve learned that already! So, seco y volteado!”
“It isn’t true, Quique,” Luciano corrected him, smiling affectionately. “It’s been a terrible experience for you, of course, but you have to overcome it psychologically, uproot it from your spirit. The important thing is that it’s over. It’s behind you, brother. Who’s talking now about the scandal, or the Chosica photographs? Everybody’s forgotten them, there are other things, other scandals that have buried what happened to you. No strings attached to you. Somebody stopped saying hello? Barely two or three imbeciles, and it’s just as well you’re rid of them. You don’t have the same friends you always had? And Rolando Garro’s dead and buried. What else do you want?”
“He may be dead and buried,” Quique interrupted, “but Exposed is out again, with better paper and twice the photographs it had before. And the editor is none other than Julieta Leguizamón, Garro’s pal and disciple when they were covering me with shit and slander. The same woman who accused me of having had Garro killed by a hired assassin! You think that’s nothing? You think that with all this I can be calm and happy, Luciano?”
“You’ll never be mentioned again in that rag, Quique. The Doctor committed to that and he’s keeping his word. That little woman published a retraction and begged your pardon in the same issue. The case has been stayed indefinitely. After a while we’ll make it disappear and there won’t be a trace of this matter in the judicial archives. It will all be buried. Forget about it. Pay attention to your work, to your fam
ily. That’s all that should matter to you now, old man.”
“The truth, plain and simple, is that Rolando Garro behaved badly, he was disloyal, he disobeyed me,” said the Doctor, becoming excited again. He looked at Shorty as if he wanted to make her disappear with his dark, watery eyes. “I expressly forbade him to publish photos of that rich guy’s orgy in Exposed. I know how to choose my enemies. You shouldn’t challenge those who are more powerful than you. Rolando deceived me, he told me he had torn them up, and then suddenly he published them. He could have gotten me involved in a goddamn mess. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Shorty?”
“Ladies, take off those uncomfortable clothes and show us your secrets,” said Señor Kosut, refilling the empty champagne glasses himself. He spoke good Spanish, with a pure accent.
“Let me kiss you where you like it, my love,” Marisa whispered into Chabela’s ear. “I love your jealous scene, it proves you really love me. I want to give you pleasure, swallow your juices, hear you panting when I make you come.”
Chabela agreed without answering her. She helped her to slip under her body, to the lower platform in the sauna, to sink her head between her thighs while she, at the same time, leaned on her side and spread her legs. Marisa, sitting backward on the lower platform, sank her head, put out her tongue, and began to lick the lips of Chabela’s sex; she did it slowly, persistently, longingly, with love, taking her time to reach the clitoris.
“I felt jealous, yes, Marisita,” Chabela said as she felt the heat rise through her body and a little tremor ran along her thighs, her belly, and up to her head. “I see you being more affectionate than ever with Quique. You lean into him, keep kissing him in front of Luciano and me, the two of you are always holding hands. You’re making me move from love to hate, I’m warning you. Slower, please. I’m enjoying this, darling, don’t make me come yet.”
“You, señorita, sit on my phallus, penis, or prick, as the natives say,” Señor Kosut asked and ordered with elaborate courtesy. “And you, come over here, Blondie, kneel down and offer me your sex. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t very clean, that kind of detail doesn’t worry me. If it smells of Parmesan cheese, even better, ha-ha. I’ll tell you ahead of time I’ll do what the French call minette and the Spaniards, always so vulgar, call sucking, I believe. And my dear Peruvians, what do you call it?”
“A little lick,” Licia or Ligia said with a laugh. “The little horn is upside down.”
The champagne had begun to affect Enrique Cárdenas. He didn’t drink very much; he didn’t like it and had never held it very well. Besides, he was stunned by what he was seeing. But something different had begun to suggest itself to him. Until that moment he had been disconcerted, confused, dumbfounded, not knowing how to respond to what was happening around him. Now he felt an excited tickle in his fly. “Do you want me to help you take off your clothes, honey?” said one of the fat women among whom he was sitting.
“I don’t know what you mean, Doctor,” murmured Shorty, pretending to maintain her usual sangfroid. But she was uneasy. None of this seemed normal. What mistake had she made? What was the point of the Doctor’s rash confidences? Had he ordered Rolando’s death? If so, she was in danger again. Those confidences meant she was an accomplice. She had made every effort in the world to follow the Doctor’s instructions, and until now, he had always congratulated her. “I try to follow your orders to the letter, Doctor.”
“I mean that I consider you a magnificent collaborator.” The Doctor’s tired face smiled at her, and his smile exaggerated his plump cheeks. “I’d never want to do without your services, Shorty, much less have to punish you as a traitor, as disloyal. Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. In effect, I’d never want what happened to Rolando Garro to happen to you.”
Shorty felt as if her heart had stopped beating. He’d given the order, he’d had him killed. She knew she had turned very pale and that her teeth were chattering. Her large, unmoving eyes were fixed on the Doctor. He put on an afflicted face.
“I shouldn’t have said anything to you, I knew it would cause you grief, but it was indispensable for you to know what’s at stake, Shorty,” he said, slowly and very seriously. “Something bigger than you and me. Power. You don’t fool around with power, my friend. In the end, things are always a matter of life or death when power is at stake. Doing what I had forbidden, blackmailing that millionaire, compromised me. He saw the twig, not the forest. He could have brought down everything I’ve built, ruined me, finished me. Do you see? I had to do it, with pain in my soul.”
“Kill him so savagely?” Shorty rasped, as if there were a sudden obstruction in her throat. “Hurt him like that? Just because he disobeyed you?”
“The men were excessive, that’s true, and that was bad, I reproved them and fined them,” the Doctor acknowledged. “The men who perform these necessary tasks are not normal people like you and me. They’re savages accustomed to killing, heartless beasts. Sometimes they go too far. They went too far with Rolando. I was very sorry about that, believe me.”
“I don’t know why you tell me these things, Doctor. The truth is they frighten me.”
“I say these things to you because I trust you and because you’re now my star collaborator, Shorty. That’s why you’re earning more money now than you ever have in your life, and people fear and respect you.” The Doctor’s voice softened. “That’s why you could leave your hovel in Five Corners and move to Miraflores. And buy clothes and furniture. So things between us should be very clear. We’re friends and accomplices. If one goes down so does the other. If I go up, so do you. And so, you know, total fidelity, that’s what I expect of you. And now, let’s get to work. How are things going in the matter of Deputy Arrieta Salomón? He’s our first priority.”
“I don’t give a damn what it’s cost me to wipe away all this filth, Luciano,” said Quique. “But the wounds left in my memory and emotions will never be erased, brother. I swear by my poor mother, may she rest in peace. My siblings think the sorrow and bitterness this scandal caused her are what killed her. They’re right, of course. Which means I’m the one who killed my poor old mother, Luciano. Do you think I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for her death?”
“There, that’s it,” panted Chabela with the half voice she had now. “I’m coming, Blondie.”
And a little while later she felt Marisa get up, still embracing her, and search for her mouth and pass her the mouthful of saliva she had kept for her. “Swallow these delicious juices I get from you when I suck you,” she commanded. And an obedient Chabela swallowed them. They embraced and kissed each other again, and then Marisa spoke into her ear in that thick voice she had when she was excited:
“You shouldn’t be jealous, Chabelita, because when Quique and I make love you’re always there between us.”
“What are you saying, you fool!” Chabela in alarm took Marisa’s head in both hands and moved it a few centimeters from her own face. “You haven’t told Quique that…”
Marisa threw her arms around her neck and spoke, placing her mouth on Chabela’s and saying the words between her teeth:
“Yes, I’ve told him everything. He becomes more excited than a madman, and that’s why every time we make love you’re always there, doing dirty little things with us.”
“I’ll kill you, I swear I’ll kill you, Marisa,” her friend exclaimed, not knowing whether or not to believe her, with one hand raised that, suddenly, she let fall. But instead of hitting her, she put it between her friend’s legs, caught at her sex, and squeezed it.
“Easy, you’re hurting me,” Marisa protested, purring.
“Put a pinch of coke on your penis and a little more up your nose,” said Señor Kosut, like a physician prescribing for a patient. “You’ll be like new, able to fuck those young ladies who are all over you in the ass, the sex, and the mouth, my lord.”
“Are these ladies going to spend the whole morning in the sauna?” Luciano wondered, checking his watch. “The
truth is I’m hungry. What about you, old man?”
“Let them enjoy themselves,” Quique replied. “I wish I were like them. All this rolls right off them, they’re concerned for a moment and then they’re back to clothes, gossip, shopping, whatever. How lucky to be so frivolous.”
“Don’t believe it, old man,” replied Luciano. “This terrorism business doesn’t let Chabela sleep. She’s obsessed by the idea that those villains will kidnap me, like Cachito, or even worse, our daughters. The poor thing has to take pills now so she won’t be awake all night.”
“Shall I tell you what keeps me awake, Luciano?” said Quique. And he added, lowering his voice, as if someone else could hear them in the huge, deserted garden where the two Great Danes played in the distance. “Too many things in this matter are not at all clear. First, the idea that this poor devil, this sclerotic old man, Juan Peineta, could be the killer of Rolando Garro. Have you swallowed that story? Well, I haven’t.”
“He himself said he was guilty,” replied Luciano after hesitating for a moment. “Wasn’t he a guy who spent his life sending insults and threats to Rolando Garro? Dozens of those letters were shown at the trial, weren’t they? Don’t be more Catholic than the pope, Quique.”
“Nobody believed that confession, Luciano. Who would believe that a human ruin like that poor reciter could commit so horrible a murder?”
“Be that as it may, we have to be realistic. What matters are the results. It’s to your advantage more than anyone else’s that they find the reporter’s killer and leave you in peace once and for all,” said Luciano. “True, it’s not impossible that all this was planned by the Doctor. Probably there’s something dirty behind what we know. But, man, how can that matter to you?”
“I don’t even remember who this Don Rolando Garro is, gentlemen,” Juan Peineta stated. “Although it’s true, his name sounds familiar. Don’t think that hitting me will bring back my memory. I should be so lucky. My head has been mush for a long time now, you know. Now I beg you, for God’s sake: leave me in peace, don’t hit me again.”