He turned to Sócrates, pulling out the pages from the report and checking it line by line. In his short twenty-one years of life Sócrates had had several run-ins with the police, all because of his activist leanings—he’d marched in several demonstrations, distributed dissident leaflets, that sort of stuff. If anyone could be harboring the missing girl, it would be a lefty radical like Sócrates. Plus, Sócrates and his buddies were hanging around with Russians.
That, then, would be their next target. Elvis took out his dictionary and flipped through the pages, looking for a good word to encapsulate the next day.
Maite had a Larousse, like the one he owned. Lots of people had such dictionaries, but it made him pause and consider the woman again.
He grabbed the picture he had stolen from her house and held it up, wondering if it wasn’t time to have a talk with the little lady too. But El Mago hadn’t said anything about intercepting her.
He kind of wanted to talk to her, though. He wondered what her voice sounded like. Bluebeard’s wife, with her startled eyes. Sometimes, when they were watching someone, marking their comings and goings in a ledger and snapping pictures, Elvis got bored and tried to build a profile of the targets via the details he knew about them. It was fairly easy and often accurate. He imagined their voice or pictured their kitchen drawers.
He’d been inside the woman’s apartment, so there was no need to imagine her surroundings, but the voice nagged at him. Would she have a nice voice? Or would it be squeaky, high-pitched? Or lower? Would the voice match the face, or would it be one of those wild tricks of nature where the voice is a sultry delight and the person is as plain as rice?
Cristina hadn’t had anything close to a nice voice. But she’d been pretty as hell, and Elvis was a sucker for a pair of dimples and a smile.
He wondered about the woman and thought about asking her out sometime, for kicks. When all this was over. Maybe.
Sinatra sang about the foolish things that remind you of a lover, and the record spun.
He liked crooners because he thought they sang the truth. And he liked Elvis because Elvis was simply fun. A true rock-and-roll hero, with music in his blood. Back when he’d lived with Sally and tried his hand at the guitar, he half believed he could make something of himself like that. Singing in lounges or bars. But they’d closed the singing cafés down, and it wasn’t like he’d ever had any talent, anyway.
Elvis picked the word necrology and went to bed. In the morning, he tucked a large knife in his jacket because they had business that day, and you can’t scare anyone with a screwdriver.
The Antelope was still on watch duty over at Maite’s apartment, so El Güero and Elvis caught a taxi. The traffic hadn’t reared into motion, and they reached Sócrates’s neighborhood quickly, paid their fare, and installed themselves across from the building, tucked behind a low cement wall surrounding an empty lot. A stray cat stared at them as they leaned against a withered tree and lit their cigarettes.
It was drizzling. Elvis repeated the word of the day in his mind, then drummed his fingers against his thigh, to the rhythm of silent music. Presley, singing “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Half note, half note, sweet as honey. Life should be a slow song, affection should be a melody. The word of the day was necrology, and he was thinking about fate and lovers.
He hoped Sócrates didn’t take long. His body ached, and there was the danger someone might spot them, though they might assume El Güero and Elvis were simply a couple of homeless men camping in the lonely lot. Still, it was chilly, and the drizzle was turning into full rain.
Around eight Sócrates exited the apartment building, and they began tailing him. He didn’t go far, sliding into a coffee shop and sitting at the bar. After he’d sat down, Elvis and El Güero walked into the establishment. Elvis took the stool to the left of Sócrates and El Güero grabbed the right. Sócrates still looked half-asleep, and Elvis had to practically jab him in the ribs to get his attention.
“Huh?” he muttered.
“Come on, buddy, we’re going back to your place for a talk,” Elvis muttered.
“What?”
“It’s a fucking knife I’ve got here; get up and get walking and don’t you dare yell or I’ll slice an artery so fast you won’t even feel it.”
That seemed to do the trick. Sócrates jumped to his feet, giving Elvis a worried look. He opened his mouth and groaned but didn’t speak, as if, at the last second, he’d suddenly remembered there was a knife pressed against his body.
They walked out together while El Güero took out a few coins and tossed them on the counter, paying for the coffee the young man had ordered. The three of them walked back toward the building, Elvis next to Sócrates and El Güero ahead of them. This way, there was nowhere for the guy to run to, but he wasn’t a runner. Elvis could tell.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Sócrates whispered.
“Don’t matter much,” Elvis said. “You live alone? Is there anyone back at the apartment?”
He was hoping there wasn’t. It would make things easier. The man shook his head, glanced at El Güero and back at Elvis. In no time they were walking into the young man’s apartment, which was on the top floor of the building. No elevator.
It was a studio, crammed with books and boxes and a hot plate on a table instead of a proper kitchen. On a shelf Sócrates kept cans of Choco Milk, a jar of Nescafé, and cans of sardines next to piles of papers and more books. If you sat on the bed, you could see the bathroom, which lacked a door. Instead, a curtain made of wooden beads served as a divider. There was no couch, and the room smelled of incense and also the faint sweetness of marijuana.
Elvis motioned for Sócrates to sit on the bed, and when he did the bed creaked, as if uttering a complaint. For a moment Elvis felt weird standing there with the young man staring at him. This room, this setup, wasn’t so different from where Elvis had lived when he was younger, and it made him uncomfortable. Maybe it would have been better if he’d gone to see Lomelí. It might have been fun to slap a rich fucker around. Right now, he didn’t feel too great about torturing this kid, just as he hadn’t felt good about beating the priest, at least at the beginning.
But then he remembered how the priest’s buddies had grabbed him and the Russian slapped him with the newspapers, and Elvis’s sympathy was drained.
“Look around for the camera,” Elvis told El Güero, and then he turned to Sócrates. “You try anything, I cut off your dick.” He traced an arc in the air to emphasize his words. Sometimes people were real stupid and needed visual aids, a fucking diagram to tell them what was what.
Sócrates raised both of his hands. “I’m not trying anything. I know your type!”