Maite raised her chin, glancing at the man who had thrown a coin into the jukebox, and he looked back at her—his eyes were black, not the blue of the song, but they did resemble the soft velvet upon which you could pin jewels. No one ever looked at Maite for too long, but the man was staring at her. He had a cigarette in hand, but he wasn’t smoking; instead he leaned an arm against the jukebox, looking terribly thoughtful, and he slowly pressed the cigarette against his lips and smirked, his lips curling a tad, before he smoothed his expression and walked back to his table, breaking eye contact.
The song was brief, filling the diner for three short minutes, before the place plunged back into silence.
Maite frowned and opened her purse, looking for a coin. When she found it, she stood up and walked to the jukebox. She went over the song list, nibbling on a nail. Maite picked “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” As she walked back to her table, smiling at Rubén, the young man’s black eyes turned toward her for the briefest moment before he looked down and pressed his cigarette against the bottom of an ashtray.
25
THEY DROVE BACK to the apartment, and Elvis pocketed El Gazpacho’s gun and stuffed a bunch of bullets and the speedloader in a worn leather messenger bag. Then he went into El Güero’s room, looking for his gun and ammo, because even if he wasn’t allowed to have one, Elvis was sure El Güero secretly kept a firearm in there. He found it pretty quickly. El Güero had hidden it in a tin box in the closet. He handed it to the Antelope.
“Those bastards from the DFS have firepower.”
“We’ll show them next time, put a couple of bullets in their ass. I never get to shoot anyone,” the Antelope replied. He blew a bubble of gum and popped it, making a mocking motion with the gun, as though he were shooting across the room. “And I feel like shooting someone today.”
“Man, don’t play with that,” Elvis muttered.
“Chill. I know weapons,” the Antelope assured him, and he blew an even bigger bubble.
He wasn’t in a mood to lecture anyone. If the Antelope shot himself in the dick by accident, so be it. Elvis went to the bathroom, cleaned up the new scrapes he’d acquired, and washed his face. When he was done, he tried phoning El Mago, but the old man didn’t answer. Elvis didn’t want to swing by his place unannounced a second time, so he told the Antelope that they were going back to the woman’s apartment building, to keep watch as usual.
“You sure about hanging ’round that building? You know, those guys could come back and grab you again,” the Antelope said.
“I’m pretty sure they have what they want. And that’s why we’ve got the guns. Bullets up their ass, like you said.” He wasn’t confident about anything, but he also wasn’t going to tell the Antelope that.
“First chance I get I’m shooting them trice. For El Güero, you know. Poor fucker’s gonna lose an eye, I bet.”
“We’ll see.”
“I mean it,” the Antelope said. He had a hungry look on his face, like he sometimes got when they were beating someone, and Elvis knew he was for real. He was out for blood.
“Yeah. I get it.”
The waiting game went as usual. Apparently Elvis had been right and the DFS agents had what they wanted, because they didn’t show their faces. Elvis chain-smoked, since there wasn’t anything else to do, and listened to the radio. The Animals strummed their guitars while he blew smoke rings and the Antelope chewed his bubble gum. He still hadn’t picked a word of the day, and it bugged him.
When the woman and the man exited the building, they followed them into a restaurant. The Antelope and Elvis grabbed a table, ordered a couple of beers and a couple of daily specials. There was a jukebox in a corner, and the woman stood up and picked a song. It was “At Last,” and he mouthed a line from the song. He knew this song, he knew what it meant. Outside it was starting to rain.
They were too far away from the woman’s table to hear what she was telling the man, but he was leaning forward and smiling, and she blushed.
Elvis wondered how people did this. This being normal and going out together. He couldn’t remember going out with many girls. Fucking, yes, and chasing skirts in the noisy, wild way boys from his neighborhood did. But he hadn’t gone out much with the older gringa—he was private entertainment—and with Cristina there were always the other members of their fucked-up cult milling around. It wasn’t ever him and a girl, together, out like this, drinking and eating while the jukebox played its tunes.
He didn’t even know why he was thinking about this since the woman he was looking at wasn’t particularly pretty, not the kind of woman to inspire a man to fantasize. Yet there was something about her. It was that air of tragedy, that’s what it was, the way she sat, with one hand constantly pressed against her neck. And her eyes were dark and deep, slightly lost and unfocused.
He wondered if he had met her in another way, in another place, whether she would have accepted an invitation for coffee. If Justo was right, there weren’t going to be Hawks soon anyway. He didn’t know what he’d do then. Join another group of goons? Fuckers who hungered to shoot someone, dogs who had acquired a taste for blood. The more he thought about that, the more he hated the idea. But he wasn’t sure what else he’d do.
And what if Justo was right and El Mago had killed El Gazpacho?
“No fucking way,” he muttered.
“What?” the Antelope asked.
“Nothing,” Elvis said, and he stood up and walked to the jukebox. He tossed a coin in and picked “Blue Velvet” as a joke, a little secret chuckle lodging in his throat, and turned his head to look at the woman.
She raised her head and looked at him, her eyes fixed on Elvis for a few precious seconds. She seemed a little confused. When the song ended, she stood up, walked daintily toward the jukebox—as if she could not let him have the last word—and picked another song: “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Her lips curled into a tiny smile. When she smiled she looked almost pretty, like someone had struck a match and lit a veladora and the light was streaming out, but the glass colored it. Made it yellow or red or blue, like you could see the colors of her soul.
There he was thinking stupidities again. Elvis put out his cigarette and hoped the Antelope hadn’t noticed he’d been staring at the woman. But the Antelope had glued his gum under the table and was cutting into a bistec, terribly indifferent to anything that wasn’t the meat in front of him.
They drove back to the apartment and watched the couple walk into the building arm in arm. Elvis pushed the car door open.
“Where you going?” the Antelope asked.
“Gonna try to get in touch with El Mago again,” Elvis said. That was true enough, but he also wanted to walk. He felt irritated from being cooped up in the car, and his body ached. Plus he was a little pissed off because that fucking hippie put his arm tight around the woman, all romantic, and meanwhile the Antelope kept blowing his bubble gum and popping it. It was annoying.