The woman wept, her tragic, lost face for once seemed to fit her surroundings, and in his corner the man who had been staring at the wall had pissed himself. Elvis looked at the Russian and wiped his nose with the back of his hand because he was also crying.
“So,” Elvis said, “you gonna shoot me with that Smith and Wesson?”
The Russian shrugged. “What for?”
“To get even for your lost film.”
“Killing you won’t bring it back, will it?”
“No,” Elvis muttered. “It sure won’t.”
“My professional advice is to get out of here and stay out of trouble.”
“You’ll leave the lady alone?” he asked.
“I have no problem with her.”
“All right.”
He looked at the woman again, and for a second he thought about saying something to her, but he didn’t know what the fuck to say or even why he felt that impulse to speak, to murmur a nice word in her ear.
He wanted to tell her he’d seen her in a book about fairy tales once, when he was a kid, and he believed you could grow a beanstalk that might reach the heavens.
He did as the Russian said: he left. He had no car, so he walked. It was raining and the water was icy against his skin, washing away the blood on his hands and chilling his bones. But nothing was ever going to wash away the rest, to rinse the past clean.
He walked and let the rain kiss him.
30
HOW DO STORIES end? she wondered. With comic books it was easy to tell: the closing panels were clearly indicated, the words “final issue” were emblazoned on the cover. With life it was harder to figure out where anything begins and where it concludes. Storylines bled outside the margins of pages; the colorist didn’t apply final touches.
She didn’t know how it would end, that first night, and she didn’t search for Rubén immediately. That first night, she went home. She was still afraid, and she had bruises and cuts that needed to be looked after. In the morning she called her job and told them she’d been in a car accident. Then she tried the hospital closest to Asterisk, and after a few awkward questions she got lucky: he was there.
She didn’t know how he’d react when he saw her, but he seemed pleased, and even when she told him the photos were gone, he didn’t appear too upset. She supposed since he had survived two bullets, other matters were, for the moment, much smaller issues.
“You did your best,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”
“I still feel I should have done something more. Those pictures meant so much to you.”
“Maite, you matter more than the pictures. They could have killed you if you didn’t turn them over.”
He looked at her with such tenderness that Maite let out a sigh. “Is there anyone I should phone for you? Any family members?” she asked, determined to assist him any way she could. She’d failed him once, but it would never happen again.
“God, no. Jackie already asked the same thing, but I don’t want my mother to know. She’s all the way in Guerrero, anyway. I don’t want to worry her. I’ll tell her later. Besides, I’m doing okay.”
“It must be dreadful. The pain,” she said and brushed the hair away from his forehead. But he smiled and simply raised a hand to touch her cheek.
“You don’t look too hot, either.”
“I know. I have to go to work tomorrow, they’re all going to stare…but I’ll come and see you after work. Do you need anything?”
“It’s fine, Maite. I’m fine. Well…maybe you can get me a newspaper. I’m bored.”
“I’ll bring you half a dozen.”
He chuckled. Although Maite had always hated hospitals, she lingered at his side even when the other patient sharing Rubén’s room shot her a poisonous glance because she’d come to visit rather late in the evening and the old coot wanted to sleep.
Just as Maite had thought, her return to the office was odd. All the other secretaries wanted to know what had happened, and Maite lied, saying she’d been in her boyfriend’s car when the accident took place. Her boss was merciful and told her if she didn’t feel up to it, she could stay home for a week or two, though he was not so generous as to give her time off with pay.
So she took off early from work, bought a couple of newspapers for Rubén, and headed back to the hospital. She pulled up a chair and sat next to him as he turned the pages.
“Look,” he said, pointing to a short news story with a small black-and-white picture.
Leonardo Trejo, the story said, had passed away peacefully in his sleep. The retired colonel had been sixty-four years old. His wake would be celebrated at Funeraria Gayosso. A time and address were provided.
“That’s not how it really happened,” she said.
“It’s never how it really happened.”
“I wonder how Emilio explained the corpse to the police. Unless he moved the body. But even then, the man was stabbed.”
The last time she’d seen Emilio, the coward had been pissing himself, and she hadn’t bothered asking how he was after that. He hadn’t bothered phoning her, either. She didn’t think he would drag a body out of his home.
“Maybe Emilio is involved with the Hawks, in which case he simply called another one of them. Or he phoned someone else with enough pull to get the whole thing sorted,” Rubén said as he folded the newspaper.
“They won’t come after us, will they?”
“Why would they? We didn’t kill him and the pictures are gone.”
“I can’t sleep well,” she admitted.
“It’s over,” he assured her, clasping her hand. “We have nothing they want.”
Maite brought more newspapers the next day, but although they looked everywhere, there were no more stories about the dead colonel. She wondered who the two men had been who had walked into Emilio’s house. She especially wondered about the man who killed the colonel and who saved her life.
He looked familiar. She tried to remember where she’d seen him before. She remembered his eyes, very dark, but little else.
“I feel like I’ve met him before.”
“There’s not much point in thinking about that,” Rubén told her, and kissed her as if to erase any bad memories with that gesture.
She wondered if he’d move in with her. It was senseless to keep two places. Maite’s mother would deem it all very inappropriate, to be living with a man, and a younger one at that, but Maite was frankly tired of listening to her mother.