San Juan Noir

Dog Killer by Luis Negrón

Trastalleres

Charo gives me a strange look when I tell her I’ll be right back. “It’s Monday,” she says.

We never go out on Mondays. Sometimes Tuesday comes and we don’t go out either.

“I’ll be back quick, baby.”

I’m wearing shorts and sandals so she doesn’t say anything. Charo doesn’t look at me. She looks at the telenovela. I’m about to say something, but she grabs the remote and turns up the volume.

Outside there is no one to be seen. All the streetlights are broken. I stop at the corner and see the light in the guardhouse at La Corona, two blocks down. That guy never comes out, not even when he hears gunshots. Three times people have gone in to rob the place and he stays inside. Later, he says he didn’t see anything or anyone. I don’t blame him.

Last night I left the bag near Bomberos, in an empty lot where Matatán says there used to be a racetrack for horses, but they demolished it. What Matatán doesn’t know he invents. Charo calls him Wikipedia. I enter as if to take a piss and I grab the bag. The bitch is heavy. I’m afraid it will drip blood, but I throw it over my shoulders. I hope it doesn’t move.

Last night I dreamed about that fucking dog. I was little, and Mami was hanging up clothes behind a house that wasn’t our actual house, but in the dream it seemed to be. At some point, Mami lets out a shout and speaks to me in English, and I don’t understand but I answer her in English too, and she says: Look. When I look, Lazaro’s dog is above the septic tank and he’s big, the fucker. Like a house. Mami tries to cover him with a sheet that she’s hanging out, but the dog dodges, and she throws it over me without meaning to. It’s me, Mami, I say. And I feel the dog on top of me, and Mami stops talking, but I don’t remove the sheet so that the dog won’t see me — so I won’t see.

Charo hadn’t shown up. Ever since she came up with the Ecuador thing, she’s been spending more time on the street. Sometimes at 15th, in front of Levy’s, sometimes at Fernández Juncos. At eight she was already there. If I dropped by while making the rounds, she lost her shit.

“What?” she’d say. “What’s up?”

I’d say nothing and leave. The cars don’t stop if they see me. She’s going to kill herself. She’s going to fuck herself over.

I turned on the TV so I’d forget the dream. I was pissing myself but was afraid to get up. Fucking dog, fucking Lázaro. I told myself that it’d be better to come clean to Charo. Look, Charo, I thought, listen to me, I was the one who took out your brother, the fucker. He had it coming. Because of the thing with Landi. But I knew better. Every time Lázaro did something, or stopped paying, or let something slip, and I told her about it, Charo would say: “My brother is sick. Only a piece of shit messes with a junkie.”

That’s what she called him, My brother.

But Landi had given him too many chances. When he found out about the most recent thing, he didn’t say anything. Charo went to square things with him, but he said, “Forget it.” I knew what was coming, but I didn’t think he’d send me.

“Your turn,” Landi said to me.

Shit, shit, I thought. Fucking shit. I shit on Lázaro’s mother, that fucker. I tried to say something to Landi, but he looked at me the way he looks at you when he’s had it up to here and it’s better to just shut up.

That was last Wednesday.

It was easy to find Lázaro. I saw the dog on the corner first, on Calle Las Palmas. Mami always said that dogs smell fear. If you’re passing by a stray, don’t get scared because they’ll know and that’s when they bite.

“Cuñi, come here,” I said to Lázaro. “Get in, Charo wants to see you, she’s about to leave for Ecuador. Come find her with me, she wants to say goodbye to you. Get in.”

“Give me something first, I’m jonesing, pai.”

I had brought what Landi had given me and a Whopper. So he’d be happy.

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

“Here, here,” I said to the dog, giving it the Whopper. Lázaro went behind the aqueduct so I wouldn’t see him doing his thing.

Right away, the dog sunk its teeth into the hamburger and fries. It raised its head and stared at me, like it knew something.

Charo said her brother was respectful. That he never fixed in front of anybody. Whenever he came home he wore long sleeves, for the marks.

“He’s good like that, always so humble.” But the thing with Papi fucked him up. She never told me what the thing with Papi was. I asked her once and she just shrugged. Charo looked like a real woman, but people made fun of her shoulders. I didn’t like it when she wore a tube top to come out with me. People looked at us. They looked at her, because of her shoulders.

Lázaro wanted to put the dog in the truck and I said, “No way, loco. Just no.”

“But they’ll take him. And besides, what’s the big deal? This truck is a junker.”

“Who the hell is going to take that bag of bones?” I asked, signaling with my hand for him to get in right away.

“The city people, Cuñi. Or someone.”

I said no dog, and told him to hurry up, that Charo was waiting, that we had to go find her on the docks. That she was with the trick from Puertos. He got in and kept looking back to where the dog was until we turned the corner.

“He’ll wait for me. One time, when Charo put me in a program, he waited a month for me. Since I give him food and stuff.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Ecuador... that’s down farther. Down below Colombia. Is that where Lake Titicaca is?... I’m happy for her, man. God willing, everything will come out fine. Get her out of all this, loco. Once she has the operation you won’t need to stay. Hey, that stuff you gave me is good,” he said, leaning back in the seat.

He looked out the window. He had something of Charo, that mania she had for biting her lips when she smiled, of moving her knees when she sat down, nervously. They never looked anyone in the eyes; he looked down and she looked every which way.

Something smelled bad. I didn’t know if it was him, the dump, or the mangrove. The Kennedy always stinks. His hands looked like gloves full of water.

I regreted that it was such a short drive. We entered the same dock as always. I’d been there many times, doing things for Landi. I turned off the lights.

When I got to Landi’s place, they were setting up one of those bouncy houses for neighborhood kids. When he saw me he said something to Domi, who ran off and grabbed something from the freezer. He came up to me, but I didn’t want to take the payment. I didn’t say anything, I just gestured to Landi, as if to say that I’d see him later, and he understood.

I was going to go to Ponce de León to check on Charo, but I thought I’d better not. I headed home, went up on the roof. I smoked. I could see the docks from there. I closed my eyes, hard. Very hard.

Charo spent the money for the ticket to Ecuador on the funeral. Not the money for the operation. She didn’t say much during those days. She didn’t even go out on Thursday, which is her best night. Finally, on Friday, she got dressed and was about to leave.

“Stay,” I told her. “I’ll cover your ticket. You know—”

“I’ll pay for my cunt myself,” she said, and she didn’t say anything else.

The cable company had cut the building’s stolen connections, and all we got was channel six. It was showing a black-and-white movie and I sat down to watch it. It was Santurce a long-ass time ago. I knew because of the Metro Cinema and the Labra School. The Ponce de León was full of people, many wearing hats. And that’s when I heard the bark. I thought it was the TV, but no. Another bark. I looked out. It was Lázaro’s dog. Furious.

That fucking dog, what does he want? I thought.

It wasn’t barking at my building. I thought it was a cat or something, but then I saw it was barking at my truck, which I’d parked out front. It went up and sniffed it. And it barked again.

“Shit, shit, shit. Fucker, get out of here, fucker,” I said in a low voice, as if the dog could hear me.

If I go out there, it’s going to come bite me, the motherfucker. But if Charo comes and sees it barking at my truck, she’ll know something. I went in and turned off the TV so I could think. Shit. If I club it, it’s going to squeal and people will tell Charo. I went to look for a broom or something to use. There was no other way. I could kill it with one stone if I threw it hard enough. Papi had killed a dog once with a pick because it pissed on his car tires, and it didn’t squeal. Mami had covered my eyes and ears.

Damnit, I said to myself, fucking shit.

Then something occurred to me. I went to the freezer, pulled out a piece of meat, and grabbed the bat from the back door. I went out. I looked around and there was nobody. The bulbs in the streetlights were still fucked. The dog saw me and went quiet. It lowered its head. Its problem wasn’t with me. It looked at me, it looked at the meat in my hand, it looked at the truck.

Once, when we had cable, Charo and I watched a competition of people who looked like their dogs on Don Francisco. Charo, dying of laughter, said: “If my brother went on with his dog, he’d win. They’re the same. And look, they’re giving a thousand bucks. Overdose.”

It did look like Lázaro, in how its eyes and head were always down. In how skinny it was, how black. I stretched out my hand and showed it the meat. It thought about it for a second, but eventually went over. I let it eat until it was done, and boom.

The bag weighed more than I remembered. Clearly it had died very satisfied, the fucker. Like Lázaro.

Saint Michael’s Sword by Wilfredo J. Burgos Matos

Río Piedras

Ángel knew that as soon as he turned away from the light at the end of the tunnel, pain awaited him on the other side of Avenida Gándara. If it hadn’t been for the forceful whisper of his favorite song, floating to his ear from the cantina on the corner, he never would have awoken from what he thought was his voyage to eternity. Ramiro, to whom he’d sworn his love two months earlier, was the last image he remembered when he opened his eyes around noon on Friday. There was no clear indication as to how he got there, and he was almost bleeding out, his right side shot through with a bullet from an AK-47. Panicked, he hobbled toward the house of his sister Mariela, who was a nurse, to get fixed up and to find the culprit.

“Mari, open up, please. Open the fucking door,” he moaned from the depths of his intestines.

“I’m coming, let me change the baby,” she answered calmly.

“Hurry up, I’m dying!”

Mariela came outside, desperation spilling from her eyes. She knew Ramiro was involved.

“I told you to stop seeing that guy, that nothing good would come of it. Look how he just left you for dead. Wait till I get my hands on him,” she rambled furiously, unable to stop talking even to catch her breath.

Ángel just looked at her and attempted to stay alert, but he was very tired. Bleeding, he’d already walked halfway across Río Piedras to arrive at the García Ubarri housing project. Yet he was also full of anticipation. He knew he’d be able to get revenge for the attempted murder, but he needed to find the perpetrator and Ramiro — he had to know something. There was an unease hiding behind the cover of night that was settling over San Juan, producing a sinister halo from the streetlights over the pavement. It gave him peace knowing that the darkness would hide his next moves until he was able to settle the score. Ángel wanted to take justice into his own hands.

A few hours later, after resting and drinking a chamomile tea, he left, even as Mariela implored him to spend the night. He barely heard her, the tingling along his spine gnawing at his conscience. He wanted to silence the agonizing hum assaulting his ears. Evil voices whispered to him from distant depths. With rage in every pore and experiencing vengeful pangs of melancholy, he followed his instincts.

He crossed the street in front of his sister’s house and headed south down Calle Georgetti until he came to the corner of Avenida Ponce de León. There he ran into Lutgardo, the greatest diva ever born in the Caribbean. If it weren’t for his ten-dollar blow job specials, Lutgardo’s daughter Roberta would be eating dirt and water with chikungunya-carrying mosquitoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Thank God there was something in the school cafeterias for his offspring. Lutgardo, who had lost his wife at just the right time to freely and fiercely suck each and every cock that crossed his path, had been liberated, literally, by the death of the greatest dumbass in America. His wife had tolerated his nocturnal outings and taken the money for the girl they had procreated.

“Hija de puta, how the fuck are you even here? You’re gonna make me faint! Who gave you mouth-to-mouth? Did you know that Alejandro sucked you off while you were bleeding to death? It all happened so fast that the police just left you lying there, to see who’d feel bad for you!” Lutgardo yelled like a bitch in heat.

“Lower your voice, coño, you’re always such a loudmouth. I just left my sister’s house, she fixed me up. Do you know what happened last night? I wanna know who had the balls to do this to me. What’ve you heard from Ramiro?” Ángel was worried.

“Ay, I don’t know, they picked all of us up sucking Condado cocks. The raid was bullshit, mamita. I just ran out of there, screaming, protecting myself. You know not even Pope Francis is going to get my hard-earned money, baby. I only found out what I told you about Alejandro because Felicia told me. Ramiro got out of there early and you’d gone off, I don’t know where,” the diva rattled off as the bus that would take him home pulled up.

After an over-the-top, marvelously vivid, but quick goodbye from Lutgardo, Ángel went about his business. He was starting to grow impatient, so he got ready to go down to Calle Manila to find Felicia, whatever it took. Drops of blood slipped down his sides and rippling lower back muscles that made his butt the ideal preamble — an ass so juicy and perfect it satisfied even the most depressed. He thought about how he’d been sucked off by more than a hundred men before becoming enthralled with Ramiro. Ángel took a breath and let his tongue — the ruin of so many — hang out, revealing a weariness that only a cold beer would alleviate, the pain from his wound making his hands and knees tremble. He had a moment to pause before going to pester Felicia with questions, but all he had in his pockets was a slippery, sticky grape condom, used and broken. “The truth is, I’m a major leaguer,” he muttered to himself while searching for the nearest trash can. In light of his empty pockets, he’d have to haggle for a drink to calm his thirst. He arrived at the bar La Solución and greeted his friends who, choking back tears, offered him everything, even the hand of the owner’s granddaughter. Ángel could still pick up any girl he wanted with his dashing looks and strapping body. If his friends ever found out how many men he’d blown and that the rumors were true, at the very least they’d revive the Holy Inquisition in America. Think how great it’d be to light the bonfire and witness the death of one of the most experienced cocksuckers in the metropolitan area. “Sentenced to death for being a faggot.” Really, they should sentence him to death for “having sucked more cock than twice the population of Puerto Rico.” But there he was, más macho que los machos, letting them tease and pamper him.

One, two, three, four, five, six bottles of beer coursed through his system and negated the presence of the acetaminophen. He no longer felt his wound — the alcohol was the perfect anesthesia for the difficult task of finding his assailant. When he knew that it was time to leave, he got up from the milk carton they’d given him to rest on and went out to meet his fate.

He knew that at first Felicia would be scared to death, and then she’d lose her shit when she picked up the holy stench of booze. He was never spared the sermon from his most conservative and Pentecostal of friends, even when she was overjoyed to find out that he was still alive.

“Prieta chula, what’re you dooooing? Please, c’mon, come out here. I’m fabulous, feeling tip-top,” he managed to slur drunkenly before a shriek of joy rang out from inside the house.

“Son of the Holy Mother, I can’t believe you’re here!” she said, crying with excitement. “Christ, forgive me, like a thief in the night you’ll come to punish me for this dirty mouth, but I’d already imagined the worst. Ivette came to me with the story of how Alejandro sucked you off when you were on your deathbed, and I couldn’t do anything, I was stuck here taking care of mami. But just wait till I see him — and Luis too, who supposedly you drove wild last night. I can’t help imagining Ramiro’s face.”

Apparently, there wouldn’t be a sermon that day. She invited him in and told him, in excessive detail, what’d been said. That everyone screamed and jumped, that what she knew about Ramiro was what was known about Rolandito (the little boy who was kidnapped in 1999, and never found), that the police enjoyed seeing all of them suffer. But unfortunately she didn’t have the slightest idea what had happened prior to whatever incident had left part of his body mutilated.

Both of them were very upset and looking for explanations, and after she’d gone to get him a cup of freshly brewed coffee, a rumbling from the bowels of the earth made every corner of every room and every glass in the house tremble. It was an earthquake! The night occupied itself with swallowing the goodwill of the world. It consumed them, slowly, as if envying the plenitude of optimistic souls. The night made itself owner and mistress of every street, every tectonic movement. Blackout. Ángel and Felicia took each other by the hands and ran outside to find fat Saturnino, of the vice police, lighting a cigarette.

“Maricón, what’re you doing here? I had you for dead. Alejandro’s blow job revive you? I imagine that little mouth would suck anyone out of eternal rest.”

“Ay, Saturnino, please, the last thing I need is your shit. What’re you doing here? Did you feel the earthquake?” Ángel said.

“Big deal, papito! I’ve felt so much shaking in these ass cheeks that Mother Earth’s fury disappears somewhere between balls, ass, tongue, and gut.”

“Do you know what happened to me yesterday? Coño, you have to know,” Ángel asked desperately, thinking that Saturnino, protector of the state, would be able to solve the mystery for him.

“Tres carajos. I wasn’t on duty and these raids come out of nowhere like that. I know Ivette was around there, squeezing information outta everybody. Call her and ask because I’ve got to continue my rounds to see how many bitter old ladies have shit themselves, or how many crazy putas got scared by the earthquake.”

Before Saturnino could escape, Ángel asked him, as a favor, to accompany him to the house of the boss woman from the barrio where they grew up. The moment had come to confront Ivette face-to-face, with her black flesh, soft and swollen tits, purplish mouth, and olive-green eyes. It was a moment to invoke the saints — the moment he would let himself be seduced by the great witch of Río Piedras.

Ivette had been a feared woman for multiple generations. Since the time of her great-great-grandparents, the smells of patchouli, cinnamon incense, and squash purchased in Plaza del Mercado were always present in the concrete space made of seashells. Ivette only spoke to three people: Felicia, Saturnino, and Ángel. The three pendejos were already assembled.

“You scared you’ll get your ass chewed out over there?” Saturnino responded immediately.

Just then they heard screeches of joy because the lights were coming back on.

“That’s not it. You know we can figure out what happened if we put together what the three of us know and heard. Coño, say yes and I promise to give you the blow job of your life. The greatest blow job in the universe... okay?”

“You promise to swallow?”

“No deal without that,” Ángel said with the sly wink he used to ensnare Ramiro — of whom he still had no news.

The three of them got into the police car and drove across Santa Rita along the back streets, through the center of the town, until they came to the community of Capetillo. A yellow house with a white door that had sticks of incense tied to it was waiting for them. The enviable mistress of the house observed them through the window in her small consultation room. With a sweet and cunning voice, she invited them in.

“Do you want anything, mis amores? Give me a hug, bello. I watched you go far and look now how the roads of life have brought you back here. Do you need help?”

“What happened, Ivette? You’re our last hope for figuring it out.”

“I just saw when Alejandro climbed on top of you to suck you off. It seemed like your dick was just the antidepressant he needed,” she explained calmly. “If you’d seen how precious the image was, you wouldn’t be mad at him. But other than that, I don’t know anything. Santurnino wasn’t there, Felicia had stopped reading to us from the Bible earlier, well before everything went down, and Ramiro took off the moment you were left lying on the pavement.”

Ángel had lost hope and wanted to give up. A faggot who got shot and was searching for the truth — it wasn’t even worthy of the front pages of the papers. This was the plight of sex workers. So much whoring that as a consolation prize a desperate diva sucked your cock while you were sprawled on the pavement, in a spot where gum-chewing twelve-year-old girls walked by, cackling with their little boyfriends. To top it off, the horrifying fellatio was the only thing he knew for sure. Nobody was even certain how many had been picked up in the raid. Life, like always, was shoving Ángel’s wounded face right into a shit-stained ass.

A few seconds later, a transformed yet still provocative Ivette took to her prized room of spirits. It was time to give him a reading.

“Mi vida, I see here that you are being stalked by a close love. I see that he’s sad, I see tears. Do you know who I’m talking about?” Ángel stayed silent. “Ay, papito, ay, ay, ay... they wanna see you dead.”

“Who? Please, tell me who!”

“Of that I cannot be sure — lemme see the cup. Nope. But you must protect yourself, you have to keep Saint Michael’s sword with you at all times.”

Ángel watched in silence as Ivette removed a little gold sword from a drawer, which she quickly proceeded to bathe in a red liquid.

“With Saint Michael before you, Saint Michael beside you, Saint Michael behind you. Free this being from his enemies, Lord, and through Your esteemed prince, grant him his request. Amen.” Ivette crossed herself.Still in a trance, she handed him the amulet.

As soon as the promiscuous vagabond held it, the mini-weapon shone even brighter. A terrible tightness in his wrists and a knot in every vertebra immobilized his body. The entire night he had longed to be rid of the darkness that’d inhabited his heart and the side of his body where the bullet passed through. For the first time since he had woken up on the pavement, he felt invincible.

“You’ve got to go to El Cajón de Madera, the answer is there,” Ivette said before coming back to earth.

The place she was referring to was the central gathering point for all the whores in Puerto Rico. It’d already become a famous international landmark for the sex trade community. El Cajón de Madera transformed, every night, into a space of freedom that for so long had only been a chimera; it reflected the acceptance of diversity: an ode to excess that didn’t judge any being on the earth. And there, every Thursday night, the same night that Ángel was shot, the disputes congealed along the age-old political lines. But at this time, Friday poking its head into the wee hours of Saturday morning, the den of sin transformed into a locus of desperation for those who hadn’t picked up a client to at least pay for their daily meal at the local fast-food joint. In a very strange way, Fridays were the Great Depression of lust, of wanting to unzip your fly to give or receive favors from horny caribeñas. Ángel would follow the instructions.

When he came out of the room, Saturnino was half-asleep and Felicia was praying and reading Bible verses on her cell phone. His announcement left them stunned.

“Why go to El Cajón? That woman is crazy. The Lord will settle the score!” Felicia yelled.

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got to finish my round either way. My shift is almost over,” said the fat cop, who’d drooled a little when he’d been dozing.

As he went down the stairs of Ivette’s house, Ángel looked back at his spiritual guide, whose skin had suddenly been transformed into a dark shade that would terrify anyone. But he continued on his way, following behind his gossiping, meddlesome companions. If something stuck in Saturnino’s and Felicia’s heads, the next day it became the big news that everyone, even the walls, would know. Morbid tidbits nourished the peace that they’d lost long ago. Saturnino had nothing to do but try to escape from his job and be unfaithful to his old wife, who had spiderwebs for a cunt. As for Felicia, praying for indomitable whores used up more energy than fifteen anal penetrations. Nothing would stop them now. The attempted murder had produced a fertile mystery to be solved.

And so, with the gossip streak activated, the three pendejos of the night from Río Piedras made their triumphal entrance into the brothel, which reeked of an iron-y menstrual odor and old rum.

The stench of whores, thought Ángel. Without warning, he threw himself onto the nearly naked body of Luis — who gasped at seeing him alive, wagging his tail, thirsty for vengeance, hungry with questions. “Where’s Ramiro? Tell me what happened last night,” he asked his victim irreverently.

Luis silently pulled Ángel by the arm to one of the seven dark rooms that set the place apart from the capital city’s other offerings. When the door closed behind them, they came together in a single mouth and began bumping into contours and walls varnished with remnants of beer and, who knows, possibly herpes. They held their heads up like they were swimming without knowing how to swim. They tried to look each other in the eye in the darkness and were left submerged in silence. They stroked each other’s chests, backs, necks, and faces, confining themselves to the exodus of their bodies, ignoring the question of who’d shot whom. Both of them gave without malice, licked without reason, sucked without restraint. In the background, salsa music exuded sweat, the call-and-response ensnared them. They had reached fullness, a kind of nirvana in the din of the tropics.

Then, slowly, the music stopped like an afternoon jealously bidding farewell as it confronted the night. That evening, Ángel was unfaithful to the code of vengeance. The final notes of salsa touched what was left of each body. Bitterness made of barley, cigarettes, and cocaine sharpened every taste bud. Ángel felt Saint Michel’s sword in his right pocket and he held back, just at the point of coming between Luis’s thighs.

“Before I finish... What happened last night? I can’t wait. Please tell me!” he yelled excitedly.

“Last night you ceased to exist.”

Angry with himself, regretful, Ángel pulled away from the arms of his lover and ran out of the darkness toward the bathroom. There, he turned on the light, splashed his face, and stood in front of the full-body mirror. He realized then that there was nothing left of him but bloody tatters of skin, sparse hair, and a skin tone reflecting an anguish that cannot be explained — even by comparing it to the darkness of the street that had made him who he was: Ángel, of whom not even a scrap remained.

Devastated, with tears tracing the contours of his gaunt face, and tightly gripping the sword that would rid his life of all evil, he went back to the main dance floor where he’d left Saturnino and Felicia, but nobody was there. The place had become the somber desert of his unrealized dreams. After searching everywhere, he came to the end of the hallway of dark rooms, where he found himself face-to-face with the silhouette of Ramiro, who was pointing an AK-47 at him.

All of a sudden, he remembered that there was an exit behind the bar where he had escaped before when he got in trouble. Then, with only three long strides separating him from escape, he was deafened by an explosion as he opened the door to salvation and stumbled into a coffin — three red candles, a bouquet of roses, a cross, and a crowd who wept in remembrance while praying over his dead body.

A Killer Among Us by Manuel A. Meléndez

Hato Rey Norte

I was up when Papi arrived. It was late — I’m sure it was past midnight — and I was still wide awake from all the thunder and lightning that had ransacked the small town of Hato Rey Norte.

I could tell Papi was drunk (which happened frequently) by his loudness and cursing. On the other hand, there was calmness in Mami’s voice — like soft music to soothe the beast. It worked for a while, but as soon as he became quiet (just like the fading thunder overhead), he exploded again. I don’t know whose rage was stronger — the storm’s or my father’s.

Despite all the turmoil, I eventually found sleep.

The early morning came in through my window, but not before my late grandfather’s old rooster’s annoying crowing. He was an ill-tempered creature that seemed to live for three reasons: to scream out his hoarse shriek, to harass the hens, and to stand guard by a hole in the back of the house where a nest of rats made their home.

Like a sentinel, the rooster would wait for them. The second an unsuspecting rat climbed out of the hole, the rooster would peck at it with precise deadliness. One day, forced by boredom, I sat on a rock and witnessed the old feathered bully kill two rats and send a third scurrying back into the hole, with both of its eyes pecked out of their sockets.

Grandpa always said that this particular rooster was no ordinary bird — it had a cursed spirit trapped inside its body. I knew grandpa was lying about the spirit, but there were times when the rooster would look at me with its beady eyes and I had to wonder if Grandpa was right after all.

Mami was sipping her coffee slowly in the kitchen when I came out of my room to go to school one morning. There was a distant look in her eyes, and it troubled me to see her like that. Her hair was brushed to one side, and even though she attempted to hide it, I could see the bruises on her face.

When she noticed me staring, she shifted her body and tilted her face. It was too late. All I could think at that moment was that I hated my father so much.

I knew that Papi had left for the sugarcane fields because I saw the empty hook next to the door where he hung his machete. The machete was his tool, and there were times when I felt like he treated that blade of steel better and gentler than he treated us. I relaxed when I saw its absence.

I went to the table where my mom sat and grabbed a piece of pan de manteca. Not bothering to plaster it with butter, like I always did, I took a big bite and spilled crumbs all over my shirt. “Bendición,” I said to Mami, and without waiting for her blessing, I gathered my books and ran out.

The merciless sun had baked the dirt path. Most of the rain from the night before had dried, although a few little puddles remained. I reached the house that everyone in town called “La Casa Blanca” — because of its rotting walls and peeling white paint — and saw that my friend Carlito was waiting for me.

The house was an eyesore (not that we lived in luxury), a dump. It sagged low to the ground on one side, and the rusted zinc roof was ready to be ripped off by the next hurricane and sent straight to the ocean.

An old woman and her mentally ill daughter lived there. The daughter was in her thirties. She walked with a limp and always drooled, parading around the house naked. Drool and all, we took turns peeking at her unclothed body — salivating at her big brown nipples and what Carlito called “el gran ratón peluo” between her legs.

A truck weighed down by a load of sugarcane came wobbling up the hill at the bend in the road. There was an army of boys running after it, grabbing at the stalks and pulling them off. They hid the stalks at the side of the road and would pick them up later, at the end of the school day.

One of those boys was Guillermo — our fearless leader. He was one year older than we were and had been left back in the first grade. That extra year gave him superiority over me and Carlito, so we caught up to him and took our share of sugarcane.

I snapped a small piece off and began chewing on it after we’d hidden our prizes under a line of bushes not far from La Casa Blanca. We continued on our trek to school and the yellow school bus rumbled past us. We seldom took the bus, for we felt that only little kids and sissies rode it. We often imagined we were three soldiers returning home from war after killing the enemy.

It was the 1960s, after all, and imagination was a big thing.

Ahead of us was a small crowd gathered by an abandoned gas station — mostly housewives returning after dropping their kids off at school and old men too fragile to work the sugarcane fields. They were in the midst of a very serious conversation.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying at first, but when we got closer I heard someone say, “Mataron a un hombre” — a man had been murdered.

Guillermo turned to us, and I knew by the look in his eyes that we would be taking a slight detour on our way to school. We lingered close enough to the group to listen, but not close enough for them to shoo us away.

“Did someone go to the police?” one of the wives asked, her hair still in rollers, dressed in a bata — a faded housedress.

A man next to her, his brown face carved with deep wrinkles, stared at her and spat on the ground. “What for? They can’t do anything about it, he’s already dead!”

“¿Pero qué van a hacer? You can’t just leave that body out there to rot!” she said.

“Quique is already on his way,” another woman said with an air of superiority. “As soon as he finishes his route. That’s what he told me when he dropped off my milk bottles.” Quique was the town’s milkman who finished his deliveries at around eight o’clock.

“Anyone know who the man is?” another guy asked, chewing on an unlit cigar.

Nobody knew. Heads rocked from side to side.

The roller-head wife said, “I heard he’s not from here. Maybe he was a vagabond or a drunk. Maybe he was both.”

“Where did you hear that?” the old man with the wrinkled face asked, not hiding his annoyance one bit. I could tell that things would soon escalate to name-calling. “No sea tan bochinchosa, señora. Why start spreading false stories?” he added.

“Mire, señor, you don’t know me, so I would appreciate more respect. Or should I have my husband come and teach you some?”

The old man, contemplating an angry husband egged on by his woman’s quick tongue, decided to turn around. He started walking in the direction where the dead body was supposed to be.

In silence, one by one, the group followed him. The slow procession climbed the small hill and entered a wooded area. I watched as they disappeared into the trees and bushes, thinking that all the fun had ended.

Carlito and I resumed our walk to school, but soon Guillermo blocked our path with a wild, excited look on his face.

“Are you guys crazy?” he asked. “Come on, let’s go and see the body. How many times do you think we’re going to get this opportunity? Stop acting like cobardes and let’s take a look. Or are the two of you afraid of a dead man?”

How could we back out?

Besides, Guillermo was our leader, El Capitán.

We shrugged with indifference and followed him. I took out another piece of sugarcane and let the sweet juice run down my throat. Some of the adults looked back at us. “Get out of here,” a few of them said in unison.

But Guillermo wouldn’t have any of it. He ignored them and kept going, staying behind just in case they tried to send us back the way we came. Their small talk faded away into quick nods. The breaking of twigs and the dragging of feet could be heard, and a young woman complained that her sandals were getting heavier to walk in.

“That means she’s a puta,” Carlito said, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “She’s a whore. That’s why her sandals are getting heavy — means she never made it with the dead man and her heart is getting heavy because of it.”

I looked at Carlito, wondering where the hell he came up with such nonsense, and if he really expected that anyone would believe it. He’d also claimed that he saved the school bus from rolling down a hill and killing everyone inside just the month before. He hadn’t elaborated on how he did it, yet he was adamant about it.

The group up ahead stopped in front of a clearing. A long, loud gasp came out of everyone’s mouth at the same time. From where I stood I could see something on the ground. A few women turned their faces away and made the sign of the cross, and some of the old men removed their hats, either for respect or to hide whatever was on the ground.

The shock made them forget that three boys were mere inches away. Guillermo was the first to get a good look at what lay at the grown-ups’ feet. Carlito and I inched our way over to him. In retrospect, I wish I had gone to school that morning instead of being such a follower. This changed after that day.

Thank God.

The dead man was about four feet away, his eyes still open. The whiteness around his pupils shone bright, contrasting with the deep purple bruises on his face. Brownish blood was caked in the open slashes on his neck and torso. His pants were pulled down to his ankles and there was a savage hole where his penis had been.

Most of the blood had been soaked up by the ground and washed away by the previous night’s rain. I wanted to look away, but the brutality of his death was as fascinating as it was horrible. Then I saw something else that caught my attention, almost hidden by the bushes. I squinted to get a better look.

I saw a handle half-buried in the disturbed earth.

Sirens approached fast and the crowd began to disperse. I inched closer to where the handle was, and with one foot pushed it farther into the ground. Then I joined my friends. I walked down the hill without looking at them.

It had been two days since the discovery of the body. It gripped our small town in a web of suspicion and uneasiness. There’s a killer among us, was the cry heard many times. Maybe it was a wanderer and not one of us, was the argument to fight back against the paranoia that had consumed everyone.

But I knew the truth.

I walked to school alone that morning and ignored Guillermo’s and Carlito’s calls to wait for them. I kept spinning the image of the handle in my mind as I pushed it into the ground. It was my father’s machete handle, and I was sure that the blade was near the scene somewhere.

I went through the motions of the day, yet I felt like an empty vessel with no spirit inside. My spirit never left the place where the man had found his death at the hands of my father.

I had recognized the man, regardless of his disfigured face. I hadn’t known him well, but my father had brought him home just two weeks before.

They staggered in late that night, drunk and loud. So who was he? I didn’t know for sure. I never knew his name. A stranger. Perhaps the lady with the rollers had been right — a wanderer or laborer that happened to befriend my father.

And charmed my mother...

I saw him return twice, late at night after that first night, while my father was dead-to-the-world drunk. Mami had left the house and disappeared with him, only to return hours later. Always a few hours before my father woke up.

That’s what she thought.

My father was a good faker when it was to his advantage.

At age ten, in the so-called innocence of the 1960s, nothing wicked or carnal had ever crossed my mind — but I did have a vivid imagination. When school let out later that day, I slipped away from my friends and returned to the spot where the man had been killed. I went straight to the bushes.

The handle was still there.

In those days, police work was sloppy and not as thorough as it would become. I could still see dried blood and the impression the body had made in the ground. I pulled the handle out and looked around on all fours to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

My diligence was rewarded. About twenty minutes later, I found the steel blade from my father’s machete. There were still streaks of dried blood on it. I took both pieces with me and went home, stashed them behind the latrine.

My father’s drinking increased and his foulness and nastiness with it.

I heard the sound of flesh smacking flesh late one night, bestial groans from my father’s throat. I knew damn well what was going on. My mother was being beaten and raped by the man she had vowed to honor and obey until death undid them apart.

She could no longer hide the bruises on her arms, legs, and face by combing her hair or by wearing long-sleeved blouses. I took all of this, just like my mother did, with silence. And after school every day — behind the latrine — I mended my father’s machete.

And I planned.

The beatings my mother got nightly began to take their toll. She became a frightened and defeated creature. There was no shadow left of the woman I had loved so much. Her tears were my tears. Her pain was my pain. We became shells, spiritless shells.

As the coquís sang their sweet lullabies and the small town slumbered in a peaceful sleep one night, I slipped away from the house and went straight to the latrine. I’d planned for days and weeks. I waited for the bastard to come around the bend, on the familiar road where trucks drove by in the mornings and were chased by little boys.

I saw his silhouette under a weak moon, a black smear staggering along the road. I waited, hunched behind bushes, where I found some sugarcane forgotten by the boys.

I heard his boots dragging on the road, sending small pebbles skidding into the bushes. One of them tumbled, jumped into the air, and hit the raised machete blade.

I could smell the sweat and alcohol seeping out of his pores, even from there. I could smell his breath that came in and out in halting hiccups and loud, disgusting burps.

His bloodshot eyes popped out from their sockets when the sharp blade — his precious blade — slashed him along his neck, slicing his throat open. Blood shot out like a busted water pipe, and he pressed his fingers to the wound.

He staggered backward, then sideways, and the momentum knocked him forward. I swung the machete again, slicing half his face off. His knees buckled and he landed hard, still holding onto his throat and making gurgling sounds — for with severed vocal cords there were no screams of death. I buried the blade into his black heart with one final thrust and ran like a demon.

The morning sun rose above the mountains and the wind brought the aromas of a new day with it. Grandpa’s rooster flapped his tired, old wings and stretched his scrawny neck — he crowed. I could hear soft snoring coming from my mother’s room.

The peaceful sleep she had been denied for too long.

I smiled. She will sleep better from this day forward, I told myself.

Sirens approached from the distance, and I could hear the chattering of a nervous crowd gathering at the bend in the road. I pretended I was still sleeping when the first knocks came urgently on the door.

Originally written in English

Sweet Feline by Alejandro Álvarez Nieves

El Condado

I’d been told that the security office at the Majestic was a labyrinth, like the ones in the movies. So when they took me there — handcuffed, held by the arm, disgraced — I lost myself in that sea of monitors and Internet servers, until I was left sitting in that little room. That’s when I woke up to the reality of the situation: they were going to kick me out of the Majestic, after seventeen years working my ass off for this fucking hotel. The shift manager showed up fifteen minutes later, with his characteristic mafioso air, face serene and eyes unhinged. He entered the room and sat down facing me. A few seconds went by and he didn’t say anything. I was quiet too. Like a gangster, he removed a cigarette from his pack and offered me one. I was scared shitless, so I started to blubber excuses: “My bad, man, she tricked me, I didn’t see it coming.” I was always careful, stuff like that never happened to me. He just wanted me to tell him everything before that dumb-ass Hermann showed up with a police officer. Because part of that whole theater would be meeting with the director of Security and an agent from the CIC — the night manager always wanted to be told everything, no matter what it was. If you stepped up and told the truth, he’d also step up and support the staff. If you didn’t support the staff, the hotel was screwed. I won’t lie, I didn’t trust my boss, man. Because all of that sounds nice, camaraderie among men, that bullshit about not sticking your nose in anyone else’s business — until someone sticks a knife in your back.

“Relax, Papi. Tell me everything. And then repeat the story in front of Hermann and the agent. I’ll be with you the whole time. I got your back. Don’t worry,” he said.

Relax?... How do you get to Jayuya? Take the back road — that’s what my grandpa always said. You get it? I had to make sure that the night manager would have my back, you know. It wasn’t the first time that Security had interrogated me, nor was it the first time that a police detective had questioned me during an investigation. Being interviewed in the manager’s office and being handcuffed and interrogated in a bunker are not the same thing. For the first time, I was the subject in question, and I had to know if this guy was going to have my back. It really fucked with me not knowing for certain that no matter what I said and what happened, the next day I’d head to the bellhop room, punch in, and go to work. That’s how I earn a living, and I couldn’t let any manager get in the way of that. So I had no choice but to tell him.

Her name was Candy, or that’s what she said, you know, and she’d been staying in the Ocean Suites for three days. A blonde with a tight body, one of those rare girls from somewhere in the Southwest US: tall, blond, green eyes. Not more than twenty-five. Always in tropical clothes, but elegant, with a small tattoo of an infinity symbol on her right wrist and an Egyptian cross on her left. A sea of freckles sprinkled across her tits. From the time she stepped through the arch of the main entrance, she was throwing cash around left and right. Thirty bucks for Antonio to go get her luggage, three hundred as an appetizer for the girl at reception to give her an exclusive suite facing the sea. A hundred for Ortiz to bring up her luggage. Come on, the girl, being Southern, was a gravy train. When they dropped off her luggage, she just sat down on the balcony chair and called down to order a bottle of Cristal and some strawberries dipped in chocolate. Fifty bucks for room service, easy.

To top it off, she was nice. She smiled wide, her cheeks pocked with dimples. She strolled all around the terra-cotta marble of the lobby. She inspected the details in the wood, the lights, the assortment of orchids with a captivated expression, like some kind of hippie Indiana Jones — you know the way some women are, the way they act kind of dumb, but then all of a sudden they pull out the whip or put a bullet in you, eyeing you up and down like an aborigine. She talked to whomever she wanted whenever she wanted, guest or employee, it didn’t matter. She asked about everything, from what your job was to how many kids you had, putting on an interested face. It was impossible to tell if she was really paying attention or if she was possessed by the coldest cynicism on the planet.

Something didn’t add up, man. Nobody can be that happy. This was a twenty-something girl, swimming in cash, traveling alone to Puerto Rico, never having been there, not speaking a lick of Spanish. Spending like there’s no tomorrow in the hotel stores, tossing cash around as if she were selling lottery tickets. And later, the evening transforming her into a sports car on the highway of youth. Out all night partying with the waitresses from the lobby, who were in her pocket before nine p.m. the day she arrived. Asking Antonio to bring bags of blow to her room. Who the hell snorts blow on their own like that? Renting a Ferrari to take a spin around Condado. Fuck, not even the old perverts who come down here twice a month do that. I don’t know, brother, but all that craziness didn’t add up for me, it made me look at her funny. The ones with fangs are always smiling, my old man used to say. So much courtesy smells fishy. And she must have noticed the mistrust on my face, because the only person that Candy Smith paid zero fucking attention to was me. What the fuck?

I figured this out on the afternoon of the fourth day of her stay. Three days of working. Three days in which I never got to bring her anything, three days without her even calling me at the bellstand to ask for the newspaper or to have her dirty clothes taken to the laundry. Fuck, I wasn’t able to even take a pencil to that she-devil! Three days of not reaching my quota: a hundred bucks in tips. That’s the minimum I need to be able to cover my bills for my apartment, car, the monthly fee at the school, and child support to my three kids. Three days in which I didn’t even get to fifty. It was mid-September, the hotel was almost empty, and the only gravy train didn’t even look at me by mistake. At one point she passed in front of the bellhop room and I swear on my mother that she stared right through me. But she didn’t smile at me, not even a twitch of her lips to indicate she knew I was there, just the cold look of her green panther eyes. Thirty-four years and I still can’t resist a pair of green eyes.

With all of that, I thought it was mere coincidence that she’d ignored me. Forget it, calm down. It’s just that according to the laws of probability, fucking Candy would have to order something to her room, and I would be first in line to take it to her. Ah, but everything bad comes in bulk all at the same time, my old lady used to say. That afternoon I was first in line. And how could my knees not shake when that tigress appeared in the gallery on the way to the elevators, and suddenly I saw her coming toward me, her humble servant? It nearly gave me a heart attack when she turned to look at me for a few seconds with her feline eyes and then jerked them away. She went past, put something in Ortiz’s hands, and whispered in his ear. I wasn’t about to allow this to continue right in front of me, so I got technical: “That’s mine, it’s my turn.” Ortiz knew it, and made a move as if to give me what he had in his hand, but she stopped him. “Not you, him!” the she-devil said, fixing me with those two backstabbing emeralds. Just like that, she turned and left. Fuck Candy — fuck Jolly Ranchers, Charms, Smarties, Hershey’s, and M&M’s! Fuck your mom’s gofio. That little fucking gringa was guarding me worse than LeBron James, and she just threw a massive block. That night I went home with barely twenty bucks.

The night before she went back to Gringolandia, I showed up with smoke coming out of my ears. I knew that panther was taking off and I’d be left without any gravy. Everyone flaunted the loot they’d mooched off that ridiculous woman, and I was empty-handed. I even went around the lobby with my shirt unbuttoned, that’s how much I wanted to be working that Saturday. I did my rounds. I went to the front desk and saw that less than ten rooms had been filled all afternoon and night. The housekeeping and maintenance boys went up to the presidential suite at seven to watch the Yankees game — they were in first place and the season was ending. “Bring some beers.” I checked in with Security, but there was only one girl working, the same one as always. I went by housekeeping to see if the Colombiana was on that night, but she’d called in sick. A boring shift awaited me, broke and horny. No cash and left hanging. No way.

The call came late, around two in the morning, an hour before the end of my shift, while I was looking at the centerfold in Primera Hora with Ortiz in the bellhop room. It was Ortiz’s turn, he was working the overnight shift, so I didn’t even pay attention to the sound of the phone. He says it’s for me. I go to the phone, laughing sarcastically. In hotels nobody calls you unless it’s your wife, your ex, one of your bosses, or a family emergency. Everyone else comes by in person, to keep from being monitored. Turns out it was the lovely Candy. She called me by name: “Hi, Danny.” She asked for two grams of blow, and for me to bring them to the room. I go see Antonio, the doorman. I put in the order. I wait for the call and say the password of the week.

I am crossing the pool area by the beach and it’s deserted, too empty. No guests fooling around hidden by the vegetation, no employees groping each other behind the bar, which was closed at that hour. It wasn’t surprising. September was the time of skinny cows. But the Security staff weren’t at their posts, and that wasn’t quite so normal. Probably went up to watch the game too, dead as things were. Could be. Still, my internal alarms were going off. She hadn’t invited any men into her room the whole time she’d been there. I found that out from the boys. This wasn’t good. Even if it would’ve been cool to leave my mark on the sweet panther, all the bad vibrations had me on edge.

I arrived at the Ocean Suites complex and knocked on the door of room 223. Candy opened quickly, looked me up and down. She smiled at me for the first time, placing me under the spell of the dimples in her cheeks. My friend, she was wearing nothing but a bra and panties, made of that cloth that looks like tiger skin. What do they call it? Animal print. Exactly. Because the girl is animal print. At first I stayed there in the doorway, like a vampire waiting to be invited inside, not realizing that it was my blood that was going to be sucked. I don’t know, I was enchanted by her jade eyes, and the next thing I remember is that I was beside her on the living room sofa drinking champagne and lifting a bump of coke to my nose on my car key. Then I proceeded to use the master key to cut out real lines. I lost count after the fifth hit. Then the heavy petting began, first an amazing kiss, then I went down her neck, down both arms, happily to her tits, starting to bite them softly. You know, that little game with the teeth somewhere between sucking and biting? Try it, man, it takes them right to the edge. It seemed like it was going well, because all of a sudden that Yankee grabbed me like a bear, lifted me, and threw me onto the bed like a lucha libre move. In two movements she took off my uniform and underwear. She lay down beside me and gave me another dose of the green magic, then stretched back and whispered in my ear: “Get on. Get on, cabrón.”

But I am faithful to the Puerto Rican technique, so I spread her legs and began feeling around for that little bean that would get her squealing like a fat pig. The trembling and arching of her spine alerted me that I’d found it. The little bean that’ll give her pleasure and get me even on my bills. So now I go to put my tongue down there; I play with it, I rub it, I tease it, as if it were a cherry limber, a cherry Jolly Rancher, taking my revenge on the sweet feline. And the she-devil moans, writhes, and floods like a broken dam. I keep punishing her, and she keeps on contorting until she can’t take it anymore and asks for it with a shriek. “Stick it in, motherfucker!” You gotta stick it in when they ask for it, you know. And so it goes. I jump up, raise her legs, wind up, and head for home. Slow at first, so she feels how it goes in and knows what’s coming, so she melts like the cheap candy she is. Then, little by little, I pick up the pace. I put my hand over her mouth while moving up and down with more and more intensity. She grabs two of my fingers and sticks them in her mouth, trying to grab the headboard with her other hand. And suddenly she springs forward and rips her nails across my spine like a cat on its back. I shake her off and push her down. I feel the blood running across my back. This always happens to me with the skinny girls, they all scratch when they fuck. Now that I have her like this, I say vengefully: “¡Ignórame ahora, puta! ¡Pasa de largo ahora, pendeja!”

It was like she knew Spanish, because the Yankee pulled back and gave me such a crack to the jaw that I fell back on the bed. “Fuck you! Leave me alone! I said no!” she screamed, and grabbed me around the neck with such force that I had to climb back on top of her. She slammed another fist into my jaw and I fell facedown on top of her. I was so embroiled in what was happening that I didn’t realize someone was knocking on the door. Suddenly it opened and there they were, watching me.

“What the hell is wrong with you, crazy bitch? Turn around and let me show you who’s in charge here.”

Those were the words that the three security employees and the night manager heard from my mouth while standing witness to that cabaret show.

“Get him off me! He’s raping me!”

That was when I felt them dragging me out into the living room. Then they gave me my clothes and uniform so I could put them on in the bathroom, where they locked me in for half an hour. No big deal. Candy fucked me over — she said she’d called me to collect her dirty clothes and that I came in and raped her without saying a word. At least that’s what I heard from the other side of the wall. Obviously I could’ve asked them where the bag of dirty clothes was, where the order was. But there’s no margin of error here, man. Even if something isn’t your fault, you get screwed over. Tell me how you could possibly explain that to the hotel manager, to a fucking cop. There was no catching a break, the axe had fallen. Hotels are a reality show — it’s not what happens at home, it’s whatever the producers put on for people to see. And what they saw was me on top of a guest, with marks of violence on my body. I was fried. They cuffed my hands behind my back right there and took me to Security through the entrance to the restaurant that opened onto the pool. The last picture I have in my mind of Candy Smith is the little smile of triumph at the corners of her mouth, and the green that sparked from her eyes when the night manager told her in English not to worry, that all of her expenses would be covered by the hotel. “We’re going to take care of you, miss.” Fuck all candies. I’ve never had a sweet tooth.

It was clear that the cabrón night manager wouldn’t have my back. I don’t even know if I should tell you that none of this is personal. Hotels are run like the mafia, everything for the good of the business, not for the good of those occupying it, not for the good of those who enjoy it. They’re all guinea pigs. What matters is how much cash you make them and how much cash the guests spend. The rest is bullshit. Turns out the dumb-ass Hermann isn’t such a dumb-ass. He was in the next room watching my “confession” on a video monitor. When I stopped talking, he opened the door and came in with an employment termination form in his hands. They didn’t let me quit, the fuckers. If I’d quit, at least I would’ve been paid seventeen years’ severance. I didn’t find out anything else about the girl. Nobody tells me anything. Everyone from the hotel avoids me. This was a month and a half ago. And here I am, waiting for my paycheck.

“And you, what’re you doing here? Get mugged over at Santurce Plaza too?”

“No, I’m chilling. It’s just the hotel is in rough shape and they laid us off until November. But the axe comes and goes, I got a couple months of unemployment to even the score.”

“Man, you don’t have to tell me twice. But don’t say any of that to the officer, loco. There are fewer federal funds for the people all the time.”

“Relax, one of the supervisors is a buddy of mine. We go way back.”

“Ah, good. How lucky... Hey, what’s the name of the night manager at the Majestic?”

“Melecio. Carlos Melecio.”

“Ay! It was you with the con artist. Damn, loco, everyone in the industry knows that story, dude.”

“What? Don’t mess with me, man.”

“They booted Melecio too. Turns out the gringa was an underwear model and a professional con artist. She’d charged more than a hundred thousand dollars in jewelry and clothes to her hotel account. When everything went down, the hotel didn’t realize. The trick is that they don’t realize what’s happened until she’s already on the plane heading home. She did the same thing at the Conquistador, the Marriott, and the Intercontinental too. I thought you guys knew about her. Fuck! I didn’t know the bellboy was you. Damn, everything’s so fucked up.”

“You’re not messing with me, right?”

“No, I swear. Last week I ran into Inés, one of the girls from the lobby at the Cactus, at four in the morning and she told me everything. I can’t believe it, man... Ah, that’s my number. See you. Good luck, man. Take care.”

And so I stayed in that chair, watching as my buddy from Santurce Plaza went in to talk to his case officer, wondering what other hotel Carlos Melecio had hidden in.

I went outside to smoke a cigarette. I came back quickly because it was hotter than hell. When I got the paperwork from a little old lady, I wondered what story I could invent to convince the officer to accept my case, when I couldn’t put down the only legal employment I’d had in more than fifteen years as a reference.

Things Told While Falling by Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro