Seven Ways to Kill a Cat

BIRD OF ILL OMEN

CHUECO COMES RACING down the street with the Beretta in his hand. He jerks the gat, indicating the alley leading to Oliveira’s place. I don’t stop to think. I walk quickly down the alley and jump the low wall, but as I’m halfway across the bag over my shoulder gets caught in my feet and I almost break my fucking neck. I push my way through the privet and hide under a kumquat tree. It’s small, but dense.

Through the branches, I see Chueco fly over the garden wall, a clean jump. He looks like Superman. But he falls badly. He crashes onto the ground, almost breaking his shoulder, and rolls through the cauliflower patch. He smothers a cry and curses under his breath. He gets up, clutching his collarbone, and in the house Oliveira’s dog starts barking. The guy appears at the window.

‘Você que faz aqui?! Filho da puta!’

Chueco flashes the Beretta at him and brings a finger to his lips like he’s a nurse in a hospital. Oliveira’s face changes; all the blood drains from it. Chueco waves him back inside, spinning the Beretta, not taking his finger from his lips. Oliveira closes the shutters and the dog suddenly stops barking. Chueco glances around him, confused. I give a low whistle from where I’m hiding and he comes and hunkers down with me under the tree. As soon as he’s there we hear shouts from the other side of the wall. People running past.

Chueco looks me straight in the eyes. In his eyes I see fear, excitement, or the cold-blooded calm of the merca he’s been snorting. One of them. Or all three together. We don’t say a word until the shouting fades into the distance.

‘They’re hunting us like rats, Gringo …’

‘Who the fuck d’you think you’re telling? They came into my place. Nearly fucking capped me.’

‘How many were there?’

‘I don’t fucking know, three, four maybe. That kid Medusa came with them so he could point me out,’ I say, sparing him the details.

I must be psychic, because when I heard the kid Medusa shouting my name outside, I was stuffing the few clothes I have and the whale book into a bag. I was ready to bounce. I grabbed the strap, crawled out the bedroom window and legged it over the back wall. From the neighbour’s backyard I saw a whole troop of them crashing into our place. They were all carrying. Lucky Mamina had headed off to the hospital half an hour before.

Medusa stayed outside. On guard. I was about to cap the little shit, but I held back. Firing the fucking thing would only lead the bastards right to me. Like a pack of dogs. So I made a quick quiet exit the back way. Headed straight for the station. But I didn’t manage to get on a train. I didn’t even manage to set foot on the platform They were waiting for me. El Negrito Silva was wandering up and down the little square in front of the station. Acting the boss man. Dealing weed like nothing had happened. The place was crawling with kids from Zavaleta. Keeping watch. I recognised a couple of them. I guess they would have recognised me too. I couldn’t risk waiting till El Negrito turned his back to make a run for the platform. It was too sketchy. He wasn’t the only one who might see me.

‘What we going to do, Gringo?’ Chueco says, leaning against the tree. ‘This whole thing is seriously fucked up.’ His forehead’s slick, a drop of sweat dances between his eyebrows. I wouldn’t mind, but it’s fucking cold out.

‘What the fuck are you telling me for?’ I say. ‘Get your boss to save your scrawny arse.’

‘He’s a stupid fucking jerk … He makes out like he’s this badass. Well, now he’s balls-deep in shit. They’re all trapped down at Fat Farías’s. Anyone who shows their face gets capped.’

Chueco takes a plastic bag and a cigarette paper out of his pocket and starts skinning up a joint. His fingers are trembling. He licks the skin and finishes rolling. I spark it for him. He takes a couple of tokes and hands it to me. He blows smoke rings. He brushes the mud off his jacket and massages his shoulder through his clothes.

‘You fuck up your shoulder?’

‘It’s nothing,’ he says, playing the hard man, but I can tell it hurts.

‘You eaten anything? I’m fucking starving …’ I say, passing back the blunt. It’s the middle of the afternoon and with all the shit going down I haven’t had time to eat.

‘We’ve got all the provisions we need right here, loco,’ Chueco says, nodding to the kumquats hanging about a foot above our heads.

I reach up, pick a fistful and eat them one after the other, stuffing them into my mouth. They’re bitter. I pull a face, like when I was a kid.

Chueco tries one and does the same. I laugh to myself. We’re like a couple of kids hiding when they’re in trouble. Trying to postpone the beating papá’s going to give us. But sooner or later we’re going to have to come out. Hiding from him just makes the hijo de puta with the belt angrier. I never knew my old man. Neither did Chueco. But I still feel like a furious father is waiting out there ready to make us toe the line. Actually, we might have been better off if some drunken fuck of a father had knocked out our baby teeth. Might have saved us from what’s waiting out there now. The barrio, hunger, fate, fear … We’re the sons of one or other of the bastards out there. And it doesn’t matter. They’re all vicious.

While I’m thinking about this shit, Chueco has been bogarting the spliff. I grab it off him and smoke it down till it burns my fingers.

‘So? What do we do?’ he says, eyes bulging out of his head.

‘Get out of here?’

‘No fucking way I’m moving from here until after it gets dark —’

Chueco suddenly shuts up and pricks up his ears.

‘Listen,’ he whispers. ‘Listen.’

Gunshots. And they’re coming from somewhere close by. Fat Farías’s place probably. As I was sneaking away from the station, I could feel it was all going to go off. They’ve spent most of the day amassing ammunition. Now it’s all-out war. And it won’t be over until they’ve sorted out their turf once and for all.

‘Why are they going to all this trouble to cap a couple of nobodies like us?’ I say, thinking aloud. ‘You want to tell me?’

‘Because we’re the ones who started this when we fucked over those kids and took their stash. Because it’s a lot easier to cap us than to take down one of El Jetita’s men and it sends out the same message. It tells everyone Charly’s not gonna be fucked with.’ Chueco rattles off the explanation in one sentence until he runs out of breath. He’s speeding.

Huddled under the tree, my legs are starting to cramp. I want to get out of here. I get to my feet and try to straighten up between the branches. I manage more or less and then, in the distance, I hear the call of a non-existent bird. Almost like the way I do it, but different. This bird is hoarse and angry. Whoever’s whistling is blowing too hard, wasting air squawking so loudly. It’s Quique. He’s trying to find me without giving the game away. He’s finally fucking learned to whistle through his thumbs. All the times he tried and couldn’t do it … Beggars can’t be choosers. Needs must … All that shit.

I answer. Cupping my hands and blowing softly between my thumbs, fluttering the fingers of my right hand. I do it very carefully so the bird call sounds real. I’m not going to be the one that gets us discovered. I sit down again, cross my legs and wait. Chueco looks at me. He doesn’t understand. I don’t say anything. I wait for an answer. It comes about two or three minutes later. Closer this time. I call again and wait for a reply. Chueco raises his eyebrows questioningly. I whistle a couple more times until the croaking bird is right on top of us. Just the other side of the wall.

Slowly, carefully, I pop my head over the garden wall but I can’t see Quique anywhere. I hear a noise behind me. I turn and see Sultán coming through the privet and, behind him, Quique’s head wriggling through a hole in the wire fence like a weasel. I signal him over to the kumquat tree. Sultán sniffs the hiding place suspiciously before padding inside, Quique pushing him because he’s blocking his way.

‘So, what’s the story, kid?’

‘They’re combing the whole barrio … They’re looking for you guys, aren’t they?’ he says to me, untangling a branch that’s caught in his hair.

‘Thanks for the newsflash, kid,’ I interrupt him. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘This dog is fucking retarded,’ Chueco says, backing away from Sultán.

Quique heroically ignores him and looks at me again.

‘What d’you want me to say? There’s more of them than flies on shit, they’re crawling all over the place. Remember when El Sapo Medina smacked that young cop down by the station, and the whole fucking force came out looking for him? Well, this is way worse. These guys are much better organised and they’re seriously carrying.’

‘What do we do, Gringo?’ Chueco says. ‘This is turning to shit —’

‘Hang on, let me think for a second.’ I shut him up.

I spark up a cigarette. Chueco immediately holds out his hand for one. I give him the pack, but his hands are shaking so much he can’t get the cigarette out.

‘What’s the matter, gunslinger?’ I take it out for him and give him a light. He’s a mess.

‘What if we hole up with my people for a couple of days?’ he stammers, sucking on the cigarette with all his lungs.

I tell him no. I glance at Quique, who shakes his head and blinks slowly.

‘What?’

‘They’ve already been round your squat,’ Quique says. ‘Broke old man Soria’s nose. And that posh guy, what’s his name? Willi? They nearly fucking ended him. Beat the living shit out of him. The guy couldn’t speak. They thought he was holding out on them, so then they really laid into him.’

‘How d’you know all this?’

‘Because I saw them, Gringo. I’m telling you, these guys are fucked up. They even stopped that arsehole Santi in the street and put a gun in his mouth. Dumb fuck shat his pants. Told them he didn’t know where you guys were, that if he did, he’d tell them everything.’

‘They been round mine?’ I ask, thinking about Mamina. If they’ve touched her, I’ll fucking die.

‘They went in the back way, posted a lookout, smashed the place up,’ Quique says, and from the look on my face, he can already tell what I’m thinking. ‘Don’t worry about your grandma. She’s staying over at the hospital tonight to keep my mamá company. And if she comes back in the morning and this shit’s still going down, I’ll stop her.’

Chueco’s eyes are popping out of his head. Quique pokes at the ground with a stick. We say nothing for a bit, but my brain’s working overtime. Quique sighs and looks at me. What I see in his eyes isn’t worry or fear, it’s sadness.

‘This is going to end badly, Gringo,’ he says. ‘Take my word for it —’

‘You’re the one who’s going to end, you little shit,’ Chueco roars. ‘You and your predictions, fucking bird of ill omen.’

Sultán pricks up his ears. Sniffs the air. He’s sensed something. Inside the house Oliveira’s dog senses it too and starts yapping. Sultán barks back.

‘Quiet, Sultán,’ Quique whispers and slaps the dog’s nose.

‘Take a hike, will you, and take your fucking dog with you before you fuck everything up.’

‘Chill, loco,’ Quique says. ‘Stop stressing.’

This only makes Chueco worse.

‘Go on, Quique,’ I say softly as Chueco is still fuming and cursing. ‘Take the dog and go. But stay close, and when you see the coast is clear, give me a whistle.’

He nods and looks greedily at the cigarette I’m raising to my lips. He pats Sultán’s flank and gets to his feet.

‘Quique.’ I call him back.

‘What?’ He half turns.

‘Take care, yeah?’ I say and offer him a cigarette.

‘You too, Gringo.’