“He killed El Gazpacho.”
Parra spoke of the chains of destiny and strummed a guitar.
“I heard you the first time,” Elvis said. “But there’re others who could’ve done it. CIA, for one.”
“CIA? You kidding me?”
“They trained some of the Hawks. Maybe they got nervous,” he said, realizing he sounded as stupid as the Antelope when he got into one of his conspiracy streaks. “Fuck, I don’t know. El Gazpacho was one of El Mago’s boys, so you can’t peg it on him.”
El Gazpacho. Poor, smiling, Gazpacho with his love of Asian films and his good-natured jokes, saying brother this and brother that. And it didn’t mean anything, except it did. Brother. He’d never had a friend like El Gazpacho, a friend who really cared, someone who wasn’t there just for himself.
El Gazpacho was there for all of them, but mostly he was there for Elvis.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, just a damn second. He felt a black rage in his body, bile coating his tongue. He crammed a cigarette into his mouth.
“What’ll happen to the body? Is someone claiming it? He had family. A sister.”
“You know her name?”
“No,” Elvis muttered. “I don’t know his name or hers. Maybe you could find out?”
“I did enough finding him. You owe me for this, motherfucker.”
“You sure it’s him? If he really wanted him gone, wouldn’t El Mago have cut off his head or something? To prevent identification?”
“Why? He doesn’t have a name.”
Elvis wouldn’t even be able to go to church and have a mass said for the dead man because he had no idea who El Gazpacho had really been. Just a guy. An anonymous dead guy. If Elvis dropped dead tomorrow, he’d be an anonymous dead guy too. A fucker from the gutter El Mago had found and discarded, lower than El Gazpacho or the others.
Elvis wasn’t sure his mother would give a fuck even if he was identified. He hadn’t seen his family in years. They liked it like that.
His real family were the Hawks. El Mago, El Gazpacho, even those fuckups El Güero and the Antelope. That’s what he had.
Elvis let the cigarette dangle from the corner of his mouth, his eyes unfocused.
“You’ve got company tonight,” Justo said.
“Where?” Elvis asked, raising a hand, slowly holding the cigarette between his fingers, his voice made raspy with pain. Tears pricked his eyes, but he squeezed them away.
“Behind, to the right, table near the door.”
Elvis opened his eyes, but he didn’t look. Instead he fiddled with one of Justo’s books, pretending he was reading it. “What does he look like?”
“Tall, brown hair. Suede jacket and turtleneck.”
“Anaya’s man?”
“Couldn’t swear on it, but I’d said no. They usually travel in twos, and he doesn’t look like a gorilla. Snappy shoes, this one.”
“Fucking prick,” Elvis muttered. He’d bet an eyeball it was that Russian shit-eater again, with a Makarov tucked in its leather holster. It had to be a Makarov. What the hell did he want? He’d already given Elvis a good beating. His back was still tender from the damn newspaper he’d swatted him with.
“Not a friend?”
“No.”
“Who?” Justo asked, curious.
“Another player,” Elvis said, because he didn’t think it was a good idea to be revealing it was a damn KGB agent. He didn’t really know Justo. His whole idea to ask him for help was stupid.
