“Antelope, let’s go to Escamilla’s place,” he said. That was the same doctor they’d visited when El Gazpacho was injured, and El Gazpacho maybe died in his fucking office, but Elvis didn’t know any other doctor that could help them.
The doctor lived in La Guerrero, which wasn’t exactly next door but was close enough by car and besides, they didn’t have much choice, whether it took twenty minutes or fifty-five to drive there depending on the fucking traffic.
Escamilla’s ratty office sat atop an ugly, peeling yellow building a few blocks from La Lagunilla and right next to a gym where boxers trained. When they walked in, with El Güero oozing blood from everywhere, the doctor was standing in the reception area, a cup of coffee in his right hand. He looked at them and stirred his coffee with a plastic spoon.
“Hello, gentlemen, come over to the back,” he said, like it was no big deal to have a man without teeth stumble into his office. And maybe it wasn’t, with so many boxers in that neighborhood, plus the assorted unsavory characters who needed bandages.
The doctor told El Güero to lie down on the examination table while he washed his hands in a tiny sink. Then he shone a light in El Güero’s eyes, checked the inside of his mouth. The doctor moved away from the patient, opened a cabinet, and began pulling out gauze, bandages, cotton swabs, and disinfectant with slow, methodical fingers.
“Might be an orbital fracture,” the doctor said, raising his head and looking at Elvis. “You can step out. This’ll take a few minutes.”
Elvis obeyed. A young man in a gray smock had materialized and was mopping the floor, cleaning the blood that had dripped onto the linoleum. He didn’t look at either Elvis or the Antelope. Elvis sat down on a plastic chair, and the Antelope took the other chair. Between them there was a tiny table with a pile of oldReader’s Digests.
“You going to tell me what happened?” the Antelope asked.
“DFS happened,” Elvis said. “They found Sócrates dead and wanted to pin it on us.”
“That little shit we saw Saturday?”
“That shit.”
“Pricks. Who do you think killed him?”
Elvis shrugged. For all he knew, Sócrates’s commie friends had wised up and killed the traitor, or maybe it had been that big fucking Russian—after all, he’d followed Elvis to the Habana. Or, hell, maybe it was Leonora, or Maite and that hippie. After all, they’d run out of the building real quick. He definitely didn’t like that hippie.
The doctor wandered into the reception area. His white coat was splattered with crimson, and he was wiping his hands on a rag. “How’s he doin’?” Elvis asked.
“I gave him painkillers and cleaned everything up, but he’s going to lose that eye if he doesn’t have surgery. I can make the arrangements.”
“Can I have a word about that with you, doc?”
“Come on,” the doctor said, and they went into a second examination room. There was a bowl filled with mints in a corner atop a mini refrigerator and one of those charts with all the human bones on the wall.
“I’m not letting you take El Güero anywhere. The last team member I brought here ended up in a ditch, strangled.”
The doctor stared at Elvis. “That’s not my business.”
Elvis grabbed the doctor by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the wall, his mouth a snarl. “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. I released that man, and he was supposed to head back to his apartment,” the doctor said, and Elvis had to give it to him, the doctor had balls, because he didn’t flinch and he didn’t yell, speaking instead like he was dictating a prescription.
But Elvis supposed the doctor didn’t have to be afraid. The people he worked for, they must make sure he didn’t get in any trouble.
Elvis released him and stepped back. The doctor rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and glared at Elvis. Elvis went into the examination room where El Güero was sitting. “Let’s go,” Elvis said.
“The doc said he was getting an ambulance.”
“No he ain’t.”
They went down the stairs real quick and got into the car. Elvis wasn’t sure what to do. In the end, he told the Antelope to drive to a Cruz Verde. El Güero wasn’t too happy with that idea. He was still going on about the ambulance.
“Look, things are fucked here left and right,” Elvis said. “Check yourself in and lay low. It’s the best chance you got.”
“I don’t get it.”
“El Gazpacho’s dead and you saw the DFS is out for us. So, stupid fuck, lie low and get your damn eye fixed. Find us in a few days.”
El Güero looked at Elvis suspiciously, but he grunted a “fine, fucker,” and when they reached the hospital, he got out of the car and didn’t ask any more questions.
