On the other side of Rosaleda, on the corner with Moreras, is Ursula. Nobody can see her because she’s hidden behind a truck that’s been there since last night and which conceals her completely from the view of anyone looking from the other corner, from Rosaleda and Río Colorado and beyond. She’s calm; in her right hand is a pair of binoculars, her pink handbag is on her shoulder, inside it are wholemeal crackers, a water bottle, and a cardigan in case it gets cold. She has the Smith & Wesson .38 Special in her coat pocket.
She dominates the whole scene, observes each movement of the participants, keeping a close eye on Diego. She holds up the binoculars and, just now, furrows her brow, adjusts the focus wheel, unable to believe what she sees: she’s recognized Ricardo. That man again? The other day in the park, and now here. She asks herself why he’s out of prison after he’d been locked up for killing Auntie Irene and wasn’t due to be released for another ten or twenty years. She shakes her head angrily. This guy shouldn’t be here, and he certainly shouldn’t be Diego’s partner. And her own, by extension. She sees him, and the images unfold, her mind travelling back in time to a dark corridor. From the shadows, through the crack of a barely open door, someone watches a couple having sex, watches them copulate, observes their movements, watches them tremble as they reach orgasm, sees them relax after they have finished, watches as the woman falls asleep and the man, bored perhaps, plays with a gun before putting it on the bedside table and then he, too, falls asleep. The person who is watching from the doorway tiptoes into the room of the sleeping couple, takes the gun, picks it up carefully, walks down the corridor to Auntie Irene’s room, holding the revolver with Ricardo’s fingerprints in her hand, a hand sheathed in a surgical glove. She opens the door, looks at the old lady sleeping between her white sheets, smells the perfume of lily and white musk, senses the woman’s vulnerability, and a tear trickles down her cheek. She tingles with a feeling of tenderness, watching her taking a siesta without a care in the world, and knows all these moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain. It’s time to die, she thinks sadly. And she starts to walk towards the bed. Ursula doesn’t want to remember, but the images overwhelm her. In the next scene, everything is confused: her aunt dead from a gunshot, the revolver abandoned by her side, the maid’s lover dragged out of the house and hustled into a patrol car that speeds away, sirens blaring, Ursula’s statement to the police, the latex gloves at the bottom of her handbag, Auntie Irene’s ring in the pocket of her overcoat.
Ursula wrinkles her forehead in annoyance and shifts her eyes from Ricardo to the man next to him, the Skinflint. She doesn’t like this man either; she finds him suspicious, even if we don’t know why she feels this way. She looks at Diego again, directly opposite, although he can’t see her; she notices his face has acquired a greenish hue, no doubt the effect of the tinted windscreen, she thinks. Later, she will discover it’s the colour of his fear, not the glass. She continues to observe the green-tinged face, thinks about green, how it reminds her of the sea, dreams of holidays at the seaside. Now she’ll be able to go on holiday to the beach or wherever she wants. No, Ursula, you don’t deserve a holiday at the beach or anywhere else, Daddy says. Look what a mess you’ve got yourself into. Robbery, armed robbery. That was all you needed. They’ll lock you up for this, but not just until eight in the morning, when I come to open your door and bring your penance to an end. This time they’ll lock you up for good. Shut up, Daddy! You’re going to end up in prison, Ursula, just like you always deserved, you thief. Because you used to steal food and now you steal money. Shut up, you old bastard, shut up! You’re a fat little thief, that’s what you are! Be quiet, Daddy, you’re dead. I made sure you were good and dead. Ursula breathes with difficulty, looks at Diego, grabs the binoculars; she’s annoyed, angry. She focuses on Diego, he looks afraid, small, weak; if he isn’t up to it, she’ll know what to do. She can smell money, the aphrodisiac scent of paper, ink and sweat. And when she has money she’ll lose weight, she’ll buy a house in Carrasco, she’ll have a swimming pool, a maid, a gardener, a new car. Holidays on the beach beside a green sea. You’ll see, Daddy. You’ll see, Luz.
The cash truck will come down the side street in ten to fifteen minutes’ time, with three men in the cab and two more in the back with the takings.
The Skinflint, slightly wary, rejects the coke and begins to roll a cigarette, painstakingly; like a craftsman he smooths out the paper, arranges the tobacco, rolls it, twirls it between his fingers, runs his tongue along the edge. The process of rolling the cigarette reassures him, he admires his handiwork, sighs. Ricardo can’t sit still, he leaves the engine running and jumps down from the truck, walks a few steps, and halts next to the Toyota. He bangs on the window; Diego hadn’t seen him coming, and starts.
“Open up, asshole.”
Diego does as he is told and lowers the window.
A car speeds down Rosaleda and comes within inches of the Hobo, splashing his trousers, his jacket, his hair with dirty water. Ricardo hurls insults but the driver can’t hear because he’s already far away.
“I’ll blow your brains out, you motherfuckin candy-assed piece of shit.”
“Careful, Hobo. Keep your voice down, people will notice.”
“Keep my fuckin voice down? You see what that son of a bitch did?”
“Keep it down. We don’t want to attract attention. We need to keep a low profile.”
“Christ’s sake, Sparrow. You’re a fuckin coward.”
Just as Antinucci comes out of the kiosk, a lit cigarette in his mouth and the rest of the pack in his pocket, Diego is beginning to think he’s tired of that word, coward, but his rage always gives way to his fear.
The noise of a powerful engine breaks the spell in this street of silent houses. Diego and Ricardo look at each other, their heads turning in perfect synchrony, a movement that – two hundred yards away and viewed through binoculars – has the grace of a well-rehearsed dance, a grace that seems completely removed from this moment, just before a robbery is about to start. Ricardo grunts, the sound you make when you’re in the chair, your mouth open and full of cotton wool and metal implements, and the dentist asks you a question. Diego doesn’t understand, until he hears him shout:
“The truck’s coming, it’s early. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!”
9.28 a.m.
Ricardo covers half a block in four strides. The cash truck is still a hundred and fifty yards away and is moving at walking pace, no doubt due to the numerous potholes on Calle Rosaleda. He gets into the Nissan, does up his seat belt, puts the vehicle into first and turns the steering wheel. The front of the car is just poking into the street and, without taking his eyes off the rear-view mirror, without taking his eyes off the truck, he calculates and guides his vehicle eastwards. He watches the truck approach, has it in his sights; it’s only a hundred yards away and his heart is pounding. Shoot, Antinucci, shoot, he thinks. Ricardo grips the steering wheel until his knuckles ache, clenches his teeth until his gums hurt, fifty yards and Antinucci still doesn’t shoot. Press the trigger, he thinks, his breathing is laboured, his eyes glued to the truck. Shoot, for Chrissake, just fucking shoot.
Antinucci has returned from his trip to the kiosk; the cigarette is now reduced to a butt between his lips and he throws it carefully into the angle formed between the asphalt and the edge of the kerb. He gets into his car, settles down, picks up the binoculars, adjusts them. And what he sees makes him jump, disturbing the buttocks that were so comfortably arranged on the leather seat.
“Jesus Christ, it’s early.”
It’s only fair to note that, immediately after saying this, he repents sincerely, he knows he shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain and tomorrow he will have to confess or live with the shadow of sin on his conscience. He gets out again, goes to the rear of the vehicle and takes the grenade launcher out. He looks around; there’s nobody here, just as they’d planned. He rests the weapon on his shoulder and aims the telescopic sight, calibrates, all the while
wondering whether in this case he would also be taking His name in vain, he’s not sure, he must remember to ask Father Ismael tomorrow at seven o’clock Mass. He half-closes his right eye against the sight, focuses, adjusts.
And fires.
Ricardo’s hands are gripping the steering wheel, his eyes are on the rear-view mirror, he’s shaking with impatience – and from the effects of the cocaine – when he hears the sound, and a triumphant shout emerges from the back of his throat as he hears the whistle of the grenade which, as agreed, Antinucci has just fired at the truck, some fifty yards away.
The explosion is terrible, the vehicle bursts into flames, columns of fire and smoke rise into the air. The boom has shaken the tranquillity of this suburban morning, and it is followed by a dense hissing silence. The occasional old lady appears at the window, still wearing an apron, a spoon in her hand; there is the clang of a door or a window opening, a voice, one shout and then another, disconnected sounds, the noise gradually growing. Somebody seems to be complaining somewhere.
Ricardo steps on the accelerator and the Nissan draws up to the cash truck.
They get out, him and the Skinflint. An old man in pyjamas comes out onto his balcony, puts on his glasses to see what’s happening, shouts, asks something, gestures, waves his arms.
“Get back inside, Grandpa!” the Skinflint shouts.
The old man continues to gesture, continues to shout. His pyjamas flap on his skinny body.
Ricardo, the Hobo, gets out the .38 and takes aim.
“Leave him, Hobo, he’s going.”
But Ricardo has already emptied the chamber and at least two bullets hit the target. The man in pyjamas falls down and, although we don’t know if he’s dead, he won’t reappear in this story.
A voice is heard from the truck.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I’m injured, fucking Christ,” someone shouts, a young voice. “Help me, please.”
Ricardo is holding the Calico in one hand and the .38 in the other. He puts away the revolver, goes straight to the front of the truck and, without even opening the door, unleashes one burst, then another, then a third – a dull sound, like explosions in a feather pillow – although the first burst is enough to reduce the door to splinters, shear the driver’s body in two and blow his companion’s face off.
Ursula looks through her binoculars, smells the powder, the sweat, the blood. She thinks about the danger, the money, and Diego – we don’t know if in that order or in some other sequence – and she thinks again that Ricardo can’t be free, that something is going wrong in the world. She puts her hand into her overcoat, touches her own .38.
Antinucci, two hundred yards away, puts the grenade launcher on the back seat and lights another cigarette, this time inside the car. He looks around: the street is deserted, just as they agreed. He smiles and strokes the roof of his Audi.
In front of Antinucci, another two hundred yards away, Ricardo turns ninety degrees and walks up to the back of the armoured vehicle. He stops, waits for a few seconds. Inside there is movement, a voice, a complaint.
“Don’t shoot. Jesus! Please don’t shoot.”
The door opens and a man appears, comes out with his hands up, his face covered in blood. A large portion of his scalp is missing.
“Please don’t shoot.”
9.29 a.m.
The Hobo looks at the man and then at the Calico. He hesitates for a moment before taking the .38 from his pocket; then he aims and fires four times and the guard falls to the ground, his face spattered with his own brains.
With minimal variations, he repeats the operation with the guard lying on the floor of the vehicle, a man who was probably already dead, to judge by his condition, which it is probably best not to describe. Ricardo again turns ninety degrees and faces the Nissan. He shouts.
“The bags, load up the bags. Now.”
He gestures towards the place where the Skinflint should be but there’s nobody there because the Skinflint has disappeared.
“Skinflint, you cunt! Where the fuck are you?”
The Hobo’s shouts blare out like the horn of an ocean liner. He looks at the Toyota, runs over to it. Diego sees his shadow growing larger against the glass, and at the same time he feels his nausea rising. He looks at the Hobo, hears him shout.
“Where the fuck has the Skinflint gone?”
“I saw him. He just ran off round the corner.”
“That son of a goddamn fuckin bitch. Bring the truck, back it up and help me load the bags.”
Diego interrupts whatever it is he is thinking about. He swallows, obeys. He looks eastwards; a few yards away some dogs are fighting over a bone or a piece of plastic, barking and nipping at each other. His gaze sweeps down the road and comes to rest at the corner, on a truck that has been parked there since last night, and his facial muscles slacken slightly.
He turns on the engine and reverses up to the armoured vehicle. He gets out of the van – leaving the engine on and the back door open, as agreed – then looks again to the east, to the corner with Moreras, and gives a small signal, almost imperceptible, with his thumb. He feels panic again, thinks about prison, tries to expunge the memory, but the thought returns. Prison. He imagines the sirens, the patrol cars surrounding him, hands pushing him to the floor, boots against his ribs. He struggles to breathe, tries to fill his lungs. He’s panting like a dog. He takes out a pill and puts it in his mouth. On legs that have turned to jelly, he walks over to Ricardo.
Antinucci, sitting in position two hundred yards away with his binoculars, is watching Ricardo, saw the Skinflint escape without being able to do anything to stop him, curses the fact that he doesn’t have more people, keeps Diego in sight. He curses his employees, these low-life idiots, wishes he could just kill the lot of them. He turns his head and sees the grenade launcher on the back seat.
The initial fire of the explosion is going out. Just over a minute has passed since the explosion, the longest minute of Diego’s life. In this situation, we imagine being a minister or a banker wouldn’t have done him much good, he’d be just as screwed, or almost. Diego and the Hobo get into the back of the truck. There’s a third man lying on the floor: he’s very young, moaning with pain, his thigh bone seems to be broken and his leg is at a weird unnatural angle. He’s badly burned, he has no eyebrows or lashes. The Hobo takes aim.
“No, no,” Diego shouts over the report of four shots. The young man opens and closes his mouth and falls silent, his eyes wide, his gaze directed at the roof of the truck. Ricardo loads the first bag and looks at Diego. The smile is so forced that it terrifies him.
“Hurry up. There’s more cash than we thought.”
“Why did you shoot him? He couldn’t even move. You could just have taken his gun.”
“Sooner or later he would have fingered us. Why do you care what I do? Shut up and help load the cash. I’m in charge here, your job is to follow orders. Skinflint is gonna pay for this, that son of a bitch.”
“How many bags should we take?”
“As many as we can, you retard. It’s a whole night’s casino takings, millions and millions.”
Ricardo passes the first bag to Diego, who carries it with some effort, then two more, and another two; all of them end up in the back of the Toyota. Ricardo shouts and gives orders as if he was alone in the world. And so it seems, because nobody who lives on the street has dared show their face.
Ursula, on the corner, fingers the revolver in her pocket, her frown looking more tense than it did a few minutes ago, then emerges from her hiding place and starts to walk towards the cash truck.
Antinucci has just grabbed the grenade launcher from the back seat and got out of the Audi. He loads another projectile and can no longer contain his desire to shoot again; he weighs up the situation, aims the RPG-7.
Inevitably, some of the residents start to look, to appear at windows and doors. Ricardo sees a toothless woman who has just stuck her head out from behind a grimy curtain, and takes aim.
“What you lookin at, you halfwit? You want me to rub you out like the other one?”
The woman goes back inside, a hand draws the curtain and disappears, we hear a door closing behind her, the noise of a deadbolt.
They grab two more bags. Time is running out.
“Hobo, we’ve got to split. There’s no time.”
“I already told you, I give the orders,” Ricardo shouts, spitting out the words, spattering Diego with saliva, his own face contorted by rage, adrenaline or coke.
Crocodile Tears Page 12