Muerte

Mar 27, 2011 02:29

by postmodernpippo



Gaby is at the university because the third victim, the youngest, was a student. When he questions the man’s classmates the fourteenth one he sees is Leo. Leo tells him nothing; he doesn’t know anything. But as he leaves, shifting his books under his arm, he says, “I could help you, you know.”

Gaby looks at him for a while, “All right” he replies.

Two nights later and they are in a bar in the centre. Gaby drinks American beer and tells Leo about the case. “It takes five,” he says “to be a serial killer,” he turns the Marlboro packet against the top of the table. He’s scared, scared they won’t catch him before it’s five.

“Are you sure it’s a he?” says Leo. He watches Gaby’s hands and wonders what it would feel like to run his fingers along his forearms. When he tries it Gaby smiles at him. What Leo really wants to do is brush his mouth against the other man’s skin, just above his elbow, but he doesn’t dare.

Gaby walks Leo back to his apartment, kisses him outside the door but doesn’t come in. “So?” says Leo’s flatmate as they lie on the bed, watching a girl with bunches solve a murder. Leo shrugs,

“He’s either very gallant or he’s not interested.”

“I’m sure it’s a good sign. What about you, are you interested?”

“Oh yes,” says Leo, drinking another agua fresca “I’m definitely interested.”

The man passes the key over without a word. “Do you come here a lot?” asks Leo as Gaby opens a door

“I bring people here to talk,” he says “Not to…” He leans down and kisses Leo as he sits on the bed. When he puts his gun on the bedside table, he sees Leo’s eyes following it “It’s all right,” he says “the safety catch is on.”

He stands the other man up, “Let’s have a look at you,” he says, smoothing his hair down and then holding Leo’s face in his hands and kissing him hard.

“Do you treat your informants like this?” asks Leo, his face against Gaby’s neck.

“Informants” repeats Gaby and then he laughs “Only the lucky ones,” and begins to undo Leo’s belt without even looking.

Gaby rings when he can, at odd times. He warns Leo to be careful, and Leo says, “I’m not going to pick up other people, I’m not like that. God, you aren’t, are you?”

One afternoon they go back to Leo’s room. He’s changed his bedclothes and tidied up, stacking his books in the corner. He leans into Gaby, kissing him, not letting him go. Gaby moves back against Leo’s arms, smoothing his fingers around his face. “Don’t you want to do anything else, except kiss like a teenager?” he says, “I want to do something else.”

Leo bites Gaby’s shoulder, his hands circling on the other man’s damp skin. He can feel the sun coming through the light coloured blind and hear the children shouting in the street below. Gaby swears softly in his ear and Leo thinks this is it, this is being happy.

“So pale,” he says, kissing the palm of Gaby’s hand. “Beautiful.” Gaby sniffs behind him and buries his head further in between Leo’s shoulders.

Drowsing on the settee, Leo watches the match on TV, yesterday‘s international, and listens to the two brothers talk. Sebastian thinks it’s a gangster, a paid killer. “No,” says Gaby “the victims aren’t connected, except they’re all young. I think it’s some psycho.”

“Could be the same thing,” says Sebastian, leaning over to stub his cigarette out, “You’d have to be a psycho to be a hitman.” Leo starts to snore and Sebastian says, “This kid, Gaby, is he all right?”

“I hope so. I like him.”

“He’s no looker though is he?” and he laughs as his brother says

“Well, he is to me.”

The time that Gaby thinks that there is a fourth victim he turns up at Leo’s house in the middle of the night. Leo feels someone get into his bed, who smells of cigarettes and something like orange, so he puts his arm around the man and pulls him down.

When he wakes Gaby is next to him, with only the sheet bunched around his waist, talking on his mobile phone. “Not ours,” he says “a domestic, not our boy.”

They lie on the mats over the tiled floor, with the windows open and even then it is only just bearable. Leo watches the smoke curl up to the frosted glass roof. Gaby lies with his head on his hands, his hair dark with sweat. “One of my father’s friends has this story,” he says.

“He was fighting in the war, in the Malvinas. He wasn’t a very good soldier and he and his friends were captured very quickly. They were putting them into a helicopter and one of the men wouldn’t go, he didn’t speak English, they didn’t speak Spanish, everyone was shouting and my dad’s friend thought they’d all get shot.”

Gaby is drinking the agua frescas he bought for Leo; it’s too hot for beer.

“Luckily they found an officer who spoke German and my dad’s friend translated. The man said to him, ”Tell them to shoot me, I want to die standing up.” The officer got very annoyed and said no one was going to be shot, they were just moving them to the other side of the island. The man refused, said he wanted to die like a soldier although he wasn’t one. He thought they were going to throw them out of the helicopter, because of what happened here, in the 70s, in the dirty war.”

Leo puts his head on Gaby’s chest, “Did they shoot him?” he asks.

“I suppose not,” says Gaby, “or they would have shot my dad’s friend as well.”

Leo runs his hand along Gaby’s stomach. “I don’t know,” he says “ I wasn’t even born when the war ended.” Then “Let’s go to bed.” But neither of them move, though Gaby covers Leo’s hand with his own.

Gaby’s nails scratch Leo’s back and it’s going to leave a mark, “Do that again,” says Leo, “harder.”

One night Gaby rings. “I won’t be around for a few days,” he says, “Don’t worry,” but he doesn’t explain or say anything else apart from “What is that racket? It’s that dodgy tango music again isn't it? I’ve never met anyone else who actually listens to that stuff.”

It’s three days before Gaby rings again, and Leo can imagine him bouncing on the balls of his feet, the way he does when he’s excited. He says they’ve arrested someone.

“How did you catch him?” asks Leo, barefoot on the cold kitchen tiles in his underpants.

“The usual way, a reward always works.”

“Do you know why?”

“For luck. If he killed six people, San La Muerte would give him good luck. I hate all that religious gangster shit. These people kill and they expect God to forgive them.”

Leo changes hands “San La Muerte, that’s not God, that’s a lot older, that’s Death. They’re worshiping Death.”

“As well they might,” says Gaby. There’s a pause and then he asks “Too late to come over?”

Gaby opens the door in a towel and Leo sits on the edge of the bath watching him shave. “Let’s go out,” he says wiping foam from Gaby’s face. “Somewhere Italian.”

Gaby doesn’t talk much in the street, but he puts his arm across Leo’s shoulders, pulling him close. Leo takes his hand and kisses the back of it, lacing his fingers with Gaby’s. “Beautiful,” he says, again.

author: postmodernpippo, club: newell's old boys, player: lionel messi, player: gabriel heinze

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