“Jose, it’s me.”
“Hey, what state did you wake up in, my boy?” the woman asked, and he felt she at least was cheerful.
“Best forgotten, but it was a good birthday party, wasn’t it? How’s the beast?”
“Still not up.”
“Some people are so lucky.”
“Hey, what’s up? Where you calling from?”
He sighed and looked back out at the street before replying. The sun in the blue sky was still beating down. It was a made-to-measure Saturday, two days before he’d closed a currency fraud case in which the endless questioning had exhausted him, and he’d intended to sleep in every morning till Monday. And then that man went missing.
“From my incubator, Jose,” he complained, referring to his tiny office. “They got me up early. There’s no justice for the just, my dear, I swear there ain’t.”
“So you won’t be coming for lunch?”
“I don’t think so. But what’s that I can smell down the telephone?”
The woman smiled. She’s always laughing, great.
“Your loss, my boy.”
“Something special?”
“No, nothing special but really delicious. Get this: I cooked the
“Just my fucking luck, Jose,” he replied, feeling his battered gut realigning. He was mad about big meals, would die for a menu like that and knew Josefina was preparing the meal especially for him and for Skinny and that he’d have to miss it. “Hey, I don’t want to talk to you no more. Put Skinny on the line, wake him up, get him up, the skunky drunk…”
“Tell me the company you keep…” Josefina laughed and put the telephone down. He’d known her for twenty years and never seen her look defeated or resigned even in the worst of times. The Count admired and loved her, sometimes much more tangibly than his own mother, with whom he’d never identified or trusted as he’d trusted the mother of Skinny Carlos who was no longer skinny.
“Go on, say something,” said Skinny, and his voice sounded thick and sticky, as horrible as his must have sounded when the Boss woke him up.
“I’m going to get rid of your hangover,” announced Mario with a smile.
“Fuck, that would be handy, because I feel wiped out. Hey, you brute, never another one like last night, I swear on your mother.”
“Got a headache?”
“It’s the only thing that’s not aching,” replied Skinny. He never got a headache, and Mario knew that: he could drink any amount of alcohol at any time, mix sweet wine, rum and beer and drop down drunk, but his head never ached.
“Well, I just wanted to say… I got a call this morning.”
“From work?”
“I got a call this morning from work,” the Count continued, “to put me on an urgent case. Someone’s disappeared.”
“You’re kidding, what? Baby Jane gone missing again?”
“Joke on, my friend, this will kill you. The man who disappeared is none other than a chief executive with a rank of deputy minister and is a friend of yours. By the name of Rafael Morin Rodriguez.” A long silence. Right between the eyes, he thought. He didn’t even say “fucking hell”. “Skinny?”
“Fucking hell. What’s happened?”
“What I said, he’s disappeared, gone off the map, AWOL, nobody knows where he is. Tamara made a statement on the night of the first, and the prick’s still missing.”
“And nobody’s got a clue?” Expectation grew with each question, and the Count imagined the look on his friend’s face, and as Skinny’s cries of shock crescendoed he managed to tell him what he knew about the Rafael Morin case. “And what you goin’ to do now?” asked Skinny after taking in the information.
“Follow routine. I’ve not had no brainwaves as yet. Question people, the usual, who knows?”
“Hey, and is it Rafael’s fault you’re not coming for lunch?”
“Well, while we’re on that subject, tell Jose to keep mine back and not to give it to the first hungry bastard passing through. I’ll be around yours as soon as I’m finished.”
“Keep me informed, right?”
“Will do. As you can imagine, I’ll soon be seeing Tamara. Do I give her your regards?”
“And congratulations, because the New Year’s begun with new life. Hey, you wild animal, tell me if the twin’s as juicy as ever. I’ll be expecting you tonight.”
“Hey, hey,” rapped the Count. “When the haze lifts, put your mind to this mess and we’ll talk later.”
“What do you think I’m going to do? What else will I have to think about? We’ll talk later.”
“Enjoy, my brother.”
“I’ll pass on the message to my old dear, brother,” said Skinny and hung up, and Mario thought life is shit.
Skinny Carlos is skinny no more, weighs over two hundred pounds, reeks of the sour smell of the obese, and fate had it in for him. When I first met him he was so skinny he looked as if he would snap in two at any moment. He sat down in front of me, next to Rabbit, not knowing that we’d occupy those three desks next to the window for the duration at high school. He had the sharpest of knives to sharpen pencil-points, and I said: “Skinny, old pal, lend me the blade you got there” and from then on I called him Skinny, although I could never have imagined he would be my best friend and that one day he’d no longer be skinny.
Tamara sat two rows in front of Rabbit, and nobody knew why they’d put her twin sister in another group, given they came from the same school, were the same age and shared the same surnames and prettiest of faces. But we felt happy enough because Aymara and Tamara were so alike we’d probably never have told one from the other. When Skinny and I fell in love with Tamara we almost stopped being friends, but along came Rafael to put us straight: she was to be neither Skinny’s nor mine. Rafael declared his love to Tamara, and they were an item within two months of the start of term, the kind that stick together like limpets at break and chat for twenty minutes, holding hands, looking deep into each other’s eyes and so far from the madding crowd that they’d snog shamelessly. I could have killed them.
But Skinny and I are still friends, are still in love with her and shared our frustration by wishing all manner of evil upon Rafael: from a broken leg upwards. And when we felt really down, we’d imagine we’d become the boyfriends of Tamara and Aymara – it didn’t matter then who got who, although we both always loved Tamara, for some reason or other, as they were both very beautiful – and we’d marry and live in houses as alike as the twin sisters: everything identical, one next to the other. And as we got flustered, we’d sometimes get the wrong house and sister, and Aymara’s husband would be with Tamara and vice versa, and thus we consoled ourselves and had a great time, and we’d have boy twins, born on the same day – four at a time – and the doctors, who were also flustered and so on, would get the mothers and children mixed up and say: two to that bed and two to the other and as they grew up together they sucked on the teat of whichever mother was nearby and then always got the wrong house. We spent hours talking about such shit, until the kids grew up and married a quadruplet of girls who were equally identical and it was a big fucking hoot, until Josefina got home from work and turned down the radio, I don’t see how you can stand that racket all day, she’d protest, hell, you’ll go deaf, but she’d make us milkshakes – sometimes mango, sometimes strawberry, if not chocolate.
Skinny was still skinny the last time we played at marrying the twins. We were in the third year at high school. He was Dulcita’s boyfriend and Cuqui had already fallen out with me when Tamara announced to the class that she and Rafael were getting married and that they were inviting us all to the party at her place – and although they had fantastic parties there, we swore we wouldn’t go. That night we had our first memorable binge: at the time a quart of rum could be too much for us, and Josefina had to wash us down, give us a spoonful of belladonna to cope with
