Saint Death

by Marcus Sedgwick

  Faustino leans across and grabs the door handle, slamming it, shutting himself in. He waves Arturo away.

  The two men are getting nearer; they may not be anyone, but there is no way of telling.

  So Arturo goes.

  FIRST GAME

  Arturo finds El Alacrán all too easily; it is a jumping wolf pit in an otherwise shadow-laden and empty street. Opposite is a shop that used to repair things, but it’s derelict and half the sign has fallen off, making it impossible to know what those things were. A barber’s stands next to that, and a lady’s hairdresser. Every building is a squalid mixture of the half-built and semi-ruined, and yet life of a kind is here. Just an hour ago these places were still open for business; behind the bars of the barber’s a light shines, showing someone cleaning up.

  Down a side alley, Arturo hears a ruckus: the snarling and baying of men and hounds; a dog fight in full fray, but even that sound is almost drowned out by the noise from El Alacrán itself.

  Arturo tries to ignore the misgivings in his head, in his heart, and knows he will not be able to play until the trembling in his fingers has subsided. He tells himself that another drink will fix that, and without allowing himself to think further walks up to the two men on the door, remembering what Faustino told him to say.

  —I want to play. I have dollars.

  The two men look at him. They are perhaps less than ten years older than him, but they are dark gods with guns and easy brutality, and he is just Arturo. They don’t seem to care.

  One of them spreads his fingertips out on Arturo’s chest, barring his way.

  —Show us.

  Arturo pulls out the roll of dollars, hoping it looks more like hundreds than just seventy.

  The man nods.

  —Okay. ¿You packing?

  Arturo shakes his head, even before he wonders whether they count a knife as packing. And even before he can correct himself, they stand aside and Arturo finds he has walked inside, realizing that he must look just as puny as he actually is.

  It is dark. There are harsh lights on the walls that seem to do a better job of blinding than illuminating the room. Music is pumping from speakers fixed to the ceiling; angry and proud narcocorridas about the fantastic cop-killing exploits of some gang hero. There’s a long bar down the whole of one wall, on the end of which two girls are dancing, wearing only red bikinis and knee-high white boots. They pay more attention to each other than to the gaggle of men watching them. The place is packed, but as his eyes adjust, Arturo sees a bunch of tables at the far end of the place, and knows that calavera is being played there.

  He tries to be cool, pushing and squeezing past hot bodies on his way to the bar, where he buys a beer with some of the pesos Faustino gave him.

  —I wanna play—he tells the barman.

  The barman just points at the tables.

  —Go find an empty chair—he says.—And be lucky.

  * * *

  The room is full of narcos. As Arturo makes his way to the calavera tables, he sees men with the same tattoo that Faustino has, the two long Ls—Los Libertadores. This is their patch, they are home, it is Friday night. They appear relaxed; there is laughter and shouting, but it’s good-natured shouting. It’s not really much different from El Diván.

  That’s what Arturo tells himself as he gets to the tables. There are four of them. Three of them are packed, with six or seven guys seated around each one, and more standing, looking on, so Arturo goes to the fourth table, where there are only four men playing. There are two empty chairs.

  The men look up as Arturo stands over them. One of them is an oldish guy, stocky and bald. His sleeves are rolled up, there are no tattoos, which makes Arturo relax a little. The three younger guys meanwhile stare at Arturo, and with a touch of menace, but he cannot help that now. One of them is clearly green, new to the game: a pendejo just waiting to get burned; the second is a fat guy with a fat mustache and short, cropped hair that doesn’t entirely hide a thick scar across his skull. The third wears his thinning hair oiled back flat. His eyes don’t stop roving. It’s obvious he’s very nervous and trying to hide it by drinking frequently.

  The fat guy stares at Arturo, not hiding his contempt.

  —¿What do you want, kid?

  —I want to play calavera, and yes, I have dollars.

  The fat guy just stares back at Arturo, who acts as cool as he can, despite the eyes on him. There’s a clumsy moment, as all four stare at him, just stare.

  Arturo points at one of the empty seats.

  The bald guy nods.

  —Sure. If you can handle the stakes.

  ¿Can I handle the stakes? thinks Arturo, as he sits down.

  It’s a good question, he knows. It’s a very good question, but he cannot back out now and there is only one way to find out.

  The four men have just finished a hand. The sucker rakes the pile of dollars in, laughing at his good fortune.

  Arturo sees what they’re using as the calaverita: a small white stone that almost looks like the miniature skull it’s supposed to be.

  The stone sits in front of the older, bald guy, showing that he’s running the bank, and doesn’t seem fazed by a pile of his dollars heading into the pockets of the pendejo, at his right-hand side.

  The bald man holds the stone out across the table toward Arturo.

  —¿You want it?

  Of course, Arturo knows, it’s the custom when playing calavera to offer a newcomer to the table the chance to run the bank. He just had no idea they’d stick to such codes of conduct here.

  Arturo shakes his head quickly, and the three younger men laugh. The bald guy puts the stone back down in front of him, smiling.

  —Maybe later—he says, and Arturo doesn’t care that he’s smirking as he says it, because Arturo thinks, Yeah. You just keep thinking I’m some dumb pendejo. Keep thinking that and when I’ve won a stack of your dollars maybe I will take the bank. And then I’ll rob all of you.

  It’s only then that Arturo notices something. The pack of cards. It looks damn fat. It looks way too fat to be a single deck, and Arturo realizes with a sinking heart that they’re using two decks. Two decks. One of the reasons Arturo is so good at calavera is that he remembers the cards that have been played. That means that at any moment he has a slightly better chance of gambling well than the pendejos he plays with, the suckers who think it’s all down to luck. It evens up the slight advantage that the banker has by dealing his cards last, by knowing what’s been played before he makes his move. Arturo has only played with two decks once before. He didn’t like it.

  The bald man offers the first bank.

  —Let’s go easy on the kid—he says.—Twenty dollars.

  The fat guy, who’s sitting to his left, nods and slides his twenty across the table. So does the guy with the nervous eyes.

  Then it’s Arturo; he nods and slides two tens out; finally the sucker shows he wants in too, and puts his money on the table.

  The music is thumping as two cards come down to each of them and Arturo thinks, Please, please, please, and then he knows it’s going to be a good night, because he’s been dealt a nine, straight off.

  —Calavera—he says calmly, just loud enough to be heard over the din. He flips his cards over.

  The three young guys laugh and shove their cards into the center. The bald guy deals himself his banker’s hand and turns them: an eight.

  —Close—he says.—You’re a lucky kid. ¿Am I right?

  Arturo shrugs and pulls the hundred dollars over the table toward him.

  —Fifty dollars—announces the bald man, and again everyone goes in. It’s way more than Arturo wants to play at the moment, before he’s won some capital to work with. But he has no choice. He could sit the round out, of course, but then they’d know how little he brought with him in the first place, and then they’d know they could wipe him out fast.

  Luck is on Arturo’s side. He holds a four with his first two cards and when he takes the option
of a third he makes an eight, which wins. Including the seventy he showed up with, he now has in his hands three hundred and fifty dollars.

  They play another hand, and another, and after the fifth the nervous guy takes over the bank. Arturo has lost twice, won big once more. He holds just under five hundred dollars. It is more money than he has ever held in his life, way more money than he has ever even seen in his life. He’s winning. And yet, it is less than halfway toward what he needs. What Faustino needs.

  He knows he must hold his nerve. So far, he’s been coping with the two decks, an advantage that will only really kick in when enough hands have gone down. If he makes it that far, he’ll really have them where he wants them.

  He must hold his nerve, but halfway through the third of these hands he’d gotten scared. He sat on his five, when he should have drawn, but then five is the turning point in the game; the whole skill of calavera, the whole reason his memory of which cards have been played gives him an edge, is down to what you do on the five. He got scared, he sat, and he lost. Then he decided that he needed to forget they were playing with dollars. Midway through the next deal he decided to tell himself they were playing with pesos. He tries to imagine that the twenty-dollar notes in front of him are hundred-peso notes instead. On the hundred-peso note, Arturo knows, is the image of Nezahualcoyotl, philosopher and warrior king. He stares at the dead American president in front of him. His name reads “Jackson.” Arturo has no idea who he is, and tries hard to turn him into the ancient ruler of Tetzcoco instead.

  They play on, with the pendejo now holding the bank. Arturo’s strategy seems to be working. He sips at the bottle of beer, making sure not to slug it down, telling himself not to drink so fast he loses his edge, not to drink so little they know he’s trying to avoid paying for another.

  The pendejo is a terrible banker, makes some stupid decisions, and gets himself cleaned out, something everyone could see coming. Arturo watches it happen with a sick feeling in his stomach, and delight too. It occurs so easily, so quickly. He’s seen it many times, the recklessness, the desperation, the hasty gamble on a hunch. Frustration making an idiot of someone. The pendejo started throwing down crazy amounts for the bank, lost three times and was cleaned out.

  Arturo lost a couple of times too, but despite the fact that working with two decks is frying his brain, he now sits on seven hundred and ten dollars. It’s going well. All he needs to do is to keep his cool, not make any rash bets, and edge his total up to the thousand. And the second he has a thousand, he’s walking. Unlike the pendejo, he’s not stupid, he doesn’t take risks, and that’s why he wins at calavera.

  Then, the world shakes and everything falls apart. There’s been a crowd of people watching them play, just like at the other tables. Arturo hasn’t looked at them once, he’s just been concentrating on his game, and people have come and gone, but then, without warning and without knowing why, he looks up and sees a face staring at him.

  The face has tattoos covering it. They are the double L, interlocked across from his left cheek to his right, across his nose. It’s the narco who took Gabriel earlier today, whose fingertip Arturo can still feel pressing into his forehead, and he’s standing right behind the bald guy.

  He holds Arturo’s gaze for a moment, expressionless. There’s a break in the music, silence fills the room. Arturo doesn’t even hear the chatter that’s going on all around him. He just stares at the narco, unable to look away. The bald guy is waiting for Arturo to play, and turns to see who he’s looking at.

  —¡Hey!—he says, his face brightening.—¡Raúl!

  They clasp their arms together, wrapping their forearms around each other and holding hands briefly. They know each other well, it’s clear.

  And then the narco, Raúl, says—¡Hey, Eduardo! ¿How’s it going? ¿Is El Carnero winning?

  Arturo freezes, hoping he misheard, hoping he didn’t really hear what he just did.

  El Carnero. Raúl called him El Carnero. O God. O Jesus fucking God.

  El Carnero is asking Raúl something.

  —¿You finished?—he says, and Raúl nods, grinning, and Arturo sees the traces of blood at his wrists, fresh blood, as the music comes back on, raging and drilling music that wants to be let loose on the world and do harm.

  The bald guy, El Carnero, turns to the game again.

  —¿You in?—he shouts across to Arturo, who nods, hardly able to breathe, let alone think. He is playing calavera with the man who will kill Faustino unless he can take a thousand dollars off him by the end of the night.

  Standing right behind him is the narco who abducted Gabriel from Anapra that morning.

  Arturo plays, but he cannot think straight. He drinks quickly, he cannot keep track of the two decks anymore. And he begins to lose.

  * * *

  Most Holy Death

  The favors that you grant me

  Will make me overcome any troubles that come my way

  And help me see that nothing is impossible.

  Not treacherous obstacles, not one enemy,

  Nor let one person harm me.

  Let only friends come into my path,

  And let my business flourish,

  And let everything I do flourish.

  Fill my house with riches,

  And protect those riches with your power.

  Most Holy Death,

  In your name, I beseech you,

  Bring me from all harm.

  * * *

  CALAVERA

  The bar roils. All across the room, unbridled emotions beat their drum, louder than the modern electric, synthetic drums of the narco-corridas. The drums that beat underneath are older; immeasurably ancient and much more powerful. The girls on the bar move their bodies. Men watch them. Other men roar and tip tequila or beer down their throats and, slapping each other on the back, they laugh. In one corner, a dispute between two men threatens to erupt and one grabs the other by the neck of his shirt. The barman nods to the thugs on the door who keep an eye on it but do not move, and in the far corner, at the card tables, Arturo plays cards for Faustino’s life.

  Here, the world bends around a small stone that represents a bone. The calaverita resides once more at the fingertips of El Carnero. It is the skull bone of history; it comes from the skeleton of a long and as yet unended story about violence and death, where, atop this skeleton, sits the calavera itself: the skull after which the card game is named. We all have a deep desire, a deep need, to ignore what is happening here. We do so in order that we can go on, day after day, but this is our future we are so very keen not to look at, and it rolls toward us, regardless of whether we choose to look away.

  At least, here, tonight in Chaveña, in El Alacrán, the truth of the world is closer to the surface, easier to see. Death is the totem that the bar dances to, and nothing is taboo.

  It is at this moment, as the fathers and mothers of Mexico decompose in long-forgotten and frequently unmarked graves, that El Carnero puts down a bank of a hundred dollars.

  —¿Who’s in?

  There are just the four of them left. The pendejo is long gone, away to whatever it is awaiting him, leaving El Carnero, the fat man with the fat scar, the nervous guy, and Arturo.

  Arturo hesitates.

  He looks up and sees that Raúl is talking to El Carnero. He cannot hear what’s being said over the noise of the bar, but he sees the narco look at him from time to time, and knows he is being spoken of.

  Arturo looks down at the money in his fist, held just under the edge of the table. Then he goes in, putting down two fifty-dollar notes, distracted, disarmed.

  The cards come down.

  He gets a four. He takes another card and gets a ten. The hundred dollars goes with the rest to El Carnero’s pile.

  Another bank of a hundred.

  —¿Who’s in?

  This time he sits on a six and loses to the nervous guy’s natural calavera.

  Five of his twenties disappear across the table.

 
He knows the cards have left him. It happens this way and when it happens, it’s time to stop and walk away. In his hands he holds three hundred and forty dollars. He should leave now and take what he has to Faustino. Maybe it’s enough. Maybe somehow they can find the rest before tomorrow night. He should walk away, but just moments ago he had so much more. He wants it back.

  —¿Who’s in?

  Arturo sees that El Carnero has put down another bank of a hundred.

  He nods and slides five more twenties into the center of the table.

  The cards come down, and Arturo thinks, Please, please, please, and—

  —¡Calavera! yells the nervous guy, who’s looking less nervous by the minute. A second natural in a row and Arturo knows for sure that that is where the cards have gone, that is where the luck has gone, and that he should walk away.

  —¿Who’s in?—asks El Carnero, and Arturo nods and he’s waiting for his cards to come down when he becomes aware that everyone is looking at him, staring, waiting. The guy with the scar on his right nudges him.

  It takes him a moment to realize why. Arturo has already slid his hundred into the middle of the table, but then he sees that the bank is not one hundred. It’s two. They’re trying to wipe him out. He has just two hundred and forty dollars left. He slides the two hundred across the table and after him the cholo tosses his money onto the pile with a sneer on his face and then, just for a moment, Arturo shuts his eyes.

  Calavera, the skull. The symbol of all our vanity. We dress and we preen and we strive and we love and we fight and we cry and we hurt and we love again and we undress and dress again and we are proud and afraid and jealous, we are oh so jealous and more than that we are afraid, afraid, we are terrified and yet something keeps us going, something that keeps us moving in spite of everything, but that something…? That something is vanity itself.

  For the skull does not care. The skull is what we all are, what we all will be and it is our equal and it makes us all equal, whether we are emperors or dogs in the gutter. The cards come down: a nine and a six and so, once more, Arturo holds a five.