by Dan Smith
‘Costa wouldn’t be too happy about that,’ I said.
Luis shrugged. ‘Then we’re stuck, aren’t we? We can’t hurt you; you can’t hurt us. So what are we—’
He stopped mid-sentence as Antonio grabbed him from behind. One hand came around to slap against Luis’s forehead and tip his head back, then another came from the other side to put a blade to his exposed throat.
‘Drop the pistol.’ Antonio put his mouth close to Luis’s ear and spoke in a quiet whisper.
Luis didn’t attempt to struggle. He remained perfectly still except for the movement required to open his fingers and drop his pistol into the dust. It landed with a dull thump and Antonio kicked it towards me.
‘What do you want me to do with him?’ Antonio asked.
Luis swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple rising and falling against the taut skin of his throat. When it moved, it came close to the gleaming blade of Antonio’s knife.
‘Let him go.’ I kicked the pistol further along the alley so it was out of reach.
‘You sure?’ Antonio asked.
I’m sure.’ I nodded. ‘Just go, Antonio, you don’t need to be part of this.’
Antonio hesitated, turning to look at Luis, their faces close together. Then he nodded to me, withdrew his knife and moved away.
Luis turned to stare at him.
He didn’t speak. He just stared.
‘I’ll be all right,’ I told Antonio. ‘You can go. I’ll see you later.’ I still had the knife at Wilson’s throat, my knuckles white as I gripped the handle.
‘Come with me,’ Antonio said. ‘We’ll leave together.’
I stayed as I was for a moment, then released Wilson and stepped back. I stared at him, seeing the face of the first person I had ever killed. I had another glimpse of Sofia as I last saw her, and I knew that both Luis and Wilson deserved my blade just like the others had deserved it.
‘You should go now,’ Luis said.
I turned slowly and pushed past him, heading out of the alley, swallowing the rage brought on by my helplessness.
‘Oh, and I went to Batista’s this morning,’ he said as I stepped out into the street. ‘Lost you your job, but I probably did you a favour. If it weren’t for me, you’d be shovelling shit on the pig farm right about now.’
‘But instead, you’re in a different kind of shit.’ Wilson laughed at his own joke. ‘You and your girlfriend, eh?’
I left without another word.
Antonio collected his plastic bag of beer cans and walked alongside me as we returned to the store, asking, ‘Do you want me to hang around a while? I can—’
‘I’m fine,’ I told him. ‘Thanks for helping but you need to stay away from those men.’
‘I can handle myself,’ he said.
‘I reckon you can. Thanks for your help.’
‘Anytime.’ He shrugged and grinned, showing me the gaps in his teeth. ‘Hey. You want to come drink a beer?’ He lifted the bag to show me the cans perspiring against the plastic.
‘Sure. I’ll meet you back at Juliana’s. There’s something I need to do first.’
‘I can wait.’
‘No, you go on. I’ll catch you up in a while.’
‘My place?’ he said, starting to move away.
‘Your place,’ I agreed.
As I watched him go, swinging the bag, my mind was filled with a dust storm of cruel images and thoughts fighting for attention. I kept seeing my sister Sofia, cold and violated, but I didn’t want to remember her like that. Not like that. So I tried to picture the day we had sat on the hillside and watched the sea. The day we talked about what we would do if we could get onto one of the ships and sail away to find somewhere better. It was always about finding somewhere better. Something better. Even now, that’s what I wanted. It’s what had brought me to Piratinga in the first place, and now maybe Costa’s money would give it to me. I just had to hold my nerve, do what he wanted, and then everything would be different.
Better.
5
Daniella and her mother were outside when I came back to the store. They were standing side by side watching me approach. Doña Eliana had her hands on her wide hips and she was shaking her head.
‘What was that?’ she asked as soon as I was close enough. ‘I saw you—’
‘It’s nothing,’ I told her.
‘I know what sort of man you are.’ Doña Eliana pointed a finger at me. ‘Never holding down a job, mixing with the wrong people. If I had any control over my daughter, she wouldn’t look at you twice.’
‘Shush, Mãe’ Daniella gave her mother a serious look before turning to me. ‘What’s going on, Zico? Who was that?’
‘No one. Just some guy who wants to cause trouble.’ I put my hands into my pockets so they wouldn’t see my fingers trembling as the aggression subsided.
‘You’re causing trouble.’ Doña Eliana pointed again.
‘Come inside.’ Daniella took my arm and turned to her mother. ‘And you stay here.’
‘Don’t keep disturbing my daughter when she’s working,’ Doña Eliana said, still watching me. ‘She’s busy.’
Daniella led me into the store, taking a can of Coke from the cooler and putting it down on the counter. She leaned back against the scratched plastic surface and crossed her arms over her chest. ‘You going to tell me what’s going on?’
On the counter beside her was a fashion magazine with dogeared pages, the paper soft and creased from the attention she’d given to things she could never afford. Things I could never afford to buy for her.
‘Some guy who owes me money,’ I told her. ‘Look, I don’t want to talk about it; it’s not important.’
Daniella’s hair was tied back in a loose ponytail and secured with a pink rubber band. She was lighter skinned than I was – canela we called it – a rich cinnamon colour against my darker chocolate, but Daniella loved the beach, so she lay in the sun until she was almost the same colour as me. Doña Eliana hated that – they were shopkeepers, she said, not peasants.
Like mine, Daniella’s hair was brown and nondescript, but while mine was cut short for convenience, she had dyed hers a shade lighter and allowed it to tint in the sun with an underlying darkness of its natural colour. It looked good against her skin tone and emphasised her honey-coloured eyes that watched me from beneath dark lashes. Her cheekbones were high, giving her a good smile when she showed it, and hidden beneath a thin layer of cheap make-up, her skin was faintly marked with the spots of her youth. Her temperament could swing both ways, from calm to storm in a flash, but the calm always made it worth riding out the storm.
The old man told me if you want to know what a woman is going to look like when she grows older, take a look at her mother, but it was hard to believe Daniella would ever turn out like the woman sitting outside on the plastic chair. Doña Eliana was like a diseased tree. A husk of what it once was. Rotten on the inside and gnarled on the outside.
‘Your mother hates me,’ I said. ‘She thinks I’m worse than a dog.’
‘My mother hates everyone.’ Daniella shrugged. ‘I think she even hates herself.’
‘But she hates me most of all. Should I be honoured?’ I turned the magazine to look at the face of a model wearing too much make-up. ‘She said you’re busy. This is what she meant? Busy reading beauty magazines? You don’t need them.’
Daniella smiled and I moved closer, putting my arm around her waist, pulling her to me and kissing her lips.
Daniella glanced over at the door then returned the kiss, pulling my lower lip in her own as she broke away. She pushed the magazine out of the way and turned to lean her forearms on the counter, cracking open the Coke and taking a sip.
‘You have a good time last night?’ I asked.
‘At Kaiana’s? Yeah.’ She swallowed and put a hand to her brow. ‘Feeling a little fuzzy.’
‘You drank too much? Meet anyone?’
Daniella smiled. ‘Manuela met a man. He was nice, I suppose. Good-looking. Maybe I
could have fancied him for myself.’ She watched for my reaction.
‘Well, I know what you’re like when you’re drinking with your friends. I’ve seen the way you flirt.’
‘You jealous?’
‘Should I be?’
Daniella fluttered her eyelashes at me. ‘I only have eyes for you, Zico.’
‘Good. So who was he?’ I took the Coke and drank, the bubbles fizzing around my teeth.
‘Some guy.’ She shrugged, deciding not to tease me further. ‘I don’t know. Passing through, maybe. He seemed OK, though.’
‘They always do.’
‘Don’t worry, they’re never as handsome as you. Not my Zico.’ She pulled a sympathetic face and stroked my cheek as if I were a child. ‘All my friends think so, too.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ I brushed her hand away and we looked at each other for a moment.
‘So why aren’t you at work?’ She straightened and removed the rubber band from her hair. She combed her fingers through it, revealing the darker strands growing beneath the blond.
‘That job,’ I said. ‘You can’t ask a man to do something like that. Shovelling—’
‘You lost your job, Zico? Again?’ She scraped her hair tight, tying the rubber band back in place, then taking another sip of the Coke. ‘What happened this time?’
‘I was late.’
‘Late? Why were you late?’
I couldn’t tell her about Costa, so I just shrugged and raised my eyebrows.
‘Oh, Zico.’ She picked up the magazine and slapped my shoulder with it before putting it down again. She lowered her voice and came closer. ‘How are we ever going to get a place of our own if we don’t have enough money?’
‘I’ll find other work,’ I said.
‘Where? Where is there other work? You lost so many jobs already. In the six months we’ve been together, how many jobs have you had, Zico?’
‘You sound like your mother.’
‘Screw you.’
‘And there’s always the old man.’
‘He pays less than anybody.’
‘At least it’s money.’
‘And he hardly ever works these days.’
‘I’ll find something.’ I reached out to touch her, pull her close. ‘I’ll find something, I promise.’
I held her to me, putting my hand on the back of her head and pressing her into me, before kissing her again. I didn’t care if her mother was watching us. Right then I wanted to be with Daniella more than I wanted anything else in the world. And that feeling was one of the only two things stopping me from leaving this town.
‘You’d better go,’ Daniella said, looking over my shoulder to where her mother’s small, squat silhouette was standing in the doorway. ‘We’re closing for lunch.’
‘Sure.’ I counted out a couple of notes onto the counter and took four cans of Skol from the fridge. ‘I owe a man a drink,’ I said, thinking about Antonio waiting for me. The least I could do was buy him a beer.
I drained the Coke in a long, fizzy gulp that made my eyes water. ‘Can I see you later?’
‘Not today.’ She tilted her head towards the door. ‘Mãe made me promise to go to Valdenora’s this evening.’
‘You know she’s trying to set you up with her idiot son, don’t you?’ I whispered.
‘Valdenora’s?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘If you don’t get another job, maybe I might think about it,’ she said with a smile.
I left the store feeling a little better for having seen Daniella. She had a good effect on me. But the shadow hadn’t finished yet. It still had more to show me.
6
The smell of blood leaked out on the warm air as soon as I opened the door.
The room was much like my own, except Antonio had not lived here long enough to make it a home. The only furniture was the unmade bed and a small chest of drawers with an open can of beer on it. There was a page from a magazine on the wall – a picture of a dark woman with naked breasts – and beside the door there was a pair of flip-flops and the same plastic bag he had been carrying when I last saw him. The beer cans were still in it.
Antonio was slumped in the far corner of the room, beneath the shuttered windows. His legs were extended in front of him and his arms were splayed to either side as if he had come home drunk and collapsed there. He was not resting, though.
He was dead.
His head was tipped back so his face was angled towards the ceiling, and his throat was open, punctured with a sharp knife. It wasn’t cut from side to side, but had been pierced. Antonio’s murderer had slipped the narrow blade of a knife in and out, the same as I had seen Batista do to the pigs on his farm.
Already the room was filling with flies, buzzing in their frenzied delight.
The front of Antonio’s shirt was dark with blood that still glistened in the slats of sunlight cutting through the shutters. It had pooled around the place where he sat, collecting in a large puddle on the concrete floor. Small particles of dust had alighted on the surface of what was left of Antonio’s life.
I remained at the door and stared at the body, feeling my anger rise as the shadow wrapped itself around me. However much I tried to turn my back on it, death was always there. Always. It was there in the shape of Luis and Wilson. It grinned at me from Costa’s eyes as he tricked me with his clever words. And it was in my heart, desperate for release.
I had hardly known Antonio, but he had come to my aid when he thought I needed it, and this was the fate he earned for himself. When he had needed my help, though, I had not been here, just as I had not been there for Sofia when she had needed me.
I closed my eyes and tried to crush the feelings that threatened to fill me, but all I could see was Luis and Wilson, coming into this building, to this door. I saw them knock and force their way in. I saw them push and punch and I saw Antonio’s fear grow as he realised he was alone.
I felt his fear now. It welled up inside me like a paralysing drug as Luis drew his knife and raised it to Antonio’s throat.
Only it wasn’t Antonio now, it was Sofia. My sister. She was the one who was dying. She was calling for my help. Terrified and alone, she was pleading for me to help her, but there was nothing I could do. She was gone. She was ...
I opened my eyes and shook the image away, trying to rid myself of the guilt that rose to mingle with the anger and fear. Blood was thumping in my ears, my whole body paralysed by those crippling feelings. And one thought pierced those emotions, just as the blade had pierced Antonio’s throat.
I wanted to punish whoever had done this.
‘Luis and Wilson,’ I said under my breath, and then I turned and headed back down the corridor.
I didn’t know where they were but it wouldn’t be difficult to find them. Killing a man the way they had killed Antonio was a messy business. His blood would be on their clothes, in their hair, between their toes. They would have had to go home to wash themselves.
I would find them.
*
The flick and slap of my flip-flops was hollow in the cool passage-way as I walked to the far end and descended the concrete stairs.
Letting myself into my room, I went to the lopsided chest of drawers and yanked out the bottom drawer. The old man had helped me build the piece of furniture using wood from the forest and ancient tools that he kept on his boat. The saw blades had been as black as the Devil’s heart from use and oil, but they worked well enough. The same couldn’t be said for our carpentry skills, and the wood had warped so now the drawer caught on the runners and came out in spasmodic jerks.
I put it to one side and reached into the vacant space to remove a bundle of oilcloth. I unrolled the cloth on the bed and looked at the two revolvers wrapped in oiled plastic bags. Taking the smaller pistol from its bag, I checked it was loaded, then slipped it into a slim nylon holster, which I clipped to the left side of my belt and hid beneath my shirt alongside a pouch containing a speed loader. The other revolver, this
one much larger, I rolled back into the cloth and put away before forcing the drawer back into place.
Sitting on the bed, I tried to gather my thoughts; to put some order to the guilt and anger. I was so filled with the need to punish Luis and Wilson that everything was muddled. The shadow had reached right around me and was shrouding my mind, confusing everything.
I put my head in my hands and tried to concentrate. I forced myself to think through the consequences of what I was about to do.
There was no doubt in my mind that Luis and Wilson deserved to die. Even before they had murdered Antonio, I knew they deserved it. And killing them would protect Daniella and the old man from them.
That was it. I had to protect them.
I stood and went to the door. I put my fingers on the handle.
I had to protect them.
I stopped.
For every Luis and Wilson, there were two more men Costa could call upon. Men who would be just as ruthless.
Daniella and Raul would not be safe. If anything, they would be in more danger. Costa would feel the need to make a point and he would know just how to do it.
Perhaps he would take one life to show me that the other was in need of saving.
For a moment, I imagined him driving the point home, giving me the chance to choose for myself. Raul or Daniella. Who would live and who would die?
I punched the door in frustration, then returned my revolver to its place beneath the drawer. There was nothing I could do. Costa owned me. Wherever I turned, he was there, grinning like Anhangá, in league with the shadow, twisting my life to his own means.
Costa was sitting at his desk when I pushed my way in. The old woman who filed his papers and answered his telephone barely even had time to lift her backside from her seat before I was at the door. She called out to me but I didn’t hear what she was saying.
Costa looked up in anger but his expression changed the moment he saw me. His eyes widened and there was a moment of indecision before he reached for the pistol on the desktop.
My hand was on it before his.
I pinned it to the desk and placed my other hand a shoulder’s width apart from it, leaning over to stare into Costa’s eyes. ‘His blood is on your hands.’ But even as the words left my mouth, I knew Antonio’s blood was on my hands too. He had tried to help me. If not for me, Antonio would never have crossed paths with Luis and Wilson.
