One glimpse of the blade and I pulled up, almost backtracked. We’d walked into a robbery, but as the skinny guy was across at the counter we had a chance to walk right out again. I was about to spin on my heels, but the door I had just pushed open hit the stopper with a bang. The guy twisted around at the waist: pasty-faced inside that hood, with eyes that darted between us.
‘Scram!’ For a moment, he snatched the knife away and showed it to us. I thought the storekeeper might come over the counter at him, but his gaze just followed the blade back to his throat. ‘Go home, little boys.’
We were nothing to him. Two kids come in for provisions, sent here by our mothers most probably. That’s how it must’ve seemed, which gave Alberto a big advantage when he shoved me aside, already bringing the bat around with both hands … whump! The guy took the hit in the stomach, and almost folded over. His head appeared to pop out of his hood, a look of shock and horror in his face, while the breath left his lungs in an awful bark. Alberto snapped the bat away and he just crumpled. It was his jaw that took the full force of a second blow – this time from an upswing. His head snapped back too far, spittle flying high, but Alberto hadn’t finished. As the guy went down, he began to kick and stomp on him as if this was a fire that had to be put out.
‘Enough, stop now!’
The voice seemed to come out of nowhere. I barely recognised it as my own, but somehow it got through to my friend. Alberto stood back, panting, and the bat just dropped from his hand. Galán remained frozen behind the counter, staring wide-eyed at Alberto – this express train that had come through his door.
‘Mother of Christ,’ he breathed, ‘what have you done?’
The guy on the tiles was making an unholy mewling noise now. Even when he seemed to run out of air it just went on and on. His head was half turned inside the hood, and the side of his face that I could see was bloody and out of shape. He was sprawled on his back with one arm flung backwards, the blade resting uselessly in the palm of his hand. For a moment I thought he was trying to say something. I saw his lips part, and that’s when I found his line of sight. I could’ve been looking at one of the fish we used to land, all the life left in it sealed inside one eye. He was easily into his twenties but seemed younger than me just then: nothing more than a terrified little street punk who didn’t want any of this. Then the noise he was making trailed away and I watched his gaze fall slack.
I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t speak or breathe. I just stood there with my hand across my mouth, wishing we had never come into the goddamn store. Minutes earlier, we had stood in the alley round the back, pumping ourselves up, but not for this. Outside, people went about their business. The sun was shining, and swifts could be heard twittering from the telegraph wires. The barrio was always a busy place, and nothing had changed that now. The only difference was how still and silent it was here in the store.
‘Is he dead?’ This was Alberto. He sounded all slowed down, like a tape-player running on old batteries.
‘He will be.’ Galán reached for the telephone on the shelf behind him and dialed out a number from memory. With the receiver lodged between his shoulder and his ear, he turned to the drawer under his cash register and drew out a large cigar. Just like that. Not even a glance back at the body on his floor.
‘What now?’ I asked, trying hard not to let my legs give way. I felt sick, as if I had just breathed in something evil.
‘What do you think, “what now”?’ Galán paused to fire up his cigar. ‘What now is this prick goes to Hell.’ He broke off there, greeted whoever it was who’d picked up the call. The way he turned away with the receiver, I realised it was meant to be private. I Iooked at Alberto. He was still just standing there, struck dumb it seemed to me. I reached out and touched his arm.
‘It’ll be all right, man.’ I said weakly, and cleared my throat before trying again. ‘Everything will be good again.’
‘Hey, fellas!’ Galán broke off from his call, sounding cross with us all of a sudden. ‘Will you move him into the back room? C’mon, what are you waiting for?’
Obediently, Alberto dipped down and grabbed the guy by his ankles. I had no idea what was going through his mind. I was just glad to see him moving. I took his wrists and together we hauled the body across the tiles. Galán continued to chatter on the phone. As we reached the door behind the counter he cut us a frown. It was as if we were dealing with a sack of rotten watermelons here, messing up the tiles. I looked straight ahead all the way through, hoping and praying that this terrible weight between us wouldn’t suddenly twitch or make any more noise.
Later, when the flatbed truck pulled up outside the store, followed by a silver 4×4, I would hope and pray that he really was as dead as can be. Galán had hurried us from the building just as soon as the body and the bat were out of sight. As we left he kept saying that we should go home and tell no one.
‘This didn’t happen,’ was his final word to us, and at the time I almost believed him.
Leaving the store was like waking from a bad dream. The air seemed so fresh that Alberto and I just stood in the street for a beat and breathed. We both turned with a start when Galán shot the bolt across the door. He flattened his lips at us, there behind the glass, and then flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.
We didn’t go home, of course. We took the fire-stairs round the back of our building, and headed straight for the roof. There, we sat against the old extractor hood and smoked some cigarettes. Every now and then, one of us broke the silence with a cough or a muttered ‘mierda,’ but we never looked at each other for more than a moment. I didn’t want to see what was going on behind Alberto’s eyes, and I was scared for him to see into mine. We only stirred when the truck turned up with the big jeep behind it, and that’s when it seemed very real. Peeking over the parapet, we saw two brawny guys climb out of the flatbed and haul a tarpaulin roll off the back. They could’ve been anyone, a couple of rough hands like almost every other migrant in this barrio, but the man from the 4×4 didn’t fit. He was wearing a light suit, white sneakers and shades, and moved like someone who didn’t like to dwell too long in one place. I was sure he was going to peel off those glasses and look directly up at us. Instead, the two goons carried the tarpaulin into the alley beside the store and the man followed behind. A side door opened up and we watched him hustle them in, looking left and then right before disappearing from sight.
‘Galán wasn’t lying,’ Alberto whispered, as if he might be heard even from here. ‘He really is connected after all.’