Three days later Gómez woke up in the prison infirmary. It took him a while to remember who and where he was. When the male nurse saw him move, he called two guards, who without much ado sat him in a wheelchair and set out for a part of the prison that inmates seldom saw.
At the end of the little excursion, the guards wheeled Gómez into an office where a man seated at a bare table and smoking a cigarette seemed to be waiting for him. Except for a thin strip of hair on both sides of his head, the man was bald, but he had a thick mustache. He was wearing a dark jacket over a shirt with a wide collar and no tie. The guards pushed Gómez’s wheelchair in front of the table, left the room, and closed the door. The prisoner didn’t speak. He waited for the man to finish his cigarette. Gómez kept silent not only because of his confusion and surprise, but also because the mere act of swallowing saliva hurt his throat so much that he was afraid moving his lips and tongue would cause him intolerable pain.
“Isidoro Antonio Gómez,” the other said at last, speaking slowly, as if carefully selecting his words. “I’m going to explain to you why you’ve been brought here.” As he spoke, he played with the hinged top of his cigarette lighter. His chair must have been comfortable, because it allowed him to lean back far enough to put his feet up on one of the corners of the table.
“Son, my goal in this friendly meeting is to figure out the answer to a question: Are you an intelligent guy, or are you a hopeless moron? That’s my entire purpose, nothing more or less,” the bald man said, and only then did he look at the prisoner. The sight seemed to shock him very much, but then again, everything about him seemed exaggerated. “Shit,” he said. “What a mess they made out of you, boy. Goddamn … but okay, look. The thing is, I have to make a complicated decision, and in order to make it, I need to answer that question I mentioned. Do you understand?”
There was another pause, and then he opened a notebook that lay on the table beside him. Gómez hadn’t noticed it before, but now he saw that it was filled with writing.
“Ever since the cell guards rescued you in the shower room, I’ve taken a strong interest in your case. You got off easy, you know. If Snake doesn’t give himself that atrocious cut, then the others don’t call the guards to help him, and instead, my friend, he and his pals open you up, you bleed to death like a butchered pig, and that’s the end of the story. You may not believe it, but I was already familiar with your case. I didn’t know you, obviously, but I knew your case, at least the first part of it. I had to read the rest to bring myself up to date. God, talk about coincidences. I know it sounds asinine to say it’s a small world, but I’m more and more convinced that it’s true.”
He flipped rapidly through the notebook until he found a page that interested him. From then on, he turned the pages more calmly, speaking as he did so. “All right, let me come to the point. That girl you killed … a nasty business, buddy, a mighty nasty business. But none of mine. As a matter of fact, I don’t really give a damn about it. But I noticed you didn’t leave any incriminating evidence at the scene, and afterward, when the police were looking for you, you vanished completely, you just flat stopped showing up anyplace where people might know you. Am I right? And then you spent three years on your best behavior so no one would have an excuse to fuck with you. So I think about all that and I say to myself, this is an intelligent guy. And then I read on, you see, and I find out you got busted for fare-dodging on the Sarmiento Line and fighting with a conductor, and I say to myself, this guy’s an asshole. But on the other hand, I consider the fact that the boys in the examining magistrate’s court don’t have anything, or hardly anything, they can tie you to the crime with, and I say to myself, all right, he can’t spend his life looking over his shoulder, this is a guy who thinks logically. And then I read still further, and I learn about your deposition in the clerk’s office and how you sang your heart out like you were Carlos Gardel, and so I feel justified in concluding, my friend, and I speak with all due respect and consideration, that you’re as dumb as a fucking post. But I keep on reading, and I find out some more stuff, you know? Because that’s what I do, I find out things, it’s the way I am. It’s how I live. And I find out you wound up in Devoto and spent a whole month with your ass intact, and that sets me thinking again. This kid must be some kind of smart, I think. But then I read that you got a visit from Snake and Quique Domínguez, two of the sweetest guys around, and a married couple to boot, until death do them part, the only thing they’re missing is a pair of golden wedding bands, and the best idea you can come up with is to react like a fifteen-year-old virgin who feels disrespected, you punch out poor Quique and fix it so Snake has to kick the shit out of you to save face after such an insult. And listen, what I just told you about Snake and Quique is common knowledge, even the people in the corner bakery know it. If you didn’t cop to that after living with those guys for a month, Gómez, I’m going to be forced to return to my earlier thoughts about you, the most, shall we say, pessimistic thoughts, namely that you’re a total and incorrigible asshole.”
The bald man paused to catch his breath and then went on. “Gómez. Put yourself in my place. It’s not a simple call. Should I consider how much nerve it took to try to dominate the situation the way you did? Or should I think about what a dumb ass you were to pick a fight with those two lovebirds, who do less harm than a mixed salad? I don’t know … I don’t know … And another thing I have to take into consideration is the fact that you’re a lucky guy. I believe some people are born under a lucky star. You don’t? I do. I think some guys naturally have a lot of luck, and some guys naturally have no luck at all. And the way I look at it, you were born under a lucky star. Why? Let’s put it like this: you kill that girl, you skate; the cops start looking for you, you skate; you’re about to get killed in the shower room, you skate. Now I know, if I want to look at the bad side, I can just think about what an idiot you were to get yourself busted on that train, and how your brain stopped working at the deposition, and how you got it all wrong in the shower room. But the thing is, over and above a tendency to act like a jackass on occasion, you’re still a lucky guy, you follow me? And that’s an important attribute in a prospective employee.”
He paused again and lit another cigarette, first offering one to Gómez, who refused with a shake of his head. Then the bald man said, “You want more evidence of what a lucky bastard you are? The fact that you’re here, son. Here in front of me, the man who could become your new boss. What do you think? Look at it this way: I need new people, and suddenly you land in here, within my reach, as though you’ve fallen from heaven.”
He gazed at the young man for a long minute before going on. “And another thing, Gómez. You don’t need to know the exact details, but … I get a real kick out of the idea of using you, because it’s a way to fuck with somebody who fucked with me first, you get me?” The bald man shook his head, as if he couldn’t comprehend the chain of events that had led to this. “But leave that here, don’t think about it, forget it. You’ll have enough to worry about with doing the work I’m going to give you and doing it well.”
He took a last drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. Then he ran his hand over his hairless scalp and said, “I assume you’re not going to make me look like an asshole for doing this. Am I right?”