The last game (7 page)

“You´ve been very generous.” Judith said,
interrupting his thoughts.

Alvaro hadn´t heard her approach, absorbed as
he was in his thoughts. She was standing in front of the sofa he
was sitting on.

“I thought you didn´t want Dante to stay in
the game.” He said straight away.

“
I don´t.” She said. “But I understand your
reasons for doing it. You´re a very generous person. More so than
the rest of us here.”

Judith´s words made him feel better. It
was pleasing to hear her opinion of him. He was well aware of the
effort he was making to stay calm beside her. That wasn´t good for
the game. He had to put his feelings to one side, to discard his
feelings like bad cards, and keep his mind cold. The right thing to
do was to go now, to make an excuse up and go back to the others.
But he couldn´t do that.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked making
room for her on the sofa.

She nodded, placing her hand on her stomach
and easing herself down.

“Let me help you.” He offered, putting his
hand out.

“No!” she said firmly, a hint of alarm in her
voice. “I can do it myself.”

The tone of her voice surprised Alvaro. It
seemed like an overreaction.

“
I´m sorry.” She said, seated now, rubbing
her stomach. “It´s just that I get very nervous with my
baby.”

“Don´t worry. I understand.”

She was shaking her head now. “No, I really
am sorry. I don´t know why but I don´t like being touched.”

“Protective instinct. That makes me wonder .
. .”

“What I´m going to be like as a mother. Am I
right?”

“Yes, more or less. The thing is I find it
difficult to understand what you´re doing here. The benefits are
clear enough if you win. But you´re risking . . .“

“
I was raped!” She said, stopping Alvaro in
his tracks. “It happened on the way home one night. A huge man
appeared out of nowhere and dragged me into an alley. I hit him as
hard as I could but he didn´t feel anything. He just had his way
with me there and walked off. When I found out I was pregnant it
nearly killed me. And when I finally accepted it I found out I had
an aneurism in the brain and had only two years to live. I heard
about this game then and knew it was my only chance. I broke up
with my boyfriend just in case I lost and put all my affairs in
order. Forgive me for telling you all this. It´s just that I need
to talk and you seem like the sort of person who would
understand."

“I´m very sorry. I don´t have children, nor
much experience worrying about others. But I guess if I was in your
position I´d act the same way.” He said, thinking about what she´d
just told him. The image of the brute in the alley on top of her
invaded his mind. And her telling him her story made him feel it
was time to tell her his. “My own case is infinitely more simple
than yours. There´s nothing wrong with me. No problems. I´ve got
nothing to tell. I´m perfectly healthy but I know in the next two
years I´m going to suffer some sort of accident. There´s nothing
else to tell.”

But Alvaro considered that his life was
empty. He had no important friendship. His relationship with his
family was almost non-existent. He´d stopped enjoying his work some
time before. In his opinion, a person without passion, without
hope, shouldn´t have the life of others in his hands. Playing cards
had been the only thing that he´d devoted time and energy to. It
had kept him going in a world that offered him nothing else. He´d
built greed up as a substitute for all the other things that were
lacking in his life. And made chance, king. His life was pathetic
and he figured, that Judith wouldn´t really want to know how empty
he was at heart.

Judith was thoughtful. “I´d prefer that. It´s
better not to know what will happen. The worst thing is knowing
when.”

“I´m not so sure. I´ve spent a lot of time
thinking about that accident. Wondering if it would be painful or
not.”

“At least now you don´t have to worry about
that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The accident. It won´t happen. That´s why
we´re here.”

Alvaro turned around and looked at the girl.
She was still playing with Zeta.

“You´re right. It´s a relief to know I won´t
die in two years.”

* * * * *

CHAPTER
SIX

“
This is the account you´ve got to put the
million in.” Hector said gruffly. He´d already rung the woman and
asked for the relevant details.

Dante took the piece of paper and nodded.

“Very well, you can go now. I´ll do the rest
alone.”

“I want to make sure you keep your word.”

Dante shrugged his shoulders. He unfolded the
piece of paper and repeated the numbers to his accountant on his
mobile. Then he gave precise instructions to make the transfer
immediately.

Hector didn´t take his eye off him for a
second, didn´t move from his side.

“I don´t have to tell you what I´m doing.”
Dante grumbled. “It´s my money and I´ll do this without
explanations. We´ll talk tomorrow and if this hasn´t been done you
can start looking for another job!” he said, hanging up. “Ok,
everything´s done. Are you happy?”

“Very!” Hector said, turning around to
go.

“Wait a minute!” Dante said, grabbing him by
the arm. “I´ve got a proposition for you. Maybe we can help each
other out.”

“I´m not interested in that.”

“But you don´t know what I´m going to say.
I´ve just thrown a fortune your way. The least you can do is listen
to me.” The comment seemed reasonable enough so Hector stayed where
he was. “We could help each other in the game. Keep the other two
in their place. Share the chips. All of that doesn´t bother the
girl. You can already see that she´ll let us do what we like.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Why not?”

“
Because I don´t give a damn about the
game. How many times have I got to say that before it sinks in?
Besides, if I was going to help someone it wouldn´t be you. The
world´s the rotten place it is because of bastards like you. You
can´t follow society’s most basic rules. You´re always trying to
pick another Euro out of someone else’s pocket to put it into your
own. I repeat: you make me sick.”

“You´re a sad fool. What does the world out
there matter now? There´s only four of us here. No one else. Our
whole existence is lying on that card table. I don´t even know why
I worry, you don´t understand anything.”

Dante had no idea what made Hector tick. Why
would anyone refuse to play? It didn´t make sense. If he won he
could fix every problem he had.

He walked around the room twice and when he
sat down at the table again it was clear to him that Hector had
simply collapsed under the weight of the cards that life had dealt
him. He was too weak to work his way around the past. The world
just pushed people like him around until they became what he was
today: a sad reflection of the human being he´d one day been.

“Zeta, table!” the girl commanded her pet. “I
want to go to the table. Run! Hurry!”

The dog shot across the room with the girl,
who was holding his ears and roaring with laughter, bouncing high
on his back. As soon as she was back on her chair the laughter
stopped, and she started piling her cubes again on the felt.

“Looks like the game´s starting again.”
Alvaro said, standing up, helping Judith to her feet. “I enjoyed
the chat.”

“So did I.”

Dante was already at the table. “Well, are we
all ready again?”

“
Impatient to get going, are you?” Alvaro
asked.

“And you´re not?” Dante replied. “The time´s
now come to really see who´s the best.”

Judith took her time to settle into her
chair and after she had, and careful not to look at Dante, she
began to deal.

Hector saved his attention exclusively for
the girl, while Alvaro started thinking about his next sleight of
hand when his turn came around to deal.

“I´ll start with three.” Dante said, placing
his bet.

Hector dropped out as was to be expected
and Alvaro and Judith saw Hector. The game up to now had been
between the three of them and they’d adapted to that.

Dante raised the bet and they saw him.

“How many chips are there?” Dante asked
before he picked his cards up.

“Thirty.” Alvaro replied.

“Curious. Exactly a month.” Dante mused. “I
could ruin a couple of companies in that amount of time.”

He turned a straight over on the table and
won the hand.

“You´ll lose again.” Judith ventured to
say.

“Sure, but this moment´s mine and I´ve won
ten days from you and the doctor. Doesn´t that bother you?”

“More than you can imagine. There can´t be a
worse fate for my time than keeping you alive any longer.”

“Don´t let him get to you, Judith.” Alvaro
told her. “He only wants to put you off your game.”

“
Listen to the expert speaking. A doctor
who´s a compulsive gambler who knows so much about poker after
playing thousands of games over the years. What´s your beef, Doc?
Were you ruined in a game? I´d bet that´s what happened. Maybe you
even lost your brother´s money? Yes, that´s it, isn´t it?” Dante
clicked his fingers, the look of a man who had just resolved a
complicated puzzle written on his face. “Now I can see it clearly.
You not only lost your money, but your family´s as well. That´s why
you didn’t want to go into details about your brother. You did all
that to them, isn´t that right?”

Alvaro didn´t answer. His jaw stiffened as he
did his best not to react. Hector wasn´t listening to what was
going on. But Judith was. The expression on her face betrayed her
curiosity. Alvaro couldn´t let her know and he wouldn´t give Dante
the satisfaction of seeing that he´d hit the nail on the head. He
hated Dante even more, if that was possible? The old man was
astute, Alvaro had to admit that. He hadn´t put a business empire
together only through fraud. The old bastard was as sharp as a
tack.

“
Stop shooting in the dark. Anyone can see
that you´re only used to looking at everyone’s bad side.” Alvaro
countered.

“
Sure, that´s right.” Dante agreed. “And
you´re the exact opposite. You´re the good guy and I´m the bad. And
I guess he´s the ugly.” Dante said, looking at Hector, before he
continued. “The good always feel guilty. It wouldn´t be easy to
forget what you did to your brother. There´s a little man hiding
under that big front of yours. That´s why you´re sticking up for
the princess, here. What´s it to you if she gets nervous. If she
plays bad it helps the rest of us.”

“Let her play the way she wants. And stop
trying to get in her head!”

“What really irks you is that I´m winning
thanks to you. If you hadn´t thrown me a lifeline I´d be already
finished. You´ve given me a chance to beat all of you. Those ten
days that the princess just lost was your fault. How does that make
you feel?”

“You seem convinced you´re going to win. I
beat you once and I´ll do it again. I´ll enjoy thinking about what
I´m going to do in the two years that I´m going to snatch from you.
Besides, you still haven´t got all your chips back. How many have
you got there?” Alvaro shot a quick glance at Dante´s pile and
frowned. “I reckon you´ve got no more than a year and two or three
months. That means you´ve already lost at least ten months of your
precious time. That truth shouldn’t make you feel so smug.”

Dante was going to say something but Hector
started to deal and when he´d finished doing that he surprised
everyone by looking at his cards. It was the first time he´d picked
them up off the table.

“I´ll bet.” Hector said, tossing two chips in
front of him.

The other three looked at each other. They
discarded and put their bets down quickly to see what Hector´s next
step would be.

“Raise.” He said, counting his chips and
pushing them into the center of the table. “There´s two months
there if I´m not mistaken.”

His calculation was correct.

Alvaro´s luck was with him, he had three aces
in his hand. So he decided to keep the game going. This was the
first opportunity he´d had to analyze Hector´s playing style. “I´ll
see you and raise you three months.”

“This is hotting up.” Dante said. “Very well,
losers, I´m in too. Five months to see.”

Judith passed. Alvaro had already noticed
that she always dropped out when the bets got bigger.

Hector looked at his chips. “Very well, this
covers your three months and I´ll raise that six months more.”

That bet took Alvaro by surprise. He didn´t
have any idea what to make of Hector. His voice wasn´t trembling,
his breathing was normal. He looked relaxed, almost as if he was
going to nod off. Alvaro looked at his hand again. Three aces was
very good. Good enough to win most hands. But the bet was very
high. Too high to put it all on the line against a player he didn’t
understand. It was the first time that Hector had even played and
he looked like he was in a coma. A good gambler would recognize the
risk. Would know when to fold and when to hold.

“Too much for me.” Alvaro said. “I´m
out.”

“Me, too.” Dante said. “It´s the first time
the stinkpot’s gambled and he´s plucked everyone’s feathers.”

“Damn!” Hector shouted, throwing his cards
down on the table to reveal a miserable pair of fours. “Some
players you all are! You haven´t got a damn idea! I can´t believe
it.”

Hector´s explosion caught Alvaro completely
by surprise. He´d just won an excellent hand with a pair of fours!
That was reason enough to celebrate not to be angry like he was.
His face looked completely different, deformed by fury.