What We Become (25 page)

“Here you are,” he said to Rebenque.

The ruffian counted the notes coolly. When he had finished, he tapped them for a moment with the fingers of one hand, pensively. Then he slipped them into his pocket and his smile broadened.

“There were other expenses,” he said with an exaggerated drawl. He wasn't looking at de Troeye, but at Max. As though this were a private matter concerning the two of them.

“I don't think so,” said Max.

“Well, I suggest you think again, my friend. Melina is a pretty
girl, isn't she? . . . And I had to get hold of the raviolis and everything else (he looked barefacedly at Mecha). The lady over there, and this dupe here, they had a good time tonight, didn't they? I just want to be sure we all do.”

“There's no more dough,” said Max.

Rebenque seemed to pause at the last word, and he grinned even more, as though appreciating his native slang.

“What about the lady?”

“She hasn't any.”

“I believe there was a necklace.”

“There isn't now.”

The thug slid his hands out of his pockets and unbuttoned his jacket. As he did so, the ivory handle of his knife protruded from the arm of his waistcoat.

“Then we'll have to look into that,” he said, ogling the gold chain glinting beneath de Troeye's jacket. “But first I'd like to know what time it is, my watch seems to have stopped.”

Max glanced at Rebenque's shirt cuffs, then his pockets.

“It doesn't look to me like you have a watch.”

“It stopped working years ago. . . . Why would I carry around a broken watch?”

Max thought that it wasn't worth killing anyone for a watch. Or a pearl necklace for that matter. And yet there was something about the thug's smirking face that riled him. Too arrogant, perhaps. And too cocksure, this Juan Rebenque, because he thought he was the only one on his home ground.

“I told you I was born in Barracas, in Calle Vieytes, didn't I?”

The ruffian's smile faded, as though his criollo mustache had cast a shadow over it. What has that to do with anything, his expression seemed to say. At this late stage in the game.

“You keep out of this,” he replied brusquely.

The expression on his face made his sudden use of the familiar
tu
seem more intimidating. Max contemplated him at length, plac
ing the threat in the context of where it had been made. Rebenque's manner, the hallway, the front door, the vehicle waiting in the street outside. He couldn't rule out the possibility that Rebenque had a henchman standing by, ready to lend a hand.

“As far as I remember, there was a code of honor,” Max resumed, standing his ground. “People kept their word.”

“Meaning?”

“When you wanted a watch, you had to pay for it.”

The smile had vanished from the ruffian's face. Giving way to a menacing expression. That of a ferocious wolf, preparing to attack.

“Are you for real or a phony?”

One of Rebenque's thumbs touched his waistcoat, as if edging toward the ivory handle. Max calculated the distances instantly. He was three steps away from the ruffian's knife, which he would have to unsheathe. Max shifted almost imperceptibly to the right, so that he was facing Rebenque's left side, and better placed to defend himself with his right arm and hand. He had learned how to position himself surreptitiously in the Legion's brothels in Africa, while broken bottles and knives were flying. If there was going to be a fight, it was best to start off at an advantage.

“Oh for heaven's sake. . . . Stop all this posturing,” Mecha's voice rang out behind him. “I want to go to bed. Give him the watch and let's get out of here.”

This wasn't posturing, Max knew, but this was no time for explanations. Something was already sticking in Rebenque's craw, and Mecha herself was probably the cause, doubtless from the first time he saw her. Since they danced that tango. He had resented being excluded that night, and the drink he had taken while he waited hadn't helped matters. The watch, the necklace Max had entrusted to Petrossi, his ninety pesos, and the five hundred de Troeye had just parted with were mere pretexts for the knife tickling the ruffian's armpit. He wanted to show off his manliness, for Mecha's benefit.

“Leave,” Max said to them, without turning around. “Go straight to the car.”

Perhaps it was his tone. Or the way he was holding Rebenque's shifty gaze. But Mecha did not say another word. A few seconds later, Max noticed out of the corner of his eye that she and her husband were now standing beside him, closer to the door, their backs against the wall.

“What's the hurry, my friend?” said the ruffian. “We have all the time in the world.”

I despise him because I know him right down to the soles of his shoes, thought Max. He could be me. His mistake is that he believes a tailored suit makes us different. That it erases the memory.

“Get outside,” he repeated to the de Troeyes.

The ruffian's thumb drew closer to the knife. It was a few centimeters from the ivory handle when Max thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and found the warm metal of the 6.35 caliber pistol into whose chamber he had discreetly inserted a bullet before coming downstairs. Without taking the gun out of his pocket, he flipped the safety catch off with one finger. Rebenque lowered the brim of his hat, his dark, brooding eyes following Max's every move. Behind them, amid the smoky air in the back room, the gramophone started to play “Hand to Hand.”

“No one leaves here,” the ruffian declared brazenly.

Then he took a step forward, threatening a flash of steel in the air. His right hand was reaching into the arm of his waistcoat when Max pushed the Browning in his face. Right between his eyes.

“Since they invented this,” he said calmly, “bravery is a thing of the past.”

He spoke in a hushed tone, without gloating, as if this were a friendly exchange between compadres. Trusting at the same time that his hand was steady. Rebenque stared into the black hole at the end of the barrel with a serious, almost contemplative expression. Like a gambler calculating how many trump cards he held, Max
reflected. Not many, he must have decided, for after a moment his fingers uncurled from around the handle of his knife.

“You wouldn't be so brave either if we were evenly matched,” he said, staring straight at him, eyes flashing.

“You're quite right,” said Max.

Rebenque held his gaze for a moment. Finally, he gestured with his chin toward the door.

“Beat it.”

The smile had returned to his lips. As stoical as it was sinister.

“Get in the car,” Max ordered Mecha and her husband, still aiming the pistol at Rebenque.

The tough did not even glance at the de Troeyes as they left—with a swift
tap-tap
of a woman's heels on the wooden floor. His eyes were still fixed on Max, brimming with ominous, implausible conjectures.

“How about it, my friend? . . . There are plenty of blades around here. Weapons for real men, you know. Someone could lend you one.”

Max gave a faint, almost complicit smile.

“Another time, perhaps. I'm in a hurry now.”

“What a shame.”

“Indeed.”

He went out into the street without haste, slowly pocketing the pistol, inhaling the cold, damp early morning air with a sense of joyous relief. The Pierce-Arrow was waiting by the entrance, engine purring, headlights on, and when Max got in, slamming the door behind him, Petrossi released the handbrake, put the car in gear, and drove off with a loud screech of tires. The jolt caused Max to fall onto the backseat, between the de Troeyes.

“My God,” murmured Armando, in astonishment. “That was a very lively evening.”

“You asked for Old School, didn't you?”

Sunk deep in the leather seat, Mecha burst out laughing.

“I think I'm falling in love with Max. . . . You don't mind, do you, Armando?”

“Not at all, my dear. I love him, too.”

Exquisite. Superb.
Those were the exact words to describe the still, sleeping body of the woman Max was contemplating in the dimly lit room, as she lay on top of the crumpled sheets. There wasn't a painter or photographer alive, he concluded, who could faithfully capture those splendid, flowing lines Mother Nature had brought together with absolute perfection to form her naked back, the clean angles of her arms as they hugged the pillow, the soft curve of her hips stretching seemingly endlessly down to her slender legs, slightly apart, revealing from behind where her pubis began. And the perfect focus for all those elongated lines and soft curves converged, exposed and vulnerable beneath her bobbed hair, was the nape of her neck, which Max had brushed with his lips before getting up, to make sure Mecha was asleep.

Almost dressed, Max put out the cigarette he had been smoking and went into the bathroom (marble and blue tiles) to knot his tie in front of the big mirror above the basin. After buttoning his vest, he went in search of his jacket and hat, which he had left in the small English-style sitting room in the enormous suite at the Hotel Palace. He found them between the lighted lamp and the mahogany sofa where Armando de Troeye lay fully clothed, starched collar unbuttoned, in his stockinged feet, curled up like a tramp asleep on a park bench. The noise of Max's footsteps made him open his eyes, and he stirred groggily on the red velvet upholstery.

“What's going on, Max?” he asked, his tongue thick with sleep.

“Nothing. Petrossi still has Mecha's necklace and I'm going to fetch it.”

“Good boy.”

De Troeye closed his eyes and turned over. Max stood staring
at him for a moment. His contempt for the man was almost as intense as his astonishment at what had happened during the past few hours. He felt a sudden urge to give the man a brutal, ruthless beating, and yet, he concluded coldly, that would not solve anything. Other, more pressing thoughts were on his mind. He had been reflecting about them at length as he lay motionless, beside Mecha's spent, sleeping form. His recent memories and sensations crashed past like boulders swept along by a torrent: crossing the hotel foyer while propping up de Troeye, the night porter giving them the key, going up in the elevator and arriving in the room, the grunts and stifled giggles. And then, de Troeye watching with the glassy stare of a startled animal as his wife and Max tore their clothes off, colliding in an urgent, shameless embrace, kissing each other's mouths and flesh, inching backward toward the bedroom, where, not even bothering to close the door, they flung themselves on the bed and he plunged into her with a frenzy that seemed more like an act of revenge than of passion, or love.

Max closed the door very quietly behind him and emerged into the corridor. The carpet muffled his footsteps, and he went past the elevator—descending the broad, marble staircase instead, as he pondered his next moves. He had lied about Petrossi still having Mecha's necklace. After getting out of the car at the hotel entrance, Max had asked the chauffeur to wait in order to drive him back to the Caboto boardinghouse. He had given Petrossi his pistol back, retrieved the pearls, and without Mecha or her husband seeing, had slipped them into his own pocket. They had been there all along, and there they still lay, bulging beneath Max's fingers as he felt the left inside pocket of his jacket. He crossed the lobby, greeted the night porter with a raise of his eyebrows, and went outside. He found Petrossi snoozing in the car beneath a street lamp, cap beside him on the seat over a folded edition of
La Nación
, head reclining against the leather rest. He sat up when Max tapped on the window with his knuckles.

“Drive me to Almirante Brown, please. . . . No, don't put the hat on. Leave it. You can go home afterward.”

They didn't exchange a word during the journey. From time to time, in the glow of a passing street lamp reflected off the façade of a building or a wall, and with the gray dawn light creeping in, Max glimpsed the chauffeur's silent gaze in the rearview mirror and their eyes met. When the Pierce-Arrow came to a halt in front of the boardinghouse, Petrossi got out to open the door for Max, who stepped out of the car, hat in hand.

“Thank you, Petrossi.”

The man looked at him impassively.

“You're welcome, sir.”

Max took a step toward the entrance then stopped in his tracks, turning back.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

Max couldn't be sure in that hazy light, yet he had the impression Petrossi was smiling.

“On the contrary, sir, the pleasure was all mine.”

Now it was Max's turn to smile.

“That's a fine Browning. Take good care of it.”

“I'm glad it came in handy.”

A look of bewilderment flashed across the chauffeur's face as Max removed his Longines wristwatch.

“It isn't much,” he said, giving it to him. “But I have no money on me.”