The Mad Toy (17 page)

Huge golden stains carpeted the horizon, from which there arose storm clouds in tin plumes, surrounded by whirling orange veils.

I raised my head and near the zenith, among sheets of cloud, I saw a star shining weakly. It was like a spatter of water
trembling
in a crack made of blue porcelain.

I was in the suburb that The Crip worked.

The pavements were shaded by the thick foliage of acacia and privet. The street was calm, bourgeois in a romantic fashion, with painted fences protecting the gardens, little sleeping
fountains
among the bushes and a few damaged plaster statues. A piano could be heard in the dusky twilight, and I felt suspended among the sounds, like a drop of dew on the stem of a plant. So strong a gust of perfume came from an unseen rosebush that my knees shook as I was reading a brass plaque on one of the houses:

It was the only sign in three blocks that announced someone of that profession.

Like the other houses in the area, the flowering garden spread out in front of the living room, and stopped at the tiled path that led up to the sliding glass door; then it carried on to form an angle and cover the whole of the side wall of the house. A crystal canopy protected the upper floor from the rain.

I stopped and rang the bell.

The sliding door opened and in the doorway I saw a
mono-browed
mulatto woman with wicked eyes who asked me rudely what it was I wanted.

When I asked her if the engineer was in, she replied that she would go and see, and in her turn asked me who I was and what it was I wanted. Without getting annoyed I said that I was called Fernán González and that I was a draughtsman.

The mulatto came back and let me in, more friendly this time. We went through several shuttered rooms, then she suddenly opened the door into a study, and at a desk to the left with a green-shaded lamp on the top I saw a bent grey head; the man looked at me, I said hello and he signed for me to come in. Then he said:

‘A moment, señor, and I will be at your service.’

I looked at him. He was young despite his hair.

There was an expression of fatigue and melancholy in his face. He had deep worry-lines on his forehead, the bags under his eyes formed a triangle with his eyelids, and the ends of his lightly drooping lips mimicked the posture of that head, which he now held supported in the palm of his hand as he bent over a paper.

The walls of the room were covered with plans and designs of luxury buildings; I looked at a bookcase that was filled with volumes, and had managed to read one of the titles,
Water
Legislation
, when Señor Vitri spoke to me:

‘How may I help you, señor?’

In a low voice I replied:

‘Excuse me, sir; first of all, are we alone?’

‘I would imagine so.’

‘May I ask what might seem an indiscreet question? You are not married, are you?’

‘No.’

Now he was looking at me seriously, and his narrow face gradually, so to speak, dropped its expression of grave
contemplation
and replaced it with one even more grave.

Leaning back in his chair, he had thrown his head back; his grey eyes looked sternly at me, at one moment they stared at the knot of my tie, then they paused at my own eyes and seemed, so immobile in their sockets, to be waiting to surprise something out of the ordinary in me.

I understood that I should stop beating around the bush.

‘Sir, I’ve come to tell you that they are planning to rob you tonight.’

I was expecting to surprise him, but I was mistaken.

‘Right, yes… and how do you know about this?’

‘I’ve been invited to be in on the theft by the thief. I know that you have taken a large sum of money out of the Bank and that you’ve put it in your strongbox here.’

‘That’s true…’

‘The thief has the keys, the key to the strongbox and the key to this room.’

‘Have you seen them yourself?’ He took a keyring out of his pocket and showed me a key with an over-large guard.

‘Is it this one?’

‘No, it’s this other one.’ I picked out one that was identical to the key The Crip had shown me.

‘Who are the thieves?’

‘The organiser is a cart attendant called The Crip, and your servant is his accomplice. She took your keys away at night and The Crip copied them very fast.’

‘And what was your role in this business?’

‘I… I was invited to the party as someone The Crip knew. He came to my house and asked me to be his accomplice.’

‘When did he see you last?’

‘At about midday today.’

‘And before that, did you know what this guy was
planning
?’

‘Not what he was planning, no. I know The Crip; we got to know each other because I sold paper to people at the fair he worked at.’

‘So you were his friend… it’s the sort of thing you only tell your friends.’

I blushed.

‘He wasn’t really my friend, no… But I was always interested in his psychology.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No, why?’

‘I would say… But when were you meant to come tonight?’

‘We were going to wait for you to leave for your club, then the mulatto was going to open the door for us.’

‘It’s a good plan. Where does the guy you call The Crip live?’

‘Condarco 1375.’

‘Okay, it’ll all get sorted out. And where do you live?’

‘Caracas 824.’

‘Okay, come round tonight at about ten. Everything will be well guarded by then. Your name is Fernán González.’

‘No, I gave a false name just in case the mulatto knew via The Crip about my participation in this business. My name is Silvio Astier.’

The engineer rang an electric bell and looked around; a few moments later the maid appeared.

Arsenio Vitri’s face was immobile.

‘Gabriela, this gentleman will come tomorrow morning to pick up this roll of plans,’ – he pointed to a sheaf of papers abandoned on a chair – ‘give them to him even if I am not here.’

Then he stood up and held out his hand to me coldly and I left accompanied by the maid.

The Crip was arrested at nine-thirty that night. He lived in a wooden attic, in a house owned by some poor people. The agents who were waiting for him had found out from Little Guy that The Crip had come home, ‘gone through his stuff and left’. As they didn’t know where he usually went, they appeared
unannounced
to the lady of the house, made it clear that they were police agents and then went up the steep staircase to The Crip’s room. It looked at first as if there was nothing there worth the trouble of examining. However, and this was an inexplicable and strange thing, they found the two keys, the strongbox key and the office key, hanging on a nail in full view of anyone who came in. In a kerosene tin, alongside some old rags, they found a revolver, and hidden away almost at the bottom of the tin, some newspaper cuttings. They referred to a robbery whose perpetrators had never been identified by the police.

Because they were all articles about the same crime, they assumed with reason that The Crip must have something to do with it, and they formally arrested Little Guy on suspicion of being somehow involved as well: that is, they sent him with an agent down to the local police station.

There was also a white pine table in the attic, with a drawer. They found a lathe and a set of fine files in the drawer. Some of them showed signs of recent use.

With all the evidence gathered and bagged up, the landlady was again called for.

She was a little old lady, rude and greedy; she wrapped up her head with a black kerchief that knotted under her chin. White curls dropped over her forehead, and her jaw swung wide when she spoke. What she had to say shed little light on The Crip’s movements. She had known him for three months. He paid her punctually and worked in the mornings.

When asked about the visits that the thief had received, she gave vague details; however she did remember that ‘last Sunday
a black woman came by at three in the afternoon and left at six along with Antonio.’

Deciding that there was no possibility of her being complicit in these events, they ordered her to maintain complete discretion, something which the old woman promised for fear of later
complications
, and the two agents went back up to the attic to wait for The Crip, because the engineer had explicitly said that The Crip should be arrested at his own house, in order to lighten the punishment he would receive. Maybe he also thought that I was closer to The Crip than I had implied.

The agents thought that he wouldn’t come; he might have dinner in some restaurant in the suburbs, and get drunk to build up enough courage, but they were wrong.

The Crip had won some money with his three-way bets. After he had left me he’d gone back to the attic to go out later to a brothel he knew. When it was almost shop closing time he went to one that sold luggage and bought some luggage.

Then he went back to his room, very far from being aware of what awaited him. He went up the stairs humming a tango, emphasising the beat by bumping his suitcase against the steps.

When he opened the door he put the suitcase down on the floor.

Then he put his hand in his pocket to get out his box of matches and at that moment a heavy blow on his chest caused him to take a step backwards, just as another policeman caught hold of his arm.

It’s clear that The Crip must have understood what all this was about, because with a desperate effort he tore himself free.

The policemen, trying to follow him, tripped over the suitcase and one of them fell down the stairs, and as he fell his revolver fell out of his pocket and went off.

The noise filled the denizens of the house with terror, and they wrongly attributed the shot to The Crip, who had not yet managed to get through the street door.

Then a terrible thing happened.

The old woman’s son, a butcher, having found out from his mother what was going on, took his stick and went off after The Crip.

He caught up with him after thirty paces. The Crip ran
dragging
his useless leg, the stick hit him on the arm, he turned his head and the stick hit his cranium.

Dazed by the blow, he tried to defend himself with a single hand, but a policeman who had just arrived tripped him up, and another blow to his shoulder knocked him down. When they put the cuffs on him, The Crip let out a great shout of pain:

‘
Ay, mamita
!’ But another blow made him shut up and he disappeared into the dark street with his wrists chained together and being led by other chains which the agents marching at his shoulders twisted vindictively.

When I got to the house of Arsenio Vitri, Gabriela was not there.

She had been arrested a few minutes after I had left.

A police officer who had been called in accused her in the presence of the engineer. The mulatto denied everything to begin with, but when they lied and told her that The Crip had been arrested, she began to cry.

Those people who witnessed this scene will never forget it.

The dark woman, cornered, with her eyes shining brightly looked all around her, like a wild beast preparing to spring.

She shuddered incredibly strongly; but when they repeated that the Crip had been arrested and that he was going to suffer because of her, then she softly began to weep; they were such delicate tears that the people around her frowned all the more… suddenly she raised her arms, her fingers came to a halt in the knot of her hair, she pulled out a comb that she wore there and
shook her hair out over her back, then she said, putting her hands together, and looking madly at the people present:

‘Yes, it’s right… it’s right… let’s go… let’s go find Antonio…’

They took her to the police station in a wagon.

Arsenio Vitri received me in his office. He was pale and he didn’t look at me as he spoke:

‘Sit down.’

Unexpectedly he asked me in a harsh voice:

‘How much do I owe you?’

‘What?’

‘Yes, how much do I owe you…? Your type can only be paid.’

I understood the contempt that he threw in my face.

I stood up, growing pale.

‘Yes, I see, you can only pay me. Keep your money, I haven’t asked for it. Goodbye.’

‘No, come on, sit down… Tell me, why did you do this?’

‘Why?’

‘Yes, why did you betray your friend? For no reason. Aren’t you ashamed to have so little dignity at your age?’

Blushing to the roots of my hair, I replied:

‘It’s right… There are moments in our lives when we need to be scum, to make ourselves dirty even on the inside, to do something infamous, I don’t know… to destroy a man’s life for ever… and after doing this then we can walk with our heads held high again.’

Vitri didn’t look at my face. His eyes were fixed on the knot of my tie and his face dropped its serious expression and replaced it with one even more serious.

I continued:

‘You have insulted me, but it doesn’t matter.’

‘I could have helped you,’ he murmured.

‘You could have paid me, and now you can’t even do that, because I feel, in spite of all my scandalous behaviour, I feel superior to you.’ And growing suddenly angry I shouted at him:

‘Who are you? It still feels like a dream that I handed The Crip in.’

With a smooth voice he replied:

‘And why are you like this?’

A heavy tiredness fell quickly upon me and I let myself collapse into the chair.

‘Why? God only knows. Even if I live a thousand years I’ll never forget The Crip’s face. What will happen to him? God only knows; but the memory of The Crip will always be in my life, will be in my spirit like the memory of losing a child. He could come and spit in my face and I wouldn’t say anything.’

An enormous sadness passed over my life. I would always remember this moment.

‘If that’s how it is,’ the engineer babbled, and suddenly he got up with his bright eyes fixed on the knot in my tie, and he murmured as if in a dream: ‘You’ve said it. It’s like that. You obey this brutal law that you have within yourself. That’s how it is. That’s how it is. You obey the fierce law. That’s how it is; but who told you that this law exists? Where did you learn it?’