The last game (8 page)

“You´ve won.” Alvaro pointed out. “What´s
your problem?”

“You, you´re all the problem!”

“
No screaming.” The girl said suddenly.
“Play, Zeta wants to play."

“I´d calm down if I was you.” Alvaro warned
Hector. “Or you know what’ll happen.”

Hector looked through him as if he wasn´t
there. “What, eh? What’s going to happen to me?”

“Let him go.” Dante said as if he was
enjoying himself. “We can watch how the girl puts the rag and bone
man in his place. It´ll be the most fun I´ve had so far
tonight.”

“Just cool it.” Judith advised Hector. “The
girl will kill you.”

Hector pushed the chair back and stood up.
Zeta blocked the path between him and the girl, the room
reverberating with the sound of his growling. But Hector ignored
the dog as if he wasn´t even there, and leaning on the table and
looking straight at Judith, he said. “I´ve come here for this you
fools. My only purpose is to leave with her.” He said nodding at
the girl.

* * * * *

CHAPTER
SEVEN

That was the answer to the great mystery.
Alvaro cursed himself for not having figured it out when Hector had
told his story. He was bent on committing suicide, it all fell into
place easily now. The imperturbable way that he´d done everything.
He´d worked it all out before he´d come. The world meant nothing to
him anymore.

“Then, you weren’t bluffing before. You
wanted to lose.” Alvaro said.

“You should´ve been a detective.” Hector said
disgusted, as he sat down again. “I should´ve told you straight to
your face. I didn´t know you were such bad players. I´ve only
played three games my whole life.”

“If you want to give me my chips back, I´d be
more than happy to take them off your hands.” Dante said.

“I wouldn´t even give one of the days that´s
left to me. You could have won them playing, but now you´ve put me
in an uncomfortable position.”

“And what position is that?” Judith asked.
“If you want to kill yourself I don´t see what the problem is. I
don´t know why you haven´t done it already.”

Alvaro wanted to hear the answer to that
question too.

“
I wanted to meet her first.” Hector
explained looking at the girl. “To see her in this world before I
go to hers. I thought by coming here I could give my time to
someone who deserved it better. I was about to kill myself when the
opportunity of coming here came up. It didn´t occur to me that
death would come in the form of a girl. I suppose I was hoping to
see something in her that would weaken my determination, bring back
the old desire to live. But that hasn´t happened.”

“And the uncomfortable position that you
referred to before.” Alvaro enquired.

“
The chips.” Hector said. “I was trying to
decide who to give them to, who deserves my two years the most. The
only thing I´ve got clear is that evil old Dante here won´t even
get a day.”

“You´re not offending me, street bum.” Dante
said with a cynical smile on his face. “I applaud your decision to
end your disgusting life. Although being the filthy bum you are, I
don´t know if the girl would want to take you with her. I wouldn´t
if I was her.”

“It should be you, Judith.” Hector said,
ignoring Dante. “But the truth is that it horrifies me that a
mother would sit down at this table in the first place If you lose
you´ll die, and your son won´t ever see the light of day. I can see
where you´re heading. You want these two years which will give you
a total of eight. You could spend all of that with your son. The
idea´s very noble, it´s probably the best reason why anyone would
want to sit at this table. The only problem is that you´ve put your
son´s life on the line by coming here.”

“You don´t know anything about me or my son.”
Judith replied, sobbing.

Alvaro was the only one there who knew what
she was talking about, but he didn´t say anything.

“Then there´s the doctor.” Hector said,
turning his attention to Alvaro. “He appears to be a great person
who worries about everyone else. But I don´t swallow it. If it was
like that, he wouldn´t be sitting at this table of death here
fighting to rob a little more time from the life of a pregnant
woman he fancies, what a joke that is. No, he´s up to something.
And I don´t know what it is. And quite frankly, I don´t care
either. Maybe, Dante´s guess was close to the bone.”

Alvaro was about to reply but Dante beat him
to it.

“
What a boring dissertation. Why don´t we
split your chips and you throw yourself through the window? I´m
sure that wouldn´t bother the girl.”

“I´ll play it my way.” Hector said, staring
at Dante. “Keep on talking like this old man. I couldn´t hate you
any more than I already do.”

“As if any of that matters now.” Dante said.
“You all become mystics when the end´s near. But you´re nothing
more than garbage, my friends. It´s easier for you to project your
hate on me because of the four headlines you´ve read. It makes you
feel better thinking I´m the devil and everybody else are angels.
Thousands of people work for me. Those people´s families are all
well fed. More than you can imagine. You´re a pitiful lot: a man
bent on killing himself, a baby killer and a loser who´s failed in
life and dragged his family down with him. Cancer was going to eat
me away in two years, that´s why I hope to win and live six years
longer. Or I´ll take you out so that you don´t have to rot anymore
in your own miserable lives.”

“
You´re the one who deserves to die.”
Judith pronounced. “If justice is served you´ll lose. The girl
should throw you off this table."

“
But she won´t.” Dante observed. “Because
your opinion doesn´t matter to her. Just in case you haven´t
noticed, the only thing that matters here is the cards. Whoever
wins the game wins another eight years of life. It´s got nothing to
do with who you proclaim to be the most deserving."

“That´s the first time I´ve agreed with this
lunatic.” Hector said. “It´s very clear what the girl lets happen.
Death is neutral, it doesn´t enter into assessments. If that was
the case, whoever she wanted to live would, but it doesn´t work
like that. We´ve been given the chance to play for time. She´s not
going to intervene on anyone´s behalf. The cards decide who wins.
Except in my case, I´ve made the decision myself.”

No one said anything for a while. Alvaro
thought what the two men had said through. Of course, the girl was
neutral, he agreed with that. She´d even allowed cheating at the
table. But what Judith had said disturbed him. He´d never
considered that someone could deserve to win. It didn´t make him
feel any better when he realized that he thought like Dante. It had
nothing to do with good or evil. But he was wondering now if this
was correct. Should the best person win, or the best player? He
wasn´t sure. Either way he’d keep on cheating. It improved the odds
of winning.

“Do you like that?” the girl asked.

She was looking at all of them with a big
smile on her face, her ponytails bouncing on both sides of her
head. On the table in front of her she´d built something
extraordinary: a pyramid with a tennis ball perched on top, with a
rectangular block on top of that and a star balancing on the
summit.

“Impressive.” Alvaro said. “Why doesn´t it
fall? It should but it´s as solid as a rock.”

“It´s the best balancing act I´ve ever seen.”
Hector said, fascinated.

Judith was the first to get its meaning.

“
She´s giving us the answer to our
conversation: equilibrium! Death is going to take us and it isn´t
going to alter its duration. Keeping everything aligned gives us a
little margin to keep some things going and cut others back. That´s
what her pyramid is telling us.

“And she can´t say that?” Dante protested.
“She speaks, we listen. What´s the point of this strange way of
expressing herself?”

“It´s death´s way of speaking.” Judith said.
“We can´t understand why it´s like that. Just like we can´t know
why she´s allowing us to play with the rest of our lives. But there
must be a good reason. It´s just that we can´t see it.”

“
Of course, Dante for one can´t. That
doesn´t surprise you, does it?” Hector said, looking at
Judith.

“Smart bastard.” Dante said. “Why don´t you
explain it then, if you´re so clever?”

Hector scratched his chin. “I don´t know that
I can do that exactly. But I think she´s looking to take short
cuts. She wants to be more direct.”

“I don´t follow you. Spit it out.”

“We could have said that Death is only a
question of equilibrium in any moment of a lucid conversation and
maybe that observation would have simply been forgotten later on.
But forming this pile of blocks in the way she has, grabbed our
attention in a deeper way.”

Alvaro felt a stab of pity for Hector. He was
intelligent with a gift for seeing things from a different angle.
But that counted for nothing in his own mind. He wanted to commit
suicide!

“You mean we´ll never forget the message
she´s just sent us?”

Hector nodded without looking at Alvaro. “Do
you think you´ll ever forget that pyramid while you´re still
alive?”

“No, I won´t.” Alvaro agreed.

“And the girl and her shadow? Or that demon
of a dog of hers?”

Alvaro nodded. “No, they’re locked into my
memory bank, too.”

Hector went on with more self-assurance. “If
she´d put the message in words, the troglodyte over there would
probably have understood. But he would have forgotten it, like
us.”

“What a load of crap!” Dante objected. “All
this in the name of being original, is that it? You´re simplifying
it too much. It´s all about being blunt. This girl named Death,
won´t ever repeat this message again. You´re forgetting that we
don’t have much longer to live. Or at least three of us don´t. Do
you think all of this never-to-be-forgotten business makes any
difference to those who already have one foot in the grave? Your
theory´s far too elaborate. As far as I´m concerned it´d be a whole
lot easier to put everything into words instead of sending fucking
messages via that mutt over there.”

Dante paused and looked at the dog than ran
his eye around the table. Everyone was listening to him. “She´s got
another reason for doing this. As far as I´m concerned she´s just
having fun at our expense. It must be breaking her up inside, all
the more so seeing the rubbish that’s been going on.”

“It´s possible. We´ll never know for sure.
And really it doesn´t matter. Nothing does.”

Alvaro was going to refute that last
sentence, but thought better of it. He couldn´t convince anyone who
was determined to die, and for better or worse the time had come to
finish all this. It was his turn to deal the cards and the moment
he’d been preparing for had arrived. A chill ran up his spine.

To achieve his aim he needed Judith to
stay in the game, so he arranged the cards to give her an excellent
hand: four kings. He gave Dante a lower set of four and Hector
three of a kind. He didn´t want to leave him out, now that he
wanted to lose. He distracted them with a comment about the girl
and changed the pack of cards without them realizing it. Then he
began to deal.

“I´ll kick things off with a little week
nothing more.” Dante said.

Judith and Hector equaled the bet and Alvaro
did the same. It was better to raise later on. They discarded as
was to be expected. The preparation was perfect and everything was
going well. It was all about not doing anything stupid and staying
calm. He could pick the pace up later.

“How about another week to heat things up a
bit.” Dante said.

“Make that a month.” Judith countered.

Hector accepted the bet. The game was moving
under its own steam. Alvaro decided to bet, but modestly. “Because
it´s the first time the four of us have played a hand together I´ll
raise it to two months.”

“Very good, Doc.” Dante said approvingly.
“You want us to feel comfortable, don´t you? There´s no need to
sound so pleasant. The truth is you make me sick and it´s better to
speak straight with those you’re trying to kill. I’ll see this
miserable bet of yours and raise it six months. Let´s see if you
sound so friendly the next time you open your mouth.”

“It´s my turn first.” Judith interrupted.
“And I´m going to accept that bet. I´d be more than happy to finish
up with six of your months.”

Alvaro would have preferred Judith to have
raised the bet, but even with the hand he´d dealt her she was
cautious. At least she was still in the game. It was impossible to
fold with four kings.

“I bet the lot.” Hector said. “There you´ve
got everything I´ve got left. I don´t have any need for chips
now.”

He threw the cards down and leaned back on
the chair. Alvaro studied him with curiosity. For someone who was
determined to die he was as cool as a cucumber. But he´d put all he
had down. That was unexpected. Now Alvaro’s straight flush would
wipe them off the table and he´d be the winner, thanks to cheating.
But who’s perfect?

“Well, I´m not going to back down now. I´m in
with the lot too.” Alvaro said.

It was a certain bet that Dante would do the
same. Alvaro had analyzed everything very well and knew the old
businessman wouldn´t drop out now with four of a kind in his
hand.

“
If you´re in, Doc, then so am I.” Dante
confirmed. “There´s all my chips, losers. Now there´s only you
left, princess.”

Judith took her time. The hands that were
holding her cards were shaking as she scrutinized her hand. “It
looks like this is the last hand. I´ll see you too.”