Scars

Very good, I said, when he gave me the check. There’s only one more problem: who’s going to change it.

That’s easy, said Marquitos. Give me the check.

I gave it to him and he went over to register and started talking to the cashier. The cashier shook her head, and Marquitos came back, saying that the owner wasn’t there. He stood for a moment next to the table, thinking, with the check in his right hand and a key ring that he jingled in his left. Then he said he would be right back, and he disappeared for fifteen minutes. He came back with three ten-thousand-peso bills folded up in his right hand. While he was sitting down he dropped them on the table. I put them in my pocket. Marquitos was staring at me, with a sort of gleeful, surprised smirk on his face.

If you hadn’t been born with such dark skin, people would realize that the summer sun hasn’t touched you once. You’re very thin, Sergio.

Then he asked me if I had eaten, and I said I hadn’t, so he said he’d take me out.

You had something to do, I said.

I cancelled it, said Marquitos.

That was a mistake, I said. We’ll get bored.

I’ll be in charge of the conversation, said Marquitos.

We went to a grill bar and sat down at a table in the courtyard. From where I sat I could see the grill and the cook working the fire and turning the meat without getting too close to either. Each time he finished some task at the fire, he would turn to a sort of counter where he attended the waiters, and every so often he took a sip of wine. I watched him work the whole time. Then I started to speculate whether or not he would take a drink each time he turned around. I tried to guess the moment it would happen: whether after talking to a waiter, after stoking the coals, or after pulling a strip of meat from a hook near the grill, salting it, and laying it on the grill. Mentally, I started trying to guess the exact moment when his hand would reach for the glass, grab it, and take a drink. I guessed right six times and wrong twice. Marquitos asked me what was the matter, that I wasn’t saying a word, and I said that I felt great and I was happy we had gone out to eat. In the courtyard of the restaurant, the heat was subdued. There was a kind of breeze, and the smoke from the grill kept the mosquitos away.

Marquitos asked me if I had read Dostoevsky’s The Gambler, and when I said I had he asked me what I thought of it. I told him I thought it was good. We finished eating and then went downtown in Marquitos’s car for a cup of coffee. It was a small car, sky blue. We had a coffee at the arcade bar, but now even Marquitos didn’t try to talk. He asked me if I wanted to go anywhere, and I said that if it was on his way to drop me off at the club. When we got there, Marquitos stopped and turned off the car. He said he wanted to se me in action and was coming in with me. I said he would get bored, and he answered that there wasn’t any chance it could be more boring than dinner, and then he got out. By the time I got to the foot of the stairs that lead to the game room, I was already sweating. I told Marquitos to wait for me near the table, and I went to the cage and exchanged one ten-thousand-peso bill for a yellow oval and five red rectangles. I put them in my shirt pocket and joined Marquitos. He didn’t even hear me walk up: his eyes were glued to the center of the table.

There wasn’t a single seat open, and the gamblers were pressed close around the table. I had to stand in the second row and watch the game over the shoulders of the guys who were standing behind the chairs. Marquitos was standing on his toes, balancing lightly, his eyes wide open. I asked him which way the last hand had turned out, and he said banco. So I reached over the shoulder of a guy standing behind the table and threw out the yellow oval to bet it on banco. Then I waited for the hand, and it turned out punto. Marquitos gave me a disheartened look. The next hand, I threw the five red rectangles on punto. Punto took it. I left the ten thousand on punto and the third hand turned out banco.

I got in line, then changed the second bill for two yellow ovals and went back to the table. Marquitos was staring at me. I pretended not to see him. I looked away. For a few seconds I knew he was looking at me, even though I was looking at the center of the table. Then he looked away, stood up on his toes again, and looked at the center of the table. I had the two yellow ovals in my right hand, pressed tight. They were damp. I was about to throw one on the table when I saw Marquitos opening a path between two guys who were standing next to the table, and then he disappeared. I turned my head around and saw that he had just sat down. His pale face had reddened, and I thought he looked slightly unhinged. I leaned in and asked him what he was doing.

I want to see it close up, he said.

Then I threw the two yellow ovals to punto. I went to the cage, changed the last ten-thousand-peso bill for a green rectangle with the numbers stamped in the center, in gold, and went back to the table and stood next to Marquitos, opening a path with my elbows through the guys who were standing behind him. I leaned in and asked Marquitos how he saw the thing.

Darkly, he said. His pale color had returned.

We didn’t speak again for at least fifteen minutes. I defended my green rectangle as best I could, but in they end they took it. With my last five thousand I looked for my pulse, but no matter how much I tried to empty my mind for a full, uninterrupted minute, nothing came to fill the space, and in the end I threw the yellow oval blindly. Nothing happened. They took it. Right then, Marquitos turned around and had me lean in. He asked me if I had finished, and I said yes. Then he asked if he could cash a check here. I told him he could. He got up, tilted the chair against the edge of the table, to reserve it, and followed me to the cage. I told the cashier that Marquitos wanted to cash a check. I introduced Marquitos and stepped away. Marquitos said two or three words to the cashier, leaned over the counter, filled out the check, and handed it to him. The cashier gave him ten green rectangles. Marquitos put them in his hip pocket, then looked at me and shook his head, indicating that I should follow him. We went back to the table, and he told me to sit down. His tone made it more like an order. He stood to my right. Then he dropped three green rectangles on the felt in front of me. I looked up and saw that he was staring at the table with a malevolent smirk, but his left leg was shaking, his heel tapping against the floor.

I asked him what he wanted me to play.

I don’t have any preference whatsoever, he said.

So I put the first rectangle on punto, and it turned out punto. I left the two rectangles on punto and they gave me back four. Marquitos leaned in and asked me if I saw how easy it was, and then he picked up the six green rectangles and put them in his pocket. Then he walked away from the table. I got up, tilted the chair to reserve it, and followed him. He was walking toward the cage. I caught up to him halfway there and asked what he was doing.

Cashing in, said Marquitos. He reached the cage, asked for his check back, and gave them ten green rectangles. Then he exchanged the last three rectangles for three ten-thousand-peso bills. He put away the check and handed me the bills.

These are yours, he said.

I took the bills and put them in my pocket. I asked Marquitos if he wanted to wait for me or if he was leaving, and he said he was leaving. I walked him out to the top of the stairs and watched him as he walked down. Then I shouted for him to hurry the mortgage along, and I went back to the table. A guy was sitting in the chair I had reserved, and I tapped him on his right shoulder with the tips of my fingers and he got up. I didn’t play a cent until my turn as the banco came around, and just as I was going to bet the first ten thousand on banco, the game ended. So I went home and went to sleep.