Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [34]
He’d gone about two hundred yards when suddenly he stopped short. He turned and looked back: there, in the shadow, with one of its walls dimly lighted by the feeble glow of a streetlamp miraculously spared from the urchins’ slingshots, lay the warehouse, silent now. It wasn’t a cat, he thought, it wasn’t a rat. It was a thief. His heart began to pound and he could feel his forehead and the palms of his hands break out in a cold sweat. It was a thief, a thief. He stood there motionless for a few seconds, though he already knew he’d go back there. He was sure: he’d had presentiments like this before. He drew his pistol from its holster, released the safety catch, and gripped his flashlight in his left hand. He strode back in the direction of the warehouse, with his heart in his mouth. Yes, no doubt about it, it was a thief. On reaching the building, he stopped again, panting. What if it wasn’t just one thief, but several? Wouldn’t it be better to hunt up Shorty, Corny before he went inside? He shook his head: he didn’t need anybody, he could handle the situation by himself. If there were several of them, so much the worse for them and so much the better for him. He put his ear to the wall and listened: complete silence. The only sound to be heard, somewhere off in the distance, was the lapping of the waves and an occasional car going by. A thief, my ass, he thought. You’re imagining things, Lituma. It was a cat, a rat. He was no longer cold; he felt warm and tired. He walked around the outside of the warehouse, looking for the door. When he found it, he could see by the light of his flashlight that the lock hadn’t been broken open. He was about to leave, telling himself, What a fool you are, Lituma, your nose isn’t as sharp as it used to be, when, with a last mechanical sweep of his flashlight, he discovered in its yellow beam the hole in the wall a few yards from the door. They’d done a crude job of breaking in, simply chopping an opening in the wooden wall with an ax, or kicking a few planks in. The hole was just big enough for a man to crawl through on all fours.
He felt his heart pounding wildly, madly, now. He turned his flashlight off, made sure the safety catch of his pistol was off, looked round about him: nothing but pitch-black shadows and, in the distance, like match flames, the streetlights of the Avenida Huáscar. He took a deep breath and roared, in as loud a voice as he could muster: “Have your men surround this warehouse, corporal. If anybody tries to escape, fire at will. Get a move on, all of you!”
And to make the whole thing more believable, he began running back and forth, stamping his feet loudly. Then he glued his face to the wall of the warehouse and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Hey, you in there! The jig is up: you’ve had it. You’re surrounded. Come on out the way you came in, one at a time. We’ll give you just thirty seconds!”
He heard the echo of his shouts fade away in the darkness, and then nothing but the sound of the sea and a few dogs barking. He counted off the seconds: not thirty but sixty. He thought: You’re making an ass of yourself, Lituma.
He felt a mounting wave of anger, and shouted: “Keep your eyes open, boys. At the first false move, mow ’em all down, corporal!”
And screwing up his courage, agile despite his years and his heavy greatcoat, he got down on all fours and crawled through the opening. Once inside, he got quickly to his feet, ran on tiptoe to one side, and leaned his back against the wall. He couldn’t see a thing, but didn’t want to turn his flashlight on. He couldn’t hear a sound, but again he was absolutely certain. There was somebody there, hiding in the dark as he was, listening and trying to see. He thought he could make out the sound of someone breathing, a panting noise. He had his finger on the trigger, holding the pistol at chest height.