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By Root 1142 0

the entire web of names and complicities. Often, as one infuriating secret conversation followed another, and everything they had done collapsed and they had to start building again out of nothing, he had felt exactly like a spider at the center of a labyrinth of threads that he himself had spun, trapping a crowd of individuals who did not know each other. He was the only one who knew them all. Only he knew each person’s degree of involvement. And there were so many! Not even he could remember how many now. It was a miracle that with this country being what it was, and the Dominicans being how they were, there had been no betrayal to wreck the entire scheme. Perhaps God was on their side, as Salvador believed. The precautions had worked, all the others knowing very little except their final objective, not knowing the means, the circumstances, the moment. No more than three or four people knew that the seven of them were here tonight, knew whose hands would execute the Goat.

Sometimes he was overwhelmed at the thought that if Johnny Abbes arrested him, he would have the only one who could identify everyone involved. He was determined not to be captured alive, to save the last bullet for himself. And he had also taken the precaution of concealing in the hollow heel of his shoe a strychnine-based poison pill prepared for him by a pharmacist in Moca, who thought it was for killing a wild dog that had been wreaking havoc in the henhouses on the ranch. They wouldn’t get him alive, he wouldn’t give Johnny Abbes the pleasure of watching him writhe in the electric chair. When Trujillo was dead, it would be a real pleasure to finish off the head of the SIM. There would be more than enough volunteers. Most likely, when he found out about the Chief’s death, Abbes would disappear. He must have made plans; he had to know how much he was hated, how many people wanted revenge. Not only the opposition; ministers, senators, members of the military said so openly.

Antonio lit another cigarette and smoked, biting down on the tip to relieve his tension. Traffic had stopped altogether; for some time not a truck or a car had passed in either direction.

The truth was, he said to himself, exhaling smoke from his mouth and nose, he didn’t give a shit what happened later. The crucial thing was what happened now. Seeing him dead so he would know that his life had not been useless, that he hadn’t passed through this world like a worthless creature.

“That bastard is never coming, damn it,” a furious Tony Imbert exclaimed beside him.

7

The third time that Urania insists he take a mouthful, the invalid opens his mouth. When the nurse returns with the glass of water, Señor Cabral is relaxed and, as if distracted, docilely accepts the mouthfuls of pap his daughter offers him, and drinks half a glass of water in little sips. A few drops roll down to his chin. The nurse wipes his face carefully.

“Good, very good, you ate up your fruit like a good boy,” she congratulates him. “You’re happy with the surprise your daughter gave you, aren’t you, Señor Cabral?”

The invalid does not deign to look at her.

“Do you remember Trujillo?” Urania asks the nurse point-blank.

The woman stares at her, disconcerted. She is wide in the hips, sour-looking, with prominent eyes. Her hair, dyed a rusty blond, is dark at the roots. At last she responds:

“How would I remember? I was only four or five when he was killed. I don’t remember anything except what I heard in my house. I know your papa was a very important man in those days.”

Urania nods.

“Senator, minister, everything,” she murmurs. “But, in the end, he fell into disgrace.”

The old man looks at her in alarm.

“Well, I mean”—the nurse is trying to be agreeable—“he might have been a dictator and everything else they say about him, but people seemed to live better back then. Everybody had jobs and there wasn’t so much crime. Isn’t that right, señorita?”

“If my father can understand you, he must be happy to hear you say that.”

“Of course he understands me,” says the nurse, who is already at the door. “Don