felt he would have killed her with his bare hands if she was alone. They were all whores.
He stood up, dusted off his faded jeans, put on his dark glasses, and with quick step headed for the door. He took a cursory glance at the three directions the old fool could have taken. Then he spotted him beside an old Pontiac, motioning to him with a fingertip.
“Just come here, Schoolboy,” Judas called laconically.
With his hands tucked in his pockets, Kane walked slowly to him. When he got what must have been too close for comfort, he was told to hold it.
“This is a séance. You are not here by fortune. Skeleton keys will change hands now, so we’ll see what’s been happening. I feel it’s necessary because the hair-raising adenoid harms and it’s causing an unbearable choke. It makes essentialities stand at gross variances with realities. They should be transmogrified. That was one. Second. Under my able tutorship, you’re going to imbibe the logic of granite throwing into the state’s glass house and at the scum of our earth, mine and yours.”
Not interested in anything the old fool was saying, Kane whispered in a wicked tone, “Where’s my money? I told you I don’t want trouble; don’t make me give it to you.”
Judas, who had a knack for reading facial expressions, jumped down from the car and stood opposite Kane. “Listen to me, wounded Schoolboy. I know you are only trying to form a pus, right? From . . .” He changed his mind—he didn’t have to go too fast. “I can stem all deficiencies parading unmolested in your hazy, maladroit, happy-go-lucky fringing life.” He paused to give an unhealthy smile, pounding his own palm. “You want to know how, Schoolboy?”
Strange. What was he to know? “Know what?” Kane demanded. “Don’t want to know anything, just gimme my money.”
“I can make you a motherfuckin’ millionaire in, eh . . . months, six at most.”
As blood ran through his veins two or three times faster, Kane assessed the five-foot-six figure in front of him, from the hair of his head to the soles of his weather-beaten Italian shoes, thinking that anyone who could make another a millionaire should be one himself. But this fool didn’t look like one. He looked like a super hustler trying to make ends meet without much success. Anyway, Kane reasoned, sometimes he might not know who was rich because some folks could pretend not to be. Intuition told him to play along. He broke the silence. “You have to convince me how it can happen—otherwise I’m going to have my money, peacefully or forcefully.” His voice became shrill and serious. “I don’t give a ditch how old you are. Don’t ever in your remaining life call me a schoolboy. Now, tell me how. I’m a very impatient person with a bad temper.”
“You don’t even possess a trait of bonhomie in your gut. I wasn’t lighting an alteration. We are treading the same route. I only want to lead you to a blue ribbon and place you under the aegis of the Dean.” He formed a smile. “Little Schoolboy, now tell me a little about yourself.”
Kane cautioned himself to be careful in his chat, because this clown could be a cop and cops really can arrange anything. “By the way, who are you?”
“If you are not ready to be initiated, I’d be on my fringing way, then.” Judas turned to go but didn’t move an inch.
“Well, my name is Kane . . . er . . .” He remembered his best friend, Jerry Smith. “Yep, I’m Kane Smith, computer engineer, from Clackamas Estate. I’m preparing to go to college after next summer.”
“Just going to college in your old age? Are you sure your scion’s name is Smith?”
“Damn it, what a fuckin’ question. You think my name is Malcolm X Jr.?” Kane frowned. “Now tell me how am going to make my millions, or else I’ll twist your arms and have my money back.”
That was, in fact, the best environment to beat and rob without any interference. He quickly descended on the left arm and was about to twist it, first gently, when Judas cried and jumped away.
“Chill, you crazy son of a motherfuckin’ bitch. Now come with me and show characters worthy of hailing.” Judas led him to the adjoining street, down Walter Avenue, along the 24th Street gift shops that overlooked the New European Quarters, through Camron, and finally to the St. Philemon. “There is a cabal waiting.”
It was past 11 p.m. and the entire area was so silent that after some few minutes’ walk, the noise of rock music from the casino could still be heard faintly, though the distant voices of those therein had long faded.
Walking with long strides, Judas, at intervals, craned his neck sideways to see how the other was faring. At a certain junction, he leaned on an oak tree to have a good squint at a lone bungalow under the shade of another stand of trees a few kilometers away. That was his house. One would have to travel a great distance before another building was sighted. He was used to checking his house from afar, to be sure there was no police officer disguised as a town planner loitering with measuring equipment. He lowered his head and screwed his eyes more carefully, to Kane’s amazement.
After spending some considerable time for that purpose, he motioned to the other to follow him. In a strange language to Kane, he bugged him with theories for solving mathematical problems and occasionally paused to ask if he understood.
“Didn’t I tell you I’m about to go to college? How on earth do you want me to understand?”
“I think you should go back to the second grade.”
Kane imagined himself sitting at the back of a classroom with seven years olds. “Man, fuck you. Will you please answer these two questions, but briefly?”
Judas nodded.
“Tell me your name and the deal you have for me.”
“The terminology is a fecund sub-subject under the act of your own profession.”
“My profession? What do you mean? How am I going to make . . .”
“Don’t feign—you know what I mean,” Judas said. “I mean species of a kind of struggle Urugeria’s law doesn’t tolerate.” On an open palm, he gestured with four fingers in pursuit of the thumb. “I have two loyal phalanxes who carry my badge. You don’t need one because you have my blood.”
In bewilderment, Kane shouted. “Blood? What the fuck do you mean?”
Judas opened the door to his apartment. “I have known you since you were an embryo. Follow me, Kane.”
How did this clown know my name? Kane asked himself.
***
Judas’s sitting room, ablaze with light, was luxuriously furnished, though not well arranged. The overlapping white curtains, thought to be a window blind, were already turning brown. Some kitchen paraphernalia dishonorably stationed there were also not receiving attention. Among them were a clothes hanger and a colored basket containing cooking utensils placed at an angle on the far right just beside a little cupboard displaying his shoes. There was a newly polished shelf filled with assorted wines. Posted boldly on the shelf was a penciled placard reading, “This is my bar.”
Judas
