He walked back to the apartment. Brought out the weapons. He cleaned the Glock and put it away again. He counted the money. He thought that he shouldn’t have taken out all his savings. Even though he had a job the next day, he couldn’t stop thinking about his revenge plan.
When Three woke up at six o’clock in the morning, he drank a few matés and ate a few crackers. At eight o’clock he went downstairs. The same type of Audi that One and Two used to drive was parked across the road. Inside, Five was smoking with the window down.
They had to get to Calle Moreno, in La Tablada, before ten o’clock and wait a few yards from a lottery kiosk called San Cono. At quarter past nine they were there. It was still early, so they drove around the area for a while. At quarter to ten they were back on Calle Moreno. They parked about thirty yards away, on the other side of the road.
At exactly ten o’clock they saw the owner of the kiosk walk past, unaware he was being watched. He arrived at the kiosk, 59lifted up the shutter and went inside. Five and Three got out of the Audi and headed for the kiosk. When he saw them walk in, the owner knew straightaway that these guys hadn’t come to pick a lucky lottery number or place a bet on the horses.
“Lads, I’m just opening. There’s nothing in the till.”
Three took out his gun and stepped closer.
“If Tito sent you, I can explain —”
The first shot hit him in the forehead. Three finished him off with two shots to the chest. Thanks to the silencer, the bullets made more noise as they ripped into the tissue of the man’s body than when they were discharged. His body lay splayed behind the counter. As the lottery seller had grasped just before they killed him, the men weren’t there to rob him, but now they needed to simulate a robbery. They opened the till, which contained only a few pesos in change, and took the owner’s phone and his wallet. Job done, in under thirty seconds. They strolled back to the car then drove away. Once they were on Route 3, Five called Doctor Zero to let him know everything had gone as planned.
Three gave the weapon they had used to Five, who also kept hold of the stolen items and the photos of the target. He would be responsible for ensuring there was no trace left of compromising evidence. Neither of the men knew who the Tito named by the dead man was, but he must be the one who had paid for their services.
Even though it was early for lunch, on the way back they stopped at a grill beside the road. They ate tenderloin sandwiches and drank a bottle of Vasco Viejo, the best wine on offer. Then Five dropped him off at the gym and Three did a workout. When he finally left the gym that evening it was with the thought that now he could start putting into action the plan he had been hatching since he was first admitted to hospital.60
IV
Three dreamed of being a champion wrestler. He had started boxing at the Huracán club, but he lacked technique and couldn’t move his waist and arms quickly enough. The boys who had been boxing there for a while used to beat the crap out of him. But one of the trainers thought he might be suited to kick-boxing because he had strength, stamina and the flexibility to kick with a raised leg. He took Three to El Turco Elías’ gym, where kick-boxing champions were made. And he was really good. He won a few contests, until one day he damaged his meniscus and had to take something like three months off and when he went back he just wasn’t the same any more. He was too cautious, fearful even, when delivering kicks. It was around that time he and another kid started stealing car radios, or whatever they could find in parked cars. Once he got caught breaking a van window. He was taken to the police station and his only thought was to ring the gym. El Turco Elías went to get him out. He didn’t say anything to him, didn’t scold him or give him a sermon or anything like that. A month later El Turco got him work as a bouncer in a disco.
Now Three’s nights consisted of ejecting troublemakers, roughing up the odd prick, watching out for the people dealing drugs on the dance floor and making sure nobody bothered them. It was good work because he got laid a lot, took uncut drugs and made good money. After two years working there, El Turco Elías took him to Doctor Zero. He had to change his habits and, even though he had never stopped his daily training at the gym, he had to work on his fitness. Fewer drugs, no messing around with girls, better focus. The first few jobs for Doctor Zero didn’t involve any kind of weapon. Just fists. Then he had to learn to use a gun. It was three months 61before they sent him on a hit job. And that time he was just accompanying the man who was going to do the shooting.
Six months in, Three killed his first man. The instructions that day would be similar to those in subsequent jobs: he would arrive with one other, or with two others, and suddenly, without a word, they would shoot the target. Killing quickly became a routine like any other, like going to the gym or a strip club. It didn’t produce any particular feeling in him, and perhaps for that reason he had always done his job perfectly. He had no weaknesses, and so Doctor Zero began to entrust him with more important jobs. He was one of Doctor Zero’s four favourites. Four professional hitmen who never failed. Until they failed. If there was one thing he didn’t understand about that whole saga, it was that the Doctor wasn’t as angry as Three was. At the end of the day, Doctor Zero had lost three indispensable men. But the Doctor seemed not to believe in vengeance. He had other men to call on. Whereas Three wasn’t going to let his months in hospital and prison be the end of the story.
Since that first job, the procedure had been the same: to go to the designated address and do what they had been asked to do. Without questions, clarifications or any information beyond what was required to beat someone up, or to kill him. The intelligence work preceding the action was taken care of by other people, who were also Doctor Zero’s people but with whom he had no direct dealings. Now that he found himself planning a revenge killing, he had no idea how to approach this groundwork, since he had never had to do it: learning the target’s habits, familiarizing himself with her life, her relationships, everything needed to establish the ideal moment to get close enough to kill her.
In prison Three had got to know El Gallo Miranda, who was serving time for attacking an armoured van and killing a 62security guard in the same operation. El Gallo had links with the police and with gangs who specialized in big heists, and got the kind of treatment in prison that a businessman would expect in a five-star hotel. Three got friendly with El Gallo, who offered to work with him when he got out, but Three turned him down because he already had a job and wasn’t planning to leave it. El Gallo liked that Three was loyal to his old boss and offered to help him whenever he needed it.
“When I get out, I’m going to need someone to get some information for me.”
El Gallo invited him to share a maté. They were in his cell, where he usually had meetings and conducted all kinds of business. Three accepted the maté but turned down the crackers with dulce de leche which an assistant of El Gallo’s had prepared and arranged on a plate.
“Someone to do intelligence? For you?”
“To find out someone’s movements, what they’re doing, where they go, all that stuff.”
“And this is for you.”
“Yes, for me.”
El Gallo chewed thoughtfully on a cracker. Three passed him the maté gourd.
“There are a couple of lads. They do good work. I’ve used them a few times and they never let me down. They’re called Nick and Bono. If you need to get into a bank’s system or to find out who an army general’s fucking, they’re not for you. It’s quite a basic service and for that reason they don’t charge as though they were stealing Obama’s sex tape.”
He wiped his hands on a napkin and scrolled through the contacts on his phone, then wrote down