two guys in the white baseball caps? No? Well, do you know what they do here? No? Then whose house do you think this is? No idea? Is that so? You mean you just like to drop in on houses-you-don’t-know-who-the-owner-is, you don’t know what goes on there, you don’t know any of the other visitors there? Then Heaven sent you? Or you heard voices? An unseen hand guided you? It’s all genetic?… and so forth.
Two cops positioned themselves outside, one in front and one in back, in case some upset denizen of the dope den managed to slip out of the hovel and make a run for it.
Then the questioning began. The Sergeant and Nuñez removed the sheet of crack and its fragments from the giant’s belly. His full weight was on his arms, which were bound together at the wrists. He started to complain, and the Sergeant said to him, “Shut your filthy mouth, pussy. You’re nothing. You’re my pussy. You wanted to kill me, pussy? You wanted to choke me to death? We gonna see about who chokes who. Let’s shove shit up yo’ ass until it’s coming outcho mouth. You pussy faggot. He wants to kill a cop—and he’s a three-hundred-pound sack a shit-filled faggot.”
With groans of exertion, Nuñez and the Sergeant lifted the huge man up into a sitting position. “I didn’t know sacks a shit weighed this much,” said the Sergeant. “Okay, what’s your name?”
The man looked the Sergeant in the eye with molten hatred for a half a second, then lowered his head and said nothing.
“Look, I know you got shit for brains. You were born stupid. Face it. You were going ooonga ooonga ooonga!” The Sergeant lifted his shoulders and curled his fingers up under his armpits in a semaphore for an ape. “But you learned a thing or two since then, ain’tcha? By now you’ve grown up into a real sub-moron. That’s a big improvement, but you’re so goddamned dumb, you wouldn’t know what a moron is, let alone a sub-moron. Right?” The giant had his eyes closed and his chin hung down over his collarbone. “From now on, every time you get up in the morning, I want you to go to the mirror—you know what a mirror is? Or do you have mirrors in the jungle?—I want you to go to the mirror and say, ‘Good morning, Shit-Faced Asshole.’ You know what morning means? You got any fucking idea—about anything?—any fucking thing at all, dumb ass? You know what dumb means? You look at me, stupid! I’m asking you a question! What’s your fucking name? Do you have a name? Or are you so dumb, dummy, that you can’t fucking remember? You’re in deep shit, shitfabrains. We found enough crack on your big fat belly to put you away for three consecutive life terms. You’re gonna spend the rest of your fucking life with subhumans as dumb as you are. Some’um got no brains at all. But I think you got one, or half a one. Count to ten for me.” The prisoner remained as dejected and slumped over as before. “Okay, I’ll give you a hint. It starts with one. Okay, then, count to three. You know about three, don’t you? It comes after one and two. Now count to three for me. You don’ wanna cooperate? Then rot, you fucking animal!”
“Sarge,” said Nuñez. “Let me talk to him, okay? Take a break, Sarge. Go chill. Okay?”
The Sergeant shook his head wearily. “Okay. But remember one thing. This asshole tried to kill me.” Then he walked away.
Nestor headed straight for the white girl… ¡Coño!—it was dark in this room, with all the windows blocked the way they were. But the girl’s face was so white, she stood out in the gloom like an angel. He was absolutely intrigued—which made him conscious of how sopping wet with sweat he was. He tried to clear the sweat from his face with his hand. All that did was give him a sweat-wet palm, too. The worst of it was his T-shirt. It was drenched… and being too tight to begin with, it clung to his skin and made his whole torso look wet, which, in fact, it was. Could the girl stand being close enough to him to converse?—a concern that had next to nothing to do with the interrogation he was supposed to carry out. As he drew closer—that pure white face! She was as beautiful as Magdalena but in an