The last game by Fernando Trujillo Read Free Book Online Page B

ago. A drunk driver crashed into them after
driving through a red light.” Hector´s voice seemed to be getting
softer with each word of the story. He stopped a lot to take deep
breaths. The others listened carefully to what he was saying. “The
family had been to the cinema. The accident should never have
happened but it did. The impact of the collision was terrible.
Their car flipped twice. The mother lost consciousness and the
boy´s leg was trapped under a jumble of metal. He was screaming as
loud as he could. Two women passing by tried to pull him from the
wreckage but couldn´t. When the fire brigade arrived the father was
already dead. He drowned in his own blood and the boy saw
everything. In the end he was rescued with his mother. But the leg
couldn´t be saved and was amputated.”
    “That´s a terrible story.” Judith said,
understandingly. “I´m sorry.”
    “Are they relatives of yours?” Alvaro asked.
“Why are you so interested in them?”
    “I was the driver of the car that hit
them.”
    That answer explained a lot of things. Alvaro
thought about the effect that that would have had on Hector. He
couldn´t help feeling a little sorry for him. Knowing that you´d
ruined an entire family´s life wouldn´t be easy to live with. The
way he´d explained what had happened showed clearly that he´d
assumed all the responsibility.
    “ It was an accident.” Judith said. “You
can´t keep on tormenting yourself over that. The boy´s father won´t
come back to life or the boy won´t grow a new leg just because
you´re tormenting yourself every day.”
    Hector looked at her, spoke in a voice that
seemed deeper and ridden with pain.
    “Don´t you think I´ve thought that? I´ve told
myself and my psychiatrists that very thing countless times. But I
was there, not you. The father dying and the boy losing his leg
weren´t the only horrendous injuries in that accident.”
    “Pay him!” Alvaro told Dante, impassive.
“Another million into Hector´s account or there´s no deal.”
    “What´s all of that got to do with you?”
Dante asked. “He could have made the whole thing up. You don´t have
to be Confucius to see how gullible you are.”
    “Maybe that´s true but that´s your bad luck.
I´m not going to budge an inch. Pay him or you can play on with the
few chips you´ve got left.”
    “ Very well, Doc. I'll pay, so
I can win and wipe that smug look of all your
faces . What you´re
really doing is giving me another opportunity to come face to face
with you two again.”
    Dante took the chips off Alvaro and finished
his part of the deal by calling the accountant.
    “Let´s take a break.” Alvaro said.
    He looked at the girl to see if she agreed or
wanted to keep playing. But she wasn´t there. Her chair was empty.
She´d apparently left while they had been arguing. He saw her in a
corner of the room beside her inseparable companion. She was
throwing a tennis ball that went surprisingly far given the size of
her tiny arm. The big black dog shot after the ball each time she
threw it, taking it in his razor sharp teeth and bringing it back
to her. Zeta moved silently for such a large animal, and never
crashed into any piece of furniture.
    Alvaro handed a scrap of paper to Dante, with
the account number of the bank he wanted the money paid into,
written on it, and then walked away from the table. He wanted to be
alone for a while to reflect on what had happened and the new
direction the game was heading in.
    The mystery of what drove Hector on, had only
been partly solved. Now he could understand where he was coming
from. A man coping with a problem like that had to be easy to beat.
Really, he couldn´t even be considered a rival. Even so, there had
to be more to Hector than that. The fact that he kept on refusing
to play was testimony enough to that. Was it part of a plan? Was he
waiting for the right moment? Had the surgeon been thrown off the
track?
    Alvaro thought about Dante´s comment that
Hector had