SNUFF (h.s.)

Chapter 06

Scaramouche

Sergio speaks to Nora like he recites poetry.

Tonight he was silent.

Sergio remained on his chaise-longue when Harry shored himself up on the stair banisters and looked at him with a clean and pure smug. He was wearing a pair of shades Harry could never lay his hands on while enjoying the soft swinging. They were almost at the marina and then he wouldn't have this gloating face.

"I don't believe you mind?", he had a crooked smile when he pointed at Nora with his head downstairs.

"Your fucking with Nora? If I made money out of it, I'd love it!", he whickered with a pair of long, wooden knitting needles in his hands fixing something over there and had changed to an azure shirt with palm trees and Spix's macaws. Harry pulled his hair back with his wet hands.

"You know, this job with Sandro... I wanna do it", Harry started and kneeled on the step. Sergio wasn't admiring his clothes on him and yet he was handsome. Even though Nora doesn't sleep with Sergio, she dresses Harry like him and fucks him in a way she'd never revealed on screen.

"But?"

"Why did you do this to me?"

"I warned you Harry... You talk too much"

"I didn't want to bury that kid. I shouldn't have"

"Listen, ol' sport", he bent towards him and the blue macaws on his shirt were stretched as if they were Jerry Lewis' hands in The Nutty Professor, "You buried a kid, alright? Forget about it", he waved his hand, "Do you know how many more are coming? These bastards are piling up and the bullets are not enough. Here's your problem! There will come a day when you've buried more people than you know alive", he stood up and went close to the steering wheel, he could see Sandro waiting at the jetty.

"I just bury, Sergio...", he held the empty belt loop. Whatever he wore didn't belong to him. Everything was a loan from the dead he'd buried or the man right across him with the thoughtful face. Sergio was always concerned. He considered everything with a worried frown as if he'd never had a fun time with his life.

Sergio wasn't a cheeky beggar junketeer and he didn't have to prove to any motherfucker that he chose the life he had. Anyone who's held a gun knows that they can't spare themselves and will eventually come a time when you don't laugh at everything. Your bliss allays. You become wiser. You've taken up a responsibility which few understand. Sergio killed with prudence, he didn't share bullets like a pope's indulgence. Sergio was honest, he didn't have a gift to tell the one who deserved to die from the one who didn't. He killed because he was obliged to.

"That's right", he turned the wheel with the needles and the folded knit in his hand, "Your whining is useless"

"But it wasn't my job to bury that kid!"

"Do you think he was a martyr?", perhaps Sergio's shades cost more than the rent Harry owed to Lady-Marina, "You've already dug the ditch, Harry... Why do you hesitate to throw the stiff in?"

"I never said I wanted to bury children"

"If you can't take it, you know what to do", he stared at him and the dentures hurt his gums again. Four of them – for fuck's sake! Four of them were gone and would never come back. The tooth fairy had stolen them for good.

"I didn't say that either, Sergio"

"Harry, I'm not keeping you here by force", he showed himself and the knit waved in the blowing air, "And I don't want to send you away. But you'll decide what you're gonna do from now on", they were almost there, Harry bent from right to the left and back again along with the boat as if he was an overripe bunch of grapes ready to fall bitter.