“No. You will pay us the total sum on the first of October.” This came from the tall blond man sitting directly across from Ramon.
Ramon swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“And the interest, let’s see...” He conferred briefly with the other two. “For interest you will owe ten percent.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Per month.”
The room fell silent and except for his own breathing, Ramon heard no sound at all. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“And if you do not pay,” the blond said, holding up a photograph of Ramon with his wife and daughter that had been taken from a moving car outside the bodega, “we will kill you. Third.” He pointed first to Lienore and then to Maria. “Third, you understand, because we will kill them first.”
Ramon felt his stomach turn to water. “Yes. I understand. You will be paid.”
“We will be paid, that is correct. Remember that and we will do business well together.”
Ramon sat, squinting against the light, and prayed. He prayed for a good season, prayed for rain, prayed for his family’s safety, prayed that the Jomon were honorable men. Under their cool gaze, he prayed that everything would work out well.
And he prayed that Lienore would never find out what he had done.
“Ramon Madradas?”
The man in the mask nodded.
The blond lowered the photograph. “Why do you want Madradas dead?”
“Is that your business?”
“No.”
“Correct,” said the man in the mask. “So don’t ask.”
The blond passed the photograph to the man sitting next to him, who looked at it and passed it on to the black man. Each scrutinized the picture carefully.
“How did you know we killed Madradas’s family?” the blond asked.
“Everyone knows,” the man in the mask said. “Except the police.”
“Yes, except the police,” the blond agreed. The men he was with smiled.
“You will find Madradas outside his bodega tonight at eight-thirty. He will turn his back to lock the night gate. This is when you will come up behind him and shoot him.”
The blond nodded.
“You will each shoot once.”
“Why?” This was from the man in the T-shirt, who had just finished counting the money.
“Because I want to make sure he is dead.”
“Dead only requires one bullet,” the blond said.
“Maybe,” the man in the mask said. “But I am paying you triple what you asked. That buys me three.”
“Very well. Three shots. What then?”
“Then we never see each other again.”
“Naturally. I mean what do you want done with the body?”
The man in the mask paused, as though in thought, before answering. “Just leave it in the street,” he said. “Let someone else clean up the mess.”
The money had come in a courier package. Ramon had received it from a young boy, thinking that the parcel contained boxes of envelopes and postage labels he had ordered from Sao Paolo. Instead, it held paper-wrapped bundles of currency. Ramon had the package half unwrapped before he realized what it was and from whom it had come. He looked up, but the delivery boy was already gone.
With the money had come a note: “10 %, October 1.”
Ramon hid the money in a cabinet in the cellar and rationed it carefully, day by day, buying only what he needed, paying off his bills one at a time. To Lienore he explained by saying that business was improving — which, in fact, by small degrees it was. Suppliers agreed to supply him again now that his debts were erased. Borges resumed making legitimate stops, restocking Ramon’s shelves with snack cakes and soft drinks. Sales remained slow, but Ramon had the money to fall back on. The store survived through the worst of it.
And as the heat of summer passed, as, at last, occasional storms came to invigorate the parched landscape, Ramon saw tourists return. When it rained in the middle of the day and tourists angrily ran to take shelter in his store, or his restaurant, or the cantina, Ramon was overjoyed. The drought was ending; life was resuming.
When the first of October came, he found he had used only a little more than half of the original loan — he had, he discovered, overestimated his need. He had also collected enough to pay the interest, which was more than half again as much as the original amount. It galled him to think that he could have asked for less and thereby paid less in interest, but the past was the past. For now he was only concerned to get over the need to repay the loan.
He returned, on the morning of the first, to the house where he had met the Jomon before, carrying his precious parcel under his arm. He placed it on the table with a great sense of relief and accomplishment, feeling as though he were completing a legitimate business transaction. Ramon was not ashamed of what he had done.
But the three men then counted the money, insisting that Ramon remain while they did so; and when they were finished they asked him a question that swept over him like a cold wind and made his soul curl up inside him.
“Where,” the blond asked in an easy and innocent tone, “is the rest of it?”
“The rest?” Ramon said.
“The rest. Ten percent weekly over a period of six months equals two hundred sixty percent. Plus the original amount, of course.” The blond then did some calculations on a pocket calculator and came up with a figure, which he showed Ramon.
“I am sorry, sir,” Ramon said, with all the calmness he could command, “but you said ten percent per month. Not per week.”
“Per month? Are you mad? You could practically get money from a bank at that rate.”
“But it is what you said,” Ramon whispered desperately.
“Is it? Show me.”
And Ramon pulled the note that had come with the money out of his pocket, suddenly aware that it said neither week nor month on it, and knowing in that instant that this had been a deliberate omission. They took the note from him, pretended to look at it, noted that it said only what it said, “10 %, October 1,” and nothing more. But, of course, they said, it was understood by all that interest was a weekly matter.
Ramon could not contain himself. He threw himself at the table, knocking over the stack of money he had collected so painstakingly over the course of half a year. “Here is your money,” he screamed. “It is what you asked for, to the cruzeiro. You know that as well as I do. I cannot pay you more. I cannot pay what you ask. I don’t have it. Take this — it is what we agreed on.” He turned to leave and made it almost to the door.
“Your family will not appreciate your attitude,” the blond said.
Ramon turned back and said, with great fear in his voice, “You will not touch my family.”
“Not if you pay,” the blond said.
“I cannot pay.”
“In cash, maybe not,” the blond said. “But I think we can make other arrangements. Your restaurant has been prosperous, I believe; and you own a piece of El Cantoria. Sign these over to us and we will consider the debt canceled.”
So this was the point of the double cross, Ramon thought, to steal from him all he had spent his life to earn. “I will not give you that. And you will not touch my family,” he said. “I have paid. Our dealings are through.” Then he turned and left, on legs so unstable that he had to sit for twenty minutes in his Jeep before he felt he could drive home safely.
That they would try to squeeze extra money out of him Ramon might have imagined — but on this scale! He could not comprehend it. Did they really think that a poor man, even one with successful businesses, could pay almost three hundred percent interest? Then to request that he relinquish his businesses to them! Had they really expected him to give in?
He drove home in a rage, ready to pack Lienore and Maria up and take them away: out of the country, into the United States, anywhere. He would not be a slave to a gang of sharks, nor would he live in fear for his life. They would go away, even this very night if necessary. They would start fresh and make none of the same mistakes again. He prepared his explanation to Lienore as he walked through the bodega to the stairs in back that led up to their apartment.