A Game for the Living Read Online Free PDF Page A

room beyond, then continue with drunken determination into the kitchen.
    â€œDon’t touch anything in there!” shouted the fat officer, who had started after him.
    Theodore heard arguing voices and then the sound of liquor being poured into a glass, and he knew it would be Lelia’s yellow tequila.
    â€œMy friend needs a drink,” Carlos said with dignity, and walked towards Theodore with glass and bottle.
    Theodore took the glass gratefully. It chattered against his teeth.
    More questions. How long had Carlos known Theodore Schiebelhut? Had he known Lelia Ballesteros? How long? Did she have many men friends? She had many men and women friends. How had Theodore looked when he came to the party this evening?
    â€œFine,” Carlos said, “absolutely fine.” He took Theodore’s glass from him and poured some more.
    â€œThat’s enough of that!” said the fat officer.
    â€œThis is for me,” Carlos said, and drank some from the glass, then passed it back to Theodore before the fat officer could take it from him.
    Theodore felt suddenly exhausted. He walked to the couch, sat down, and leaned to one side on his elbow.
    The plump doctor waddled slowly into the room, and Sauzas turned to him. “She has been dead—oh, two to three hours. And she has been raped,” the doctor said wearily, fastening the last latch of his satchel.
    Raped . Theodore felt the ultimate twist of disgust in his throat. He sat forward on the couch, holding his trembling knees down with his forearms. He pushed his cuff back nervously and saw that his watch said one-fifty.
    The detective was questioning Carlos about Ramón.
    â€œI don’t know Ramón so well. He is in a different line of work,” Carlos said somewhat prissily. “I have seen him perhaps three times in my life.”
    He had seen him many more times, Theodore thought, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered until they saw Ramón. He was startled by Carlos shouting, “ Mutilated? ” in an astonished tone.
    Carlos looked at Theodore blankly. “She was mutilated? ” he asked, as if this somehow changed everything.
    And then Ramón entered the room.
    Theodore stood up.
    Ramón looked around in a startled way, then fixed his eyes on Theodore. Ramón was of medium height, with black hair and dark eyes, and his body was strong and compact with that mysterious thing, a certain vitality, or perhaps only proportion, which was immensely attractive to women. His face could change expression in an instant, yet it was always handsome, even unshaven, even when his hair was tousled or uncut, the kind of face women always looked at; and now as he stood in the room in his inexpensive suit and with his hair mussed, Theodore felt that everyone must be thinking that Ramón had been her favorite.
    â€œWhere is she?” Ramón asked.
    The policeman who held his arm pulled him towards the bedroom, and the detectives trailed after them to watch Ramón’s reaction. Theodore also followed. Lelia lay on her back, and her head rested on her pillow, mangled arms at her sides. It was a horrible attitude of repose, as if she had just lain down for a moment, fully clothed, and something unbelievable had happened to her. To Theodore’s battered senses it seemed that the blood might be dark red paint that they could simply wash off her. Except that if one looked closely, Lelia had no nose.
    Ramón put his hand over his mouth. His shoulders crumpled. He made a strange muffled sound. The detective pulled at his shoulder, pulled hard, but Ramón whirled out of his hold and flung himself down by the bed, gripping Lelia’s knees, which the pink blanket just covered. He pressed his face against her thighs and sobbed. Theodore looked away, reminded of Ramón’s Catholicism—of this aspect of it—that made him want to touch something, embrace something that was no longer alive. Theodore was at the