The Guilty Read Online Free PDF Page A

the only ones whose sole aspiration is to spray on the analgesic.
    Lupillo’s line was the first sign I’d become an outcast. The second was that nobody played any welcome-back tricks on me. I had returned to Estrella Azul, the team where I got my start. If anyone had still cared about me, they would have pissed in my shampoo. That’s how simple the world of soccer is.
    â€œWe even held a funeral mass for you!” added Lupillo. I was watching his bald head, shiny as a crystal ball. Yes, they’d held a mass for me where the priest praised myhustle and integrity, virtues death had conferred. Dead men have integrity.
    I almost died with the Mexicali Toucans. I’ve seen pictures of people playing soccer in minefields. In any war there are desperate people, desperate enough not to care about losing a foot, as long as they can shoot a ball. Maybe if I went to war I’d think there was nothing more badass than kicking something round, like your enemy’s head. In my heaven, there are no soccer balls. Heaven for strikers is full of them, I guess. But for defensive midfielders, heaven is an empty field where there’s nothing to do and you can finally scratch your nuts, the balls you haven’t been able to touch your whole career.
    I almost died with the Mexicali Toucans. I’m saying it again because it’s absurd and I still don’t understand it. I wonder if the bomb was ball-shaped, if it was like the one The Road Runner hands to Wile E. Coyote in the cartoons. A stupid thing to worry about, but I can’t stop.
    I spent three days under rubble. They figured I was dead. I was erased from every team’s roster. (Not that many clubs were fighting over me, but I like to think I had to be erased.)
    When I woke up, the Toucans had sold their franchise. When the bomb exploded, so did the dream of having a team that close to the United States, on the only field below sea level. There were lots of rumors when the news got out. Almost all of them had to do with nar-cotrafficking: the Gulf cartel didn’t want the Pacific cartel hijacking its move into soccer.
    I didn’t know anything about Mexicali until the triplets walked into my room in Mexico City. I’d fractured my ankle and was sick of watching TV.
    â€œSomebody’s here for you,” said Tere. From her expression, I should have known my three visitors had buzz cuts.
    Not just that: they were enormously fat, like sumo wrestlers. Colored tattoos spilled out from under their t-shirts. All three had neatly trimmed goatees.
    They set a case of Tecate beer on the bed, as if it was some incredible gift.
    â€œThe brewery’s close to the stadium.”
    That was what they said.
    I’ve always liked Tecate beer. Maybe what I like most is the red can with the shield. Still, it wasn’t a great way to start a conversation.
    The fat men were weird. Maybe they were insane. They were the board of directors for the Mexicali Toucans, and the brewery was their sponsor.
    I asked them their names and they answered like a hip-hop group:
    â€œTriplet A,” “Triplet B,” “Triplet C.”
    Could I do business with people like this?
    â€œWe like to keep a low profile,” whichever one of them said. “No photos, no box seats, no names. We love soccer.”
    â€œSorry, but where the fuck is Mexicali?” I asked.
    They explained things I’ve never forgotten that possibly weren’t true. In Porfirio Díaz’s day, the Mexicali desert was famous for a platoon of soldiers that disappeared there. They lost their way and all of them died, fried to a crisp. No one could live in that desert. Until the Chinese arrived. They were allowed to stay because everyone wassure they would die. Who could survive 120° heat below sea level? The Chinese.
    As they talked, I started to distinguish between them in a strange way. They appeared to have Chinese blood and I could only tell them apart the way