Free The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

“You’ll sleep six, eight hours.”
    “I haven’t finished yet, Turk. Be patient a little longer. So you can spit in my face and throw me out of your house.”
    They had gone to the brothel of Pucha Vittini, nicknamed Puchita Brazobán, an old house with balconies and a dry garden, a place frequented by caliés , people connected to the government and the SIM, for whom, it was rumored, Pucha, a foulmouthed, good-natured old woman, also worked, having risen through the hierarchy of her trade to the rank of administrator and director of whores, after having been one herself in the brothels on Calle Dos, starting very young and achieving great success. She received them at the door and greeted Johnny Abbes and Major Figueroa Carrión like old friends. She grabbed Amadito’s chin: “What a sweetie pie!” She led them to the second floor and sat them at a table near the bar. Johnny Abbes asked her to bring Juanito Caminante.
    “It took me a while to realize it was the whiskey, Colonel, sir,” Amadito confessed. “Johnnie Walker. Juanito Caminante. Easy, and I didn’t get it.”
    “It’s better than any psychiatrist,” said the colonel. “Without Juanito Caminante I couldn’t keep my mental equilibrium, the most important thing in my work. To do it well, you need serenity, cold blood, icy balls. Never mix emotions with reason.”
    There were no clients yet except for a little bald man with eye-glasses who sat at the bar, drinking a beer. A bolero played on the jukebox, and Amadito recognized the dense voice of Toña la Negra. Major Figueroa Carrión stood up and went to dance with one of the women whispering in a corner under a large poster for a Mexican movie with Libertad Lamarque and Tito Guizar.
    “You have steady nerves,” Colonel Abbes García said approvingly. “Not all the officers are like you. I’ve seen lots of tough men fall apart at the critical moment. I’ve seen them shit themselves in fear. Because even if nobody believes it, it takes more balls to kill than to die.”
    He poured the drinks and said, “ Salud .” Amadito drank greedily. How many drinks? Three, five, he soon lost all notion of time and place. Besides drinking he danced with an Indian girl whom he caressed and took into a little room lit by a bulb covered in red cellophane swaying over a bed that had a brightly colored quilt. He couldn’t fuck her. “I’m too drunk, baby,” he apologized. The real reason was the knot in his stomach, the memory of what he had just done. Finally he found the courage to tell the colonel and the major he was leaving because he’d had too much to drink and felt sick.
    The three of them walked to the door. There it was, waiting for Johnny Abbes, his black bulletproof Cadillac and his chauffeur, and a jeep with an escort of armed bodyguards. The colonel gave him his hand.
    “Aren’t you curious to know who he was?”
    “I prefer not to know, Colonel, sir.”
    Abbes García’s flabby face stretched into an ironic smile as he wiped it with his fiery red handkerchief:
    “How easy it would be if you could do these things without knowing who was involved. Don’t fuck with me, Lieutenant. If you jump in the water you have to get wet. He was in June 14, the younger brother of your ex-girlfriend, I believe. Luisa Gil, wasn’t it? Well, see you soon, we’ll do some more things together. If you need me you know where to find me.”
    The lieutenant felt Turk’s hand on his knee again.
    “It’s a lie, Amadito.” Salvador tried to comfort him. “It could have been anybody. He lied. To destroy you, to make you feel more involved, more of a slave. Forget what he told you. Forget what you did.”
    Amadito nodded. Very slowly, he pointed at the revolver on his belt.
    “The next time I fire that, it will be to kill Trujillo, Turk,” he said. “You and Tony Imbert can count on me for anything. You don’t have to change the subject anymore when I come to the house.”
    “Heads up, heads up, this