—Where to? —the clerk repeats, looking at him curiously.
—Wherever . . . Where does this line go?
—Retiro.
—That’s it. Retiro. Give me a ticket to Retiro.
He gets the ticket. He leans against a wall. He closes his eyes and breathes deep. When he opens them again, there are three strangers looking at him on the platform, just looking at him . . .
All three of them seem to have their eyes fixed on the same spot. Giunta lowers his head and discovers his muddy shoes, his pants torn up from the getaway.
But now the train is arriving. He jumps on. The strangers get on behind him. Giunta starts to walk through the train cars. Two of the men have sat down. But the third is following him, nearly stepping on his heels.
Giunta acts with remarkable clarity of mind: he slows down his step so that the man is practically touching him, and then sits down all of a sudden—or rather, he drops like a rock—in the first seat that he finds on the right.
The stranger sits down as well. In the same row of the empty car, in the seat on the left.
Giunta doesn’t look at his pursuer. He fixes his gaze on the dark window in an effort to make out the movements of the image reflected in it. He almost jumps up from his seat. Because the Stranger—could it be a coincidence?—is doing the same thing, watching him in his own window.
Will this night never end? Giunta is in despair. The train leaves Villa Ballester behind. The stranger keeps cunningly observing him. They reach Malaver. A few minutes later they are in San Andrés.
Once more, Giunta’s instincts work in his favor. He decides in a flash. He waits for the train to start moving again, to pick up some speed. Then he jolts up, runs to the door, pulls it open in one go, walks down the platform steps, and throws himself off . . .
It’s a miracle he doesn’t kill himself. As soon as he puts pressure on his foot, the ground forces him to take giant leaps that he has never had to in his life. In his discombobulated puppet dash—ten meters, twenty meters—he brushes against a privet hedge that leaves long scratches on one arm. But the train is far away by now, lost like a glowworm in the dark.
And Giunta is—or believes he is—safe.
***
Julio Troxler has hidden himself in a nearby ditch. He is waiting for the shooting to end. He sees the police cars drive away. Then he does something incredible. He goes back!
He goes back, dragging himself stealthily and calling out quietly to Benavídez, who escaped from the assault car with him. He doesn’t know if he survived.
He gets close to the bodies and starts turning them over one by one—Carranza, Garibotti, Rodríguez—looking at their faces in search of his friend. Pain grips him when he recognizes Lizaso. He has four holes in his chest and one in his cheek. But he doesn’t find Benavídez.24
The bodies were still warm. He probably doesn’t see Horacio di Chiano, who continues to play dead not too far from there. He understands that there is nothing left to do there, and starts walking in the direction of José León Suárez.
He is almost at the station when he sees Livraga coming towards him, teetering and covered in blood. At the same moment, an officer from the nearby police station was making his way towards the wounded man, shouting: “What’s going on? What’s going on?”
—They executed us . . . they fired some shots at us —Livraga mumbled, among other insults and unintelligible mutterings.
The officer held him under his armpits and helped him walk towards the station. Along the way, they passed by Troxler.