ovens, cassette and microcassette voice recorders, cameras. Lorenzo owned an old garage a couple of kilometers from the house. This garage was a compact market for the latest home appliances. He took the goods, bargained over the amount that was due to the supplier, then set his own price, sold and kept for himself everything that was over the price that the supplier asked. But greed is a destructive feeling. Not long ago, another client approached Lorenzo at the garage. He brought for sale five latest model tape recorders, which were still in boxes and remained unpacked. Brand new. Among them was one Sony VCR of the Betamax standard – a real exotic. There was also a Soviet-made tape recorder «Jupiter-Quadro», which, if it gets onto the local market, will only be through illegal means, which is why it was not easy to get it. Such a product cost astronomical money. The only people who didn’t want to overpay for the right to own such a tape recorder were someone who was weak-minded. Lorenzo could not resist the temptation. He secretly sold the tape recorders, held a sale for the remainder of the goods in the garage (only two old electric stoves, a black and white TV, a refrigerator and a couple of irons remained unsold), collected the money and locked himself in his apartment. He did not even pay those whose goods had sold on the clearance sale. He sold them at prices, on average, lower than those requested by suppliers, just to get rid of the goods and quickly fill the cash register. When there was a burning smell and dissatisfied suppliers found out which building his apartment was in, Lorenzo left his apartment and settled with his girlfriend, who lived on the same floor.
He stood in the aisle, dressed in a wrinkled white T-shirt and blue jersey trousers. A wide gold chain with a weighty cross sparkled around Lorenzo’s neck. His feet were bare.
– Doesn’t it bother you that they… – Massimo didn’t have time to finish.
Lorenzo interrupted him, but did so in a slightly bolder voice:
– What can they do? Come here for a day or two, poop and calm down.
After that, Lorenzo took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit it himself, then offered it to Massimo, but he refused. Lorenzo expressed respect to him for not using this poison.
While Lorenzo was exhaling a cloud of tobacco smoke, a thought occurred to Massimo:
– Listen, can you borrow a ten? I’ll give it to you as soon as it’s available.
Lorenzo turned sharply, looked inside and shouted:
– Manuela? Manuela!?
A girl’s weak, barely audible voice came from the apartment:
– What?
– Bring my jacket.
After a long pause she replied:
– OK.
After a few more seconds, Manuela asked:
– Who are you talking to there?
– No one – Lorenzo answered irritably.
– I hear someone’s voice.
Lorenzo said in an even more irritated tone:
– Shut up and bring me the jacket!
After some time, twenty-year-old Manuela Pellegrini, the heroine of the graffiti on the walls of the entrance, approached the threshold with short, sluggish steps. She was wearing a nightie or something, her eyes were sleepy, and the dark red hair on her head was disheveled. Her state was close to autopilot mode. Lorenzo’s leather jacket hung from her right arm, the cuff rubbing against the floor.
He picked up his jacket, looked at Manuela’s frozen body and said:
– Are you waiting for something?
With a stony face, she silently turned around and her legs dragged her back into the apartment.
Lorenzo slapped his palm on Manuela’s buttock and said:
– Better get your ass ready. I’ll be back soon.
Lorenzo pulled out from his inner pocket a stack of bills so thick that Massimo had only seen in the movies. He pulled two ten-dollar bills from the stack and handed them to Massimo. He took it, but did not have time to open his mouth when Lorenzo added:
– You don’t have to return it. This is for not ratting me out.
Massimo addressed him immediately:
– Thanks. But still, think about my words. At least get something for self-defense.
Lorenzo slowly took a cigarette from his clenched lips, maintaining a thoughtful look.
– By the way, this is a good idea.
After these words, Lorenzo hit Massimo’s shoulder with his palm, after which he added:
– When I entered the house, some suspicious guy was sitting across the street and carefully watching our porch. He’s clearly not local.
– Great. The next time you see him, say: «Lorenzo asked me to say: «Fuck you». Now excuse me, man, but I have to go. I’m going to send a part of myself into that ass – Lorenzo said, pointing to Manuela in the back room.
After his impassioned speech, the speculator slammed the front door, and before that he said, pointing his finger at Massimo’s suit:
– Awesome outfit.
Massimo stepped over the threshold of his apartment. He pressed the door against the frame and turned the key, leaving it in the keyhole. It was a two-room apartment, which was once furnished with only the most necessary things. The only household appliances were a refrigerator made in 1965, a used black-and-white TV and a non-working washing machine. In Aunt Barbara’s room there was a bed, next to it a bedside table with a lamp and a small wardrobe with a mirror on the door. Massimo always slept on the sofa in the living room.
He stepped over the threshold and the first thoughts in his head were related to the fact that this place had not been cleaned for a long time. Aunt Barbara has been in the hospital for a long time, and Massimo had to stay in the company of representatives of the judicial and law enforcement system. But he barely had the strength left to crawl to the sofa and collapse with incredible bliss on its soft upholstery.
Massimo was awakened by the doorbell. He turned his sleepy gaze out the window. It was already past dusk. Rubbing his face with his palms, he moved towards the front door. The second call rang. Massimo grabbed the key, turned it twice and pulled the handle.
Jorge Gomez and Pablo Inzaghi stood on the threshold. Mexican and Italian, both eighteen. Massimo had a stormy friendship with them from the very moment his aunt took him in. Pablo and Jorge were the first people Massimo met when he moved into the new house. They participated in any affray together. If one got into something, then it directly affected all three, so they received bruises in the same way as they gave to their offenders – all together. They spent every day doing something together. It is therefore not surprising that for each of them two friends had more influence than home and family. Their life views and principles coincided, and their characters were not much different, especially Massimo and Pablo. Everyone was indignant at the lack of justice: some get everything, while others get nothing. They agreed that if you belong to the lower class of society, about which the authorities do not care, then morality and ethics have the right to be revised unilaterally. Now YOU decide what is right and what is wrong; what’s good and what’s bad. The reasons for such a position in life seemed more than compelling: since someone at the top decided that it was fair to divide people into first and second class, then let these politicians wipe themselves out with their decrees and constitution. The second class will live by their own laws, since general civil rights do not apply to them.
Among them, only Jorge had a full-fledged family and had a less explosive temper, succumbing to the absolute influence of Massimo and Pablo. He lived in a typical Mexican immigrant family. In addition to him, there were four more children in the family: two brothers and two sisters. But, as is usually the case, life for immigrants was extremely difficult. Hard physical labor was