Devil's Juggler [antikvár]

...A nd that's exactly how it ended. The one who had trusted him lying there in that tiny incense-wraithed chapel, tall candles on ancient five-foot-high holders. One candle at each corner of the casket. The male dog yelping and whining directly below, unable to accept that the cold, beloved thing in the box above was losing, hour by irredeemable hour, its familiar scent of sweat and tobacco and rum and gun oil. It had been raining. October in Bogotá sees much rain. Streams of dung-colored water filled the gutters. The narrow Street led down to the start of one of the carreras to the south of the city, leading through sprawling beggar- and cutpurse-ridden slums into the vibrant old quarter, the Candelaria, where white powder and flesh of all shades are traded for pennies. And the bars are packed and the music and laughter are imbibed with a quiet desperation that acknowledges this night might be one's last. He found the car, an old Toyota with armor plates on