The Foreign Girls

by Sergio Olguin

  “That’s plenty. That’s all we need. Now to the matter of our fee.”

  He mentioned a figure that struck Three as high: a quarter of all his savings. But he wasn’t going to haggle over the price, nor did he plan to look for anyone else to do this work that he couldn’t do. Nick made it clear the budget included comprehensive information about the woman but not hacking into emails or social media, or phone-tapping. If he needed any of that, they could arrange it, but it would cost him more and they would need more time. Three said that what they were offering him was enough. He paid them 10 per cent on the spot (which was all the money he had on him) and Nick agreed to ring him very soon with news. Within the next forty-eight hours, in fact.

  Around noon the next day Nick called and asked him to come to a pizzeria on Corrientes and Anchoa. They had got to work faster than he was expecting.

  “Before anything else, you should know this: Verónica Rosenthal has a powerful father. He runs the law firm Rosenthal and Associates and he’s the kind of lawyer I wouldn’t want to have across the aisle from me at the Tribunales law courts. That said, Verónica Rosenthal isn’t in Buenos Aires. She’s gone on vacation. She won’t be back for two weeks, give or take. On top of the statutory annual leave for journalists, she’s taken five days of compassionate leave. She’s travelling in the interior. We can wait for her to come back and get back into a routine here, in Buenos Aires. Or we can try to track her down in the interior.”

  It occurred to Three that Verónica had more protection in Buenos Aires, and for that reason it would be better to go and find her wherever she was.

  “I’d rather know where she is now.”

  “We also found out something else important. The building where she lives has no security camera, but there is a doorman who’s there all day watching people come and go. We think we can get into the girl’s apartment in the early hours. We’re going to go there at two o’clock tomorrow morning. Come with us if you like.”

  It sounded like a good idea. He would go with them to Verónica Rosenthal’s apartment. He would see how the woman who had tried to kill him lived.

  They met on Avenida Córdoba, on the corner of Calle Palestina. Nick was driving, Bono dozing with his head against the door. They left the car about a hundred yards away from the building. Nick had told him not to bring a gun or any weapon, but Three had come with his Glock anyway. They walked down the empty street. When they reached the building, Nick and he stood to one side while Bono, wearing gloves, managed to open the door in thirty seconds. They took the elevator up to the second floor. This was the risky part: a neighbour could get into the elevator and ask them what they were doing. If that happened they would have to neutralize the neighbour and his family and then continue their investigation. Plus they would have to take some things away to leave the impression of a break-in, although it was likely the journalist would suspect this was no run-of-the-mill burglary.

  Bono opened the apartment door quickly and silently. It wouldn’t be necessary to stage anything here. On the contrary; they would have to leave everything as it was. Nick put on his gloves and offered a pair to Three.

  The apartment was beautifully ordered. The blinds were down, so they turned on the lights without a second thought. Nick threw his jacket down on the ground against the front door so no light would be seen from the corridor. Then he switched on the computer.

  “Wouldn’t it be great if she’d left her mailbox open.”

  Three looked over the apartment, starting with the immaculate kitchen. Everything was in its place. There wasn’t so much as a used teaspoon or cup left out on the counter. He opened the fridge and found only a block of membrillo quince jelly, a few cans of beer, some soft drinks, a bottle of water, mayonnaise, a tub of mustard, a jar of pickles and another, unopened, of olives. He went back into the living room, where Nick was at work on the computer while Bono looked through the CDs and books.

  “Unfortunately she didn’t leave her email open. I see it’s a Gmail account. I’m trying to get in now.”

  Three left him to work and went to the bedroom. Bed made, not even a speck of dust on the television set. There were some family photos on the walls. He went over to look at them more closely: Verónica as a girl with the woman who must be her mother, Verónica with two other women her age. There were also photos of children, of an older man. In the months Three had spent in prison he had been able to familiarize himself with Verónica’s face and physique. He had seen her in videos being interviewed about her journalism. He had found photos of her, too.

  He knew you must never get distracted by ideas that have nothing to do with work. His task was to find Verónica Rosenthal and kill her. He mustn’t think about anything else. Whether she was pretty or ugly, strong or weak, these things were irrelevant. Even so, Three felt a certain thrill being in this woman’s room. He opened the closet and saw her clothes neatly ordered, opened a drawer and found her underwear. He didn’t want to rummage through it or take anything away. He closed the closet doors and went to the bathroom. He opened the cabinet, saw the array of bottles, shampoos, creams, soaps.

  Something on the floor beside the bidet caught his attention. Some multicoloured item of clothing. He picked it up off the floor: it was a thong. Three took it in both hands and stretched it out, imagining Verónica with this underwear on. He felt himself getting an erection. He sniffed the thong, trying to imagine the smell of Verónica’s body. Why, considering how tidy she had left the place, had she left her dirty underwear on the bathroom floor? He thought of throwing it back on the floor where he had found it but didn’t. Instead, he tucked the thong into one of his jacket pockets. Verónica wouldn’t miss it. Come to that, she would never return to this apartment anyway if he managed to find her first.

  When he came out of the bathroom, Nick was still busy on the computer.

  “OK, I can give you a picture of the situation so far. The mail isn’t open, but the last thirty days’ browsing history is here. I’m making a backup of her computer’s cache, but I’ve already run into some interesting things. Before she left she bought a return ticket to Tucumán. We have the PDF with the reservation issued by the website. So we know which flight she’s coming back on in sixteen days. She looked at hotels in different parts of northern Argentina. She didn’t make reservations in any of them, but she did check the availability on different dates. The strange thing is that she didn’t look for a hotel in San Miguel de Tucumán, which might mean she already knew in which hotel or other place she was going to stay. The first place she looked up is Yacanto del Valle. After that she looked at places to stay in Cafayate, Salta, San Salvador de Jujuy, Purmamarca, Humahuaca and La Quiaca. She also rented a car in Tucumán, which has to be returned to the airport the day she returns.”

  “And can we find out where she is now, or where she’ll be tomorrow?”

  “Since she hasn’t booked any hotels, it’s hard to know whether she’s sticking to the itinerary she came up with when she was looking into availability. By the looks of things, she should be in Yacanto del Valle. Or perhaps in Cafayate, if she moved on earlier. I don’t think she’s still in San Miguel de Tucumán.”

  “Is she travelling alone, or with someone?”

  “The flight and internet searches are all for one person. I’m going to take everything away and I’ll make a summary of dates, hotels, possible routes. Anything that might be useful to you. Found anything over there, Bono?”

  “Addresses of bookshops and music shops she goes to regularly. She quite often travels on line B of the Underground, and she uses the tickets as bookmarks. She speaks, or at least reads, English and French. She gets free books from publishers… She smokes and drinks coffee. She’s a bit clumsy.”

  “We’re bound to have more information once we’ve analysed the data from her computer. Did you find anything, Three?”

  “Just that she’s very tidy.”

  “It’s not an inconsequential detail. That kind of woman makes no false
steps.”

  V

  There wasn’t much more in the report Nick handed him in the McDonald’s on Avenida Caseros and Entre Ríos the next day, except for the names of several hotels, some of which were in the same town. Nick also gave him the subject of all the emails she had opened in the previous month, but without their contents, so what would have been most useful to him was missing. The strangest revelation in Nick’s report was that every so often Verónica visited a website where people posted pornographic stories, and another belonging to Club Atlético Atlanta. She must have a boyfriend or relation who was into soccer.

  Three paid him what was still owing and Nick told him to keep in touch and to call if he needed any help while he was up north. They wouldn’t charge a peso more.

  “It’s part of our customer service, Three.”

  “That’s my name when I’m working for Doctor Zero. Now I’m working for myself. The name’s Danilo.”

  And Danilo walked out of McDonald’s, leaving Nick and Bono to their burgers with fries and their Coke Zeros.

  He couldn’t afford to lose time. Ideally, he would have flown to Tucumán, but it was impossible to travel by plane carrying a gun and ammunition and using his real name. He thought of getting a car, but driving more than eight hundred miles didn’t appeal, and there was always the possibility some provincial police officer would know about the arrest warrant surely hanging over his head. There was no option but to go by bus.

  Three went back to the apartment and put everything he needed into a bag. He took out the thong and smelled it again. It reminded him of her. He felt like one of those dogs that are given an item of clothing to smell so they can follow the scent. He thought the thong could be a kind of amulet and threw it into the bag on top of his things. Its cheerful colours were like a scandalous stain on his dark clothes.

  He went to the bus station in Retiro and tried to find the bus that took the least time to get to San Miguel de Tucumán. There was one that could do the journey in fourteen hours, between 8.30 at night and 10.30 in the morning. He could sleep in the bus and arrive refreshed. Then he would work out how to get to Yacanto del Valle on local transport. If he didn’t find Verónica in that town, he would travel on to Cafayate. He was confident of finding her quickly, but he knew patience would prove a necessary virtue in the coming days.

  3 Scandinavian Blonde

  I

  Sunbathing topless with the girls by the pool late one morning, Verónica had a sensation of déjà vu. They had spent the day before like this and presumably the next day would be the same, unless autumn suddenly descended and it started getting cold, or rainy. So she suggested to the others, as they ate their lunchtime salad on the veranda, that it would be a good idea to continue with their trip. Leave in two or three days, perhaps. Petra and Frida agreed. They wanted to go to Amaicha del Valle, Verónica to Yacanto del Valle. There wasn’t much difference between one town and the other, but there was a guy in Yacanto Verónica was keen to meet.

  That compelling logic was enough to convince the others. Verónica told them what little she knew about the man: that he came from a wealthy family in Salta, like the wife of her cousin, who owned this house. That he was an art dealer – he owned a gallery in Yacanto – and that he was, at least according to the most recent reports, a bachelor.

  “And it’s universally acknowledged that a millionaire bachelor must be in need of a good wife.”

  Frida and Petra looked at her, puzzled.

  “Are you husband-hunting?” Petra asked.

  “No, girls, just paraphrasing Jane Austen. Relax.”

  The last thing Verónica wanted was a husband, but the thought of going somewhere for the sole purpose of meeting a man amused her. It was almost like a game, another tourist attraction ticked off. And when they asked her what she had seen on her trip she could say: “I saw the Yungas, the red rock formations of Cafayate, the Quebrada de Humahuaca valley and a promising marriage candidate.”

  The final part of the night began like a carbon copy of the previous one: she and Petra smoking and staring at the sky in search of spy satellites. Even if they weren’t shooting stars, Verónica would have liked to make a wish or two. That black, moonless sky over the dark landscape made her anxious, though. She didn’t like it.

  This time when they returned to the living room, Frida was still there and was opening a bottle of red wine. They had been planning to go out for dinner but changed their minds at the last minute. There were some pizzas in the freezer that would do the trick.

  Verónica connected her iPod to the speakers and put a playlist on shuffle. The first song to come on was “Vambora”, by Adriana Calcanhotto. Petra brought out one of the pizzas, half of which was destined to languish, forgotten, on the coffee table. Verónica lit a cigarette with no intention of going outside to smoke it. The girls were still drinking, but she was tired of red wine. She went to the study to fetch her cousin’s bottle of Black Label Johnnie Walker and some whisky glasses, but poured out only one, for herself. The music playing was familiar to her, even though it wasn’t coming from her iPod. Without saying anything, Frida had connected her own device. Verónica knew the song, but not this version. She asked what it was.

  “It’s ‘Bobby Brown (Goes Down)’, by a French singer called Swann.”

  Verónica took a long draught of whisky. Frida and Petra started talking about a Swede they had met in the Norwegian fjords. A guy in his thirties, chubby, friendly, a bit shy, who they had chatted to on various occasions during their boat trip. They couldn’t agree on whether he had been called Svan or Stieg.

  “Svan tried to kiss me at one point,” Petra recalled.

  “Stieg.”

  “I rebuffed him, nicely, and he gave me a look of pure hatred, only for a second, but…”

  “I always got the feeling he was giving us funny looks.”

  “That’s what you said afterwards, but up until that moment we’d thought he was a nice guy.”

  “Whatever – the next morning the boat came into port at Bergen and from the breakfast room we saw all these strange movements on the dock. Loads of police cars.”

  “There was a commotion on the boat too. People were going out on deck, so we got up and followed them. My heart almost stopped when I saw they were taking Svan away in handcuffs, surrounded by police.”

  “Stieg. Afterwards, we found out the same guy had killed a girl on another trip a year earlier. The police hadn’t been able to find the person who did it until that moment.”

  “We were so lucky. I still don’t know what stopped him showing up in our berth. The other girl had been killed in hers during the night, and in the morning he’d thrown her body into the sea.”

  Verónica listened to the story as though it were part of the music. She poured herself another whisky. Frida and Petra were still drinking wine and telling her about their travels. Listening to their voices, Verónica felt herself to be in a kind of rapture, her body stretched out on the sofa with Petra opposite, on the other side of the table, and Frida beside her. Sitting up to take another drink, she realized the glass was already empty. She felt dizzy but decided to pour herself another measure anyway. After taking a sip she lay back, leaving the glass on the floor. She closed her eyes.

  Now Frida and Petra were talking about some wonderful, mysterious girl, whose eyes spoke of sadness, who had secrets she told no one – not even them, who, being both so close and so distant, would be the perfect confidantes. A person should never be as weighed down by pain or sadness as she was. What could she do to end the pain that was so deeprooted in her? It was a few seconds or even minutes before Verónica realized this wasn’t a dialogue but just Frida talking. And she understood that Frida’s words were directed at her. She should open her eyes. But she didn’t. And she wasn’t surprised when the air filled with Flowerbomb and Frida’s lips pressed against her mouth. Not even a kiss. Just lips touching. The gesture would become a kiss only if she reacted. And she did. She moved her lips, felt
Frida’s mouth, the warm breath, the perfumed skin. Verónica opened her eyes. She wasn’t going to let this be like a dream, like a wave that carried her along without her doing anything. She moved slightly away and took Frida’s face between her hands. Only now did she see her friend’s eyes were grey, or perhaps a muted green. Nordic eyes. Eyes like that had loved Vikings and Valkyries, and now they were looking at her. Verónica didn’t want Frida to think she had any doubts as she looked in her eyes. She pulled Frida’s face towards her and kissed her again.

  One of Frida’s hands, resting on her knees, began to move up to her inner thigh. It stopped at the edge of her shorts. Verónica glanced over at Petra, but she was no longer sitting in the armchair opposite. Had she gone out to smoke, like last night? Was she in another part of the living room, watching them? Frida’s fingers caressed her thighs and ran over the trim of her underwear. Then she took her hand away, unbuttoned Verónica’s shorts and, with her help, took them off. Frida caressed her legs, stomach, breasts. Verónica didn’t know what to do. She had never experienced anything like this before. She was enjoying the kissing, touching, Frida’s perfume; she loved feeling the girl’s soft skin, but she wasn’t particularly interested in her tits or in moving her hand down to her pussy, as Frida was doing now, having put her hand inside her underwear and started gently stroking her, very slowly, almost distractedly, in the same way she pleasured herself alone. Now Verónica did want to know if Frida was as turned on as she was. She caressed the other girl’s nipples and Frida let out a strange-sounding moan. As if moans were different in different languages and this was the Norwegian version. Verónica wanted to know if Frida was as wet as she was. She moved her hand under the miniskirt which was now pulled almost right up, stroked Frida’s lower stomach and moved her hand down until she felt the damp warmth of her body. At that moment Verónica started to come. She squeezed Frida’s hand between her legs and didn’t let it go until her orgasm was finished. She felt her body grow limp then, as if all the alcohol she had consumed that night were sweeping over her. Frida kissed her lips again and Verónica closed her eyes. If she didn’t open them soon, she was going to fall asleep. And she didn’t open them.