VI
Mechi had made a few decisions. She would go to night school in Coronel Berti. The deadline for registration was still a few days off and she had already found out there were spaces. For now she would keep working for the Arregui family, but she would look for another job. Not in a private house, but in a shop in Yacanto del Valle. In three years’ time she would go to Buenos Aires. She wouldn’t have children until she was thirty or thirty-five.
For now, however, there were more pressing questions for Mechi. One was how to help Verónica get El Gringo Aráoz convicted. She had seen him strolling around town with his wife and little son. They had all looked very happy, even the baby in its little stroller. El Gringo must not even remember he had raped and killed her sister. If she had asked him why he’d done it, he would have replied: I don’t know any Bibi, I’ve never met anyone called Bibi.
Mechi had watched them for a while and followed them as they looked in shop windows, bought ice cream and sat at a table outside a bar to have coffee and for El Gringo’s wife to breastfeed the baby. For two hours she walked behind the family without their realizing. The advantages of being invisible. During that time she thought of doing lots of things: stealing the baby and tossing it into the air, like a bag of French fries, in the middle of the square; finding an iron bar and smashing it over El Gringo’s head, shouting Murderer, shouting You’re a bastard and a murderer, spitting on him. But she didn’t do any of those things. When they left the bar, El Gringo and his wife walked a block then climbed into their 4 × 4. She stood watching as the pickup drove off, as it went further, grew smaller, disappeared.
Mechi knew Verónica wouldn’t act the same way, wouldn’t follow him or imagine doing horrible things. She would simply make sure he ended up in prison, getting raped by the other prisoners every night.
There was something else she had to do for Verónica: find out where the Vázquez brothers were – Pretty and Ugly. That was what Rosalía and her other friends called them. But she had never liked Sebastián and didn’t find him pretty, much less a good person: when his mother had put the hex on Rosalía, Mechi suspected that he knew about it and found it amusing; in fact he’d probably helped to make the little voodoo dolls.
She had to ask Rosalía if she knew anything about the brothers, but it would be better not to do this on the phone. She was more likely to tell the truth face to face. They were friends. All the same, she didn’t know if she would tell Rosalía why the search was on for the boys.
Rosalía and the other girls used to meet in a club called La Pulpería, a kind of run-down bar where they sold beer at a reasonable price and didn’t add a surcharge for underage drinkers. When she finished work, Mechi told her grandmother she was going to meet some friends, that she wouldn’t be home until dinner time. She sent a text to Rosalía that said Going to Pulpe – R U? A minute later she got a reply from her friend: Here alrdy.
She needed to be careful with Rosalía. If she found out Mechi was asking questions in order to pass information on to the journalist, she’d get angry and not say anything. Mechi would need to bring the subject up subtly, unhurriedly, to get her to talk.
When she arrived at La Pulpería, she saw that Rosalía was with some other kids: La Chaqueña, Andrea, Cuqui, Toño and Pablo. They were sitting against the wall outside, drinking a beer which they passed around. They shouted at her to come over.
Mechi drained the last bit of beer from their bottle. Toño asked her to buy another, so she went in and asked for a litre bottle of Quilmes. She took a swig first, then passed it on to the others.
Rosalía stood up, grabbed Mechi’s arm and led her away from the others. She seemed happy, animated. “I was going to call and say we should see each other,” she said.
Mechi took out her packet of cigarettes and lit one. She was getting better at this.
“Have you started smoking?” Rosalía asked her.
“Yes, got a problem with that?”
She needed to bring up the subject somehow, but first she would let Rosalía tell her whatever it was she wanted to say. Her friend seemed anxious to say it. She must have hooked up with Cuqui – she’d liked him for a long time. Mechi blew out smoke.
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
“So tell me, hon.”
“I got back with Seb.”
“You’re back with Seb? Are you serious?” Mechi stared at her.
“Yes, but his mother doesn’t know.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, babe, I mean it.”
“But Seb and Rulo are wanted by the police.”
“So what? Anyway, they’re innocent – he said so.”
“Who said so?”
“Seb – are you even listening to me? We’re going out again, but it’s a secret. From his mother and the police.”
Mechi struggled to absorb what Rosalía was telling her. How could her friend have gone back to her ex-boyfriend if everyone was looking for him?
“So how did this happen? How did you get back together?”
“He called me. Without telling the others, because he didn’t want them calling anyone on account of him being accused of murdering those girls.”
“So have you been to wherever Seb is?”
“Yes, they’re hiding out in a house in the country, past the Monte de los Ríos. He came here, to Pulpe, to fetch me. On a motorbike, wearing a helmet, and in clothes that were too big for him. To make himself look different. When he called, he asked me to buy cigarettes, as many as I could. I had to get the money off my old man.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I always get money off him.”
“I mean I can’t believe you met up with Seb.”
“He took me to the place where he’s hiding with the other two. He took me into a room and it was really sweet. We did everything.”
“Girl, this is incredible.”
“He told me that when all this is over and people realize they’re innocent, he’s going to talk to his mother and tell her not to bother us any more.”
“So you’ve only seen him once?”
“No, I’ve been loads of times. I had to learn the route because Seb can’t always come and get me. It’s dangerous with all these fucking cops around.”
They fell silent.
Rosalía smiled. “I left you speechless, babe.” Mechi nodded.
“The last time the guys kept hassling me. Bring some of your friends, they said. They’re obviously tired of spying on me and Seb.”
“Seriously? They said that?”
“Well … they’re on their own, poor things. There’s no way you’d come with me, is there?”
Rosalía had her brother’s moped. She’d been using it since getting back together with Seb, to travel to the house where the three men were hiding. Mechi got on the back and hugged her friend tightly. She hadn’t thought twice before saying yes, that she was willing to go and visit the guys. It was her chance to find out where they were hiding and to pass the information on to Verónica. The journalist wouldn’t believe it when Mechi told her how lucky she’d been.
In Mechi’s rucksack, the girls took three bottles of beer which they had bought in the club, splitting the cost.
It wasn’t easy to get to the house. They had to ride through the hills on dirt roads that were like a labyrinth of zigzags, carefully negotiating the uneven ground that was scattered with fallen branches and stones. After passing through a grove of trees, they arrived: it was an old neglected house. One of those abandoned country houses you see in horror movies. Rosalía left her moped beside two others parked outside the door.
Someone – not one of the Vázquez brothers – leaned out of a window. He went back inside and Sebastián opened the door shortly afterwards. Rosalía ran into his arms and they kissed. When they drew apart, she said:
“I’ve brought Mechi.”
15 The Call
I
The men brightened at the sight of the beers Rosal
ía produced from the rucksack. They asked if the girls had brought cigarettes, and Mechi gave them what remained of her pack. Rulo and Javier looked her up and down and smiled. Mechi’s biggest worry until then had been keeping a map of the route in her head. There had been many twists and turns, but if she memorized it well, with any luck she would be able to tell Verónica how to get there.
“You look very serious,” Rulo told her.
He really was ugly. He had a kind of twisted nose and a grimace that made you think he was about to cry even when he was trying to smile, as at that moment. He had long, dirty hair that looked as though it had been drawn with a thick, brown pencil.
“That’s just the way I am.”
“She’s a bit of a buzzkill,” said Rosalía, who was sitting next to Seb.
Javier, who was next to Mechi, put a hand on her leg. “She seems very sweet to me.”
Mechi removed his hand. “Stop. Don’t even think about it.”
Sebastián and Rulo laughed.
“The dark girl’s prickly,” said Sebastián.
“Don’t rub her up the wrong way,” said Rosalía, and drank some beer from the bottle.
It wasn’t Mechi’s first time dealing with unwanted advances. She was used to handling tiresome men and defending herself physically if necessary. When guys got drunk on the dance floor, they thought that grabbing a woman’s ass was a form of seduction. Mechi had managed to win respect for herself by dishing out the odd slap. But it wasn’t the same here. At a dance, if she slapped someone, she could get other guys or girls to come to her defence. Out here, in this ranch house, she could only hope Rosalía would defend her. And there were three guys against her. Or two, if Sebastián took the girls’ side.
“OK, I’m going to have to leave,” Mechi said.
“Boo!” shouted Sebastián and Rosalía.
“Hey, we’ve only just started getting to know each other,” said Rulo.
What if Rosalía didn’t want to come back with her? Mechi had to leave before nightfall. She wouldn’t be able to find the way back to the main road in the dark. Anyway, it must be at least an hour on foot, even walking fast. She needed to persuade Rosalía to leave with her, but her friend was busy kissing her boyfriend. It wasn’t going to be easy getting her out of there.
“Rosalía, shall we go? My grandmother’s waiting for me.”
“I’m sure Granny won’t mind you staying a bit longer,” Rulo said.
“How about before you go the three of us have a little fun? It’s been a long time since Rulo and I ate fresh meat.”
“And you look fresh and tasty.”
“I know you’re going to like it,” said Javier and put his hand back on Mechi’s leg, but this time he squeezed it harder.
“Stop, dickhead, what do you think you’re doing?” Mechi removed his hand even more firmly.
“Why did you come here, then? To turn us on then change your mind? Listen, darkie, don’t play hard to get because —”
He broke off at the sound of an approaching motorbike. Nobody spoke and Javier went to look out of the window, just as he had when Mechi and Rosalía had arrived.
“It’s Nahuel,” he said, and didn’t sit back down next to Mechi but stayed standing.
A young man came in and surveyed the scene. “What are these girls doing here?” he asked, annoyed, without saying hello.
“We’re just having some fun,” said Sebastián.
Nahuel went to the kitchen, looked in the bedroom and opened the door to the bathroom. He seemed to be checking there was no one else there.
“Are you fucking retards or what? Do you think this is a joke? There’s a million cops looking for us and instead of jerking off you bring these sluts here?”
“Rosalía is my girlfriend,” said Sebastián, defensively.
Mechi began to need a piss. She remembered having that same feeling the day she found the dead girls’ bodies. Now she was with the men who had killed them. She shouldn’t have come with Rosalía. She shouldn’t be there now. She should go. Make a run for it. Get out. Wake up and discover all of this was nothing more than a bad dream.
Nahuel sat on the counter of a wooden sideboard. Without speaking, he looked at all of them, as though thinking. He jutted his chin at Mechi. “And who’s this one?”
“She’s a friend of my girlfriend,” said Sebastián.
Rulo and Javier remained silent.
“Let’s see if you can grasp this. You’re going to have to stay here a good while. Until the police lose interest. If you start bringing people here, do you know how long you’ll last? Not even a day. You’ll all go down.”
Nobody answered.
“Get this bitch out of here.” Nahuel stood up and shook out his trousers, which had got covered in dust. “I’ll take her,” said Rosalía, quietly.
“Are you morons? The bitch opens her mouth and in two hours we’ve got everyone turning up here, even helicopters.”
“I swear I won’t say anything,” Mechi said quickly, in the thread of voice left to her.
Nahuel didn’t deign to look at her when she spoke. He gestured to Rulo and Javier. “You know what to do.”
Rosalía stood up, walked over to her friend and took her by the shoulder. Mechi felt her vision clouding over. Without realizing, she started to cry.
“Nahuel, I’ll take her away. She’s a really good person. She won’t tell a soul. I know her.”
“You get to walk because you’re this halfwit’s girlfriend, but don’t push your luck or you’ll end up face down in the mud.”
Sebastián tried to shuffle Rosalía out of the house. She pushed him off, turned around and shouted, “Let me go – can’t you see they’re going to kill her?”
Javier and Rulo went towards Mechi, who had made herself very small in the chair and was sobbing quietly, not daring to move.
“Nahuel,” said Rulo, “the bitch is hot. Can we have some fun first?”
“Do whatever you like, but bury her behind the house afterwards.”
Rosalía burst out crying. Javier stood over Mechi, who resisted being pulled from the chair. With Rulo’s help, he lifted her out of it. Mechi screamed and Javier slapped her.
“Don’t do anything to me,” shouted Mechi. “If I don’t go home, the police will come looking for me.”
Everyone, apart from Rosalía, laughed.
“Really?” Nahuel asked sarcastically. “Next you’ll tell me there are a thousand police surrounding the house and that they’ll kill us if we don’t let you go.”
“I have to meet a journalist, and if I don’t arrive she’ll realize I’m in danger.”
Rulo grabbed her by the hair and pulled it. Mechi let out another scream as they pushed her towards the bedroom. Still crying and shouting, she insisted, “I mean it. Verónica is waiting for me. She’ll go looking for me if I don’t show up.”
“Stop, stop, for fuck’s sake, all of you!” ordered Nahuel, and, at the door of the room, Rulo and Javier released their grip on Mechi. “What did you say the journalist was called?”
“Verónica.”
“Verónica what.”
“Verónica Rosenthal.”
“For real?” Nahuel said and laughed loudly. “Today is my lucky day. Stop, leave the bitch. I think I’m going to save my brother a bit of money.”
The others looked at him, baffled.
“Have you got the journalist’s number?”
“Yes,” said Mechi.
II
It was a few seconds before she realized that the person kissing her was Federico. Verónica opened her eyes and slowly returned to the real world. It was an effort to leave the dream, in which her mother had been making onion soup. Federico looked triumphant. Would he be like that every morning they woke up together? Truth be told, she’d prefer someone who went to make coffee straightaway and brought it to her in bed, without speaking.
“I have news,” said Federico, and she was grateful to be the woman in the relationship and not have
to worry what her partner would say next. “They’ve just called me from the prison service. Peratta has been found dead. Right here. At the entrance to Coronel Berti.”
So the hitman nightmare was finally over? She couldn’t believe it.
“It’s absolutely true. I rang Chief Superintendent Suárez and he grudgingly confirmed it: the corpse is already in the morgue. Danilo Peratta has a bullet in the brain.”
“But who killed him?”
“Looks like score-settling. He died as he lived.”
“Federico, my dad didn’t arrange for him to be killed, did he?”
“Your dad doesn’t even know Peratta was looking for you, so it would have been difficult for him to send someone to kill him. I expect the guy kept some colourful company. At any rate, someone has done us a favour.”
“Incredible.”
“Get dressed – we’re going to have breakfast and then go for a walk. I feel like breathing country air.”
While they were having breakfast, Mariano recommended a good place for a walk. The Ventoso creek ran behind Yacanto and could be reached on foot in forty minutes via a wood higher up in the sierra. There were trees, flowers, birds – a little paradise almost unvisited by tourists. Luca had made them a picnic with schnitzel sandwiches, grapes, cashew nuts and several bottles of water. They set off early on their excursion.
They reached the creek out of breath and with aching legs. The hike had taken almost an hour, but it was worth it. The magnificent landscape transmitted a special calm, a feeling that everything in the world was in perfect order.
“These places will be wonderful once they can be reached by subway,” said Federico, collapsing onto a log. Verónica walked to the stream and washed her burning face. The water was very cold, which felt good on her skin. Federico took a towel out of the rucksack and passed it to her. Verónica dried her face and threw herself on top of him, kissing him.
“I’m all sweaty,” he protested, trying to get her off him.
“I love sweaty men.”
The Foreign Girls Page 30
