‘That’s a strip joint.’
Barone looks round to check whether Alma heard him, but she’s dozed off, as has Silverstein. Barone is still obsessed with Honrubia.
‘I mentioned him on purpose. He was one of the leading revolutionaries. He had a price on his head because among other feats, he’d kidnapped the Brucker brothers, heirs to the most important family in our oligarchy. Then he went into exile, and travelled all over the world, still preaching revolution, gun in hand, ready to fight anywhere for the cause.’ Barone laughs out loud. ‘He was a great guy! Then he returned to Argentina, and they put him in prison for a while to balance out the joke trials against Videla and the others. He gets out, Menem gives him an important position, he’s thrown out of that because he fills his pockets a bit too quickly. All of a sudden, he announces he’s going to marry a Brucker, the sister of the brothers he had kidnapped, who is twenty years younger than him. And not only does he go ahead and marry her, but since then he’s managed to sideline her brothers from the family business, and now he’s almost in sole charge.’
Alma has woken up. She leans forward over the two men. ‘Drive slowly, Luis. Remember Argentina’s got the worst accident rate in Latin America.’
‘We’ve got other records too. The highest rates for suicide, divorce, for drinking the most soft drinks and using the most deodorants. It’s not that we like to smell good, we don’t like to smell at all. I was just telling your friend here that Honrubia has done well for himself. He’s shown he’s an excellent negotiator.’
‘Our political militancy made us efficient, hard-working and cynical. Our defeat made us pragmatic. That’s why we were so successful in business afterwards. Well, those who went into business were.’
Barone shakes his head. ‘I still get the feeling that all this is provisional, as if we were in a truce between defeat and victory’
‘Between two defeats, more like.’
‘You’re too pessimistic, Alma. One day it’ll be cherry blossom time again, like the song by Yves Montand. Nothing can be done these days in one country, simply by wishing things to happen. Some day there’ll have to be another Revolutionary International.’
Carvalho nods at this, and Barone thinks he’s agreeing with him.
‘So you think so too?’
‘I’m worried about a few details.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, nowadays it’s impossible to start an international movement without a fax machine.’
‘Yeah, I get you so far.’
‘So, where do we put the fax machine? It can’t be in Moscow any more, or in Havana, and putting it in Tripoli or Teheran would be suicide. So, where do we put the fax machine?’
The car pulls up outside the El Salto Club. The green and red neon sign is exactly the same as all the signs for strip clubs all over the galaxy.
‘So all the meat you ate woke your sexual appetite, did it?’ Alma asks.
‘We private detectives have strange beef and bedfellows.’
Carvalho says his goodbyes. As he gets out of the car, he slams the door and wakes up Silverstein. He walks towards the club, his legs heavy from so much alcohol and protein. As he is going in, he hears Silverstein’s sarcastic commentary from the car: ‘Who would have thought it? The masked Spaniard’s got a prick.’
El Sal to is a strip joint like a million others, with anonymous girls, dim lighting, loud music and the inevitable Brazilian transvestite who’s the most beautiful woman in the place.
‘But I shave three times a day,’ the Brazilian pouts at Don Vito when he refuses to be picked up.
Don Vito looks as if he’s tied to the bar, overwhelmed by the music and the strobe lighting, but he does not miss a chance to wink at every girl who passes by. When Carvalho touches him on the shoulder, he turns round with evident relief.
‘Thank God you’re here. About time. I’ve had a bellyful of this ghastly music. I’m going home to put on Libertad Lamarque singing some decent tangos. Something to soothe me. Then I’ll watch the Boca-Independiente game.’
Carvalho watches Don Vito leering at the passing trade, trying to work out his tastes. ‘You don’t seem to be having such a bad time.’
‘Music as loud as this leaves you sterile. Take a good look at that giant outside the bathrooms. He’s called Pretty Boy, and he’s the one who decides what goes on and what doesn’t in here. I’m not old enough to do business with him.’
Don Vito puts on his hat, touches the brim to say farewell to Carvalho, and heads for the exit. On the way, he leans over the topless cigarette girl and tells her: ‘If you give me your knickers, I’ll buy half a dozen packs.’
He doesn’t give her time to react, and disappears out of the door. Carvalho orders a whisky on the rocks, and sees Pretty Boy go over to talk to the cashier.
‘What do you want to do? Follow him in there to see if he’s shooting up? Just cool it,’ the cashier advises him.
Pretty Boy grumbles. He looks the spitting image of Gabriela Sabatini. Carvalho goes up to him. ‘Too many drugs?’
Pretty Boy is about to tell him to get lost when he sees the fifty-dollar bill Carvalho has pressed into his hand. ‘Private dick? You’re not a cop, they never pay’
‘I’m a sociologist,’ Carvalho explains.
Pretty Boy looks confused, and Carvalho takes advantage of his confusion. ‘What do you know about the murdered topless girl?’
‘I’ve already told the police what they wanted to hear. The girl had a name. She was called Carmen Lavalle.’
‘Is Pascuali the guy investigating the murder?’
‘Do you know him, then?’
‘Inspector Pascuali and I are like brothers. I already know for example you told him you were fucking her.’
‘I’ve had every girl here,’ Pretty Boy tells him proudly. ‘But I’m no vulture. I have my morals. And even though we did it occasionally, I could tell she was different. She didn’t enjoy it. She only did it because she had to.’
Carvalho studies the pimp, trying to bring him back on track, but the other man beats him to it.
‘She studied Latin.’
‘Latin?’
‘Latin.’
Carvalho presses another fifty-dollar bill in his hand.
‘And I’m sure you know the address of her Latin teacher, don’t you? Oh, and by the way, you aren’t Gabriela Sabatini’s brother, are you? You look just like her.’
Pretty Boy writes it down on a paper napkin, and Carvalho demonstrates that movement is displacement from a fixed point by leaving the clip joint.
The address is in a down-at-heel neighbourhood. The building has no porter or entryphone, so Carvalho is forced to look for the name on the letterboxes. He cannot find it. There are three apartments that have no name on their box. Carvalho gazes up the staircase. A woman is struggling down as if her feet are aching a lot. She’s carrying an old-fashioned radio set in a basket.
‘Can I help you? Is something the matter?’
‘Too much body for too little foot, that’s all.’
‘Small feet are the sign of a delicate soul.’
All of a sudden the woman is inordinately pleased with her feet. She stares down at them affectionately.
‘Perhaps you can tell me which floor the Latin teacher lives on?’
The woman wrinkles her nose. She is still smiling at Carvalho, but there’s a look of disgust in her eyes.
‘We call him “the plague”. Him and soap don’t get on, and as if that weren’t bad enough, he’s surrounded by cats. There’s always a foul smell from his apartment.’
‘My God! How can that be? A wise man like him. A Latinist.’
‘A latty what?’
‘A Latinist. An expert in the language of the ancient Romans.’
‘I hope they talked better than today’s Romans do. My hu
sband is the son of a family from Rome, and he’s as foul-mouthed as a footballer. The teacher lives on the third floor at the back. And be careful if you take the lift, there’s a hole in the middle big enough to fall through.’
At this the woman turns her back on him and stumbles off. Carvalho walks carefully up the stairs, which are lit by nothing more than the grimy panes of glass giving on to the interior stairwell. He reaches the third floor and rings the door bell. He wrinkles his nose just like the woman did. The stench from inside is overpowering, and he can hear desperate miaowing. Nobody comes to the door. He tries forcing the lock with his credit card, but it’s too old and he has to try various picks before the door does not so much open as come unstuck. There’s a short hallway, full of anxious cats coming towards him. Some of them rush out on to the landing; others brush against his trousers. The rooms leading off the hallway are filthy and untidy. At the far end is a kitchen cum dining-room. The sink is full of crockery with scraps of unidentifiable food on it. All the plates are third-hand or on a third life. Chipped and not exactly clean. A dining-table covered in an oilcloth. Bookshelves everywhere, full of antique-looking books. Even the kitchen is lined with books, smeared with smoke and grease. Carvalho forces the window open and takes a deep breath. One smell in particular forces him to turn back into the room. He walks over to a half-open door. Inside he sees the Latin teacher’s body spreadeagled on a bed, his arms and legs out in a cross. All his blood appears to have drained into a coagulated pool on the bedcover and floor. One cat sits next to the body, licking at the dried blood. Yellow in life, and an even more livid shade of yellow in death, the face has begun to bloat. Carvalho turns away from his inspection of the body and searches in the desk drawers instead. They are full of a heap of papers and objects, including half a mouldy sandwich. There’s a school notebook on which a trembling hand has written: Latin students. Carvalho slips the notebook under his shirt and goes on with his search. More books, old photos of people who are probably already dead or close to it by now: then Carvalho hears a voice behind him, and turns his head to see.
‘Always looking for the same things as me.’
The voice is Pascuali’s. Carvalho turns to face him, superficially calm.
‘This time I’ve been so nice I’ve even opened the door for you.’
An hour later, and the apartment has become a meeting place for half the police in Buenos Aires. Carvalho wrinkles his nose again, and speaks directly to Pascuali and his other half, Vladimiro.
‘I’d prefer to talk outside, if you don’t mind. This stink will stick to us for weeks.’
Pascuali’s face is also wrinkled up with disgust, so the two of them cross the road to a bar that has some character to it – billiard players in the back, the inevitable wood panelling, and male customers who look as if they are from sometime between the wars: shiny heads, well-dressed and talking business or seeming to do so. Pascuali orders a milk shake, Carvalho a glass of port.
‘Are you allowed to drink milk shakes on duty then?’
‘Don’t try to get smart with me. Don’t push your luck. I said I wanted you out of Buenos Aires, and here you are with a detective agency’
‘All I do is assist my boss, Vito Altofini.’
‘Another bigmouth. A smartass who is as much of a private detective as I am a classical ballet dancer. Have you given up looking for your cousin?’
‘He seems to be well-hidden. D’you know if the Captain is still looking for him?’
Pascuali leans over Carvalho in a menacing fashion. ‘I am a public servant. I don’t believe in private detectives like you. Nor in parallel networks like the Captain’s.’
‘Then you’ve picked the wrong world in this century. In the future, all the police will be privatized, and every state will be a mafia, full of parallel networks, plumbers digging in the shit, specializing in sewers.’
‘Who got you on to the case of the topless girl and her Latin teacher? Her boyfriend? That other fugitive? A kid from a good family who’s probably hiding under the skirts of some maiden aunt of his mother’s.’
‘Why would a topless girl study Latin?’
‘Perhaps she wanted to become a nun.’
‘That’s a reply not worthy of you, Inspector.’
Pascuali looks as if he’s about to launch himself at Carvalho, but he quickly calms down.
‘Let’s get back to the other hidden man, your cousin. Or not so hidden. Are you interested in Alma?’
‘In what way?’
‘A man and a woman.’
‘I’ve got a steady girlfriend back in Spain.’
‘Is she a private detective too?’
‘No. She used to be a whore, one of those call girls. But she got depressed, because AIDS took all her clients. Her stable lovers were growing old, and I was too. So she left. I’m looking for her as well. That’s my reason for living: to look for people.’
‘I’m not the least bit surprised your girlfriend is a whore. But Alma isn’t driven snow either. She pays you regular visits, has dinner with you, you go to listen to tangos and Silverstein, and then she gets a visit from her brother-in-law, Raúl Tourón, who spends the night with her.’
‘Were you the third one in the triangle?’
‘I heard it from a reliable source.’
‘How come you let him escape then? No one’s more vulnerable than a naked man in bed.’
This time, Pascuali can’t control himself, and he flings a punch across the table which lands squarely on Carvalho’s nose. Then he looks all round to see if anyone has seen him do it.
‘That punch came from the man, not the policeman.’
Carvalho punches him back, smack on the nose. Pascuali puts his hand up to it, as blood starts to pour. Both of them sit with bloody noses.
‘D’you know I could put you away for ten years for that?’
‘I was returning the man’s punch, not the policeman’s.’
But Pascuali’s blow had been the solider of the two, and so, pride assuaged, the policeman allows the detective to leave.
Carvalho’s nose and his soul ache, thanks to the secret passages that link the two. Back in his apartment, his fingers stray towards the phone, and dial his office number in Barcelona.
‘Biscuter? Yes, it’s me. Is everything all right? Did my uncle give you the money? Tell him everything is going well, that I’ve almost laid my hands on my cousin, but there are a few technical hitches to sort out. Tell him Raúl is fine. Yes, I’ve had dinner...squid in their sauce. Yes, in Buenos Aires. Yes, they do have squid here; squid and depressed Argies. Yes, the city’s still full of depressed Argies and paranoid cops. And psychiatrists. Not all of them left for Barcelona. Has Charo phoned? Did she say she loved me madly? What did you make for dinner? A tortilla with fredolics! So Charo didn’t phone? How’s Barcelona? And the Ramblas?’
Feeling sorry for himself, Carvalho clings to the phone as if suddenly everything around him has grown bigger. He is left with an imprecise feeling of loneliness, and a very precise sensation that Pascuali has broken his nose.
The mock English-style house rises from lawns straight out of an Eden catalogue, with a barbecue range worthy of Norman Foster, guests dressed as though they are Giorgio Armani gauchos posing for a photoshoot of an asado in the open air, the smell of roasting meat engaged in a subtle contest with the women’s Cartier ‘Must’ and the men’s ‘Opium’. Carvalho descends the grassy bank and walks over to people sipping at cocktails and picking at canapés served by waiters dressed up as rich gaucho waiters, until the barbecue is ready.
‘If they find us or our children with a hundred grammes of cocaine, we’re paraded on television like criminals. But they discover Diego out of his head on the stuff and he becomes a national martyr. That’s Perónist demagoguery for you. Don’t you agree?’ Carvalho hears these words from a well-preserved blonde, busy haranguing two dist
inguished-looking gentlemen. One of them is the Captain, who’s also dressed up for a luxury barbecue.
He replies smoothly: ‘Politics is always demagoguery’
‘And you were always a man of action and one of the most intelligent defenders of the state.’ This time the speaker is a senator who looks as though he were born to the role.
‘He was? Who’s to say he isn’t still? Once a warrior, always a warrior,’ the lady says.
‘You’re too kind.’
‘Well, you, as a man of action who’s also had a lot to do with our intelligence services, you know better than anyone what politics is about. Can it ever be anything but demagoguery?’
‘If I say no, I’ll be arrested.’
They all laugh. The Captain excuses himself, and comes towards Carvalho, who turns his back on him and heads off in the opposite direction, as if he wanted to catch up with another rich-looking man dressed up as a field-marshal from Rosas’ nineteenth-century army, who is spouting forth to another varied group of canapé browsers.
‘The Radicals have always robbed with their left hand, but the Perónists with all four hands at once.’
‘Four hands, Brucker?’ asks one of the guests.
‘Ha, don’t you know they’re all apes? Only just down from the trees?’
‘Have you said as much to your son-in-law, who was more Perónist than Perón?’
‘But he went to the best schools, and he’s from an excellent family,’ Brucker replies.
‘Are you looking for someone?’ a waiter asks Carvalho, blowing his cover as an invisible onlooker.
This threatening personage, backed up by two other equally inhospitable figures, blocks Carvalho’s path. Two or three other groups of guests raise their heads to see if something interesting is going to happen.
‘We don’t want any journalists or people who haven’t been invited.’
‘But I told you, it was Señor Honrubia who invited me.’
‘I’ve got someone called...’ the waiter is now speaking into his walkie-talkie.
The Buenos Aires Quintet Page 14
