Blood Tango

by Annamaria Alfieri

  “Did anyone touch the body?”

  Llorca shook his head again.

  “I felt for a pulse,” Gregorio said.

  Leary lifted Garmendia’s shirt. He had been stabbed once in the chest, up into the heart, it looked like. He sent Franco to call for an ambulance to take the body to the morgue in the basement of the central police station. The docs there would figure out how the knife wound had killed him.

  Gregorio Robles whispered to Leary that he should go up and talk to Claudia, something Leary had intended anyway. Once he was satisfied that Estrada had the neighbors under control, he followed the old man into the elevator and up to the third floor.

  The modista was on edge. No wonder, after having been held captive the evening before.

  Her father sat beside her on the sofa and took her hand the way he must have when she was four years old. He proceeded to tell Leary how, an hour or so ago, he had heard Torres in the alley beside the building having a nasty argument with someone, presumably Garmendia. “The men were accusing each other of killing Luz,” the old man said.

  Claudia pulled her hand out of her father’s. “You didn’t tell me that he was arguing with Garmendia.” Her voice was two octaves higher than usual.

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “So you saw Garmendia with Torres?” Leary asked the old man.

  “My father didn’t know Garmendia,” Claudia said. “I was the one who identified him.”

  “I heard them arguing,” Gregorio said. “I didn’t see either of them. I recognized Torres’s voice. I thought it might be Garmendia, considering what they were fighting about. After they found Garmendia dead, I saw that I was right.”

  “I guess this means Torres is your man,” the dressmaker said.

  Leary did not bother to tell Robles that he was making an assumption about who was doing the arguing. He would have liked to believe, as Claudia Robles and her father did, that this proved that either Torres had killed the girl and then killed her father or that Garmendia had killed his daughter, and then Torres had gone after him for it. As far as Leary was concerned, though, this latest development only complicated matters without allowing any clear conclusions.

  Maybe Claudia and her father were right. If so, the story would be over as soon as they arrested Torres. He wanted that to be true.

  * * *

  At ten that evening, Pilar drained the last sip of beer from her glass, set it on the bar, and turned back toward the dance floor. She had stopped looking for Leary at the club after days of longing to dance with him again. He was all business, investigating the case, taking Luz’s murder more seriously than Pilar had imagined anyone would. But he had never come back to dance, and she had given up on his coming to be with her at the Gardel.

  She danced with Mariano when the numbers did not call for him to sing. He was a precise and skillful dancer, but he put all his passion into his singing and seemed to have little left for dancing. In between dances with him, she stood on the edge of the floor and wished for something that would satisfy her body and her soul.

  She took a drag on her cigarette, closed her eyes, and listened to Mariano’s rich voice caress the words to “Cuesta Abajo.” He sounded like thick hot chocolate. If only the promise of that warmth were actually in the man himself, she might like him the way that he wanted her to, but when he came down from the bandstand, took her hand, and led her onto the floor for the next song, no flame kindled between them, and she knew none ever would. He was taller than Leary, handsomer really in a dark, slick-haired way that all her girlfriends admired. His clothes were much more stylish than Leary’s. The one time she had gotten worked up enough to go home with him, he had taken off his suit and shirt very carefully and by the time he had folded and hung everything up, her impulse had slipped away and no amount of diddling on his part could bring it back. She moved to the music with him and felt empty; his dancing was like his lovemaking, about as sexy as long division. When the song ended, this man who claimed he was crazy about her went to the microphone without a backward glance.

  A hand touched her shoulder. She spun around about to upbraid the boy who would take such a liberty. Leary took her in his arms as if he owned her as the band began “Cotorrita de la Suerta.” His dancing was swift and sure. He held her close, and it seemed as if they had danced together all their lives. After only a few steps, even their breathing was synchronized.

  “I have been waiting for this,” he whispered in her ear.

  She told him, “Me, too,” communicating louder with her movements in his arms than with her voice.

  When the band next took up “Amores de Estudiante,” with its languorous tempo, his movements became slow and supple, and overwhelmed her with desire. Her dress had a deep V in the back. He slipped his hand under it so that the pressure of his lead in the dance was on her bare skin. He held the pauses for a split second longer than the music required, inflaming her the more. He took a step with his right foot between hers, and with his knee put a fleeting pressure on her thigh. His eyes were closed. He smelled of that minty shaving soap she had recalled so often since the last time they danced. With the final bars of the song, he switched his weight to his left foot, but she held hers on her right and leaned her body completely into his. When the music stopped, she turned her head and brushed his lips with hers.

  They could not get their hats and coats on fast enough. “I share my room with two other girls,” she said.

  He embraced her and kissed her on the threshold of the club. He drove her to his apartment in a quaint, little house in San Telmo. She was hardy able to breathe when they got up the stairs and through the door of his apartment, and took off just enough of their clothing to get at each other.

  “Now,” she said. “Now.”

  He sat down on a long, low sofa and pulled her to him. Their climax was swift and so thrilling that when it finally ebbed, they looked into each other’s faces and laughed out loud.

  “Too fast?” he asked.

  “Perfect,” she said, her heart still pounding.

  He finished undoing the buttons she had never gotten around to on the side of her dress. “The next one will be slower,” he said as he slipped the frock over her head and draped it over the end of the sofa. He put his fingers inside her bra and caressed her breast. Then he led her into his bedroom.

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16

  At the dawn hour, Pilar awoke in Leary’s arms. She had never felt so safe in her life. She ran her fingertips over the hair on his chest, and her forehead felt his cheek move. She lifted her head from his shoulder and saw his smile.

  “I want to love you again,” he said and started to turn her onto her back.

  She kissed him warmly and sat up. “I have to tell you something.”

  He sat up, too. His look had turned wary. “About?”

  “About the night Luz was killed.”

  He pulled her to him. “This is not about that,” he said and kissed her.

  She pulled away. “I saw a man, when I was about to leave the shop to go to the club. He was standing across the street, leaning against the entrance of the shoe store opposite. His face was a bit obscured by his hat, but it was light enough to see him well. He was wearing a tan plaid suit.”

  “Did he say anything to you when you went out?” His voice was fully alert now.

  “I didn’t go out that way. I didn’t like the looks of him, so I went back inside. I used the alley exit, and I warned Luz to do the same.”

  “She didn’t,” he said.

  “I know.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Don’t cry,” he said. He got up and took a handkerchief from the top drawer of his dresser. He dried her tears and kissed her eyelids. “That guy—what did he look like? Tall? Short?”

  “Not even your height, I think, and thinner.”

  “Puglisi,” he said. He got up and went to the other room. He looked lovely in the nude. Muscular. Sturdy. She picked up his handkerchief from the bed a
nd wiped her nose with it. It had an R embroidered in blue in the corner.

  He came back with the newspaper clipping he had shown her when he first came to the club and also a photo of a man in uniform. He handed them to her. “Him? The guy in the center? Or this one? He’s a lieutenant in the army, but he was wearing civilian clothes at the rally.”

  “I don’t know really.” She pointed to the union man. “How tall is he?”

  “Not quite my height. Slender.”

  “I don’t think it was him.” She handed back the picture of Puglisi.

  He pointed to Ybarra. “This one is taller, thinner. Over six feet.”

  “I only saw the man from across the street. I don’t think he was that tall, but—” She opened her palms and shrugged. “I don’t think I would recognize him if he wasn’t wearing his uniform.” She handed the photos back to him, and he threw them on the dresser beside the bed.

  “I think you would have noticed how tall Ybarra is. It must have been Puglisi. He was at that rally. He’s a sharp dresser. He admitted to following Luz, and he hates Eva Duarte with a passion. It’s too bad. I didn’t want it to be him. I like the guy. But come on—why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “I was afraid. I think it’s dangerous to give evidence.”

  Leary had to give her that. Revenge was the middle name of a lot of criminal minds in Buenos Aires, even those belonging to the men who made the laws. “Tell me everything you remember,” he said. “I promise you will not get hurt.”

  She nodded, trusting him with her heart if not yet with her mind. “It felt strange that he was just standing there. Something about him made him seem dangerous. I went back. I told Luz what to do, but I should have known she wouldn’t listen. I feel so terrible. I cannot forget it. I left her there with him outside. She wanted to come with me to the club, but I told her not to. I was afraid her father would show up again looking for her. I left her in the shop. I should have stayed with her. Or taken her with me. I could have saved her.”

  “She could have seen him, too. If she saw him, she could have locked herself in.”

  “Luz wasn’t like that. Men beat her up all her life, her father, that animal Torres, but she didn’t go around suspecting that people would hurt her. Half the time her head was in the clouds, and it only got worse once she met Señora Duarte. Once she started making herself up like Evita, she spent more time looking at her own reflection in the store windows than paying attention to what was going on around her.” Now, she couldn’t stop her tears.

  He took her in his arms and held her. “It was not your fault. You did not kill her.”

  “I should have saved her.” She sobbed into his shoulder. His skin was warm and smelled clean and salty, like the river water after the rains.

  He stroked her hair and kissed her neck. “I am going to catch the bastard who did that to her. It was not a random killing. The motive was not robbery or a rape. Whoever did it was out to kill a specific person. If he hadn’t gotten her then, he would have found another time or place.” He lifted Pilar’s chin and kissed her damp eyes. “It was not your fault, and I promise you we are going to hang him, whoever he is.”

  She tried to smile at him, but she was sure it did not look like much.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “Garmendia is dead, and it seems pretty clear that Torres killed him. I have my guys looking all over for him.” He held back that Torres had accosted the modista with a knife. Pilar was already terrified. He would have to find a way to protect her without making her fears worse.

  He stood up. “I am not going to want to do much of anything but make love to you for a good long time, but I have to get to work. If Torres killed Luz as well as her father, that will be the end of it, as soon as we find the son of a bitch.”

  He put his fingers over his mouth. “I’m sorry, I should not have used that language in front of you. I’m not used to talking over the details of cases in front of ladies.”

  Pilar looked down at her naked body and back up at his apologetic eyes and laughed. “I’ve heard those words before. And worse. And worse is what he should be called.”

  He sat beside her and took her in his arms. “I am going to pursue the Evita–look-alike idea, too. The guy you described doesn’t sound at all like Torres or Garmendia. He could be an innocent bystander, but he could be the murderer. I want you to get a close look at Puglisi in person. It might have been him. He’s the one who best fits your description.”

  She shuddered. “I am still afraid of him. That’s why I didn’t tell you I saw someone. I was afraid if I put the finger on the murderer, he would kill me, too. He saw me looking at him.”

  He took her hands in his. They were soft, like the silk she sewed. “Has anyone been following you? Have you had threats?”

  “No one following me that I know of. I have been watching. No one has threatened me. I am not sure the guy in the doorway had any idea who I was. I don’t remember ever seeing him before that evening. But I am afraid if he finds out who I am—” She did not finish.

  “I will protect you.” Leary looked into her eyes. “You can trust me. Do you believe me?”

  “I knew that when I woke up this morning. That’s why I had the courage to tell you.”

  “Nothing will happen to you. I will arrange for you to see Puglisi, and if he was the guy, he’ll be arrested immediately. I will make sure you are not left alone with him. You will not be in danger in any way.”

  “Will he see me? Will I have to testify against him? Suppose he has friends who will come after me?”

  He paused long enough in answering to show her that he had not thought of these things. “I will make sure he does not see you. You will see him, but he will not see you. I will arrange to have you protected when it comes to trial.”

  She knew he meant it, but she was still afraid. Criminals had their ways. Everyone said the country was on the verge of civil war. Their beautiful city had turned brutal. If it remained in an uproar, why would anyone care what happened to a girl like her—with no family, with nothing to recommend her. “I am illegitimate,” she said. There were men who would drop a girl for such an admission. He would have to find out sooner or later. Better now than when she was in deeper, needed him more. Her heart wobbled. It was already too late for her. She was head over heels.

  He stood up and put both hands on her shoulders. “Pilar.” It was the first time he had spoken her name to her. “I never expected this to happen to me right now. The world is falling apart around us. But what is between us is not going away. There is not a bone, not a tissue, not a drop of blood in my body that doubts that.” Then, he took her in his arms and made love to her. Not with the urgency and hunger of the night before, but with a passion and openness that made her feel as if they were stitching their souls together.

  When they finally let go of each other, she put on his shirt from the night before and made coffee and some toast while he bathed. She liked his narrow kitchen. It had a Philco electric icebox and a window that overlooked the fire station next door. She wished she would never have to leave.

  She sat on his bed and drank coffee and watched him dress. She fingered the blue-and-white-striped linen of the bedding. “These are nice sheets.”

  His reflection in the mirror smiled at her while he tied his tie. “I didn’t pick them, but I like them, too.”

  He put on his jacket and handed her a key. “Stay here,” he said. “Call Señora Robles and tell her that you cannot come in to work.”

  “There is not that much to do there these days anyway. No one is making appointments for fittings.”

  “I would imagine not. If the man you saw was Puglisi, or whoever it was, he will not be looking for you here. I will come back as soon as I can set up a way for you to see Puglisi without him seeing you. When we know if he was the loiterer in the doorway, I’ll know what to do next.”

  She kissed him good-bye at the door and then went to the window and watched him get into his beautif
ul red American car and drive away and wished he would always be hers.

  * * *

  On his way to work, Leary pondered the investigation in between intense flashes of desire brought on by images of Pilar sitting on his blue-and-white-striped sheets, wearing only his shirt and talking to him as frankly as if they had been friends from birth.

  He rearranged the facts in his mind, trying to get them to fit together, but there were too many unanswered questions. For one, neither Torres nor Garmendia fit the description of the man Pilar had seen outside the shop on the night of the murder. Nor did either of them seem like the type to wear a tan glen plaid suit. Ever, in their entire lives. And two of them, each accusing the other, did not jibe with one of them being guilty.

  Then again, the short man in the flashy suit could have been standing at the door of the shoe shop waiting for his brother-in-law to come and drive him home. Who was to say? He would find out more when he arrested Torres.

  After checking that Franco, the idiot, had not loused up his simple assignment of getting an ambulance to take Garmendia’s body to the morgue and getting it positively identified, Leary went to find Estrada, whose interviews with the modista’s neighbors had only confirmed what Leary had already learned. Everyone who had been within earshot confirmed Gregorio Robles’s story, that Garmendia and Torres had had a shouting argument yesterday morning and had accused each other of killing Luz.

  Leary called and confirmed that Puglisi was at work, so he could be easily found. He tried to retype his spoiled crime report from the day before without getting an erection from having his mind wander to Pilar. Eventually, Franco and Estrada came back from seeking Torres. The gardener had still not returned to his apartment, nor had he shown up in any of the places his neighbors said were his favorite drinking holes. No one had a clue where else he could be.

  Leary then tried to round up some extra men to search for him but found not a single soul. With pro- and anti-Perón demonstrations, near riots if the truth be told, breaking out all over Buenos Aires, it seemed unlikely that anyone on the force would spend ten minutes looking for a nobody suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend’s drunkard father. He would have to find Torres somehow on his own. In the meantime, he was starving. And missing Pilar.