Far South

by David Enrique Spellman

  ‘Connected with AMIA and the embassy bombings,’ I said.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Carlos said.

  I had a mental picture of Casares holding my father by the elbow.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ Isabel said to Francesca.

  She nodded.

  ‘Juan Manuel?’ Isabel said.

  ‘A cognac?’

  ‘Sure,’ Isabel said. ‘Everyone?’

  Mutual assent it seemed.

  I turned back to Carlos and Ramón. Isabel tinkled five balloon glasses out of a kitchen cupboard. She uncorked a bottle of Martell VSOP and poured.

  ‘Casares and Arenas have upped the ante on the dope scene,’ I said. ‘I think they’re trading stolen military weapons for dope and money. I witnessed what looked like an exchange of goods up in the hills.’

  ‘We know this,’ Isabel said.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Kirchner has purged a lot of military from the armed forces because of their involvement in the Dirty War,’ Isabel said. ‘Casares organizes business for ex-militaries; and, with the help of Arenas and Matas, and through that Lebanese guy – his name is Sadiq Hussein – they’ve opened a two-way route for a flow of merchandise that comes and goes through the three borders region at Iguazu.’

  ‘How did you get this information?’

  Over at the kitchen counter, Isabel shrugged.

  Isabel carried the tray with five glasses of cognac to the table. She handed the first glass to Francesca, the next to me.

  ‘Casares has a shipment of weapons about to leave right now,’ I said. ‘Or it’s left by now… it’s on its way. Casares and his crew did the military airport heist.’

  ‘It hasn’t left for Iguazu yet,’ Isabel said. ‘We believe that it will leave Ciudad Azul early tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘You know this?’

  Isabel handed a glass each to Carlos and Ramón.

  ‘You can stop this shipment,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Isabel said. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Francesca had a smile on her face. She sipped at the cognac. Then she rummaged in her purse for another cigarette.

  ‘Nobody wants to stop it,’ Isabel said, ‘not the police, nor the military, nor the Secret Service; and neither do the Americans, nor the Israelis. Or they would stop it. All these law enforcement and anti-terrorist groups want to track the route the shipment takes from here to the Lebanon after it leaves Iguazu. It’s possible Casares, Matas and Arenas know this, too. They may be in on it. If so, they know that no one will touch them. It’s low risk, easy profit.’

  ‘But these are weapons that will kill people,’ I said. ‘Maybe innocent people.’

  ‘Pardon me if I say so, Juan Manuel, but you seem to be a little naïve,’ Isabel said. ‘In Ciudad Azul, a few Shiite Lebanese organize a small shipment of arms through Casares, and in return, they sell a little dope to Arenas and Matas to support the cause back home. Meanwhile, everything is under surveillance by the Federal police, the Secret Service, the CIA, and probably Mossad. It’s a little transaction that could lead to catching bigger fish.’

  This woman got her Jewish legal group information directly from Mossad, the Israeli secret service, didn’t she?

  ‘But these are weapons that are on their way to kill Jewish people in Israel,’ I said. ‘Don’t you want to stop that?’

  ‘When I was in Metullah, in 1982,’ Isabel said, ‘Israel invaded Lebanon with the aim to crush the PLO. And it did. In the years that followed, Hizbullah filled the vacuum and made their power base there. And now, they’re regularly firing rockets into Israel and engaging the Israeli forces on the border. It’s only a matter of time before Israel invades Lebanon again in order to crush Hizbullah, just like they did with the PLO. It’s coming. All it needs is a trigger. And Hizbullah is sure to pull the trigger at some point. The Israeli army are just waiting for that.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then the Israeli armed forces will bomb Beirut… and Tyre… and Sidon… and across the whole of Southern Lebanon; and along with the men who launch Hizbullah’s rockets, a lot of innocent men, women and children will die along with the guilty,’ Isabel said.

  She’d written on her postcard, the last one with the picture of Masada… The truth is that it’s in no one’s interest to have peace in the Middle East…

  ‘And you don’t want to stop this?’

  ‘Of course I want to stop this,’ Isabel said. ‘What am I supposed to do? Call the police? Any one of at least four federal or international agencies can stop that arms deal anywhere along the line. The Israeli Navy might still stop the ship when it sails on into the Mediterranean. And then all the people involved can be arrested.’

  Including my father, I thought. Should I warn him to get out? He’d tried to warn me off, hadn’t he?

  ‘Nobody wants to know, you understand?’ Isabel said.

  ‘Arenas and Casares are a long way down the food chain,’ Carlos said.

  And we’re lower still, I thought.

  ‘Okay, but this still doesn’t find us Fischer,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Isabel said. ‘It doesn’t find us Gerardo.’

  ‘He’s just a nosy writer to them,’ I said.

  ‘To whom?’ Isabel said.

  Her hands shook as she reached for her purse on the coffee table. She took a long cigarette out of a velvet-covered case.

  ‘To Arenas, Casares, the police, Hizbullah and the fucking Israelis,’ I said.

  She was bristling.

  ‘We love Gerardo,’ Isabel said. ‘Find him for us.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know where he is? You know everything else.’

  ‘Not this… no… I don’t.’

  ‘We tried to persuade him to come with us,’ Ramón said. ‘But he wouldn’t.’

  The flame wavered as Isabel lit a cigarette with her gold lighter. She blew out smoke. Was Rangel smoking that large block of Lebanese hashish right now… courtesy of Sandino and Hizbullah?

  ‘Gerardo was afraid that he was under surveillance,’ Carlos said.

  ‘Well, that’s a surprise,’ I said. ‘Everyone else seems to be.’

  ‘Gerardo deliberately rented that house below Temenos because it was out of cell phone range,’ Carlos said. ‘He refused to communicate by email because he said any fourteen-year-old hacker could probably get into his emails. And if anyone with a grudge against him decided to monitor him he was a very easy target. That’s one reason why he gave his entire archive over to Clara.’

  ‘He wanted his legacy preserved,’ Isabel said.

  ‘But he also wanted it in a safe place away from his house,’ Ramón said.

  Maybe Gerardo had left me that folder to find.

  ‘So why didn’t he leave for Buenos Aires with you two?’ I said.

  ‘He wanted to finish rehearsals with Ana and the theater group,’ Ramón said. ‘And to work with Damien Kennedy.’

  ‘But they didn’t see him after you left,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Carlos said. ‘We know that now.’

  ‘Then the only hope we’ve got is that he’s skipped out of his own accord,’ I said, ‘because he thought that things were getting too hot for him.’

  ‘I hope that’s true,’ Isabel said.

  ‘When did you see Gerardo last?’ I said to Francesca.

  ‘I haven’t seen Gerardo for a long time.’ From Francesca’s flat affect I wondered if she was on some kind of medication, tranquilizers, anti-depressants. But then again, wasn’t she an actress?

  ‘How long might that be?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, a few months,’ she said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. In Buenos Aires.’

  She lit another cigarette and blew smoke downward and toward me.

  ‘Socially?’ I said.

  Francesca smiled. ‘We’ve always been good friends.’ She posed, a hand in the air, head tilted slightly.

  ‘Did he give you any indication that
he might be in trouble, or going off on a trip somewhere?’

  She shook her head. It was a languid movement. She kept eye contact with me.

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  I got up. It was irrational, I know, but I’d just about had enough of these people who knew so much and did so little. Maybe, they were being realistic. But something rankled with me about them. They’d told me a lot but they were holding something back. We all hold something back, don’t we?

  Fischer… Gerardo Fischer… Casares, Matas and Arenas would be very glad to get rid of him. To them he had been an irritation like Carlos and Ramón. But Fischer had a history: he’d escaped from the military in the seventies and gone into exile in Italy; he’d skipped out on Damien Kennedy when Fischer and Francesca had made it too hot for themselves with Mafiosi, fascists and occultists in Rome back in the eighties; who took New York graduate students into Crack City and mental hospitals to make their theater real; who may have had a hand in fingering Erich Priebke; who, Damien Kennedy said, delighted in stripping away people’s masks.

  If Fischer had skipped out wouldn’t he have done exactly what I was doing now: no cell phone, no computer, and crucially no information to anyone who might know where he was going so that they couldn’t advertently, or inadvertently, let slip – even under physical duress – where he might be? And my running around like a blowfly on speed, employed as a private dick, by these people who were all concerned about him, would show Casares, Matas and Arenas that Ana and Sara, the theater group, the artists at Temenos, Isabel, Carlos and Ramón, also had no idea where Fischer might be. I would be the fall guy for Fischer’s disappearance. I made his disappearance a genuine mystery because neither his friends nor enemies could possibly know where he was. And I was the proof of that.

  Was I being paranoid?

  I knocked back my cognac.

  ‘Okay, thanks for your time.’

  ‘You’re going already?’ Isabel said. ‘I thought you might have dinner with us.’

  ‘Thanks for the kind offer. I’ll stay in touch. Do you mind if I call on you again?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Isabel said.

  It was all very warm.

  The four of them got up to kiss me on the cheek.

  Carlos took me to the door. He turned the keys on the three locks that drew multiple steel bars out of the reinforced concrete doorjambs, lintel and threshold. The night air was fresh. The friendly street security guy lifted a hand to wave at Carlos in the doorway behind me. I walked down Angel Peluffo to Medrano, crossed the street to Las Violetas, went in through the glass door, sat at a window seat and ordered a large cognac from a waiter in a stiff black waistcoat and a white shirt.

  All the waiters wore stiff black waistcoats and white shirts.

  When the waiter came back with the cognac, I asked to see a menu. Early dinner, why not? I chose a rare steak, with asparagus and sautéed potatoes. And a green salad. I had a good view of the street where Angel Peluffo joined Medrano. Every time anyone came out of Angel Peluffo, my head jerked up to see who it was. I couldn’t help it. It might well have given me indigestion.

  Fischer had skipped out? Was that true?

  And my father, did he know that the whole arms and drug deal was under surveillance? I wasn’t going to talk about this over the phone either.

  Strange night. I’d met Francesca Damiani, a comic book character come to life. After all she’d been through, that she should really be in a fragmented mental state shouldn’t be any surprise to me. Perhaps I was being callous, but that flat affect would be a handy front to hide behind. For what? She didn’t live at Isabel’s house. At some point she would go home. Where was her home? I was sure that she wouldn’t tell me. Was Gerardo hiding there? Not if my theory of total disappearance was correct. And around 9 pm, there she was. Francesca Damiani. She came out of Angel Peluffo and made a left on Medrano just as the starch-shirt waiter peeled my change out of his billfold. I finished the last sip of my coffee.

  Francesca had the collar turned up on her lightweight, dark colored raincoat and the beret on her head reminded me of a frame of Damien Kennedy’s comic book diary… that, and the hold-all that she dangled from her left hand. She headed away from Rivadavia. I saluted the waiter at Las Violetas and left a six-peso tip next to my coffee cup. When I came out of the café, Francesca was on the corner with Avenida Bartolomé Mitre. A man stepped out of a shop doorway. Francesca kissed him on the cheek. I could see him from the back. Thick set, with grayish blond hair, a heavy denim jacket. Kennedy. It was Kennedy. I was sure that it was Damien Kennedy from the artists’ colony and when he turned in profile, there was no doubt in my mind. The big-featured, unshaven face was unmistakable. Both of them had made out to me that they hadn’t seen each other in thirty years or so, and here they were on the street together in Buenos Aires.

  Francesca lifted her hand and a taxi pulled up. She and Kennedy got in. The taxi took off downtown. I hurried toward the corner. I flagged the next cab.

  ‘Follow that one in front,’ I said. ‘Ten dollars if you don’t lose it.’

  Extract from the casebook of Juan Manuel Pérez

  January 15th 2006

  Hours: 21:00 to 22:00

  My cab driver pulled out into the downtown traffic.

  Why had they lied to me? Or had they lied to me? Maybe this was the first time they’d seen each other in thirty years and I was about to spoil a poignant reunion. What business was it of mine? They were Fischer’s oldest friends – apart from Miriam maybe – and now they were meeting up and this might, or might not, have something to do with Gerardo Fischer’s disappearance. Maybe their mutual grief about Fischer – or just being in the same country – had finally brought them together again.

  Their cab went straight down Mitre; crossed Avenida Nueve de Julio, still going east, got to Parque Colón, turned left down Rosales to Madero and at the end of the Dique, it swung right into the Buquebus terminal. The light changed before my cab could cut across the road, too. A swath of trucks, buses, coaches, and cabs poured out of the terminal area and left me in a cab stranded in the middle of the multi-lane highway. Should I pay the driver and get out? No way could I get across that intersection through eight lanes of port traffic.

  But I could see the glass front of the Buquebus building and Francesca and Damien getting out of their cab. Why hadn’t Damien come into Isabel’s house? Why were they keeping their meeting secret? Just to avoid gossip? Everybody keeps their meetings secret. Hadn’t Ana and I kept a low profile? Where was she now? At Sara’s?

  Francesca and Damien disappeared into the departure lounge.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the driver said. ‘The lights.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  The lights finally changed. The cab driver swung us into the terminal. He slid in close to the curb where the other cab had stopped. I paid the meter fare and pulled out ten US dollars from the back of my wallet.

  Damien and Francesca were at the check-in counter. Francesca fidgeted with her purse. The guy at the counter handed over two boarding passes to Damien. Damien and Francesca hurried toward the stair that led to the boarding area. They would just make it for the last ferry to La Colonia. I ran across the departure lounge. Francesca and Damien were at the top of the stair. I had no ticket to follow them into the boarding area, but two at a time I took the stairs that led to a balcony overlooking the whole concourse.

  Francesca and Damien were already at the immigration/emigration desk with their boarding cards and passports in hand. The woman at the desk stamped the boarding cards and passports and gave them those annoying slips of paper that the immigration authorities insist you keep and never lose and give back to them when you return from Uruguay to Argentina.

  Francesca and Damien went through the barrier.

  I ran along the balcony and pulled up short, being without passport, ticket or boarding pass.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ the lady immigration officer said.

  ‘I wa
s just wanting to see someone off. The couple that just went through.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re too late, sir.’

  I craned my neck and caught a glimpse of them at the little coffee bar in the boarding area. The line of people that had been waiting to board had already begun to move forward toward the gate.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but if you don’t have a ticket you’ll have to go back down stairs now. Security.’

  ‘Just one second, please. Maybe if I wave.’

  I began to wave. Through a gap in the crowd I could see them again. Francesca and Damien. Someone else was talking with them. He had his collar up and a wide brimmed fedora pulled down so that his face was half hidden. He was clean-shaven. This much I could see. His skin was pale. As he turned his head away from me light flashed on the lenses of his glasses. He was a lot taller than Francesca and a little taller than Damien, too. Was that Fischer? No. It couldn’t be. They couldn’t be going to Montevideo with Gerardo Fischer. That would be too easy. Why would they do that without telling anybody? So nobody knew, so nobody could tell Arenas or Matas or Casares no matter what the pressure? No. Impossible. Arenas, Matas and Casares would be content to have scared him off, the same way they’d scared off Carlos and Ramón.

  ‘Hey! Hey!’ I called out.

  The immigration officer took my arm.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  ‘Francesca! Damien!’

  They were alone for a moment as they faced each other, documents in hand. They turned to face me. I was sure that they recognized me but they turned their backs on me. A middle-aged, well-dressed couple now stood between them and me.

  ‘This way, sir,’ the immigration officer said.

  Damien and Francesca together, going to La Colonia, maybe on to Montevideo. Was Isabel in on this? Did she know that Francesca was going to meet Damien and go to Uruguay? Could it have anything to do with Fischer?