by Jerold Last
"Martin, this is Robert," intoned Suzanne formally, passing the sleeping baby to him.
"Experienced fathers like me know what to do with bundles like this," said the police lieutenant, expertly snuggling him against his chest. Robert cooed contentedly and snuggled back.
"They say that babies of this age are very intuitive," commented Suzanne. "They pick up on body language and other adult vibes and they instinctively seem to know who the good and bad guys are. I'd say that you just made a real fan, 'Uncle' Martin."
Martin and Robert snuggled a little bit longer under Suzanne's watchful eye. Then it was Eduardo's turn.
"Eduardo, this is Robert," said Suzanne formally, passing the still sleeping baby to him.
"Experienced fathers like me know what to do with bundles like this," said the police commander, lifting him up and planting a big kiss on his nose. Robert howled his displeasure and began crying. After that, nothing Eduardo could do calmed Robert down in the slightest.
Finally, after half a minute that seemed like an hour or two, Suzanne took the baby back and rocked him until she got him calmed down and back to sleep. "Like I said before, they say that babies of this age are very intuitive. They pick up on body language and other adult vibes and they instinctively seem to know who the good and bad guys are. I'd say that you just flunked the test, 'Uncle' Eduardo. I always suspected that deep down in the interior of your psyche you were truly evil; I think Robert has just proven it." And she laughed hard and long. After all of the time we had spent together solving a couple of major crimes in Uruguay and Chile, Eduardo was our best friend in South America and Robert's godfather.
Chapter 5. Killing a killer
Carlos Cavernas congratulated himself on a job well done after killing Jose Gonzalez. He drove to the luxurious apartment complex in Pocitos, on the beach facing the Rio de la Plata, where he was scheduled to meet the boss. Before taking the elevator ride to the apartment, he stopped to admire the view of the wide river to the south. Somewhere beyond the horizon was Argentina, invisible some 65 miles away. Some day, he dreamed of having an apartment like this one, with a view of the beach and river. He went into the apartment house, nodded to the ever-present doorman, and rang for the elevator. A few moments later he was going up to his destination, a specific apartment he had been to previously. With a rumble and a groan, the doors to the old elevator opened and let him out. He turned left and rang the doorbell of one of the two spacious apartments on this level.
"Who's there?" came a disembodied voice from inside the apartment.
He spoke directly to the door. "It's me, Carlos."
The boss answered the door in person. After a few social amenities Carlos followed the boss back out of the apartment, down the elevator to the apartment garage. They both got into an expensive car, Carlos riding shotgun, and drove east for half an hour past the airport and into a deserted area of swamps and river. Carlos explained in some detail what he had said to Jose Gonzalez and how and why he had killed him. He handed the envelope filled with cash to his companion. By mutual consent they got out of the car and walked across the sandy beach to the river to share the view while Carlos waited to receive his new assignment. He halfway hoped that he'd also get the envelope full of cash as a bonus for a job well done.
The beach was completely deserted except for an empty lifeguard shack standing lonely vigil over the Rio de la Plata to the south. The shack was made of crude wood slats, and had an open space for the lifeguard to sit and watch any bathers in the river. Flying on a flagpole on the back rail of the shack was a red flag with a green cross at its center, the Bandera Sanitaria, warning potential bathers of hazardous conditions in the river. In this case there was a harmful algal bloom, with potential exposure to possibly deadly algal toxins, occurring in the brackish water of the Rio de la Plata. Today, at least, nobody would be visiting this beach for recreational purposes.
To his considerable amazement Carlos did not get the envelope full of money, but instead received 316 grains of lead at a velocity of 230 meters/second (770 feet/second) in the form of two .38 Special bullets directly into his heart. His companion watched him fall, ensured that he was dead, and checked that the dead policeman's pistol was still in Carlos' pocket. The regular pistol that Carlos ordinarily carried, which would match the weapon that killed Jose Gonzalez when they ran ballistic tests, nested in a shoulder holster on the body.
The boss took one last look to make sure there was nothing lying around that could implicate any of the important people in their organization. "Good-bye to the last of the loose ends that could tie me into a cop killing."
A quick brush with a convenient branch to destroy any footprints that could be matched to specific shoes and a short walk to the car, brushing the dirt behind, another quick look that the car had not strayed off the asphalt surface and there weren't any tire tracks to match to the specific automobile, and it was time to drive back to the city. The return trip to the apartment was uneventful except for a short stop on an empty bridge to throw a Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver that had been carefully wiped free of any incriminating fingerprints into the deepest part of the river.
Chapter 6. A possible investment opportunity
Suzanne, Martin, Eduardo, and I were on our way to the Pocitos neighborhood of Montevideo in Eduardo's rented SUV to visit Andres Sanchez and ask a few discrete questions. Martin had called in a favor from an old "friend" of ours. Bernardo Colletti was the head of the Uruguayan Nazi Party and the scion of what used to be one of the richest old families in Uruguay, as well as one of Martin's most significant informants and the former husband of a scientific colleague of Suzanne's at the local university. Courtesy of Bernardo, we had an invitation to visit Andres Sanchez and to talk about what Sanchez could do as an investment banker with Suzanne's and my reputedly extensive disposable capital to help make us rich. If for any reason he checked us out beforehand he'd find our credit rating and estimated net worth were consistent with this story, courtesy of Suzanne's inherited wealth from her father's estate.
Bruce had been left with Robert in his hotel room, along with a few bottles of expressed breast milk courtesy of the pump we had packed in one of those bulging suitcases and with several jars of baby cereals and mashed pureed fruits, which Robert had just started to eat and seemed to love. At 6 months Robert was still nursing but beginning to understand that food came from small jars as well as from plastic milk bottles and Mommy. He could actually sit up with some help from the adults and he rolled around a lot, but he also slept a lot and didn't demand our constant attention thanks to Bruce. The plan was that he would go for a walk, eat lunch, and take a nap before we got back.
"How do you want to play this?" Eduardo asked Martin, who was nominally in charge here.
"You're not supposed to be here at all, so best you are seen and not heard, and maybe not even formally introduced. We'll let them assume you're hired muscle standing there as a bodyguard for the rich gringos. I'll get my ass in a sling with the Chief of Police and the Mayor if I say or do anything that upsets Andres Sanchez, but I can sit in on the discussion as a friend of a friend, that is Bernardo. I think we'd both be safest if the ball were in Roger's court this morning. But our friend Roger may be linguistically challenged in Spanish, which leaves us with Suzanne taking the lead by default. And it turns out that we're very lucky she's here to help with the heavy lifting. Is that OK with you, Suzanne?"
Suzanne straightened up and looked directly at Martin. "Yes, it's OK but I'll need some scripting. And I need to point out that Roger has worked hard on his Spanish and is fluent now, so my taking the lead should be by choice, not by default."
"I'm good with all of this so far," I interjected.
Martin continued to take the lead. "What we want to find out is whatever we can about the very extensive and very expensive land investments Sanchez is currently making in Uruguay and Paraguay. So maybe you want to be interested in rural real estate, especially large land holdings with pl
enty of water for irrigation, in the two countries. For safety's sake, you probably shouldn't be all that specific about the two countries we know he's interested in, so why don't you throw Argentina into the mix, especially Corrientes Province which borders on the Uruguay River. If he asks what you want the land for, or why you need the water, be cagey. It's got to be a secret for now, but you know what you're looking for and can he help you?"
Suzanne perked up. She obviously had an idea. "Do you want me to ask him any specific questions?"
Martin gently discouraged this display of initiative. "That's probably not a particularly good idea. It might just make him nervous if he thinks you're trying to get information from him. I think you can ask general questions about the local geography, what things cost, and what the land he is suggesting you might want to buy is like, but nothing more specific than that. It wouldn't hurt for him to think you are a bit naive and ripe for the plucking, if you know what I mean. Tempt him to try to sell you some of that land he has recently been buying and see what happens. You might want to ask him to show you where any land he knows about being for sale is on a large-scale map. I'm sure he has one he can share with you."
By that time we were looking for a parking space on the crowded street containing the apartment we were going to visit. A few hundred meters to the south, across a sandy beach, was the Rio de la Plata. Its many beaches, which are always crowded with Montevideo residents cooling off in the summer months, formed a buffer zone between apartment houses and the river along the Rambla, which ran east and west alongside the Rio de la Plata. A few blocks to the east were shops and restaurants in a small, but busy, commercial district along a broad avenue running north from the river. To the north was a small park surrounded by tall apartment houses, most of them relatively new and well maintained. The apartment house we were visiting faced the river, had a lot of glass on the south-facing side, and also had a great view of 65 miles of water stretching southwards to Argentina.
After a long slow trip to the top of the building, the self-service elevator discharged us onto the 24th floor. There was only one penthouse apartment, which occupied the entire 24th floor. We had to get past a security guard by the elevator checking our names to make sure we were invited guests before we could ring the bell on an impressive steel door guarding the apartment. The door opened and a butler ushered us in. I could see the outline of a shoulder holster under his less than perfectly tailored uniform. He checked our IDs against a list of names then escorted us to an older gentleman sitting on an elegant leather chair beside a wide coffee table in a very large living room. The butler, cum bodyguard, withdrew discretely.
Andres Sanchez was sitting comfortably, and did not bother to get up to greet us. He was at least 75, maybe closer to 80. The years showed. Andres was short, balding, gray haired, and seemed to be shriveled up so that he looked very small in the chair. He wore suit pants with a stiffly starched white dress shirt and tie. An old fashioned smoking jacket completed the image of the conservative banker of yesteryear. However, he had sharp eyes and a shrewd look as he examined us carefully while he puffed away at a big cigar.
Our host greeted us cordially, by name, and spoke in somewhat formal Spanish.
"It is a pleasure to meet you. I apologize for all of the security between here and the elevator, but it can be necessary in these currently violent times of economic distress, especially for a banker like myself. Please sit down, all of you. You may use the couch and the chairs that face me. I understand that you want to discuss some business with me, and that we have at least one acquaintance in common.”
The old man turned in his chair to look directly at me. He apparently assumed that I was in charge of our group. “Please tell me the nature of your business with me.”
I mentally thanked the gods for my recent year of training in Spanish, thanks to an intensive class I had taken in conversational Spanish at UCLA and a lot of practice with Spanish language software on my computer. Added to that was speaking the language with Suzanne during every opportunity we could find since our last visit to South America.
All of this allowed me not only to understand what I was being asked but also to answer in reasonably fluent formal Spanish.
“We have some money to invest.”
The banker looked at me, expecting more details.
“We are looking for favorable opportunities to invest a substantial amount of money here in Uruguay. We think we want to invest it in large tracts of land in the region if raw land is available.”
The old banker nodded his head. “Very good. That is my area of expertise, and what our family bank does for most of our clients. I have some more questions to ask you about what you are looking for to invest in. But that will come later, after we've had a few minutes to chat.”
The banker affected a folksy manner, apparently designed to put us at ease. But he continued to speak in formal Spanish. "Before we even think about doing business in Uruguay we try to get to know prospective clients. We do business with friends, not strangers. Is this your first visit to Montevideo, Roger?”
I can do folksy too. Folksy is good. Giving away too much information isn’t. Bernardo Colletti might have mentioned that we’d been here last year. “No, actually we were here for a short visit last year when Suzanne was invited to be a guest Professor at the University of the Republic. We spent several days in Montevideo and had a chance to do a bit of travelling too.”
Andres Sanchez perked up on hearing this. “Where else have you been in South America, Roger?”
This was where I had to be careful not to tell him too much. “We had time to visit Buenos Aires, Colonia, Piriapolis, and Punta del Este when we were here in Uruguay before, as well as spending a couple of days on a working ranch in Florida Province. We also spent a week or so in Salta, Argentina. Salta is quite beautiful, as I’m sure you know. I think we fell in love with the idea of owning our own ranchland down here in South America when we visited Cafayate during the time we were in Salta.”
There was a big smile on the banker’s face now. We actually knew what an estancia looked like. “So you’ve seen a real cattle ranch and some of the best vineyards in South America already. That’s very good. Did you say that your wife was invited to teach at the university here?”
Smiles on the banker were good. Maybe I was doing this right. Let’s see if I could keep him happy. “I know she looks young, but my wife Suzanne is currently an associate professor of biochemistry in the Medical School at UCLA in California. She teaches there and also does research on some very strange proteins that can be isolated from tropical plants, so we get to travel to South America for her research work. In fact she has active research collaborations with scientists here in Montevideo, in Buenos Aires, and in a few of the other universities in the Mercosur region.”
Sanchez still was looking pleased with us. “And what do you do while your wife is being a scientist, Roger?”
“I’m a lawyer and work in the area of patent law. That’s how I met my wife.”
This is a cover story I’ve used before. If anyone Googled me on the Internet they would find random entries that linked me to my brief career as a patent attorney so that my cover story would stand casual checking. In reality, after passing the bar I discovered that I didn’t like either lawyers or criminals and that patent law was extremely boring, so the law was a bad career choice for me. After my extremely brief career as a lawyer I became a policeman in Los Angeles. I worked my way up the career ladder to a homicide detective, but got tired of the bureaucracy and politics and switched to being a private detective. That part of my career trajectory didn’t leave many footprints on the Internet, so would be much more difficult to find out about from 6,000 miles away.
"So you are a lawyer, Roger. That is an honorable career. Do you know anything about real estate law here in Uruguay and Argentina?"
Thank heavens for the course in International Law I had taken as a law student at UCLA. "I looked up a bit before we c
ame here. It is my understanding that North Americans are free to invest in land in both countries, at least on paper. Is that true?"
The banker frowned. "It is true at least on paper. In Argentina it can cost a lot of unexpected extra money to do anything, especially if you are not from Argentina yourself."
"The bribe as a way of doing business and the institution of corruption is what Argentina is most famous for." I tactfully did not include Uruguay in this indictment of South American integrity. "However, I also understand that a buyer's identity can remain confidential if they purchase an investment through a corporation, a Sociedad Anonima. So the purchaser's nationality should not matter and they should be able to buy land anonymously, just like a native Argentine or Uruguayan. But a local lawyer would have to be involved for any process as complicated as that. Another choice might be to have a local friend or relative that you trust completely be the purchaser of record."
“You seem to have done your homework as a lawyer. Now tell me why are you two well travelled North Americans here visiting me today?”
