by Jerold Last
To complement the meat, we had a Malbec wine from a local family-owned winery called Domingo Hermanos; the four Domingo brothers and their father made a very nice wine that went well with both of our choices, which were thoroughly shared. After dinner it was 11 P.M. and we were both ready for bed and sleep. We hadn’t seen anyone following us at any time during the day. It would have been impossible to follow us on the empty highway without being seen, so apparently we were finally on our own here in Cafayate with nobody watching us for the first time since we left Los Angeles. Unless the Smyth’s were a whole lot better at this than anyone I’d ever met, we hadn’t picked up any tails here in Cafayate, and I’d checked pretty carefully during our long walk.
I slept very well, perhaps because I was able to forget for one whole day and night about being followed by men who were probably trying to kill us.
Chapter10.Cafayate
It was time to get up and walk over to the square for our breakfast with Senor Sandoval. We left the hotel and admired the deep blue cloudless sky, the mountains to the south of us, and the complete absence of smog. Breathing deeply, we inhaled clean mountain air.
It was a nice day to just relax and inhale. “I like living in Los Angeles a lot, but certainly don’t miss the smog!” exclaimed Suzanne.
We walked the block or two to the restaurant and got there a few minutes early. Argentina functions socially on a very Mediterranean clock, a system of time and appointments that runs more slowly than ours. A social appointment is generally understood to mean that you will be there anywhere between fifteen minutes and an hour late, while a business appointment means that you are expected to be more or less on time. I wasn’t sure which schedule we were on for this breakfast, so being there on time seemed best.
The restaurant was easy to find, with an ornate doorway and a well-marked entrance. It occupied a large part of the northwest corner of the square. “Let’s go in and have some coffee and people watch while we wait for him,” I suggested.
The manager of the restaurant sat behind a cash register and a large book that presumably listed clientele and reservations on an ornate desk, just inside the entrance. He was a middle-aged, short gentleman with dark hair, mostly covered by a beret. He looked up expectantly at us with a look that nonverbally asked us whether we had a reservation for breakfast in the already crowded restaurant. I told him in English that we were expecting Senor Sandoval to join us, and requested a table and coffee while we waited for him.
He studied us for a moment or two before replying in English. “That will be fine. I know Senor Sandoval well, and will bring him to join you at his regular table as soon as he arrives. Will you need anything else besides coffee while you wait?”
I smiled to acknowledge his courtesy and his choice of language for our discussion. “No, thank you.”
The restaurant was in an old building with high beams made of squared off solid trees with wood paneling on the walls. The wood had aged to an almost black color on the beams, which looked as if they had survived multiple fires. Since cooking and heating at a restaurant like this one were traditionally done over a wood fire, the likelihood was that there was a less dramatic cause for the smoked color of the beams. Tables were spaced as far apart as possible so the overall impression was one of a great deal of space in all three dimensions of the building.
We sat at a table set up for four near the front of the restaurant, with a good view of the plaza and of the folks at the other tables. One table at the back of the dining room grabbed my attention. A very large older gentleman in full gaucho regalia sat there eating breakfast with three normally dressed men. The gaucho wore a serape, a cowboy hat made of straw, cowboy boots with spurs, and a big belt with a huge silver buckle. He looked just like the pictures of gauchos in books and museums, but the pictures he looked like were painted 100 years ago. I pointed him out to Suzanne, who looked over in that direction and shared my amusement at the image of the contemporary gaucho.
Just then our coffee arrived, accompanied by the inevitable cookies with dulce de leche filling. Imagine an Oreo cookie with dough-colored outsides and a caramel-colored center, but a whole lot sweeter than an Oreo. We sipped our coffee, nibbled on cookies, and speculated on who the gaucho might be. After discarding the possibility that it was Gaucho Marx, the most likely answer was we had walked into the middle of a movie being made here in Cafayate.
The manager reappeared, escorting to our table a short, slim, handsome gentleman of about 40 with a thin mustache, who he introduced as Senor Sandoval. Sandoval shook hands with both of us, then sat down on one of the empty chairs and asked whether we had seen the gaucho at the back.
Both of us looked at him. “Yes,” we replied almost in unison, “Who is he?”
“That is the owner of one of the largest estancias…I think you would call it a ranch…in the valley here. He is a little eccentric and likes to dress up in the traditional costume to entertain the tourists when he comes into town for breakfast.”
“He certainly got our attention,” Suzanne said.
Senor Sandoval asked if he could take the liberty of ordering breakfast for all of us. We agreed and he did so in rapid fire Spanish. Then he made small talk as we waited for the food to arrive. He asked us about our drive from Salta to Cafayate and what we had seen en route, what we thought about Salta, and what our plans were between this visit and returning home to California. I let Suzanne take the lead on our answers and she handled our half of the conversation quite well. She told him about our trip from Salta, the detour to El Dique for lunch, and the rock sculptures we had admired. She described several of the touristic places we visited in Salta City, and our day in Humahuaca and Purmamarca. She was careful to leave out our planned visit to Santa Rosa de Tastil, which seemed a good idea to me.
The food started to arrive. Our first course was empanadas, both meat and cheese filled. They were prepared slightly differently than in Salta so they were bigger and had more of the outside dough layer and less of the inside filling than the empanadas we knew from Salta. Served without salsa or chimichurri, they were pretty bland tasting, but they were good.
The main course was served family style: a huge communal platter of scrambled eggs, separate accompanying platters of beef sausage (chorizo), blood sausage made from beef (morcalla), and beef kidneys (rinones), all roasted over a wood fire, freshly baked rolls and croissants, and an endless supply of coffee served either Americano (black) or South American style (half black coffee and half hot milk, with plenty of sugar added). Once the food had been delivered and a small part of the total apportioned to our plates, the waiter left us and Senor Sandoval became serious.
He looked directly at Suzanne as he spoke. “Please accept my condolences for your loss. Senor Rodriguez spoke with me, so I have a pretty good idea of why you are here. I see no harm in being completely honest with you and think I can answer some of your questions about your father’s death. But my answers will be more about why he was killed than about who actually killed him, because I don’t know who killed Robert Foster. That answer is probably somewhere in Los Angeles rather than here. I would prefer to speak very hypothetically for reasons that will become clear shortly. Is that agreeable to you?”
I nodded my agreement. “Yes,” replied Suzanne.
Senor Sandoval stroked his mustache and looked thoughtful. “You may have noticed that Salta looks quite prosperous in many of its neighborhoods and is a rapidly growing city. Much of that prosperity comes from tourism. However, some of this recent wave of prosperity might also come from its proximity to the Bolivian border. By an accident of geography, Salta is in an ideal location for it to have become an important distribution center for cocaine and other drugs en route from Bolivia to the larger cities of Argentina like Buenos Aires, Cordoba, and Rosario. There would be an enormous amount of money and drugs involved in this trade, and the entire process would have to be organized regionally and locally for it to work. Someone like Senor Rodriguez must be respo
nsible for the drug distribution in Salta, just as someone like myself must be his counterpart in Cafayate, on a much smaller scale of course.
“Your father could have found his way to the right people to talk to in Salta and Cafayate where he could have indicated his general interest in participating in what we might call high-risk investments locally. He must have had pre-existing connections to the drug importation business in the United States or there would not have been any way for him to find the right people to talk to here in Northwest Argentina. In return for the opportunity to participate as a partner in the local prosperity, he was offering anybody who might be interested the idea of expanding the local cocaine market to the export trade. He had what he thought was a foolproof method of smuggling drugs into the USA, which he unfortunately did not reveal to anybody before his death. This improved method for cocaine transport from Argentina to the USA was to be his contribution towards becoming a partner. He died before anyone here had a chance to explore this proposal in greater depth. No one seems to have any idea of what his new method entailed or how it was supposed to work.”
I took advantage of a pause in his narrative to ask a question while he sipped his coffee. “That is a very interesting story Senor Sandoval,” I said. “Speaking hypothetically, of course, who do you think killed Robert Foster?”
Another stroke of his mustache and another thoughtful pause preceded his answer. “I think one of two things happened. Either someone killed him accidentally while trying to force your father to tell him his secret method for smuggling cocaine, or he died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is a lot of, shall we say, instability in the transport industry at the moment. There are several organizations trying to create a monopoly in this area. It is possible that Robert Foster got caught in the crossfire quite by accident when two such organizations had a dispute. I can guarantee you that it was not a local organization that was responsible for his death. There are not only local organizations in this competition but also organizations from your home country. That is why I suggested that the answer might be waiting for you at home.”
Senor Sandoval’s story came to an end at almost exactly the same time as we finished eating. He asked if either of us had any additional questions.
I asked whether he knew any of the names of his foreign competitors from Los Angeles.
In answer to my question he replied that he did not know the name or identity of any of the international competition for his industry.
Whether his seeming ignorance about the competition was true or not, it was clear that he had no intention of telling us any more than he already had. Suzanne did not have any more questions to ask. Sandoval shook hands with both of us as he said farewell, and left the restaurant.
We continued to sit at the table for a while playing with our leftover food and thinking about what we had just heard.
Suzanne was the first to break the silence. “I don’t know you well enough yet to read what’s going on in your head, and you have a pretty good poker face just sitting and listening. What did you think about what we just heard?”
I took a sip of coffee, returned the cup to its saucer, and dabbed my lips with a napkin while I thought about my answer. “I think he was telling us the truth, or at least a good part of it.”
Suzanne replied immediately, “We agree. I had the same feeling while I was listening to all him.”
After drinking the rest of the coffee remaining in my cup, I swallowed and continued. “There’s a big “but”, though. I don’t believe in altruism from crooks. In this case, I think Senor Sandoval’s and Senor Rodriguez’ motivation in talking to us was not completely pure and noble. They almost certainly believe we share a common interest in eliminating one large component of their competition, the one that’s based in Los Angeles. Sandoval made it a point to tell us we have to figure out who those guys are by ourselves. We’re not going to get any help from him or Rodriguez. It’s clear to me that neither of them wants to get involved in a shooting war with a group of American drug dealers. On the other hand, they seem to be encouraging us to do exactly that on their behalf. And, they’re wishing us well if we try to do it.”
I scarfed a slice of chorizo from the platter between us on the table and chewed it thoughtfully. “I think it’s time for you to think about going back home. We’ve just about hit our point of diminishing returns as far as investigating your father’s killing here in Argentina. The rest of the answers are probably back home in Los Angeles. The only clue we have left that can lead us back to who killed your father is the identity of the two guys who followed us from California. The fact that anybody followed us all the way here certainly makes me believe there are people back home who have something to hide and don’t want us asking a lot of questions.
“We either have to figure out who they are and get to them before they get to us, or we’re going to have to stop asking everybody questions when we get home. We haven’t been very subtle about what we’re doing down here. We’ll have to change our style when we get home if we don’t want to get ourselves killed. The next step is to go back to Salta and visit Lieutenant Garcia to say goodbye, and tell him we haven’t learned anything else. By then we should be ready to fly home.”
Suzanne leaned toward me and spoke earnestly. “I think I’m ready to fly back. I’m very happy about what we’ve accomplished so far. Between our discussions with Senor Rodriguez in Salta and Senor Sandoval just now, we can probably guess the why of dad’s killing. He was talking to the known drug kingpins in Salta and Cafayate, so the probability that drugs were involved is pretty high. I’d guess those drugs were to come from Bolivia by way of Salta and Cafayate into California. I think his idea about a better way to smuggle cocaine across the borders was probably connected to his being here to buy land for a vineyard and to start his own winery. He may have been trying to get the local drug lords to invest in buying land for his winery in return for his idea and his cooperation later on. Do you agree?”
“You’re doing fine so far. Keep going,” I urged.
Suzanne took a deep breath before telling me the rest of her thought process. “I think his big idea had to be pretty simple. He saw the winery business as a license to export so much wine to California in such large volumes that the drug enforcement folks would never be able to find the contraband among the legitimate imports. The beauty of this approach is that unless someone tipped off the customs agents, why would they even look for something else in the wine being imported if all the paperwork added up to what was actually there in the shipment?”
“So far we’re thinking the same way,” I replied, “but what about the cocaine? We’re talking huge amounts here, not a few grams that can be easily hidden.”
Suzanne had obviously thought about the answer to this question. “How much of your college chemistry do you remember? Do you remember your courses in organic chemistry?”
I picked up another pseudo-Oreo cookie and started to nibble it. “It’s a long time ago, but I remember the fundamentals. I still use some of that chemistry in forensics,” I answered.
Suzanne fidgeted with a spoon and sipped a bit more coffee. “OK. I think his big idea was to ship the cocaine dissolved in wine. Cocaine isn’t particularly soluble in water in its pure, or freebase, form, but it’s a lot more soluble in acids as its salt form. And wine is normally slightly acidic, so it would dissolve a lot of cocaine in the salt form. It would be simple to make a few dozen bottles even more acidic than that. In a big shipment of wine the odds of the content of a specific case or two being tested are pretty small, and probably infinitesimal for a specific bottle to be tested. As long as there was a legitimate and profitable market for his wine in California, and people were buying large amounts of it to drink as wine, why would anyone suspect that a small percentage of the bottles were anything else? The beauty of this approach is that all of the wine would have to go through an importer before it went through distribution to a wholesaler for sale to the
public.
“I suspect that Dad saw himself not only as the owner of the winery but also as that particular importer. The funny cases of wine could be passed on to the drug dealers for recovery of the cocaine with no risk of the tampered wine ending up on someone’s dinner table. The chemistry required to get the cocaine back out of the wine would be very simple. Just add a little sodium hydroxide to the wine to titrate out the excess acidity and make it basic. The process I’m describing is simple enough that a college chemistry student can do it, so nobody has to have a complicated lab and a Ph.D. to recover the drug from several bottles of wine, or even from several barrels of wine if it were shipped in bulk.”
Suzanne leaned back in her chair and looked directly at me, with an expression that clearly indicated she expected me to say something.
I thought about the logistics as she described them. “We may be missing a detail or two, but I think this is probably very close to the idea your father was trying to sell when he was killed. So I think you’ve answered the question of why he was killed. Someone tried to beat the idea out of him and got too enthusiastic while they were asking the questions. That still leaves us with the question of who killed him, and we’ll have to decide whether we want to take the risks of trying to find out more after we get home. And the other questions about the two guys that followed us to Salta: who they are, what they actually want from us, and what we plan to do about them. It’s probably a safe bet we’ll be seeing them again.”
