City of Knives

by William Bayer

  Carlos offered him a lift home to Villa Freud, but Tomás declined.

  "Thanks, but I'm going to walk a while."

  Carlos smiled. "I forgot, Tomás, how much you like to walk at night. It's your best thinking time, isn't it?" And, when Tomás nodded: "Thanks again for giving such a wonderful speech. You gave us all a hell of a lot to think about."

  He loved to walk the city after midnight, striding the streets, the "labyrinthine grid" as Borges had called it, seeing the city artificially lit, drained of color. Though he greatly admired Borges' writings, he did not walk to emulate the man he thought of as The Poet of the City. He walked at night because he loved to. It was the best way he knew to relax.

  On Avenida Santa Fe, he passed store windows where luxury goods were artfully arranged—shoes, handbags, fashionably cut leather garments. These displays, among mannequins positioned in suggestive poses, reminded him of the self-indulgence of his fellow porteños, their fascination with expensive purchases, surgically enhanced beauty and empty sexual encounters.

  Pausing before the window of a bookstore closed for the night, he searched it for literature. But all he could find were multiple copies of the current bestseller, 30 Days To A Stress-Free Life.

  More like thirty years, he thought.

  He turned west toward the heart of the city. Coming across the words "Evita Vuelve!" scrawled on the wall of a bank, he felt a surge of disgust. Why, he wondered, did people still idolize that woman who had howled for social justice while wearing a neurotic, other-worldly, painted-on half-smile?

  A taxi pulled to the curb, hailed by a pair of young women, foreign milongueras, Tomás could tell, on account of the way they were dressed. They were off, he guessed, to one or another of the all-night clubs where they'd dance, perspire, flick their legs between the legs of strangers, seeking yet resisting contact, becoming drunk on the dance.

  He and Sarah had loved to dance. In the early days of their courtship they regularly hit the tango halls. Sarah, the superior dancer, had taught him, encouraged him, then sent him off to practicas in the hope he'd become her equal on the floor.

  He often thought of her on his late night strolls. It was a way to be with her again. Though nineteen years had passed since her abduction, at night, in the city made surreal by shadows, the memories flooded back.

  On Avenida 9 de Julio, he paused to watch a group of cirujas, so called because of the surgical precision with which they cut into black plastic garbage bags in search of the city's detritus. They were poor people from the shanty towns concealed within the interstices of the capital, who came out at night to scour the avenues for treasure.

  Spotting a swastika boldly painted on a building just behind, Tomás turned hurriedly toward Corrientes to lose himself in the caffeinated crowds that haunted the all-night cinemas and pool halls.

  At the corner of Esmeralda and Corrientes he passed an aging Gardel impersonator mouthing words to a scratchy old tape played from a battery operated machine set between his feet. Passersby ignored him. The plastic cup before him held only a few coins. But still the old man pretended to wail out old tangos from the 1930s—songs about love, torment, destiny and shattered dreams.

  Heading back up the Diagonal Norte, he thought about what had happened to this great city where he was born, had lived his entire life, and which, for all its faults, he continued to love. It was a louche city in many ways, grand and even stylish in its decay, a city of balmy "good breezes," public buildings with magnificent facades, splendid tree-lined boulevards, perhaps the most gorgeous opera house ever built. Yet for all its grandeur, he thought of it as a city of lonesome wanderers like himself, struggling to find their way through the luxuriously-appointed and sometimes-criminal fantasy called "Argentina."

  Two a.m.: entering his dark apartment in Villa Freud, he noticed the red light blinking on his answering machine.

  A patient awakened by a nightmare? Who else would call so late?

  He listened to the message. Though the male voice was unfamiliar, he found it chilling. In it he heard the same combination of toneless arrogance and servility from that terrible time when, years before, he'd made the rounds of government offices in his frantic effort to find some trace of Sarah. But then, as he listened to the man's words, he was chilled even more, for what he heard was worse even than a threat against his own life:

  "You do not know me, Doctor, but I was present in your audience tonight. I found your speech most interesting. I have valuable information for you—to wit, the name of the person who denounced your wife. When and if we manage to come to terms, agree, that is, upon an appropriate fee for this priceless knowledge, be assured I will be able to document everything I tell you and provide appropriate bona fides. Perhaps the thought of paying for such information is repulsive to you. But, sir, we are not all of us doctors! In these difficult times some of us barely manage to survive. We are forced to sell our furniture, clothing, even our bedding on the street. So if we possess some other asset, such as the precious information to which I refer, then are we not permitted to sell that as well so that we too may occasionally enjoy a decent steak as all good porteños like to do? Please, sir, give this some thought. I will contact you soon to discuss the matter further. Until then please be assured that I hold you in the highest personal esteem."

  Tomás, trembling, rewound the tape and listened to it again. It was vile...yet, in a strange way, also seductive, and, for that reason, artfully conceived...as, he recognized, the most evil acts of men so often are.

  Chapter Five

  THE CROCODILES

  Rolo found the Window Dresser. "It wasn't hard," he told Marta, as they drove to the man's apartment. "That little scene he constructed in the window of the linens store was the talk of Avenida Sante Fe. Especially the stains on the sheets. That was his 'pièce de résistance' according to the proprietor. That's the way they talk over there. If there's a French expression, they use it, then they laugh if they think you don't know what it means."

  It was night. Traffic was heavy. Several times they came to a standstill. To pass the time, Rolo flicked on the car radio. On Radio La Colifata, a woman with a very calm voice was being interviewed about the state of the national economy:

  "It's those damn shrinks who're responsible," she announced. "They're like sponges the way they soak up everybody's money. Here at the loony bin, we're forced to see them every day. Multiply that by a million people, a fair estimate of the number of mental patients in Argentina, and no wonder the economy's in the toilet...."

  When finally traffic loosened up, Marta, coming upon a police barricade, pulled up, beckoned to a uniformed officer, showed her badge and asked him what was going on.

  The officer told her a mob had broken into a local grocery store and looted the shelves of food. He pointed to the Korean proprietor weeping over his loss while people from the neighborhood tried to console him.

  After they passed the barricade, Rolo turned to her.

  "With stuff like this going on, how do you concentrate on work?"

  She glanced at him, saw he was serious. "I don't know any other way."

  "I read in the paper that thirty percent of Argentines between twenty and thirty years old want to move back to the countries of their grandparents.”

  “Yes," she said, "a lot of the things we care about are coming apart...yet we must still try our best to do our job. What other contribution can we make? Take to the streets at night banging pots and pans?"

  "You're right, of course. But what's going to happen?"

  Marta shrugged. "I've no idea. But let's try and make sure there's one less set of murderers wandering around."

  Ernesto Ponce, aka "the Window Dresser", lived on Avenida del Libertador in a modern high-rise across from the racetrack. It was an expensive building guarded by a uniformed doorman, who informed them Señor Ponce was in.

  In the elevator, on the way up, Marta turned to Rolo: "You play the tough guy. I'll step in when I feel he needs a softe
r touch."

  Ernesto was a tall thin man in his late thirties with an S-shaped spine, and eyeglasses thick as Coke bottle bottoms.

  "Yes," he admitted, "I had a business relationship with Ivo Granic. Then it went sour."

  "What kind of business?" Rolo asked.

  "I know some important people," Ernesto said. "Ivo wanted to meet important people. So for me it was a good arrangement. I got to entertain my friends in his house at his expense. In return he met some of the more interesting people in town. He was keen on meeting celebrities."

  "People like Juan Sabino and Juanita Courcelles?" Marta asked.

  Ernesto nodded. "I believe they came to several of his parties. Lots of well-known people came. It was open house there Friday nights. People wore domino masks so others wouldn't recognize them."

  "What made your relationship go sour?"

  "I discovered he was recording people in the bedrooms."

  "What were they doing?"

  Ernesto laughed. "There're just two things worth doing in a bedroom, sleeping and fucking. I'd guess they were doing the latter."

  Marta nodded at Rolo, her signal he should take the lead.

  "So these were sex parties?" Rolo asked.

  "That's a pretty crude way of putting it."

  "But that's what they were. Sex and dope parties. And you were the bagman for the blackmailing done afterwards."

  "Excuse me!" Ernesto stood. "I think it's time for you two to leave."

  Neither Rolo nor Marta moved from their chairs.

  "It's time for you to tell us the truth, Ernesto," Rolo said. "Unless you want to be held as a material witness to two homicides."

  "I wasn't a witness to anything!"

  "Tell us what Granic was up to and go on with your jolly life. Refuse or lie and we'll take you downtown."

  Ernesto Ponce broke even more quickly than Juanita Courcelles. Clearly the notion of being thrown into a communal cell did not appeal to him.

  Yes, he admitted, his job was to act as Granic's bagman. He'd tell his friends that Granic had made videos, apologize, then offer to help them buy the videos back. His take was to be forty percent, which made for a pretty good arrangement. But then it turned out Granic was less interested in extracting money from people than in making private deals with them.

  "What kind of private deals?" Rolo asked.

  "It seemed like he was more interested in extracting information than money."

  "What kind of information?"

  Ernesto shrugged. "I have no idea, but I didn't see the point of risking my reputation if there wasn't any money in it. When I confronted Ivo, he cut me off, said he didn't need me anymore."

  Ernesto claimed to have no idea who killed Ivo Granic, but thought plenty of people would have been happy to see him dead. He offered the names of several blackmail victims, a list that included two congressmen, an opera star, a television personality, an army general and a high official in the Federal Police. He refused to give the latter's name, said his life wouldn't be worth much if he did. Marta signaled Rolo not to press him. She knew there came a point beyond which even the most willing informant could not be pushed.

  "You've been helpful, Ernesto. We appreciate that," she told him. "But we need more. Give us something valuable and we'll leave you alone."

  Ernesto looked down at his feet. "There is someone who knows more than me. She worked closely with Granic. I think they had a scheme going around the time he was killed. She calls herself Countess Natasha." Ernesto sneered. "I can assure you that's not her real name. We used to be friends. Now I can't stand the bitch. She's a pricey pro dominatrix. Powerful politicians like her for the stylish way she makes them crawl. She's got a great apartment on Avenida Alvear. Everything black and white." Ernesto wrote down the address. "Be sure and tell her the Window Dresser sent you." He tittered. "I know she'll appreciate that."

  Marta called Raúl Vargas, set up a second rendezvous. As arranged, he swooped down as she strolled along Cochabama, picked her up and carried her off to a gas station near the Russian Church opposite Lazama Park.

  "My cousins used to live around here. I used to play soccer on the field over there," he said, pointing. "I played goalie. Wasn't bad at it either. Now I'm in a line of work where I'm trying to kick goals. Most of the time I'm blocked. Sometimes I get through." He smiled at her. "Quit the cops, Marta. Join up with me. We'd make a great team. Joint byline. Can you see it? 'An investigative Report by Raúl Vargas & Marta Abecasis.' Wow!"

  She told him about her encounter with the nameless Israeli woman and the woman's astounding claim that the Mossad did not exist.

  "She made it clear they weren't going to help. Now I need your help, Raúl," she said. "I know you don't like to introduce sources, but I need information on some political people and their possible connection to Ivo Granic."

  She showed him Ernesto Ponce's list. He studied the names.

  "One of my best sources on politicians is a clairvoyant," Raúl told her. "I don't go to him to have my fortune told. It's the politicians who do. They're a superstitious bunch. For some reason they trust this guy. So he hears a lot of inside stuff."

  "Will he talk to me?"

  "I'll call him and ask. He's fairly patriotic so he might agree. But if he refuses, that's it." Raúl shrugged. "If it ever comes out he talks to me, he'll be in a lot of trouble. If it came out he talked to you, he'd be in even worse."

  Raúl excused himself, stepped out of the gas station café, pulled out his cell phone, punched in a number. Marta watched, amused by the vigorous way he gesticulated as he spoke.

  "Okay, he'll see you," he said, rejoining her. "But only one time. You're to meet him in one hour in the back room of his store. You'll pay his regular fee, two hundred pesos. It'll be like he's telling your fortune, except he'll really be telling you what he's heard. It's a decent distance from here, so we better get going."

  She dreaded riding again with Raúl, but needed a lift back to her car. She pulled on his guest helmet, mounted the rear of his Kawasaki, grasped his scrawny body so tightly she could feel his ribs, then shut her eyes as they took off.

  The fortune teller's name was van Heusen. To reach him, she had to move carefully through a ceramics store filled to the ceiling with breakable platters and bowls, then through a fog of incense toward a set of heavy maroon velvet curtains in the rear.

  Parting the curtains and stepping through, she found herself in a dark back room. There was no crystal ball, no table with deck of tarot cards on top, just a narrow-focus lamp mounted in the ceiling that sent a shaft of angled light down through the dusty air, and, on a stool in a dim corner, a little bald man with large unblinking eyes and skin so pale Marta doubted he ever went outdoors.

  The man, gazing at her, appeared relaxed. She noticed he held a flaccid length of wire strung with a metallic object. He motioned her to a chair, then, soon as she was seated, he sprang up and began to move erratically about the room, drawing the wire taut, then twirling it so the metal object whirled.

  "I see the way your father walked," he told her, launching into an awkward style of walking, which, indeed, did remind her of the way Nico Abecasis used to move around the house.

  He became tense as he concentrated on the whirling piece of metal. It flashed as he moved in and out of the beam of light.

  "I see your mother," he said. "She's still alive. She lives in another country." He looked at Marta. "Am I right?"

  She nodded. Her mother lived in Uruguay outside Montevideo. After her father died, her mother had returned to her family's home.

  "You have questions for me," he said, facing away from her. He twirled the wire again, stalking the room. "Ask!"

  "I had a dream," she told him. "I was swimming with swans."

  "I'm a clairvoyant, Señora, not a psychoanalyst."

  "I understand, but what do you think it means?"

  He whirled the metal object. "We know two things about swans. We know they are beautiful and also that they can be
vicious. Make of that what you will." He paused, then, standing directly beneath the pin light, whirled the metal object creating flashes that shot about the room. "Ask me another question! Ask me now! Ask!"

  "I received some fake photographs."

  "Yes, yes! Go on!"

  "I was told they were faked to discredit a certain politician."

  "I don't know anything about that." He turned to face her, twirled the wire, made the metal object dance in the air. He turned from her, moved again, darting about the room fast now like a cat. "Ask me! Ask!"

  "A woman was killed. They left her body by a cemetery wall."

  "Yes, yes! I see that! Yes, yes! What else?"

  "A man was killed the same way. They were connected "

  He twirled the wire. "Yes, yes! They worked together. They trapped people and extorted money. A lot of people knew about that. Then the man tried to extort information. After that some of these people got together, decided the woman and the man should be killed."

  "Who?"

  He twirled the wire, stared at the whirling metal object, became very intent, as if the flashing metal enabled him to concentrate.

  "I see snakes. No reptiles. Big reptiles, the kind that crawl through mud, through muddy rivers. Yes! They're hurting the girl, making her tell them things. Then they crush her with their jaws. They pound nails through the man's hands. But how can they do that? They're reptiles. Reptiles with long jaws, many rows of teeth, and lots of experience using knives and nails. It's impossible, but still this is what I see. I don't understand it. Perhaps you do. Or will."

  Suddenly he stopped moving, stopped twirling the wire, folded it up, put it and the metal object in his pocket.

  He returned to the shadows, sat down on the stool, then turned to her, relaxed now as he'd been when she'd entered, no longer the intense clairvoyant, just a squat little bald man with very pale skin.