Marta didn't feel like sitting. Instead she advanced to the front of Charbonneau's desk, forcing him to look up at her.
"You sent me those faked photos. You tried to use me, and, when I wouldn't be used, you sent your soft-spoken henchman to try and buy me off. When that didn't work, when I opened an obstruction investigation, you sent a pair of thugs to terrorize me. Fair enough, I suppose...since that's the way the game's played around here when political careers are at risk. But yesterday your goons went too far. They threatened to torture my eleven year old daughter. I came today to tell you she's safely out of the country, and that I'm not frightened. In fact, I'm all the more determined to get to the bottom of my case no matter whose careers get shredded."
"Fighting words." Charbonneau smiled. "Finished?"
Marta nodded.
"Normally I wouldn't respond to your street-trash charges, but you're an impassioned young woman who clearly feels she's been wronged. So here's my response: I did not send you those fake photos. I did not try to use you. I did not send a 'soft-spoken man' to try and bribe you. And I did not send 'a pair of thugs' to threaten your daughter. Furthermore, I agree that whoever did such things should be punished to the full extent of the law. From the look in your eyes, I gather you don't believe me. Fine! You and Judge Lantini are welcome to investigate me all you like. As soon as we finesse this latest crisis, I'll make myself available for questioning. Now...is there anything else I can do for you today?"
"We've both had our say. I think that's enough."
He nodded. "Be kind enough to wait here, Inspector. There's someone I'd like you to meet."
She was impressed as before by Charbonneau's sangfroid, a little perplexed too by his offer to bring in someone else. Waiting alone in his office she replayed his words. His denials of her four accusations had been absolute, but she'd detected a special emphasis on the first. He'd seemed truly outraged by her charge that he'd been responsible for the faked photos. His other denials had been cold and mechanical.
Could I be wrong about the photos?
She caught herself. The photos fit with everything else, most particularly the thugs who'd paid Costas to fake them, asked about her in her neighborhood, then yesterday abducted and threatened her. The fake photos had to be connected...or else her theory fell apart.
She braced herself when she heard Charbonneau's voice in the outer office. Then, when the door opened, she found herself facing José Viera, Minister of Finance.
He had the photogenic profile, strong jutting chin and precision cut iron-grey hair familiar to her from his television appearances. But she was most struck by something TV could not convey the animal energy he exuded as he strode toward her and reached to shake her hand.
"My condolences, Inspector. Charbonneau's told me about your ordeal. That such a thing could happen to you, a police officer, is but further evidence of our national crisis."
His words were too glib and the angle at which he bowed his head too emphatic for her to feel anything but his falsity and also his ravenous appetite for approval.
"The men who abducted me are the same pair who paid a photography expert to fake those scandalous photos of your wife."
Viera peered at her, while Charbonneau, standing a little behind the Minister, was showing signs of anger.
"You think there's some connection?" Viera asked.
"Of course," she said. "That's why I'm here."
"I'm sorry, but I'm bewildered. I don't understand what kind of connection there could be."
"Try this," she said. "The faked photos of your wife in the arms of an expensive whore were a fake political 'dirty trick' fashioned to create sympathy for you as you pursue higher office. The thugs who threatened to torture my eleven year old daughter are henchmen for the people who'd benefit from that."
Charbonneau looked apoplectic. "Do you realize what you're saying, Inspector? Do you forget to whom you're speaking?"
But Viera didn't seem upset. Rather he peered even more closely into her eyes as if to measure her willfulness.
"Well, it's all very complicated, isn't it?" he said lightly. "Perhaps a bit paranoid too." He showed her a quick smile, then resumed the pained expression. "Not to minimize the horror of your experience, Inspector, but I can assure you that the gentlemen who did these things have nothing to do with me. You can also be certain that those awful photos of my wife were not manufactured to create a backlash of sympathy. Politics can be a dirty business, but I would never stoop to using my spouse that way. Never, Señora Inspector, I assure you—never!"
He turned to Charbonneau. "Please continue to give all possible assistance to her investigation."
When he turned back to Marta, she again felt his charisma.
"It's been an honor to meet you. You're a smart woman, a strong woman, just the sort we need to cleanse the nation of the filth that so sadly pervades it."
After he left, Charbonneau continued to gape.
"I can't believe you'd speak that way to a Minister of State."
"I said nothing to him I didn't already say to you. If you didn't want him to hear it, you shouldn't have brought him in."
Charbonneau cocked his head as if to signal that now, finally, he understood her.
"You know, at first I couldn't quite make you out. A rather small woman with a very big reputation 'La Incorrupta' and all that. But now, perhaps due to my years as a working priest, I believe I recognize your sort. You've got a Joan of Arc complex. You see yourself as the purest of the pure. And you view everyone around you, especially people of rank, as morally inferior. Yes, we know that Joan eventually became a saint. But I'd be careful if I were you, for if you keep speaking to powerful people the way you did just now, you too may end up...."
"What? Burned at the stake?"
Charbonneau shrugged. "I don't make threats, Inspector." He glanced at his watch. "It's long past time for you to be gone."
Nine p.m.: they were in Rolo's car speeding toward Caballito, a residential neighborhood favored by cops. On nearly every block, Marta saw women and children scrounging through garbage cans. She thought: This country's failing its people.
Rolo was driving. "Their names are Galluci and Pereyra," he said. It had taken him just one day to identify her assailants. Galluci was the mustachioed Knifeman who wore a gold ring, and Pereyra was the driver with the scar on his cheek.
Rolo had IDed them with the help of his friend, the retired narc who'd tried to build a case against Ubaldo Méndez.
"Your hunch was right on," Rolo told her. "They used to work for old man Méndez. Five years ago they were fired for brutality. They were running a protection racket. A store owner balked when they tried to double his payments, so they beat him up, and then one of them kicked him too hard in the head. He went into a coma and never recovered. After that there was no way they could be kept on the force."
"Beside threatening other cops' kids, what else do they do?"
"They freelance as private security contractors. They provide businesses with night watchmen, most of whom are recently released felons."
"Any connection to the crocs?"
Rolo shrugged. "From what I hear they're professional bullies who're only interested in money. Say a guy thinks his wife's screwing around. He hires Galluci and Pereyra to follow her. When they find out who she's screwing, they put him in the hospital. Seems they also specialize in damaging peoples' testicles. It's said Galluci keeps a pair he cut off some poor adulterer, preserved in a jar of formaldehyde on a shelf at his favorite bar. When he gets drunk he hauls out the jar and regales the barflies with tales of the amputation."
"Castration," she corrected.
Rolo nodded. "Yeah, sorry. I have trouble saying the word."
Marta smiled. "That's where he'll be most vulnerable."
"Huh?"
"That's what he's most scared of. You can use it against him. You'll see, he'll crack real quick when you do."
Julio Galluci was single and hung out most evenings
at the bar where he kept the preserved testicles. Pablo Pereyra was a family man with children near Marina's age. It was Marta's decision to arrest him first. They were heading now for his house on Nicasio Oroño, two blocks north of the Che Guevara Museum. The plan was to burst in while the family was eating dinner.
The house was a one-story bungalow. They made two passes, caught a glimpse through the window of a family assembled around a dining table, then circled back to the alley that ran behind.
"We'll bring him out through here," Marta said. "I'll hold him cuffed at the back door, you'll bring around the car, then we'll hogtie him and stuff him in the trunk."
They were standing in the alley. She asked Rolo to cut the house phone line so that after they left Pereyra's wife wouldn't be able to warn Galluci.
"You go in the front. I'll come in here through the back," she whispered. "This'll be a no-nonsense pistols-drawn arrest. The bastard threatened a Federal Police officer. If he goes for a weapon, shoot him."
Rolo nodded. She could see he was excited. This operation was going to be like a high adrenaline narcotics raid—tough, fast, take-the-perp-down.
After Rolo cut the line, they activated their watches, then he went around to the front. As she watched the second hand sweep the dial, she heard a noise, turned, saw a rat appear from behind a garbage can then scurry away. She looked back at her watch. Ten seconds. Five. Four. Three....
Even as she kicked open the back door, she heard Rolo burst in through the front. Two seconds later they met up in the dining room, both their guns trained on Pereyra, while his wife, two daughters and son stared at them, jaws frozen, partially chewed food in their mouths.
The room smelled of grilled meat and roasted potatoes. Slices of rare beef lay in a platter in the middle of the table.
Rolo went up to Pereyra, stuck his pistol against his ear, twisted it, then roughly grasped his chin and turned his head so Marta could examine the scar on his cheek.
"It's him," she said. Rolo quickly cuffed him, then patted him down. "Unarmed." He grabbed Pereyra by his hair, yanked back his head. "Where's your gun?"
When Pereyra spat at Marta, she turned coolly to his wife.
"Where's his gun?"
When the wife shook her head, Rolo jammed his pistol against Pereyra's teeth, forcing him to open his mouth. Then he stuck the barrel in deep. Pereyra choked, mumbled something. When Rolo withdrew the barrel, he said his gun was in the drawer of the night table beside his bed.
She found it interesting that she took no pleasure watching Rolo assault this man, who, just the day before, had assaulted her. She felt no anger toward him, only disgust. Like he's some kind of vile insect, she thought.
She nodded at Rolo. He left the room. "And my gun, where's that?" she demanded.
"I don't have it."
"Galluci's got it—that's what you're saying?"
Pereyra blinked. She had him frightened: she'd found him and knew his partner's name.
"Remember what you threatened to do to my daughter? Want me to tell your daughters about that?"
Pereyra shook his head.
"Who's got my gun and watch?"
"Galluci."
"He better have them, or I'll come back and tell your daughters every awful threat you made."
Rolo returned to the dining room holding a shotgun, two pistols and several boxes of ammo.
Marta turned to the family. The children were handsome; the wife looked like a woman who cried a lot.
"My name's Abecasis. I'm a homicide inspector with the Federal Police. Your husband is under arrest for abducting and threatening me yesterday afternoon. That's a serious charge, and there may be others even more serious. We're going to take him away. If he resists he's going to get hurt. If he refuses to cooperate, he'll go to prison for a very long time. On the other hand, if he cooperates, one day you may eat together again. My advice is stay quiet, don't try to interfere, don't try and contact anyone, especially Mr. Galluci. First thing in the morning, call an attorney. Everyone understand?"
The family nodded.
"Good." She looked at the older of the two daughters. "What's your name, dear?"
"Angélica."
The girl was frightened. Marta smiled nicely to try and relax her.
"How old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"And your sister?"
"Twelve."
"My daughter, Marina, is just eleven. I had to send her out of the country last night because of the things your father and Mr. Galluci said they would do to her."
They stared at her uncomprehending. Of course they love the slob, she thought. He's probably a great papa too.
"We're going now. Sorry to interrupt your meal. If there's a lesson to be drawn from this it's that good cops tell you their names up front and don't make threats against other cops' kids."
Back in the car, excited, she recognized she was on a high.
Like in a marksmanship competition, she thought, when I know I'm going to win.
She turned to Rolo. "Do you think I have a Joan of Arc complex?"
They were driving to Galluci's hangout, Bar Rosa, on Calle Yerbal. Pereyra, bound and gagged, was stashed in the trunk.
"What's that?" Rolo asked.
"A woman who sees herself as a saint. Who thinks she's morally superior to everybody else."
"Well...." Rolo smiled.
"Come on! I'm serious."
"You never struck me that way. Of course you're proud. You have reason to be. But not too proud...which is nice."
"Some people think this whole Incorrupta thing's got me strutting around."
"You're a crafty detective, Marta. You don't strut, you stalk. I think of you as being more like a cat than a saint."
Bar Rosa looked to be a typical crummy retired cop's bar with blacked-out windows and a sputtering red florescent sign out front. It was in the middle of a blighted block. Railway tracks, lost in darkness, ran parallel to the street on its other side. No sounds issued from the bar. There was something ominous about it, the kind of place, Marta thought, that only a regular would dare enter.
"Our friend-in-the-trunk's being nice and quiet," she said. "Don't think he passed out, do you?"
Rolo shrugged. "I told him if I heard a squeak out of him, I'd ditch the car in the river." He looked around, then back at the bar. "There's no one on the street and we can't see in. I don't think we can haul out Galluci if there's a crowd inside."
"We can wait for him at his place. What'd you think?"
"Let me go in, get the lay of the land, then we can decide. I'll ask the bartender if he's seen him around tonight. That'll give me a chance to check him out and see who else is there."
"If he's there and asks what you want, what'll you say?"
"I'll tell him there's a lady outside who's got a job for a couple of tough guys who aren't afraid to act tough. That should lure him."
"I like it. But make sure he comes out alone. Stick a gun into the back of his neck, disarm him, cuff him, bring him over, shove him in face-down and together we'll hog-tie him. Then I'll hood him while you get us the hell out of here."
Rolo nodded.
"Be careful," she said.
She'd brought along a police hood especially for this. Knifeman/Galluci was the one she wanted most. He'd been the one who'd spoken gloatingly of making Marina scream. Maybe she'd have Rolo make him scream a little himself.
When he appeared, followed closely by Rolo, he looked smaller than she remembered. Rolo had a good six inches on him. Galluci walked sloppily like he'd been drinking, and there was a dumb half-smile on his face. Obviously he felt secure. Perhaps he thought that only someone who required his services would dare seek him out at his bar on this dark and lonely street.
They took him down fast. He smelled of sausage and cheap beer. In seconds they had him face-down on the back seat, disarmed, cuffed, hooded and hogtied. He fought and kicked and tried to yell at them through the heavy cloth, but his struggles did him no good
. Rolo handed Marta her pistol. Then he stripped her watch off Galluci's wrist. She couldn't believe it —the guy had been walking around wearing her watch with her Sig stuck in his belt. She punched him a couple of times through the hood, then stuck the Sig into the back of his neck.
"The lady's name is Abecasis, motherfucker," Rolo told him. "You messed with the wrong cop."
Marta spoke loudly, directly into his ear. "We got Pereyra in the trunk. You're both under arrest."
When Rolo opened the driver's door, Marta stopped him.
"How many in the bar?"
"Just the barman and an old coot from the neighborhood."
"Go back and get the testicles."
"What?"
"Since our friend here likes them so much, we just may make him eat them."
Rolo laughed, looked at her, saw she was serious, nodded and went back in. Half a minute later he came out holding a jar.
"Barman told me he hated the damn things and was tired of hearing Galluci's stupid stories about them."
They took them separately into the safe house, Pereyra first, then Galluci. The closets with cell doors were three rooms apart so they couldn't see one another or communicate.
They started on Pereyra. He wasn't happy about his situation.
"Even when you spat at me, I acted properly with your family," Marta reminded him. "I liked your kids so I didn't tell them what a dirtbag you are. But I will. If you lie to me, so help me I'll prove it to them. And then, loving papa though you may be, they'll never look at you the same way again."
Pereyra nodded.
She softened her tone. "You didn't lie to me about Galluci having my gun. I appreciate that. I'll appreciate it even more when you tell me who hired you to pick me up. Give me names and I'll lighten up on the charges. Play hard-ass and you'll go down for the whole thing. The Granic and Santini murders too."
"We had nothing to do with that."
"What about commissioning dirty photos of Viera's wife?"
City of Knives Page 18
