Betty Boo

by Claudia Piñeiro

  The telephone rings again, and this time Brena gets to it in time. Jaime Brena speaking, he says. Comisario Venturini, says the voice at the other end. Comisario, repeats Brena. How are you, my dear? I’m well, but poor, Sir, and you? Same story here. It pleases Jaime Brena to hear this voice. It’s something like a Pavlovian reflex, making him alert, tense, but excited, almost happy; some substance – adrenaline? – is released inside him. I’ve got something for you, Brena, says the police chief. Something that’s going to cost me a traditional asado and a fine bottle of red? An asado with champagne, I’d say. I’m all ears, says Brena, just for the pleasure of it, because he knows that nothing he may hear from the police chief – or any of his other contacts – is going to find a place in the Society pages. He still hasn’t told his contacts about the move; he can’t bring himself to deactivate them: he’s known some of them all his working life. His pieces for Society don’t have a byline, so to all intents and purposes he’s still the newspaper’s chief crime correspondent as far as anyone outside El Tribuno is concerned. I’m listening, Comisario, he says, tearing a pink piece of paper off his jotter and ready to note down whatever Venturini is about to tell him. Somebody you know very well has just turned up dead, Brena, but don’t worry, it’s not someone dear to your heart. Who? Chazarreta. Chazarreta? Found with his throat slashed. Talk about a coincidence! You said it. And this is from a good source? I’m standing in front of the body right now, staring into the wound, waiting for the forensics to arrive. Where exactly? In his house, in La Maravillosa. And why are you so far out of your jurisdiction? One of those strange coincidences of life I’ll tell you about some time. You know the house, right? You came here to interview him the last time. Yes, I know the house. The maid found him. The woman gabbled on for twenty minutes without drawing breath or saying anything useful, and now she’s gone into shock. Any hypothesis? Lots, but nothing substantial. I was hoping you’d give me your thoughts, Brena. You’ve caught me on the hop, Comisario; give me a bit of time to digest the news, then I’ll call you back. OK, my dear, I’ll be at the crime scene a bit longer. If you think of anything, call me. I won’t tell you to come over, because the attorney’s due any minute and they’re not letting so much as a fly in the front door, not after what happened last time … I understand. Looks like I got you an exclusive, eh? And I’m humbly obliged. Call me. I’ll call you, Comisario. Anything else? Yes, Dom Pérignon, Brena. Short ribs, pork belly, sweetbreads and Dom Pérignon. Consider it done.

  Jaime Brena puts down the phone and sits staring at the paper, wondering what to do. He knows that what’s landed in his lap is a bombshell. In a couple of hours every newspaper in town will be on to it, but as in all things, he who strikes first strikes hardest. Although some may say – Rinaldi said it himself, at one of the last front-page meetings Brena ever attended – that since the explosion in online news on the Internet, the concept of an “exclusive” lasts no longer than the time it takes to copy, paste and press Forward. Any old-school journalist, and Brena counts himself as such, still cares about exclusives. The death of Chazarreta’s wife, three years ago, had the whole country on tenterhooks. And although not enough evidence was ever found to charge the widower, 99.99 per cent of people have always believed Pedro Chazarreta to be the murderer. That percentage includes Jaime Brena, who not only covered the investigation for El Tribuno but also led the way for other newspapers, from the day of the murder to the closure of the case. When this story appears in the papers tomorrow, Brena knows that people will say justice has been done. Even though one can never be sure of what is just, or of anything. True justice for someone who ought not to have died would be resurrection, not that someone should kill her assassin. But Brena doubts that kind of justice has ever been conferred on anyone, Jesus Christ included. He walks over to the boy’s desk with the pink slip of paper in his hand. Hey, have you got a minute? he asks. Then he catches the boy minimizing the window in which he’s been writing so that Brena can’t read it and, even though he says, Yes, of course, Brena thinks: Bad attitude, kid, crumples up the note, throws it into the wastepaper basket beside the feet of this apprentice of criminal journalism and says: Nothing, it doesn’t matter. And he goes straight from there to Karina’s desk, flashes the box of Marlboros he’s just taken out of his shirt pocket and asks: Want to come? And the woman gets up and goes with him.

  Outside there are at least three other colleagues smoking. The ban on smoking in confined spaces in Buenos Aires has sparked a pavement culture that Jaime Brena quite enjoys. They sit on the kerb. How’s things? asks Karina, hesitating briefly before taking the cigarette he offers her. Fine, he says, lighting his own. What did you decide about taking redundancy in the end? I still don’t know. Sometimes I’m sure I want it, and other times I can’t picture myself not coming here every day. Brena takes a long draw on the cigarette, then slowly lets the smoke out. Besides, I’m sure Rinaldi won’t want to give me the same payout the others got. But you deserve it, more than anyone. What’s that got to do with anything? Is being deserving any kind of guarantee? You’re right, the girl says, and she puts the cigarette in her mouth for Brena to light it. What about your love life? Ah, that’s one area in which I have taken voluntary redundancy, he says, and the girl laughs. He flicks the lighter until a flame leaps up, and she moves closer. You don’t fool anyone, Brena. No, seriously, I just want a quiet life. So no more Irina? No, God help me. They smoke together in silence, looking out into the boulevard. Know what? says Brena. The other night I went down to buy something to eat and I passed this guy who was walking a dog, a beautiful big one, must have been a Labrador. And who was this guy? Never mind the guy – it’s the dog that was important; I thought that I’d like a dog like that too. Perhaps I’ll buy myself one. Oh Brena, you’re crazy, you’d never have enough patience for a dog. What do you mean? I know you; after two months you’d be taking it back. Well, a dog isn’t for life, not like marriage; if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I’d find it easier to dismantle a marriage than to take a dog back, she says. Who do you take it to, anyway? But you don’t know what it’s like dismantling a marriage, he says. I don’t want to, either. Brena takes a last drag and stubs out the cigarette in a trickle of water running under their legs beside the kerb. She’s hardly smoked her own cigarette and is now playing with the ash. He looks at her, then says: Chazarreta’s been found murdered, with his throat slit. Pedro Chazarreta? Yup. I don’t believe you. They’ve just called to let me know. Front cover tomorrow, says Karina. Of El Tribuno? Only if the boy wakes up in time, says Brena doubtfully, and I wouldn’t bet on that. Yes, he needs to wake up. Now the girl extinguishes her half-smoked cigarette in the running water. You hardly smoked it, he says. I had a few puffs, but my throat hurts a bit. Shall we go in? Do you know why I think women sleep facing up? Brena asks. Why? He looks at her, takes a deep breath, then, smiling, says: No, nothing, forget it. He gets to his feet and gives her his hand, helping her up. Are you going back in? Yes. You’re not? I’m going to take a stroll around the block first. Will you do me a favour? Brena asks. Yes, of course. When you pass the boy’s desk, will you tell him from me that there’s a crumpled bit of pink paper in his bin and that he should read it? Yes, I’ll tell him. Karina grasps his hand and holds it for a moment as though poised to tell him something else. But in the end she only repeats: Sure, I’ll tell him. And walks away.

  Brena could walk in any direction because – as he’s all too aware – he’s got nowhere in particular to go. Finally he decides to walk east, so that the sun will strike his back and not his eyes. It’s not too hot, but the sunlight’s reflection on those light paving stones has been making him frown for forty-four years. And today he doesn’t feel like frowning. He turns his head one way and the other to stretch out his neck, fills his lungs with air, pulls his trousers up around the waist. He looks back over his shoulder to check that he’s alone, that nobody is walking nearby. Then he holds his right hand a little in front of him, with his arm extended and h
is hand in a fist, and keeps walking in this position as though something were pulling at the end of a lead. His imaginary dog.

  4

  Nurit Iscar is working that afternoon on the book she’s been commissioned to write: Untying the Knots. She hates it. The commission came from the ex-wife of a transport tycoon who, during and after her divorce, experimented with alternative lifestyles she believes to be “unique” and found “soul solutions” she wants to share with others. You won’t believe the book you’re going to write when I tell you my life story, she said on the day she interviewed Nurit for the job, never guessing how many times this particular ghostwriter – and other writers besides – had heard that same phrase or similar ones from other mouths. “If I tell you the story of my life and you write it up you’ll win the Clarín prize”, “My friends all say I’ve got enough material for a novel”, “I’m going to tell you something – write this down and there’s your next book – not just your next one, there’s enough for at least three volumes!” Why do so many people think their lives are unique when I think mine’s just the same as anyone else’s? she asked herself then, and still does every so often. At least she’s finished the stage of interviewing the “author” and now needs only to transcribe the tapes and start writing. The best bit. Playing with words, putting sentences together, conjugating verbs. Writing. And the transport tycoon’s ex-wife is paying well. Very well. So Nurit tries not to think too much about “the message” that this woman hopes to get across, or about the knots, or what she means by the words she chooses, but rather of how they sound, how they sing, how one bounces off another, finally creating a melody that Untying the Knots doesn’t deserve. It’s for the words that she keeps writing. Not for whatever the transport man’s ex-wife “wants to transmit”. The sooner she hands in a finished draft, the sooner she gets paid. The problem looming is that after Untying the Knots there’s no other work in view. But she doesn’t want to worry about that yet.

  By mid-afternoon, Nurit feels sufficiently lazy or bored to need an excuse for a break. Time for tea, she tells herself. A glance at her watch confirms that it’s the right time, ten past five. At that very moment the boy in the Crime section of El Tribuno, having minutes ago uncrumpled the pink paper Jaime Brena threw in his wastepaper basket, is googling different combinations of keywords all plucked from that same note. But nothing useful comes up – it’s all old, relating to the death not of Chazarreta, but of his wife. He checks Twitter, but nobody he follows has written anything on the subject. For a moment he wonders about tweeting something himself: “Anyone heard anything about Pedro Chazarreta being murdered?”, but he dismisses the idea, realizing that it would mean alerting everyone else to a piece of news that appears at the moment to be his alone. And Jaime Brena’s. The boy asks Karina for Brena’s mobile number and she’s annoyed by the way he asks for it, so assertively and cocksure, as if she had no choice but to give it to him. But she gives it to him all the same. It’s always switched off, she says, but try anyway, if you want. Yeah, it’s off, says the boy, swearing. He leaves a message on Jaime Brena’s voicemail and tries his luck with Google again. And with Twitter. By the time Nurit Iscar has her toast ready on the table with her customary low-calorie jam and cream cheese, it’s dawning on the boy that Jaime Brena has no intention of returning his call, nor perhaps of returning to the newsroom for the rest of the day. And without his help he can’t get much further than what’s on the crumpled piece of paper. Worse, he’s wasted valuable time trying to track him down. That’s why, while Nurit is adding a little more milk to her tea – she’s given up coffee not because of insomnia or acidity but because someone told her (and she has no idea if it’s true) that it causes cellulite – the Crime boy is striding down the corridor towards Rinaldi’s office: best to bring him up to speed, he thinks, and get his opinion on which contact to call. Before going into the office he checks Twitter once more on his BlackBerry and now it is there: a tweet from a young radio and television journalist, a tweet that’s already been retweeted several times, too. Just one line: Chazarreta, widower of Gloria Echagüe, found with his throat slit. Nothing more. The boy knocks on Rinaldi’s door, waits for the words “Come in”, then launches in, silently grateful that his boss isn’t a techno-junkie.