Sweet money il-2

by Ernesto Mallo

  El Perro walks through the station at the very moment two trains are arriving. The one from the centre spews out a crowd that hurries off the platform to jostle for a good place in one of the interminable queues for the buses. Perpendicular to the station, on the same axis as the waiting room, an array of awnings along the main street shamelessly compete with each other to call attention to themselves. He walks slowly down the sidewalk, made narrower by the rear ends of cars parked at a forty-five degree angle. The shop windows are stuffed with imported garbage. Lascano looks at the shops on both sides of the street, still trying to remember the address he read in the file. There was something unusual that should have helped him remember, but what was it? Ahead of him, a barefoot kid lets out a piercing shout. The greengrocer turns to look while behind him the kid’s six-year-old accomplice pockets four mandarins and takes off running. Lascano watches him run by, and his lips curl into a sad smile; he remembers a phrase he heard he doesn’t know where about love being a stolen fruit.

  When he gets to the second block he sees it. The shop is shut and looks abandoned, but the sign is still there: in a pretentious gold-plated old-English font it proclaims: “ Zapateria Napolitano — Calzado fino para damas, caballeros y ninos. ” Then, the name of the street pops into his head: Napoles. That was the peculiarity: the Napolitano family lives on Napoles Street.

  He’s in luck: the street is only two blocks long, but has about fifty buildings. He rules out the two apartment buildings, one three storeys high, the other four. Eva always spoke about a house. Didn’t she also mention a front garden with roses or is that getting mixed up in his head with Marisa’s family home in San Miguel? He walks up one block along one side of the street, then down it along the other. Only three houses have front yards. One has been changed into a car park for an impeccable red Renault 12. He stops in the middle of the second block to look at a one-storey house set about twelve feet back from the sidewalk. That area, which could have once been a garden, is now covered with a slab of smooth ochre-coloured cement. The facade is made of a material that looks like brick at first glance. Lascano notices a woman looking at him through the kitchen window. He crosses the street. The woman disappears. As he approaches the gate, he sees it: a quartzite stone etched with two names — Eva and Estefania — their initials interwoven. He has found her. He rings the bell on the gate. From inside the house he hears sharp and hysterical barking and the sound of a television with the volume turned up too high. Nobody comes to the door, but Lascano suspects that the woman who was in the kitchen is now standing right behind it. It’s as if he can see her twisting a rag in her hands, scared to death, unable to decide whether or not to answer. He rings again, this time holding the bell longer. The door slowly opens a crack. The woman peeks out, the chain splitting her face in two.

  Yes? Good afternoon, is this home of the Napolitano family? Yes. Are you Mrs Napolitano? Yes, what can I do for you? I’m an old friend of Eva’s.

  The door slams shut. The dog starts barking frantically behind it. Lascano walks through the front gate and up to the door.

  Ma’am, I need to talk to you… You have nothing to be afraid of… I am a friend… Please… What do you want? To talk. Who are you? My last name is Lascano…

  Silence. The door opens slowly but, this time, all the way. A tall woman with grey hair appears from the shadowy interior of the house; Lascano knows that he’s seen those eyes before. They are Eva’s eyes.

  Oh, it’s you, I thought you were dead. No, I’m still alive. Come in. Thank you, Ma’am. You can call me Beba.

  The little dog is a mutt, something like a cross between a poodle and a motor scooter. He nervously sniffs Lascano’s shoes and in one quick movement wraps his front legs around Lascano’s ankles and frenetically begins to hump him. Beba threatens to hit him with the dishcloth she has in her hand. The animal backs off a few steps, then stands watching them with nervous eyes. He remains quiet, but his entire being is aching to bark, lying in wait for his mistress to get even momentarily distracted so he can attack that leg again. With another stern command from Beba, he reluctantly creeps off to a wicker basket, where he remains, fully alert. The living room is in semi-darkness. The house is clean and neat, but a cloud of foreboding hangs in the air and casts a dark shadow. Sitting in front of the television set in a flowered armchair and wearing pyjamas, the cathode rays casting his face in a ghostly light, Eva’s father is staring blankly at the screen. His moist, partially open lips make him look perplexed. He has given no sign of noticing Lascano’s presence, nor has he moved a muscle; it appears he does not even blink.

  Have a seat, Lascano. Would you like some mate? Yes, thank you.

  Perro looks at her. Her face looks weary, every one of her movements ending in an odd flourish of resigned indignation. She is a tall woman, graceful and shapely. She turns and catches Lascano looking at her the way a man looks at a woman’s body. Her eyes glow with a sudden and evanescent flame that brings Eva to him in one fell swoop. She has those same bright green eyes whose irises seem to be spinning when they turn on you. She gives him a half smile as she hands him the mate and sits down in front of him, still holding the dishcloth.

  Thank you. You’re welcome. How can I help you, Lascano? I want to find Eva.

  Beba jumps to her feet and slams the dishcloth against the table as if she were swatting an imaginary fly. She turns her back on him, walks over to the kitchen sink, turns back around and leans against the counter. Lascano keeps his eyes down. He knows that a broadside is coming and he expects a heavy verbal assault to follow up the daggers in her eyes. The heat suddenly feels suffocating.

  Look here, Lascano. You entered through that door where a terrible misfortune also entered. Actually it was Eva, my eldest, who led misfortune in here by the hand. She’s the one who brought those ideas home from the university. Eva had a sister, did you know that? I did. Estefania. She was younger. Anyway, when they came to get Eva, they took Estefania. Do you understand? I do. That night, my husband tried to stop those animals from taking our daughter. They beat him to a pulp. Look what they did to him, the poor man. He was a good-looking man and we had the best shoe store in all of Haedo. What am I saying? In the whole west end of the city. People came from Barrio Norte to buy here. We had everything we needed. We worked hard and earned an honourable living. Eva is now far away. Estefania… disappeared… I can’t leave this house because I have to take care of this wreck of the man I love. Do you understand me? Yes, I do. No, no you don’t! You come here asking for help. You say you want to find Eva. Everybody wants something. Everybody has somebody to ask for help. I don’t have anybody. My life has been reduced to taking care of Roberto until the day he dies. And then what, Lascano, then what?!.. Don’t say anything. Then I’ll put a bullet through my head, though I don’t even have a gun. That’s my world, the world I live in. And you come here to ask me for help to find Eva. And me, Lascano, who do I ask for help?…

  Heavy tears fall from Beba’s eyes; she shows more anger than sorrow, the pain having crystallized over the years, become deeper, more and more compressed and bitter. Lascano knows that feeling all too well, that sensation of having nothing to live for, that screen falling in front of your eyes that makes the world, even the breath you’re about to take, appear meaningless, and he can’t help wondering: what sustains this woman, how does she maintain her sanity, what can she hope for from life? Lascano realizes that only by asking the right question will he hear the answer that’s struggling to find its way out of her soul and into the light.

  You’re absolutely right, Beba. Please forgive me. Don’t ask me to forgive you. I’ve got nothing to forgive you for. How can I help you, Beba? You want to help me? Yes, I do. You really want to help me? Yes, I really want to help you. Estefania was six months pregnant when they took her. I know her child was born and that it’s a boy. How do you know? Someone called me. They told me they saw her at a detention centre in Martinez, that she was taken to a hospital to give birth. Then they
brought her back and a month later they took the boy and transferred her. Don’t look at me like that, I know what it means to transfer someone.

  Lascano looks at her and remains silent. The cries Beba holds back cast a shadow where the screams from the torture chambers echo.

  You can’t imagine what it’s like to live day in and day out, night after night knowing that the monsters who tortured and killed my daughter are the same ones who live with my grandson, feed him, raise him… There’s nothing any human being could have done to deserve that. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil, Lascano, it makes me want to make them suffer as I have, but then I think, I don’t deserve to end up being like them. I try not to think, try not to drive myself mad. The only thing keeping me alive is the hope of finding my grandson. Do you understand me? I understand. Okay. Well… Nothing. There’s nothing to say. Now I want you to go. I want to cry and I want to be alone to cry.

  20

  The Duchess got in touch with Gelser and told him she needed to see Miranda. Miranda was so eager to see her he arrived an hour early for the appointment Gelser set up.

  Perro walks the six blocks from the Napolitanos’ house to the main street. At the corner, Topolino Pizzeria is bathed in an aquamarine light. He stops for a minute to contemplate the scene on this suburban street corner, a scene that looks like it was lifted right out of Buenos Aires en Camiseta, Cale’s satirical comic book about the city’s frazzled denizens. The restaurant is packed with families, a swarm of children who think the world exists for their amusement, and who are constantly on the verge of knocking over glasses and creating other kinds of havoc. All the tables are full, and the counter as well. The people ordering pizzas or slices to go hover around the cash register, agitated and impatient. The waiters, carrying trays laden with bottles, glasses, carafes of cheap house wine and sodas manoeuvre around and through the crowds and the tables in a prodigious balancing act that acrobats of the Moscow State Circus would admire. Then he sees him: his hair has been dyed yellow, he’s grown a moustache and he’s wearing fake prescription eyeglasses, but it’s him. Dandy didn’t lie. Mole is sitting at a table smack in the middle of the room, and he’s alone. Lascano takes one step back and watches him from behind the window just as the waiter brings him a large half-cheese-halffugazza pizza and a bottle of Quilmes beer. He slips into the restaurant behind Mole and sneaks over to the public phone booth. The phone is broken. He goes to the cash register and asks to borrow the phone. He dials the number of the switchboard.

  This is Superintendent Lascano… Connect me to the Haedo station… Give me the number then… Who’s in charge there?… Thanks, kid…

  He hangs up, mumbling a curse. If at all possible, he’d rather avoid talking to Roberti. He tries to remember the name of the cadet he met at shooting practice, but his name seems to have vanished from his memory. The kid, who had only a few months left before graduating, had impressed him as being very serious. He seemed to take being a policeman very much to heart, and Lascano couldn’t help worrying about him, about how disappointed he’d be once he fully entered that world. He’d seen it too many times: these kids enter the academy full of ideals and end up turning into hopeless scum. That particular kid had sought him out several times to ask for advice about problems that had come up in the department, and Lascano had given it freely, being careful not to shatter his illusions but, at the same time, not shielding him from reality. He thought the kid should know that he wasn’t joining a kindergarten, and that the police force was riddled with danger zones. The last time Lascano saw him, he told him he’d been assigned as a clerk in the Haedo station. But what the hell was his name? He gives up trying to remember and dials the number. The moment someone picks up the phone, the name pops into his head. He speaks, his eyes never straying from Mole.

  May I please speak to Maldonado… How’re you doing, kid? Lascano here… Remember me?… It’s been a long time… Listen, I need a favour, tonight… but I don’t want anybody at the station to find out, especially not Roberti… You up for it?… Listen, I have located a very dangerous suspect, and I want to arrest him… It’s a public place and I think I’ll be able to do it without problems… What I need is for you to come and give me some backup and keep him under lock and key until tomorrow… How soon can you be here?… At the pizzeria on Gaona and Las Flores… You can’t make it sooner?… That’s fine. I’ll figure out how to keep him here… You have a car?… Bring it… Okay, be quick.

  Miranda is eating his pizza with his hands, placing one slice of mozzarella face down on another of fugazza. Perro eats it the same way. He takes his gun out of his belt and puts it in the pocket of his overcoat, without relaxing his grip. He waits. Down the narrow aisle that leads to Miranda’s table a fat woman is dragging a kicking-and-screaming six-year-old piglet to the bathroom; you’d think she was leading him to the slaughterhouse. When the way is clear, he covers the distance in three long strides and sits down in front of his prey. He takes the gun out of his pocket under the table and points it straight at him. Mole has frozen, his sandwich poised halfway to his mouth.

  Steady as she goes, Mole. We don’t want to kick up a fuss. I’ve got one pointing at you under the table and there are three more surrounding you. Did you really have to ruin my dinner? Couldn’t you have waited for me at the door? Keep your hands still. Don’t worry, I know when the game’s up, I’m not about to do anything. But can I finish my pizza? Go right ahead. You want some? No, thank you. You don’t mind if I take the knife away from you, do you? No problem, anyway I eat with my hands. Are you armed? I’m never armed, Lascano, you know that. The three guards your gang shot the other night wouldn’t agree. What three guards? The armoured car in Villa Adelina. I have no idea what you’re talking about. The armoured car you attacked the other night, don’t play dumb. I had nothing to do with that. Oh, really? Just so you know what’s what, there are three dead bodies who’ll point their fingers straight at you. In Chorizo’s zone, right? I think so. Now I get it. What? They’re framing me. You know very well my gang got scattered after the last job. Dandy’s in jail, and they must be putting the screws on him, but good. The others are probably trying to find a dung heap to hide in. And Bangs? Bit the dust, hit by a car while he was running away. Fucking shit. At least he didn’t have a family. And you? Managed to disappear till now. Yeah, with a cool million. Really, you don’t say. But I’m sure we can come to some kind of understanding. You know me, Mole, no understandings. You hand over the dough to me, I return it to the bank and I put in a good word for you with the judge. You must think I’m some kind of idiot, Lascano. What’s in it for you? Money. And me, what am I offering you? Dirty money. If the banker gives it to me, it’s clean. Yeah, as clean as the urinal at Retiro station. I’ll give you double. Don’t waste your breath, Mole, there’s not a chance in a million. Well, too bad, then, ’cause I’ll need every penny of it for my family and to pay the lawyers, especially if Chorizo wants to lay those corpses on me. Damn right, I’m going to need a whole shitload of the stuff.

  Mole finishes chewing. Impatiently, he wipes his mouth with the paper napkin and starts to fumble in his pockets. Lascano cocks his pistol. Miranda hears the unmistakable “clack” of the hammer.

  Calm down, I’m just looking for a cigarette. Okay. No, it’s not okay, I’m all out. Have you got any? I quit. You really didn’t do the armoured-car job? Look, Lascano, I’ve never killed anybody and I’m going to tell you why, even though you already know, otherwise you wouldn’t have chosen this place full of families and kids to arrest me. You know I’m not going to do anything that’ll put them in danger. I’m a big boy now and I’ve already served my time. In fact, I’ve wasted my life. I missed out on being with my son, watching him grow up, taking him to school and all that stuff. My wife has put up with everything, but she’s no spring chicken either. The truth is, I’m sick of the whole bloody thing. You know what I dream of? No, what do you dream of, Mole? My grandchildren. You’re going to make me cry; ever since you be
came a blond, you are so sensitive. I’m serious, Perro, I imagine taking my little two-year-old out on his first walk around the neighbourhood. I can see myself a few steps behind him, keeping an eye on him from just the right distance, watching how he moves, how he reacts to things he finds along the way, teaching him how to walk, educating him. Not to be a thug, but not a wimp either. You understand? I understand. And what I don’t want is for somebody to pop up behind me and put two bullets in my neck. You know what I mean? It would be a bad lesson for the kid, don’t you think? Very moving, Mole, but the slammer is what’s in store for you now. And then you get to go collect from the banker. To each his own. You want to tell me the difference between me, the bank robber, paying you to let me go, or the banker-robber paying you for bringing me in? Very simple, nobody’s going to come after me for the money I get from the banker-robber, but they will for yours. But mine’ll be double, it’s a better deal and nobody’s the wiser. But I’m not a businessman, Mole, I see things differently. What I don’t understand, Lascano, is how you can be so intelligent and so stupid at the same time. There are many things in nature that are difficult to understand.

  Lascano sees Maldonado entering behind Mole and he nods to him. He looks at the check the waiter has put in the glass with the napkins and slips in a few bills behind it.

  It’s on me, Mole. But you’re paying on credit, Perro, and that’s never a good idea. Maldonado, you go behind and I’ll be in front. If he does anything smart, shoot him, understood? Understood. We’ll leave by the side door. Where’s the car? About thirty feet down the street. Let’s go.

  They step into the street, leaving behind the din of the restaurant. The cold breeze swirls around them. Maldonado stands behind Mole, watchful, holding his forty-five and looks at Lascano, waiting for instructions. But Miranda’s the one who does the talking.