When Horacio sees Lascano walking calmly toward him through the rearview mirror, he recognizes him immediately. He grabs the Ruger and releases the safety catch. He lies down in the passenger seat so Lascano won’t see him as he walks by. He curses silently. Because of the direction he’s coming from, he’ll have to shoot him with his left hand, which he can do, but he feels more confident with his right. He gets out of the car and starts to walk quietly behind him, the Ruger firmly gripped in his left hand. His footsteps are silent and he’s lucky the wind is blowing toward him. When he’s just three steps away from his target, he raises his gun.
If there’s anything that really bothers Lascano, it’s the wind in his face. That’s why he’s grateful when it suddenly changes direction and he feels a gust pushing him from behind. That gust carries to his nose the penetrating scent of barbecued meat that infuses Horacio’s clothes. He turns quickly. Fatso is aiming right at his head. He sees the flesh of his finger pressing hard on the trigger. He sees himself dead.
Blam!
But Horacio is the one who falls. Onionskin, standing next to the kerb, has shot him. The report wakes up One-Eyed Giardina. Startled, he opens his eye and clutches the steering wheel with both hands. Onionskin is pointing his Magnum right between Lascano’s eyes. Horacio has landed face down. Blood begins to pour onto the sidewalk. Someone else hits Lascano on the head from behind, knocking him out. Onionskin stashes his gun, takes two steps, pulls a hood over Lascano’s head, and the two quickly carry him to the Falcon that just pulled up alongside them. Without moving a muscle, Giardina watches the two men load Perro into the back seat. For a moment, Giardina is too shocked to know what to do. He looks from side to side and behind him and sees that the street is quiet again. He starts the engine and inches backward to where Horacio has fallen. Between the bumpers of two parked cars he sees Horacio bleeding to death. The Ruger he sold him is next to his body. He checks again to make sure there are no witnesses, gets out, dashes over to the gun, picks it up, puts it under his belt, returns to the Renault and takes off.
An hour later, Lascano opens his eyes in the darkness. He’s still hooded. He hears a voice.
I think he’s awake.
The hood comes off. It’s late afternoon and a stream of orange light pours in through the window. It takes a few moments for his eyes to get used to the brightness of the room. He’s handcuffed to a chair in a seedy apartment. Across the table, Miranda the Mole’s face, grinning at him, comes into focus. Next to him is Onionskin, a merciless psychopath who has the blood of at least five, if not six people on his hands. He’s a dimwit who has no business keeping company with Miranda. Everything Lascano had with him is on the table, including Eva’s letter and his gun. He’s glad it’s Miranda and not the Apostles, because then he’d already be dead.
This time I beat you to the punch, Perro. What’s up, Mole? As you see, I entertain myself saving your life. Seems like I’m condemned to having my life saved by crooks. You could at least thank me. I thank you, as long as you haven’t done it so you can have the pleasure of killing me. That’s not my style, as you know very well, Perro. So, to what do I owe the honour? You know. I owed you one. You don’t owe me nothing. Not now, but you saved my family when Flores wanted to pull a fast one. I did it for them, not for you. Same difference, Perro. I don’t like to owe anybody anything.
In a split second, Miranda’s deadpan face lights up with a smile that makes him look ten years younger. He smiles openly, heartily, proudly.
Hey, that was brilliant, you calling the TV station and all. About time TV was useful for something. I can just imagine Flores’s face when he saw the huge to-do you stirred up. No, you can’t. The cops made him get down on the ground in his thousand-dollar Armani suit. No kidding. Swear to God, when he got up he was so pissed off he was levitating.
Perro and Mole laugh in unison. Onionskin, looking bored and bitter, has no interest in the exchange and sits there staring at his nails.
How did you find out they had a hit out on me? We’ve all got our sources, Perro, it’s a small world. But you really pulled one over on me at the pizzeria, Lascano. Truth is, I’ve got to admit that you’re a master. With that moronic look on your face. Look who’s talking. Who do you think you are, Alain Delon? How did you find me? Good detective work, Mole. Cut the crap, who snitched on me? Nobody snitched, I’m telling you, don’t go getting paranoid. Truth is you’ve made yourself a handy bunch of enemies. Who wants to kill you? The dry-cleaner because I didn’t pay for my laundry. You never lose your sense of humour. I bet you weren’t laughing when I went up in smoke at the station. Don’t be so sure, I almost bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate. To tell you the truth, Perro, that was pretty damn stupid of you to leave me at the mercy of Roberti, probably the most corrupt policeman on the force. Believe me, if I’d had any choice, I never would have. I guess not. Is it true you got kicked off the force? I didn’t get kicked off, I quit. So why were you after me? You already know. Oh, right, for the dough from the bank. What does a skinflint like you need with money? That’s my business. Might it have something to do with this letter written by… Eva? You going to look for her? I told you, that’s my business. What are you going to do with me? Nothing. So why did you knock me out? Look, Perro, as long as you’re walking around out there, I’m not safe. I need you to disappear. Getting out of where you put me cost a pretty penny. Roberti must be happy. Probably. I also made arrangements for Flores to get lost. Mole, haven’t you ever considered that with all your hard work, all the risks you take, in the end the money you steal just goes to making the dirtiest damn cops dirtier and happy? Probably, but that doesn’t matter now. What does matter? For you to disappear, Perro. You were a fool. When I offered you money you told me the bank thing was clean. Yeah, and now the bankers have vanished with their clients’ money. See what I mean? Will you tell me what the hell you want? I told you, I want you to disappear. Go to Brazil, wherever the hell you want, just get out of Buenos Aires. And if I don’t want to? You’ll disappear anyway, Onionskin will see to that and if he doesn’t, someone else will. I’ve heard rumours about a group of very heavy-duty officers who want you dead. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t play the fool, Perro, we’re all adults here. Today you escaped by the skin of your teeth, but don’t push it. I don’t want to kill you; you know I don’t like the dead. So just make sure you vanish. May I ask you a favour? Under the circumstances, you can ask me whatever you want. Sit here for ten minutes, okay? Okay. Then, get the fuck out of here, Perro, do me that favour.
Miranda stands up, smiling. Onionskin picks up Lascano’s gun and shoves it under his belt. Then he takes off Lascano’s handcuffs. Onionskin and Miranda walk to the door, where another man is waiting. On the other side of the door the elevator doors can be heard, opening and closing. Lascano stands up, barefoot, and walks over to the window. He is on the top floor of a tenement building in Fuerte Apache. He looks out and sees Miranda, Onionskin and two others climb into a Falcon. Just before getting in, Mole look up, waves and smiles. The car takes off and disappears around the corner. Lascano turns and looks around for his shoes, but he doesn’t see them anywhere. Then he notices that there’s a large envelope on the table along with his things. He picks it up and opens it. Inside is a big wad of dollar bills. He returns to the window. Night is quickly falling. Strange sense of humour Miranda’s got, forcing him to walk through that neighbourhood full of muggers and murderers, at night, barefoot, without a peso and with a wad of greenbacks in his pocket. He can’t help cracking a short-lived smile. He’s going to have to figure out how to get out of there in one piece. If he were a believer he’d cross himself, but since he isn’t he touches his testicles and walks out the door.
28
Lascano strolls barefoot up the hill of the Plaza San Martin overlooking Maipu. As he walks he thinks that life, as he has been living it until that moment, has been one great big mistake. He now understands the message from the shadowy person in his drea
m. He now understands what he needs to change. He realizes that life is actually like a ride on a carousel with no brass ring for the winner. All that crap about austerity, about suffering being more dignified than happiness, that creed about tragedy being nobler than comedy, it’s a huge crock of shit, especially for a nonbeliever like himself. All that religion business seems to him like a swindle: You pay now for a service you’ll get only after you’re dead. If you don’t expect a reward in the afterlife, what’s the point of living like a rat in a sewer during this one?
The men in uniform at the doors of the Plaza Hotel are about to intercept him but, for some reason, they don’t dare. A hundred-dollar bill is all the concierge needs to give him a room, even though he has no identification and no luggage. That night he sleeps the sleep of the dead.
In the morning, wrapped in a plush terrycloth bathrobe the hotel provides and wearing slippers decorated with the hotel’s insignia, he asks the bellhop to buy him a pair of size forty-two brown loafers at the shoe store on the corner of Marcelo T. de Alvear and San Martin. He orders a superb continental breakfast and, as he savours the freshly squeezed orange juice and contemplates the marvellous view of the treetops in the Plaza San Martin, he feel as if John Lennon were whispering in his ear: Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Miranda the Mole, backed up by Nails and Fathead, spends the whole morning making sure Dandy’s house is not under surveillance. They take work in their stride and enjoy a steak sandwich from Argos, on the corner of Lacroze and Alvarez Thomas. To make their wait less tedious, they watch two kids, probably truants from school, playing a game of pool.
Once they’re sure the coast is clear, they knock on Dandy’s door. Graciela greets them with a smile, a cocktail of three equal parts: relief, joy and reproach. A visit from Mole, when her husband’s in the clink, can mean only one thing, and it’s something she knows will diminish the tremendous anxiety she has been feeling ever since her husband got arrested. She offers them mate.
How’s it going? I don’t have to tell you. No, I guess you don’t, but I’m really asking how things are going for you. What do I know how things are going for me, the truth is that you men, my dear, I don’t know, the life you offer us… But we make you happy every once in a while, don’t we? Yeah, the movie’s great, but the price of the ticket is way too steep. And the kids? At school. How’re they doing? The girl’s okay; Raul has turned out just like his father, no good with the books. He hates it and there’s no way to get him to sit down and study. My arm hurts from all the spankings I give him, trying to force him, but none of it does any good. What can you do, some kids just don’t take to it. I hope he doesn’t turn out like his father. Dandy loves you. Yeah, I know, and what do you want me to do with that? He’s a good man. Hey, if on top of everything else he was a bad one, you’d have to kill him. You’re pissed off? Well, wouldn’t you be? Here we go again, with lawyers and trials, getting frisked on visiting day, as if I were some kind of criminal, all so I can watch him rotting in jail. It’s no good for him inside, you know that. Is it for anybody? I guess not. Don’t worry, they’re not going to give him much time. Maybe, but he still has the other sentence to serve. There’s almost nothing left on that one, either. Maybe it seems like nothing to you, but I’ve spent my whole life waiting for him. I have a favour to ask of you. What? Give this other envelope to Screw. He needs it. Mole, you’re a good man, too bad you’re a crook. What can I do, nobody’s perfect. Take it. Okay, now you can take it easy and just hang in there. Take good care of the kids and don’t walk out on him, okay? Okay. Don’t let him fall apart. You understand? All right, Mole, all right.
Along with those last words, Miranda gives her a hug, dries her tears and runs his hand over her hair. A few moments later, she’s pulled herself together. Miranda walks to the door, where he gives her a few more pieces of advice and kisses her on the cheek; she thanks him and he leaves. Graciela dries her hands on her apron as a matter of habit, picks up the two envelopes he left on the table, sighs, opens the little door of the cabinet where she keeps the good china and sticks them in a beer pitcher, which plays “Der Liebe Augustin” when she picks it up. Then she goes over to the sink and starts washing the dirty lunch dishes.
That afternoon Lascano tries on an elegant suit of fine Peruvian cotton at Rhoders on Florida Street. He is pleased by his own reflection in the mirror. The trousers need to be shortened. The salesman recommends a tailor a few blocks away who can do it quickly. Lascano rounds out his purchase with underwear, six shirts, a belt, a handkerchief and socks, and requests the lot be sent to the hotel. He takes the trousers with him, and leaves them with a Bolivian tailor who has a tiny shop on Cordoba, under Harrods. He walks to Santa Fe, stops in front of the window of a travel agency filled with magnificent posters of gorgeous landscapes and golden beaches. He enters. A tall and seductive young man greets him with a smile that seems to say that the world is too small for his ambitions. It doesn’t take longer than an instant for the young man to figure out how much Lascano’s extravagant clothes have cost. He tells himself that this is a serious customer, someone who has come to make a purchase, and he invites him into his office. Effortlessly, and in a matter of minutes, he sells him a ticket to Guarulhos Airport for thirty per cent more than Lascano would have paid anywhere else. A few minutes later, at Rosenthal’s, right in front of the plaza, Lascano purchases a small suitcase. He returns to the Galeria del Este mall and there, on the first floor, he slips into Susana’s Hair Salon, settles into a chair and asks for the full service — cut and shave, with lather and hot towels and, while we’re at it, a manicure.
At night, on the corner of Esteban de Luca and Chi-clana, there’s a truck stop where Dona Elvira makes and serves the best homemade ravioli with pot roast in the entire city, probably the entire country. Generous portions of pasta stuffed with fresh spinach swimming in a sauce as rich and dark as fate itself, accompanied by a tough cut of meat that’s been cooked so long and slowly that it melts in your mouth and falls apart with the touch of the fork. That, along with a fresh sharp red wine decanted from a demijohn, is all her regular customers need to rejoice. Held aloft and exuding clouds of a greasy scent that fills the room and sticks to the clothes and hair, plates are passed around piled high with chips, steak and eggs, thick sausage with sauerkraut, braised tripe with beans, meatballs the size of tennis balls, oxtail and potato stew. This is the kingdom of cholesterol with garlic, oil with spices, tarantella dessert, wine with soda, and a gastronomic community that never worries about its health or the future and knows how to appreciate the warmth of a calorie-rich entree in the dead of winter.
Fernando seems quite out of place here with his impeccable attire, his hair cut stylishly and set with gel, and his refined manners. But nobody seems to notice or care, much too busy devouring whatever Dona Elvira’s crew sets down on the table in front of them. The young man looks decidedly out of sorts. He realizes that this place, even though it hasn’t changed a bit, has nothing in common with his memory of it. He doesn’t like the noise and even less the certainty that he will leave there reeking of fried food. By the time he sees his father walk in the door, he’s already in a nasty mood. As he walks by the waiter, Miranda orders two plates of ravioli with meat, red wine and soda water.
Hey, son. What’s up, Papa? How’re you doing? Good, I work a lot and I seem to have less and less free time. What are you doing? The university and politics. Politics? I told you, old man, I’ve been working for almost two years with the Peronista party. You like politics? Of course I do, why else would I study law? And why’s that? Listen, old man, the presidents in this country are either lawyers or in the military, and I don’t like the military… But you do want to be President. Well, I wouldn’t say no. You can’t think of anything better to be? What, like a crook, for instance? Don’t get smart with me, and anyway in the end it’s almost the same thing. Except politicians are less likely to end up in jail. That’s funny. And you, old man, how’re you doing?
Not bad. What’s wrong? They’re trying to frame me for a killing that occurred during an attack on an armoured vehicle. I know, but there were three dead. I was giving you a discount because you’re my son… Anyway, I had nothing to do with it. There’s a cop who’s trying to frame me, but since they’re also after me for the bank job, I’m not about to start giving explanations. So? Mama doesn’t want anything more to do with me. And for good reason. That’s true. How do you feel about it? It’s a huge blow, but I also know she put up with me for longer than she should have. No argument there. What are your plans? To keep out of sight until things settle down. Seems like a good idea. Really? Truth is that a father like you doesn’t help my political career any. Thank you. You’re welcome. Well, I have something that will help you. What? Money. Inside this envelope is a number, a code and the telephone number of someone named Christian. Okay. He represents a Swiss bank where I’ve deposited a lot of money. Keep that information in a safe place — or better, memorize it and destroy it. Okay, what do you want me to do with that money? Use it for whatever you need. Thanks. Two conditions. I’m listening. That your mother will never lack anything and that you take care of me if things don’t work out. I’m surprised, old man, that you think you need to tell me that.
The waiter brings the drinks and the steaming plates. Fernando doesn’t like that his father has ordered for him without consulting him. He knows that the rich sauce is going to disagree with him.
And the long face? What long face? Yours, who else’s? Don’t give me a hard time, old man, don’t start on me. Tell me about yourself, what’re you into? Got a girlfriend? No. Forgive me for asking, but do you even like girls? Back off, old man. It’s just a question. What’s wrong with you? You seem so… delicate. So? So nothing, tell me the truth, are you a faggot? Man, my generation no longer uses those categories. Do you like men? To be perfectly honest, up till now I’ve never come across one who’s turned me on. Does that answer your question? Sort of, though the “until now” worries me a little. Why? I don’t know, you seem kind of like a sissy, if you want to know the truth. I was raised by my mother and my aunt. Where the hell were you? Okay, okay, you got me there, but it’s no excuse. Who needs excuses? Would you feel better if I had a girlfriend? Yes, I would. Okay, the next time we see each other, I’ll bring a friend and introduce her to you as my girlfriend… It’s not a question of making me feel better. So what is it a question of? Knowing if you’re a real man or not. Does it worry you that much? Yes, it worries me that much. Look, it’s none of your business, and the truth is you don’t have a very open mind on the subject. Speaking of open… You want to stop insulting me? Oh, so now you’re insulted. I don’t have to put up with this shit! Oh no, so what do you plan to do? Just watch me…
Sweet money il-2 Page 15
