The Fragility of Bodies

by Sergio Olguin

  “Rivero and Palma are very worried after those visits you paid them.”

  “So they should be.”

  García shook his head as he selected a slice of prosciutto.

  “They’re responsible for a perverse and deadly game,” Verónica continued.

  “You need evidence to say that sort of thing.”

  “And I have it. Enough to put them both inside. And their accomplices too.”

  Her lunch companion sighed deeply, as though he were tired of endlessly delivering the same lesson.

  “Circumstantial evidence. Nothing that a good lawyer couldn’t disprove before an easily influenced judge. And most of them are easily influenced. Just ask your father. Look, there are three justice systems. The courts, which take years to pass sentence. Journalism, which decides what is good or bad and hands down condemnation from its newspapers or broadcasters with total impunity. How often have allegations made in a magazine later not been corroborated in the courts? But by then the magazines have sold their copies, their advertising space, and they move on to the next thing.”

  “Journalists simply place the facts before readers, for their consideration.”

  “That’s a lie. But we haven’t come here to talk about your profession, which of course is a very worthy and respectable one.”

  “You said that there are three kinds of justice, and you named only two. I don’t think that the last one is taking the law into your own hands.”

  “Ah, no, of course not. If all of us decided to settle our own scores we’d live in a constant state of war. There is a third kind of justice, which involves acting discreetly in order to allow the other two kinds – the courts and media, that is – to do their job.”

  “I don’t quite understand.”

  “It’s easy. That’s why I’ve invited you here. To negotiate.” He picked up a folder from the chair beside him and put it on one side of the table.

  “I haven’t come to negotiate.”

  “Wait until you see what’s on offer. Palma. I can give you Palma. This folder, which is for you, contains all the evidence of how the Undersecretary of Housing and Planning for the Buenos Aires city government manages his funds irregularly. How properties and money are given in exchange for all kinds of services, some, needless to say, absolutely illegal.”

  “You’re handing over one of your men to me?”

  “Ah no, I don’t have any men – or women – nor do I hand anyone over. I have proof of a crime and I turn to a young but brave journalist so that she can write a brilliant article and start a process that must surely end in the courts. We all win: citizens, the state, journalism, and you.”

  “Palma is not the only person responsible. You and Rivero are too.”

  “Verónica, you are very innocent. Apart from anything else, Rivero couldn’t even be responsible for a bottom-division soccer team. And I am just one small link in the chain. Do you appreciate the metaphor? There is a chain made up of links. You cut out a link, but the chain simply attaches to the next link and continues being a chain. It never breaks. It may get smaller, but it won’t break.”

  Verónica didn’t feel like arguing any more. Without speaking, she waited to see if Juan García had anything more to say. He also seemed to be waiting for her to speak. Eventually, he was the one who broke the silence.

  “Look, you think that you know, but you’re wrong. Nothing that you envisage is going to play out as you hope. That’s why I am being very generous with you. This is my proposal. You get Palma on a silver platter and you forget about everything else. You could get a great article out of it.”

  “As I said, García, I didn’t come to negotiate.”

  Verónica stood up and picked up her bag.

  “I’m very sorry that you’ve hardly touched your salad. And I’m sorry, too, that you failed to grasp how important it was for you to accept my offer. Ah, one other thing. Tell the boys who are waiting outside not to waste their time by following me.”

  IX

  Verónica came out of the restaurant much more confused than she was prepared to admit. She had tried to remain dignified but felt her arguments foundering against García’s certainty. After walking a few blocks towards the underground station, she stopped and called Fede.

  “The guy knows that we’re planning to follow him. Cancel everything that isn’t strictly necessary.”

  “Vero, stick to the writing and keep out of my work. I’ll call you in a few hours.”

  Even Federico seemed more confident than she was. Something wasn’t right. A lot of things weren’t right. Unfortunately, she couldn’t identify them or, for that matter, act on them.

  She went to the newsroom. Her boss had shown commendable patience all this time, letting her take off as many days as she needed. She understood that Verónica needed that time to push forward with the investigation. From time to time Patricia asked how it was all going, or Verónica herself brought her up to date with some new development.

  She decided not to tell Patricia about what had just happened in the trattoria, but insisted again that they reserve the next edition’s cover story for her.

  That Monday should have been a quiet day at work: reheat a couple of wire stories, write some short pieces and spend the rest of the time pinning down details of her investigation. Patricia was tearing her hair out because nobody was available to cover something for a last-minute piece. She asked the Politics editor if he could spare her the section’s intern. The editor said that was fine, so long as she bore in mind that the intern couldn’t write to save her life. What Patricia needed was someone to bring back the information.

  “If you weren’t busy on your story,” she told Verónica, “I’d have sent you.”

  “It must be a twisted story, if I’m the one who springs to mind.”

  “No, it’s the usual stuff. Another attack by the Chinese mafia.”

  “It’s always difficult to find anything out in those cases.”

  “But you would have written me a nice colour piece. A neighbourhood convulsed by the death of their Chinese shopkeeper, who they bought milk and cookies from every day. Actually, two shopkeepers. The wire says that two of them died. In Villa Lugano.”

  Something inside Verónica signalled alarm. She looked on the wire for crime news. Under the keywords “murder” and “mafia” was the story about what had happened in the south of the city. The wire said that two Chinese men had been shot dead in a supermarket on Zuviría and Albariño. That the suspects had burst in and started firing. Police sources pointed to an attack by the so-called Chinese mafia because nothing had been stolen apart from the security camera recordings, meaning that the assailants could not be recognized. Witnesses at the scene said that there were four men in the gang and that at least two of them did not appear to be Asian, leading police to speculate that the Chinese mafia was contracting local hitmen. The dead men were named as Xian Lusin, known in the neighbourhood as Julián, and Luo Binyuan, whom locals called Víctor.

  “Julián,” Verónica said to herself. “Julián,” she repeated. She read the wire story again and the only word she saw was Julián. She made her way to the bathroom as quickly as she could. She washed her face to cover up her crying. Luciana, one of the designers, came into the lavatories and saw her looking so distressed that she asked how she could help.

  “I had an argument with my boyfriend,” Verónica explained, hoping to be left alone. Luciana said something innocuous but soothing and went into one of the toilet cubicles.

  After she had composed herself she returned to her desk. They had killed Julián and another Chinese man. She must tell Rafael. No, she couldn’t tell him. Rafael would go running over there and there was no doubt that, if they had gone there, they must also be looking for him and for that compromising recording. But Federico had the recording and had already seen the murderers’ faces. They were too late to do anything about that. All they had achieved was vengeance on Julián for having defended Rafael. They had failed
to intercept the video evidence. She shouldn’t tell Rafael. At least not today. It was a relief, at least, to think that Federico had the recording they were looking for.

  Juan García is a predator out for blood, Verónica thought. I have to keep calm, she told herself. Julián’s death was a body blow, so shocking that she couldn’t think clearly. She wasn’t being lucid – she had not even said anything to Patricia, who would surely have come to some conclusion that Verónica could not yet see. She was committing some grave error of judgement that could cost her her life, or Rafael’s, and perhaps both.

  X

  On Mondays, Rivero limited soccer practice to a few informal games, with minimal direction from him. The boys simply formed teams and played. Rivero had decided to make two combined teams, mixing the boys from Dientes’ division with the ones from El Peque’s. The friends had ended up playing against one another, as was often the case when they played soccer in a square or a park. Jonathan, the new boy, was in El Peque’s team. He played well, he knew how to control the ball and he was a good tackler.

  Dientes was thinking that whoever was going to compete against him on the tracks was not in the match. They must be keeping him focussed, like with soccer players before an important game. He, being new, got thrown in at the deep end. He didn’t mind – he knew that he could have won anyway. Everything Supergirl had said about Rafael was right, but he still would have liked a chance to compete and beat his rival. Now that he knew that Supergirl had his back, though, he preferred the idea of being a hero, of seeing Rivero punished for the deaths of the other boys.

  When they had finished training, they all went to the bar to buy a big Coca-Cola. They put their money in and asked the new guy working there to sell them a bottle. Nobody liked Rafael’s replacement. He wouldn’t give them so much as a potato chip, even if he saw them wilting from hunger. And he always looked miserable.

  Dientes took a long drink from the Coke. He was in the middle of burping when he saw Rivero calling him to one side. He went over to him.

  “Champ, there’s a change of plan. The competition is going to be today.”

  “Wasn’t it tomorrow?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. We’ve changed the day. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, and we don’t want you to catch a cold. Is your mum at home?”

  “No, she’s in the hospital with my sick grandmother.”

  “Has she got a mobile?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call her and tell her that a chance came up to play a game at River’s home ground. That afterwards someone from the club will drive you back home.”

  Rivero offered the boy his mobile and Dientes had no option but to call his mother and repeat the excuse that Rivero had fabricated. He spoke to his mother, but he was thinking of Supergirl. She wasn’t coming until the next day to look after him. Even though he had been wanting to go track-jumping all this time, he didn’t want to any more. No, he didn’t want to jump. But he couldn’t go back, either. Supergirl wouldn’t forgive him for being a coward. He had to go anyway, however scared he was.

  To make matters worse, Rivero wouldn’t leave him on his own for a minute. He had called one of the boys from the opposing team, Jonathan, and had said the same thing to him about the change of date. So Jonathan must be the one Dientes would be competing against. He was taller and he seemed faster. In the distance he spotted El Peque, who was waiting so that they could walk home together.

  “Rivero, can I go to the bathroom?”

  “OK, but be quick.”

  Dientes walked towards the bathroom and on the way gestured to El Peque to go with him.

  “Change of plan. The competition is today. I’m playing against Jonathan.”

  “I reckoned it would be Jonathan. But why today? Supergirl is waiting for us tomorrow. There won’t be anyone there to trap Rivero today.”

  “That’s why, Peque, the success of the superteam depends on you. You have to let Supergirl know that I’m going to be on the tracks today.”

  “And how can I let her know?”

  “Oh – no idea.”

  XI

  The days had started getting longer. Spring gave way to the first bouts of heat, tempered by an annoying afternoon wind. A thread of diurnal light stretched across the horizon. Lucio saw the sunset – on every night shift that he was driving the train – as signalling the start of his participation in a crazed game of Jeopardy: one in which he had to travel from a point in Buenos Aires to the city of Moreno with the certainty that at some moment in the journey two boys would appear in front of him, defying fate. He would have to brake hard, doing everything in his power not to hit them while knowing that that was futile, that he was completely at the mercy of the children and whether or not they took pity on him and jumped to the sides of the track before the train crushed them. “Fucking little bastards,” he snarled while he fixed his gaze on the furthest possible point of those empty tracks. Still empty.

  The hours passed without incident. Perhaps it won’t be today, he thought, engulfed by a darkness that was illuminated only by light from the train. Perhaps it would be the next day, or Wednesday, or Friday. Or perhaps Lucio was inching closer to the inevitable. It was a new moon tonight, dark and starless thanks to the clouds that covered the sky. He had just one full circuit to do before that day’s shift finished. The few passengers who had alighted at Castelar were replaced by others who would continue on to Morón, Liniers or Plaza Once. The train pulled away, over the crossing, then advancing towards Ituzaingó at maximum speed. In thirty-five minutes they should arrive at Once. Lucio didn’t like moonless nights.

  17  Full Speed Ahead

  I

  He got angrily into the car. Neither the chauffeur, nor the bodyguard, nor his assistant spoke a single word on the way home. He was in a foul mood, after having to negotiate a route through the kitchen, a service corridor and then a courtyard, so that he could leave by the back door of the Trattoria della Zia Rosina. The conversation with the journalist had annoyed him too. The tone of that woman who thought that she had everything under control would be irritating to anyone and much more so to him, who was not used to sparring with journalists or women. He had offered a fair deal and she had refused to accept it. He didn’t like wasting time, and however many minutes he had spent in that place had been too many.

  The problem was that she wasn’t a woman but a girl, reacting like a rebellious teenager to a strict father. A misguided girl. The trains were a small part of his operation. She imagined that he was anxious to resolve this problem and thought the trains and the kids kept him awake at night. What a deluded idiot. If he had learned anything over the last twenty years, it was that the smallest business in a person’s portfolio should concern him as much as the biggest. That was why he wanted to be done with this journalist and her suspicions. She wouldn’t stop him doing anything. If he felt like it, he could get together a gang of kids tomorrow and make them jump with parachutes. If he wanted, he could immediately erase all trace of what had been happening over the last few years on the railway in the western zone. But the journalist had stuck her nose in where she shouldn’t, Rivero had chosen the wrong guy as an employee and Palma had kept money that wasn’t for him. The three of them together were less dangerous than a boil on the butt, but they were still an irritant. Like a boil, they needed lancing.

  He made a call from the car, giving the order for them to go to the Chinese supermarket immediately and liquidate the person who had tried to report them to the police.

  Had news that the competition was going to be on Tuesday somehow got out? That fool Rivero wouldn’t be able to give him a straight answer. He was incapable of arriving at any conclusions on his own. He must not know. And if one of the two kids had mentioned it to his parents or to someone else who had tipped off the journalist? It was almost impossible, but that “almost” was enough to make him uncomfortable. He went by his instincts, which had so often got him out of trouble.

  “Rivero, change
the day. It’s today.”

  “But, boss —”

  “Just shut up. That journalist must have found out about tomorrow. So it’s today. Let everybody know. Take the kids there.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “And don’t let the kids go home first or anything like that. There mustn’t be a single leak. Understand?”

  Two out of three. There was still Palma. He’d get to that. No need to spill blood if there was another way to sort it out. There was something worse than death for Palma, and that was to see an end to his political career, to his swanky life in the gated community in Canning. Prison and poverty. That was what Palma was getting. Pity the journalist hadn’t accepted his deal. He and she could have saved themselves a lot of unpleasantness.

  He decided not to spend another minute on the matter that day. A couple of hours later, though, he received a phone call that got him worrying again.

  “The lads are back. Negative. The hippie wasn’t there. The lads got payback with the Chinese.”

  “That’s their business.”

  “But there’s some good news. They brought back the recording from the security cameras. I think we know where the hippie is.”

  “You think, or you know?”

  “On the recording from Friday you can see him come out of the building with the journalist.”

  “What do you mean with the journalist?”

  “The one who went to see Rivero. They got into a taxi and went off together like two little lovebirds.”

  “She must have him hidden in her apartment. So that was the important witness. She thinks she’s got the ace of spades. We’ll change it for the four of clubs.”