The Fragility of Bodies

by Sergio Olguin

  “OK. And if she’s with him in the apartment?”

  “Then we kill two birds with one stone.”

  “She’s a journalist, though.”

  “I don’t give a fuck.”

  II

  Their names don’t deserve to be remembered: 1 and 2 were sitting in the front. 3 and 4 were behind. The car was an Audi A4 1.9, a bit old (2003) but in perfectly good order. The colour was metallic black and there were 75,000 miles on the clock. The wheel rims were original with Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GT tyres, changed a thousand miles back, multitronic automatic gearbox, sequential with shift paddles on the wheel, turbo diesel. Electric sunroof, dual-zone climate control, ABS, six airbags, cruise control, automatic headlight activation, onboard computer with automatic sensor and instrument check. It also had an up-to-date safety certificate of the kind required by all vehicles licensed in the province of Buenos Aires. Their car was the best thing about these men.

  1, 2, 3 and 4 were small-time hoodlums, exclusively dedicated to causing damage by injury, intimidation or murder. That was their core business. Robbery was a sideline for them, never the main event. Their actions were well defined.

  All four knew how to use weapons and pulverize an opponent. At some point they had dreamed of being karate masters or kick-boxing champions. They started out as bouncers in a nightclub in some corner of the capital and they were recruited by Dr 0 to form a task force. Dr 0 had a good eye, as good as a soccer talent scout. He knew how to spot the obedient savage beneath the mountain of muscles.

  The four men spent much of the day in the gym, leaving it only to work – in other words to maim, intimidate, kill. When Dr 0 told them to go to the Villa Soldati neighbourhood and execute someone who had betrayed them, they didn’t need further instruction: traitors get beaten to a pulp, and then killed.

  They didn’t like failure, they demanded a lot of themselves. Rather than leave a job half-done, they would beg Dr 0 to let them finish it. This time, they didn’t just want it wrapped up, they wanted revenge. Along with the traitor they would take out the karate master, the Chinese karateka (even though two of them had studied karate, they didn’t differentiate between a karate kick and a kung fu one).

  Dr 0 asked for patience, a few days, until the boss decided to act. On Monday at half past one in the afternoon the authorization came, and at four o’clock they climbed gratefully into the Audi and sped towards the south of the city. It was no hardship to leave uneaten some sweetbreads that they had ordered from the grill on the corner near their gym.

  This time they parked the car at the door to the supermarket. 3 and 4 shot the Chinese karateka who was standing at the till. A Chinese woman ran towards his prostrate body. Amid shouting and wailing, 1 and 2 headed towards the back of the shop. After entering the storeroom, they checked all the rooms leading off it without finding the traitor. Another Chinese man appeared, with a knife, and pounced on 3, who shot him in the face while 2 fired three times to finish him off. They went back into the shop, where everyone had disappeared apart from the woman, who was clinging to the karateka, crying. It never even crossed their minds to ask where the traitor was. Nobody had suggested that they do that. They simply removed the CPU from where the recordings from the security cameras were stored. Dr 0 had asked them to take it to him. Not three minutes passed between the time they parked the car and the time they got back into it and drove off towards Dr 0’s office. Afterwards they would go back to the grill to order a few more portions of tender sweetbreads, freshly made.

  III

  If anybody had asked her what she had done between the moment that she had heard about Julián’s death and the time of Federico’s call, two hours later, Verónica would not have been sure what to answer. She might have finished writing the piece Patricia had asked her for; or perhaps she had gone into loop mode, obsessively rereading the news item about the attack on the Chinese supermarket. Two hours passed this way. And so it might have continued, into the evening, until there was no other journalist in the newsroom, if her mobile hadn’t rung. It was Federico. He was upset. He had just heard about the deaths in the supermarket.

  “I was going to call you to say that we managed to follow García and had some information, but this news about the murders is terrible. Where are you?”

  “In the newsroom.”

  “Are you planning to stay there? Is Rafael with you?”

  “Why would he be? He’s at the apartment.”

  “Verónica, the gang has got the recording from the supermarket.”

  “So? We have the copy that shows them beating up Rafael.”

  “They’ve got you on tape, you taking Rafael back with you. These guys were looking for your witness. They must be on their way to your place.”

  How could she have been such an idiot?

  Rafael.

  “Get the police over there right now,” she shouted at Federico.

  “I don’t know who’s in charge of that district.”

  “Speak to my dad, get him onto the Minister for the Interior. We need a patrol car at the entrance to the building right away.”

  “That’s not easy to arrange. You call Rafael and tell him to get out of the apartment.”

  “Now, Fede, a patrol car, it’s urgent.”

  “Stay right where you are.”

  Verónica hung up without answering. There was silence in the newsroom and everyone was looking at her. She asked:

  “Who’s got a car here?”

  Álex Vilna had brought his. He offered to take her wherever she needed to go. Verónica’s response left no room for any negotiation.

  “Give me the keys.”

  Álex told her which parking lot he had left the car in and she ran out of the newsroom, leaving her colleagues to look at each other with consternation.

  She called Rafael’s mobile. No answer.

  She ran along the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians and slowing down only to repeat the call. Rafael still wasn’t answering.

  She tried again, two, three, four times. She called her own landline to see if he would pick up, but it went straight to the answering machine.

  Verónica drove out of the parking lot without asking if there was anything to pay. Given the traffic at that time of day, she could get to the apartment in twenty minutes. Ignoring traffic regulations, she might get it down to fifteen or sixteen.

  She also had to keep calling him. But Rafael didn’t answer. Where could he be? She imagined the worst, that the gang had arrived and murdered him. No, it couldn’t be that. She would have found out. The doorman would have called her. Marcelo. She searched for him in Contacts and called him.

  “Marcelo, it’s urgent. Rafael, the guy who lives with me, is in danger. Some hitmen are on their way there to kill him. I can’t reach him. Please go in with the key I gave you to my apartment and make sure, if he’s there, that he leaves, that he goes anywhere but that he gets out. It’s urgent.”

  “I’ll call you when I’ve got him out of there.”

  Verónica hung up, threw the phone onto the passenger seat and accelerated past another car. She swung into the cycle lane then crossed over the avenue after the lights had gone red, paying no attention to the honking of drivers around her. Thirteen minutes after leaving the parking lot she was only three blocks from her building.

  IV

  None of the four knew Juan García. They didn’t even know that they worked for him. They belonged to Dr 0’s team. They were professionals, and never asked why they had to do this or that job. They carried out orders. To perfection. That day they had already done a job, but the results had not been as expected. It was true that they had managed to take revenge on the Chinese karateka, but the traitor had escaped. Now they had simply to remain vigilant and wait for a call from Dr 0. That happened a few hours later. He gave them an address in the neighbourhood of Villa Crespo. It was an apartment block. They had to break the lock as silently as possible and go up to apartment A on the second floor. There they should find
the traitor and a woman. They had to liquidate them both and return to base as quickly as possible. They must not kill anyone else they came across, unless that person was trying to impede their mission. Dr 0 recommended that they avoid a bloodbath. That they finish off the traitor and the woman and then come straight back.

  The checked that their weapons were in order. Number 3 put the address into the GPS and 2 climbed into the passenger seat. Numbers 1 and 4 sat behind. Number 3 liked listening to the radio as he drove. The other three said nothing when the voice of a Cordoban reporter blared out of the speakers. They liked to travel in silence, focussing on the task ahead.

  V

  “I’ll call you when I’ve got him out of there.”

  That was the last thing Marcelo said before Verónica rang off. He had recently woken up from a siesta when she called. He was on his own, and had been about to make himself a maté. After listening to Verónica’s instruction, for a moment he stared at the phone in his hand. When he stood up he discovered that his legs were shaking. He thought that he would immediately go downstairs to warn the young man who was in Verónica’s apartment, but for that he would need the keys. He had those in a box that he kept with his tools. Verónica had mentioned something about murderers. In other words, when he went down there, his life would also be at risk. He went to the bedroom. On top of the wardrobe was an unlocked safe. Inside that safe were papers, a box of ammunition and a gun. It was a revolver that used .22 calibre bullets and which he had bought while still working as the doorman in another building. He had never used it. For four years he hadn’t touched or even thought about it. He loaded the gun and bullets fell onto the floor; he had to grope for them under the bed. He couldn’t go out with a gun in his hand and he wasn’t brave enough to tuck it into his waistband, like plain-clothes police officers or criminals. He put it into one of the pockets of the first jacket that came to hand.

  Out on the landing, Marcelo pressed the elevator call button and saw that it was on the first floor. He wouldn’t get down to Verónica’s any quicker by taking the stairs, so he waited for the elevator to come up. It occurred to him that he could go straight down to the ground floor and call on the intercom while monitoring the people going in and out of the building, but if Verónica had called him it must be because the guy was not responding to calls. Perhaps he was asleep, as he himself had been a minute ago, or had gone out for a stroll. If that was the case, he would go down to the lobby and wait for him at the door.

  He decided to stop the elevator on the third floor and walk down one flight of stairs. He didn’t want any surprises when the doors opened. There was no sound to be heard on the landing. He walked down, listening intently for any noises. He went to Verónica’s apartment. He didn’t ring the bell but just opened the door with the key and went straight in. There was nobody in the living room. He could hear some kind of noise coming from the bathroom.

  “Young man!” he called, because he couldn’t remember the name of Verónica’s house guest.

  The lad came out of the bathroom with just a towel wrapped around him. He had shaving foam on his face and a razor in his hand.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised and suspicious.

  “Verónica sent me. There’s no time to lose. Some men are coming here to kill you.”

  “What? Kill me?”

  Marcelo gestured at to him to be quiet. He had heard the sound of the elevator coming up and stopping at the second floor. Several people must have got out, because they took a while to close the door. Without saying anything, he walked towards the young man and took his arm, still wet from the shower. They couldn’t lock themselves inside the bedroom or the bathroom. Silently he led him over towards the balcony. The young man looked at him, terrified.

  Marcelo opened the balcony door and pushed him outside, without taking his eyes off the front door. He took out his gun and pointed it at the door.

  “Jump,” he said, through gritted teeth.

  “I’m naked,” protested the young man, who still had the towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Hang from the balcony. It’s them.”

  It was the last thing he said before the lock broke and a man appeared at the door, followed by several others. The young man climbed over the railing and just let go. His scream coincided with the sound of Marcelo’s gun firing at the man who had been coming in but then, surprised, took a step back. The second man reached past the first and fired his gun. Marcelo felt his left shoulder burning. He dropped his weapon and clutched his arm. Now the men were coming towards him. With no time to think, he followed Verónica’s friend, throwing himself heavily over the balcony and onto the sidewalk. He landed beside the young man, who was still lying on the ground screaming in pain. So much screaming should have brought people running, but there seemed to be nobody around. The few passing cars accelerated so as not to have to stop. They were the only two there.

  “Call the police! Help us!” Marcelo cried, even though he could see nobody who might hear him.

  One of the thugs had now appeared on the balcony. The young man had dragged himself to the edge of the sidewalk and was protected underneath the same balcony. Above him, the hitman took aim, but from there he could only see Marcelo. The doorman thought then that he was about to be shot, but nothing happened: the hitman disappeared off the balcony. Marcelo tried to take his chance to stand up, but he couldn’t. The young man was dragging himself with an exasperating slowness. Marcelo couldn’t even do that and, anyway, he felt as though he might faint at any moment. He almost wanted to. He could see that the men were already on the ground floor in the hall and that they were coming towards the door. They were coming for him and the young man. Marcelo no longer had the energy to keep his eyes open and he fell into a deep sleep.

  VI

  She was only three blocks away. Miraculously, Álex Vilna’s car had made it this far without a single scratch. Her mobile had not rung, from which she deduced that Marcelo had still not managed to get Rafael out of the apartment. When she was, by her calculation, only thirty seconds away from her building, she ran into a crowd of children coming out of school at the end of the day. Parents were double-parked and children were recklessly crossing the road so that cars had to stop and reverse. Verónica leaned on her horn like one possessed. As soon as she had managed to pass the human tide, she made a turn and stopped the car a block and a half from her home. Something strange must be happening at the street entrance because, just as he was about to turn in, a driver in front changed his mind, backed up and drove straight on. That added a few seconds’ delay to Verónica, who leaned on her horn again. She swerved into the street, making Álex Vilna’s tyres screech. Her building was fifty yards ahead, on the left. Ten yards before she reached it, she slammed on the brakes. The scene in front of her was like something from a nightmare. The first sight that met her eyes was Marcelo’s body stretched out on the sidewalk, unconscious or dead. Further on was Rafael, who was slowly moving away from the building, dragging himself along like a wounded animal. Verónica tried to open the door to jump out and help him, but her seat belt held her back. Sometimes, inanimate objects seem to have our own best interests at heart. The belt held her back and, in those seconds that she was trying to extricate herself from it, she saw some men (three? four?) come out of the building with all the calm of people who know themselves to be in full control of a situation.

  Paying no attention to the injured doorman, the four men made straight for Rafael. The scene in front of Verónica showed Marcelo lying nearly at the edge of the sidewalk and the men walking towards Rafael, who had almost dragged himself as far as the next building.

  And no police anywhere to be seen. And nobody on the streets or on the sidewalks.

  Verónica closed the door again, put the car in first gear and accelerated.

  She didn’t think about what she was going to do. At that moment all she wanted was to get the men away from Rafael.

  As she drew level with the h
itmen, Verónica turned the car in towards the sidewalk, skirted Marcelo with surgical precision and crashed into the men with Álex Vilna’s car. When she felt contact with the first bodies (the two who were closest to her) she didn’t brake. Those two men fell onto their accomplices. The car and the gang smashed into the glazed entrance of Verónica’s building, glass shattering on contact with the bodies and the car as it drove over them. Only then did she brake, or think she must have braked. The engine cut out.

  Verónica didn’t close her eyes. Just as she hadn’t when she had seen the boys standing on the tracks of the Sarmiento line. She heard shouts, she had the impression of hitting something more solid than a body, perhaps a rock or a wall. But they were the bodies of the people she had already run over and who no longer screamed or, if they did, she no longer heard them. The car had come to rest at an angle, as though there was something solid and heavy under one of its tyres. Then came the sound of police sirens. Verónica undid her seat belt and turned the key again in the ignition. Despite everything that had happened, the engine started. In the rear-view mirror she saw patrol cars surrounding the area while uniformed officers positioned themselves behind the vehicles with their guns drawn. Somebody shouted at her to stop. She put the car in reverse and went back a couple of yards, crushing, for a second time, the bodies under the car, while the building’s frontage collapsed entirely and glass rained down. It was like reversing in a storm, down a street made of irregular stones. The police shouted louder at her to stop and get out of the car. Only then did she turn off the engine and get out with her hands in the air. She thought of shouting “journalist” or something to identify herself, but instead she said loudly:

  “Call an ambulance, idiots.”

  18  The Death Train

  I

  Her eyes were closed but she wasn’t sleeping, or even dozing. She just wanted to see black. Somebody opened the door but must have thought that she was asleep.