17 Stone Angels (29 page)

“‘March of 1976 arrives. Peron is dead and his widow Isabella is floundering through the last farcical year of her presidency. The
golpe
comes and the Generals stare down from the podium. Now the money began to flow in from the northern hemisphere like weather. The foreign bankers could lend with confidence, because in the documents signed by the military and their economic functionaries, the entire nation of Argentina will be the collateral. What a paradise! Loans guaranteed by the government, cumbersome financial regulations loosened: an excellent climate for a man with good contacts, a man who never forgets your wife's name.

“‘By that time Mario had come to have great influence. In some branches of the National Bank and the Ministry of Public Works the entire middle range of bureaucrats were secretly on his payroll. When contracts were to be bid, one allocated an extra seven percent for Mario, who would apportion it most usefully. And those who didn't take that friendly lunch with Mario, or have a comfortable chat with him over a drink at the Jockey Club, would find themselves always left standing on the outside of the deal. Mario offered clever ways to hide the money overseas, and to circulate it back into Argentina through secret partnerships in his growing web of businesses. Mario came to dominate trucking and package delivery. He built on his wife's fortune, buying cattle farms and meat packing plants and government concessions to manage the airports and the harbors. With more money he opened more businesses, with more businesses he had more contacts, and with more contacts he could pay more bribes. Thus he rose to create his stinking corrupt empire, and to decorate it with pretty young girls who looked at him as if he were a great man!'

“La Señora de Pelegrini etches a few more specifics. How Mario used sabotage and violence to destroy his competitors in the trucking business,
and blackmailed his package delivery rivals into selling out to him. She tells how he organized his friends in the Armada into a secret offshore corporation, then used their influence to procure huge contracts supplying beef to the armed forces. She begins to name names, including that of the admiral who provided Waterbury with his introduction to Pelegrini.

“Waterbury looks up from his notes. ‘Wait a minute.' He feels the project veering off into a confusing and perhaps dangerous quadrant and is unsure whether he wants to hear more. At the same time, it is too early to refuse a prize of two hundred thousand dollars based on a bit of gossip. ‘Let's return to the wife,' he says. ‘What is she doing all this time? Does she suspect what's going on?'

“La Señora at once relaxes into a happy nostalgia. ‘Ah, his wife! His young beautiful wife is lost in the splendor of motherhood, dutifully caring for his most precious possessions. It is she who must manage the servants and oversee the nannies. She is the one who must sort through the flood of invitations and social obligations that a family of such importance is burdened with and, of course, maintain her position as a leader in the world of Arts. After Fiorella comes the birth of Edmundo, and then Alicia. Her life is busy and blissful, until, like an astronomer sensing the gravitational pull of a dark hidden moon, she feels the presence of mortal sin intrude upon her life.'

“Waterbury looks up from the page. ‘Mortal sin?'

“She turns to him. ‘Of this, we'll talk the next time. I think I've given you enough to fill twenty pages, no?'

“She accompanies Robert Waterbury through the empty rooms of the Castex Mansion and retrieves from the front closet a sealed cardboard box. ‘I prepared these materials to help give you a sense of the times.' As he walks to the car Waterbury can feel Abel Santamarina examining him with his strange light eyes.

“At his room he opens the box. Editions of
La Prensa
announce the
golpe de estado
that brought in the Dictatorship, and small articles dipped from the financial newspaper detail the business transactions of obscure corporations. Again there are magazines of the Seventies and Eighties, a cassette of popular music of the time, a dried rose coming apart in an envelope, a silver rattle, a picture of a tomb in La Recoleta and a book of poems, privately printed in a luxurious leather-bound edition, written by a poet who hides her identity behind the filigreed initials ‘T.C.'

“Waterbury surveys this strange
expediente
of Teresa Castex's life with pity. Her poems are odes to ‘Arte' or ‘Amor' that crumble in a heap of pretentious references. ‘Oh Art, my lover, why have you ravished me and left me sitting in the waste can like an invitation from a social inferior?' He senses Teresa's boundless aspirations, desires which he knows will forever suffocate beneath her narrow spirit and non-existent talent. He begins to think of what she has told him in a different light, the story of a trivial woman who gradually discovers the depths of corruption within the man closest to her and so begins her own awakening.

“Waterbury begins to write, and to his surprise, it comes easily to him. A magnate, an ingénue, a background of theft on such a massive scale that it can only be called business.
There
are the revolutionaries and the corrupt politicians,
there
the complicit functionaries of the United States, as he himself had been. The tango, the pompous facades, the racks of cow bones suffering over hot coals: it all whirls around him and becomes the city itself, so that when he walks in the streets they are the streets of his book, the bitter taste of coffee is of his book. Waterbury writes without thought, crashing through ten or twelve pages at a sitting where before he would only write three. The vain and shallow Teresa Castex becomes a woman torn between her own material security and the knowledge that she has become part of an evil cancer that includes her in its filthy web. Shall she expose it, and risk the luxuries and status it accrues to her? Or shall she close her eyes? Thus Waterbury extracts his novel from the frivolous clucking of Teresa Castex.

“At the same time, distant footsteps are pacing in the background of Waterbury's brain. There is something a bit dirty about this arrangement. As a guest of Don Carlo, he is a traitor. As a friend of Teresa Castex, he is a user. And as a foreigner balancing between a rich and ruthless magnate and his angry wife, he is a cursed
boludo
. In his latest encounter with Don Carlo he has noted a tension that worries him. He meets with Pablo at his office to ask for advice.

“‘With Carlo Pelegrini?
The
Carlo Pelegrini, of MovilSegur and all the rest?'

“‘Yes.'

“Pablo swivels his head downward to the white carpet, letting out a long rich breath. He is silent for a surprising amount of time before he looks up. ‘Does he know you are here?'

“Waterbury feels a little flutter of anxiety. ‘No. Why?'

“‘Pelegrini . . . ' He shakes his head. ‘How did you meet Pelegrini?'

“‘Some friends gave me an introduction, and then things developed.' The writer mentions the admiral and the former minister of economy, then recreates his little tango with Teresa Castex and her version of her own life and the life of ‘Mario.'

“Pablo nods, and for the first time Waterbury sees his carefree features dulled down with worry. ‘You shit yourself,
hermano
.'

“‘What do you mean?'

“‘Pelegrini is heavy. He has a security apparatus directed by exrepressors of the Dictatorship. He has many turbid businesses. Don't mix in with him.'

“‘I'm already in, Pablo! I have a contract for two hundred thousand dollars. We can live for four years on that. It buys me the time to write a real book.'

“‘Don't put yourself—'

“‘I'm just a fucking novelist! What's more useless and ineffectual than that? He has nothing to fear from me!'

“‘It's not what you
are
, it's what he
thinks
you are. Moreover, to play games with another man's wife, here in Argentina, is always dangerous. This isn't a culture where the two men shake hands and talk about philosophy.'

“‘Don't be ridiculous. I have a wife!' His protest feels weightless even to himself. He wonders if Pablo knows of his continuing friendship with Paulé.

“‘That's fine! You don't have to convince me. But be careful, Robert.' He clears his throat. ‘And one more little thing: better that you don't come to this office again. From now on we meet outside.'

“‘What do you mean.'

“His friend speaks delicately. ‘Robert, I tell you this as a friend, and it must be kept in absolute confidence. The theme is thus: The relationship of Grupo AmiBank with Pelegrini these days is a bit tense. There's a species of competition, let's say, between the Grupo and the Pelegrini interests. If Pelegrini sees you coming here and meeting with me, well, he might have the mistaken idea . . . ' He puts up both hands to close the matter. ‘Better that
no
, Robert. My advice is that—'

Fabian's sentence was interrupted by the sound of Fortunato's cell phone. The Comisario took it from his pocket. “Fortunato.”

The Chief's voice boomed through the tiny holes. “Miguelito! How goes it,
querido
? I called to see that La Doctora left well content. Did you give her the certificate of appreciation?”

Fortunato could feel Fabian and Athena trying to interpret the call. “No.”

The little voice sounded surprised. “You forgot to give it to her? What happened, Miguel? Now we'll have to send it.”

“
Mira
, this moment is a bit inconvenient. I'm in a reunion with Inspector Diaz and a colleague from the United States, the Doctora Fowler. It's a matter of some priority. I'll call you afterwards.”

Fortunato waited a few seconds then said agreeably, “Perfecto!” and cut the line. He threw a dismissive little pout to his companions. “Continue.”

Instead Fabian rose from the table. “With your permission,” he said, and looked towards the back of the restaurant. Fortunato's bladder had been insisting for some time, but he'd suppressed it, unwilling to leave Fabian alone with Athena. Now he stood up and followed the Inspector to the bathroom. A mistake: the tiny bath room felt crowded and he had no choice but to talk to Fabian's back as he waited his turn. Fortunato stared at the expanse of parrot-green cloth, its collar concealed by the cascade of blond curls. If one wanted to commit a murder, this would be a good way to set it up, except in this case there would be no alibi or escape route. Too early to say whether Fabian was attacking or supporting him, or if Fabian knew he had committed the murder at all. He wasn't sure where to start.

“I congratulate you, Fabian. I don't know how much of this is true, but on a cinematic level, it's a great success.”

“That's the important part, Comiso,” Fabian said to the wall. “When they make the film I'll try to get you named as a technical advisor. Thus we can spread the money a bit between colleagues, as is the tradition.”

“The thing that bothers me is that you didn't put me up to this beforehand. Combining forces we could have arrived much more rapidly. I had heard that the Federales were arming an investigation.”

Fabian adjusted himself and then turned to the Comisario, who was blocking the door. He forced a stiff pleasantness onto his face. “With your permission, Comiso. I don't want to be rude to La Doctora.”

The lunch hour had ended
and the waiter scattered another round of little white cups on the table. Fabian had accessorized his plumage with a small cigar he'd bought at the counter and now he hung it in the air between them and
cocked his head as if he were listening to the smoke. When the Comisario sat down he began again.

“
Bien
. Waterbury has written more than thirty pages in three days. He prepares a copy for La Señora and arrives at the Castex Mansion at the appropriate hour. Unexpectedly, Santamarina, the ex-torturer, intercepts him at the security post and surprises him with a full search. He revises Waterbury as if he has never before visited the Mansion Castex, then takes his portfolio and empties out the papers, carefully surveying their contents. Finding the sheets that tell the story of Mario's rise to power, he rewards the author with a stare of violent contempt, then puts the manuscript in a paper bag and guides Waterbury towards the house. The butler does not meet them at the door. Instead Santamarina himself leads him through the long silent gleam of the mansion, past the frescoes and the smiling Dutch peasant. There is a smell of floor polish, of lemon. Don Carlo is waiting for him in the smoking room, ensconced in the aroma of leather and tobacco. Above him hangs a photograph of a racehorse that was put to sleep before he was born.

“‘Ah, Robert. Sit down! Sit down, amigo.' The magnate wears a button-down shirt of cream-colored silk, crossed by an iridescent gray tie loosened at his neck. The jacket lying across the arm of another chair makes Waterbury suppose that he has come home from his office for this meeting.

“Waterbury creaks into the leather armchair that Pelegrini has indicated. ‘Teresa isn't here?'

“‘Yes, she is here,' the businessman says, ‘but she's busy at the moment. She asked me to receive you myself.'

“‘Oh!' Waterbury says. In the room with them now is the fictional Mario, and the tales of Mario's beatings and extortions hover in the air. ‘It's an unexpected pleasure.'