17 Stone Angels (31 page)

“‘He has nothing to do with it!' La Señora says again, flaming with indignation. ‘This is
my
project! It is
my
life and
my
novel, and he has no right to say what will happen with it or what its contents will be! I am Teresa Castex! Of the Mansion Castex! I am Castex!' To Waterbury's silence she commands: ‘Take out your journal and let us begin! Where were we? That was it! It was mortal sin, the mortal sin of adultery that the filthy Mario has entered into at the back of his innocent wife and children!'

“The writer is not prepared for the situation that is developing before him. He doesn't move and Teresa Castex says ‘Come on! Take out your journal! Carlo does not control everything I do!'

“He tries to be calm. ‘Teresa. Your husband made his threats very clear.'

“Her face is blushing pink beneath the makeup. ‘To the devil with my husband! Your contract is with me! I paid you ten thousand dollars! Did you forget that? I demand that you begin right now to redact our book!' Her command has no effect and she sees that she has blundered. Her face collapses. ‘He has nothing to do with this! Nothing! This is
my
project! Robert!' She comes to her feet and lurches across the floor to Waterbury, and his vision is filled with her tight-skinned old features made young. ‘Don't let him do this to us!' She leans in to kiss him and he hears the clicking of her neck bones. He remains like wood and inhales her perfume. Her lips are thin and timid at first, then they grind away desperately at his mouth without bringing it to life. She leans back and regards him with a face of pure torment. ‘Forgive me,' she whispers. ‘You don't find me attractive.'

“Waterbury lies to try to comfort her. ‘It's not that, Teresa. Of course I find you attractive. But I have a wife and daughter in the United States.'

“The skinny woman moves away. ‘Of course. How silly I am! It's written on the back of your book!'

“The confusion now fills the air completely. Waterbury does not know why his life has suddenly become so rotten with deception. Just a few weeks before he was a desperate but honorable man.

“The wounded Teresa Castex, failure as both an author and an adulteress, can tell him nothing. She stands motionless, her hands pressed to her temples, then pounds her fists down through the air. ‘He has devoured my life! He has taken over my house and my social standing. He has belittled me in the eyes of my children. And now he is trying to take away our work, our relationship! He is pure corruption!'

“She reaches into her portfolio and subtracts a little packet of papers. ‘
Bien
,' La Señora says a bit formally, ‘this is the material for the next section of the book. You must decide whether you will let my husband frighten you away from our book and your two hundred thousand dollars. I will await your call.' La Señora de Pelegrini leaves the papers on his desk and closes the door behind her.

“I suspect that at that point Robert Waterbury was already under surveillance by Pelegrini's men. In the movie version, I see a twenty-four hour surveillance, effected by weary men who wait for hours for him to emerge from his hotel and then follow him at a careful distance. A shot of a man sipping at a
mate
in his car, a man pretending to read a newspaper. They are studying his habits and his social contacts. Does he carry a cell phone or pager? Is he armed? All of those things. Pablo's warning has come too late: Pelegrini already knows about his visit to the Grupo AmiBank, and he knows that Waterbury was once an employee of the bank. Perhaps before his wife appeared at Waterbury's hotel room, he still believed his threat alone was sufficient. Who can say with certainty? What is certain is that Waterbury didn't realize the true danger he was in before he opened up the packet that Teresa Castex had left on his desk. At last, his dreams have become his Destiny.

“He pulls out the papers and there it is. Correspondence, transcriptions of telephone conversations, documents from banks located in the West Indies. And with it, a description in Teresa Castex's handwriting of transactions between certain officials and her husband that leave no doubt about her husband's intentions towards the Post Office. In black and white he can see
the fifteen million in bribes that Pelegrini was distributing to the Post Office officials and to various members of the government for the purpose of securing the right to take over the public mail system. In the hands of Pelegrini's rivals at AmiBank, such information would be dynamite.”

Fortunato frowned. “Have you seen these papers, Fabian?”

Fabian held up his hand to stop their questions. “Afterwards we'll talk about that. But you see now why Pelegrini had to act. It's the classic. Waterbury knew too much. The documents showed the clear course of the money from Pelegrini to an offshore bank, and from there to accounts in the name of certain postal officials and fictitious companies that then invested their money back in Argentina. But all this was exposed by Ricardo Berenski and the others in their articles about Pelegrini. Surely you've seen them, Comisario.”

“I've seen them.”

Fabian lifted his palms towards Athena. “The biggest scandal in months! Though, of course, it was surely uncovered independently of Waterbury.”

“Fine. So what happened next?”

“Robert Waterbury becomes nervous, but also confused. That the Señora de Pelegrini would expose her own husband shocks Waterbury, though he understands what a depth of ancient resentment it comes from. He only wishes she had not chosen him to be her confessor. Now, yes, he begins to feel insecure. A part of him would like to go home. Another part is drawn to stay, to live out a few more weeks with Paulé and with his manuscript, to live this fantasy made real. In just a short time of intensive work he can complete the first redaction and then leave it behind forever: his affair, his blunder with the Señora.”

“Did he see any signs that Pelegrini was after him?” Athena asked.

“That we will never know. At this point the journals of Robert Waterbury end, and I can only speculate on the rest. I see Carlo Pelegrini questioning his wife about her visit to Calle Paraguay. It is uncertain how much she tells her husband, but her sobbing complaints move him from resentment to action. The order goes out to his security apparatus, who have been conducting the surveillance. I see three or four men arming the
capacha
with two automobiles. They would need some experienced men, but they find themselves lacking in the last days and one of the men decides to call on an old friend, Enrique Boguso, who is a bit erratic, but willing to undertake such a mission for not very much money. Here the first mistake. What is the
mission? To intimidate Waterbury into compliance. Pelegrini suspects that his wife has revealed too much about his business affairs, and so it has gone beyond a matter of jealous husbands and disobedient wives. Waterbury must be shocked into permanent silence, even after he has returned to the United States. For this, he must experience a level of fear that will wake him up with a jerk for the rest of his life.

“The night of October 30th comes. Waterbury goes to eat at a restaurant around the corner at approximately eleven o'clock and leaves the restaurant shortly after midnight. A building is under construction and they park their car next to a container piled with shattered wood and plaster. Waterbury comes around the corner. He walks beneath the scaffolding, as he has other nights, and two of the men corner him there. It's the logical place. Boguso has a hose filled with little balls of lead, and he silences the writer with a blow to the head.

“I see Waterbury in the auto, confused by the blow, confused by his situation. How could this be happening to him? He is only a writer. He guesses about Pelegrini and he wants to talk to the magnate, to dismiss his worries and assure him that his relationship with Teresa is only platonic. It all seems rather absurd, but at the same time, frightening. He has already been beaten a bit, and held on the floorboards of the car with handcuffs on. What might happen?

“For some time they drive, gradually making their way to the outer suburbs of Buenos Aires. Waterbury asks questions that are answered with a blow or an insult. Perhaps he is thinking of his wife and daughter, wishing he was home with them. Or perhaps he is thinking of
La Francesa
, or Pablo, or of what an interesting story this will make someday. I suspect that some part of Waterbury is still apart from his circumstances. They come to rest at a vacant lot on Calle Avellaneda, in San Justo, and Waterbury is pulled erect on the seat. He looks around at the abandoned neighborhood and now an ugly sense of reality begins to swallow him up. The dark windows, the apathetic weeds. A lost place, apart from all mercy. Perhaps it occurs to him, ‘This is the kind of place where one takes a bullet in the head.' I imagine now that remorse comes over him. For the vanity of Teresa Castex, for his affair with
La Francesa
. For all the silly dreams that dissolved the life he had with his wife and daughter and made Buenos Aires seem more golden and more real. Because what is it now? The filthy gray light, the cheap swaggering by men who
hit him while he is in manacles. Waterbury has tried to be stoic, to reason, to joke, to plead, to say nothing, but no approach will change the men.

“Now his captors are losing control. Empty little papers of
merca
scatter to the Boor and the atmosphere in the car has an electric feel, like that bitter smell of ozone around a red neon sign. The intimidation of Waterbury becomes an entertainment for the kidnappers. Guns are waving in the air, guns are pressing into his balls and then without reason a gun goes off and the last cord of sanity snaps. Waterbury panics and reaches out. Another explosion, then another. Waterbury is screaming, bleeding from the thighs, the balls, the hand, the chest . . .”

“Enough, Fabian,” the Comisario snapped.

The Inspector ignored him. “Finally Boguso takes up his nine millimeter Astra and walks around to the back door. The killer—”

“I said it's already enough.”

“I'm almost finished, Comisario.” He looks at Athena. “The killer leans in, he raises the pistol towards Waterbury's head—”

“
Enough
!” the Comisario shouted. “What's happening with you? Is this entertainment? You're so content! What good luck that a man is murdered in an empty lot! What diversion!”

The uncharacteristic outburst halted Fabian; he dropped his gaze to the table. A stupid thing for Fortunato to do, but it had escaped by itself, the reaction to the long afternoon of mockery and insinuation. And then, to see the murder playing out in front of him again, acted out by the stinking Boguso . . . Fabian might know nothing or he might know enough to put him in perpetual chains, and after two hours listening to him he still couldn't tell. Fortunato released the tension with a sudden flush of stale air. “Forgive me, Fabian. I lack your ironic distance.”

Fabian's eyes glittered briefly, but Fortunato couldn't tell what that meant. “It's fine, Comisario.” He cocked a smile. “With good reason.”

Fortunato felt another curtain of dread flutter through his body, then his cell phone sounded. “Fortunato.”

Chief Bianco's panic traversed half of Buenos Aires and erupted from the handset. “Boguso retracted his confession!”

“What?”

“This morning. He's implicating Carlo Pelegrini as the intellectual author!”

Fortunato answered slowly. “And what others?”

Bianco ignored the question. “The matter is, Miguel, that this is a very delicate time! Other things have happened . . . ” The Chief stopped himself, but his nervous complaint kept ringing in Fortunato's head even after he pushed on. “Where are you?”

“In the center, near Corrientes.”

“I want you to come to my office immediately.”

“Forgive me,
Sargento
, but I'm occupied right now. Thank you for the information. I'll call you for the papers.
Está? Perfecto!
”

Fortunato hung up the phone and looked at the two of them. He didn't know what to say so he simply raised his eyebrows. It already
was
. He looked at Athena. “That was Central. Enrique Boguso recanted this morning. He implicated Pelegrini as the intellectual author. As Fabian must have known when he met us at the Sheraton this morning.”

Athena turned to the blonde Inspector, her voice inquisitorial. “You already knew?”

Fabian sighed. “It's the truth: I already knew. But, as you were about to leave and we had to eat lunch anyway . . . “ He shrugged. “I thought I would give you the film version. I am, yes, a bit eccentric in that respect. But even so, this will all come out in perfect form, with evidence and photocopies and a pretty
expediente
stamped with all the rigor of the Law. I just wanted to save you the trip home.” He dropped his grin. “Seriously, Athena, the truth is this: Robert Waterbury was killed by Carlo Pelegrini because of the questionable relationship with his wife and the information about his bribes to try to secure the Post Office contract.”

Athena's face was as hard as ice. “Who squeezed the trigger? And don't lie to me this time!”

“Enrique Boguso killed him, with two accomplices. One is Abel Santamarina, Pelegrini's chief bodyguard. We believe the other is fugitive in Paraguay.”

Her green eyes roved irritably over Fortunato before returning to Fabian. “Why wouldn't Boguso confess this in the beginning?”