No One Loves a Policeman (11 page)

“It's true the armed forces thought they could bring Nazism to the south of Latin America. But they were thrown out twenty years ago. In the '60s, twenty years after the Second World War, you wouldn't find a single Nazi in either of the two Germanies, not even in a museum. Here they stroll down the streets like lords,” said the doctor, trying to navigate a traffic jam on Avenida Rivadavia, heading in toward the center of Buenos Aires.

I reminded Mónica that one of those two Germanies had been full of prosperous capitalists, while the other was filled with reluctant Communists. In response, Mónica reminded me quite rightly that all she was interested in was finding her daughter alive.

“If you want to discuss politics, go and find the doctor in Accident and Emergency at Haedo,” she said.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said.

When they reached her apartment, the doctor had asked her if she knew what had happened to her.

“I was on the verge of telling him, Gotán. But as I said, I don't trust anyone now. He could have been another policeman in a doctor's gown.”

“I'm a policeman,” I said.

She sighed wearily. It was all too much for her, only a few hours after she had buried Edmundo, even if he had been such a disappointment to her.

“You
were
one, Gotán.”

“You're right. Now I sell bathroom furniture.”

“I wouldn't buy anything from you. I'd be worried every time I went to the toilet: ‘Where did he hide the microphone?'”

Our shared laughter was forced but necessary. I told Mónica to take care, to make sure she did not open her door to anyone, and that I would see her in Buenos Aires.

Before leaving Tres Arroyos I called Burgos' mobile. He must have been busy cutting up the latest corpse, because all I got was his voice telling callers to leave a message. In the thirty seconds I had, I urged him to get somebody to go out and look over the farm in daylight; the estate agent could tell them where it was and how to get there.

I had no problems on the drive back to Buenos Aires. The traffic police stopped me at Las Flores and asked to see my papers. I handed them the I.D. card I had been given in Bahía Blanca in the name of Edgardo Leiva. That was no problem, but they did almost arrest me for not having my registration or any other of the documents required to drive legally.

“I'm sorry, lads,” I told them, and flashed my old police badge. They saluted and waved me through.

A couple of kilometers further on, I threw Edgardo Leiva out of the car window.

I was right to get rid of my false I.D. I was no fugitive, there had never been any murder at the Imperio Hotel in Bahía Blanca, and nobody had been looking for me or missing me while I was away. Félix Jesús was
asleep on my armchair in front of the T.V., and yawned as he grudgingly gave me a welcoming purr.

Had the serial killer claimed another victim? Yes, he had: a body had been found on the verge of the Viedma highway. The victim had been difficult to identify “due to the advanced state of putrefaction” but eventually “it was established that it was the body of Catalina Eloísa Bañados, also known as ‘Lorena' in fashion circles,” according to the crime reports buried deep in the inside pages. The papers also reported the “regrettable disappearance of a loyal company servant” in a paid announcement from the C.P.F. oil firm.

It was as if Cárcano had died of old age while writing his memoirs. There was even a death notice from his widow and daughter, although Mónica later told me they had not paid for it and had no idea it was going to appear. None of his friends or work colleagues wondered why there had been no laying out of the body or burial, somewhere they could send a wreath or a bunch of flowers to. None of them bothered to call his home and leave their condolences: the only message on Mónica's answering machine was a threat: “Your husband was no innocent, so don't make waves,” a hoarse, distorted voice had said.

“Who are they? Who's behind this nightmare? Where is Isabel?”

Mónica had no-one but me to ask these questions of, and I could only guess at the answers in silence, like someone who has seen a flying saucer but cannot tell anyone because they will think he is mad.

I had gone to see Mónica as soon as I reached Buenos Aires. She hugged me tight, repeating the same three questions over and over, then cried until she had run out of tears. After that she made some coffee and we sat together in the charming living room her husband had abandoned to chase after his blond.

“We never know when we take the first false step, when we make that first fatal mistake,” I said. “Edmundo thought he was finding happiness, but instead it was death that was waiting for him.”

“He was a dirty old man,” spat Mónica, as angry as she must have
been when he left. “You're all the same, young men too: they all lose their heads over whichever Lolita they happen to bump into.”

I did not argue: after all, she was only saying what I had.

Love out of season is devastating. It destroys all our certainties: what should be a gentle warm breeze turns into a fierce forest fire driven on by the wind. All our past and the intricacies of our uncertain future are reduced to ashes. And when it is all over, the dirty old man is left gray and hollow, dead without being aware of it if he has survived, or well and truly dead if someone has taken a pot-shot at him from pointblank range, as in Edmundo's case.

If this last love does not help prolong life, what is the point of charging like a horse into the blazing meadow?

That same evening I met up with the chief crime correspondent of
La Tarde
, the evening newspaper.

“Nobody's interested in your story, Martelli. People are too busy buying dollars; Argentina is on the skids again.”

I had known “Werewolf” Parrondo since he had started as a trainee at
La Nación
. Tall and ungainly, “no good at football and not clever enough for university, the only thing left was journalism” he once told me over a drink, trying to sum up his life. His nickname was an obvious allusion to the thick tufts of hair that shot up like a mane almost from the top of his eyebrows. Over time his colleagues had shortened it to “Wolf.”

“Argentina isn't collapsing of its own accord,” I said. “It's being taken down by demolition crews.”

Disaster was upon us yet again. A government that had lost all authority was not waving but drowning. It had frozen everyone's bank accounts, was busily denouncing plots everybody knew of but nobody would do anything about because, as ever, there was money to be made from catastrophe.

“I don't give a flying fuck about politics,” Wolf said, stabbing an olive, biting into it as he talked, and interrupting himself to spit the stone as far as he could. We were at the counter of a dismal bar on Avenida Caseros, round the corner from his newspaper. “I've never understood why people always vote for the same dummies. If we're so set on getting screwed, why do we protest like virgins when we find ourselves in a brothel?”

He spat out the second and third stones together. One was bigger than the other, so the first ended on the floor, while the other landed on a table where an elderly beau was sitting with a crone at least ten years older than himself. She was gazing at him like a lovesick adolescent. The man shot Wolf a glance out of the corner of his eye, but did no more than sweep the stone off the table with the edge of his right hand.

“Look, that cretin is trying to get the old maid to sign over her pension to him. In the olden days, all that crap used to be for an inheritance; now the devil buys souls for loose change. It's the end of the world, Martelli.”

“This is the third murder, Wolf. And where should her dead body appear but in my bed. But instead of trying to arrest me, somebody took the body and put it by the roadside. How can you not be interested in that?”

Wolf stared defiantly at the superannuated seducer, then turned his hairy maw in my direction.

“Let's get things straight, Martelli. Of course it's a good story. I can just picture it: a dead blond in the bed of a former Buenos Aires police officer. I'd buy it with my eyes shut.”

“So?”

“So, it's not what it seems. There's something more to it. It's a message from the mafia, Martelli. They remove the body and feed it to the dogs so that we'll understand: ‘Don't get involved' is what they're saying. Do I make myself clear?”

“And who are these ‘they?'”

Wolf turned away from me.

The antiquated swain was trying to get his wrinkly friend to make up her mind. A couple of sheets of paper lay beside their glasses, and he was talking quickly in a low voice, gesticulating, his hands skimming the table top. Every so often he grabbed the bag of bones that was his companion's hand and stroked it. Whenever he did so, she looked down in embarrassment, although the blush on her cheeks came from the powder she had daubed on her lined, pale skin.

“Go ahead and arrest him, Martelli,” said Wolf, without looking at me. “That guy is a son of a bitch.”

I finished my warm glass of beer.

“I don't have a badge. I'm a civilian these days.”

Wolf turned his attention back to me.

“What do you want me to publish? You don't have a thing. There are no photos, no testimonies. C.P.F. is one of our major advertisers; if they get upset they'll cancel the contract and the paper will kick me straight out of the front door. What other job could I do at my age?”

“Looks like she's going to sign,” I said, peering over Wolf's shoulder.

The bag of bones had raised the pen that the decrepit seducer held out to her like a cup of poison.

Just then two youngsters burst into the bar. They could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen, I thought, although one of them tried to make himself look older with a few straggly hairs that barely created a shadow on his chin.

“Attention!” the smaller of the two shouted, as though he were an army officer striding into a military dormitory. “This is a hold-up! Stop what you're doing and put all your money and valuables on the table!”

The pair must have been dazzled by the streetlights outside, or by watching too much T.V. They obviously expected the bar to be full, but the only customers were the sad conman and his victim, the Wolf and me. When the two would-be gangsters realized their error, they grew even more hysterical.

“You two, put your money on the counter. And you, the one with the hair dragged over to hide your bald patch, get the rings off that old woman and put everything on the table!”

I was just about to, the sad seducer was trying to say, but he was so frightened he could not get the words out. The taller of the two youngsters, the one who obeyed orders, came to scoop up their disappointing booty.

“I work at the paper round the corner,” Wolf told them as they took his five-dollar Chinese watch. “I'll call the photographer if you want your picture in the news.”

The two teenage criminals stared transfixed like rabbits in headlights, until finally the shorter one went up to Wolf and kneed him in the groin. Wolf doubled up in agony.

“Two real smart-asses, eh?” said his attacker. “Search the other one,” he told his taller colleague. “He looks like a copper.”

A hand searched inside my jacket and fished out Isabel's .38.

“Fucking pig,” said the smaller one. “You're done for!”

In a second he raised his gun and pulled the trigger. The hammer struck twice, three, then four times. I spun round like a top on my stool with both my arms stretched out, and hit the smooth-cheeked kid on the side of the head. I followed this up with a head-butt, then kicked out at the taller one, who had come over to help his friend kill me. I caught the .38 in mid-air and stuffed it into my belt. I carried on kicking the two of them on the floor until I could see from their rolled-up eyes that they had lost consciousness.

The barman stood behind his counter like a waxwork dummy. Still clutching his stomach, Wolf asked if that was how I persuaded my customers to buy toilets and washbasins. The old lady lay face down on her table, either dead or in a faint, clinging to the pen she had been about to use to sign away all her chances of a dignified old age. Her seducer had vanished.