Learning to Lose (35 page)

By then Lorenzo begins to worry that Daniela isn’t going to show up. A man approaches the door to call the kids in, and when he sees Lorenzo he comes up to him cordially. The service is about to start, join us if you’d like. Lorenzo goes into the last row, still standing.

Days earlier he had watched, beside Detective Baldasano, his house being searched. His state of mind had been much less calm. He was surprised at how unscientific it all was, seeing four men spread out through the rooms, particularly insistent on going through Lorenzo’s clothes, deep in his closet. The work lasted barely twenty minutes, during which Baldasano looked out the living room window onto the street. He put out his cigarillos under the kitchen tap. The policemen took some of Lorenzo’s clothing in sealed plastic bags and left the apartment in a disorderly fashion. Baldasano insisted on inviting him for a coffee in a nearby bar. Do you know the Rubio? It’s right around here.

There was a fish tank with shellfish in the window and a lobster that looked more like a pet than something available to customers. He ordered a coffee with milk. The kitchen spat out the smoke of reheated oil. The bar concealed tapas: potato frittata, anchovies, potato salad, meatballs, and soft
empanadillas
sweating grease beneath the glass display cases. Baldasano waved from a distance to another man who was sitting at the end of the bar and flipping through a sports newspaper. Maybe another
cop. Lorenzo tried to locate their pistols, near their armpits. They both wore thick jackets, but not coats.

Baldasano smoked his short cigarillos. His skin was lined along the chin and he had a scar hidden on his neck. The first thing he did was reassure Lorenzo. I just wanted to have a chat with you, I don’t want you to think that a search incriminates you in any definitive way. Lorenzo felt nervous, but he adopted a passive attitude.

The detective explained to him that every investigation proceeds by fencing in the territory. More than following leads we rule out possibilities. In Lorenzo’s particular case, he had called him in mostly just to close, once and for all, the trail that led to him from Paco’s corpse. Of course, you have to understand that our evidence rules out bands of marauders or the robbery motive. We are convinced it was someone in his circle, someone who knew him, who knew for example that on Thursday nights he wasn’t home, and that makes the investigation more complicated. The idea of organized crime doesn’t hold water.

Lorenzo realized that the strategy was quite simple. It consisted of pressuring him to see if he’d collapse.

Closing the circle, continued the detective, one arrives at the conclusion that we are dealing with a hired killer. Someone who had something against Mr. Garrido. Economic problems, romantic problems, who knows. Maybe everything was precipitated by the victim’s unexpected return home. Or it was a paid job, these days you can hire a Romanian or Bulgarian thug for chump change. And the guy who killed him was a big lug, he wore a size twelve shoe, I can tell you that.

Yeah, Lorenzo felt obliged to say.

From the time when you were close friends, I’m sure you can remember people, powerful people that Mr. Garrido didn’t get
along with, who he owed money, something that could give us a lead.

A long time ago … Lorenzo produced two or three names of large companies at random, debts from the final months of the business that suddenly came into his head. The detective didn’t take notes. All he did was brush the ash of his cigarillo on the base of the ashtray. Bit by bit his interest in what Lorenzo was saying languished.

Mr. Garrido had a relationship with a married woman. The wife of an acquaintance. Something sporadic, but ugly. You know, these things … You and your wife just separated, too. Was there also … ? Lorenzo shook his head at the vulgar gesture Baldasano made with his hands. We weren’t good, things weren’t going well for me, and my wife and I grew apart and then she met someone else. Yeah, the detective hastened to say, out of the frying pan, into the fire.

They talked about the neighborhood, of the widespread fixation on Colombian gangs, the payback deaths that were never resolved. Until the detective, as if declaring the end of a ceasefire, went back to Lorenzo’s personal life. I was surprised you were free this morning. Are you working? I do some little jobs, but I don’t have steady work. Mr. Garrido’s wife told me you have a little girl. Not so little anymore, she’s fifteen, sixteen already … At that age they’re only girls in their heads, the rest is a woman.

The comment made Lorenzo uncomfortable. He comes to hunt me, to provoke me. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense for him to waste his time like this.

I’m going to be honest with you, because I can see you’re worried. There is only one thing that surprises me about you. You are going through a bad patch, financially, I mean, I don’t know if in other ways, too. My experience tells me these
situations occur when someone suddenly, cornered by problems, reacts unexpectedly. Somehow you could blame Mr. Garrido, Paco, for your current state. You don’t have a family that can help you, you’re not in an easy situation … How old are you? Forty-five, answered Lorenzo. That’s still quite young.

Look, detective, I know that you think I might have been able to do something like that, Lorenzo spoke confidently, but you don’t know me. Violence terrifies me, paralyzes me. I see a street fight and I’m sick for two days. I’m going to tell you something. A while ago, years now, from my car I saw some young men, one of those bands of young kids, run and chase another kid. And they threw him to the ground and they kicked him furiously, you can’t imagine it, it was a terrible thing. Kicking him in the head, the ribs. I couldn’t do anything to stop it, they left him there on the ground, like an old rag. It made me sick. It’s something I still can’t forget. That violence.

Lorenzo was telling him about a real episode. It had happened years ago. Sylvia was a baby then and maybe her being so young had made him feel the aggression as something personal and terrifying. The detective observed him carefully and sat up in his metal chair. Yet Mr. Garrido’s wife told us that, once, you almost hit her husband. That’s not true. It was an argument. I didn’t even touch him. But you were about to. She saw you. I know you know what I’m referring to.

Lorenzo shrugged his shoulders. He was surprised at the insistence of Paco’s wife in pointing to him as a suspect. Her intuition was so dead-on that it hurt.

Look, the detective told him, if I thought you were guilty or a suspect I would have stuck you in the can for a few days, I would have hounded you with some incriminating leads, and I
wouldn’t be here having a coffee with you. The only thing I’m saying is that it intrigues me how the crime coincides with your bad patch.

Once again the cop’s veiled insinuations. He thinks I’m guilty, but he doesn’t have anything on me. He’s digging around like a dog, but he can’t find what he’s looking for. He’s hoping I give myself away, that something will sink me, that I’ll lower my guard.

The detective spoke again. I’ve seen it all, husbands reporting their wife’s disappearance and fifteen minutes later collapsing, swearing they killed her by accident, lifelong friendships ending in a fraction of a second, a junkie son who kills his parents with an ax. I’m not distrusting by nature, but life has shown me that I can’t close any door. I don’t want to make you waste more time, but I’m going to tell you the truth. I’d like to take you off my list of suspects, but I can’t manage to eliminate your name. There is always something that tells me it could be you. Do you know what’s probably the biggest strike against you? Deep down you think Mr. Garrido deserved to die. I can see it a mile away. Friendship is like love in that way, a double-edged sword, wonderful on one side and deadly on the other. Those are emotions with a horrible flip side.

He lit another cigarillo after offering one to Lorenzo, who turned it down. You bought a van. You’re planning on starting over, huh? Lorenzo shrugged. I wish you luck. We still haven’t managed to find the guy who bought your old car, because you switched cars right around the time of the murder, right? Yeah, I think so. I might have to take some more of your time later on, there are some DNA tests pending, you know, these modern things. You can’t imagine how much we hate those fucking
television dramas, now people show up at the police stations and they basically think you’re useless if you don’t come out of the laboratory with the guilty party’s name. Boy, would I like to give them a tour around the lab so they can see the crappy shit we’ve got to work with. Everything in this country has gotten so modern, except us … Well, I won’t take up any more of your time. Don’t worry, I’ll pay.

Lorenzo realized that was his way of saying good-bye. He got up slowly, they shook hands, and Lorenzo left the bar.

He felt constant fear during the following days. He barely slept. He was hounded by memories of the murder and the detective’s presence at every turn. He heard a distant echo when he spoke on the telephone; he was convinced someone was always following him, keeping their steps in time with his so they wouldn’t be discovered.

He heard Sylvia come home at dawn and he could make out the sound of a car engine heading off when the gate closed with a metal clang. Maybe someone was watching the door.

He had trouble answering his friends’ messages. He didn’t go near Daniela because he thought the detective was shamelessly watching his advances, that he enjoyed stalking him. He heard her move around the apartment upstairs, take the boy out for a walk, but he didn’t try to bump into her in the stairwell. He even went so far as to think that ten or twelve years in prison wouldn’t be worse than what he was living through those days.

Wilson got him two or three moving jobs and they worked together with the van. In a corner in the back, there was still that cardboard suitcase from the apartment they had emptied out. One day around noon, he drove along the airport highway toward the senior citizens’ home. At the reception desk,
which was covered with papers, he explained that he had come to deliver some belongings to a resident. When he mentioned the man’s name, Don Jaime, the woman seemed to show more interest. It was obvious he didn’t get many visitors. I took care of emptying out his apartment, and I wanted to return some things to him. The woman jotted down Lorenzo’s name and the number of his ID on a file card and gave him the room number on the third floor.

The place was more ugly than sordid. He knocked on the door. Even though nobody answered, he opened it. He found the man sitting on the mattress, watching television. He hadn’t imagined him like that. Stout, immaculately clean, with a dreamy gaze on his kind face, not dangerous in the least. His face was shaved in irregular patches. At first glance, there was no trace of insanity or eccentricity. Lorenzo explained why he had come and placed the suitcase beside him. The man looked at him and seemed to understand, but he made no gestures of acquiescence nor did he open his mouth to say anything.

Inside the suitcase were the watches, the clippings, some records, but Lorenzo didn’t open it to show him the contents.

You can keep it all, said the man suddenly. I don’t need anything, thanks. I’d rather you have it, Lorenzo tried to explain. I also found this. Lorenzo still had the piece of paper with the telephone number in his wallet. It was on the door of your refrigerator, maybe it was important to you, he said to the man.

That’s Gloria’s phone number, was all he said. As if it explained everything. Lorenzo nodded. I called her, but she told me she didn’t know you. That’s true, nodded the man. Lorenzo left the piece of paper on the bedside table, giving it an importance that perhaps it didn’t have. The man spoke again. Someone
called my house one day. It was a young woman, in a hurry. I could barely talk to her. She told me, I’m Gloria, take down my number in case you need anything. I wrote it on that paper. But you never met her? Never. It must have been a mistake. She dialed the wrong number and thought she was talking to someone she knew. So why’d you keep the paper with her number?

The man sighed deeply, as if he had no easy answer to the question. It kept me company, he said finally. Sometimes I would call her, but I never dared to speak. I listened to the woman, to Gloria, answer and wait and then hang up on me.

Lorenzo, without really knowing why, used the long silence to sit delicately on the bed beside the man. Without brushing against him. He stayed there a good long while. The man watched television and when a gossip program ended he said, now comes the news, and he turned off the television with a remote control that he had in the pocket of his pajama top.

They spent a few minutes more in silence. Lorenzo asked him if he needed anything, if he was feeling okay. The man nodded. I’m fine.

Lorenzo stood up. He heard the nearby highway as if it were running through the middle of the home’s tiny yard. And every two minutes an airplane made the walls tremble. They were very close to the airport, near the old Ciudad Pegaso.

Maybe I’ll come back some other day.

There was no one at the entrance desk. It was lunchtime. An old woman was sitting in a wheelchair on the path in the garden. From behind, her badly combed white hair looked like a resting dog.

At home Sylvia was locked in her room. Music flooded the house. Lorenzo knocked on her door and she invited him in.

Did you eat? he asked Sylvia. No, but I’ll fix myself something. Lorenzo waited a second before turning around. He paid attention to the music. Saturated guitars. A woman’s voice, powerful, strident, imitating the singer from the Pretenders. What’s this band?

Sylvia showed him the CD cover. A brunette, wearing a white shirt without shoulder pads. Lorenzo left her room for a moment and came back with a CD. Put on number six, he told Sylvia. She, somewhat lazily, stood up and did as she was asked. See how they’re similar? Do you know this band?

Sylvia shook her head. They both remained there, listening to the song together.

All the music today only makes sense when you know what came before, explained Lorenzo. Now it’s a little softer, a little more conventional, and all cut from the same pattern. They don’t make bands like they used to.