Sweet Money (17 page)

 

It takes Lascano a few minutes to explain the situation. They agree they’ll give the chief of the Haedo precinct credit for the arrest and that Lascano himself will be in charge of transferring him. The prosecutor tells him that he’ll look the other way as far as his illegal detention of Miranda goes, but warns him that’s the only irregularity he’ll let slide. Lascano agrees and congratulates himself for not mentioning anything about the reward. Nor does Marcelo think to ask him his reasons for detaining him; they’ve already established a bond, common cause as enforcers of the law. Marcelo lends him his car and tells the driver and a policeman from the Tribunales police station
to accompany Lascano to pick up Miranda. They get in the car and leave. A movie showing an endless series of moments of other people’s lives passes by the car window.

 

In the meantime, Mole is smoking a cigarette and waiting calmly in his cell. A guard walks by. In the office next to him, Peloski, the officer in charge, comes on duty, a stack of papers under his arm. Miranda calls to the guard.

 

 

Mole watches him walk away down the hallway and smiles. Peloski has overheard part of the conversation. He stops the guard as he walks by.

 

 

In a quick glance Peloski checks the log. Nobody’s been booked.

 

 

Going to and from the armoury won’t take less than fifteen minutes. Plenty of time for what Peloski is planning. When the spring hinge shuts the door, he goes around the counter and walks the few steps down the row of cells until he sees Mole sitting there, smoking peacefully. Mole looks up and nods. Peloski has no further doubt: that’s Miranda the Mole all right. He goes back to the counter, but first he opens the door and checks to make sure there’s nobody outside in the corridor. He picks up the telephone and dials a number.

 

 

Lascano gets out of the car and rings the doorbell. Beba opens it immediately and steps aside to let him in. When the mutt sees him, he dashes out like a wind-up dog and lies down in his basket.

 

 

Beba walks into the back room and returns a few minutes later with an instant photograph: Eva in a bikini on a terrace with sun umbrellas above a beach. The shadow of the man who took it is falling over her lap. Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, Lascano stuffs the photograph in his pocket.

 

On an impulse that surprises Beba and himself, Lascano gives her a kiss on the cheek, turns on his heels and leaves the house. Just when he’s about to open the door of the car, he hears Beba calling out to him. He turns around.

 

 

Twenty minutes after Peloski’s call, Roberti enters the station. If he’d come a bit sooner, he would have crossed paths with the guard who was supposed to give him Mole’s message and whom Peloski had sent on a mission for the sole purpose of getting him out of the way. The officer smiles at the superintendent.

 

 

Peloski points his finger in the direction of the cells, as if this were necessary. Roberti takes a few quick strides down the hall. When he sees Mole he slows down, then stops. He picks up a bench that’s leaning against the wall and brings it up close to the bars of the cell where Mole is sitting peacefully and smoking.

 

 

Mole sits there for a moment staring off into space, his index and middle finger holding the cigarette. He tosses the butt to the floor and crushes it. He smiles.

 

 

Lascano stops in the middle of the living room, just a few feet away from the armchair where Eva’s father is sitting and staring at the television screen. Beba walks over to the wooden sideboard, opens a drawer and starts rifling through a pile of papers. For a quick instant, the man moves his blank eyes away from the TV and glues them on Lascano, who feels obligated to look at him and give him an equally blank smile. Beba closes the drawer, turns and hands Lascano a somewhat crinkled airmail envelope.

 

 

Lascano hesitates, afraid of what this letter might say, but he ends up taking it, glancing at it, then stuffing it in his pocket. He feels the need, the urgent need, to leave that house as quickly as possible

 

 

He nods, turns around and walks out. As he closes the door behind him he feels like he is about to faint. He inhales deeply, then exhales, then walks to his car. As the chauffeur drives him to the station he imagines what that family must have been like before it was destroyed by the death squad. Probably much like the family he always looked for, dreamt about, longed for. The one he kept believing he would find, but something always got in his way. The death of his parents, the accident that took Marisa away, Eva’s precipitous escape when those
military bastards ambushed him. He hopes with all his heart that Beba finds her grandson. He hopes that child can live what remains of the childhood they stole from him, stop pretending he believes the lies of the adults around him, grab a cat by the tail, play hooky at school, play with matches, be loved, cuddled, scolded – without a horrendous secret always getting in the way. The car stopping abruptly in front of the station brings him back to the here and the now.

 

Lascano’s ride into the centre is a long, one-of-a-kind cursing session against that Goddamnmotherfucking-sonofabitchRoberti. He can’t believe he let Mole go. He must have paid him off, like he tried to do to him, but Roberti took him up on it and here Lascano is, once again, in deep shit. When he finishes cursing the superintendent, he starts on Pereyra. If he hadn’t delayed him this morning, Mole wouldn’t have got away. But things don’t work out like that; luck is a whore who is usually fucking someone else.

24

All afternoon and well into the night, couples get in their cars and drive to the Palermo forest to do whatever it is couples do in their cars. This custom, so deeply ingrained in the inhabitants of Buenos Aires, has led to the area being called Villa Cariño – Tenderness Town. The local cops, paid off by the proprietors of the nearby bars, mind their own business. This is where Miranda the Mole has chosen to meet his wife, because this is where they used to come when they were first dating. Here he brought her proudly in his first stolen car. Here they made love for the first time.

Sitting in his one-hundred-per-cent-legal car, he listens to a cassette of Frank Sinatra while he waits for her. She must have taken the long way around, to shake off any possible tails. He trained her well. Yes, that must be why she’s late. He keeps looking in the rearview and side mirrors. He catches glimpses of what’s going on in the other cars: couples are drinking, kissing, fondling each other; here and there someone still needs convincing of what she’ll end up doing anyway; a blonde ducks, disappearing from sight. The glories of Villa Cariño. A taxi stops on the corner. It’s her. He watches her pay, get her change, get out of the taxi and look around for a sign. Miranda
switches his headlights on and off and she walks toward him. Her hips sways back and forth, silhouetted against the red brick wall. He watches as she approaches with quick steps, then she gets in the car, closes the door and without looking at him, drops her head. She’s crying.

 

 

Susana looks down, takes a handkerchief out of her purse and wipes her nose. She takes a deep breath. Miranda leans back against the door so he can see her better, then places his arm over the steering wheel.

 

 

Duchess is speaking in a whisper, but it sounds like she’s shouting. Miranda bites his lips.

 

 

Susana is twisting the handkerchief in her hands, and a stifled groan escapes her lips. Miranda watches her, trying to muster his courage. She shoots him a look full of resentment.

 

 

Susana lets this reproach rip like the lash of a whip. Miranda receives it like the stab of a knife in his gut.