The Buenos Aires Quintet (16 page)

‘I only ask because I wouldn’t mind sending my husband there.’

Alma clinks her coffee spoon against the side of a cup.

‘It’s been wonderful to see you all again. But what we’re really here for is to try to find Raúl Tourón before others do. Some of you already know he came back to Buenos Aires. We have to get together to protect him.’

Font y Rius still has his head lowered; Güelmes looks interested but remote; Silverstein is busy observing all the others’ reactions. Some remain poker-faced; others are clearly moved by Alma’s voice.

‘You all know Raúl managed to escape from the hell here. And now years later, he’s back from Spain. Nobody knows what he’s looking for, perhaps his disappeared daughter, perhaps he’s trying to build a new life, like the rest of us. For the moment though, he’s in hiding. He’s running from himself, but also from people from the intelligence services who’ve stolen one of his discoveries and don’t want him around to reclaim it. It’s too complicated to explain now, but if any of you know anything at all...we have to find him before the Captain and his men do.’

Some of the faces around the table look alarmed. Güelmes and Font y Rius look concerned. Several voices call out: ‘is that murderer still in action, the son of a bitch?’

‘Yes, he’s still in action,’ Alma goes on. ‘There’s someone else pursuing Raúl. He’s what you might call a professional policeman, someone who believes in the law and in democratic rule, in the separation of powers.’

‘God is dead, Marx is dead, Montesquieu is dead, but there are still some idiots who refuse to lie down and die!’ Silverstein shouts scornfully.

‘The ideal would be for his cousin, this Spaniard here...’ Alma points to Carvalho.

‘The masked Spaniard! The hidden Spaniard! The one and only Spaniard!’ Silverstein shouts gleefully.

‘You can trust him,’ Alma insists. ‘At least the people I trust can. Please, if Raúl has been in touch with any of you, remember the ideal solution would be for him to go back to Spain with his cousin here.’

Silverstein clambers up on the table, treading on various scraps of
asado.
‘A hidden man could be anywhere. But let’s not think of those of us who came, but of those ex-combatants of the glorious, unfinished Perónist revolution who didn’t show up here today. Let’s remember them!’

Silverstein stoops to pick up a piece of meat from the table near his feet. Carvalho drinks as if all of a sudden he’s extremely thirsty.

‘Did any of you realize Honrubia isn’t here?’ Barone asks.

Some people whistle, others laugh.

‘He’s on his honeymoon, busy robbing the Brucker family blind, except that this time he doesn’t have a machine-gun. You used to know him well, didn’t you, Girmenich?’

Girmenich has said very little all afternoon, but around him there has been an ebb and flow of people, as though each of the guests had his or her own personal agenda with the best-known revolutionary.

‘Knowing people in those days didn’t mean you knew them well.’

‘Are you still a Catholic, Girmenich?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘And you believe in the Virgin Mary?’

‘Yes.’

‘And in the armed struggle?’

Barone is the one asking the questions, perhaps trying to provoke a dialectical argument. Girmenich doesn’t answer, but a pale-faced woman with skin so transparent her veins show through steps in.

‘If we win, yes, I believe in the armed struggle. But if we lose... they won the struggle...and look at the way they did it.’

‘What about reconciliation, Celia? Would you kill them if you had the chance?’ Barone asks.

‘With these hands.’

By now, night is coming into its own. Barone is driving. Sitting beside him, Carvalho is somewhere between drunken slumber and trying to keep one ear on what the driver is talking about. But he has succeeded in asking to be dropped off at a night-club called El Salto.

‘That’s a strip joint.’

Barone looks round to check whether Alma heard him, but she’s dozed off, as has Silverstein. Barone is still obsessed with Honrubia.

‘I mentioned him on purpose. He was one of the leading revolutionaries. He had a price on his head because among other feats, he’d kidnapped the Brucker brothers, heirs to the most important family in our oligarchy. Then he went into exile, and travelled all over the world, still preaching revolution, gun in hand, ready to fight anywhere for the cause.’ Barone laughs out loud. ‘He was a great guy! Then he returned to Argentina, and they put him in prison for a while to balance out the joke trials against Videla and the others. He gets out, Menem gives him an important position, he’s thrown out of that because he fills his pockets a bit too quickly. All of a sudden, he announces he’s going to marry a Brucker, the sister of the brothers he had kidnapped, who is twenty years younger than him. And not only does he go ahead and marry her, but since then he’s managed to sideline her brothers from the family business, and now he’s almost in sole charge.’

Alma has woken up. She leans forward over the two men. ‘Drive slowly, Luis. Remember Argentina’s got the worst accident rate in Latin America.’

‘We’ve got other records too. The highest rates for suicide, divorce, for drinking the most soft drinks and using the most deodorants. It’s not that we like to smell good, we don’t like to smell at all. I was just telling your friend here that Honrubia has done well for himself. He’s shown he’s an excellent negotiator.’

‘Our political militancy made us efficient, hard-working and cynical. Our defeat made us pragmatic. That’s why we were so successful in business afterwards. Well, those who went into business were.’

Barone shakes his head. ‘I still get the feeling that all this is provisional, as if we were in a truce between defeat and victory’

‘Between two defeats, more like.’

‘You’re too pessimistic, Alma. One day it’ll be cherry blossom time again, like the song by Yves Montand. Nothing can be done these days in one country, simply by wishing things to happen. Some day there’ll have to be another Revolutionary International.’

Carvalho nods at this, and Barone thinks he’s agreeing with him.

‘So you think so too?’

‘I’m worried about a few details.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, nowadays it’s impossible to start an international movement without a fax machine.’

‘Yeah, I get you so far.’

‘So, where do we put the fax machine? It can’t be in Moscow any more, or in Havana, and putting it in Tripoli or Teheran would be suicide. So, where do we put the fax machine?’

The car pulls up outside the El Salto Club. The green and red neon sign is exactly the same as all the signs for strip clubs all over the galaxy.

‘So all the meat you ate woke your sexual appetite, did it?’ Alma asks.

‘We private detectives have strange beef and bedfellows.’

Carvalho says his goodbyes. As he gets out of the car, he slams the door and wakes up Silverstein. He walks towards the club, his legs heavy from so much alcohol and protein. As he is going in, he hears Silverstein’s sarcastic commentary from the car: ‘Who would have thought it? The masked Spaniard’s got a prick.’

El Sal to is a strip joint like a million others, with anonymous girls, dim lighting, loud music and the inevitable Brazilian transvestite who’s the most beautiful woman in the place.

‘But I shave three times a day,’ the Brazilian pouts at Don Vito when he refuses to be picked up.

Don Vito looks as if he’s tied to the bar, overwhelmed by the music and the strobe lighting, but he does not miss a chance to wink at every girl who passes by. When Carvalho touches him on the shoulder, he turns round with evident relief.

‘Thank God you’re here. About time. I’ve had a bellyful of this ghastly music. I’m going home to put on Libertad Lamarque singing some decent tangos. Something to soothe me. Then I’ll watch the Boca-Independiente game.’

Carvalho watches Don Vito leering at the passing trade, trying to work out his tastes. ‘You don’t seem to be having such a bad time.’

‘Music as loud as this leaves you sterile. Take a good look at that giant outside the bathrooms. He’s called Pretty Boy, and he’s the one who decides what goes on and what doesn’t in here. I’m not old enough to do business with him.’

Don Vito puts on his hat, touches the brim to say farewell to Carvalho, and heads for the exit. On the way, he leans over the topless cigarette girl and tells her: ‘If you give me your knickers, I’ll buy half a dozen packs.’

He doesn’t give her time to react, and disappears out of the door. Carvalho orders a whisky on the rocks, and sees Pretty Boy go over to talk to the cashier.

‘What do you want to do? Follow him in there to see if he’s shooting up? Just cool it,’ the cashier advises him.

Pretty Boy grumbles. He looks the spitting image of Gabriela Sabatini. Carvalho goes up to him. ‘Too many drugs?’

Pretty Boy is about to tell him to get lost when he sees the fifty-dollar bill Carvalho has pressed into his hand. ‘Private dick? You’re not a cop, they never pay’

‘I’m a sociologist,’ Carvalho explains.

Pretty Boy looks confused, and Carvalho takes advantage of his confusion. ‘What do you know about the murdered topless girl?’

‘I’ve already told the police what they wanted to hear. The girl had a name. She was called Carmen Lavalle.’

‘Is Pascuali the guy investigating the murder?’

‘Do you know him, then?’

‘Inspector Pascuali and I are like brothers. I already know for example you told him you were fucking her.’

‘I’ve had every girl here,’ Pretty Boy tells him proudly. ‘But I’m no vulture. I have my morals. And even though we did it occasionally, I could tell she was different. She didn’t enjoy it. She only did it because she had to.’

Carvalho studies the pimp, trying to bring him back on track, but the other man beats him to it.

‘She studied Latin.’

‘Latin?’

‘Latin.’

Carvalho presses another fifty-dollar bill in his hand.

‘And I’m sure you know the address of her Latin teacher, don’t you? Oh, and by the way, you aren’t Gabriela Sabatini’s brother, are you? You look just like her.’

Pretty Boy writes it down on a paper napkin, and Carvalho demonstrates that movement is displacement from a fixed point by leaving the clip joint.

The address is in a down-at-heel neighbourhood. The building has no porter or entryphone, so Carvalho is forced to look for the name on the letterboxes. He cannot find it. There are three apartments that have no name on their box. Carvalho gazes up the staircase. A woman is struggling down as if her feet are aching a lot. She’s carrying an old-fashioned radio set in a basket.

‘Can I help you? Is something the matter?’

‘Too much body for too little foot, that’s all.’

‘Small feet are the sign of a delicate soul.’

All of a sudden the woman is inordinately pleased with her feet. She stares down at them affectionately.

‘Perhaps you can tell me which floor the Latin teacher lives on?’

The woman wrinkles her nose. She is still smiling at Carvalho, but there’s a look of disgust in her eyes.

‘We call him “the plague”. Him and soap don’t get on, and as if that weren’t bad enough, he’s surrounded by cats. There’s always a foul smell from his apartment.’

‘My God! How can that be? A wise man like him. A Latinist.’

‘A latty what?’

‘A Latinist. An expert in the language of the ancient Romans.’

‘I hope they talked better than today’s Romans do. My husband is the son of a family from Rome, and he’s as foul-mouthed as a footballer. The teacher lives on the third floor at the back. And be careful if you take the lift, there’s a hole in the middle big enough to fall through.’

At this the woman turns her back on him and stumbles off. Carvalho walks carefully up the stairs, which are lit by nothing more than the grimy panes of glass giving on to the interior stairwell. He reaches the third floor and rings the door bell. He wrinkles his nose just like the woman did. The stench from inside is overpowering, and he can hear desperate miaowing. Nobody comes to the door. He tries forcing the lock with his credit card, but it’s too old and he has to try various picks before the door does not so much open as come unstuck. There’s a short hallway, full of anxious cats coming towards him. Some of them rush out on to the landing; others brush against his trousers. The rooms leading off the hallway are filthy and untidy. At the far end is a kitchen cum dining-room. The sink is full of crockery with scraps of unidentifiable food on it. All the plates are third-hand or on a third life. Chipped and not exactly clean. A dining-table covered in an oilcloth. Bookshelves everywhere, full of antique-looking books. Even the kitchen is lined with books, smeared with smoke and grease. Carvalho forces the window open and takes a deep breath. One smell in particular forces him to turn back into the room. He walks over to a half-open door. Inside he sees the Latin teacher’s body spreadeagled on a bed, his arms and legs out in a cross. All his blood appears to have drained into a coagulated pool on the bedcover and floor. One cat sits next to the body, licking at the dried blood. Yellow in life, and an even more livid shade of yellow in death, the face has begun to bloat. Carvalho turns away from his inspection of the body and searches in the desk drawers instead. They are full of a heap of papers and objects, including half a mouldy sandwich. There’s a school notebook on which a trembling hand has written: Latin students. Carvalho slips the notebook under his shirt and goes on with his search. More books, old photos of people who are probably already dead or close to it by now: then Carvalho hears a voice behind him, and turns his head to see.

‘Always looking for the same things as me.’

The voice is Pascuali’s. Carvalho turns to face him, superficially calm.

‘This time I’ve been so nice I’ve even opened the door for you.’

An hour later, and the apartment has become a meeting place for half the police in Buenos Aires. Carvalho wrinkles his nose again, and speaks directly to Pascuali and his other half, Vladimiro.

‘I’d prefer to talk outside, if you don’t mind. This stink will stick to us for weeks.’