17 Stone Angels (17 page)

Fortunato looked open and expectant. “And . . . ?”

“We traced a phone number in Robert Waterbury's pocket on the night he was murdered. I wrote it down from the
expediente
, but I forgot to mention it to you.” She blushed as she lied, ignoring at the same time the fluttering question of why the Comisario hadn't traced the number himself. “It seems to be the personal number of Teresa Castex de Pelegrini. The wife of Carlo Pelegrini.”

Fortunato cocked his eyebrows a little. “Pelegrini? The magnate?” He'd already traced the number to Pelegrini's house, but had left it at that in the hopes that everything would die down. Now, though, with Berenski involved, he couldn't ignore it. The investigation had just broached a new barrier, and he had no choice but to go with it and improvise. “Interesting. What did your friend the journalist say?”

“Nothing, yet. We tried to call her but we didn't get anywhere. I
thought perhaps the authority of the police could open things a bit. If we need to listen to the line, or something like that.”

Fortunato took his time in replying. Berenski knew much about Pelegrini, maybe more than anyone outside Pelegrini's own circle. It would be helpful to know what Berenski knew. And there was still the matter of the name
Renssaelaer
, the last little god whom Waterbury had invoked as the possible cause of his suffering. Besides, better to manage Berenski than to let him go around loose. “Let's do this, Athena. Telephone the Señor Berenski so that we can combine for a little chat. Not in the station; something informal. Tell him it could be of interest to everyone.”

They met at the Café
Losadas again. At mid-morning the big room was quiet except for a half-dozen people browsing among the books. Berenski greeted Athena with a kiss and the two men shook hands, then there was a little impasse at the booth as neither man wanted to sit with his back to the door. Berenski won out and she slid in next to Fortunato.

The Comisario gave Berenski a quizzical look. “You wrote that piece about the corruption among the
futbol
referees, no?”

“That was I.”

“You did well,
chico
. But tell me, did you see the last SuperClassic? Where Morelo refused to call that foul in the last minute? In your opinion, was that dirty, or no?”

“Morelo is dirty,” he said in his croaking voice. “But in that instance, the call was correct.”

“No! You're for Boca!”

Ricardo shrugged. “River should have paid Morelo more. Then he would have seen that foul with microscopic clarity. But Comisario!” He hunched his shoulders comically, his palms upturned as he burst out enthusiastically, “It's Argentina! What are you drinking, amigo? I invite you with the money I won on the SuperClassic.”

Fortunato took an espresso, bitter, while Athena took hers with a dollop of whipped cream. Berenski accompanied his with a shot of scotch. Fortunato admired his whiskey-in-the-morning style: he played it all, the
muchacho
. The journalist took out a palm-sized notebook and a black fountain pen gleaming with gold.

“What an elegant pen!” Fortunato said admiringly. “They pay you well.”

Berenski held up the instrument, examining it with satisfaction. “It's fake! Made in China. The watch, too. I'm fanatic about fake things! One can be ironic without saying a word!” He leaned in, croaking confidentially to the policeman, “There's a little store on Bolivar called
Todo Falso
. All of the best names, but fake! Now I'm trying to get one of those autos with duplicated papers that are circulating everywhere. Maybe you know someone . . .”

Fortunato laughed. “You're an
hijo de puta
!”

“What can I say?” the journalist grinned as he rocked back in the booth. “I am! But there's much to discuss. Athena already told you about the telephone number?”

“Yes. It was interesting.”

“The number was registered to one of Pelegrini's corporations, but it was listed as being at his residence in Palermo Chico. When I called it a woman answered to the name Teresa, but then she marked me as a stranger and cut the line.”

“Even being Castex, that doesn't mean it has something to do with the murder.”

“Of course. But I think it would be interesting to have a chat with the señora, no?”

Fortunato rubbed the stubble along his jaw, nodding. “It's a good idea. But such people are not so eager to talk. I would have to get an order from the judge to compel her, and I'm not certain the evidence justifies that sort of measure. The judge is Emilio Duarte. He's very strict about matters of the Constitution.”

“Ah, Duarte,” the journalist said casually. “He has a good reputation.”

Fortunato couldn't tell if Berenski was just flashing another fake accessory with his remark about Duarte. He chose not to agree or disagree. “I should tell you that we've found information that leads in another direction. It could be that we already have the killer.”

“Yes? Who?”

“Perhaps you remember him: Enrique Boguso. He was the one that killed the bricklayer and his wife in front of their children in Quilmes three months ago.”

Berenski wrinkled his nose with disgust. “I remember it. They used
electric shocks. 1970s style.” He touched the pen to the notebook. “Enrique Boguso, no? And who was the informant?”

Fortunato put his hand over the pad. “Amigo Ricardo, we're a bit premature here. We're still mounting the case. I'm speaking to you confidentially, as a friend of La Doctora.”

“It's fine, Miguel.” He capped the pen with a counterfeit click and put it away. “But tell me: how would it happen that someone like Boguso, a brute of the outer barrios, crosses with a foreigner like Robert Waterbury who was staying in the center and mixing with rich people like Teresa Castex de Pelegrini?”

Fortunato explained patiently the theories of the drug motive and Waterbury's gathering of atmosphere for his book. “Neither is certain yet.”

“This book,” Berenski answered back, “that's another thing. It seems that Waterbury was a very lazy writer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most writers have a journal, or some manuscript that they're torturing. Especially if they are gathering atmosphere. Athena says that there was nothing like that mentioned in the
expediente
.”

That detail had bothered Fortunato also. He turned his hands upward sympathetically. “Perhaps that was the problem: he had no notes because he had no ideas, no hopes. For that, he turned to drugs.”

Berenski sat back. “Still, it's curious.”

“Yes. But let's return to the matter of Pelegrini. I read some of your articles before I came, but it's a turbid business. It escapes me. What's going on with Pelegrini?”

The waiter materialized and clacked the order onto the table, slapping the bill onto the spike, which Berenski drew towards himself as he looked into the thick glass tumbler. To Fortunato he seemed to be using the liquor to stall, uncertain as to whether he should enter deeply into the theme of Pelegrini. Finally, he looked up with a new air of sobriety. “I'll tell you now, because this is coming out now anyway. It's thus: Pelegrini is involved in a war right now. On one side, you have Pelegrini, the President, and various military who are tied into the vast network of businesses that Pelegrini says he doesn't own. On the other, you have the Minister of Economy and the Governor of Buenos Aires, acting for the gringos.”

“What do you mean?” Athena asked. “What does the United States have to do with it?”

“Because RapidMail wants the Argentine Postal System.”

Athena wrinkled her brow. “RapidMail? They're just a courier service.”

Berenski laughed. “
Chica
, you see the little striped box and you think they're like a McDonald's of the sky. But RapidMail has origins that are half-obscure. It was started by Joseph Carver, ex-agent of the CIA. Carver began his transport career in the Vietnam War, where he ran questionable cargos in and out of the Golden Triangle,
estilo
Iran-Contra, but before they had to go to all the trouble of convicting someone and then pardoning them. He made some very good friends there, including other CIA agents and your ex-president. All the
muchachos
returned home with money to invest, and thus began RapidMail.”

Ricardo hesitated as he watched someone who'd come in the door. “Fine. Twenty-five years later, they notice a fat fish called Argentina. The country is for sale, and they decide they want to buy the Post Office. Think of it: a discount price, guaranteed profits written into the contract by force of law, rate increases without end. They can take it all over, or just take over the profitable parts and leave the rest to the people. Who's not going to be interested in that business? So they start to arrange it, using Grupo AmiBank as their front because the Grupo has all those golden connections that smooth the course. Except Carlo Pelegrini already has the same idea, and he also has very good connections, and six months advance. When RapidMail's men show up to begin negotiations three of Pelegrini's
pistoleros
pull them over on the way in from the airport. They take out their weapons and they courteously dis-invite them from the party. An embarrassing lack of hospitality on the part of the
patria
, no?”

Fortunato opened his hands. “It's a disgrace!”

“So Joseph Carver makes some phone calls. He calls his friend the ex-president and he calls an acquaintance at the United States Chamber of Commerce. He starts to talk and talk about this corrupt Pelegrini, and about the Argentines who will not open their markets. It's a violation of the sacredness of Free Trade! Suddenly Pelegrini is under investigation by the DEA, by the FBI. There are complaints before the World Trade Organization and very serious chats between Ovejo, our minister of Economy, and the United States ambassador. Ovejo travels to Washington to talk with the vice-president. Suddenly, Ovejo is
attacking Pelegrini at all sides. On television, in the newspapers, in his private offices. “We must open the country to more foreign investment!” he says. “We must stop this corrupt man and cancel his extortionate government contracts!” He turned to Fortunato. “He's like Morelo of the SuperClassic: The gringos paid him enough that he would start calling the foul.”

“What does Pelegrini do to defend himself?” Fortunato asked.

“That scandal of Ovejo's brother-in-law? That was investigated and mounted by Pelegrini. With the help of the Buenos Aires police, eh? When that failed, he tried to use his inside men to design bid specifications that would make it impossible for anyone but himself to win the contract. The same thing he has done for years. But this time it's not certain he will win because the Grupo is also at work there.”

“How do you get all this information?” Athena asked in amazement.

Ricardo laughed. “Everyone believes in a free press when it comes to airing the misdeeds of their enemies. You would be surprised at my sources.”

Fortunato rubbed his mustache thoughtfully. “And tell me, Ricardo: have you heard the name Renssaelaer?”

The journalist leaned back in his chair. He looked slightly distressed, and it took him some time to answer. “William Renssaelaer. He's the chief of all Pelegrini's security operations. He came here as an attaché to the American embassy during the Dictatorship and stayed. He directs everything that constitutes security for Pelegrini, from his bodyguards to whatever intelligence Pelegrini is gathering from the government or from his corporate rivals. Why do you mention Renssaelaer?”

“It's a name that I saw floating in the newspapers, nothing more.”

The Comisario frowned down into his coffee cup, weighing Berenski's strange reaction to the name Renssaelaer. “All this is very interesting, Ricardo, but still I don't hear anything that would connect Pelegrini to Waterbury. Not enough to issue a summons to Teresa Castex.”

“Waterbury worked for AmiBank, which is the parent of Grupo AmiBank, on his first stay in Argentina. No, Athena?”

“That's what his wife said.”

Fortunato shook his head. “But Waterbury worked there long before all this between the Grupo AmiBank and Pelegrini.”

“Yes, but perhaps his friend is still there. And then, we have the phone number in Waterbury's pocket, connecting him to the intimate circle of Pelegrini.”

Fortunato covered his anxiety with a thoughtful silence, glancing down for a time at the sludge in his coffee cup. Berenski was very
piola
, very crafty, and he probably had other contacts who might become interested in the case. He had ended the careers of a lot of police. He, Fortunato, would have to move much faster to stay ahead of Berenski. “If the Boguso lead ends up dead, I'll make my best case with Duarte to revise Teresa Castex's telephone records and summon her to the station.”

“
Excelente
, Miguel. But one little thing more . . . ”

Berenski now began to ask him, in a nonchalant way, about the goings-on in the barrios north of Buenos Aires. Fortunato spotted his game immediately: being of the south, Fortunato might not mind tipping a few cards on his northern rivals. The journalist teased out the details with a comic bravado that made it enjoyable, like being shaved by an expert barber, and Fortunato dropped him little clues about car theft and the sale of
expedientes
that he hoped would cripple the aggressive actions of the
brigadas
of the north. Berenski laughed as if the deceits were stunts in a screwball comedy, laughed and made notes with his fake fountain pen. Fortunato gave him a few broad clues and then mentioned his next appointment. When they got up to leave the journalist snapped the cap on his pen and offered it to the policeman. “
Amigo
Fortunato, take this little souvenir, as you were admiring it.”