17 Stone Angels (36 page)

He picked up the newspaper and leafed through to the crime section, where he found the last disagreeable surprise of the morning. There in the small print, among items of little importance:
Two robbers . . . shot by police in Quilmes last night
. . . He sensed it even before he read the rest of the brief paragraph and could envision the entirety of the event from the sketchy resume.
While fleeing the Kiosko Malvinas
. . . Probably a clandestine lottery office, or some other repository of cash. The door would have been jimmied open by previous arrangement with the police for the usual 70/30 split. Two robbers stuffing money into a bag, disordering the office for the sake of appearance. To their surprise, three policemen and a burst of thunder behind the building. The dull points of lead cutting through the body, and then a finishing shot to the chest. Someone pressing a pistol into a dead man's hand, pulling the trigger. By the time Fortunato reached the names he could have filled them in himself. Of the deceased: Rodrigo “Onda” Williams. Among the responding officers: Domingo Fausto.

The first reporter called his
office an hour later. He didn't take the call, of course, but he recognized it as the first raindrop of the coming storm and it sent a new twist of anxiety into his stomach. When the receptionist told him that the Doctora Fowler was on the line, he couldn't help but feel that a reprieve of some sort had been granted. The feminine warmth of Athena's voice comforted him. Since Marcela's death he'd had no antidote to this world of men and their stratagems. If she wanted to meet with him, he would for once allow himself the fool's pleasure of taking it at face value.

He listened to Athena make
her pitch in the coffee shop of the Sheraton. It was a good story about Teresa Castex: leave it to a gringa to come up with something so cinematic. Nothing crucial had come out of it—that Pelegrini's wife would suspect the police rather than her husband was a common deception of human nature. What it might reveal, though, was the thinking in the Pelegrini camp that Pelegrini's enemies were behind the new investigation, and that someone in the police might be a convenient suspect. For that reason, the news did not comfort him.

“I think I've got a way to find the Frenchwoman,” Athena went on, “and I've already located Pablo Moya at AmiBank, as Fabian claimed.”

“Then what do you need me for?”

She sighed. “I don't feel comfortable trying to get up to Pablo Moya's office. I think I'd do a lot better if someone with authority came with me, like you.” She softened him a little with a hint of the admiring female. “You can show the badge, give them that routine of ‘Don't fuck with me, I'm the police!'”

Fortunato had to smile. “Don't give me that
verso
of the little girl in distress. I already know you.”

“See, you're a thousand times more
piola
than me.” She shrugged. “I don't see any problem with you helping me, Miguel. It's your job to investigate the crime. And, besides, I'm not sure the FBI has the authority to take me off this case. I answer to Senator Braden.” She changed tack, her face settling. “Do you really want to leave this case with Fabian and the FBI?”

He considered it as he sipped at the weak Café Americana she'd poured him from the thermos on the table. Athena was right, there was a certain
advantage in pursuing the case with her. He might find out something useful, something the Chief or Pelegrini might be able to defend themselves with, and defend him at the same time.

“And you know something, Miguel?” she continued. “The FBI, Fabian, the Federales: they don't really care about Robert Waterbury. They have their own agenda.” Her voice became sharper. “I want the people who killed Waterbury to
pay
! You saw what they did to him! I want
all
of them, not just Boguso or whoever couldn't make a deal. I want all of them! All the way to the top! And forgive me for my presumption, Miguel, but I know that underneath all the lies surrounding this investigation, from both my government and yours, and underneath all the . . . the . . . shit surrounding what it takes to be a comisario in the Police of Buenos Aires, you do, too. Don't you?”

Fortunato swallowed, unable to answer, and something of disappointment and hurt flickered through her eyes. He could tell by the strangely childlike plaintiveness with which she said her next words that there was more at stake for her than solving the case. “I need you, Miguel. Now, I really need you.”

He looked at her smooth young face, perhaps not even thirty. He should have said that to make everything right by Robert Waterbury was an impossibility, and that even if it wasn't, he could never be the person to do it. Unless he was the one person who could. He leaned back in the booth and took out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and watched the smoke stream out from the extinguished match head. He looked up at her. “What's your plan?”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

T
hey left his car parked illegally on Cordoba and headed along Florida. The street had been closed off to automobiles and converted into a giant sidewalk, filled now with pedestrians breezing past café windows and pausing at kiosks to peruse magazine covers stamped with the face of the embattled Carlo Pelegrini. He walked along it now with Athena, toward the Grupo AmiBank building. Better to show up without an appointment, surprise him.

They turned into the sumptuous wood-paneled lobby, past a somber-looking custodian with a 9mm pistol: probably his service pistol, Fortunato thought. The Comisario flashed his badge at the two men at the desk, said with unassailable matter-of-factness, “Good afternoon,
muchachos
, I'm Comisario Fortunato, of Investigaciones, San Justo. I'm here to speak with Pablo Moya, on the tenth floor. This is my colleague Athena Fowler, an assessor for the United States Department of State. I'll announce myself.” He walked on without waiting for them to call, Athena following. By luck the elevator was waiting for them and they stepped in without looking back. Thirty seconds later they exited into the plush white carpet of the tenth floor. Fortunato still had his badge out. He knew they'd already announced him. “I'm Comisario Fortunato of the Department of investigations, Provincial Police of Buenos Aires. This is my colleague La Doctora Athena Fowler, working on behalf of the FBI of the United States. With Señor Moya, please.”

“Señor Moya is in a meeting now . . .”

Fortunato put on his police face, tilting his chin up and speaking with a voice of total command. “Now he has a more important meeting. What is your name?”

The woman quavered a bit. “Maria Foch.”

“Señorita Foch. Connect me with Señor Moya, immediately. This is a police matter.” She put him on the line and Fortunato became instantly cordial. “Señor Moya, forgive the disturbance. I'm Comisario Fortunato, of the division of Investigaciones in La Matanza. I happened to be in the neighborhood so I took the opportunity to make a little visit. I'm with a colleague from the United States who is attached to the FBI and we would like to chat with you for a few minutes . . . I know you are busy. If you prefer, I can call the judge and arrange something more formal at the comisaria, but I thought this would be more . . . ” Fortunato listened. “Perfecto! In a minute, then.” He glanced at Athena, tossed his head with the faintest trace of smugness on his kind face. The door buzzed and they walked through it.

“Comisario Fortunato! It's a pleasure!” Señor Moya had already come from behind his desk and strode across the room towards Fortunato with his hand extended.

The Comisario took the warm wide hand and then presented Athena to him. Moya's eye lingered with a special warmth that emitted a gentlemanly seductiveness, and Fortunato speculated that Moya, with his long lashes and square build, was accustomed to smoothing his way through life with a friendly smile. Some faces, he thought, were constructed according to a destiny that their owner went on discovering little by little. Like Moya's, created to decorate money, or his own face, that everyone found so sympathetic, ideal for imparting tragic news and concealing other people's fraud.

They sat down and Fortunato started in on the usual questions—much as the FBI had done with him the day before—with a cordial conversation about Moya's work and his family. The banker answered expertly: formal, but always as if on the verge of weaving some friendship, so that Fortunato kept feeling the urge to break down and see things the way Moya portrayed them. Life, the banker's tone implied, was an important affair, to be managed among
hombres
but not taken too seriously. He had something boyish and exuberant about him that hung beneath his polished exterior, almost naughty. Fortunato could see why he'd made it to the tenth floor. As they
talked, the Comisario couldn't help noticing the soft sheen of Moya's charcoal suit and his mesmerizing silk tie of olive and gold that shone and shifted as he moved.

The “regulars” dispensed with, Fortunato started in earnest. “Señor Moya; do you know why we are here?”

Moya became slightly more grave. “I imagine it is about Robert Waterbury.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the others were already here, a comisario. . .Perez, I think, and a sub-comisario . . .” He searched the air for an answer, then dismissed it. “It escapes me. But I had the impression this was a Federal investigation, not a Provincial one.”

Fortunato ignored the little sting. “The murder took place in San Justo, so it is my jurisdiction. The Federales have taken an interest in it because of the theme of
organización ilicita
.” Grimacing, “But those are semantic questions, Señor Moya. What interests us all is to find the people responsible for the crime.”

“Me more than anyone. Robert was a good friend.” He opened his hands and Fortunato saw a nostalgia descend on him, along with a genuine grief. “Very cultured, very kind. An excellent writer.” Pablo looked down at his desk for a moment, disturbed. “He didn't deserve that end.”

Fortunato's mind was invaded by the image of Waterbury covered with blood. He swallowed. “No one deserves it. Can you tell us more about your relation with the victim?”

The banker regained his balance. “
Bien
. We were friends, with all that implies. We met some ten years ago when the bank sent Robert here to work on the privatization of Aerolíneas, and when he returned, he asked for my help in meeting some people in Buenos Aires for his book. He was researching a novel.”

“Who did you introduce him to?”

Pablo thought about it, then seemed to reconsider. “You know, Comisario Fortunato,” he said politely, “I answered all of these questions two days ago for the Federales. I suggest that you could save time by simply reading my declaration.”

“I always prefer to hear them directly.”

The executive concealed any annoyance he felt, uncrossed his legs to dispel his irritation and leaned back. “He wanted to meet people of money,
to see how they lived, how they thought. I tried to help him.” He gave them a few names which Athena copied into her book. “But these were informal meetings, without any motive besides socializing.”

Fortunato nodded. “And tell me, Señor Moya, do you know of a man named Carlo Pelegrini?”

“Of course! The businessman who paid bribes to get control of the Post Office. He's in the newspapers every day. Now he's associated with this Berenski murder, no?”

“Thus say the newspapers,” Fortunato shrugged. “Tell me about the relationship between Carlo Pelegrini and Robert Waterbury.”

Pablo looked towards the liquor cart as if considering whether to offer them a drink. “I don't know much about that. I think he became friends with the wife, Teresa Castex. He got in with her and . . . I don't know. It became strange. Robert was a writer of some reputation, as you know, and she was paying him to help her write a book. Something of that type; a bit rare. I told him not to put himself in with her.”

“Why did you tell him that?”

“Because Pelegrini is heavy and she is his wife. One doesn't need to be a mathematician to solve that equation.” He cocked his head thoughtfully towards Athena. “I've sometimes thought that perhaps Pelegrini had him killed because of the wife.”

Fortunato rubbed the stubble of his chin. A variation of Fabian's theme, but keeping his own name conveniently out of the forefront. “And what was the relationship between Grupo AmiBank and Carlo Pelegrini at this time?”

“The same as now: nothing.”

“You weren't rivals for control of the Post Office?”

“
Bien
, I suppose that an adversarial relationship is still a relationship.”

“And did Señor Waterbury ever mention any anxiety about Carlo Pelegrini to you?”

The banker lowered his eyelashes for a moment. “We arrive at that theme.” He looked up. “The Federales also asked. Robert came to me and told me that he was writing a book with Pelegrini's wife. The details to me seemed half-rare.” He waggled his hand dubiously. “Moreover, this was a sensitive time for Pelegrini. Berenski had just begun to expose his bribes in the Post Office case. If he saw Robert coming to the AmiBank office . . .' He shook his head, and his voice rose into a furtive protestation of innocence,
though no accusation had been made. “I warned him that Pelegrini might misinterpret his visits here, that it could be complicated.” He rested his elbows on the desk and rubbed his forehead as if to erase some memory. “I suppose it was my fault for not acting with more force to stop the situation. But how could I know that he would kill him?”