Sweet Money (11 page)

 

 

As he opens the door he notices that it is much heavier than it seems. There to greet him is a girl dressed in a blue suit that matches the carpeting and the wallpaper. She’s gorgeous and, in spite of how very young she is,
she’s known it for quite some time. She was probably born knowing it. She invites him to follow her, much too conscious of the effect of the swinging of her hips when she walks. She leaves in her wake an invisible cloud of imported perfume one could easily plunge into and sail away to one’s final destiny. Turning around like a model on a catwalk, she points to some blood-red real-Russian-leather chairs and asks him if he would like something to drink. Perro says no and stares at her as she walks over to her desk, where she sits down, crosses her legs and checks to make sure she is being admired. She regales him with the mere hint of a smile that looks a bit like polystyrene. There’s a small lamp above the armchair where Lascano sits down, which seems to have been placed there expressly to fry his brain, his feet grow warm through the carpet, ambient music comes faintly to him from somewhere, and every once in a while, a little peep…

 

 

He opens his eyes to the vision of the torso and upper legs of the girl who is standing over him and smiling. He feels ashamed. If he knew he’d been waiting for half an hour, he’d be cross.

 

 

The office overlooks the renovations going on at the docks. The Rio de la Plata stretches out beyond: brownish grey, slow, treacherous. Fermín is standing next to a man
with bright white hair, who’s sitting at the desk looking at something Fermín is showing him on a piece of paper.

 

 

The white-haired man stands up and reaches his hand out as Perro approaches the cherry-wood desk. His clothes alone are worth not a penny less than five thousand dollars, without counting the gold cufflinks, the watch and all the other trinkets. He speaks in a very refined voice, the voice of a man accustomed to dealing with kings; he himself looks like royalty. And he smiles as if he were on vacation in the Bahamas.

 

 

Perro nods. Makinlay picks up the telephone and talks to his secretary. An instant later, the girl comes in, places an envelope on the desk and leaves.

 

 

Fermín hands him his card, takes his arm and walks him to the door.

 

At the corner of 25 de Mayo and Mitre there’s a café with a curved bar to sit at and drink coffee on the fly. It’s empty, too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. Perro sits down, asks for a double espresso with cold milk and a croissant. While the kid is preparing the coffee he goes over to the public phone and looks through the front pages of the phone book for the central switchboard of the police department. He sticks a coin in the slot and dials.

 

 

He eats the croissant in two bites and drinks the coffee in three gulps. It hits him like a punch from Coggi the Whip who knocked out Gutiérrez in the first round. Once he’s out on the street again, a shiver runs up and down
his spine. He’s about to walk straight into the belly of the beast. Again. He’s sick of danger, but he goes anyway.

 

Sansone lets Lascano in through a small side door on Virrey Ceballos. Sansone is short and energetic, an unrepentant grouch, but a straight shooter. He leads him down dark, narrow, damp and empty corridors. They end up in a kind of reception room surrounded by barred doors. A beer-bellied sergeant stands up when he sees them and opens one of the doors, lets them through, then closes it behind him. He leads them to a cell door, opens it and steps aside to let them pass. They enter, and the sergeant returns to his desk. The man in the cell has his head wrapped in a bandage. When the door opens, he looks up, on guard. Perro has known him for ages; it’s Dandy Benavidez, a bank robber from Miranda the Mole’s gang. He’s pale and in a cold sweat. He shows all the signs of having been seriously roughed up.

 

 

Dandy seems to be speaking in slow motion, and it seems like he’s about to start to cry. He tries to hide the tremor in his hands by pressing them together, but it doesn’t work. Lascano nods at Sansone and they walk out of the cell.

 

 

A few minutes later Sansone returns and hands Lascano a little paper envelope filled with white powder.

 

 

They take a few steps over to the officer, who’s dozing at his desk.

 

 

Medina takes a pack of half-crushed Particulares out of his jacket pocket and hands it to Lascano, who empties the contents out onto the desk. The two policemen watch him, intrigued. Perro pulls out the foil, puts it aside and returns the cigarettes to the box. He shakes out the foil and brushes off all traces of tobacco with his hand. He smoothes it out on the edge of the desk, blows on it, lays it down with the foil side facing up and pours some of the boric acid into it. He folds the paper carefully, fashioning a small envelope. He thanks the sergeant, motions to the deputy superintendent and they return to the cell. Lascano sits down in front of Dandy; Sansone sits to one side and watches. The prisoner’s eyes
are irresistibly drawn to the little envelope on the table. He squirms in his chair. Lascano opens the envelope, just enough to give him a glimpse of the white powder.

 

 

Dandy’s entire body betrays the urgency he feels for the coke. Nothing would feel better right now than sucking that anaesthetic in through his nostrils. Lascano observes him carefully – the prisoner has eyes only for the powder – takes a shiny new banknote out of his pocket and begins to roll it into a straw. Dandy starts to get desperate as Perro takes out the card Fermín gave him at the bank and traces two equal and parallel lines of powder on the foil.

 

 

Dandy looks at him and nods. Lascano smiles.

 

 

Lascano doesn’t need to know anything else and Dandy doesn’t have any more information. As Lascano stands up, he pretends to stumble and drops the envelope. The white powder flies through the air, falling slowly to the ground in front of Dandy’s desperate eyes. Lascano doesn’t realize he’s left Fermín’s card on the table.

 

As they walk away down the corridor, they hear Dandy’s shouts, cursing Lascano and demanding vengeance, echoing against the walls. The noise stops the second the sergeant goes to the cell and opens the door.

Still laughing, Sansone and Perro leave the building together and walk down Entre Ríos toward the House of Congress.

 

 

At Rivadavia, they each go their separate ways. Lascano continues along Callao, the name Haedo still echoing in his head. He now remembers that’s where Eva’s parents lived.

 

The envelope keeps Lascano’s chest warm. Until a few hours ago he was alone, aimless and broke. Now he has
three grand, a job – to find Miranda the Mole – and a desire – to find Eva. He feels that life is beginning to take a turn in the right direction, that just maybe all the setbacks and bad luck are moving to one side and a luckier season is about to begin. It’s odd, but he feels optimistic, which is much easier to do when you have three grand in your pocket. But that feeling summons another, which leads him to a rather shady locale in a run-down shopping arcade on Calle Bartolomé Mitre, where you can purchase a gun, no questions asked, as long as you know how to ask for it.

16

Lascano spends the whole night compiling all the bits and pieces of information about Miranda he has stashed away in his memory. He was in charge of the investigation that led to his arrest. Mole got off with a light sentence because he’s one crook who doesn’t scrimp on lawyers. He’s astute and intelligent but, unfortunately, devoted to crime. He’s always dreamt of convincing him to work for the police. A mind like his would be an enormous boon because you have to think like a criminal if you want to capture one.

The things that matter to a man tend to remain the same, despite time and experience. And if there’s one thing that matters to Miranda, it’s his family. His wife and son. As far as Lascano knows, she has nothing to do with his criminal activities. She’s a “native beauty”, the girl next door – though not such a girl any longer – who had the misfortune to fall in love with a crook. But she’s nobody’s fool: several times she managed to shake off a policeman who was tailing her to get to Miranda. The son must be about twenty by now. Too bad he doesn’t have any contacts to find out what the kid is up to. He remembers spending days and days watching the house, which is what he plans to do again now.