Sweet Money (6 page)

 

 

Miranda has a moment of surprise before feeling like the biggest idiot on the planet. But what really pisses him off is that this divine young thing has just called him
sir
. He’s a new man when he re-emerges on the street and tears open the envelope: Antibodies ANTI-HIV1/ HIV2… Negative (ELISA). He crumples up the piece of paper and throws it in a trash can. It’s a sunny morning and life itself is singing through the streets.

 

He spends the rest of the day re-establishing contacts, digging around, finding out what people are up to. Who lost, who died, who’s bolted, what’s in the works, and what’s up with the Federal Police, dubbed by themselves in typically modest Argentinean fashion as “the best in the world”. He collects information here and there, patiently gathering facts and more facts, by telephone and
in the cafés where the denizens of his world hang out. The panorama starts to take shape in his head, a map of the current situation and future possibilities. On the one hand, he’s angry. For a long time he’d been mulling over the idea of fundamentally changing his life, of starting a legitimate business, something tranquil, of keeping out of trouble, finally giving Duchess the life she’s been wanting for as long as he can remember. Settling down, becoming the family man he thinks he is deep down and welcoming his grandchildren when they come along. Maybe, just maybe, when his time is up, he’ll die peacefully in his own bed. But now that he knows his money has been devoured by Noelia’s illness, none of that will be possible. Not in the short run at least. He’s up a blind alley, and this setback pisses him off. Again he has to resort to a bank job, but the more he thinks about it, the more the anger begins to give way to a quite different sensation. Something akin to vertigo lodges in the pit of his stomach and sends currents of electricity to his muscles, focuses his vision and lets him shake off the last traces of lethargy left over from prison. This heist, he promises himself briefly, will be the last one. It will be the heist to end all heists. Now the world ceases to be merely a place where people are walking past him engaged in their own affairs, attending to their business, going to their dismal little jobs and enacting their tiny ambitions. The Earth is now a game reserve, a free zone where anything is possible. Everywhere transactions are taking place. How much money is there in Buenos Aires on any single day? In people’s pockets, in cash registers, in offices… in bank safes. It’s a simple matter of making a minuscule portion of it land in his pocket. And
he’s going to figure out how: choose a target, calculate probabilities, scope out the scene, take measurements, calculate timing, find access and escape routes and carefully choose cohorts. He’ll need brave but not reckless people. Must avoid psychopaths and murderers, find guys who like the good life, not those who enjoy making other people suffer. Killing and violence must be avoided. Intimidation is one thing; murder quite a different one. The dead are expensive, concrete; money, on the other hand, is abstract, worth only what you can buy with it and that’s always in flux. Victims have friends, relatives who adore them, avengers who never forget. Life lost never returns; money can always be recovered. Money can also be given back or used to buy impunity. Death can only be avenged, and if it’s the law that settles accounts, it’s called justice. The only true revenge is the death of the killer. The chain can go on forever. Perhaps if Cain hadn’t killed Abel there’d be no wars today. That’s assuming, of course, that the story actually took place.

He’s made three observations he considers important. One: many police stations are being renovated; they’re surrounded by workers, materials, barriers and containers. Two: many banks are also being renovated; the scene is similar to that at the stations. Three, and this is a real boon: in a few days Independiente play the final match of the Intercontinental Cup against Liverpool in Tokyo. Miranda smiles. Rarely has there been such a favourable convergence. His mind soars as it catalogues each and every detail he must take into account in order to execute a plan that he’s already sketched out in his head.

He walks back to his hideout. He arrives at that uncertain hour when daylight is still in the sky, but at street level it’s already night. He carefully chooses the outfit he’s going to wear and lays it out on the bed. Dark suit, white shirt, a Liberty of London flowery tie, a bit shabby but the flowers are still in bloom. Boxer shorts and cotton socks. He shaves, showers, dries himself off, douses himself in cologne, lies down in bed naked and turns on the television set. He likes to air himself out after bathing. Now he can do it, now that he has begun to enjoy his freedom. He turns on the TV and watches the new Chief of Police giving a press conference. In fact, he’s talking precisely about the plans to renovate the local precinct stations in order to improve public service. The journalist points to a logo on a patrol car that reads: “To serve the community”, which the chief says reflects the new philosophy that must infuse such an institution in a participatory and democratic society. The true change, Mole thinks, is in the way people talk. The language he uses sounds more educated, more refined. The police higher-ups no longer speak in street slang, they’re starting to act more like politicians than policemen. He dozes off. Bernando Neustadt, the TV commentator, wakes him up with his sissy voice. He expresses his disappointment, he misses the iron fist of the armed forces. Miranda turns off the TV. He gets up and gets dressed. It’s time to take his final exam, and he feels like he knows the material backward and forward.

 

From the shadows across the street he watches the students of Lía’s Art Studios leave the building and walking away in groups of twos or threes, carrying their portfolios under their arms. Mole looks at his watch. It’s a little after
ten at night. He waits two minutes, crosses the street and enters the building. From the foyer he can see Lía, who has not yet noticed his arrival. She has an asymmetrical haircut with a quiff of shocking-red hair falling over half her face. She’s got a great body, and her lily-white skin is not marred by a mole, a freckle or even a spot, according to his memory of her body from very close range. Nobody would guess that this tiny woman is as powerful as a locomotive when she makes love. Miranda smiles with satisfaction; he feels his sex getting restless. Her unconditional loyalty to him seems a lot like love but also contains a good dose of gratitude, a rare virtue Mole values highly. He convinced her to give up prostitution, paid for her to take classes with a painter with an unpronounceable name, whom everyone called Bear, set her up in the studio and bought the equipment that allowed her to become what she is now, what she calls a plastic artist. Miranda thinks this is funny because, as far as he can tell, this girl hasn’t a touch of plastic about her. Lía’s charm sells more paintings than her brush and as a born survivor on her way to fame and fortune, she knows quite well how to deploy her virtues to their full advantage. Just as Lía starts to take off her apron, she sees him. She looks surprised, then freezes, then shoots him a sidelong glance out from under that cute red quiff. Then a smile, unreserved and also bright red, spreads out like a curtain to reveal a vaudeville of teeth, restless tongue and shining eyes.

 

 

Lía gives him a complicit smile and picks up the telephone.

 

 

She hangs up and dials again.

 

 

With one quick movement, she grabs her leather jacket and her purse, then turns off the light. She motions to Miranda to go out of the door before her. She closes and locks it behind her, takes his arm and walks quickly with him to the corner. They turn up an alleyway and stop in front of a boarded-up house. Under an enormous rubber
tree, Lía turns and plants a kiss on Miranda’s mouth, which he reciprocates by putting his arms around her waist and pressing her against his body. Lía disengages, turns toward the main street and lifts her arm as gracefully as she possibly can. The taxi driver is young but the city has already poisoned his spirit. Lía is sitting next to Miranda, definitely pressing her thigh against his. Her aroma, the physical contact, the sound of Lía’s voice awaken each and every cell in Mole’s body, which is joyous and full of energy, anticipating the delights of this woman’s body that he knows he’s going to inhabit that very night when he’s a bit lightheaded from the wine they’ll have with their meal. The driver is listening to disco music at full volume. Lía gently strums her fingers against Miranda’s hand to the beat of the music. They do not speak. The taxi driver derives some kind of neurotic pleasure from speed and his remarkable skill at swerving in and out between the traffic and the pedestrians. He drives with cunning, passing other cars along Avenida Corrientes, which, at that moment, is relatively deserted. He pulls into the lead and catches the green wave, never letting other drivers sneak into the empty spots at the corners between the cars that are waiting for the lights to change. All the while he is constantly checking to make sure no sleepwalker wanders into the road from one of the side streets, modulating his speed as he approaches each light. In mere minutes they have crossed the city from Colegiales to near the Plaza San Martín, where Lía takes him by the hand and leads him into Morizono, a Japanese restaurant where Mandrake the Magician’s girlfriend prepares delicious rolls of raw fish with rice. Life has finally shaken itself awake. Prison has been left a thousand years behind.

9

Valli sees the sign from the freeway, takes the next exit, drives over the overpass and returns along the frontage road to Two Gold Coins grill. The last customers are still gorging themselves on pieces of mixed grill washed down with cheap wine. Horacio is stirring the coals and spreading them out to create the uniform heat he needs to finish cooking without burning a few large pieces of flank steak. Valli walks through the wood-framed opening hung with plastic that serves as a door. Fatso Horacio has left part of the grill without coals. That’s where he piles up the grilled chorizos he’ll heat up for that night’s dinner. Valli walks up to the bar and sits down on one of the stools.

 

 

Horacio checks to make sure nobody is listening.

 

 

The next day Horacio parks his car in front of the Retiro bus terminal. Around his own neighbourhood, they call his Valiant II “The Panther” because of the of black spots showing through the yellow he painted on after he stole it. Horacio puts on the steering-wheel lock and walks into Villa 31, the shanty town. He turns down an alleyway and continues for about two hundred yards till he gets to the home of One-Eyed Giardina.

 

In 1965 anti-Peronist thugs organized a demonstration against Isabelita Perón, right in front of Hotel Alvear Palace in the middle of Barrio Norte, where she was staying. For a little spare change, Giardina signed up to be counted in this demonstration for the posh and privileged. But the plebs from the Infantry Guards beat
the demonstrators with sticks and shot tear gas canisters at their heads. One of those canisters took out one of his eyes.

 

Horacio stops next to one of the hovels, in front of a paisley cloth curtain. He hears two men inside talking. He claps his hands. The voices stop. A moment later One-Eyed appears and invites him to come in. An ashen-faced man sits at a wooden table in front of a jug of red wine and a plate full of cubes of salami and cheese.