“Was I misinformed, then?”
“No, what they told you was correct. Ursula López gave evidence that she never received your call, that you hadn’t asked her for money, and she was telling the truth. Because when you called to demand a ransom, you didn’t call her: you called another Ursula López, you called me.”
“And? I don’t understand.”
“There are two Ursula Lópezes. Santiago’s wife and me.”
“Who are you, then?”
“Well, like I said, I’m Ursula López. But I’m another Ursula López. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“We share the same name. When you phoned to ask Ursula López, Santiago Losada’s wife, for a ransom, you called the wrong number. You called me. You called the wrong woman.”
Diego thinks. Absorbed in thought, he inspects his hands or his fingernails. He parts his lips slightly, talks slowly, takes long pauses; it is as if the words are emerging from some distant place.
“I looked for Ursula López’s number in the phone book and found yours. So it wasn’t Santiago’s wife’s number?”
“No.”
“You never told me you weren’t Santiago’s wife. You behaved as if you were.”
“That’s right. That’s why I said I’d tricked you. I went to meet you and behaved as if I was her. I wanted to be her for a moment, just a moment, and then I realized I enjoyed being another woman.”
Ursula is sitting in the dark-red velvet armchair, looking at the glass teardrops of the chandelier that hangs from the ceiling.
“I enjoyed pretending to be her, to be someone else.”
“And I asked you to pay her husband’s ransom: a million. You said you’d pay it if I … made him disappear.”
Ursula wonders if she should tell him that she, in turn, asked the other Ursula, Santiago’s wife, for the ransom money. The damn woman had pretended to agree to pay the million but had put one condition on the payment, the same one she had imposed on Diego: that the husband had to disappear. But then the bitch had betrayed her and sent the police to the hideout where Santiago was being held.
No, better not to tell him anything about the failed negotiations. Or that, when they had met in the bar that night, she had drugged Diego and followed him back to the hiding place, found him knocked out by the pills, and when she heard the police coming she reacted quickly and fled with the gun that was sitting on the table. A good decision, in the light of events, because if the police had found the weapon… In the end, she’d saved him from being prosecuted for kidnapping and extortion.
She looks at him and sighs. “Forget about the other Ursula. There’s no husband, no house in Carrasco, no swimming pool, no maids, no gardeners. And no million dollars.”
Ursula pauses, allows the words to accumulate, gives him time to process the deceit. She wonders if Diego will get angry, if he’ll shout, if he’ll storm out, slamming the door behind him. Impossible. The door to the street is locked and she’d have to go down five flights of stairs to open it for him, and during that time any fit of rage would probably dissipate or simply feel ridiculous. As we know, reality trumps theatrical gestures.
But Diego doesn’t do anything; he’s lost in thought, his disconcerted gaze wandering over the walls of the room.
“Why did you do it? Lie, I mean. Pass yourself off as somebody else.”
“I already told you, I tried it and I enjoyed it. It’s what I’ve always wanted: to be somebody else. To escape the tedium of knowing that every day would be the same.”
Diego smiles; it’s not a big smile, not even a friendly one, more like a strange expression with perhaps an element of compassion, a sign of peace. But a smile nonetheless.
“Do you remember how we said we’d be partners, Ursula?”
“Yes.”
“That’s water under the bridge; let’s forget about it, like you said. Now I’m going to propose another partnership. But this time I’m talking to you, not to Santiago’s wife. To the right woman, not the wrong one.”
Ursula takes a sip, two, puts her cup on the saucer and puts the saucer on the table. She nods, once, twice, several times. He’s talking slowly, in a low voice, in a whisper.
“I’m taking part in something big, a robbery. I need your help. Please.”
She dabs her lips and the napkin is stained pale pink. Old rose, they called it thirty years ago.
“Tell me.”
XXV
Montevideo, dawn. The city is deserted, it lies motionless, not even breathing. From the east, the first ray of sunlight touches what was once the tallest tower in South America: the Palacio Salvo. The silence is white, gilded.
At police headquarters, a radio plays jazz or blues or something else that couldn’t be less in keeping with the time and the place. Outside, the city of Montevideo is waking up, besieged as ever by a faint smell of garbage. Captain Leonilda Lima has been at her post since last night, attempting to bring together a team that is up to the challenge, giving them the instructions she’s prepared, organizing them. As we were saying, she has tried, but with little success: the men and the vehicles are either unavailable or simply don’t exist, she doesn’t know.
The fact is that, just a few hours before the heist Skinflint tipped her off about, she has only been assigned four police officers, nowhere near enough to confront a group of heavily armed criminals who are determined to attack an armoured truck.
We can’t do it like this, she decides, not like this.
She calls Chief Inspector Clemen, but he doesn’t even answer. She leaves him a message and waits. She knows he won’t call back but she waits anyway. She is suspicious, apprehensive, we said, she’s had a bad feeling ever since she learned they’d assigned her case to Leonardo Borda. But why then did they give it back to her? Her suspicion grows, developing little by little, like a novel; chapter by chapter she gathers information, and reality gradually changes.
Leonilda looks out of the window, the sun appears for a few minutes, shines, disappears, then reappears. The day will be one long string of changing situations, she thinks or assumes or predicts, she must take care, she repeats; the aspect of the planets couldn’t be worse for Capricorn.
She finally rounds up sufficient men to convince herself, at this stage and faced with the even worse option of abandoning the operation, that it will be enough.
Three patrol cars and an armoured vehicle, their sirens blaring, set off for the western approaches to the city, and from there they will head north. There’s little or no traffic, the streets are strangely empty at this time of day, nobody is talking, the only sound to be heard is the tyres on the road surface. They go through red lights, do U-turns, the screeching of the sirens giving them licence to do as they please.
They go no more than twenty blocks.
“What’s up now?”
“I don’t know. The armoured vehicle stopped.”
“This is unbelievable!”
“I’ll get out and see what’s happening, Captain.”
“Hurry up, Rojas.”
Captain Leonilda Lima holds her head in her hands, sighs, is torn between undoing her seat belt to leap out of the car in a rage and just accepting her fate. She goes for the middle option; she gets out of the car and approaches the armoured vehicle.
“What’s the problem, Sergeant?”
“Engine seems to have seized up, Captain.”
The morning, in keeping with predictions, is going from bad to worse, and it feels as if the light is suddenly fading. She swallows.
“Can you fix it?”
The man looks at her in that way men look at women who ask them about mechanical problems.
“No,” he says, making no mention of her rank.
The eloquence of the monosyllable, shiny and smooth, can sometimes be brutal. There’s not much to add.
“Is another vehicle available?”
“Afraid not.”
It’s the hour just after dawn, when the woods are cloaked in ne
wborn green, the mountains are incandescent and the sprinklers spray pure silver. Except that here there are no woods or mountains or water, not even a little patch of garden with a lawn in front of those poor houses with their bare cement walls.
She runs her hand through her hair. It was foretold, you can’t challenge fate; it’s best just to resign yourself and go with the flow. She stares into space and for a moment she seems to be in a trance. Her face has a placid air, or at least that’s what the sergeant who’s watching her thinks, although of course he doesn’t use the word “placid”. Then she takes out her phone and makes some calls.
But she’s quite certain that whatever she does and whoever she calls, she won’t arrive on time.
XXVI
Dawn filters through the curtains of the old apartment, at first faint and pale, then with that fiery glow of the early light of a winter morning, illuminating the worn leather armchairs, the old Persian rugs, the oak desk. And Ursula’s face.
Ursula, standing with her arm outstretched, is aiming at nothing in particular. “Bam, bam, bam,” she says, then blows across the barrel of the revolver and tucks the .38 Special between the waistband of her trousers and her underwear. She performs a ninety-degree turn, whips out the gun again, aims, shouts “Bam, bam, bam”, blows on the barrel, and puts it back in her waistband. She repeats the action a few more times, until she grows tired or bored or decides she’s had enough practice.
Now she’s sitting, concentrating, the revolver in her hand, a box of bullets on the table, deploying the soft lint-free cloth she uses to clean her collection of figurines. But today it is not the turn of the Japanese figurines. Today is not Sunday, and instead she is cleaning the gun, polishing it until it feels smooth, until metal and wood are like silk. She inspects her work and is satisfied.
On the wall hang oil paintings of family members, photographs of the same people, births, weddings, holidays, reminders of the dead: all of them are dead except for her and Luz.
She stops again, plants her legs, leans forward, looks ahead. She pulls out the gun and aims, in a single movement. Bam, bam, bam.
Ursula’s pose reminds us of a sheriff in a western poster: one foot forward, the knees very slightly bent, her gaze fixed on a target we can’t see, and the revolver – whipped from its holster or from her trouser waistband – extended in a straight line that starts at her nose, continues along her outstretched arm, and ends with the gun.
She looks at her watch; it’s gone half past six.
She’s hungry. That hunger she feels when she’s anxious, needy, nervous, when she feels alone, depressed, nostalgic, angry: the hunger of memories, the hunger of the void. She walks over to the fridge, takes out rice, fish, sugar-free jelly, low-fat yogurt, unsalted cheese, fat-free ham, wholemeal crackers, carries everything over to the table with the low-calorie mayonnaise, olive oil, light dressings and sauces, takes a nibble here and a nibble there, opens a tin of frankfurters, defrosts a small portion of lentil stew, spoons some lentils into her mouth, spears some cheese and some ham, swamps them in ketchup and swallows, bites into meat, takes a piece of ravioli, dips it in vinaigrette, mops up some cream with the last of the noodles, gulps down the asparagus soup.
The feelings of satisfaction and of guilt arrive almost at the same time.
Ursula sits motionless, looks in disgust at the leftovers from her little feast, closes her eyes. She needs to get rid of everything, to empty the fridge. She promises not to do it again, but she knows or suspects the flesh is weak, that her flesh is weak. Living in such a fragile body is disturbing. She is aware of how wasteful it is to throw away all this food and she swears – she swears blind – that she won’t buy it again, ever. Sorrowfully, she places the jar of blueberry jam in the kitchen trash, slowly disposes of the two packets of filled pasta, throws out the salami and even the Christmas nougat. It wasn’t so difficult; the real challenge will be not to buy more of the same. She opens the cupboard and throws tins of food to the floor, sweeps packets and jars from the shelves, chucks everything into black plastic bags which she then drags to the front door and leaves on the landing.
She closes the door, leans against it, her breathing agitated. Gradually she calms down.
Ursula goes back to her desk. The sun, which has already moved almost a yard, is now falling on the revolver. She looks at it, caresses it, picks it up and smells it: jasmine, ylang-ylang and rosewater, with just a hint of vetiver oil. The scent of the last person to hold it, the scent of her own hand. But, more than this aroma, the smell of the house is deep and familiar: it smells of old wood, of worn leather, of pipes blocked off years ago, of yellowing books, of a life that has passed. Finally, she puts the gun in her bag, adds the binoculars, a packet of wholemeal crackers that has survived the massacre, her sunglasses, a box of surgical gloves, a bottle of water, and a cardigan in case it gets cold.
Ten past seven.
Out of habit she turns on the television, a large set housed in dark wood. The images are grainy, the voices full of static. There is a news report about a gang of criminals caught by the police in the middle of an assault on a payday loan shop, one of the participants dying after being shot with a high-calibre weapon owned by the store manager; the journalist holds his microphone in front of a man who says this is the tenth time he’s been robbed so far this year, the camera focuses on a body, the dead robber, as someone covers the corpse with a large bag or a nylon sheet. Ursula strides over to the television, rips out the cable, and the television dies.
She leaves with the cable in her hand and throws it down next to the bags.
In an hour’s time, everything will have begun.
PART TWO
9.23 a.m.
This is the scene: the Nissan truck, its engine running, is waiting on the south side of Calle Rosaleda, ten yards from the corner with Calle Río Colorado. Inside are Ricardo and the Skinflint, both smoking. At Ricardo’s feet lies the Calico M960 semi-automatic (calibre 9×19 mm Luger; empty weight 2.17 kg; open length 835 mm; barrel length 330 mm; rate of fire 750 shots per minute; magazine capacity 100 cartridges). In his pocket is the Smith & Wesson .38 Special (calibre .38+P, double action; capacity five bullets; barrel length 4.8 cm; total length 16.8 cm; weight 405.4 g). Tucked into his belt, under his jacket, the Skinflint has one of the SIG Sauers (calibre 9 mm Parabellum; length 180 mm; weight 642 g). On the back seat is a box with ten grenades.
In front of the Nissan, about fifty yards further down, still on Rosaleda, sits a Toyota truck, white, double cab, green tinted glass, the engine off, Diego inside. The other Calico is on the floor of the vehicle but as far as possible from his feet. He doesn’t want to look at it, doesn’t want to think; he isn’t allowed to be afraid and, for a moment, he plays at believing he is part of this group that, any second now, will launch its attack. He wants to belong, tries to pull himself together. He takes a pill from his pocket, throws his head back and tosses the pill into his mouth. He struggles to swallow it.
Half a block from where Diego sits, Ricardo has been cutting out lines of coke with his identity card and snorting them, one after another, for the last thirty minutes. He seems happy and he laughs at everything; he makes a circle with his mouth, as if he was about to whistle, and his thick lips tremble as if he had a chilli pepper on his tongue. He opens his mouth and taps his thumbnail against his nicotine-stained teeth, and looks at the Skinflint with an expression he must think is full of meaning. The Skinflint avoids the Hobo’s gaze and stares instead into the emptiness outside; he accepted a couple of lines and now he feels more nervous than before, more afraid. He wishes he could leave. He checks the time on his phone. All this quilombo, all this chaos, all this fear, for a few pesos and a used motorbike.
“That’s the way, Skinflint. You stuck by me. The rest just disappeared like smoke.”
“You’ve got to understand. Nobody wants to get involved with a cash truck, Hobo. Too many guns, too much violence.”
“That’s why we’ll be rich while they�
��re still eating cold stew. Cowards. Just as well I put the squeeze on the Sparrow.”
“Does he have any experience?”
“He’s a rookie but he just has to load the bags and drive. I wasn’t spoiled for choice; it was him or nobody. Bunch of fuckin chickens, they all pulled out on me.”
“It’s an armoured truck, Hobo…”
Fifty yards away, Diego is sure it’s going to be a disaster. He takes another pill from another pack, throws his head back again and, once more, tosses the pill into his mouth. Agony is the word that best describes his state of mind. He thinks about people who live according to a plan, who know exactly what is going to happen to them for days, months, years. Bankers, ministers, all those organized men who live to a plan, like a map of their lives, a GPS which tells them what route to follow in their existence. His life, in contrast, is directionless.
On the block, there are no shops or offices, just low houses, grey buildings – some of brick or bare concrete; a middle class dragged down by successive crises from which some people never recover, houses built by their inhabitants ten years ago, when this was still countryside. Between the white Toyota and the Nissan is a tall tree, thirty feet high, still covered with leaves, an Indian lilac or a rosewood. Just opposite is a locked garage, which we know opens in the afternoon; the floor is black with oil, and in front of it sits the useless carcass of a rusty old bus.
There’s almost nobody around. It’s 9.23 in the morning and those who go off to work or school already left a while ago, while the rest are staying inside, not putting so much as their noses out into the cold air. There aren’t many vehicles either: very occasionally a cheap Chinese motorbike, a rusty bicycle, a car with the bumper held on by string.
On Rosaleda, west past Río Colorado, a couple of hundred yards further along, inside his Audi A6, is Antinucci. Hidden behind tinted glass, he trains his binoculars on where the action will unfold. He is keeping his beady eye on proceedings. He arrived more than an hour ago and he hasn’t allowed himself to smoke inside the car or to get out and smoke on the sidewalk; as a result, his mood is steadily worsening. He strikes the steering wheel with the gold ring on which the initials VAA are engraved in relief, surrounded by scrollwork; he bites his lips, first the lower one then the upper, and starts again. He tries to concentrate on monitoring the street, the faces of the few passers-by, but he can’t hold on any longer, if he doesn’t get out to smoke he’s going to light up right here, inside the car. And that would be impossible, unforgivable: he looks after his car like he’s nursing a sick child. He opens the door and almost hurls himself out; he searches his pockets, repeatedly, convinced he has an unopened packet in there. He checks everywhere but the cigarettes don’t appear and Antinucci, the tension rising, feels as if he’s about to explode. He decides to walk to the kiosk on the corner, although he doesn’t like leaving the car and its contents: the RPG-7 grenade launcher (40 mm-calibre launcher and 85 mm-calibre shell; PGO-7 and UP-7V telescopic sight; weight 7 kg; length 950 mm; range 920 m). Obviously he has to leave it. Or was he thinking of taking it to the kiosk, hidden perhaps beneath his overcoat, the barrel poking out at the collar, just next to his left ear? He shakes his head, laughing at his own thoughts, opens the back to check it’s still there, then closes it, checks a couple more times that the back door is closed properly, looks at the time: the clock is ticking, he needs to get a move on.
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