From outside, the building looks as if it’s abandoned.
Ursula stops the car at the garage entrance. A van in fluorescent purple and yellow drives past, and on the rear of the vehicle she reads: securitrack – satellite vehicle monitoring. She feels her insides turn to liquid. Then she hears Diego’s voice, mixing with music that comes from a long way away.
“Here? Is this your garage?”
She feels that something is wrong. The fluorescent van and its lettering disappear, merging into the mid-morning traffic of the Old Town. The sun came out a few moments ago and has turned the rain to mist.
“Yes, this is it,” she replies.
“Shall we get out?”
Still lost in thought, she looks at her companion without really registering what she sees. She hesitates, feels afraid. Things Ursula never usually does: hesitating, feeling afraid. She manages to bring herself back down to Planet Earth, and answers him.
“Not yet, Diego. I’m thinking.”
“What are you thinking?”
Ursula sighs or takes a deep breath, we suspect as a preamble to an important announcement.
“I think they’re following us, and I think this van might have, I don’t know, some way of tracking us. Do you know how satellite monitoring works?”
Diego thinks for a moment and then nods, slowly, several times. “Yes, of course I know. The van could have GPS. If that’s the case, it would be very easy to locate us, to follow us. I guess it would make sense for the boss to stick a tracking device on a vehicle carrying so much money.”
“You told me you don’t know who the boss is, though.”
“No. They didn’t tell me —”
“Really?”
“Okay, okay. I know his name. But I’m not sure I’d be doing you a favour if I told you.”
“Please, Diego, we have to share all the information we’ve got. We’re partners.”
Diego hesitates, then finally says the name.
Ursula sighs. Her nose twitches slightly.
“That name rings a bell. It’ll come to me, but I can’t put my finger on it just now. And where could that GPS be?”
Diego thinks, looks out of the window, takes a moment.
“Anywhere a small device could be attached.”
“So we’d have to check the van from top to bottom. That would take ages.”
“It could do.”
“We don’t have that much time.”
“No. So what are we going to do?”
“To start with, I’m going to keep driving. Now we know they’re following us, we can’t stop here. It would be like putting a cross on a map.”
Ursula gets moving. Diego is still thinking, biting his lip to stop it from trembling. They drive around aimlessly.
“Any ideas yet, Diego?”
“Like what?”
“Like some way of locating the GPS or cancelling it out. Think. You’re the engineer in this partnership.”
Diego smiles. “And what does that make you, Ursula?”
She thinks, doesn’t answer straight away.
“The guiding hand, the finger that squeezes the trigger,” she says. “Who knows? What a question to ask at a time like this.”
Diego looks at his companion. “I think I’ve got an idea.”
“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me. Tell me about it.”
“If we’re carrying a GPS – and it seems pretty likely we are – then it wouldn’t work if it was somewhere covered by a thick layer of concrete.”
Ursula drives carefully, obeying the street signs, respecting priorities.
“I don’t know how easy it’s going to be to find somewhere covered with a layer of concrete, and a thick one to boot.”
“It shouldn’t be that difficult. It could be a building with several floors.”
Ursula looks at Diego, momentarily devoting all her attention to him. “You’re a genius.” She speaks almost with reverence.
“Thank you. Even if I don’t know why.”
“You said a building with several floors.”
“Yes. What are you thinking about?”
“A multistorey garage.”
“I think I’ve got you.”
“Let’s see what you think of this plan. You get out at the corner and walk to my garage, the house I just showed you. You take my car to the parking garage on the corner of Cerrito and Juan Carlos Gómez. I’ll be waiting for you on the second floor with this van, and we transfer the money from the Toyota to my car. Then one of us takes the van and dumps it, somewhere close by, in the port, and one of us takes my car and the money, puts my car in the small garage, and waits there for the other to return. Completely safe. What do you think?”
“Isn’t it a bit risky to do the swap where there will be people coming and going all the time?”
“The comings and goings aren’t a problem; they’ll protect us from the gang. If you don’t like it, come up with an alternative.”
Silence.
“There’s something else. I think they’ve been following us since we got onto 8 de Octubre, but for some reason they haven’t intercepted us.”
“Why do you think they haven’t stopped us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they prefer to move in the shadows. I guess the boss doesn’t want to mount an operation somewhere as busy as this and attract attention, especially from the police.”
“Okay, Ursula, let’s do it. We can’t wait any longer. You say this place, your garage, is safe?”
“As a Swiss bank.”
“And nobody lives in the house?”
“Just a kid who works in a bookshop, like I already said. He leaves at eight in the morning and gets back at eight in the evening. Slave labour, you know; they take advantage of young people. I trust him completely.”
“And the garage isn’t linked to the house?”
“There’s a metal door with a bolt on the other side, but Sebastián never locks it. And I’ll tell you a secret: there’s a passageway linking the house to the bookshop where he works. He showed it to me, one of those stone tunnels from the colonial period. He discovered it himself. Even the bookshop owners don’t know it exists.”
There are a few empty moments. A dry sound erupts from Diego’s throat before he starts to speak.
“Ursula, I know I owe you my life.”
This is followed by a silence that lasts the time it takes for a bus to drive the length of the block. Ursula observes the man’s eyes, the shape of his face, his hair, even his ears, his nose. She sizes him up.
“Here are the keys. Take the car, go to the place at the corner of Cerrito and Juan Carlos Gómez, and meet me on the second floor. I’ll be waiting.” Ursula smiles at him with affection, with pity, with an expression that also contains a hint of savage violence. “And don’t worry about what you owe me, Diego. We’ll settle up later.”
10.35 a.m.
Leonilda Lima listens to her boss and her world crumbles; she feels a wave of anxiety, senses a self-fulfilling prophecy. As she feared, more than the stars have come between her and this case, of which she has just been relieved without commentary or explanation.
“Captain Borda will be in charge now,” announces Inspector Clemen in a strong icy voice.
Silence. She doesn’t argue with orders, she never has, but something sticks in her throat, stops her from breathing. It’s not exactly a discovery, because it’s something she’s gradually been realizing over time, so slowly that she has hardly noticed until now. The suspicion eats away at her brain, worms its way into her consciousness. The words struggle and finally emerge.
“What are your orders, Inspector?”
Leonilda looks straight at Clemen; she can’t blink, doesn’t want to, because if she does the tears will course down her cheeks.
“You’ve already done more than enough for today, Leonilda. You can go back to the office and finish your shift there. I’ll see you tomorrow, God willing.”
The two men take control, start to shout, to make ph
one calls. Borda yells:
“No press, I don’t want any journalists. Expand the perimeter beyond the corners. No press.”
She moves away as if she were being pushed, runs to the car, claps her hands in frustration and anger, lowers her gaze to hide red-rimmed eyes brimming with tears. She asks someone for a cigarette and lights it. The tip flickers as she inhales, the flame catches; she looks at the smoke and it makes her think of ectoplasm, a presence from the beyond that has come to speak to her, to reveal something, but which vanishes before she hears it. She finishes, smokes the last of the cigarette and throws it away, treads on it with the sole of her boot, grinds it into pieces. Her teeth are clenched so tight that her jaws are starting to ache.
Leonilda gets into the unmarked car she’s been assigned; she’ll go to HQ, to her office. She drives off. Just as suddenly as it appeared, her anger dissipates, her face relaxes, her shoulders release their tension and drop. Fate is strange, bringing her back to this poor neighbourhood, this place where she spent her childhood. And all this money, stolen from an armoured truck, money that somebody was no doubt taking to a safe place, if it wasn’t already well hidden.
Still on Rosaleda, past Río Colorado, Leonilda stops and gets out to buy some cigarettes at a kiosk. She walks a few steps, buys a packet, takes one out, lights it. A voice comes from somewhere off to the side, by the kiosk window.
“Is that you, Leo?”
The woman is framed by the ramshackle doorway, an opening that lacks either door or gate, just a gap leading onto some narrow passages, giving onto dwellings constructed from wood and corrugated iron, shacks where the poorest of the poor live, where true poverty resides. She’s old and wears a greasy apron, on which she repeatedly wipes her hands, with their long, uneven, grimy fingernails. Her grey shapeless slippers drag along the ground until she is standing in front of Leonilda, who struggles not to retreat as she reels at the stench of rancid stew, stale piss and nameless filth.
“Do I know you?”
“I was friends with your mother when you were small. Then you moved into town.”
“Yes, I used to live here when I was a kid. What’s your name?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you my name. You’re a cop, aren’t you? You’re sniffing around after that robbery.”
“I’m not involved with that case.”
The woman looks at her suspiciously, but it’s clear she wants to talk.
“Mara, that’s me. Don’t you remember? I’m Mara. I had a shop and a hairdresser’s. Your mum used to bring you to get your hair cut when you were just a kid. This was all countryside back then. With a farmhouse over there, where you lived.”
Leonilda remembers a small room at the back of a shop: two beds, a basin for washing people’s hair, a standing hairdryer, combs and brushes, clothes and towels, tangled cables, coloured rollers. She doesn’t recall any faces, doesn’t recall Mara.
“Of course I remember,” she says.
The woman pulls a face, sucks her top lip and moves her tongue from side to side, accompanying all of this with a watery noise. Leonilda can’t take her eyes off the toothless hole; she tries not to feel disgust.
“I saw the man who fired the bombs that blew up the money truck.”
“You heard bombs?”
“I don’t know what they’re called: explosions, yes. The guy was right here, he had this big gun, this weapon he fired and – boom! – there were bits of truck flying all over the place. I heard it all. And I saw it too, my eyes are still good.”
“Did you see it or just hear it? Can you describe this weapon that was firing the bombs?”
The woman tells how she peeked out without being seen, describes something Leonilda thinks could be a grenade launcher. That would explain the destruction at the scene of the robbery.
“And the man? Can you describe the man who was doing the shooting, Mara?”
The old woman laughs with her almost empty mouth, revealing bare gums.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
The old woman looks around, to one side of the street and to the other; there’s not a soul to be seen. She lowers her voice to a whisper.
“If you pay me. Last night they put the word out, said there’d be trouble in the morning, something big was going down, told us to stay put and not talk to anybody. But everyone else got 500 pesos and I got nothing. They think I’m old and deaf, and the bastards gave me nothing. I’ll talk if you give me my 500 pesos.”
“Okay, I can give you 500 pesos. Tell me about the man with the grenade launcher. The gun thing that fired bombs, I mean.”
“Tall, thin, eyes like hard-boiled eggs. Blue suit. Big car, big and dark. Walking like the street belonged to him. You going to give me the cash? Those bastards, they didn’t give me a bean. But they paid everyone else around here.”
Leonilda hands over a banknote and makes her way to the car as if she was sleepwalking. Then she dives inside and takes out the card Antinucci gave her. She tries to recall what the Skinflint told her. What was the boss of the organization called? Now she thinks about it, he never confirmed the name, just said he was a lawyer, Antiruchi or Anticruchi or something. She calls a number.
“Did you follow that guy like I told you? Where is he? Good, don’t lose sight of him, I’m heading over.”
10.40 a.m.
A few minutes ago, Ursula entered the garage on the corner of Cerrito and Juan Carlos Gómez. She waited on the second floor for Diego to arrive, and the two of them transferred the money from the Toyota to the Volkswagen. Everything went pretty smoothly, despite the problem of squeezing all the bags into a far smaller space and the interest taken by people in cars parked nearby. In fact, this isn’t really a case of interest in general but rather of one observer whose gaze is a little more insistent than the others, a man who has parked his hatchback just a few yards away. Diego feels himself turning to stone as the man approaches, and then relaxes a little when the stranger just asks for a light and walks away, down the ramp, without a second glance. Ursula feels a knot in her stomach when she sees all this money for the first time but she controls herself.
“Who’s going to get rid of the Toyota and who’s going to take my car to the garage?”
“Whatever you decide, Ursula.” Diego’s voice is a barely intelligible whisper.
She thinks about it for a few seconds.
“You’re stronger; you’ll have to unload the bags, hide them. There’s a locker at the back. Did you see it when you got the car? Stick the bags in there, then lock it. Turn the key twice. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. And wait for me.”
Diego just stands there looking like a wreck, his teeth chattering, his hands trembling, his hair damp with sweat.
“Come on, Diego. It’ll only take a few minutes. You’ve already got the key for the garage; the key to the locker is in the door.”
“I don’t know if I can do it alone. I feel ill. I feel sick, dizzy.”
“Pull yourself together, man. It’s just a moment. I’ll be there in no time and take care of everything. At least go to the garage and wait there. I’ll deal with the bags later.”
He looks at the money and looks at her but he can’t focus properly; his vision is blurred and he knows that any moment he’ll start to faint, feel the tingling in his arms and legs. He can’t bring himself to tell Ursula he’s not sure he can drive the four or five blocks from here to the garage. For the umpteenth time he searches for the pills in one of his pockets, but he can’t find them.
“Okay, Diego. The world is no place for cowards. God spits out the faint-hearted.”
Diego feels a rising sense of suffocation; the world is getting away from him and he is left immersed in amniotic fluid, struggling to make the slightest movement.
“The car’s already loaded and our money’s in danger. Do you want them to find us, to come and take it away from us?”
Diego manages to shake his head. He looks down, although he’s
not sure whether he cares about losing the money just now.
“Well, hurry up then.”
He gets into Ursula’s car and feels a stabbing pain in his chest as he does up the seat belt. Somehow he manages to coordinate the series of simple actions required to start the engine; he drives off, gripping the steering wheel, and goes down the ramp. Diego drives slowly, at walking pace, afraid he will be unable to control his shaking hands, afraid of crashing into a wall or another vehicle, of plunging into the void. He feels palpitations in his chest, his abdomen, his throat. He stops at the barrier and his fingers are unable to press the green button, until eventually someone comes out of the booth, walks over and opens it manually. He closes his eyes while he waits, hears himself groaning, listens to himself crying, a noise that sounds like rusty tin and comes from his chest. When he drives out onto the street he realizes his window is down and the wind is coming in; the salty air hits him in the face, the cold makes him blink. His hands are slick with sweat, and they slip on the steering wheel. He drives without really knowing where he is, careful not to crash or to stop, he takes wrong turns, trying to get his bearings. He can’t fail Ursula now, he can’t, but he doesn’t know how to control this impulse to get out of the car and run off, to run until he is far from everything, far away from his fear. He tries to fill his lungs but he suspects he won’t be able to, he knows the symptoms: now he will start to suffocate, an iron corset squeezing his chest. He manages to stop the car at the corner, against the kerb, he struggles for air, holds the steering wheel to keep himself from falling. A ghastly noise emerges from his chest. Anxiety, panic.
When this moment arrives Diego feels failure and pain; he wants to die. But he can’t let Ursula down, he can’t just abandon all this money they’ve risked so much to get. God spits out the faint-hearted, Ursula said. He tries to pull himself together, tries to breathe. A little air enters his lungs and he feels some temporary relief; the danger of fainting recedes, at least for a few seconds. He sets off, drives a few blocks. The cathedral bells chime, he doesn’t know how many times, after six he loses count. It must be midday, there are a lot of people in the street, the restaurants have put out tables despite the cold and the threatening clouds. His body moves slowly inside the car and once again he has that sensation of floating in viscous fluid. He stops constantly; all around, car horns are honking, pedestrians and drivers are gesticulating furiously. He could stop again, right there, throw himself out of the car without even pausing to close the door, abandon the vehicle and the money, what does he care, run to the nearest corner and get into a taxi, go to hell, far from his failure and his fear. The temptation is huge. Diego struggles to breathe but succeeds in filling his lungs. He looks at the back seat, sees the bags of money that didn’t fit in the boot; he’ll have to pluck up his courage, grit his teeth, send his fear to hell, and act. That’s what Ursula expects of him. He has to get to the rendezvous, unload the bags, put them in the locker. And he is gripped by panic. Will he be able to get Ursula’s car into such a small space, such a narrow garage? But then, if he was able to get it out before, surely he can get it back in? He’ll have to do it, damn it. He stops at the next crossing, breathes in and out, takes Calle Buenos Aires. More than once he confuses the brake with the clutch; the car lurches forward. There are only three or four blocks to go. He turns left onto Treinta y Tres, stops again at an intersection, looks at the people: they seem normal, not afraid, not anxious; he wonders where they carry their failures, how they handle them, and he feels the moisture of the bay on his cheeks. Through the tears, he observes the street that leads down to the waterfront. He takes a few deep breaths and the dizziness, the fear of passing out, gradually disappear.
Crocodile Tears Page 15