by Levy, Marc
“Because you’re on to something big, and you don’t want to disclose it all to me just yet.”
“That’s a funny thing to assume.”
“I’ve got to know you, Andrew. Let’s make this work for both of us. I agree to your request: you can go back to Argentina. But if you want the paper to cover your expenses, you’ll have to satisfy my curiosity. Have you picked up this man’s trail?”
Andrew looked at his boss for a moment. If there was one thing he had learned on this job, it was that you couldn’t trust anyone. But he knew that if he didn’t give her any information, Olivia wouldn’t let him go back to Buenos Aires. And she’d guessed right: it was only early May and he hadn’t wrapped up the investigation, not by a long shot.
“I think I’m on the right track,” he admitted grudgingly, setting his coffee mug down on the table.
“And, as your notes seem to imply, he was mixed up in this traffic?”
“Hard to say for sure. Several people were mixed up in that business, and folks down there are tight-lipped. It’s still a painful subject for most Argentinians. By the way, since we’re swapping confidences: why are you so hung up on this investigation?”
Olivia stared at him.
“You’ve already tracked him down, haven’t you? You’ve got hold of Ortiz.”
“Maybe. But you’re right—I need some more information before we can go to press with it. That’s why I need to go back there. You haven’t answered my question, by the way.”
Olivia got up, motioning for him to stay on and finish his croissant. “This is your number one priority, Andrew. I want you on this story full-time. I’m giving you exactly one month, and not a day more.”
Andrew watched his boss walking out of the cafeteria. Two thoughts occurred to him. He couldn’t care less about her threats; he knew perfectly well that he’d be leaving for Buenos Aires at the end of the month, and that he’d finish his investigation. But Olivia had caught him unawares during their conversation. He’d had to think twice before saying anything because he wasn’t sure what she was supposed to know and what she didn’t know yet. He had no recollection of giving her his notes, either in this life or his other life that had ended in Hudson River Park. On the other hand, he was pretty sure they hadn’t had this conversation before.
As he headed back to the office, Andrew told himself maybe he shouldn’t have slapped Freddy Olson. He’d have to be careful not to change the course of things from now on.
* * *
Andrew used his lunch break to go for a stroll along Madison Avenue and stopped in front of a jeweler’s window. He wasn’t particularly flush moneywise, but his marriage proposal had a lot more riding on it than the first time. He had felt sheepish about not having the customary ring box on him when he’d gone down on one knee to propose to Valerie at Maurizio’s.
He went into the shop and peered at the display cases. It wasn’t that easy to fool around with the past, to upend the order of events. He recognized the ring Valerie had chosen when they’d gone to buy one, glinting up at him from among ten other rings. And yet Andrew was absolutely certain they hadn’t come to this particular jeweler’s.
He knew exactly how much the ring had cost. So when the jeweler tried to convince him it was twice that price, Andrew said confidently: “This diamond weighs just under 0.95 carats, and though it has quite a sparkle, the cut is old-fashioned and there are several flaws, so I’d expect to pay half of what you’re asking for it.”
Andrew was only repeating what the previous jeweler had explained when he had bought this ring in Valerie’s company. He could remember being touched by his fiancée’s reaction. He had expected her to pick a better-quality stone, but Valerie had slipped the ring on her finger and told the jeweler it was good enough for her.
“So I see two possible explanations,” Andrew said. “Either you made a mistake when you checked the price tag—and I can’t say I blame you, it’s written quite small—or you’re trying to con me. I’d hate to have to write a piece about dishonest jewelers. Did I mention I’m with The New York Times?”
The jeweler took another look at the price tag and frowned. Looking very embarrassed, he admitted he had indeed made a mistake, and that the ring was worth exactly the amount Andrew had offered.
They sealed the deal in a most civil manner, and Andrew walked back out on Madison Avenue with a delightful little box nestling in his jacket pocket.
His second purchase of the day was a small combination lock for his desk drawer at the office.
The third was a faux leather notebook with an elastic band. It wasn’t notes about his article he wanted to jot down in there. He was going to find out who’d killed him, and stop them. He had less than fifty-nine days left to do it.
Andrew went into a Starbucks and grabbed a bite to eat. He settled down in a leather armchair and began to think about all the people who might want him dead. It made him very uncomfortable. Where had he gone so wrong that he now had to make up a list like this?
He jotted down Freddy Olson’s name. You could never tell what a colleague was really capable of, or how far jealousy might take them. But he dismissed the thought immediately. Olson didn’t have the balls for it. And anyway, they’d never actually come to blows in his previous life.
There were those threatening letters he had received shortly after the publication of his article about the child trafficking ring in China. His piece must have thrown into turmoil the lives of any number of American families who had adopted kids from China. Children are sacred; parents anywhere in the world can tell you that. They’d be prepared to go to any lengths to protect their children—maybe even murder.
Andrew wondered how he would react if he adopted a child and a journalist had turned him into an unwitting accomplice of a trafficking ring by revealing that his child might have been stolen from his birth parents.
I’d probably hate the guy who’d opened that Pandora’s Box for the rest of my life, he muttered to himself.
But what would you do if you realized that your child was going to discover the truth sooner or later, now that it had been made public? Would you break his heart, and yours, by taking him back to his legitimate family? Or live out a lie and wait for him to grow up and accuse you of turning a blind eye to the worst kind of human trafficking?
When Andrew had written the piece, he had barely thought about the possible implications of his investigation. How many American mothers and fathers had he thrown into a heartbreaking dilemma? But only the facts had counted back then; his job was to get the truth out there. Everyone’s looking out for numero uno, as his old man used to say.
He crossed out Olson’s name and wrote a reminder to himself to reread the three anonymous death threats he’d received.
His thoughts turned to his investigation in Argentina. The military dictatorship in power from 1976 to 1983 had had no qualms about sending contract killers outside its borders to eliminate opponents to the regime and anyone who might denounce the atrocities it had committed. Times had changed, but the methods devised by twisted minds tend to stay the same.
His investigation must have bothered quite a few people, too. It was possible—even probable—that his killer was a former member of the armed forces, in charge of ESMA1 or another of the secret camps where “the disappeared” were taken to be tortured and killed.
He fished out his other notebook and from it started copying down the names of all the people he had interviewed on his first trip to Argentina. For obvious reasons, the notes he’d taken on his second trip weren’t in it. He would have to be very careful not to let his guard slip when he returned to Buenos Aires.
What about Valerie’s ex? She never mentioned him anymore, but they had been together for two years—that’s a considerable amount of time. It wouldn’t be the first time a spurned lover had turned violent.
Thinking about all the people who might want him
dead had ruined Andrew’s appetite. He pushed his plate away and left.
He toyed with the little ring box in his pocket as he walked back to the office, refusing to entertain one possibility that had just occurred to him. No, Valerie wasn’t capable of doing something like that.
Are you sure? his innervoice asked. The question made his blood run cold.
* * *
On the Thursday of the first week of his resurrection—the expression filled him with terror each time he thought it—Andrew got down to finalizing the last details of his trip. He was in more of a hurry than ever to return to Buenos Aires. He gave up on the idea of changing hotels; he’d met some of his key informants thanks to his stay at the last one. Marisa, the cute girl who worked at the hotel bar, had told him about a café where former members of the ERP, the People’s Revolutionary Army, and the Montoneros, an urban guerrilla group, hung out. These men had survived their stay in a detention center, and there weren’t too many of them. She had also put him in touch with one of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo—women whose children had been kidnapped by army commandos and never been seen again. Braving the dictatorship, they had paced up and down the sidewalks of the Plaza de Mayo every single day for years, carrying signs with photographs of their disappeared loved ones on them.
* * *
Simon called him around 11 A.M. to remind him they were having lunch. Andrew didn’t remember them making plans; maybe their conversation would come back to him over lunch.
* * *
As soon as Simon told him the woman he’d on met his ski trip last winter had called him the previous evening, Andrew remembered that this had been a totally uninteresting lunch. Simon had fallen yet again for some girl with a great body and no sense of humor. Andrew wanted to get back to work. He broke in and told Simon bluntly that this was going nowhere.
“You said this girl lives in Seattle and she’s coming to spend a few days in New York, right?”
“Yup. And I’m the lucky guy who gets to show her around the city,” Simon replied happily.
“Next week we’ll be sitting at this same table and you’ll be in a shitty mood, telling me you’ve been had. That girl’s looking for some poor schmuck like you who’ll take her out, pay the bills and offer her someplace to sleep. When you get back to your apartment every night she’ll tell you she’s exhausted, say ‘not tonight, darling,’ and fall asleep instantly. All you’ll get by way of thanks is a peck on your cheek the day she’s leaving.”
Simon gaped at him.
“What do you mean, ‘not tonight, darling’?”
“Want me to spell it out for you?”
“How do you know all that?”
“I just do.”
“You’re just jealous. You’re pathetic.”
“You got back from your ski trip five months ago. Have you heard from her before this?”
“No, but Seattle isn’t exactly next door, you know.”
“Trust me, Simon: she flipped through her address book and stopped at S for Sucker.”
Andrew picked up the tab. The conversation had taken him back to the year-end holidays and that incident on Christmas Day. He had nearly been knocked over by a car backing out of the Charles Street police station. Journalistic investigations were right up his alley, but he didn’t have the particular skills needed for a criminal investigation. The services of a police detective—even a retired one—could come in very handy right now. He flipped through his address book to find the telephone number Inspector Pilguez had given him.
9.
After he’d left Simon, Andrew called Inspector Pilguez. He got his voicemail. Unsure whether to leave a message, he hung up.
As he walked into the newspaper’s offices he found himself shivering, and felt a shooting pain in the small of his back. It was so strong that he had to lean on the stair’s bannister for support. Andrew had never suffered from back pain, and this anomaly immediately reminded him of the grim deadline that was approaching. If this was the first sign of imminent death, he thought, he’d better stock up on prescription painkillers as soon as possible.
Olivia found him breathless and doubled up in pain at the bottom of the staircase when she came in from lunch.
“Are you all right, Andrew?”
“I’ve been better, to be honest.”
“You’re looking terribly pale. Do you want me to call 911?”
“No, it’s just my back playing up. I’ll be fine.”
“You should take the afternoon off and get some rest.”
Andrew thanked Olivia. He told her he’d go splash some water on his face and everything would be okay.
Looking at himself in the restroom mirror, Andrew got the impression death was lurking behind him. He murmured to himself: “You’ve had a stroke of luck, buddy, but you better start racking your brains if you want it to last. You don’t think everybody gets a second chance, do you? You’ve written enough obituaries to have some idea what it means when your time’s up. You can’t overlook anything anymore, not a single detail. The days are slipping by, and they’ll go by faster and faster.”
“Talking to yourself again, Stilman?” asked Olson, coming out of a stall. He zipped up his pants and walked over to where Andrew was standing next to a washbasin.
“I’m not in the mood,” Andrew said, sticking his face under the faucet.
“You’ve been acting really weird lately. I don’t know what you’re up to now, but it’s got to be something fishy.”
“Olson, why don’t you mind your own business and leave me the hell alone.”
“I didn’t report you,” Olson declared proudly, as if he’d done something laudable.
“Good for you, Freddy. You’re finally becoming a man.”
Olson went over to the towel dispenser and yanked with all his might.
“These things never work,” he said, banging the lid.
“You should write an article about it, I’m sure it’d be a winner. Your finest story this season. ‘The Hand Towel Conspiracy,’ by Freddy Olson.”
Olson shot Andrew a dark look.
“Hey, I was joking. Don’t take everything so literally.”
“I don’t like you, Stilman. I’m not the only one on this paper who can’t stand your arrogance, but at least I don’t pretend. A lot of us are waiting for you to slip up. You’ll topple off your pedestal sooner or later.”
Andrew looked at his colleague.
“So who else is part of this merry anti-Stilman band?”
“You should be wondering who likes you, actually. You’ll find it’s not a long list.”
Olson looked at him scornfully and walked out of the men’s room.
Andrew followed him, grimacing with pain, and caught up with him in front of the elevator.
“Olson! I shouldn’t have hit you. It’s just that I’m feeling on edge right now. I want to apologize.”
“Really?”
“Hey, we’re colleagues. Let’s cool it, okay?”
Olson stared at Andrew.
“Okay, Stilman. I accept your apology.”
Olson stuck his hand out and Andrew made a superhuman effort to shake it. Olson had really clammy palms.
Andrew felt a lingering sense of fatigue all afternoon that made it impossible for him to write. He used the time to re-read the introduction to his article about the terrible things that had gone on in Argentina during the dictatorship.
Andrew Stilman, The New York Times
On May 24, 1976, a fresh coup d’état brought a tyrant to power once again in Argentina. After banning all political parties and unions and muzzling the country’s press, General Jorge Rafael Videla and the members of the military junta began carrying out a campaign of repression on a scale that Argentina had never previously experienced.
Their self-proclaimed objective was to prev
ent any form of revolt and eliminate anyone suspected of opposing the regime. A manhunt for suspected dissidents was launched throughout the country. The regime’s opponents, their friends and acquaintances, and anyone holding views contrary to conservative Catholic values were considered to be terrorists, regardless of their age or gender.
The ruling junta opened secret detention centers and set up special sections made up of police units and members of the three branches of the armed forces. Death squads were rampant. Under the authority of regional chiefs, their mission was to kidnap, torture, and kill anyone suspected of sympathizing with the opposition. Over the next ten years, the ruling junta would enslave and make “disappear” more than thirty thousand people—men and women of all ages, but most of them very young. Several hundred newborn babies were stolen from their “dissident” mothers and given to supporters of the regime. The identity of these children was systematically erased, and a new one created from scratch. The regime claimed it was upholding Christian values by removing innocent souls from parents with perverted ideals, and offering the children salvation by entrusting them to families worthy of raising them.
The “disappeared,” los desaparecidos, as they were known, were buried in mass graves. Many of them were drugged in detention centers before being loaded into planes flying under the radar, from which they were thrown alive into the Río de la Plata and the ocean.
There would be no traces of the massacre to incriminate those in power.
For the umpteenth time, Andrew pored over his list containing the names of those who had committed these atrocities in every corner of Argentina, rural and urban. The hours ticked by as he read the names of the torturers and leafed through transcripts of first-person accounts, confessions, and minutes of trial proceedings that had come to nothing. Once democracy had been restored, an amnesty law was passed granting these monsters near-total immunity.