Far South

by David Enrique Spellman

  ‘You just come from a funeral?’ I said.

  ‘I thought maybe we were going to one.’

  ‘Yours if you don’t get in shape.’

  ‘Fuck you.’ He flicked his butt toward a garbage bin in the grocery car park and got into the passenger seat of my car. We drove down toward San Sebastian, which was about twelve kilometers away.

  ‘So what’s the deal with Pablo Arenas?’ Rangel said.

  ‘He’s just out of jail. Probably hungry.’

  ‘He’s a political type, right?’

  ‘Argentine Anticommunist Alliance. Recent conviction for armed robbery. Previous in Bariloche and Buenos Aires Province.’

  ‘You put him away for robbery?’

  ‘Correct. Flamboyant son of a bitch, three years ago, he arrived in a Ford Falcon outside the house of this Melissa Auerbach, a German woman staying up there. Three guys got out of the Falcon. Two of them had ski masks, the third had one of these rubber masks, you know… full head… like a werewolf.’

  ‘A werewolf?’ Rangel said. ‘The Rocky Horror Show. This was Arenas?’

  ‘No. His nephew. This guy was young… built. And he had a tattoo.’

  ‘Distinguishing marks, right?’

  ‘A snake around a dagger.’

  ‘Old school,’ Rangel said.

  ‘Right, and the other two guys, one of them was a skinny kid in jogging pants and a Los Angeles Raiders tee shirt; the third guy in a track suit was short and fat and a good deal older and he was the main guy, the boss. He was the main son of a bitch.’

  ‘Arenas?’

  ‘Right.’ I’d told this story a lot back then: to the judge and jury mostly. ‘Nobody was around. It was sunset. These three sons of bitches were on this old woman’s porch and they had guns… handguns. They went up onto the porch and just knocked on the door. This Melissa thought it was one of their people, you know, artist or writer or something… she opened the door and she’s faced with these three guys in masks and the fat guy put a gun muzzle to her forehead and pushed her back in the house.’

  ‘And how old is this woman?’

  ‘About sixty. Hippy type, all wrinkled and brown… and she hennas her hair and she wears these flowing colored smocks that hide her weight. Get the picture?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘So they were all in her house and it’s just like one big room for living and eating and the kitchen and an open stairway that goes up to the loft where she sleeps. Melissa saw that the fat guy was really calm but the two young guys were real jittery. She thought they were local. They seemed to be looking for something in particular but they said nothing. She got her purse and opened it and emptied all the money in it onto the dining table. The kid in the werewolf mask grabbed it and pocketed it. The other young guy in the jogging suit was shaking. He held the gun pointed at Melissa and his hand was shaking. She was terrified that he was going to shoot her out of fear. Melissa was still holding her purse open. The old guy, Arenas, plucked out the credit card and pocketed it.

  ‘He said to her, “You got more money?”

  ‘Melissa said, “No.” So the bastard smacked Melissa across the cheek with his pistol. You should have seen the mark it left: livid, red mark on her white cheek. I saw it.’

  ‘A sixty-year-old woman.’ Rangel interlocked his fingers behind his head, leaned back. ‘Cute son of a bitch.’

  ‘Yeah. After that she was terrified of getting badly hurt. “Wait,” she said to him. Melissa went over to the stairs that led to the loft. She shifted a tile at the side of the stair stringer. She pulled out a small wad of new bills, about two thousand pesos.

  ‘The old guy said, “This all you got?”

  ‘Melissa said, “Yes, I swear.”

  ‘So then the old guy asked her where she’s from.

  ‘“Germany,” she said.

  ‘You know what he told her? “I like Germans,” the old guy said. Can you believe that?’

  Rangel just shrugged at me.

  ‘The one in the werewolf mask was holding his gun sideways like some hip-hop gangster from a Hollywood movie, and the skinny kid in the ski mask was still shaking.

  ‘“Don’t call the police for at least an hour,” the old guy said, “or someone will come back here to see you, you understand?”

  ‘Melissa understood. “Okay, let’s go,” the old guy said and the two young guys backed out of the door and the old guy followed them. She heard the car start up and she went to the window. She saw that it was a rust-colored Ford Falcon with a busted taillight. She was still too terrified to call the police. Then she saw the Falcon go back over the hill and drive away.

  ‘Melissa ran down to her friend’s house after an hour. They called the cops, the local cops, but the cops just said it must have been some criminals from Buenos Aires up for the summer. They did come to take a look around but then they just shrugged and drove off.’

  ‘And the guys in the masks came back?’ Rangel said.

  ‘Two weeks later, the same three guys and the same car, in the late evening, just like before. But this time they went to a neighboring property: the house of one Ramón Gorriti. He has two people living with him, Carlos Brescia and his mother, Miriam. They were on the porch. Ramón, who is Carlos’s lover, was in the garden. He was just watering the plants.’

  ‘Carlos’s lover?’ Rangel sounded surprised.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He’s gay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And Miriam is Carlos’s mother?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s real old, and she hasn’t been well and Carlos had brought her to the property to look after her for a while.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Carlos brings his mother to live with him and his gay lover?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How does she like it?’

  ‘She’s fine with it.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘She’s seventy-something.’

  Rangel shook his head. ‘This fucking country…’

  ‘So Carlos and his mother were on the porch. She was on the swing-seat and Carlos had his bench and his weights out there. He was doing his reps: barbell flies, bench presses, squats… you should see this guy work out.’

  ‘In front of his own mother?’

  ‘Yeah… in front of his mother, in the shade, the fresh air, the evening breeze, the red sunset, what the fuck? Do you have to keep interrupting?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Rangel said. He looked horrified, his puffy eyes glazed and mouth open like some kind of bottom-dwelling fish.

  ‘Then the Ford Falcon pulled up and the guys with the masks and the guns got out. In the garden, the masked guys all pointed their guns at Ramón and forced him onto his knees. So Carlos dropped the weights, grabbed his mother, pulled her inside the house and locked the door. The fat guy, Arenas, held a gun to the back of Ramón’s neck. He called out: “Open the door or I blow his head off.” Carlos, inside with his mother, wouldn’t open the door. The fat guy yelled out that he wasn’t fooling but Carlos still wouldn’t open up and the next thing you know the fat guy pulled the trigger.’

  ‘He killed Ramón,’ Rangel said.

  ‘The gun jammed. It didn’t go off.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘So the fat guy, he called out: “Open the door. I’m not fooling. Next time it won’t jam. This guy is dead.” But Carlos was afraid that something would happen to his mother. He refused. So the fat guy pulled the trigger again.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The gun jammed again.’

  ‘So how did Ramón feel about this?’

  ‘I’ve never asked him. But at this point, Ramón realized that he might not get a third chance, so while the old guy struggled to un-jam his gun, Ramón got up off his knees, made a run for it and jumped over the garden fence and kept running.’

  ‘Over the red earth, and through the pale green shrubs and disappeared into the red Sierra sunset.’

  ‘Right, and then the three guys forced their way into Carlos’s hou
se by shooting the lock off the front door.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Rangel said.

  ‘What they didn’t know is that Ramón had a twelve-gauge double-barreled shotgun in the house. And Carlos had loaded it.’

  ‘How come Ramón had a gun? I thought we’re in a nice New Age hippy place here.’

  ‘This is the Sierras. Two gay guys… out in the mountains, afraid of kidnappers and thieves: who knows what can happen?’

  ‘If three guys in masks show up to rob the place,’ Rangel said.

  ‘Right… which they already had done… two weeks before, at Melissa Auerbach’s house.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So Carlos had got the shotgun and when the fat guy shot the lock off the door, the guy in the werewolf mask ran into the room with his pistol raised and Carlos let him have it with both barrels. He blew him clean off the porch. As good as dead.’

  ‘As good as?’

  ‘He died about twenty minutes later.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So Carlos reloaded and then the fat guy tried to come in.’

  ‘Ramón got him, too?’

  ‘Shot off a finger and part of his ear, and various upper body wounds. The fat guy had had enough. The young kid helped him, it’s his uncle… the kid helped him to get back to the car and the kid and the driver took the uncle to the hospital.’

  ‘Where they got arrested.’

  ‘Right, because Carlos called the police… he has a body on the porch.’

  ‘Meaning you got called… at that time,’ Rangel said.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Homicide is a Federal case. We came to find out why the guy with the werewolf face, on the porch, was dead. By this point we… the Feds… had checked on the old guy with gunshot wounds at the hospital… and we found out that his name is Pablo Arenas and he’s a friend of the town police chief from back in the old days of the dictatorships, and he’s connected to the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance. He’s a Triple A man.’

  ‘But why was this Arenas after Carlos and Miriam?’

  ‘That we don’t know. Maybe Arenas just don’t like gays or old hippy women. Maybe he just needed some money.’

  ‘But we don’t know.’

  ‘No, and the charge at the trial was armed robbery with violence, Arenas was convicted for the robbery of Melissa, and the attempted robbery of Carlos, Miriam and Ramón. With good behavior and taking into consideration he’s still got some friends in powerful places, he came out on parole three weeks ago.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Maybe Arenas felt like he had a score to settle. Maybe Arenas decided to kidnap this Gerardo.’

  ‘Which is why we’ve come to talk to him,’ Rangel said.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said.

  I turned into a dirt driveway.

  ‘And here, my dear Rangel, is the house of Pablo Arenas.’

  Extract from the casebook of Juan Manuel Pérez

  January 10th 2006

  Hours: 19:20 to 20:00

  A battered Ford Falcon was parked in the narrow driveway of Pablo Arenas’s one-story house. I pulled in behind it. By the time we slammed the car doors shut, Arenas was out on the porch. He came down the driveway towards us. He’d lost weight in prison. His pale blue tracksuit top hung loose over his short frame; the knees of it bulged. His hair was gray, close cropped. Pouches under his eyes, jowls that sagged a little, the dark lines over his cheeks and jaw made darker by stubble. Half of one ear was missing, the right one. I couldn’t see his fingers.

  ‘Well, the ex-Detective Sergeant Pérez, to what do I owe the honor?’

  This scumbag had got me thrown off the force.

  ‘I’m looking for a friend,’ I said.

  ‘You have friends around here?’

  ‘His name is Fischer, you know him?’

  From the wry smile I assumed he did.

  ‘How come a former policeman got friends like that?’ Arenas said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Faggot… commie… artiste… you know…’

  ‘So you know him…’

  ‘I know all those people up there.’

  ‘You been to visit them?’

  ‘Not recently.’

  ‘Thought about it?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I think about a lot of things.’

  ‘Why don’t you invite us inside?’ Rangel said. ‘It’s too hot to talk out here.’

  ‘Why should I invite you in?’ Arenas said.

  ‘Maybe you could help us locate this friend of ours,’ I said. ‘We’re a little anxious about him. Some information we might be able to get paid for.’

  Arenas cocked his head. You could tell that the little cogs and gears of his brain were trying to process my discreet offer to negotiate a ransom if he had Gerardo Fischer or knew of his whereabouts. If he didn’t know where Fischer was, I was sure he’d try to find out who did have him. He’d figure there was a percentage in it.

  ‘Would you like to come in?’ Arenas said. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Rangel said.

  Arenas turned his back on us and walked up to the house. Fischer wasn’t here. That much I knew. Rangel and I followed Arenas into the living room. A young woman, late twenties, I’d say, with thick curly black hair, was sitting drinking mate at a dining table, the thermos flask right next to the gourd; she had a pack of cigarettes and a lighter next to an ashtray with two recently crushed butts.

  ‘My niece,’ Arenas said.

  I nodded. She looked back at me out of very dark eyes. She had dark diagonals below them and her skin was a little waxy: late nights and too many cigarettes. She was attractive in a wasted kind of way. I thought it might be interesting to talk to her: to examine her family connections.

  ‘You live in San Sebastian?’ I asked.

  ‘Next to the laundry,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  ‘Take a seat,’ Arenas said.

  He waved at the other chairs around the table. I didn’t sit down, neither did Rangel, nor Arenas.

  ‘How are you getting by since you came out?’ I said.

  ‘What are you, now,’ Arenas said, ‘a social worker?’

  ‘Just passing by.’

  ‘I have a very loving family,’ Arenas said. ‘Thanks for your concern.’

  The girl sucked on the bombilla until the gourd was noisily empty. She reached for the cigarettes and lit one. Then she opened the top of the thermos and poured more water on the yerba.

  ‘Maria Dos Santos, right?’ Rangel said.

  Her head tilted and pulled back. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘I seen you in the clubs around the lake,’ he said.

  ‘You a cop?’

  ‘Private businessman,’ Rangel said.

  Arenas was interested in us. Maria Dos Santos didn’t give a damn.

  Arenas leaned on the back of a chair. A leather belt was slung over the chair back. From the belt hung a big gaucho knife in a silver studded sheath. The blade was about nine inches long and, knowing Arenas, it would probably be honed like a razor. That knife connected Arenas to a bloody strand of our beloved country’s history and literature. And Arenas would be aware of it. He was a traditionalist. I like books, too. One day I thought maybe I’d write a novel instead of investigating people’s dirt.

  On the wall behind Arenas’s head was a wooden crucifix with a garishly painted Christ in torment: on a high shelf to my left, a statue of the Virgin Mary. A double-barreled shotgun was propped up next to a dresser in the corner. On the right-hand wall, there was a photograph of Arenas shaking the hand of a tall man who was going bald. The bald man wore a sheepskin jacket. Behind Arenas and his companion in the photograph, there was a hotel on the side of a mountain. The mountain was covered in snow, the lines of a ski lift crossing the slopes.

  ‘That a relative of yours?’ I said.

  ‘A friend,’ Arenas said.

  ‘Not from around here.’

  ‘No.’
/>
  ‘Where from?’

  ‘My home town.’

  ‘Oh. What’s your friend’s name?’

  ‘You want to talk about business?’ Arenas said.

  ‘Do we have any business to talk about?’

  ‘We might. After I make some enquiries.’

  ‘I’d appreciate that. Here’s my card.’

  ‘I’m a friend of your father. Did you know that?’

  That caught me by surprise and he knew it.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ Arenas said. ‘He knows which side he’s on. Things were a lot simpler once upon a time. You could count on people. We used to be on the same side once upon a time. Then we weren’t when times changed. But then again, times keep changing, don’t they?’

  ‘What’s my father got to do with this?’

  ‘I’m not saying he has.’

  I wanted to slap the evil smile off Arenas’s face.

  What did he have on my father? From now? Or from back when they would have had a common enemy…

  ‘Better not to dig up the past, eh?’ Arenas said.

  My father had said that to me more than once.

  ‘I’m interested in what’s happening right now,’ I said.

  Maria stubbed out her cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling.

  ‘Look,’ Arenas said. ‘I don’t know anything about this guy you’re looking for but if I do find something out and we can do business, I’ll let you know. But go talk to your old man, maybe he can help you.’

  My old man? No way. Arenas had to be cranking me up. I’d sent Arenas away. Maybe he wanted to have a little fun with me.

  Rangel walked around the room, looked at the Virgin, the crucifix and the photograph on the wall. Okay, so Arenas wasn’t hiding Fischer in his house. I only hoped that my father knew nothing about this disappearance. But I was going to ask him, wasn’t I? Rangel caught my eye. I nodded and we went back out through the kitchen to the porch and down to my car. Arenas and Maria came out on the porch to watch us drive away.