by Roy Kesey
The officer here sits at a wooden desk, and above her is a fan that does not spin. She stares at her typewriter, types with great slowness, shakes her head. There is a bench and I sit down and listen to the typing. Hanging beside the window is a calendar, and I count to make sure, and yes: Reynaldo has had the two weeks he asked for.
The far wall looks built of tiny open tombs, each niche stuffed with paper. The officer swears, pulls the page out of the typewriter and throws it away, asks what I am doing in her office. I tell her that I have lost my passport. She consults a chart, says that the administrative fees come to twelve soles. I bring out my wallet, and inside there is a bill folded oddly, lengthwise, and I remember: the hair I found on the body. I take the hair out, turn it in the light. Light brown from some angles, auburn from others. The officer clears her throat and the hair falls to the floor. She is holding out a set of forms. I take them, look for the hair, sweep my hand back and forth, find only dust. The officer asks what I am doing. I stand, apologize, pay the twelve soles. She tells me to fill out the forms as well as I am able.
When I am done she asks me to wait in the lobby. It could be minutes or hours. I sit and wait. The officer who drove me here has not reappeared. I walk, and count dead spiders in the corners. I sit again, and wait.
Now there is shouting from an office on the far side of the lobby. I stand and walk. The door bears no sign, and inside there are no citizens waiting or filling in forms, but there is a television, and six officers yelling and pulling at their hair. They look at me in the doorway and extend their arms to me. They shout that the unthinkable has happened: Norway has beaten Brazil.
One of the officers shouts above the rest, calls for an end to the shouting. The others silence in deference to rank or volume. Everything is okay, he says. Everything is fine, because Brazil has already amassed enough points to qualify for the second round.
The other officers consult one another, and agree that this is true. The discussion turns to an earlier match, Chile tying Cameroon and thus passing through as well. The officer who shouted loudest crosses his arms and looks at me. Then a woman’s voice calls something like my name.
It is the officer who took my fees and forms. She is beckoning, and still this other officer stares. I nod to him, cross the lobby, am given a thin sheaf of papers documenting my loss and a receipt for the twelve soles. She says that tomorrow I must travel to Lima, go to my embassy, begin the process of obtaining a new passport. I promise that I will, and thank her. She turns away, begins typing very slowly once again.
I step out into the lobby. The officer who drove me here is leaning against a near wall and pretending to read a newspaper. I could perhaps beat him to the entrance, but the other guards are there, and I can think of no reason to run: Arantxa knows where I am, will trace me as necessary.
The officer does not look up when I walk past, but I hear the newspaper snap as he folds it. Across the lobby to the door, his footsteps in perfect time with mine. Now the hallway, and the small room.
- So far you have made good decisions, he says. Soon you will be happy that you did. For now you may relax. He will be here in a moment.
This time I do not bother to ask. The door closes and I am alone. I wait. Karina, but the door opens again. The officer who enters is tall, heavy-set, and I recognize but do not quite remember him. Short hair, light brown eyes. He smiles. I look at his badge. He covers it quickly, then laughs and lets his hand drop.
- I am Reátegui, he says. I assisted the lieutenant on the case of your wife. I helped you with some of the paperwork.
- Yes. Thank you for that. Thank you very much.
He leans forward, lowers his voice.
- Do not be afraid. There is no reason for you to be afraid. You should in fact be very happy.
- That is what your colleague said.
- He was and is correct.
- In that case, I am as happy as you wish me to be.
- You do not look happy enough. But that is about to change.
Reátegui takes a pen and a slip of paper, writes something, folds the paper and slides it across the desk. He waits, and stares, and nods. I take up the paper, unfold it and read: Ten Thousand Dollars.
- I don’t understand.
- That is how much it will cost.
- For what?
- For ten minutes with the taxista.
- You caught him?
Reátegui smiles.
- The press know nothing of it yet, but that could change at any point. The commissioner arrives this evening and the process will begin. Tomorrow your taxista will be sent to Río Seco to await trial. This is the one chance you will have to be alone with him.
- And you had me waste an hour declaring the loss of my passport?
- To give you a true reason to have been here today, should such a reason ever be required.
I nod. My chest has filled with calm, a vast dark sharp-edged calm, obsidian, but the bird god, but Sarita, and I ask for proof.
- You remember the last woman? Many people saw her get into the taxi, and one old lady got a very good look at the driver. Perhaps you have seen the sketch on television. It wasn’t easy to find him, but this morning at last we did. The license plate of his taxi wasn’t the one you gave us, but it was the same vehicle: we found blood traces from all four victims, including your wife. He has no alibis for any of the killings. He owns a pair of shoes that matches footprints found at the final scene, and his—
- I thought that something happened to the fooprints.
- What?
- The footprints. Something happened.
Reátegui scratches his face. He says that in truth he should not be discussing evidence with me at all. He says that I am welcome simply to return to my home if I so desire. He says that he has gone to great and excessive lengths to provide me with this opportunity, that he is running substantial personal and professional risks in so doing, that—
- Yes. And I am grateful. But I don’t have ten thousand dollars. And I will need half an hour with the taxista.
- For what? You are very big, very strong.
- One is never big or strong enough.
- Nine thousand, and fifteen minutes.
- Five thousand for twenty-five.
- Seven thousand for twenty minutes, or we are done. The risks to me are—
- Yes. Yes. I’ll be right back.
Again Reátegui smiles.
Seven thousand dollars is four times what a policeman here earns in a year. It is most of what I have saved. Sweat runs from my face, drips onto the front of my shirt. The line is not long and for a moment I wish it were longer.
Now the clerk. He asks if I am feeling unwell. Then he asks if perhaps I would prefer to conduct such a transaction in one of the back offices. I tell him that it does not matter, and watch as he runs the stacks of bills through the electronic counter. A second time, and the same amount results. A large envelope, and I borrow a pen to sign for the withdrawal, and the taxista, he needs to say it. I need to hear him say it.
A mototaxi back to the police station. In and in and in. Reátegui waits alone in the small room. I hand him the envelope, and he takes it, counts quickly and nods.
- Will you be needing anything? he asks. We have everything you might require.
So many imagined encounters, so many places and weapons, so many angles of light, and in fact there is nothing I need. Reátegui nods, leads out to the lobby and deeper into the station. We pass the unnamed office, and it is empty, and the television is off. Other offices, identical or nearly so. Through a double door, and out into a large open area: the heart of the compound, the center of the block. In the middle is a fulbito court, perfectly swept. A stretch of grass to either side. To the far right a large building, and to the far left a series of tiny cells.
I veer toward the cells and Reátegui catches my arm, points instead to the building. I nod and again follow. Inside it smells of blood and mildew and sweat. He unlocks a door, leads me down
stairs, unlocks another door, and down again.
There is yet another door, this one steel instead of wood. Reátegui peers through the peephole, then looks at me, takes a deep breath as if encouraging me to do the same. I nod, and he slides back the bolt.
Inside, a thin dark black-haired man is sitting in a metal chair. His hands are cuffed to the sides of the chair, and his ankles are bound to a crossbar. Reátegui leans toward me, whispers that my time started running the moment we entered the building, that he will be waiting outside. He pats me on the shoulder, wishes me luck.
As he closes the door, the air in the room goes tight. The taxista and I both flinch at the sound of the steel bolt shot home. There is a bit of dried blood at the corner of his mouth, and one of his eyes is swollen. I walk in circles around him. As far as I can see he is not afraid. I wish that I had requested a chair of my own, wish that I was dressed all in green.
I look at him, come closer, look again. Shallow pockmarks scattered high on his cheeks. Thinning hair, weak chin. His left ear slightly damaged or deformed, its lobe scarred, a skewed star of whitish tissue and I remember none of this. My memory of course less than perfect. The sky darkening the one time I saw him, too long ago.
- It was you, wasn’t it?
- Mister?
His voice, too, not exactly as I have carried it in my mind: raspier, and slightly higher in pitch. I smile and ask which soccer team he supports. He says that he is a fan of Universitario. What a shame, I say.
He tells me to go fuck myself.
An advance of sorts.
There is a soft knock at the door. I ignore it, ask him about his father. He looks in my eyes, says that his father is fine. I nod, agree that the question was absurd, turn to evidence and crime.
Yes, the taxista says, he took the most recent victim to the market as she’d requested. No, he has no alibis for the nights of any of the murders—he was simply driving. No, he doesn’t know anything about blood in his taxi. No, he did not kill any of the four women. No, he has never killed anyone.
Then he smiles. There is no reason for him to smile. I look at my watch. Nine of my minutes have expired. I ask him if he knew that the evidence the police have in hand will ensure that the rest of his life will be spent somewhere small and dark and damp. He says that in that case there is no reason for him to discuss anything at all with a fat foreign fuck like me.
I congratulate him, and say that he is exactly right. Then I hit him not as hard as I could but hard enough and his cheekbone disintegrates against my fist and the chair upends. I grab him by the shoulders and drag him upright.
- Daniela Rocío Espinoza Farfán, I say. And Isabel Teresa Otero Manrique. And Beatriz Silvana Cordero Huarcay. Do you know what those three young women meant to me?
There is another knock, louder. Thirteen minutes gone. The taxista shrugs.
- Nothing, I say. Absolutely nothing. But the first victim, Pilar Seminario de Segovia—I would like to know what happened to her. I would like you to tell me. Now, please.
He stares at me. I come closer, lean down, stroke his thinning black hair.
- Tell me, I say.
He shakes his head. I lift his chin.
- Did you kill my wife?
He shakes his head again. I take him by the nape of the neck.
- Last chance, I say.
Again he smiles and I vault onto him, the chair collapses beneath us and he retches, strains to breathe and I stand and lift him and the chair, hurl them against the wall. He lands on his face and I am on him again swinging him and releasing and watching how he flies and crumples and falls and I have his head between my hands and press, not so hard at first and then harder and harder, and his eyes his mouth the wreck of his face and behind me noise and crashing and then weight and arms a mass of bodies and pulling but his skull I hear it begin to crack, my left arm wrenched back but my right arm free and I bring the knife from my pocket flick its blade open and reach but my legs fail and we fall, the taxista and I the men on top of us the knife twisting in my hand closing across my fingers blood spraying now hands at my throat and darkness.
45.
I WAIT BEFORE OPENING MY EYES. There is a furrowed silence: our lungs pulling at the thin air. The wind is cold against my face. The stone beneath my back is still colder.
Looking now, and the sky is so bright and so blue, richer and richer as it climbs. The closest ridge is a slow gray surge of shadowed limestone. The wind ripples through the ichu grass to the far edge of this highland plain.
The highway is a hundred yards below us. Beyond it lies the Mantaro River, swift and gray, silent at this distance. Mariángel shifts on my chest, returns to sleep. Karina, stretched out on this same flat rock, also asleep. Armando’s eyes are closed but I believe he is awake and listening.
We are still fifteen or twenty miles from Jauja. An hour ago the driver said that the parts needed to repair the bus would be arriving at any moment. Most of the other passengers are huddled in groups on the turnout. A few have walked down to watch the water move.
I close my eyes again. Surely there are ways not to break what one touches. The stone begins to float, and it is not only here that this happens. The world expands in the dark, then contracts, tightens around me, I open my eyes and the man I beat nearly to death had nothing to do with the murders.
The scar around the base of my right index finger is bright red, and thick as a wedding band. I woke in the back of a police car with one hand wrapped in bandages and a plastic bag in my lap. The bag was full of ice, and contained another, smaller bag, which held my finger. Reátegui was driving. He turned when he heard me move, said that the doctor would not have any questions, that if anyone else asked I was to invent an accident in the kitchen.
We drove across the bridge into Castilla, skirted the airport, passed a small clinic. Reátegui stopped the car in the darkness half a block farther along. He said that he was sorry for what had happened, and that for both our sakes I was never to contact him again. He got out, walked around, and opened my door.
A tetanus shot, an IV, surgery. I looked from time to time and immediately looked away. First the bone. Then the tendons. Arteries and veins, nerves, a final flap of skin. Half a dozen medications and I took them precisely as indicated and last week I removed the plaster splint myself.
The finger is slightly shorter than before, often grows stiff, has not yet regained much feeling and perhaps never will. I rub at the scar, bend the finger back and forth. Cold weather will not be kind to it, but the winter is nearing its end.
There is a single cloud at the horizon, a shocking white above and varied grays beneath. I watch as the wind pushes it out of sight, and the seven weeks it took my hand to heal were spent mainly in my house. At first I watched television and listened to the radio and read the newspaper each day, searched for word of the man I had attacked: of his confession or denial, his apology or alibi, his rage at the foreigner who tried to murder him.
Early in the second week a police officer came to my door. He was no one I had ever seen. My new knife was tucked into the back of my waistband, its blade locked in place. He asked me to accompany him to his car. I said that regrettably I could neither leave my house nor invite him in. He said that a conversation needed to take place, and that his car was the only secure location. I said that I would like nothing more than to be of service but sadly could not accede to his request. He stared at me, and I stared back. I waited for him to reach for his pistol or nightstick but then he shrugged, apologized for disturbing my morning, said that as I had surely guessed he had come because of the streetlight.
For a time I could not reply. The neighbors had complained, he said. He grew angry when I asked if the complaints were recent, but the matter was settled with thirty soles. I thanked him for his vigilance and closed the door and fell.
The man I all but killed was never referenced in any article or newscast, never mentioned in conjunction with any crime. Instead two other men were arrested. Th
e first was the stepfather of Daniela Rocío Espinoza Farfán. The second had attempted an abduction, had been too slow, had given the woman time enough to scream.
This second man had a fruit stand at the outdoor market. He is young and thin and dark, has long flowing hair and the lips of a magazine model. News anchors say that each night he stayed open a few minutes longer than the other vendors, and every so often, if the final person to visit his stand met certain criteria, he would offer her a ride. If she accepted, he would close his stand, and lift her bags, and most often nothing would happen: the women arrived safely home. Except for Isabel Teresa Otero Manrique. Except for Beatriz Silvana Cordero Huarcay. Microscopic shreds of their skin were found in crevices in the rear of his station wagon.
The police say that he has admitted to those murders, and his confession was sincere or coerced, there is no way to know. He claims to have had nothing to do with Pilar, and even if this is true I now wonder at how simply I chose to look only for the taxista, to triangulate from points not yet fixed.
Regardless of whether the police charge the vendor with killing my wife, he will almost certainly be convicted of the other two rapes and murders. He will be sentenced to life in prison, and there is a fair chance he will serve his time at Sarita Colonia Penitentiary in El Callao. Of course she was his patron saint as well.
He is too beautiful to last for very long.
There have been no more murders in Piura.
- Inca Kola?
Standing before me is a girl perhaps ten years old. Bronze skin and bright red cheeks. Long straight black hair in braids. White blouse, loaded carry-cloth knotted at her collarbone, black skirt and white underskirts billowing, black rubber sandals. It is not clear where she has come from or how she knew that we were here—there are no buildings visible in any direction.