EQMM, June 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I felt like a dolt. The fifteen years of secret photos had now extended into the past to twenty. For two decades, someone had been photographing Ines and me. And I, always the bright alert fellow, had never been aware.

  Now is the moment to uncover and make known publicly the truth about the murder you committed, señor Aguirre. In less than a week, the world will know who you are.

  (Message three of 3)

  I looked at the three photos of Ines. She had been such a beautiful woman. Who and why and for what reason was someone accusing me of murder? I thought about Dufour's comments regarding the private life of politicians. I tried to find some key, some concept that would make some sense out of these fragments. I read the sentences over and over; I tried moving the words around; I looked for a hidden symbol, some thread that could lead to the deciphering of the mystery. All hopeless.

  In the early hours of Friday, I awoke frightened and alert. I had come to understand that the key was not in the messages, but rather in the photos. I laid the three photos out on my desk and examined them once more, now without fear, under the desk lamp. Ines, so young; Ines, with that slightly detached smile that seemed always to me a portal that led to some deep mystery. The photo from 1982: Ines at the beachfront in Rio de Janeiro. The workings of the mind are curious: Suddenly I remembered from the honeymoon an insignificant detail. While shopping at a gallery in the city, we had coincidentally run into Jorge Maximiliano Perez Migali, a former classmate of mine in high school.

  Although I had never taken a liking to him (in fact, I found him rather unappealing), fate had brought us together on several occasions. We both had started together in the Department of Social Economics (I graduated with honors; he dropped out shortly after beginning). It was at a dance organized by some of the students of that department that I met Ines Dowland.

  Thanks to her, Perez Migali and I were offered jobs at Dowland & Grandinetti.

  Then there came the beginning of my romance with Ines, my rapid promotions, my determination to work harder than anyone else, my talent for developing profitable alliances, and my enviable efficiency. At some point I lost sight of Perez Migali. I had moved up in the company and he ended up seeming remote and detached, and finally I forgot him. When I established my own company and left Dowland & Grandinetti, I knew he was still there and that, considering his limitations, he was doing all right.

  What had become of Perez Migali since then? I didn't know and I didn't care. But now I remembered with complete clarity that he was in the gallery in Rio de Janeiro and I was positive that he alone—the only person in Rio who knew us—had been able to take the photo in 1982.

  I turned on my computer and went on the Internet.

  I selected the phone book and typed in Perez Migali, then Country-wide, then Enter. This is what I read:

  PEREZ MIGALI JORGE M.

  Avalos 15**

  1431 Buenos Aires

  (011) 4522-7***

  "Aha!” I exclaimed. “Postal zone 1431. It matches branch 31, on Monroe Street, in Villa Urquiza."

  Then I went to a street map of Buenos Aires, wrote in Avalos 15**, pressed Enter, and saw where Perez Migali's house was located.

  In the heart of a barrio called Parque Chas is a street called Berlin, which has the shape of a full circle. In the place of three diameters are three intersecting streets—Gandara, Victorica, and Avalos—that, coming in at sixty-degree angles, meet in the center. There, precisely there in that design of a spider web and exactly in the middle of the spider web was the lair of Perez Migali, the man who was sending me threatening messages.

  I called my office and told Flavia that I would be coming in later, around noon.

  I bathed, shaved, dressed in suit and tie, slipped the Bersa in my shoulder holster, put on my overcoat, and drove my car from the building's parking garage. I took Libertador, La Pampa, Jose Hernandez, Avenida de los Incas ... In the 4700 block I parked the car. Before getting out I took the pistol from the holster, slipped it into the right-hand pocket of my overcoat, and put on my leather gloves.

  I found Avalos immediately and walked toward the center of the web.

  Darkened, behind weeds and black trees, stood the den of Perez Migali. The gate was open and there was no bell. I entered the garden. A path of paving stones led from the sidewalk to the door of the house. On the outside walls, humidity and neglect had drawn strange, fanciful shapes; the wooded beams were dotted with small holes that were inhabited by almost microscopic insects.

  I rang the doorbell.

  I waited for a few moments, then, with impatience, I pressed the button without releasing it, hearing clearly how the bell resonated inside the house.

  Finally, hesitatingly, a ghostlike figure opened the door, a decrepit man, exuding the smell of death and reduced to mere skin and bones. He was wearing grey pajama bottoms and an undershirt. He was breathing heavily, with difficulty, as if his final hours were near.

  It was Perez Migali.

  "You're here at last. Come in."

  I entered while Perez remained behind me for a moment, closing the door. I walked ahead into a large and disorderly living room.

  The house—which was not unattractive—was virtually in ruins, The rooms beyond seemed to be filled with the remains of a shipwreck. Perez Migali lived in the midst of that filth. The odor of mildew and something rotting (spoiling food? dead rodents?) made me feel nauseated, but did not lessen my determination.

  The floorboards creaked under my feet. Perez Migali, limping, bent over, cadaverous, led me to his bedroom and lay back on his bed. The sickly glow from a lamp on the night table seemed to add to the oppressive sense of decay. He gasped for a few minutes, until he got his breath back. His eyes were raised toward the ceiling, as if there were some hidden truth to be found there. Even though he was a miserable sight, I felt not the slightest pity for him.

  In my right coat pocket I felt the Bersa. I took off my gloves and put them in the left pocket.

  I said to him:

  "You're the one sending the envelopes."

  "Did you think it could be someone else?"

  Slowly he began to sit up until, with great effort, he was able to lean against the headboard. His undershirt, dirty and sticking to his body, outlined his ribs. His hair was greasy and whitened and his face unshaven.

  "This is what things have come to. I have lung cancer and I can't stop smoking. I hardly have the strength to leave the house. But recently I found I needed to visit the post office on Monroe Street..."

  His laugh, as he enjoyed his joke, ended in a hacking cough.

  "I don't even go out to buy food. At this point it doesn't matter. Can you give me a cigarette?"

  I handed him one. He took a match from a box beside his pillow and lit it.

  I took out another one and lit it with my pocket lighter.

  He seemed not to be in any hurry.

  "It has been days since I ran out of money. You can't know how awful it is without tobacco ... There are so many things you miss."

  The constant overpowering stench was annoying me more than Perez himself. I said: “Tell me what you want ... Money? I don't feel like discussing it or wasting time. If you want money, I'll give it to you. I just want to get this over...."

  He responded with an attack of coughing. The noise of his hacking was driving me mad.

  "I don't want money. It never meant a lot to me. I'm not like you. Besides, it's a little late,” he said. “It's been too late for some time now. That's why I decided that before I leave this earth you should pay for Ines's murder...."

  I felt an enormous visceral anger swelling up in me:

  "You bastard, you know that what happened was an accident. I lost my wife and had to manage to raise a daughter alone."

  "Don't try to play on my sympathy. I don't believe in the image of a sorrowful husband, deprived of his beloved wife. You killed her. You disabled the brakes in the car. Do you think I don't know that? The car you gave your wife was the safest o
ne on the market. I looked up the statistics. I was good with numbers, don't you remember?"

  He pointed to some papers that he had on the night table.

  "Do you want to read these? Go ahead. No mechanical problems in Brazil. None in Mexico, none in Chile, none in the United States or in France. And one, just one, in Argentina. Ah, what a coincidence!"

  "Listen to me, you idiot. The authorities eventually found the explanation."

  "Yes, it's so easy to buy someone's testimony. Didn't you try to buy me off just a few minutes ago? With a little bit of money exchanged, some experts are capable of testifying that your wife is still alive."

  He began gasping and coughing up phlegm and the noise heightened my need to kill him.

  After an attack of wheezing that shook his body, he said:

  "That's not important. I've already done what I had to do."

  "And what did you do?"

  "I sent a letter to the Homicide Division, with all the information and statistics, and everything relating to you. It's very possible that those fellows may find the story believable and pursue it, with an eye toward their reputations and promotions."

  He shook his head as if he were confronting something incomprehensible.

  "I could never understand how Ines chose you. Really, you're nothing but a common greedy businessman. In addition,” he added, with a grin, “to being tight. You know I'm a poor man. Why didn't you give me your pack of cigarettes instead of offering me just one?"

  There were eight or ten left. I kept one for myself and held out the pack to him. But he fell to coughing again and pointed his hand to the night table.

  Suddenly he went from coughing to mocking me.

  "Ah, what a splendid gesture, worthy of a true gentleman.... She was wonderful, wasn't she? Look at these..."

  From under the sheets he brought out some yellowed letters and waved them at me. I recognized Ines's handwriting, but I couldn't bring myself to read a single word. “We used to write each other before you showed up, with your practical style and drive to succeed. She was artistic, she painted, read, played the piano ... You turned her into just a housewife, or better, an administrative assistant. You turned her into ‘the manager's wife.’ When I ran into you in Brazil, apparently so happy with each other, I sensed immediately that she had surrendered her life. It was evident that she owned a large amount of stock in Dowland and Grandinetti. I thought to myself then that sooner or later you would kill her and inherit it...."

  I lost control when I heard him utter these words. I took the pistol from my pocket and, without cocking it, pointed it at his head. Perez Migali reacted with a mocking smile that increased my rage. A single shot would not suffice for this piece of scum.

  I took the pistol by the barrel and with the butt struck the first blow to his head.

  He cried out “Ahhh.” His eyes closed and his mouth opened.

  Now I couldn't restrain myself: one, five, ten, twenty blows. I stopped when I saw that Perez Migali's head was just a shapeless, bloody mass. I never thought I could have felt such fury and such joy.

  I saw blood on my hands and on the butt of the pistol. The bathroom door stood ajar. I pushed it open with my knee and went in. An overwhelming odor of grime and dry urine filled my nose. The washbasin, which had originally been white, was stained with a greenish deposit. Suppressing my nausea, I washed my hands. On the gun, covered with blood, there were a few hairs. I carefully washed the weapon and the tap. I poured water over the faucet and washed out the sink. From the rack hung a filthy towel. I dried off the pistol and my hands with my handkerchief. I checked my clothes and my shoes: not a speck of blood.

  I went back into Perez Migali's room. The body, with its bloody head tilted against the back of the bed, looked like a broken doll. One eye was open, the other shut.

  I took a deep breath and began to calm down. That fit of rage was unworthy of me, of my deliberate and controlled personality. My pleasure was not diminished, but I began to think.

  Except for the faucet of the washbasin, which was now clean, I hadn't touched anything with my hands. There were no fingerprints. It was obvious that no one came into the house on Avalos Street, so that Perez Migali's body could remain where it was for months (or years). When it was discovered (if it was discovered), all that remained would be decomposition and bones.

  And, even in the unlikely instance of someone entering in ten minutes, what would the danger be? None. Who could suspect me? No one could ever discover the practically nonexistent relationship between Perez Migali (a person who had disappeared from my life decades ago) and me.

  As for his accusations about Ines's death, they wouldn't hold water. It was most likely that Perez Migali's letter to the Homicide Division had ended up in the wastebasket. But even if they did begin an investigation, how could anyone ever determine anything new about a death that had happened ten years ago? And the most important fact of all was that I knew that Ines's death had been an accident and not a homicide.

  Now, all that was left to do was leave the house, walk to Avenida de los Incas, get in the car, and ... that was it.

  On the floor, leaning against the front door, there was an envelope similar to the three that I had received. Written on it in large block letters were the words LUIS AGUIRRE. When I entered the house, Perez Migali must have left it there with the intention that I would read it when I left.

  I opened it and began to read.

  Aguirre:

  Everything has been a sham. The statistics are false and there had been many accidents like Ines's. You didn't kill her and I never sent a letter about her death to the Homicide Division.

  What's going on is something else.

  You took from me the thing I most desired in the world. I had to make you pay for that.

  My plan, you pragmatic idiot, was excellent. It consisted in my obliging you to kill me, and I succeeded.

  I was terminally ill. My life was worth nothing to me. Yours, no doubt, at least according to your own concept, was worth a lot. That's why I wanted you to kill me. So that for all the years when I was dead, your years in prison would avenge me for the hurt you caused in my life.

  You didn't kill Ines, that's true. But you killed me, and I, in turn, on exactly Tuesday, August 21, mailed from the post office on Monroe Street two envelopes: one, which you now know, contained the photo of Ines and you in front of the Planetarium; in the second one was a letter I had written to a Superior Court judge. I made the request that my house be investigated, indicating that I would be found dead there. Of course I made it clear that it was you who had killed me.

  I took the precaution of making sure that you would arrive here before anyone else: The enigma that I laid out for you was not very challenging, especially for a bright fellow like you. On the other hand, justice takes its sweet time in this country, and is not in the habit of rushing things too much. My letter is probably being passed around the bureaucratic merry-go-round in the justice establishment. But sooner or later it will end up in the hands of someone in the police department.

  Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps within a few days, maybe next week, the police will ring the bell at your magnificent apartment on Avenida del Libertador, or show up at your sumptuous offices at Cordoba and Reconquista. You will be arrested, tried, and convicted, and then sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder “with malice aforethought” of a defenseless dying man in his own house, in his own deathbed.

  "What a raving maniac!” I said to myself. “Poor devil: a failure, insane, and stupid. No judge, no police official, nobody in the world is going to believe this nonsense.

  I put the message into the envelope and folded it in half. The idea of frustrating Perez Migali's plan brought a smile to my lips. I took the gloves out of the left coat pocket and in their place put the envelope. I put on my gloves and congratulated myself for achieving a certain symmetrical balance: the pistol in the right pocket, the letter in the left, and my hands in the gloves.

  I went
outside and carefully pulled the door shut, waiting to hear the latch click. I walked along the paving stones to the front gate and closed it, too. On the street a woman with a bag of groceries was passing by; a boy on a bicycle was delivering newspapers. Everything was normal.

  Now at ease, I reached the Avenida de los Incas in a few minutes. I got into the car and drove to the office. Just as I had told Flavia, I arrived later than usual. There were several appointments on the schedule and after that, completely in control of myself, I tended to my usual activities.

  As a symbol of my triumph, I took out all four of the envelopes I had received from Perez Migali, with their distressing photos and psychopath's messages, and ran them through the paper shredder. By doing so, I transformed that nightmare into thin little strips of useless paper.

  That night I invited Flavia to dinner and afterward brought her home to spend the night.

  Now free from troubling concerns, I enjoyed a thoroughly relaxing weekend. On Monday, I took up again my fulfilling existence as a dynamic man of business. On the morning of Thursday the 30th, two police officers, in civilian clothes, showed up at my office. They had, as they indicated solemnly, a written order by Dr. So-and-So, a Superior Court judge, to bring me in for questioning. I didn't offer the slightest objection and didn't take note of the judge's name. I had anticipated that something like this could happen, also knew that this routine inquiry would not lead anywhere.

  The officers accompanied me uptown to the courts building. Calm and collected, I entered a large office. In addition to the judge, there were three other men, whom I imagined to be minor functionaries and who remained standing to one side.