City of Knives

by William Bayer

  In fact, Sandi had told her, running shoes were de rigueur on the street while tango shoes were to be carried in a tote bag.

  "Next stop Noche del Tango." Sandi said. "And when we get bored there it'll be on to Niño Bien! and maybe Almagro too if we've still got the energy."

  The late night clubs, Beth discovered, were dressier than the afternoon salons, the women decked out in close-fitting dresses, most of the men in tailored suits, dress shirts and ties. The lighting was flattering, the surfaces mirrored and slick, the mood sophisticated and urbane.

  Beth liked the formality, felt it suited the stylized formality of the dance. Back in North Beach too many dancers dressed like slobs. But what impressed her most was the quality of the dancing, the commitment to tango as an art form. She told Sandi that never in her life had she seen so many good dancers together on a single floor.

  "Yeah, you've got to be good down here," Sandi agreed. "Novices get fried at a place like this."

  "Then how do they learn?" Beth asked.

  "Same way we did. Classes and practicas. Teaching tango is a major industry here. Which may explain the excessive number of 'tango instructors.' There're about as many of them as there are shrinks. Which tells you something about the society, I think: dance till you drop, then take the talking cure." She laughed. "Indulgence and guilt, that's Buenos Aires."

  There were five thousand dancers in town, Sandi told her, not just people who danced tango, but true tangueros, every-nighters. Of these maybe six or seven hundred at any given time formed a floating ever-changing population of foreign dancers from the U.S., U.K., Germany, Holland, Sweden, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, South Africa...all seeking to experience "the real thing."

  "You haven't danced tango till you've danced it in B.A.' This is Tango Heaven." Sandi squinted out at the room. "Hey! Here comes a guy I know! Great dancer! See you later!"

  A couple of times when Beth was dancing, she thought she caught a glimpse of Mr. DreamDance. But then, it turned out, it was always someone else. So many partners, so many tandas. Her head began to spin as she became part of the whirl of smartly dressed couples swirling and swishing in each others' arms.

  She perspired from the exertion. Her face, like most everybody's, took on a sheen. She could smell the aroma of human beings in motion mingling with the fragrances worn by the women and the fresh-scented soaps used by the men.

  Latin Lust, she thought.

  The floor at Noche del Tango was wooden and properly sprung, unlike the old pitted stone floor at Ideal. And the male dancers were less conservative. Some led adornos (embellishments) which she enjoyed: boleos (little whipping motions of the legs); barridas (sweeps); ganchos (hooks); caricias (leg caresses); enrosques (corkscrews). Others were masters of tango liso (unadorned tango), leading beautifully executed caminandos (walks), ochos (figure eights) and molinetes (windmills.) Beth loved molinetes, dancing a "grapevine" around a partner, using forward and backward ocho footwork while he pivoted in the center of the wheel. Since each man danced differently, it was her task to suss out his signals. Each new partnership resulted in a different conversation spoken with thrusting legs and flashing feet.

  She danced with partners who led the viborita (viper), the cadena (chain), the caída (fall). Some of these figures were too theatrical for her taste, but still she enjoyed trying them out. Almost every man she danced with thanked her profusely as he escorted her back to her table. Their compliments were very Latino: "You're exquisite!;”

  “You dance like a true tanguera;”

  “You have the most adorable legs!;”

  “Please join me for coffee."

  What she liked best about it all, she decided, was the way the dance demanded her attention, demanded that she be totally present. Such intense focus led to a zen-like state of openness, release from the prison of the self.

  There were other aspects that had always intrigued her about Argentine tango, and which here, on her first night out in B.A., seemed especially intense. The melancholic component first of all, the way the dancers seemed to revel in their melancholy. She tried to break through this with some, break the spell by defying the convention of averted eyes, suddenly meeting the eyes of her partners full-on, then showing a little smile. But whenever she did this her partner would become slightly unnerved and she would feel a new tension in his embrace.

  Each dance, she understood, was a story created by two people about themselves filled with love and tenderness, pause and ornamentation, proposals and counter-proposals, giving and taking, assertion and compliance, melancholy and joy, seduction and yearning, force and vulnerability, harmony...and the final freeze-frame, the frozen embrace that summed up everything that had gone before, the final pose at the end of a song which she always thought of as "a bitter end."

  Her particular problem, one she hoped to examine in her paper, was how she, a strong independent woman who happened to love to dance, must, in tango, act only as follower.

  But that's okay, she thought, because in tango there is no future and no past. Only the here-and-now....

  She and Sandi never got beyond Niño Bien!, the second club on Sandi's list. The dancing was too good, the seduction too intense.

  In the taxi, returning to Residencia Europa at five a.m., Beth turned to Sandi, asked her what she was seeking at the clubs.

  "Oh, you know, the same guy we're all seeking 'Mister Good Tango.' A few times here I actually thought I found him. But as expected it turned out I hadn't. How 'bout you? Ever find him in San Francisco?"

  "Yeah, one time actually," Beth admitted, "just a few months ago. That's one reason I came down here, to try and find him again. He said he'd be here in the Argentine autumn."

  "What's his name?"

  Beth laughed. "That's the thing—I don't know and he doesn't know mine. So I made up my own name for him. Mr. DD, Mr. DreamDance."

  She described the encounter in North Beach and the one-night stand that followed.

  "Sounds like a lot more than a hook-up," Sandi said. "Sounds really romantic."

  "Oh, it was," Beth agreed, turning so Sandi wouldn't see the emotion in her eyes.

  Sandi grasped her hand. "You're so lucky, Beth, to have met a dancer you liked that much. Me, I guess I'm just as happy I never did...least not down here. Too much chance of being hurt. I'm happy to be leaving the way I arrived, unencumbered. As the wrinkled old French lady used to sing it... 'je ne regrette rien.'"

  They had lunch together the next day, Sandi's last meal in B.A. They went to a small restaurant near the hotel, sat on high stools at the bar, drank sherry and ate picadas.

  Sandi handed Beth several handwritten pages. "I put together this list for you," she said. "Where to get your hair done, buy good tango shoes, a good gym if you're into working out, a couple of good cybercafés, stuff like that. I also annotated the list of tango halls they hand out at the hotel. Just my opinions...for what they're worth. The scene changes all the time. This month's hot spot may be next month's old folks home. Tango's alive. It lives and changes. That's what I love about it here."

  Beth was touched. "I'm going to miss you, Sandi. We've only known each other twenty-four hours, but already I think of you as a friend."

  Sandi nodded. "Tango really bonds you, doesn't it? We're both addicts, slaves of the dance. Sometimes I go weeks without a magical experience on the floor, then I might luck into three in a single evening. That's what's kept me coming back." She smiled. "Anyway, from time to time I'll think of you down here dancing your nights away. Please occasionally think of me in the Windy City plodding my way through depositions."

  Back at the hotel, Beth helped Sandi hustle her luggage into a taxi. They hugged on the sidewalk, Sandi got in the cab, gave her a last wave as it pulled away. Beth waited until it was out of sight, then turned and walked toward the pedestrian malls, Florida and Lavalle, to explore the city, lose herself in the crowds.

  She walked for what seemed like hours, feeling herself as but one among millions in the
stream, studying faces and gestures, listening in to little snatches of conversation as people passed. She was taking in the vibe, trying to feel the city, feel its pulse. Buenos Aires was a great city, she knew. People called it The Paris of South America. And like all great cities, even as it generated and projected energy, it also filled her with a sense of loneliness.

  She was alone here, knew no one, and now the one friend she'd made had left. Still she felt a part of something special. What had Sandi called it? An addiction. Perhaps, she thought, a better way to describe it was to think of it as devotion to an art form, a most particular and stylish form of dance.

  And that, she understood, would be the key to finding happiness here, her sense that even as she was but one of millions, moving, flowing, paths criss-crossing in the crowded streets, among these millions were five thousand like herself, committed dancers, who met nightly to touch, twirl and connect, and who, by their syncopated movements, the pressing together of their bodies, entwinings of their legs, sought redress from loneliness.

  Chapter Three

  SMOKE SCREEN

  Marta Abecasis met Rolo Tejada outside the Galería Güemes, a downtown arcade of cheap clothing and tourist trinket shops, discount camera stores and a defunct cybercafé. She remembered the arcade from her childhood, an Aladdin's Cave of alcoves filled with glittering treasures. Middle-class people didn't come here anymore. In recent years, it had become the haunt of strung-out teenagers, prostitutes and drug dealers.

  She and Rolo took the elevator up to the third floor, walked down a long corridor past the offices of cut-rate dentists, podiatrists, masseurs and a doctor who, according to his sign, specialized in treating VD with "great discretion."

  "Rents here must be pretty cheap," Rolo said.

  Near the end of the corridor, they came to the office of CYBERFOTOGRAFÍA/REINALDO COSTAS, whose "RC" monogram had been imbedded in the printing paper of the five Silvia Santini/Graciela Viera sex photos.

  The office was dark, blinds drawn, the only source of light the screens of computers arranged in a line on a long table. Rolo gestured toward a tall clean-shaven man in his twenties in front of one of the computers.

  "That's Costas." Hearing his name, the man stood up and approached. Rolo introduced him to Marta. "Please believe me, Inspector," Costas said to her, "I had no idea this would become a police matter." Marta studied him. His expression struck her as a little too earnest. "You didn't do all that good a job," she said.

  Costas smiled. "The way I angled the tattoo?"

  "You knew?"

  "Of course! And I left out the woman's birthmark."

  "Why?"

  "I didn't much like the guys who hired me. They said they wanted me to fake up some lesbian photos to play a joke on a friend. I figured if the pictures were going to be a joke, I shouldn't make them a hundred percent convincing. I didn't want to be responsible for somebody getting hurt or become involved in a matrimonial dispute."

  "Now you're involved in a homicide investigation," Rolo said.

  "I know, and I'm very sorry...."

  It had taken Rolo just an hour to track down the maker of the fake photos. If it hadn't been for the monogram he would never have managed it since hundreds of thousands of people possessed the proper software and knew how to use it on a home computer.

  "Never mind how sorry you are," Marta said. "Tell us about these men. Who were they?"

  Costas, chastened, shook his head. "Tough looking. They didn't give their names and they paid in cash. They brought the original photos with them and took them back when I was done."

  "Tough looking – what does that mean?"

  "If you don't mind my saying so, Inspector, they seemed like cops or military types. Please, I hope you're not offended." Costas started to describe them, then stopped. "I have a better way. I've got excellent ID software. Give me a few minutes and I'll put together sketches."

  He went to one of the computers, loaded in a CD-ROM, and set to work. In twenty minutes he produced sketches of two thuggish looking men. Marta wasn't impressed—the men looked generic.

  "I'm sorry," Costas said weakly. "This is the best I can do."

  On the way back to the elevator Marta turned to Rolo.

  "Costas has a decent excuse for doing a sloppy job, but I wonder whether he didn't want anyone to get hurt or whether he was paid to do it sloppy."

  She arranged to meet with Raúl Vargas, the young investigative journalist on El Faro with whom she'd worked on the Casares Case, the one who'd first dubbed her "La Incorrupta."

  Raúl was brilliant and also paranoid, extremely careful about where he met people, even people he trusted. He had a unique way of setting up meetings: "Take a walk at three o'clock down the east side of Corrientes; I'll catch up with you," he'd tell Marta. Or: "Circulate at noon among the market sellers in front of Retiro Station; I'll find you." Then he'd swoop by on his Kawasaki, call out her name, she'd hop on the back, he'd hand her a helmet, then take off at high speed, usually to a café connected to a gas station in an obscure neighborhood where he'd always choose a corner table. There they'd exchange information over a quick cup of coffee.

  Marta called him on his cell phone, the only way she knew to reach him.

  "I need to talk to you about that blind political item," she said.

  "Which one? Yesterday we ran six." From the loud traffic noises in the background, she could tell he was on his motorcycle darting around the city.

  "The one about lesbian pictures of the wife of a potential presidential candidate."

  "Oh, That one! Been meaning to call you about that."

  He asked her to meet him at four p.m. by the north wall of Recoleta Cemetery. "It seems an appropriate place, Marta, don't you think? Wear a black sweater if you've got one."

  What a wise-ass!

  "Start around Calle Guido, walk on the wall side toward Plaza Francia. I'll..."

  "Yeah, Raúl, I know—you'll pick me up."

  As always he came upon her from behind, swerved to the curb in front of her, then waited for her to hop on without looking back. He was wearing his usual uniform: black helmet, black leather jacket, black T-shirt, black jeans, black boots, an all-black camera hanging around his neck.

  What a lovely self-romanticizing boy, Marta thought, as she mounted the seat behind him. He handed her a helmet. She'd barely pulled it on and grabbed the rear handlebar when he took off.

  "Do you really meet me like this for security reasons?" she yelled in his ear. "Or is this how you think an investigative reporter's supposed to act?"

  "I had two death threats last month," he yelled back. "Hold tight, I'm going to weave."

  He was probably telling the truth about death threats. Investigative journalism was a dangerous profession in Argentina. Over the past twelve months, two reporters and a photojournalist had been murdered.

  Five minutes later he entered an alley near the Botanical Gardens, screeched to a stop, used a control module to open a garage door, revved his engine, then drove inside.

  "This doesn't look like the usual gas station, Raúl."

  He pulled off his helmet. "My parents live upstairs. They're in the States. I'm apartment sitting." He pointed toward a door. "It leads to the service elevator."

  When she asked why he'd brought her to this upper-middle class apartment house, he explained that his parents had acquired a new espresso machine, affording him the opportunity to offer her a decent cup of coffee for a change.

  "You're about the only person I'd think of bringing here," he said.

  "Why's that?"

  "We've been through a lot together, you and I."

  Which was true. The Casares Affair had been a huge scandal. Raúl had broken the story and she had solved the case.

  She followed him past a maze of storage rooms. There was a mop and bucket inside the service elevator. He pushed the button for the penthouse floor.

  As they ascended she turned to him. "So your folks live in Villa Freud." She used the
vernacular name for the neighborhood, so-called because of the concentration of psychoanalysts who lived there and saw patients in their apartments.

  "Yeah, they're both shrinks. I guess I am too in my way. Not that I exactly get what they do." He shook his head. "Their explanations for everything are so...convoluted."

  They entered the apartment through the kitchen. He tossed his jacket on to the counter, then set to work making coffee. Watching him she noticed the thinness of his arms. He was a good-looking young man, she observed, with long boyish-cut hair and a wiry underfed body. He was so thin she found herself feeling maternal towards him, wishing he'd eat more and build himself up. Though they'd worked together, she knew virtually nothing about his personal life. It was a revelation that his parents were shrinks.

  After preparing two cups of espresso, he ushered her into a sunny living room. The windows looked out over Las Heras Park.

  "So, tell me about these lesbo photos you've got," he said, flinging himself into a chair.

  "Why don't you tell me?" she countered, taking a seat on the couch.

  This was the way they always began, feigning caginess, then trading information.

  "I got a voice message," Raúl said. "Male voice which sounded electronically disguised. No follow-up, no confirmation. That's why we ran the item blind."

  Marta described the photos, how she'd showed them to Charbonneau, then the revelation that they'd been professionally yet imperfectly faked.

  "I'm thinking," she told him, "that the people who stuck them under my door were probably the same people who killed Granic and the girl, that they wanted me to wrongly conclude the murders had to do with stopping the circulation of compromising pictures. That fits with the front page of your paper stuffed into Silvia Santini's mouth. But why send me fake pictures and plant a story with you if the pictures can be proven to be fakes? The guy who faked them says he deliberately did a sloppy job. I'm wondering if he was paid to do it sloppy. I'm also wondering whether Charbonneau was right, that this is some kind of inept dirty trick being played by Viera's political enemies."