Finally he leaves money on the table to cover the coffees and goes out. Crossing the road in the direction of the Crime boy’s car, he wonders how soon it will be before he’s putting down a cause of death in the right-hand column for Vicente Gardeu and Luis Collazo.
20
By the time Jaime Brena arrives with his party at La Maravillosa, around eight o’clock, the entrance gate is closed. From his booth, the guard asks the Crime boy to turn off his exterior lights and put on the ones inside the car. The boy doesn’t understand these signals, though; all he sees is a man making hand gestures, opening and closing his fingers as though imitating a duck’s beak; a man who isn’t opening the barrier and apparently has no intention of explaining why but is simply going to wait until the Crime boy does whatever it is he wants him to do. Jaime Brena, who does understand the gestures, explains: Turn off your headlamps and put on the inside lights. The boy does this. But even though he, Jaime Brena, has understood what the guard was asking (or perhaps because of that), he feels irritated, despite being a patient man. The process smacks of abuse of power and reminds Brena of another era. During the years of his marriage he often argued with Irina about what she considered to be one of his many inconsistencies and contradictions: that he was essentially patient and yet so quick to become irritated. If you’re annoyed, do something about it; if you’re going to sit back and be patient, then don’t get so annoyed, his wife would complain. When a mosquito bites you, you feel it right away; that’s nothing to do with patience or impatience, he’d reply. Besides, if it’s already bitten you, what can you do other than scratch yourself? Jaime Brena was patient in those days, when he was married to Irina, and now he sits patiently facing the entry gate to La Maravillosa because he knows that losing patience would help very little, that anything he might do won’t help and may even delay their entry further. But that doesn’t stop him from feeling as irritated as if a swarm of mosquitoes had bitten him. When the car draws level with his window the guard asks the boy for his name, ID number, registration number and the model and colour of his car. The colour? says the Crime boy. The colour, repeats the guard. Green, says the boy in the tone of someone giving an obvious answer to a stupid question. Green what? insists the guard. What? the boy asks. What green? says the man, inverting the order of the words as though that might make the question easier to understand. Green, the boy says again. Another guard prowling through the area with a rifle against his shoulder comes close, and like someone at the races furtively passing on a tip for the next race, he says: Tahiti green. OK, Tahiti green, thanks, says the guard who’s registering the visitors’ entry and, with two fingers on the computer keyboard, confidently types the word “Tahiti”. The boy looks at his companions and says: The worst thing is that this isn’t even a joke. Don’t get me started, says Jaime Brena. Now the guard asks the boy for his registration number, his ID card, car insurance document and proof of payment for the car insurance, then asks him to open first his boot and then his bonnet. The boy does this, obeying each of the guard’s commands in turn, but pointing out that he’d been here yesterday: I came as a visitor to the same house; you’ve already taken my photograph and entered all this information into the system, apart from the colour. Yes, that’s new, says the guard, you must have given those details to my colleague. So is it necessary to write it all down again? the boy asks. Not normally, but the system’s gone down, so we have to input all the data by hand. Jaime Brena can feel his temperature rising. Karina Vives laughs: These guys are incredible; they’re not for real. Do you think this man doesn’t realize that it makes no earthly difference whether your car is Tahiti or moss green? Brena fumes: It’s the people they answer to, not them, that we need to thank for this brainwave. Every time there’s an assault on a gated community they add some new security check that will do nothing to prevent another incident, but which nobody dares to question. Karina says: I think they should take apart the seats like the drug squad, pull up the carpets, test the fire extinguisher to make sure that it doesn’t contain some substance that can be used in the preparation of homemade bombs, frisk us, check my bag, make us walk through a metal detector. Just give it time, Jaime Brena interrupts, more resigned now than irritated, as the barrier rises before them, finally permitting them entry to La Maravillosa.
In her house (or rather the house where she’s staying) Nurit Iscar – who knows that Jaime Brena and the Crime boy are on their way because there’s already been a call from the gatehouse asking her to authorize their entry, but who doesn’t yet know that Karina Vives is also in the car – brushes her hair, puts on some perfume, applies gloss to her lips and feels like an idiot. She goes back into the kitchen to join her friends. What time did you order the pizzas for? Paula Sibona asks. For nine o’clock. I should have got them for earlier, right? No, nine’s a good time to eat, says Carmen. And what if they’re hungry? Shall I get some snacks ready? Nurit asks. Betty Boo, is it just me or are you even more nervous than when Lorenzo Rinaldi came to pick you up? Paula asks. It’s just you. The sound of car wheels on the gravel outside saves her from further explanations. Nurit Iscar goes to the front door to receive her guests. The darkness outside prevents her from seeing that there’s someone else besides the Crime boy and Jaime Brena until Brena opens the back door and Karina Vives steps out of the car which, as its passengers now know, is Tahiti green. I hope you don’t mind, but we’ve brought a friend: Karina, says Jaime, introducing the women. Hello, I’m Nurit, she says, kissing the girl and then the two men. And for some reason it doesn’t cross her mind that this woman is Karina Vives as she kisses her, or as they walk along on the veranda before entering the house, assuming from her age that she’s a friend of the Crime boy, not Jaime Brena, and it will be a couple of hours before the penny drops, when her friends ask her, Don’t you know who that bitch is? Because even then she won’t have guessed that this is the woman who tore apart her novel Only If You Love Me three years earlier, thus hastening her exile to the realm of ghostwriters. It’s true that nobody uses her surname during the introductions, nobody mentions that she’s a cultural journalist, nobody even says “she works with us”. But isn’t there such a thing as female intuition? Gut instinct? A sixth sense? Clearly not, unless Nurit’s excitement – fuelled not only by the evolving Chazarreta case but also (as we should acknowledge now) by the fact that Jaime Brena is here – has clouded her perception. At any rate she’s entering the house now, chatting with the girl, friendly, amiable, making introductions: Paula, Carmen, this is Karina. And they all kiss each other, smile at one another, sit down in living-room armchairs and say nice things to one another as if (even though some of them know each other very little) each for her part believes wholeheartedly in that popular saying “My friends’ friends are my friends too”.
The first thing the Crime boy does is carry out Jaime Brena’s request: he goes up to Nurit’s room and searches on YouTube for the news item on Chazarreta’s death which was shown a few days ago on the channel that belongs to the same media group as El Tribuno. It’s not difficult to find, nor is it hard to print off the photograph that appears at the end of the item in a montage of different images and which Brena believes may match the one that was in the empty frame. Although the definition on the image is frustratingly poor, it does seem likely that this is the missing photograph, and the men’s faces can be seen fairly clearly, albeit in fewer pixels than he would have liked. He takes the printed picture down to Brena, who confirms his hunch: This is the one; thanks, kid.
A while later, when they’re all comfortably installed in the living room, Jaime Brena takes from his pocket the notepad and the photo the Crime boy has just given him, finds the page with the last set of notes he made and beckons to Nurit Iscar. She comes over, takes the printed photograph from him and studies the men in it one by one. Each man offers up a posed smile apart from Gandolfini, whose expression is different, stiffer, as though he were talking to the person taking the photograph – or not so much talking as giving
him instructions or upbraiding him. Nurit and Jaime Brena exchange a few impressions, the Crime boy following their conversation closely. The others listen but keep their distance, not knowing whether it’s appropriate or not for them to be a party to this conversation. Jaime Brena sees this and makes an effort to involve them: If you’re interested in our strange deliberations, by all means join in. The others lean in. Brena gives a summary of his meeting with Gandolfini’s brother, pouring praise on the Crime boy and the computer skills that helped locate the man. And the photograph. Then he puts on his glasses to read aloud the part that matters to him most, his chart detailing each victim and the cause of his death. Nurit puts the photo down on the table and reads Brena’s notes over his shoulder. The Crime boy, in search of a signal for his BlackBerry, has moved to the doorway between living room and kitchen. He doesn’t exactly know why it unsettles him to be without a signal, but it does. When Brena has finished reading through the chart, Carmen Terrada, hesitant in the way of a person who realizes she’s about to give an opinion on something she knows little about, ventures: If you don’t mind me saying something that sounds a bit half-baked, this reminds me of a Carnival death. Jaime Brena nods. What do you mean by “Carnival death”? asks the Crime boy, although in fact this question could have come from any of them, since only Brena knows what Carmen is talking about. She explains: Things are more tightly controlled these days, but years ago at the Rio Carnival lots of people used to die in fights that were supposedly caused by alcohol, excessive partying and general mayhem. The deaths were taken as an acceptable cost of the celebrations. They weren’t really investigated; there were a lot of deaths and not many clues. It meant that a criminal who wanted to pick somebody off for whatever reason would wait until then so that the murder would get included in King Momo’s yearly tally and go almost unnoticed. Well, some of what you’ve been saying reminds me of the Carnival deaths. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself; it’s more a feeling than anything else, Carmen says. Jaime Brena, listening intently, nods. He also has the sense that somebody is trying to pull the wool over their eyes, that they are being outwitted, that somebody, somehow, is still pulling the strings of these dead men. And of those yet to die. However complicated the situation, he doesn’t believe that the accidents are, in fact, accidental. He asks the Crime boy to look up information about the latest fatality, Marcos Miranda, the one who was killed a few hours ago in a shoot-out in the United States. Are these all “Carnival deaths”? Are any of them? Are any of them not? What link could there be between a ski accident, a fatal crash, a throat-slitting and a gun crime? Jaime says, sharing his thoughts with the group. What’s the pattern, the one constant in every case? The boy says that it’s odd that there’s still nothing from the news agencies about the shooting in New Jersey. Karina Vives, who’s forgotten her pregnancy worries for the time being, is kneeling at the coffee table looking at the photograph of the Little Ranch men. Nurit Iscar is still focused on Jaime Brena’s notepad, tracing lines with her finger between each victim and the cause of his death. She seems to have cut herself off from the rest of the group, so deep in thought she doesn’t hear what the others say. She keeps poring over the list of victims and crimes, looking from left to right and right to left, down and up, up and down. Until finally, as though she had had a revelation, she interrupts the conversation she hasn’t been following and says: Each one got the death he deserved. Meaning? says the Crime boy. That they died in the way you’d expect, says Nurit Iscar. Then she stands up and, just as though she were giving a class at the university, she paces around the living room explaining, as she refers by name to each of the men in the photograph which she has snatched from the hands of Karina Vives in a gesture that’s impulsive and enthusiastic rather than arrogant: The guy who drove like a madman and who everyone thought would come a cropper dies in a car accident; the daredevil skier dies skiing; the one who went to the United States dies the ultimate American death: shot by a crazy. And Chazarreta, whom so many people considered to be his wife’s murderer, died like her, as he should die, as it was to be expected that he might die. Each one of them got the death he deserved, Nurit concludes. But it wasn’t fate, or karma, or coincidence or a curse, not even a “fix”, as Gladys Varela would put it, Jaime Brena adds, and Nurit nods in agreement. Who’s Gladys Varela? Karina Vives asks, but nobody answers. So what was it then? Paula Sibona asks. Contract killings, says Jaime Brena, without a moment’s hesitation. Somebody wanted all these people to die, and set out to find someone who could make that happen. That’s the pattern. Does that really exist? Carmen asks. Can you really get someone to kill another person so easily? I thought it was an urban myth. I don’t know about easily, but it’s no urban myth; hitmen exist, says the Crime boy. You’d better believe it, says Jaime Brena, continuing: a “proper” job, in quotation marks, clean, done by professionals, can cost between 3,000 and 5,000 dollars, but you can also find guys who’ll take someone out for 300 pesos. If only I’d known that before, says Paula Sibona with a wink to Carmen Terrada, who ignores the joke. Whoever wanted this job done must have paid a lot of money for it, says Brena. This isn’t the work of a lone hitman, there’s a firm behind this; a series of murders like these demands logistics, information, international reach, even a script. Quite an operation. I once wrote a piece on something similar to this, says Karina Vives. Oh – are you a journalist as well? asks Paula Sibona, who has seemed the least engaged in the conversation so far. Yes, says Karina. I wrote about a company that specialized in organizing fake courses or conferences for men or women who were unfaithful to their partners. The cheaters would say that they were going off to a conference in some part of the world and they’d get sent fake publicity material, folders with coursework, fake photo ID, diplomas, etc., etc., all impeccably done. There are a lot of bastards out there, says Paula Sibona. For sure, agrees Karina. This seems similar, no? An organization to create a lie which, instead of concealing infidelities, conceals something else. A string of deaths, says Jaime Brena, but providing execution – the murder itself – as well as cover. A truly professional job in the worst sense. And Brena would be happy to keep explaining and talking about the case but he can’t help noticing that the three women who have joined their working party are intrigued by the concept of the organization for unfaithful men and women and are still talking about this under their breath without paying much attention to his ruminations. Over on the other side of the living room, that conversation is getting lively. But Jaime Brena, the Crime boy and Nurit Iscar aren’t a part of it. They’re worried – very worried. They move away from the others so they can speak freely without alarming them. I think we do need to tell the police now, says the Crime boy. Yes, Jaime Brena agrees. Nurit nods, but her mind is still working away. Who could contract a firm of assassins, and why? Someone with a lot of money, for starters, says Brena. And she says: Clearly it’s someone with a lot of money, but what can those men have done for someone to expend so much energy and money on planning their deaths and carrying them out in such a sophisticated way? Those are the two things we need to find out next, says Jaime Brena, who and why. But either way we need to inform the police.
They’re interrupted by the bell. The pizza? says Nurit. How strange that they didn’t ring from the gatehouse. I wonder if any of us will be able to eat now; I’ve got such a knot in my stomach, she says as she walks towards the door. But when she opens it, it’s not the pizza delivery man standing outside but the guard who gave her a lift to the newsagent in his buggy that morning. I’m sorry to bother you, Señora, he says. No, not at all; what is it? she asks. I… I don’t know if it’s right for me to be here, but… What’s happened? Nurit insists. It’s Señor Collazo. Do you remember how we were saying that he’s been on edge recently? Yes, says Nurit, already sensing what’s coming. Jaime Brena and the Crime boy, realizing that the guard is about to reveal something important, have come to the door. Señor Collazo has killed himself. A colleague told me a little while ago, and I’ve just
seen his body. Nurit feels as though she’s been thumped in the chest. How did he die? Brena asks. He hanged himself from a tree. He’s still hanging there, in his garden; they can’t bring him down, they have to wait for a judge to come. Nurit grabs hold of Jaime Brena’s arm, and he holds her but also puts his hand on hers and squeezes it. The Crime boy rubs his face as though trying to wake up from a nightmare. Please don’t tell my superiors that I let you know, the man asks Nurit. They don’t like any gossiping… but I swear it’s such a shock, you never expect such a thing… I wanted to tell you, I’m sorry. No, you did the right thing, she says, you were right to come and tell me and don’t worry, I won’t let anyone know how I heard the news. He was very agitated, the guard goes on. You could see it coming, right? Nurit Iscar tries to say something, but her voice cracks. Noticing her distress, Jaime Brena spares her from having to give the answer the guard is waiting for. Instead, he speaks the words she would have spoken if her throat hadn’t tightened around them, words that, though they sound like confirmation, mean something different to what the man standing in front of them will hear. Yes, you could see it coming. Collazo died how you’d expect him to die.
21
Jaime Brena and Nurit Iscar are about to go over to Collazo’s house, where his body is still hanging from a tree. The Crime boy, who had intended to go with them, is persuaded by Brena that he should concentrate now on trying to locate the group’s only survivor: Vicente Gardeu. At least they hope that he has survived the others. Nurit Iscar suggests he use the computer in her room, which has a bigger screen and a keyboard less likely – she hopes – to bring on osteoarthritis than the tiny one on her BlackBerry. Karina Vives, Paula Sibona and Carmen Terrada will stay at home awaiting pizza and news. So at the moment that Nurit and Jaime Brena are walking in the dark of a moonless night (at the last meeting the residents of La Maravillosa voted against a proposal to increase the number of street lights so as to preserve a feeling of being in nature, “otherwise we may as well go and live in Buenos Aires”, one of the residents is supposed to have shouted, and everyone applauded) the Crime boy is in Nurit’s bedroom typing “Vicente Gardeu” into the Google search box, and Nurit’s friends are chatting to Karina Vives in the kitchen while waiting for the pizza delivery man, whose arrival has already been announced from the gatehouse. We should put the oven on to keep them warm until the others get back, right? says Paula. I doubt they’ll still feel much like pizza but yes, cold ones would be worse, Carmen says. Then she turns to Karina Vives: So you’re a journalist too? Yes, the girl says. And where do you work? At El Tribuno, like the others. Ah, so the three of you are colleagues, you work together. Yes, almost literally: our desks are very close to each other. Did you only start working there recently? Paula Sibona asks. No, Karina says, and she laughs. I’ve been there way too long, like eight years. But how old are you? Thirty-five. You seem much younger. Thanks. So you’ve been there for ages. Yes. And which section are you in? Do they always make you write about unfaithful men and women? No, thankfully not, that was right at the start when they had me filling in and covering all kinds of things, then I moved on to Entertainment, and for a few years now I’ve been in Culture. Carmen is the first to hear alarm bells, and to confirm her suspicions she repeats: You work in El Tribuno’s Culture section. And immediately asks: In the main body of the newspaper or in the supplement? In Tribuno 2, Karina Vives confirms. And you’re called Karina. Yes, she confirms again, a little disconcerted now, not only by the questions but by the tone of voice in which Carmen is putting them. She works in Culture at El Tribuno and her name’s Karina, Carmen says to Paula with an emphasis that isn’t lost on her friend. Out of interest, what’s your surname? Paula asks. Vives, says the girl. I don’t believe it, says Paula. Karina Vives, says Carmen, with an expression that says “I might have known”. Tell me, Karina, Paula says, do you know whose house this is? Yes…, says the girl, not understanding where the question is leading. So whose house is it? Paula insists. What do you mean? It’s Nurit Iscar’s house. Is this a joke? she replies. And it doesn’t make you feel a bit funny to be here? Funny how? Funny in the sense of embarrassed, ashamed, remorseful, or, to put it another way: don’t you feel a bit shit? Paula Sibona says, going in for the kill. Karina looks uncomfortable, still not understanding if this strange conversation constitutes a joke, a misunderstanding or something else and struggling to find an explanation for the aggressive way Nurit Iscar’s friends have suddenly turned on her. If it’s because… I’m not involved with Jaime Brena or with the boy — No, darling, it’s not that. This has nothing to do with men. The review she wrote three years ago and which signified something very different to her than it did to Nurit Iscar and her friends doesn’t even cross Karina Vives’ mind. A review which, for other reasons, she tried to forget – successfully, until today. Paula Sibona is about to remind her of it, though: You write a book review that rips Nurit apart and now you turn up here as if it never happened. Was this recently? A new book? No, not new: three years ago. Is your memory that bad? Let me help: the review of Only If You Love Me. Ah yes, that review. But that was three years ago, says Karina, finally understanding what they are talking about. Don’t you have anything to say about it? Paula presses. Look, you’re both making me feel really bad. I was asked to write about that book and I did. It was a piece about a book, not a person, it was my first job as Culture editor, and I didn’t know Nurit Iscar at that time, anyway. What? So if you’d known her you’d have written something different? Carmen says. Is that how you people operate? I’d rather not talk about it. There are things related to my work that I’m not going to discuss outside it; it was a review, that’s all. A review doesn’t change anyone’s life. It changed Nurit’s, says Paula, unflinchingly. That will have been down to something else, not the review, says Karina Vives, defensively. Does one person’s opinion of a book really matter so much that it can affect the life of whoever wrote it? Well, each one of us is affected by different things; or does nothing affect you? Carmen asks and continues: Maybe it doesn’t affect you if someone talks down your work, or doesn’t value the time and effort you put into it, but something in life’s got to affect you, something must make you cry – or do you never cry? Karina Vives holds her gaze for a few seconds, teeth clenched, breathing fast, eyes hot with anger, then noisily bursts into tears. Hey, don’t cry, it’s not that bad. We’re not getting at you; we’re just respectfully saying something that needs to be said. Isn’t that right? Paula says, looking at Carmen. Totally respectfully, Carmen agrees. If what you want to do is make us feel bad — I’m not crying because of that! I’m not crying because of you, or because of Nurit, or because of that bloody review. I’m crying because I’m pregnant! Now Paula Sibona and Carmen Terrada are the startled ones. Isn’t that a bit more important than churnalism? Paula and Carmen look at one another and then at her. Karina Vives struggles to control her breathing, choking on her sobs. And I don’t even know if I want it or not, she stammers. Paula Sibona fills a glass of water and takes it to her. Here, sweetheart, let’s start at the beginning. What is “churnalism”?
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