Sweet money
( Inspector Lascano - 2 )
Ernesto Mallo
Ernesto Mallo
Sweet money
Needle in a Haystack
The island of memory will rupture.
And life will become an artless act.
A prison for days gone by.
Tomorrow the monsters of the forest will smash the beach upon the glass of mystery.
Tomorrow the unknown letter will meet the hands of the soul.
Alejandra Pizarnik
1
Miranda, get your stuff!
Mole is sitting on the cot that won’t be his much longer, waiting to hear those words he’s dreamt about every single one of the one thousand four hundred and sixty-one nights he’s spent in that cell block. Now that the moment has arrived it feels unreal, and he’s afraid. Inside, you know when you’ve got to be on guard, when you might be attacked. Outside, you never know where it might be coming from, or what might go wrong. Chance is a bank robber’s worst enemy.
An air of mourning hangs over the Devoto Prison cell block. It’s always like that when a popular prisoner is released — wonderful, yes, but, on this side of the bars, not as cheerful as one might imagine. Prison promotes criminal behaviour, but it also leaves you numb. The same routine, day in and day out, slows down the reflexes, clouds the understanding, and, at the same time, provokes anger. Experienced criminals know how risky it is to go right back into action. It’s all too common for an ex-con to end up dead shortly after getting out.
Mole is a rich inmate. He is guaranteed a supply of goods and money from the outside. If you’ve got money, you can get virtually anything you need in prison. Miranda knows how to mete out his generosity; he shares his wealth only with the cell block’s leader, The Prick. He lets him carry out the distribution however he sees fit and take credit for it. Everyone knows where the goods are coming from, but Mole would never tell. Discretion is a cardinal virtue among prisoners. That’s how you garner respect. The Prick protects him and lets him have his very own prison bitch. If you’ve got a little smarts and you command a lot of respect, you can stay out of trouble, mostly. Anyway, riots are the most dangerous. That’s when anything can happen, but the chances of getting killed during a riot are probably not much different from those of getting run over by a bus or having a flowerpot fall on your head.
In a few short minutes those words will echo down the corridor: Miranda, get your stuff! Then he will begin the four hundred-yard trek that separates him from the street. He’ll stand up, pick up his bag — already packed — and walk down the aisle between the two rows of beds, without looking at or talking to anybody. Whatever he’s not taking with him has already been given away: this is the legacy he leaves. A few hours earlier he said goodbye to everyone he had to say goodbye to. Since then, he’s been slowly turning into a ghost. When you leave, you become the object of envy; when you walk out that door, you are the embodiment of everyone’s desire. That’s why you don’t leave the goodbyes till the last moment.
In the bed next to his, Andres, who’s been his bitch for a while, is lying face down, stifling the cries that press on his throat like a tie tied too tightly around his neck. Andres loves Mole, but the sorrow he feels is not only of lost love. Miranda was good and generous to him, he always treated him considerately, he never hit him or gave him to others. A lot of guys on the block want him, but nobody ever dared. He’s a green-eyed blond from Corrientes province, a guy who looks a lot like a girl. He’s got all the mannerisms of a young lady, he cooks like a dream and he refers to himself as a “she” in a sweet Guarani accent. He’s been inside since he was eighteen. His mother died when he was eleven, and the guy who claimed to be his father started taking advantage of him right away. One night, while the man was sleeping, Andres tied his arms and legs to the bedposts and woke him up. He cut his penis off at the base and sat there watching him bleed to death. Then he turned himself in to the cops. At the trial, his lawyer — appointed by the court to defend the poor and the dispossessed — was too poor and too dispossessed and took the easy way out: he had him sign a confession, dictated to and written down with a large dose of animosity by the faggot-hating clerk at the police station. Nor did he bother to appeal the verdict that found Andres guilty of first-degree murder or the sentence of life imprisonment. Miranda bought him from someone named Villar. After the transaction, Miranda made sure — without anybody finding out — that the seller got moved to a different block, just in case. A little later Villar got sick and died. Word had it that pancreatic cancer did him in.
Now Andres is crying silently. He knows that as soon as Mole walks out that door, there will be a struggle over who gets him next. Two or three candidates are in the running, none of whom he likes. The future holds grief and suffering. Miranda tried to get involved, but The Prick advised him to keep his own counsel, to let things take their own course. He’s not a man to ignore good advice and, anyway: Who wants trouble when you’re about to get out, right? They said goodbye in a hidden corner of the prison yard. For the first and only time, Miranda let Andres kiss him quickly on the lips… But no tongue action, okay… and that was the only time Andres said to him: I love you and I’m going to miss you. Aw, man, don’t go there. Miranda patted him on his head as if he were forgiving a naughty little boy then turned his back on him. Andres stood there for a long time watching him through the bars. Andres’s whole body was shaking, anticipating his absence. The night before is always worse than the execution, dying much worse than death.
Miranda, get your stuff!
He stands up. He walks down the aisle between the beds, as dignified as a king and without looking at anybody, as if leaving were the most natural thing in the world. Everybody in the block stops what they’re doing to watch him. Only when the door closes behind him does The Prick’s powerful voice ring out in warning from the depths of the cell block.
I don’t want to see you back here. You hear me, Mole?
Miranda turns around and, even though he doesn’t believe in God, he gives him a sad smile and mumbles, God willing.
The Prick thinks he’d rather welcome him back than hear he was dead, and then it occurs to him that this thought might be a bad omen, but he doesn’t want to think much about it. Fate is fate, and everybody has his own to face.
The street greets him with a blast of cold air. Nobody’s there to meet him. No matter how much Susana — Duchess to him — insisted, he refused to tell her what day he was getting out. He’d also forbidden his lawyer from telling her. He’d only let her come once a month, a visit she never failed to pay and he never agreed to make more frequent. He liked her to be there, but it hurt when she left. Duchess is a good woman, and she’s a looker. Miranda thinks she deserves somebody better than him.
Before seeing her, he wants to find out three things: if he has AIDS, if he can still make it with a woman, and if Susana has somebody else. Any one of these circumstances would make it impossible for him to remake his life the way he’d dreamt it. AIDS would be the most definitive but also the easiest to find out about — his friend Dr Gelser would tell him how. About making it with a woman, that’s also an easy fix. Her name is Lia.
As he drives away from Bermudez Street in the taxi he checks off his fears, one by one. Andres promised he was healthy, and this was backed up by the fact that inmates with AIDS are put in a separate block, but you never really know. Villar’s sudden death had him wondering. If I test positive, nothing else makes any sense. If the test turns out negative, he’ll try with Lia. He’s afraid a woman won’t turn him on any more. Truth is, at first it was a question of habit, of satisfying his need to stick his flesh into another person’s body, but he’d surprised himself lately fantasizing about t
he night, about Andres, about his fantastic blow jobs, about his body. He’d also started dreaming about his eyes, and that’s what had him most worried. Once he’s had the test he can deal with the third problem, Duchess, and find out if she has another man. The idea doesn’t make him mad — he’ll understand, he’ll have to understand — but the pain just might kill him. He feels the need to know the truth, and he doesn’t want to hear it from anybody else; he wants to see it with his own eyes. For a few days, he’ll watch her every move. He’ll hide near her house and find out everything. He’ll hide as only he knows how to hide.
He was the champion in his neighbourhood. None of the other kids could ever find him. When they played hide-and-seek it was like he’d been swallowed up by the earth; that’s how he got his nickname, Mole. His natural ability to blend into the landscape, that chameleonic talent he was born with, had served him well his entire criminal career. He had cultivated it and perfected it throughout his life, and many times it had saved him when the police had him surrounded. Very few people know that hiding is a skill that can be honed, that has rules and laws. If you want to hide effectively, the first thing you’ve got to do is ask yourself what your pursuer is looking for. A particular shape, a guy who’s so tall or so short, who weighs so much, has a certain colour hair, is fat or skinny, has a moustache or big ears, is dressed this way or that. Whatever. The pursuer’s eyes will quickly sort through everything they see, selecting anything resembling the image of the person they’re looking for that he has in his head.
Miranda liked to watch documentaries about animals with his son when he was a little boy. Scientists who studied frigate birds observed that the chicks automatically opened their beaks when the mother approached to feed them. They believed this was due to the chicks’ detection of their mother’s shape and colour. So they did an experiment to find out if the chicks would respond to only shape and colour. They made a doll that looked like the bird, they painted it black and placed a circle of red on its chest, just like the adult females. When they saw it, the chicks opened their beaks. The researchers kept simplifying the doll until it was nothing more than a black cardboard triangle with a red mark. The chicks kept responding in the same way. Shape and colour. That’s what they look for, what they recognize. The more urgent and intense the hunt and the more individuals that have to be evaluated, the fewer details get considered, and the image of the individual they’re pursuing gets pared down to a few outstanding features. The quicker and more complex the hunt, the less detailed the image. Mole always knew that, instinctively. As the years passed, and thanks to his observational skills, he elevated the practice of hiding to an art form, the art of completely changing his appearance with clothes, movements, body language. He is an actor who can look eighteen years old or seventy from one minute to the next; he’s the king of disguise. He also has certain innate characteristics that help: he is of average height and weight, and his face lacks any distinguishing features; it’s the face of any man, every man. His hair is straight and manageable, he can style it any way he wants. Only his eyes are distinctive, not because of their average brown colour, but because of the look in them: inquisitive, furtive, focused, intelligent, predatory — like the eyes of a hawk. But eyes can be easily hidden behind glasses, by looking away, by lowering the lids, and by employing that extremely rare ability to lie with them.
Night is falling when he boards the train that will take him to his hideout. The station is packed. The passengers waiting on the platform silently vie for a spot next to the edge and pray that the door will open right in front of them. The train slowly enters the station, blowing its whistle. The crowd, eager to get a seat and afraid of being pushed onto the rails, nervously jostle for position. Miranda stands in the back, neither too far away nor too close. When the train stops, the race to find a seat begins. Those closest to the doors rush headlong into the train; those further away climb in through the open windows. The second row of passengers push the first. In the third row are the old people, the pregnant women, the mothers with small children, the weak, the disabled, those who no longer want to fight. Miranda heads for the freight car. He gets in behind a group of punks dressed up for a party.
2
His chest hurts less this morning. Venancio Ismael Lascano, Perro Lascano, is wondering… Who’s my protector? Who rescued me when I was lying in the street, dying, with a nine-millimetre bullet lodged between my ribs that busted my lung, already destroyed by cigarettes? What’s more, his saviour had made arrangements for him to be taken care of, for medical treatment, and for rehabilitation. He set him up in this house, with a nurse, and two boring, silent guards. How long has it been? He doesn’t know for sure. When he told Ramona that he was sick of being so isolated, she said that was a sign that he was recovering. Then he heard her talking on the phone in the next room, and later she announced the imminent arrival of his benefactor. That’s what he’s waiting for while he’s thinking about Eva. Where could she be, what could have happened to her? He looks out the window. A car drives down the dirt road and past the grove of eucalyptus trees, leaving a dense trail of dust in its wake. The weather has been unusually dry the last few days. The Ford Falcon stops in front of the gate, someone gets out, opens it, waits for the car to drive through, closes it then walks slowly toward the house, a standard-issue police gun bulging under his jacket. The car pulls up next to the worn-out hammock, its back door opens, and lo and behold, who should get out but Chief Inspector Jorge Turcheli, commonly known as “Blue Dollar”, because even the biggest fool in town knows he’s counterfeit.
To Lascano, this is quite a surprise; Turcheli is his antithesis, a corrupt policeman who got rich by making a business out of assigning precincts; cops, after all, have their preferences. The man dresses like a dandy and always looks tanned and fit. As he starts walking toward the house he sees Perro at the window, smiles and waves. Lascano doesn’t respond to either the wave or the smile, he just turns to face the door Turcheli’s about to enter. He thinks how good a cigarette would feel at that moment, but the doctor, who comes to check on him periodically, told him he’s got to kiss cigarettes goodbye, forever. Turcheli opens the door and walks in, smiling like a diplomat.
How’re you feeling? I’m intrigued, Jorge, very intrigued. What cruel doubt assails you? I don’t know, first you hand me over to Giribaldi on a silver platter, then you save my life and hire a bunch of people to protect me and take care of me. A bit difficult to wrap my head around. Hey, I didn’t hand you over to anybody, on the contrary, I placed you face-to-face with Giribaldi to give you a chance to get out of the mess you’d gotten yourself into. Ah, I see I have more than one reason to thank you. You’ve got nothing to thank me for. If you think I’m doing any of this out of the goodness of my heart, you’ve got another thing coming. Tell me something, how did you know where Giribaldi’s men were going to hit me? I didn’t know anything, you just got very lucky. Oh, really? Just when the shootout starts in Tribunales and you hit two of Giribaldi’s men. A squad car gets there and calls an ambulance, because you’re still breathing. Pure chance the guy on dispatch is my nephew, you know him. Who’s your nephew? That Recalde kid. You don’t say. Right then they call me on the radio and tell me you’ve been shot and you’re fading fast. I tell them to take you to the police hospital. I go there and arrange things with the director, a friend of mine, tell him to make sure they take good care of you and put you in a private room. I spread the word that they killed you, and that’s what I tell that dimwit Giribaldi, who swallows it whole and doesn’t even check for bones. And the girl? What girl? Eva, she was with me. Don’t know anything about her. Tell me, if it’s not out of the goodness of your heart, why are you doing this? I’m no use to you. You’re wrong there, Perro, you see, if everyone was like me we’d be totally fucked. The police force is a wonderful business opportunity, but in order for it to stay like that it’s got to be minimally effective, it’s got to be for real. Some of the guys don’t get that, they don’t realize h
ow important that is. They don’t get it that they’ve got to let cops like you do your job. Now, we’ve also got to make sure the likes of you don’t get too powerful and throw a spanner in the works with your ideals. You know how Ford defined an idealist? Sounds like you’re going to tell me. An idealist is a man who helps another man get rich. And the other man, what is he, a cynic? Could be, but let’s not get moralistic. As I was saying, there were those who wanted to get you out of the way, not just Giribaldi and the military, in the police, too. That’s why it’s better for you to stay “dead”, that is, if you don’t want to be for real.
Turcheli stands up, looks out the window, walks over to the door, closes it and returns with a triumphant smile. I’m going to tell you a secret. I’m listening. I’ve bagged the Chief of Police job. How’d you manage that? Last year I joined the sect. What sect? There’s these retreats, see, they’re called Christian Training Courses. All the military bigwigs, they’ve all been to one. It’s like this. Twelve guys get together in a convent for three days. The only thing you can do is read the Bible and pray. You can’t talk to anybody. Every half-hour a priest comes and gives you a lecture on God and the Devil, heaven and hell, good and bad. You know, that kind of thing. You listen and you don’t say a word. That goes on for three days. I’m telling you, at a certain point your mind goes blank. And right then, as if they knew it, they start drilling your head full of that shit about the great Christian family, your obligation to help and protect one another. Anyway, that’s where the guys with real power go, the generals, the admirals, the president of the chamber of commerce, the general secretary of a trade union. Imagine that. I never thought of you as religious, Jorge. It’s just that if you want to rise in the world, you’ve got no choice. Really? No training, no promotion. Bet you can’t guess who I ran into there? Carlitos Bala, the clown. Close but no cigar. Grondona. From the Football Association? No, you idiot, the other one, the TV host. You’re kidding. The best part is that in the end, everyone there vows to give a hand to everyone else, always, no matter what the circumstances. A few days ago there was a big hullaballoo on TV and in the papers about a girl who was raped and killed in Belgrano. The niece of a minister, so you can imagine the uproar. I had to make some public statements. I called Grondona. Talked to his secretary. The following Sunday, there I was, on television, comforting the girl’s parents, that’s when I scored big points. These days, if you’re not on TV, Perro, you don’t exist. Real politics happens on that little screen. And this week comes my coup de grace. We caught the guy who did it. It’s all hush-hush until Thursday night. That’s when I announce we’ve solved the case during a press conference, on TV. It’s a done deal. Sunday I’m back on Grondona’s programme handing the parents their daughter’s killer with his hands and feet bound. You like? Not bad. And that’ll do it, Perro, I’ll be Chief, I’ll beat the Apostles; they want it for one of their own. Who? Thin Man Filander.
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