Mapuche Page 13

  “Never heard of her.”

  “María Campallo disappeared the night that Luz was killed,” the detective went on. “I don’t know what happened to her, but I’ve been looking for her for days. It happens that two witnesses saw them together at La Catedral a few hours before the murder of your transvestite friend.” Jana frowned. “María Campallo is a photographer. I was hoping you or your friend Paula could help me put the pieces together.”

  “Your story’s pretty strange,” Jana commented.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think Campallo’s daughter was murdered too?”

  “We’ll find out when the cops drag the harbor. But as you said, they seem not to be doing anything.”

  Over her drink, the Mapuche was thinking hard, and forgot the shame that had overcome her at Calderón’s office the night before—a strange reunion.

  “Odd how things turn around, isn’t it?” she remarked.

  “That’s because they go together,” Rubén replied.

  Their eyes met, familiarly. The ice was broken.

  “I don’t know whether this might help you in any way, but I searched Luz’s squat last night, with Paula. We found letters addressed to her family; apparently they live in Junin. I tried to contact them but I couldn’t find their name in the phone book. Maybe they have an unlisted number, or maybe they’re dead. Luz made up things about everybody,” she explained, “starting with her parents: we’d have to go there, but I’m not sure my old junker would make it.”

  Junin was about three hundred miles away, in the middle of the pampas.

  “What’s their name?”

  “Lavalle. Luz’s real name was Orlando, Orlando Lavalle. We also found dope in the squat,” Jana added. “Bags of paco, which Luz must have been dealing in the neighborhood. She never mentioned that to Paula.”

  Rubén nodded. The photographer had coke and weed in her night table, nothing very serious compared to paco.

  “Do you know who was getting her the stuff?” he asked.

  “No, but Luz could have been dealing on some mob boss’s turf, and he killed her as a warning.”

  A battle for territory, with Eduardo Campallo’s daughter caught in the crossfire . . . The neighborhood of La Boca was adjacent to San Telmo: Rubén knew the dopers in the neighborhood, who would put a knife to your throat to pay for their fix and who would be found dead one morning in the courtyard of a conventillo. María might have been at the wrong place at the wrong time, in Luz’s company, but something didn’t fit in that scenario.

  “María was pregnant when she disappeared,” Rubén said, “and paco is the worst shit on the market. I can’t imagine her poisoning her baby with stuff like that.”

  “Unless she wanted to kill it.”

  “You have strange ideas.”

  “Something must have brought Luz and Maria together.”

  Jana finished her drink, the bass throbbing in the background. Over the detective’s shoulder, she spotted Paula perched on a Greek column that two gladiators in G-strings were pushing into the mosh pit: she was wiggling in her dress with rubies lit by the spotlight, blowing powdered kisses to the hysterical crowd, smiling with happiness, as if happiness existed.

  Rubén was looking at her, his mind obviously elsewhere. She took the opportunity to study the fine brown locks that covered his forehead.

  “Do you know the name of the cop who pulled Luz out of the harbor?” he said, waking from his trance.

  “Andretti,” Jana replied. “The head of the night squad. The kind of cop that would eat bats.”

  Rubén knew him by reputation: a zealot. He glanced at his watch: almost five in the morning.

  “O.K.,” he agreed.

  “O.K. what?”

  “I’m going to have a couple of words with him,” Rubén said, his eyes somber.

  He put his glass down on the wet table. Jana’s glass was already empty. In her Indian veins ran alcohol and electricity.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  *

  Crooks and gang members considered the Argentine police a rival force, one that was armed and whose job was to protect big-time criminals from small-time ones. A tenuous porosity: weapons moved in illicit circuits linked to the police and the army; when young thieves were arrested, they were severely beaten before they negotiated their freedom in exchange for part or all of what they had stolen, the meagerness of their take explaining the cops’ inclination to liquidate them; going over to the enemy was a way for delinquents to earn money “legally” and save their skins at the same time.

  Scapegoat, teammate, jack of all trades—the role of Officer Troncón varied with the moods of his superior, Andretti. At first, Jesus Troncón had cleaned the police station’s toilets and winos’ cells before it occurred to the sergeant to use him for specific operations. The greenhorn was officially employed as an “apprentice electrician”: he could always rig alarm systems and start fires in squats for the benefit of real estate developers.

  Troncón was on the reception desk that night. He recognized the Indian woman who burst into the station, but not the big, brown-haired guy with 220-volt eyes who swooped down on his counter.

  “Is Sergeant Andretti there?” Rubén asked, without introducing himself.

  Jesus put his skin mag under a pile of badly photocopied papers. The guy’s elegance didn’t go with the shabbiness of the place, and he couldn’t understand what he was doing with the negrita.

  “He’s not available,” Troncón declared, adopting a suitable tone. “What is it about?”

  “The murder of the transvestite you fished out of the harbor,” Rubén replied

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Go find Andretti, I’m telling you.”

  Jana was fidgeting near the plastic plants. The station was deserted, without even a drunk or a doper howling for a fix in the cells.

  “I have orders,” Troncón said angrily, his forehead low and stubborn. “I’m the one who makes decisions.”

  The dolt was getting flustered.

  “Fine,” Rubén said impatiently. “Where’s the chief’s office?”

  “End of the hall on the right,” Jana replied.

  “He’s not there!” Troncón cried.

  “You squint when you lie.”

  “Nobody’s going down there!” Troncón stationed himself in the middle of the hall, his hands on his hips, on his belt. “You have to make an appointment.”

  Rubén pushed the idiot against the wall.

  “Boss!” Troncón shouted, picking up his cap. “Boss! Boss!”

  “What’s going on?” a voice thundered from the end of the hall.

  Alerted by the noise, the colossus came out of his office: Sergeant Andretti, 250 pounds, a little pudgy but still capable of knocking a mare’s eye out with one punch.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  He knew Calderón. He’d seen him around and knew his reputation: he was a violent, nosy troublemaker who was high on human rights and was building up files on the former oppressors. Andretti scowled when he saw the Indian woman behind the detective; she was the one he’d questioned the other night. Rubén went up to the big cop.

  “I’m investigating a disappearance and the murder of Orlando Lavalle,” he said without showing his badge, “the tranny you pulled out of the harbor. I know he was tortured before being thrown in the water. What did the autopsy show?”

  “I don’t have to answer your questions,” Andretti replied, his shirtsleeves folded up on his hairy forearms. “And I don’t like private eyes. Get the hell out of here with your whore!”

  The former wrestler was running on testosterone.

  “This lady is a witness to a murder. Would you prefer that I speak with the journalists? A tranny from La Boca emasculated and thrown into the harbor like a piece of shit, that woul
d make the headlines of more than one newspaper. What do you say to that, big guy?”

  The sergeant scowled. He saw Troncón’s head sticking up at the end of the hall and snorted.

  “Well?” Rubén persisted. “What did the autopsy show?”

  “Nothing at all,” Andretti replied. “It didn’t show anything because there was no autopsy. We didn’t find the tranny’s purse and there was nothing in his squat, either, no documents, nothing to identify him, zip.”

  “That doesn’t mean you don’t have to do your job.”

  “Our job is to save money: do you know how much an autopsy costs?” the sergeant said, turning to Jana.

  “Convenient, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not the one giving the orders.”

  “Where’s the body?

  “In the potter’s field.”

  “That’s the place for people like him, right?” Rubén focused on the policeman’s vague gaze. “You get rid of the body, and that allows you to avoid conducting an investigation.”

  “We conducted an investigation! We’re still conducting it, what do you think? At this moment there are two cars patrolling the docks: you can see for yourself that the station is empty, that we’re doing all we can!”

  “All you can to prevent a second murder from revealing the way you operate,” Rubén added. “What does your report conclude, Andretti? That an unidentified tranny cut off his cock while shaving his crotch before falling naked into the harbor?”

  “Ha ha!”

  “What then?” he insisted icily.

  The sergeant sized up Calderón, who was clearly ready to fight about it, and weighed the pros and cons.

  “No one saw the tranny hooking that night,” he said. “That doesn’t help us much.”

  “Luz, Orlando, was keeping dope at his place,” the detective shot back, “dozens of doses of paco that he was dealing in the neighborhood. Do you know who his supplier was?”

  “No,” growled Andretti, leaning his massive body against the office door.

  “You, Andretti, you and your little pals on the night squad, who must be getting their share.”

  The giant flexed his pecs.

  “Listen, you little shit . . . ”

  “I don’t give a damn about your trafficking: you’ve buried the investigation so that no one will go nosing around in your affairs, right? Now answer me one question, the only one that interests me. I know that María Campallo saw the transvestite a few hours before his death: why?”

  Troncón’s cap could still be seen at the corner of the hall. His boss was getting visibly annoyed.

  “I don’t know your María,” he replied promptly. He shook his jowls. “Who is she?”

  His innocent air made Calderón grind his teeth.

  “The daughter of Eduardo Campallo,” he said, “a rich man who’s financing the mayor’s campaign.”

  He showed Andretti a picture of the photographer, which the policeman examined prudently.

  “I don’t know . . . Never saw her in this neighborhood or elsewhere.”

  “But she was with Orlando shortly before his murder.”

  “Maybe,” Andretti replied, shrugging his enormous shoulders. “But not around here.”

  Rubén glanced at Jana in the harsh light of the corridor—for once, the fat jerk seemed sincere.

  “Did Luz have regular customers?” he asked. “High-class customers?”

  “I don’t know,” the policeman grumbled. “That’s not my business.”

  “No, your business is just to provide dope to a loser tranny so that he can ruin the lives of other losers. Are you trying to win a gold medal for humanitarian acts?”

  Their eyes met, two crocodiles in a pond during the dry season. The cop said nothing, fulminating in an eloquent silence.

  “If you’re involved in this, Andretti,” the detective hissed, “I swear I’ll make you eat your own lard.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Calderón.”

  But the head of the night squad was uncomfortable. Rubén signaled to Jana that it was time to get out of there. They left the La Boca police station without even looking at the dolt behind the counter.

  Outside, the air was warm, the sky the color of amethyst. Jana, who had observed the joust, let Rubén come back down to a more hospitable terrain. They took a few steps along the sidewalk, between a damp mist and a dusty wind. Rubén had almost been scared when he’d looked at Andretti. He was ruminating, the alkaline core smoking under the electric wires connected to the conventillos.

  “We were on the wrong track, huh?” Jana said, reading his thoughts.

  “Looks like it, yes.”

  The car was parked a block away.

  “What do we do now?” the sculptress asked.

  Rubén met her eyes sparkling under the setting moon.

  “I’ll take you back.”

  *

  The headlights awakened the aviator with springs for eyes who was on guard in courtyard, at the entrance to the wasteland. Jana had left the keys to the Ford in the dressing room at the Niceto, but Paula hadn’t yet returned. Rubén parked the car in the courtyard.

  “I’m going to look for the parents’ address,” the Mapuche said as she pushed open the gate.

  He let her take off toward her workshop, and took advantage of her absence to have a look around her turf. Huge red ants were feeding in the nettles, their antennas rising over their heads, under the mocking gaze of a crocodile with teeth made of screws; farther on, a rusty Varan made of bolts off a locomotive wandered through the brush, and was being left to disintegrate there. The sun was coming up behind the shed, and a few birds were chirping on the stripped poles. Jana came back to the courtyard.

  “Here,” she said.

  Rubén crushed out his cigarette butt on the aviator and pocketed the envelope with Orlando’s parents’ address.

  “Thanks.”

  “Are you planning to take a trip to Junin?”

  “Uh-huh. To get a little info, in any case,” he replied evasively.

  He’d asked Anita to follow up the lead in Colonia. How could Orlando be connected with María Campallo’s round-trip excursion to Uruguay? Somewhere nearby a bell was ringing six o’clock, and he was beginning to feel very tired.

  “Shall we have a drink while we wait for Paula?” Jana asked. “If I know her, she won’t be back before ten in the morning.”

  He raised his arched eyebrows.

  “I lied to you a little while ago in the club,” she said confidentially. “When I said that I didn’t want to have sex with you.”

  Rubén looked at her under the fading stars: for the first time, there was something merry in her almond-shaped eyes.

  “You’ve got energy to spare, it seems,” he said softly, smiling at her.

  “It’s free. Everything about me is free. Haven’t you noticed?”

  Rubén tried to escape her deep black eyes, but failed. She locked onto her target and wouldn’t let it go. Their hands had been waiting to touch for a long time.

  “Jana . . . ”

  “Quiet,” she murmured, coming closer to him.

  Jana pressed her lips to his mouth and felt herself melt like chocolate when he entwined his tongue with hers. Soon all she could hear was the birds cooing. With one hand, Rubén clasped her bottom and pressed it to him, so tenderly that she let herself be carried by his open eyes: black, gray, blue, stormy bouquets exploded in the courtyard. Jana no longer wanted to think or breathe, she caressed his unkempt hair, the little curls on his forehead, and felt his penis against her crotch and groaned with pleasure. Desire, light and wild, electrified her. His hand under her ass seemed to lift her off the earth, their tongues were two little sweet-water serpents that ran down between her thighs. They were kissing passionately when the sound of a car horn interrupted them.r />
  The birds flew away from their perches, hearts beating like theirs at a hundred miles an hour.

  Jana remained speechless for a moment, her lips still wet, while the garbagemen moved on. She wanted to say simple things, things she’d never said because she’d never experienced them, but a shadow fell across Rubén’s face.

  “I’ve got to go home,” he said, removing his hand.

  Jana stepped back, disconcerted.

  “Now?”

  “Yes.” Rubén moved toward the car. “I’ll see you later.”

  And he left her there, under the skewed gaze of the aviator in an iron suit.

  11

  The sudden low pressure system that had been dominating Buenos Aires weather for three days had given way to a blue late-summer sky. Rubén put out his cigarette in the flowerpot; the glassed-in enclosure of the harbor station sheltered souvenir shops, a tobacconist, and a row of female employees stuffed into tight-fitting uniforms in their companies’ colors.

  A bleached blonde smiled under her toucan makeup: he bought a Buquebus ticket for Colonia, on the other side of the estuary, and showed his passport to the immigration officer. The ferry for Uruguay was bobbing in the brown water of the harbor: Rubén joined the passengers who were marveling at the imitation luxury of the main lounge, his face somber despite the sunshine. He had slept a few hours after returning from the wasteland, but he still felt just as feverish and shadowy images kept clouding his mind. A voice coming from the loudspeaker announced the ferry’s imminent departure. Rubén ordered an espresso at the varnished wood bar, and opened the newspaper to forget the mood music: there were articles about the coming elections, about Francisco Torres, the city’s mayor, who would receive almost a third of the votes, according to recent polls, about soccer and Maradona’s latest escapades, but there was still not a word about the disappearance of María Victoria Campallo.

  The boat had hardly left the dock when a crooner in a ruffled shirt sat down at his piano on the stage of the main lounge to do a song recital. Before an audience of old ladies with saggy arms overloaded with gold jewelry, the seducer began singing “My Way,” exchanging coy winks with his listeners.