Holy City (24 page)

It took the Bolivian Margaride no more than an hour to find the files on the person who liked to be known as the Jaguar.

“His real name is Ovidio Ladislao Torrente Morelos.” Scotty writes this down and whistles in admiration, while at the same time watching Sabiola advancing toward the Boca goal. “As far as I can tell, he
shares parents with Ana Torrente, chosen as Miss Bolivia in September 2004.”

“Hang on a second … what do you mean by ‘shares parents with'? They are brother and sister …”

“Not necessarily,” Margaride says, staring at the photo of the Jaguar, blue-eyed, staring into nothingness, dark-skinned, the face of a Nazi refugee burned black by the Andean climate. “But they are twins: I'm not sure if they are identical, I don't have that information. They themselves are probably unaware of it.”

A peal of rejoicing in Buenos Aires, because of Margaride's comments and because Sabiola has just scored a fabulous goal. River 1, Boca 0. Scotty can scarcely believe either piece of news.

“They were born the same day, but in different places.” Scotty's laugh turns into a dry, incredulous cough, because Palermo has intercepted a ball that was heading safely into the hands of the River goalie. Margaride goes on: “The mother, whose personal details we do not appear to have, gave birth to the Jaguar in Yacuiba on January 23, I suppose in the early hours. That same day, but twenty hours later, at almost midnight, she brought into the world a baby who grew up to become a beauty queen, the pride and joy of my beloved Santa Cruz de la Sierra.”

Boca score, to make it a draw on the hour mark. Unbelievable, obviously unfair, the referee observing an eclipse of the third moon of Saturn and the linesman chewing a hangnail while Palermo broke every offside rule in the book and scored. The whole stadium erupts: an evil hour is coming, Scotty can sense it.

“Late that same night she had an emergency operation,” the Bolivian Margaride, the soul of patience, explains. “The birth that morning had been up in the mountains, with no-one to help except perhaps a local midwife who helped her pull the Jaguar from her entrails. Then the indian, because that's what she must have been, a poor ignorant indian, continued on her way on the back of a truck, still bleeding
and with a high fever. She didn't die on the way because God is Bolivian.”

“I thought he was Argentine.”

“That's another God; ours is called Viracocha and he protects indians, not the descendants of European imperialists. In Santa Cruz de la Sierra the woman gave birth to the remainder. We have a record of that, because she was dealt with in the Central Hospital, and before she died of septicemia she chose the name Ana for that remainder.”

“And the father of the twins?”

“I've no record of that. Come on, Scotty, I've already done more than enough for you, seeing as it's Sunday.”

It is only when Scotty has recovered from Palermo's goal that he takes a proper look at what he has scribbled while the Bolivian Margaride was talking to him. It is then that he tries without success to talk to Carroza.

*

She does not ring the bell, but scratches softly with her manicured red nails at the door to Carroza's apartment in calle Azara in Barracas. When she realizes she is being studied through the small circle of the spyhole, she explains quietly that she is on her own. The door opens.

She had been missing the fresh pink oval of Verónica's face.

“It's not what it seems.”

“You don't say. And anyway, who cares?” scoffs Ana, amused at the attempt at an explanation that no-one has asked for, her least of all, because she never holds anyone to account. She has learned to recover her debts without the need for an invoice. She leaves the Bersa on the coffee table, the only piece of furniture in this spider's nest. This initial friendly gesture is a declaration of intent that reassures Verónica, who is still unsettled by Carroza's phone call.

Languid warmth outside and inside the apartment. The mist creeps
through the slats in the closed shutters and seeps into the room, which has probably not been ventilated since Carroza first rented it two months earlier. The heat is swamp-like, the air is catacomb gray, barely enough for bats to breathe in.

“I don't know how that skeleton man can sleep in a place like this.”

“I was wondering the same,” Verónica agrees.

“Perhaps that's why it suits him: there is no air or light or hope in here.” They laugh together, with that mimesis that has been theirs since the first meeting. It is as though they mirror each other and when they laugh at the slightest thing they are pulling faces at one another. “What are you doing here,
doctora
, what are you looking for?”

The direct question catches her out, leaving her no chance to make conversation. Verónica feels at a disadvantage, even though the Bersa is there on the table and Ana's voice sounds even more friendly, trying to win her over. She decides to respond equally directly, like someone who rides a punch and waits for his chance.

“I know Carroza, probably from before you do. He was Romano's colleague.” Ana says nothing and again Verónica feels uneasy. Every so often she gets the feeling that this beautiful blond woman is a mythical idol given human form for heaven knows what mission on earth. And as if she did not have enough problems already, she had to be a client of hers. Ana sits down on the coffee table and gestures for her to come closer. “Where do you know him from?” asks Verónica, refusing to budge.

Ana's ironic smile illuminates her face as if she were lighting a cigarette.

“The skull? I found him in an archaeological museum, liked the look of him and brought him home with me. Afterward, I felt bad about it: perhaps I had stolen him from someone without meaning to.”

She insists Verónica goes over to her, but now she has no need to gesture or pout. It's enough for her to be there, like a magnet, and for Verónica to realize too late that she has nothing to cling on to.

She is pulled toward the magnet—in this case, Miss Bolivia—like someone falling into an abyss.

*

He has been given his orders by Oso Berlusconi. These are always the same anyway: spread out and surround the house, do not go any closer than a hundred meters, at the command “fire at will” on the radio link, ratatatat, spray the windows with bullets, the walls too if they are made of tin as they usually are in the shanty towns. “The people kidnapped are not going to be sitting out enjoying the cool night air,” says Oso. “They'll be tied to a bed, that's what always happens, or sitting cuffed together on the floor. The ones walking around are the mastiffs guarding them. You can shoot them without a problem, no-one is going to hold you responsible.”

That was why Carroza was surprised when Oso stopped at the end of De La Noria Bridge and the five civilian cars, crowded with cops like landing craft off Normandy, pulled up on the beachhead in sight of the nearby provincial police post. Three minutes later, and the small caravan of headlights coming from the province turns out to be two armored cars full of uniformed provincial police equipped with rifles and helmets, which halt on the other side of the road.

“Nobody warned us we were going to war with Iraq,” says the bald guy who weighs 130 kilos without his weapon.

“I'm not getting out of this car,” says the lantern-jawed cop sitting next to Carroza, his head shaven and wearing dark glasses typical of the service he provides, which is not exactly customer service. “They shoot you in the back.”

“Let's wait and see what happens, if we want to be alive tomorrow,” says Carroza, still staring into space as if not wanting to see what he already knows by heart, like a blind man who sets off walking down an avenue, his useless eyes wide open, only to find death avoiding him at every step.

The two men in charge get out of their vehicles: Oso and the commanding officer of the provincial troops. The glow from the cigarettes they smoke nervously in the middle of the beach-head are like two red fireflies. They agree on deployment and firing positions, knowing that if they are both there it means the medals will be shared out between them and wanting to make sure that if anyone is going to die it is not going to be either of them.

They clamber back into their vehicles and the two armored cars pull slowly away, making their way around the Río Riachuelo. In the distance they can see the lights from the contraband market, where at this time of night the deals being done outside any tax or penal law are at their height. Verónica calculates that ten thousand people visit the market whenever it opens to the public and that nightly sales must come to around six million pesos: that is too much money exchanging hands only a few meters from the biggest hideout of traffickers in the region, the Descamisados de América shanty town.

If the struggle to control the market has cost the lives of first Matías Zamorano, Counselor Pox's right-hand man and Miss Bolivia's boyfriend, and shortly afterward poor Chucho, the whale calf the Lomas magistrate had delegated to look after Verónica Berutti, it seems as though this Sunday night the fight to enjoy its profits is moving toward the final battle, even though Oso has presented their expedition as a simple rescue operation.

Despite this, the man in the front with Carroza is wary. He insists he is going to stay in the car until it is all over. Carroza has no opinion and the bald man weighing 130 kilos plus his gun has also fallen silent.

The three of them are veterans. Nobody likes to die, even if they grumble about needing false teeth, their aching joints and Viagra failing, leaving them alone and limp in a hotel bed while the young whore who cannot be more than twenty-five mocks them, “old fart with your droopy prick,” instead of saying farewell with a tender “goodnight poppa.” All that might make them feel like dying, but not really: instead,
they want to be as far as possible from the scene of the uncommitted crime, as far as possible in time, looking back to days when they were good-looking, tough and aroused instincts other than pity when they showed off muscles as hard as the guns they kept at their waist or under their shoulder. Days when they were in charge and slammed the door on any romantic pretensions the woman of the moment might entertain, leaving her to choke on her own tears rather than finding themselves abandoned, sagging, existential mincemeat.

They hear instructions on their car radio. They all know what to do, but Oso Berlusconi is a perfectionist, he takes care of every last detail, knows his men by their Christian names and their blood groups. Then again, he cannot allow a single rabbit to escape tonight; that is why he is insisting that they shoot to kill at anyone running away—there cannot be more than three of them, he says, one for each couple of prisoners. Oso knows what he is talking about, because he recruited them. His only fear is that they come out shooting and one of them escapes, then calls a press conference. That is why he will personally make sure he is there in the waste ground behind the shacks, taking aim with the others, gunning down anyone he sees and finishing them off one by one.

“It'll all be over in five minutes, then we can go and eat a barbecue with red wine in the market restaurant,” he encourages them over the police radio.

“That guy's a psychopath,” says the bald man, by now covered in sweat.

“That's why he's the boss,” says the other one.

“I'm hungry,” says Carroza, leaving the car.

Crouching down and in indian file, the federal cops move into the shanty town. Oso signals for them to fan out to cover the three shacks where the kidnap victims and their guards are meant to be. The darkness in among the tin and cardboard shacks of the Descamisados de América shanty town is complete. It is as though night itself were lurking in the alleys where two people collide if they are going in
opposite directions, where filthy water flows as if it were an open sewer and where from every hut come the sounds of shouted abuse, the cries of children, the words and the panting breath of love.

Nor is there any light inside the three shacks that Oso waves them to surround. He chooses Carroza as one of the three men who are to go with him to cover the rear where the guards are bound to try to escape if they have any hope of getting out alive. The provincial police have surrounded the outer perimeter of the slum. Oso has no worries about that squad's marksmanship. They have been trained with all the rigor of infantry marines: they are only brought out when the provincial authorities give them precise instructions to resolve a situation by shooting first and asking questions afterward.

What Oso agreed with their commander has left no room for doubt: they are to shoot the kidnappers even if they come out with their hands in the air shouting that they want to surrender. They are to reach the morgue weighing twice as much as usual because of the amount of lead in them. As Oso knows from experience, wars, even private ones, are only really won when no prisoners are taken and all witnesses are disposed of.

Deputy Inspector Carroza spits on the palms of his hands and rubs them together, then carefully closes them round his Czech rifle, one of the fifteen that Oso handed out when they met in the empty warehouse in Barracas. When the mobile starts to vibrate in his back pocket, he hesitates over answering this call from an unknown number. This is no time to talk, although he can listen: he takes the call and says nothing, but pays close attention.

At the moment of going into battle, it is not good to discover that the enemy is within your own ranks and that you yourself are in his sights.

They have reached that moment when they stare at each other in silence, share a cigarette, start to laugh in a way which begins in either of their faces, then spreads to the other one. The moment for gentle kisses, lips caressing where they had previously been devouring, hands building castles, one on top of the other, “if men only knew,” says Ana, stroking where she has previously penetrated, moving her first finger as if tracing the outline of that other pair of lips where she has just seen her passion ignite and then fade.