17 Stone Angels (18 page)

“Ricardo, no!”

“It's nothing, querido! I have twenty just like it at home! Por favor!” Berenski clasped the policeman's shoulder and looked him in the eye, grinning. “You can use it to write up the Waterbury report.”

They parted company in the
pounding traffic of Corrientes, and Fortunato walked silently at Athena's side, looking weary in his tan sports jacket and drooping gray mustache. The amiable chat with Berenski had raised her confidence in the detective and she felt a wave of affection for the man as she glanced at his large ungraceful figure. “Miguel,” she said, “I want to ask you a slightly delicate question.”

He looked over at her earnestly. “Whatever you want, daughter.” “You were telling Ricardo about corruption in other parts of the police. But what's happening in your own jurisdiction?”

He stopped walking, startled by the question, and she was afraid from his silence that she had offended him. He looked at her silently and thoughtfully, and she sensed that he was preparing to reveal a private shame. “Athena. Corruption, there always is. Like that one over there . . .” pointing at a young
Federal
at the corner. “His salary is six hundred pesos monthly, and yet he must continually confront the worst of society. There arrives a time when he starts to feel that he deserves something extra. Bites of ten pesos, twenty pesos.
Picoteando
.” He made pecking motions with his fingers. “I don't condone it, but thus it is. It's very difficult to stop.”

“What about at higher levels?”

He looked at her without speaking for a moment. “This is a strange line of questions. Why do you ask?”

“I'm trying to understand all this. People keep telling me how corrupt the police are, how they fear them. But when I look at you, I don't see that. I see someone very dignified, very sincere. And I just can't reconcile it.”

The Comisario faced her without saying anything, and though his features didn't move a strange tremor seemed to work beneath the surface. He put his hand gently on her back and steered her forward, and she felt as if he were scolding her until he said, “The truth is, I've seen some things.” He glanced towards the young
Federal
and stopped talking until the light changed and they'd crossed the street. “Once I remember we assaulted a lottery stand. A
narco
was using it to parcel out cocaine and we sequestered some three kilos. Except when I read the
sumario
later, it was only one kilo.”

“What did you do?”

“That's always the question, no? These are people you work with every day. Sometimes your life depends on them.” They'd reached the temporary wooden wall of a construction site. Someone had scribbled the words
Ovejo–Asesino Gringo
! “I went to one of the other men in the assault and I said “
Che
, we grabbed three kilos, no? The
sumario
says one.” And I knew I'd hit it right on, because he put himself a little fierce and he says, “What's happening with you, Fortunato? Are you going around with a scale now?”

“And what happened?”

Fortunato answered without looking up from the ground. “I acted the
boludo
and didn't say anything else, then they transferred me out of Narcotics and into Homicide. And now here I am, at your service!” They stopped at the corner in a clutter of businessmen and legal functionaries. Only two
blocks from the
Palacio de Justicia
, the narrow street was lined by bookstores filled with legal primers. There were volumes on forensics and constitutional law, divorce and custody, civil suits, product liability: everything to make a just society. The presence of so many books about law in such a corrupt city struck Athena as ironic at first, but then, people never stopped hoping. Just like the scandals that Berenski and others continually turned up: there were always new ones, but always people willing to risk it all to expose them.

The Comisario must have been basking in the same line of thought as they silently traversed the city. “Look, corrupt ones—there's always a few. But you can't see everything divided in two: good and evil, honest and dishonest. It's artificial. Because also in the mix there's loyalty, there's friendship. There's the obligation one has to the family. And so evil gets mixed with good. In reality, there are very few men who are truly evil.”

“It's not the evil people that do most of the damage in this world,” Athena said. “It's all the good ones who help them. I read about these corporations that cook up trade and finance laws that destroy Third World countries. I read these human rights reports, filled with the most horrific kinds of abuse. And I ask myself”—glancing over at him—“what makes a decent person become an accomplice? Because if that sort of evil could be stopped, that helpful evil, there would be no Hitlers, no Stalins, no biological and nuclear weapons designed to kill indiscriminately.” She became bolder as they stepped into the Plaza de la Justicia. “At a certain point, you have to say that those who help are evil, too.”

The policeman remained silent as they continued to his car, and again she feared that she'd gone too far. “I'll drop you off at the Sheraton,” he said at last. “I have another meeting in an hour.”

Fortunato left her at her
hotel and headed through the grandiose canyons of the center toward the familiar province where he lived and worked. Without intending to, he found himself steering toward the vacant lot where Waterbury had died. His eyes moved along the wall of the factory up to the single window in the corner where the caretaker lived. The window had been opened and the flowered curtain ruffled over the sill in the autumn wind. What did the caretaker know? What other witnesses might be waiting to come forward? Some late-night pedestrian, or a homeless person living in
one of the empty buildings nearby? Even with no witnesses, he could feel the abstract presence of a spectator: the universe, Athena, himself, viewing it again and again in his memory. Waterbury looking at him over the seat, grabbing onto him with his eyes as if at the last shred of kindness in the world. I have a wife and daughter . . . Fortunato rolled on through increasingly desolate streets, adrift not in the hard white light of the afternoon but in the two dark hours last spring when he had made the brief and terminal acquaintance of Robert Waterbury.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

F
ortunato knocked on the metal door, loud enough to be heard but retaining a shade of politeness. Not pounding, like a cop. After that he put his hands out to the sides, making it obvious that they were empty without holding them up in the air. “
Ché
, Cacho. It's I, Fortunato.”

The locks clattered and the door swung open. Cacho stood there in blue jeans and a sweatshirt, looking at him with his usual expectant hostility, waiting for him to speak. “It seems we have a mutual friend,” Fortunato said.

“Who?”

“The famous gringa.”

“
Who
?”

Dismissing the feigned ignorance. “Stop swelling my balls and let me in! We already know! She came two days ago, in the morning. It's not a big thing!”

The criminal seemed to be considering whether to keep denying everything or to let him in and find out what he knew. He finally stood aside and Fortunato came in.

The windows facing the street still languished behind steel shutters, but those facing the courtyard let in the pleasant afternoon sun. The oily smell of pan-fried meat from a late lunch hung in the air. “You fitted it out well there. A clear field of fire out that side all the way to the street, you can escape from that side door without being exposed. The little tower in the front . . . ”
He nodded. “You didn't waste your time in Cuba. And inside,” nodding approvingly at the expensive furniture, “very nice. It's best to steal quality.”

Cacho said nothing.

Fortunato looked him over. He didn't have a gun within reach. He could kill him now. It wouldn't be a murder profoundly investigated. A bold man would do that, a man who had confidence and resolve. But was he that type of man? Like, for example, Domingo, or Bianco? And what type of man was that, finally?

“Are you following her?” the thief asked.

“I'm her custodian. Assisting her in the investigation.”

Cacho gave an acrid little smile. “Yes, it's neat business all around.” Fortunato nodded noncommittally, kept circling the room and looking at the paintings and the music collection. Argentine rock, foreign rock, a few tangos sprinkled in. “
Tangos Bajos
, by Melingo. I heard he's good.”

“I would make you a recording, but that would be a violation of . the artist's rights, no?”

“Cacho, Cacho.” Fortunato shook his head wearily. “She's an interesting girl, La Doctora. She's obsessed with these issues of Truth and Corruption and all of that. Typical Northamerican. Such a good eye for all the immorality beyond their borders.”

Cacho reacted impatiently. “Look, Miguel, to cut it short, I banked you. I didn't claim to know you personally, of course, but by reputation you are an impenetrable fortress of integrity.” He flicked his head to the side. “
Bien
, perhaps not impenetrable, because she's not so stupid. But at least only semi-penetrated.”

“Thank you for your generous assessment.” Fortunato saw from Cacho's reflection in the window behind him that he had a pistol stuck into his pant waist after all.

“One doesn't sacrifice an associate of so many years.” Cacho scratched his chest. “They gave you the hide to eat on that one, amigo. I knew that when you told me Domingo and Vasquez were coming with you. Then you killed the
boludo
as if you were some adolescent with a rented gun.” Cacho twisted his features in distaste. “An innocent with a daughter!”

“You, Cacho? Is that you? Who administered The People's Justice to General Lopez so long ago?” The detective kept circling, filing away the details of the room. “How many innocents did you kill?
Boludos
who took a
policeman's job for the pension, who couldn't even spell the word Capitalism. Very few know your history, Cacho, but I do. I've even read about you in books! Under your old name, of course. But as you say, one doesn't sacrifice an associate of many years.” Assault rifle, gun ports in the walls. Probably an arsenal hidden here somewhere. A door leading out to a courtyard, a stairway from the kitchen to the second floor. “You're right. It's lamentable, the accident. But it was Domingo's fault. He brought Vasquez. Vasquez went crazy. If you had come with us when I asked you it would have happened differently.”

“Don't put me in your whorehouse, Miguel. Killing some idiot writer—”

“I didn't kill him!” Fortunato heard the weakness in his own voice. “It was Domingo and Vasquez! It wasn't me!” Cacho's silence goaded Fortunato on. “What's Vasquez saying? Is he going around singing to the whole world?”

“I don't mix with Vasquez.”

Fortunato's voice was getting louder. “But what do you hear? What are your
muchachos
saying? Because I tell you: I didn't kill the gringo!”

At that moment a pot clanked in the kitchen and Fortunato took a few steps towards it. A woman wearing nothing but a T-shirt was holding a
mate
in one hand and kettle in the other. She ducked out of sight up the stairs. Cacho's hand had moved to his back hip.

“It's time to go,” the criminal said. “You're upsetting my guest.” He opened the door and stood next to it.

Fortunato moved to the opening and stepped into the afternoon sunlight. The flat neutrality of Cacho's voice offered little comfort. “I didn't say anything to the gringa. That's one thing you don't have to worry about. Of Vasquez, I can't guarantee anything. This is your matter, Miguel. You created it. If you need to settle accounts with Vasquez and Domingo, that's your business. I'm clean in this one.”

Fortunato thought he saw in Cacho's hard black eyes the faint disgust that the innocent have for the guilty. “No, hombre. You are very far from clean.” He gave Cacho his back.

“Miguel!”

He turned around.

“I'm sorry about your wife.”

He couldn't tell if the criminal was mocking him or if he was trying to offer genuine consolation for an old associate. He raised his hand in a tired wave and walked away.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

“A
delinquent like Boguso is sub-human,” the Comisario of #33 was saying as he led them through the station. “A career delinquent with an abnormal personality. Drugs, auto theft, robbery. When he was sixteen he killed a boy in another gang. Now he's here for torturing and killing a couple in front of their three children.” The Comisario shook his head, disgusted.

“Too much
merea
,” Fortunato said.

The Comisario grimaced. “The boy was twisted before he ever took his first noseful of
merca
. Torturing the children in front of the parents, then the parents in front of the children. For two hundred pesos!”

He guided Athena and Fortunato past the clean white empty cell that Boguso occupied and up to the interview room. The wooden stairs gave off a faint smell of varnish.