Sweet Money (18 page)

 

A heavy, marital silence descends, now denser, more unbending, irremediable. He looks at her, she looks back at him and for the first time understands how different they are in every way. She has the sensation that they are no longer a man and a woman of the same species, that they never really were, they were only ever joined in some kind of unnatural symbiosis. Whatever it was that kept them together has shattered in a way that is beyond repair. They are two strangers stranded in this field of lovers. We are of the material world, she thinks, and the material world exacts its revenge. Just like when a job is shoddily done, without mindfulness or respect. A thing poorly done remains like a curse, always there to remind us of our faulty workmanship.

When Susana gets out of the car, Miranda turns off Sinatra. He feels like crying, like breaking something. He has the worst of all sensations: impotence. She’s right, there’s nothing he can do to make things right, to fix what he set out to destroy. She has always been loyal and faithful, and he always knew he was ruining her life, but over and over again he figured he’d pull one final job that would lift him above the fray, and then they’d be able to go to another country and live the lives of kings, and never worry about anything ever again. But that goal was as phony as a three-dollar bill. Because what Miranda really likes is to take risks. All that crap about going straight once and for all is just a ploy to justify himself. Now the time has come to pay off his debt to Duchess. He feels like his heart is crumbling inside his chest. He doesn’t make the least effort to hold her back, to try to convince her, to seduce her as he has a thousand times. He stays in the car until he gets so cold he has to drive.
Two days after Duchess’s goodbye, Miranda parks his car in front of her uncle’s house. He doesn’t have to wait long before he sees his son cross the street with a hurried step. He rolls down the window and calls out to him. The young man stops and, surprised and baffled, looks at the man in the car.

 

 

Which he does. He sits down in the passenger seat, throws his backpack in the back seat and stares straight ahead of him, in silence. At that moment he feels like he hates his father.

 

 

Fernando grabs his backpack, gets out of the car without saying goodbye and walks away. It doesn’t take Miranda long to get Flores’s phone number.

 

25

 

Once outside, he decides to walk. He has in his pocket all the information he needs to get in touch with Eva. Juquehy… He likes that name. The problem now is where the money will come from to get there. Mole has vanished and he’s losing steam; he couldn’t care less about anything besides finding Eva and seeing if there is any possibility to begin a new life with her somewhere else. Eva is like the Promised Land. He considers going to the bank and telling Fermín that he has found out that Mole is in Brazil and he needs to go there after him. If he can’t get any money out of him, he’ll at least be able to get him to buy him a ticket. Once there, he’ll play it by ear. It’s not the most honest idea in the world, but that doesn’t worry him too much. He searches through his pockets for Fermín’s card, but in vain. He thinks that anyway it’s better to go in person. He picks up his pace as he heads to the bank’s offices in the centre. Along the way he rehearses his speech. If things work out well, great; if not, God knows what he’ll do.

The minute he enters the building, he sees that it’s been redecorated. Its previous atmosphere of a postmodern barracks has made way for the aesthetics of an expensive hair salon. The security people, the sheriffs who used to guard the entryway, have metamorphosed into young men wearing blue suits, with refined manners and eternally damp hair. The turnstiles have disappeared. The bank’s impressive emblem has been replaced by the image of a sun shining on an ear of wheat wrapped in a banner on which is written “
Banco del Pueblo
”, The People’s
Bank. Lascano heads straight for the elevators, gets into one with a group of
boludos
– some things haven’t changed – and hits the “five” button. When he gets to the fifth floor, he sees there’s nothing there. It’s empty, the walls stripped bare. Two workers are gathering up their tools.

 

 

The elevator opens and a short, stocky and irritable-looking man appears, wetting his fingers as he counts out a thick wad of banknotes. He sees Lascano, stops counting and stares at him. He looks him up and down and immediately understands that he’s a cop. He wonders what he wants. Just to be safe, he asks him to wait a second. He pays the workers and dismisses them.

 

26

Through the telephone earpiece, Pereyra’s secretary’s sharp voice informs him that the prosecutor wants to see him right away. The edge in her voice puts him on guard. A few minutes later he is at the door of the courthouse. The line for the elevator is too long and he doesn’t want to wait. He climbs up the wide, empty staircase. But on the third flight, which is the first floor, he feels like his heart is about to explode. He sits down to catch his breath. Once he has recovered, he walks across the corridor and presses the elevator button. When it arrives, two very young female lawyers get out, seemingly indifferent to the effect their splendid bodies have on the men that crowd the elevator. On his way down the narrow corridor to the prosecutor’s office, Lascano doesn’t realize how much he hates this building because at that moment he hates the world, himself, everything. He feels sick, tired and disgusted.

 

27

Horacio opens the small door under the grill and sees with satisfaction that the wood fire is burning heartily. Normally he doesn’t begin preparing the grill until an hour later, but today is not a normal day. With the money Valli gave him for the job, he’ll be able to pay off the last two instalments on the stainless steel grill he had put in two months ago. Outside, a storm is blowing, whistling down the chimney and pushing smoke in his face. This will be the first time he leaves the kid who helps him in charge of the grill. He’s been watching him work the last few days, and he trusts he can manage on his own, especially if not a lot of customers show up. He gives him some final instructions, then leaves him to do his job. He drags a bench over to the four-door freezer, reaches up and takes down the package that contains the Ruger he bought from One-Eyed Giardina. He says goodbye and leaves, gets into The Panther, stuffs the package under the seat, drives down the ramp, merges onto the motorway and continues toward Buenos Aires.

It’s around noon when he takes the Jujuy exit and parks along Moreno next to a truck depot. He walks through Plaza de Once, crosses the railroad bridge and, zigzagging, reaches the Abasto marketplace, where he
arranged to meet Giardina, who’s waiting for him behind the wheel of an old, beat-up Renault 12.