Sweet Money (20 page)

Once they’re sure the coast is clear, they knock on Dandy’s door. Graciela greets them with a smile, a cocktail of three equal parts: relief, joy and reproach. A visit from Mole, when her husband’s in the clink, can mean only one thing, and it’s something she knows will diminish the tremendous anxiety she has been feeling ever since her husband got arrested. She offers them maté.

 

 

Along with those last words, Miranda gives her a hug, dries her tears and runs his hand over her hair. A few moments later, she’s pulled herself together. Miranda walks to the door, where he gives her a few more pieces of advice and kisses her on the cheek; she thanks him and he leaves. Graciela dries her hands on her apron as a matter of habit, picks up the two envelopes he left on the table, sighs, opens the little door of the cabinet where she keeps the good china and sticks them in a beer pitcher, which plays “Der Liebe Augustin” when
she picks it up. Then she goes over to the sink and starts washing the dirty lunch dishes.

 

That afternoon Lascano tries on an elegant suit of fine Peruvian cotton at Rhoders on Florida Street. He is pleased by his own reflection in the mirror. The trousers need to be shortened. The salesman recommends a tailor a few blocks away who can do it quickly. Lascano rounds out his purchase with underwear, six shirts, a belt, a handkerchief and socks, and requests the lot be sent to the hotel. He takes the trousers with him, and leaves them with a Bolivian tailor who has a tiny shop on Córdoba, under Harrods. He walks to Santa Fe, stops in front of the window of a travel agency filled with magnificent posters of gorgeous landscapes and golden beaches. He enters. A tall and seductive young man greets him with a smile that seems to say that the world is too small for his ambitions. It doesn’t take longer than an instant for the young man to figure out how much Lascano’s extravagant clothes have cost. He tells himself that this is a serious customer, someone who has come to make a purchase, and he invites him into his office. Effortlessly, and in a matter of minutes, he sells him a ticket to Guarulhos Airport for thirty per cent more than Lascano would have paid anywhere else. A few minutes later, at Rosenthal’s, right in front of the plaza, Lascano purchases a small suitcase. He returns to the Galería del Este mall and there, on the first floor, he slips into Susana’s Hair Salon, settles into a chair and asks for the full service – cut and shave, with lather and hot towels and, while we’re at it, a manicure.

At night, on the corner of Esteban de Luca and Chi-clana, there’s a truck stop where Doña Elvira makes and serves the best homemade ravioli with pot roast in the entire city, probably the entire country. Generous portions of pasta stuffed with fresh spinach swimming in a sauce as rich and dark as fate itself, accompanied by a tough cut of meat that’s been cooked so long and slowly that it melts in your mouth and falls apart with the touch of the fork. That, along with a fresh sharp red wine decanted from a demijohn, is all her regular customers need to rejoice. Held aloft and exuding clouds of a greasy scent that fills the room and sticks to the clothes and hair, plates are passed around piled high with chips, steak and eggs, thick sausage with sauerkraut, braised tripe with beans, meatballs the size of tennis balls, oxtail and potato stew. This is the kingdom of cholesterol with garlic, oil with spices,
tarantella
dessert, wine with soda, and a gastronomic community that never worries about its health or the future and knows how to appreciate the warmth of a calorie-rich entrée in the dead of winter.

Fernando seems quite out of place here with his impeccable attire, his hair cut stylishly and set with gel, and his refined manners. But nobody seems to notice or care, much too busy devouring whatever Doña Elvira’s crew sets down on the table in front of them. The young man looks decidedly out of sorts. He realizes that this place, even though it hasn’t changed a bit, has nothing in common with his memory of it. He doesn’t like the noise and even less the certainty that he will leave there reeking of fried food. By the time he sees his father walk in the door, he’s already in a nasty mood. As he walks
by the waiter, Miranda orders two plates of ravioli with meat, red wine and soda water.

 

 

The waiter brings the drinks and the steaming plates. Fernando doesn’t like that his father has ordered for him without consulting him. He knows that the rich sauce is going to disagree with him.

 

 

Fernando stands up, does an about-face and walks out. The door he leaves through swings open and closed and offers Miranda a scene like something out of a silent movie: Fernando walking to the kerb, looking one way, then the other; Fernando raising his arm, opening the door of the taxi, talking to the driver; the empty street. He asks for the bill, pays, gulps down the rest of the wine with soda water, gets up and goes out. There to greet him at the door are no fewer than six plainclothes cops with their weapons drawn and pointing at him, three Falcons and a young man. He raises his hands over his head. Two of the cops quickly pat him down, handcuff him and put him in the back seat of one of the cars. It seems like things haven’t worked out.

 

Lascano takes a taxi to Ezeiza Airport. A few minutes ago, in perfect synchronicity, Sansone got his passport to him, issued under the name of Angel Limardi, the same name that appears on the aeroplane ticket. At the airport, he checks in and passes through immigration, then finds out that the flight has been delayed for a couple of hours. He sits down in one of the chairs next to the window where he can see the runway, the aeroplanes landing and taking off.

 

Miranda wakes up in a holding cell in the basement of the courthouse. He feels really depressed. He already knows he won’t be able to come to any kind of understanding
with this young guy, who turns out to be Prosecutor Pereyra. He’s happy he had time to leave the money with his son, so he won’t have to depend on anybody else, especially now that he can’t rely on Screw any more. He’s just started planning his new life in prison when a guard opens the door of the cell and shouts
Miranda!
Mole stands up and approaches him. The guard ushers him out, closes the cell door behind him and accompanies him to the desk in the lobby. Miranda doesn’t understand what’s going on. The officer on duty takes out the little wooden box where they put all his things and empties it out on the desk. This can only mean one thing: they are releasing him. He suddenly panics. The officer looks at him with derision.

 

 

The fact that they’re releasing him at this moment could mean that they’re waiting at the door for him – two bullets and into a deep ditch. It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, it’s a common scenario for police killers. Miranda picks up his things, stuffs them quickly into his pockets and walks to the door. A policeman accompanies him, then stops a few feet before the door, which another policeman opens. The moment Mole steps onto the sidewalk, full of apprehension, a car drives up and stops. He can’t see inside because the windows are tinted. Miranda steps back, ready to try to make a run for it. A window opens. His son Fernando, a big smile on his face, asks him if he wants a ride.

 

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When Marcelo finds out that Miranda has been released with a forged order, he proceeds to have a temper tantrum that leaves his colleagues in a state of shock. All that shouting and cursing from this usually so well-mannered and composed young man, this epitome of the ideal Argentinean male, echoes through the labyrinths of the Palace of Justice like the fury of a Greek god. Miranda did to Marcelo what he’d done to Lascano, and Marcelo had accused Lascano of being an incompetent. He swears to himself that the guy will not escape him, no matter how clever he is, that he will not rest until he has him handcuffed to the chair that will replace the one he has just kicked to smithereens. When he runs out of steam, he collapses in his armchair and stares at the half-open door as if any moment Miranda the Mole were going to walk right through it. But he doesn’t. Instead, his secretary, looking half shocked and half afraid, timidly pops her head in and gently suggests he take the day off. Marcelo feels the urge to leap over the desk, grab her by the scruff of the neck and strangle her, which is a clear indication that he should do as she suggests. He storms out and slams the door behind him. Once outside, he quickly crosses Plaza Lavalle to Libertad. Groups of high
school students are lolling about in small groups. The girls remind him of Vanina when he first met her. He must see her. He stops a taxi, collapses into the back seat, closes his eyes and opens the window to let the outside air cool him down.