The initial explanation by the Federales was the classic: a settling of accounts between a band of corrupt police had left four police and three civilians dead in what would soon become known as the Night of the 17 Stone Angels. A few days later, at a press conference with Doctora Athena Fowler, a very different story was told, one that began a new frenzy of journalistic activity around the Grupo AmiBank, Carlo Pelegrini and the previously unknown name of William Renssaelaer. Questions were raised as to why Fabian Diaz had been shot when his weapon was pointed harmlessly at the ground, and why William Renssaelaer, a foreign citizen, had accompanied a Federal task force to that final execution. Judge Faviola Hocht widened her investigation to the Grupo AmiBank and RapidMail. In the most bizarre and comic iteration of the entire scandal, a top executive of the Grupo AmiBank appeared on the front page of Pagina/12 under the headline Pablo Moya: Red Hot and Wet!
Much was made of the fantasma Francesa referred to by Doctora Fowler, but without her testimony no intellectual author could be definitively linked to the murder of Robert Waterbury, and it appeared that the material authors had already submitted to an alternative and more exacting justice system. Athena Fowler stayed four more weeks in Buenos Aires, a guest in the home of Carmen Amado de los Santos. By the time she departed all plans to privatize the Argentine Post Office had collapsed under the eye of public scrutiny. Beyond that, without the presence of the mysterious Paulé or other hard evidence, neither Carlo Pelegrini nor William Renssaelaer could be officially accused of anything.
When Athena returned to the United States she had been away two months. In comparison her own country seemed half asleep, anesthetized by consumer goods and narcotized by a steady stream of corporate news blended into a placenta of entertaining facts. No one had heard anything about the events in Argentina, and American newspapers displayed little interest in the complex foreign policies of RapidMail and AmiBank. A week later a small yellow slip arrived from her local post office: they were holding a piece of registered mail for a Doctor Athena Fowler.
She walked there with the slip in her pocket, cheered by the sight of the modest but orderly building, with its flag above the doorway and its plain black letters spelling out the branch and zip code. She’d grown up with this post office, remembered going there with her parents to pick up packages at Christmas. It was one of the institutions that worked reliably and without change, beyond politics or party lines. She stopped a few steps inside the entryway.
A large poster had been hung above the counter, with the Stars and Stripes pulling into their embrace two logos: RAPIDMAIL AND THE US POSTAL SERVICE: PARTNERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY! Next to the counter stood a neat metal RapidMail box, with its logo expropriating the colors of the American flag.
“They just started rolling it out three weeks ago,” the clerk told her. “RapidMail gets a drop-box in every post office in the country. They help us move the parcels so we can concentrate on the mail. They call that a strategic partnership.”
She looked at the cheerful, contented face. “Strategic for who?” she answered. “They’ll take the profits and leave the taxpayers with the crap, and ten years from now they’ll replace you with someone who earns twenty percent less. Because by their calculation, you make too much money.”
The clerk went sour and looked at the yellow registered mail slip that she gave him. “Brazil, eh?”
He disappeared and returned a minute later carrying a thick manila envelope with no return address. The bulk of it made her think of letter bombs, and she felt carefully around its edges with her fingers. As a consideration she opened it outside.
It was a different sort of letter bomb. The envelope was stuffed with photocopies of documents detailing financial transactions between Argentina and various off-shore banks. Carlo Pelegrini’s name appeared all over them. On top was a letter from Paulé. Paulé—the Patron Saint of Desperation.
Estimada Doctor, she wrote in her flawed Spanish, even here in Rio one can buy the Argentine papers. There were things she had not told her on the Night of the 17 Stone Angels. That Robert had given her these documents two days before his death, and one more thing, maybe useful to her. Robert had not been alone on the day he had spotted William Renssaelaer and Pablo Moya together. She too had seen them, could identify William Renssaelaer from his pictures in the newspaper. She was ready to make her declaración.
Athena put the papers back in the envelope and clutched it tightly to her side as she began to walk. A sudden surge of emotion seemed to lift her off her feet and carry her through the streets. She was thinking of her night out with Fortunato, and his story of the sculptures that were supposed to have looked down from the Palacio de Justicia and instead had ended up surveying the errands of pimps and fading tango singers. Thus is life, Fortunato would have said. Even in a world where seventeen stone angels are stranded beyond reach, one more can always be found.