Andrew’s flight landed at Ezeiza International Airport in the early evening. To his surprise, Marisa had come to meet him. He’d sent her several e-mails, but he hadn’t heard from her at all since the last time they’d spoken on the phone. On his earlier trip, they’d met at the hotel the morning after his arrival.
Andrew was noticing that the more time went by, the more things seemed to be happening in a different order than they had the last time around.
He recognized Marisa’s old VW Beetle. Its side runners were so rusty that, on his previous trip, each time the car had hit a bump he’d wondered if his seat would go through the floor.
“I thought you really had gone on vacation with the money I sent you,” he told her. “You promised me you’d be in touch.”
“It turned out to be more complicated than we thought. Antonio’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?” Andrew asked.
“We had a car accident on our way back.”
“A serious one?”
“Serious enough that my boyfriend’s got one arm in a cast, six fractured ribs and head trauma. It’s a miracle we didn’t both end up in the hospital.”
“Was it his fault?”
“If you consider that he didn’t brake at the red light, yes. But since the brakes had stopped working, I suppose he isn’t responsible.”
“Was his car as well maintained as yours?” asked Andrew, who was struggling to extricate the jammed seat belt.
“Antonio’s fanatical about his car. I sometimes wonder if he loves it more than me. There’s no way he’d have started out on a trip without checking everything first. Someone deliberately cut our brakes.”
“Do you suspect anyone in particular?”
“We located Ortiz. We watched him and took photos of him. We asked about him—too many questions, probably, and his friends aren’t exactly choirboys.”
“That’s not going to help me with my investigation. He’ll be on his guard now.”
“Antonio’s in serious condition and all you can think of is your investigation? I’m extremely touched by your concern, Mr. Stilman.”
“That was tactless of me. I’m sorry about your boyfriend. Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll pull through. But I can’t help being nervous about my work. I haven’t come all the way here for vacation, you know. When did this accident happen?”
“Three days ago.”
“Why didn’t you let me know?”
“Because Antonio only regained consciousness yesterday evening, and you were the last thing on my mind.”
“Have you still got the photos?”
“The camera case was badly damaged in the crash. We were using an old camera because we didn’t want to attract too much attention with an expensive model. The film will probably turn out grainy. I’m not sure we’ll be able to see much. I’ve given it to a photographer friend. We can pick it up tomorrow.”
“You’ll have to go on your own. I’m leaving for Córdoba tomorrow.”
“There’s no way you’ll be doing anything that stupid, Mr. Stilman. With all due respect, if Antonio and I, who are locals, managed to get ourselves noticed, it’ll take Ortiz’s men less than half a day to spot you. Besides, there’s no need for you to drive all the way there. Ortiz comes to Buenos Aires every week.”
“When’s his next visit?”
“Tuesday, if he sticks to his routine. That’s what we were told when we questioned some of his neighbors, which is probably why we had the accident.”
“I’m sorry, Marisa,” Andrew said sincerely. “I had no idea I’d be making you run any risks. If I’d known . . . ”
But Andrew didn’t remember this accident. Nothing was happening like it had the last time. On his former trip, he’d been the one to photograph Ortiz, and he’d had his camera stolen in an alleyway in a Buenos Aires suburb after being attacked by three men.
“Do you really think a man who’s put so much effort into changing his identity to avoid going to prison will just sit there and let himself be unmasked? What planet are you living on?” Marisa asked.
“You’d be surprised if I described it to you,” Andrew replied.
Marisa pulled up in front of the Quintana Hotel in Recoleta, a middle-class neighborhood.
“Let’s go see how your boyfriend’s doing,” Andrew suggested. “I’ll drop my stuff off here later.”
“I appreciate your concern, but Antonio needs his rest, and visiting hours are over. We’ll go tomorrow. He’s in intensive care at General de Agudos hospital. It’s close to here. I’ll come by and pick you up at nine o’clock tomorrow.”
“You aren’t working at the bar this evening?”
“No, it’s my day off.”
Andrew said goodbye to Marisa, got his suitcase out of the back seat, and walked towards the hotel.
A white van stopped outside the hotel entrance. The man sitting in the front seat aimed his camera at Andrew and took a series of shots. The rear door opened, and another man got out and strolled into the lobby. The van started up again and fell in behind Marisa’s car. Its driver had been tailing her ever since she and Antonio left Córdoba.
Andrew smiled when the receptionist handed him the key to room 712. It was the same room he’d been given in his previous life.
“Could you ask housekeeping to change the batteries in my TV remote control?” he asked.
“Our cleaning service checks them daily to make sure they’re working,” the employee intoned.
“Trust me, whoever did my room didn’t do his job properly.”
“How would you know that, sir? You haven’t been up to your room yet.”
“I have ESP!” Andrew said, opening his eyes wide.
Room 712 was exactly the way he remembered it. The window wouldn’t open, the closet had a squeaky door hinge, the shower leaked and the mini-fridge made coughing noises like a cat with tuberculosis.
“Some cleaning service!” Andrew snorted, throwing his suitcase on the bed.
He hadn’t had a bite to eat since New York—the food on the plane had looked so disgusting he didn’t want to risk it—and he was starving. He remembered having eaten on his last trip in a parrilla right across from the Recoleta cemetery. He pulled his room door shut behind him, amused by the thought of eating the same steak for the second time.
When Andrew left the hotel, the man in the lobby got up from his armchair and followed him. He sat on a small bench in front of the restaurant.
While Andrew was enjoying his meal, a cleaning service employee at the Quintana hotel was going through the belongings of the guest in room 712 in exchange for a sizeable amount of cash. He carried out his mission meticulously, opened the tiny room safe with his staff key and photographed all the pages of Andrew’s address book, passport and diary. When he’d put everything back in its place, he checked to see if the remote control was working, changed the batteries and left. He found his generous benefactor waiting for him at the service entrance of the hotel and returned his digital camera.
* * *
Feeling pleasantly full, Andrew slept like a log and didn’t have any nightmares. He woke up refreshed early in the morning. After having breakfast in the hotel dining room, he went outside to wait for Marisa.
“We’re not going to see Antonio,” she announced as soon as Andrew got into the Beetle.
“He hasn’t gotten worse, has he?”
“No, he’s actually feeling better this morning. It’s my aunt. She received a very unpleasant phone call in the middle of the night.”
“What do you mean?”
“A man who didn’t bother to introduce himself told her she should keep an eye on the people her niece is getting involved with. He told her I could get into serious trouble otherwise.”
“Ortiz’s pals don’t waste any time, do they?”
“What really worries me is that they already know you’re in town and that we know each other.”
“Am I the only bad company you could be keeping?”
“Is that a serious question?”
“There must be quite a few guys, upstanding and otherwise, hanging around you.”
“No, because I love my boyfriend very much.”
“It was a compliment, nothing more,” Andrew assured her. “Do you know which street the service entrance of the hospital is on?”
“It won’t do us any good to try and play smart. Ortiz’s men probably have an accomplice inside the building. I don’t want to put Antonio in any more danger. He’s taken enough risks as it is.”
“What do we do next?”
“I’m taking you to see my aunt. She knows more than I do—more than most other people in this city, actually. She was one of the very first Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. But keep in mind I’m not here to be your tour guide.”
“I wouldn’t really call this sightseeing, but I’ll remember that. And that you’re in an excellent mood.”
* * *
Luisa lived in a small house in the Monte Chingolo neighborhood. A courtyard shaded by a huge purple jacaranda, its walls covered in passionflower, preceded her front door.
Marisa took him through to the living room.
“So you’re the American journalist who’s investigating our history,” Luisa said, getting up from the armchair where she’d been sitting and doing the crossword. “I thought you’d be better looking.”
Marisa grinned. Her aunt beckoned Andrew to a place at the table and she then went into the kitchen. She reappeared holding a plate of cookies.
“Why are you interested in Ortiz?” she asked, pouring Andrew a glass of lemonade.
“My editor finds his career interesting.”
“Your boss has some funny interests.”
“She does, like understanding what makes an ordinary man become a torturer,” Andrew replied.
“She should have come here instead of you. I’d have given her the names of hundreds of soldiers who turned into monsters. Ortiz wasn’t an ordinary fellow, but he wasn’t the worst of them. He was a coast guard pilot—small fry. We’ve never found hard evidence that he participated in the torture. And don’t think I’m trying to make excuses for him. He did some terrible things, and he deserves to rot in prison for his crimes, like a lot of other people. But, like many others, he’s gotten away with it—until now, anyway. If you can help us prove that Ortiz has become the trader who calls himself Ortega, we can have him taken to court. Or at least we can try.”
“What do you know about him?”
“About Ortega? Not much so far. As for Ortiz, all you need to do is go through the ESMA archives to find his pedigree.”
“How has he managed to evade justice?”
“What justice are you talking about, Mr. Journalist? The one that granted amnesty to those jackals and gave them time to manufacture new identities for themselves? After the transition to democracy in 1983, we—the victims’ families—thought the criminals would be convicted. We didn’t expect that President Alfonsin would be so spineless and the army so powerful. The military regime had time to erase its tracks, clean its bloodstained uniforms and hide the torture equipment in anticipation of better times. And there’s no guarantee those times won’t return one day. Our democracy is fragile. If you think you’ll be shielded from the worst of it because you’re American, you’re mistaken; as mistaken as we were. In 1987, Barreiro and Rico, two high-level army officers, provoked unrest and managed to declaw our legal system. Two shameful laws were passed—the ‘due obedience’ law, which established a hierarchy of responsibility based on military rank, and the even more disgraceful ‘full stop’ law, which set a deadline for bringing charges for all the crimes that hadn’t yet been judged. So Ortiz and hundreds of his comrades were basically offered a pass that protected them from being prosecuted. And the ones who were in prison were freed. We had to wait fifteen years for those laws to be repealed. But as you can imagine, fifteen years gave those lowlifes plenty of time to cover up their tracks.”
“How could the Argentine people let such a thing happen?”
“How can you ask me that question? Did you Americans take your President Bush, Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to court for authorizing the use of torture in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners in the name of national security? Or for setting up the detention center in Guantanamo? Have you closed down that center, which has violated the Geneva Conventions for more than a decade? You see how fragile democracy can be, so don’t judge us. We did what we could in the face of an all-powerful army manipulating the machinery of the state to its maximum advantage. Most of us were merely trying to send our children to school, to fill their plates and put a roof over their heads. That alone took a great deal of effort and sacrifice on the part of impoverished Argentines.”
“I wasn’t judging you,” Andrew assured her.
“You’re not a judge, Mr. Journalist, but you can help us to ensure that justice is done. If you expose the man hiding behind the name of Ortega and he really is Ortiz, he’ll get the treatment he deserves. That is why I’m prepared to help you.”
Luisa got up from her chair and went over to the sideboard that held pride of place in her living room. She took a file out of a drawer and placed it on the table. She turned the pages one by one, licking her finger each time, until she got to the page she was looking for. She handed the page to Andrew.
“There’s your Ortiz,” she said. “That was in 1977. He would have been around forty—already too old to pilot anything other than coast guard planes. His career as an officer was fairly run-of-the-mill. According to the investigation report I found in the archives of the National Commission on the Disappeared, he piloted several of the death flights. Many young men and women, some of them barely out of adolescence, were thrown alive into the waters of the Río de la Plata from the plane he was flying.”
Andrew couldn’t help grimacing in disgust as he looked at the photograph of the officer in his haughty pose.
“He didn’t report to Massera, the head of ESMA. That’s probably why he managed to slip by unnoticed during those few years when he could have been arrested. Ortiz was under the orders of Héctor Febres, the Coast Guard chief. But Febres also headed ESMA’s intelligence service. He was in charge of Sector 4, which included a number of torture rooms and the maternity unit—if you could call it that, considering it was a tiny hole measuring a few square feet where women prisoners were made to give birth like animals. Worse than animals, even, because their heads were covered with burlap sacks.
“Febres forced those brand-new mothers to write a letter to their families asking them to look after their babies while they were in prison. You know what happened next. Now listen carefully, Mr. Stilman, because if you really want me to help you, we’ll have to make a pact, you and I.”
Andrew refilled Luisa’s glass with lemonade. She gulped it down and put the glass back on the table.
“It’s very likely that Febres did Ortiz a favor for services rendered—meaning he was given one of those babies.”
“Very likely, or do you know that for a fact?”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s why we’re making a pact. You have to choose your words with great care when you’re telling one of those stolen children the truth: that’s something we Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo insist on. When you are told, as an adult, that not only are your mother and father not your biological parents, but that they were associated either directly or indirectly with the disappearance of the woman who gave birth to you, it can have terrible consequences. It’s a difficult and traumatic process. We’re fighting to expose the truth and give the victims of the junta their true identities back, but the last thing we want is to destroy the lives of innocent people.
“I’ll tell you everything I know and can find out about Ortiz. As for you, you’ll talk to me—and only to me—if you find out anything about his children. I want you to swear to me that you won’t publish anything on the subject without my permission.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There are truths that need time to be revealed. What if you were Ortiz’s ‘adopted’ child? Would you want to find out all of a sudden that your birth parents were murdered, that your life has been one big web of deceit and that your entire identity, right down to your name, is false? Would you want to discover all of that just because you happened to open a newspaper? Have you ever thought about the consequences a newspaper article can have for the lives of the people involved?”
Andrew got the unpleasant feeling that Capetta’s shadow was lurking in the room.
“But let’s not get too carried away,” Luisa said. “We have no proof that Ortiz adopted one of those stolen babies. But just in case he did, I prefer to warn you and make sure we’re both on the same page.”
“I promise I won’t publish anything without asking you first, even though I suspect you’re not telling me everything.”
“We’ll come to the rest of it when the time is right. Meanwhile, you should watch your step. Febres was among the cruelest of the lot. He picked ‘Jungle’ as his code name during the war because he boasted he was more ferocious than all the predators combined. The stories told by the few people who survived his treatment are horrifying.”
“Is Febres still alive?”
“No, unfortunately.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“After benefiting from the amnesty law, he spent most of the rest of his life as a free man. It was only in 2007 that he was finally brought to trial, for just four of the four hundred crimes he’d been accused of. Everyone was waiting for the verdict. This was the man who’d strapped a fifteen-month-old child to its father’s chest before flicking the switch on the electric chair to make his victim talk. A few days before his trial—and by the way, he was given special treatment in prison, where he lived in princely conditions—he was found dead in his cell. Cyanide poisoning. The military were too scared he’d talk. Justice was never done. For the families of his victims, it is as if the torture continues.”
Luisa spat on the floor, then continued: “The only problem is, Febres took everything he knew about the identities of the five hundred babies and children he kidnapped with him to the grave. His death has made things harder for us, but we’ve carried on with untiring faith and determination. This is all my way of telling you to be careful. Most of Febres’s men are still alive and free, and they’re prepared to go to any lengths to silence anyone who takes an interest in them. Ortiz is one of them.”
“How can I prove that Ortiz is the man hiding behind Ortega?”
“Comparing photos is always useful—we’ll see what’s left on Marisa’s film roll. But there’s a difference of more than thirty years between the arrogant-looking major in my album and the 74-year-old salesman he’s now become. And a mere likeness won’t be enough for the courts. The best way to get what we want, though it seems impossible to me, would be to unmask him and make him confess. How? I have no idea.”
“If I start investigating Ortega’s past, we’ll see soon enough if it stands up to scrutiny.”
“You really are incredibly naive! Believe me, if Ortiz changed his identity, he didn’t do it without help. His existence as Ortega will be perfectly documented, from the school where he supposedly studied to his college degree and all his jobs, including a fake army job.”
Luisa stood up.
“Marisa, come and give me a hand in the kitchen,” she ordered.
Left on his own in the living room, Andrew leafed through the file Luisa had left out. Each page had the photo of a soldier, his rank, the unit to which he belonged, the list of crimes he had committed and—in some cases—the real identity of the child or children he had been given. At the back of the album was a list of five hundred babies whose birth parents had disappeared. Only fifty of the names had the word “identified” next to them.
Andrew reflected that Luisa would have made a wonderful grandmother if the junta hadn’t deprived her of the possibility of having grandchildren.
Luisa and Marisa reappeared a few moments later. Marisa hinted to Andrew that her aunt was tired and that it would be a good time for them to leave.
Andrew thanked Luisa for seeing him and promised to let her know if he found out anything.
Marisa was tight-lipped when they got back in the car. He could tell from the way she was driving that she was on edge. At a crossroads where a truck refused to give her the right of way, she leaned on the horn and let loose a stream of invective that even Andrew, who spoke fluent Spanish, didn’t fully understand.
“Did I say something to annoy you?” he asked politely.
“There’s no need to use that tone with me, Mr. Stilman. I work at a bar. I prefer when people tell things to me straight.”
“What did your aunt want to tell you without me hearing?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marisa answered.
“She didn’t ask you to follow her into the kitchen to help her clear away the glasses of lemonade. You left them on the table, and when you came back your hands were empty.”
“She told me to watch out for you. She said you knew more than you were letting on, and if you were hiding things from her it meant you couldn’t be fully trusted. You didn’t run into me at the bar by chance, did you? You better not lie to me, unless you want to take a taxi back to the hotel and forget about me helping you anymore.”
“You’re right. I knew your aunt was one of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and that I’d be able to meet her through you.”
“So I guess you used me as bait. That’s nice to know. How did you find me?”
“Your name was in the file I was given, and the place where you work.”
“Why was my name in that file?”
“I don’t know any more than you do. A few months ago, my editor Olivia Stern was sent an envelope containing information about Ortiz and a couple of people who had been disappeared. There was a letter accusing Ortiz of taking part in their murder. Your name was there too, and your relationship to Luisa, with a note saying you were someone who could be trusted. Olivia was fascinated by the whole thing. She asked me to track down Ortiz and use his story to expose the dark years of the junta. It’ll be the fortieth anniversary next year—a tragic landmark—and all the newspapers will be picking up on the story. Olivia likes to stay ahead of the competition. I guess that’s why she’s so keen on this investigation.”
“Who sent that envelope to your editor?”
“She told me the information came from an anonymous source, but there was sufficient evidence in it for us to take it seriously. And so far it’s all been confirmed. Olivia has her faults, and she can be hard to figure out sometimes, but she takes her job seriously.”
“Sounds like the two of you are close.”
“Not especially, no.”
“I wouldn’t call my boss by his first name.”
“It’s one of the privileges of age!”
“She’s younger than you?”
“By a few years.”
“Your boss is a woman who’s younger than you? Your ego must have taken quite a beating,” Marisa said, laughing.
“Could you drive me to the archives your aunt told us about?”
“If you want me to be your personal chauffeur, you’re going to have to make it worth my while, Mr. Stilman.”
“And I’m supposed to be the one with an ego problem?”
Marisa ground to a halt at a gas station. Her Beetle’s exhaust pipe was throwing out a shower of sparks, and the engine had started making deafeningly loud sputtering noises.
While a mechanic tried to do a makeshift repair job on it—Marisa couldn’t afford a new car—Andrew moved out of earshot and called the office.
Olivia was in a meeting, but her assistant insisted he hold.
“What’s the news?” Olivia asked, sounding out of breath, when she came to the phone.
“Worse than last time.”
“What is it? I’ve come out of a meeting to take your call.”
“I need some extra money.”
“I’m listening,” Olivia said.
“Two thousand dollars.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“We’ve got to grease some palms to get what we need.”
“I’ll give you half that amount and not one dollar more for the duration of your trip.”
“I’ll manage,” replied Andrew, who hadn’t hoped to get even that much.
“Is that all you have to tell me?”
“I’m leaving for Córdoba tomorrow. I have every reason to believe our man’s hiding down there.”
“Do you have proof that it’s really him?”
“I’m following up a very promising lead.”
“Call me back as soon as you have anything new—no matter how late it is. Do you have my home number?”
“It’s in my notebook somewhere.”
Olivia hung up.
Andrew was taken by an overwhelming desire to hear the sound of Valerie’s voice, but he didn’t want to disturb her at work. He’d call her that evening.
The car was ready to go, the mechanic assured them. It could do at least another few hundred miles thanks to his repair job. He had sealed up all the holes and fixed the muffler with new bolts. As Marisa rummaged in her pockets for money to pay him, Andrew handed him fifty dollars. The mechanic thanked him profusely, and even opened the car door for him.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Marisa said as she got behind the wheel.
“Let’s just call it my contribution to the trip.”
“Half that amount would have been enough. You got ripped off.”
“Marisa, I really need your help,” Andrew replied with a smile.
“Wait, what trip are you talking about?”
“Córdoba.”
“You’re even more stubborn than I am. Before you set out on that fool’s errand, I’ve got an address for you. It’s a lot nearer than Córdoba.”
“Where are we going?”
“Well, I’m heading back home to get changed. I’m working tonight. You’re taking a taxi,” Marisa answered, handing him a piece of paper. “This is a bar where some former Montoneros hang out. When you get there, act humble.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see three men sitting in the back of the room playing cards. Their fourth partner never returned from his stay at ESMA. Every evening they play the same game all over again, like a ritual. Ask them politely if you can sit in the empty spot, offer to buy them a drink—only one round—and make sure you lose a little, out of courtesy. If you’re too lucky, they’ll send you packing. If you play too badly, they’ll throw you out, too.”
“What do they play?”
“Poker, with several variations that they’ll explain to you. When you’ve won them over, talk to the bald man with a beard. He’s called Alberto. He’s one of the few survivors of the detention centers and was one of Febres’s victims. Like many survivors, he’s consumed by guilt, and it’s very hard for him to talk about what happened.”
“Why does he feel guilty?”
“Because he’s alive while most of his friends are dead.”
“How do you know him?”
“He’s my uncle.”
“Luisa’s husband?”
“Ex-husband. They haven’t spoken for a long time.”
“Why?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“The more I know, the less likely I’ll be to make a faux pas,” Andrew pointed out.
“She’s devoted her life to tracking down the former criminals, and he’s chosen to forget the whole business. I respect both their choices.”
“So why would he talk to me?”
“Because the same blood flows in our veins, and both of us tend to be very stubborn.”
“Where are your parents, Marisa?”
“That’s not the right question to ask, Mr. Stilman. The question I ask myself every single day is: who are my real parents? The ones who raised me, or the ones I never knew?”
Marisa pulled up to the curb and leaned across to open Andrew’s door.
“You’ll find a taxi at that corner over there. If you don’t get back too late, stop by and see me at the bar. My shift ends around one in the morning.”
* * *
The bar looked exactly as Marisa had described it. The decor was untouched by the passage of time, and several successive coats of paint had given the walls the strangest of textures. The only furniture was a handful of wooden tables and chairs. A photograph of Rodolfo Walsh, the journalist and legendary leader of the Montoneros who had been murdered by the junta, hung on the back wall. Alberto was sitting right beneath it. He was bald, and most of his face was hidden by a thick white beard. When Andrew walked over to the table where he was playing with his friends, Alberto looked up and stared at him briefly before turning wordlessly back to the game.
Andrew followed Marisa’s instructions to the letter, and a few moments later the man sitting on Alberto’s right invited him to join them. Jorge, the man on Alberto’s left, dealt the cards and bet two pesos.
Andrew called and glanced at his hand. Jorge had dealt him three of a kind and Andrew should have raised, but, recalling Marisa’s advice, he threw his cards facedown on the table. Alberto smiled.
A new hand was dealt. This time Andrew found he had a royal flush. He folded again and let Alberto take the pot, which amounted to four pesos. The next three rounds went the same way. Alberto suddenly folded before the end of the fourth round, looking Andrew straight in the eye.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know who you are, why you’re here, and what you want from me. You can stop letting us win by pretending to be an idiot.”
His two friends roared with laughter. Alberto gave Andrew back his two pesos.
“Couldn’t you tell we were cheating? Did you really think you were that lucky?”
“I was starting to suspect something . . . ” Andrew replied.
“He was starting!” Alberto exclaimed to his friends. “You served us a glass of friendship and that’s all it takes for us to have a conversation, even if we’re not friends yet. So you think you can get your hands on Major Ortiz, do you?”
“That’s the plan,” Andrew said, putting down his glass of Fernet and Coke.
“I’m not too happy you’re mixing my niece up in this business. This search you’re undertaking is a dangerous one. But she’s more stubborn than a mule, and I can’t get her to change her mind.”
“I won’t let her take any risks, I promise you.”
“Don’t make promises you won’t be able to keep. You have no idea what these men are capable of. If he was here,” Alberto said, pointing to the portrait on the wall above his head, “he could tell you about it. He was a journalist, like you, but he took risks that put his life in danger. They shot him down like a dog. He stood up to them before their bullets mowed him down.”
Andrew looked at the photograph. There was something charismatic about Walsh. He seemed to be gazing off toward the horizon from behind his glasses. He reminded Andrew of his own father.
“Did you know him?” Andrew asked.
“Let the dead rest in peace. Tell me what this article of yours is about.”
“I haven’t written it yet, and I don’t want to make promises I won’t be able to keep. Ortiz is the linchpin of my article. My editor finds his life story very intriguing.”
Alberto shrugged.
“It’s funny how newspapers always find the torturers more interesting than the heroes. I guess the smell of shit sells better than the perfume of roses. As discreet as you’ve been, he’ll be on his guard by now. You’ll never catch him in his lair, and he doesn’t go anywhere unaccompanied.”
“That’s not very encouraging.”
“We can fix things so you’re on equal terms.”
“Fix things how?”
“Some of my friends are still in good shape, and they’d love to see Ortiz and his stooges brought to justice.”
“Sorry, I haven’t come here to orchestrate any settling of scores. I just want to question the man.”
“As you wish. I’ve no doubt he’ll welcome you into his living room and serve you tea while telling you all about his past. And he says he won’t put my niece at risk!” Alberto guffawed, exchanging a look with his fellow poker players.
He leaned across the table, bringing his face close to Andrew’s.
“Listen up if you don’t want your trip to be a waste of time for us all, young man. You’ll have to be very convincing to get Ortiz to tell you his secrets. I don’t mean using excessive force—that won’t be necessary. Anyone who did what he did is a coward. When they’re not in a pack, their balls shrink to the size of hazelnuts. All you have to do is intimidate him a little, and he’ll be spilling his story out between sobs. But if you show him you’re scared, he’ll kill you without the slightest compunction and throw what’s left of you to the dogs.”
“I’ll keep your advice in mind,” Andrew said, preparing to get up.
“Sit down. I haven’t finished.”
Andrew was annoyed by the imperious way Marisa’s uncle was talking to him, but he didn’t want to make an enemy of the man, so he obeyed.
“Luck is on your side,” Alberto told him.
“Not if the cards are rigged.”
“I wasn’t talking about our card game. There’s a general strike planned on Tuesday, and all flights will be grounded. Ortiz won’t have any choice but to drive to Buenos Aires to meet his client.”
As he listened to Alberto, Andrew realized Marisa had been reporting every single one of his moves back to Alberto.
“Even if he’s traveling with an escort, it’s on that road you stand the best chance of trapping him. If, of course, you let us give you a hand.”
“It’s not that I don’t want your help,” Andrew said. “But I don’t want any violence.”
“Who said anything about violence? Funny kind of journalist you are, always thinking with your fists. I think with my head, you know.”
Andrew looked at him doubtfully.
“I know Route 8 well,” Alberto went on. “I’ve taken it so many times that I could describe the scenery all the way to Córdoba with my eyes closed. The road goes through miles and miles of featureless landscape, and it’s very poorly maintained—there are far too many accidents on it. Marisa’s nearly lost her life on it once, and I don’t want that happening again. Understand this, Mr. Journalist: that man’s friends attacked my niece, and the time when they can get away with something like that is over.
“A few miles from Gahan, the road splits in two around a large crucifix. There are some silos on the right—you can hide behind them while you’re waiting. My comrades will arrange for Ortiz’s tires to go flat at precisely that spot. With all the junk that falls off passing trucks, they won’t be suspicious.”
“Okay, what next?”
“There’s only ever one spare wheel in a car, and if you find yourself in the middle of the night in a place where you can’t get a cell phone signal, what choice do you have apart from walking as far as the nearest village to look for help? Ortiz will send his men and stay in the car.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“A former officer like him never loses his arrogance or the high opinion he has of himself. If he walked through the mud alongside his henchmen, he’d be lowering himself to their level. I could be wrong, but I know a lot of guys like him.”
“Fine, so Ortiz is alone in the car. How long do we have before his men come back?”
“Probably a quarter of an hour walking either way, plus the time they’ll need to wake up a mechanic in the middle of the night. You’ll have all the time you need to grill him.”
“Are you sure he’ll be traveling at night?”
“Dumesnil is a seven-hour drive from Buenos Aires—another three if there’s heavy traffic. Believe me, he’ll leave after dinner. One man will drive, another will be his bodyguard and the man you presume to be Ortiz will be sleeping peacefully in the back seat. He’ll want to get through the suburbs before daylight, and start driving back as soon as his meeting’s over.”
“It’s a thorough plan, except for one little detail: if all the tires on his car blow simultaneously, it’ll go crashing into a wall, with him inside.”
“Except that there are no walls in that spot! Only fields and the silos I told you about, but they’re too far from the road.”
Andrew rubbed his forehead, reflecting on Alberto’s proposal. He looked up at the photograph of Walsh and stared at it as if he was trying to read his dead colleague’s thoughts.
“Dammit, man, if you want the truth you have to have the courage to go looking for it!” Alberto exhorted.
“Okay, I’m in. But Marisa and I will be the only ones interrogating Ortiz. I want your word that none of your men will use the opportunity to settle their scores with him.”
“We survived those barbarians without turning into them. Don’t insult the people who are trying to help you.”
Andrew got up and held his hand out to Alberto. After a moment’s hesitation, Alberto took it.
“How do you like Marisa?” Alberto asked, gathering up his cards.
“I’m not sure I understand your question.”
“And I’m sure you do.”
“She’s a lot like you, Alberto. And you’re definitely not my type.”
* * *
Back at the hotel, Andrew stopped at the bar. It was packed. Marisa was racing from one end of the bar to the other juggling orders. The open collar of her white shirt showed her cleavage each time she bent down, and the clients on the bar stools were lapping up each glimpse. Andrew studied her for a long moment. He glanced at his watch. It was one in the morning. He sighed and went up to his room.
* * *
There was a stink of stale tobacco and cheap air freshener in the room. Andrew lay down on top of the bedspread. It was late to call Valerie, but he missed her.
“Did I wake you up?” he asked.
“There’s no need to whisper, you know. I was about to go to sleep, but I’m glad you called. I was starting to worry.”
“It’s been a long day,” Andrew said.
“Is everything going the way you want?”
“What I want is to be lying there next to you.”
“But if you were, you’d be dreaming of being in Argentina.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
“Is your work going well?”
“I can’t really tell. Maybe tomorrow . . . ”
“Maybe what tomorrow?”
“Will you come and join me here this weekend?”
“I’d love to, but I don’t think the subway stops at Buenos Aires. And anyway, I’m on call this weekend.”
“Any chance you could call on me?”
“Are the Argentine girls that gorgeous?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t look at them.”
“Liar.”
“I miss your smile too.”
“Who said I was smiling? Okay, I was smiling. Come back soon.”
“I’ll let you get back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you up. I needed to hear your voice.”
“Is everything okay, Andrew?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“You can call me back anytime if you can’t get to sleep, okay?”
“I know. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Valerie hung up. Andrew walked over to the window of his room. He spotted Marisa coming out of the hotel. For some reason he hoped she’d turn around, but Marisa got into her Beetle and drove off.
* * *
Andrew was woken by the telephone ringing. He had no idea where he was or what time it was.
“Don’t tell me you were still sleeping at 11 in the morning?” Simon asked.
“No,” Andrew lied, rubbing his eyes.
“Were you out partying all night? If you say yes, I’m taking the first flight out.”
“I had a bad nightmare and then I couldn’t get back to sleep until the early hours.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll believe that when I see it. While you’re having a ball down there, I’ve been busy here in Chicago.”
“Shit, I’d forgotten.”
“I hadn’t. Are you interested in what I have to tell you?”
Andrew was suddenly overtaken by a violent fit of coughing, and found himself gasping for breath. Glancing at the palm of his hand, he was alarmed to see it covered in blood. He managed to apologize to Simon and tell him he’d call back later before rushing into the bathroom.
He was horrified by the sight of his reflection in the mirror. His skin was deathly pale. His face looked drawn, and his sunken eyes made his cheekbones stand out. He felt like he’d aged thirty years in the course of the night. He began coughing again, and saw that were specks of blood on the mirror. Andrew felt dizzy. His legs were turning to jelly. He clutched at the edge of the sink and lowered himself to his knees before toppling to the floor.
The touch of the cold tiles against his cheeks revived him slightly. He managed to turn over on his back and stared up at the flickering ceiling light.
He heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor and hoped it was the maid. Unable to call out for help, he tried to grab hold of the hair dryer cord, dangling a few inches away. He strained towards it with all his might, arm outstretched, and managed to touch it, but the cord slipped out of his fingers, swinging gently to and fro before his helpless gaze.
Someone slid a key into the door of his room. Andrew worried the maid might go away if she thought the room was occupied. He attempted to maneuver himself upright with a hand on the rim of the bathtub, but froze when he heard two men whispering on the other side of the bathroom door.
They were searching his room—he recognized the squeak of the closet door when it was opened. He stretched out a hand again to get hold of the damn hair dryer. It was the only weapon he could think of.
He yanked on the cord and the hair dryer landed on the floor with a thud. The voices immediately went silent. Andrew struggled to a sitting position and leaned against the bathroom door, pressing his feet against the tub and pushing back as hard as he could to make sure the men couldn’t open the door.
He was hurled forward as an almighty kick splintered the latch and flung the bathroom door inwards.
A man grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to force him down. Andrew struggled; the dizziness disappeared as fear sharpened his senses. He managed to send a punch flying into his attacker’s face. The man wasn’t expecting it, and he fell into the tub. Andrew got up and pushed the second man, who was flinging himself at him. He grabbed the bottle of liquid soap sitting on the sink and threw it at the man, who ducked. The bottle shattered on the tiles. Two right hooks to his face sent Andrew flying back against the mirror and split open his eyebrow. Blood spurted from the wound and blurred his vision. It was an unequal fight; Andrew didn’t stand a chance. The bigger of the two attackers pushed him face-down on the ground. The other man took a knife out of his pocket and stuck it into Andrew’s lower back. Andrew screamed out in pain. With one last effort, he picked up a shard of broken glass from the bottle and cut the arm of the man trying to strangle him.
The man let out a cry of pain. As he moved back, he slipped on the soap that had spilled all over the floor, and his elbow knocked against the fire alarm button. A siren went off with a deafening shriek, and the two men bolted.
Andrew slid down the wall. Sitting on the floor, he touched his back. His hand came away covered in blood. The ceiling light was still flickering when he lost consciousness.