We’re sitting at our usual table in Los Tocayos. Nene Larrieu’s already poured the first round of drinks: vermouth for Iturraspe and Licho, gin on the rocks for Guido, Argentinian Scotch for me and Legui caña for Carmen Sayago, the elusive ex-policeman who’s finally deigned to grace us with his presence and is willing and able to talk. He doesn’t look too intimidating; just the opposite in fact — a squat Indian-looking type with submissive manners and shifty eyes, uncombably tangled hair, dressed in a brown pullover with stripy sleeves and trousers washed to some colour beyond the spectrum, who, with a timid, caried smile, asks: “They’re on you ain’t they Don? ’Cause me like, if I can’t land the odd odd job I can’t afford to eat. If I’d of carried on in the police I’d of made sergeant by now at least, not a fortune but enough to make ends meet. Still I don’t regret my decision. When Greco got promoted to chief I knew my days in the force was numbered. One of the old guard Superintendent Neri was — good fellas like my old man, who could never adapt. Had Greco under his wing, grooming him to take his place. That’s what usually happens, ’specially when the retiring Superintendent’s thinking of staying in the area — puts his man in the headquarters and stays a part of things … But of course while Greco was going yes sir no sir three bags full sir he was looking for somewhere to stick the knife in, lots of games of chess with that whatsisface but if you play chess with a cheat …”
He finishes his glass instead of the sentence, smacks his lips and puts it down with an insinuating thwack. Nene Larrieu arches his eyebrows and I give him the go-ahead. Sayago gazes with glee at the honey-coloured liquor filling his glass and running thickly over the edge into the saucer beneath.
“Ah, that’s better, my soul’s returned to my body. Shivering all day long I been, just couldn’t get warm.”
“There’s a lot of flu about,” opines Licho, sipping his vermouth.
“And I’ve got the best remedy here,” replies Sayago, putting his lips to the brimming glass to take a sip. “Where was I?”
“Greco. Neri,” supplies Iturraspe.
“Right. Everything Superintendent Neri did Greco undid. Gang of thugs, that’s what he turned the county police into. Didn’t give a toss about law and order Greco didn’t, or guerrillas for that matter, the only thing he was interested in was lining his pockets. Mortgaged his old folks’ house to pay for his promotion and his assignment can you believe? Everything in his headquarters was arranged with money. Kept a pad of accounts on his desk he did — so much from bookies, so much from tarts, so much from dealers, so much from truck-hijackers, which in this area—”
“They call us the Bermuda Triangle around these parts,” Guido interrupts. “We once had a whole truckful of merchandise vanish into thin air. Driver and all.”
“Oh, no wonder we had spaghetti at headquarters two months running. Only joking Don Guido, no need to look at me like that. As I was telling you Don, Greco ended up buying one of them pocket calculators that’d just come out — big square one with little red numbers I remember it was — at it all day he was with his little gadget. Only thing that mattered to him about the police stations in the area was that they came up with the readies between the first and the fifth, he’d pocket his share and send the rest to the big pricks in Rosario, and not so much as a thank you to the men on the beat who sweat and stick their necks out to get it for him. Got land all over the area Greco has, and several nightclubs, and a security firm in Toro Mocho, but if an ex-policeman who’s risked his life for him goes and asks him for a job you think he gets any help? Treated like a dog he is. A man who doesn’t know what loyalty is can’t be a policeman I say but that’s how it is — so I left. Wasn’t going to sully the uniform my old man give me you can be sure of that. Ah well, can’t complain. Short but all the sweeter for it innit,” he innovates, tilting his glass for some time so that the last drop oozes thickly down from the bottom, and then excuses himself to go to the bathroom dragging his feet, his upper body in advance of his hips in the convex bulge of the chronic alcoholic.
“What did they kick him out for che?” I ask the others out of no particular interest.
“Used to pocket the pay-offs,” Licho declares. “And someone went and tipped off Greco. Can you imagine. They gave him his marching orders and a real going-over. Split his head open apparently, serious it was. He says he started hitting the bottle after that, and it must be true ’cause he ain’t stopped since has he.”
“Didn’t want to know him any more,” Iturraspe adds meditatively, “his old man didn’t after he was dismissed. Kicked him out of the house and from then on every time their paths crossed — several times a day in a town like this — he’d look the other way. Moved to Casilda when he retired, with his wife and single daughters; Carmen and the two married daughters stayed here. It’s thanks to them he’s still alive. Che it’s bloody cold in here isn’t it. If you can’t turn the burner or the gas fire up Nene, why don’t you set fire to a couple of chairs? We’re freezing our arses off in here.”
“THINGS REALLY STARTED warming up around then I can tell you, the heat was vicious and didn’t let up even at night and what between that and the waiting everybody was worn out and bad-tempered, waking up before dawn in the hope of some cool air or the news that it was all over. Lots of people didn’t care how by that stage, you know like when a loved one’s suffering and there’s no hope left and the only thing you ask is for the suffering to stop once and for all. And now with the weekend approaching there was also the eagerly awaited Friday show, none other than Sandro in person was going to perform there you know where yes at the island hotel and then the scaremongers some saying that he’s not coming and others that he is but the storm’ll keep him away. And most people thought don’t know why but they were all convinced the Ezcurra business would be put off till the next weekend, as if it’d be suspended because of rain, it got mixed up in their minds with the show,” El Turquito Majul had told me the afternoon we did some circuits together in the gym — I haven’t felt like returning since.
“AND ONE FINE morning I remember it was dead hot and the day starts with more hustle Subsuperintendent Greco’s in and out of the Super’s office and calls are coming in from Rosario and word starts going the rounds from office to office — it’s today. But only then in all the toing and froing does the Super answer someone as stops him with a blink and this is it, confirmed from one end of headquarters to the other, particularly when he calls in Sergeant Chacón and says to him Sergeant he says to him put a couple of officers on Ezcurra’s tail if he takes a dump I want to know about it and by noon that day which was well never mind a … wait gimme a second Wednesday no Thursday—”
“Friday,” intervenes Nene Larrieu from his post behind the bar.
“Friday, that’s it. Don’t miss a trick you don’t do you eh Nene? Had to be a Friday or Saturday ’cause of the show at the lagoon. Bet you don’t know who was on that night? If you don’t believe me ask them. Know who was on? Tell him Nene.”
“He already knows,” the memorious waiter clarifies.
“Sandro, that’s who. The Gypsy Man in person. Just picture what this town was like in them days, I don’t mean like Buenos Aires but just picture it. So anyroad as I was telling you by noon Friday the news had spread and the whole town knew didn’t they. The dog’s day’d come.”
“HE WAITED LIKE THAT TOO,” Nene Larrieu said to me a few days ago, when, bored of my daytime zapping in Guido and Leticia’s kitchen and not feeling like going over to the factory to borrow their creaking computer for a while, I wandered over to Los Tocayos in the hope someone would turn up, ‘that dog’s day’ as they call it, for his mates Los Jaimitos to come. They’d already stood him up at the lagoon and he came in early to see why. Maybe something’s happened to one of them? he said to me at one point and I couldn’t stand it any longer and I said, I said to myself, I’ve got to tell him and God’s will be done, when I see a patrol car going past behind him without him noticing, crawling along like this past all three doors and through the last one Chacón the one who now owns the kiosk next door and was sitting in the back puts a finger to his lips. Ezcurra didn’t notice a thing. Sat there waiting for quite a while but word must’ve got around that he was here ’cause not a soul came in the bar and it must’ve been around eight I reckon he said I’m off home for a shower before the show, let the lads know if they’re looking for me and he left through that door over there. And that was the last time I saw him.”