“Inspector Bonfanti?” asks Nene Larrieu, taken aback.
“No, the one from Leopardi! Told you I’d remember! His name was Bonfanti!”
“Like I give a fuck,” mumbles Guido, audibly grinding his teeth.
“The inspector I can’t remember what his name was, and the Super says to the inspector, his name’ll come to me any second … Bonfanti, sonofagun! errr the Super says to him I did hear that properly ’cause he was right next to me he says to him Call Rosas Paz and wish him bon appétit from me, he’ll understand said the Super and after that they drove off down the highway in the other cars.”
“I’m going home for a lie down Fefe,” says Guido straightening up. “To get some kip before I drive you to the terminal.” He says goodbye to everyone except Sayago, who, if he realises, is doing a good job of hiding it, and as he leaves the cold gusts in from the street until the door closes again. I don’t blame him. A few short blocks away the body of his lovely wife warms the bed, and here he is, reliving a horror that’s none of his concern, only out of respect for the whims of his childhood friend who hasn’t had the common decency to explain to him why. If I were him, I’d have left some time ago. I’m not much good at playing the faithful friend.
“Yous leaving too?” Sayago says to me, a hint of panic in his voice.
“Can’t speak for the others,” I say. “You all know the drinks are on me so don’t worry.”
“We’re not staying to freeload but we do appreciate it,” says Iturraspe with a smile and Licho nods. “The most urgent thing I’ve got on tomorrow is reading the paper, after the Sacamatas’ve finished with it, ’cause I can’t even afford that. What about you Licho?”
“Waiting till you’re through with it,” he smiles.
“Well if you thought I haven’t got much more to tell you Buenos Aires get a load of this,” ex-corporal Sayago says to me in an altogether different tone of voice. His familiarity, which until recently had come and gone, is now systematic, even insolent. “That same day in the afternoon lo and behold Chacón’s brother-in-law shows up scared witless asking to talk to him. They tell him he’s gone to Rosas Paz and just then the Super walks past and sees him. What can I do for you Villalba my friend, anything wrong? And Villalba looking like he’d die there and then starts stammering and almost in tears he eventually plucks up the courage to explain that his dogs and pigs of started digging around there and ate off one of his hands and he don’t know what to do, he don’t want to move him without permission but if he leaves him there and the Super goes It’s all right Villalba, well done, we need more citizens like you, don’t worry, we’ll take it from here. Before you go there’s something I always meant to ask — you wouldn’t have anything to do with the Villalba they say ran our founder Comandante Pedernera out of town would you? And Villalba stammering again They’re just stories Superintendent sir, the Villalbas have always been law-abiding folk who respect authority, and Neri goes All right, go and put the kettle on, we’ll be right over, and then from the doorway to his office so as everybody could hear Jeez, they’ve gone soft on me the people in this town have, where’s that famous reputation for bravery? and sent for the Subsuper to discuss what to do. They needed to find a final location for him, somewhere even if people found out later they’d never get him back, somewhere safe from all the bleeding hearts, the telltales and the nosy parkers. Guessed where?”
“Yes,” I say, loathing him.
“So on our way back from Villalba’s place we asked the Sub what next and he goes you’ll have to ask the Superintendent you’ve seen how much he takes this business to heart said it like he was having a laugh enjoying himself like I sometimes wonder if he didn’t set the whole thing up just to bring the Super down, just like he did with me right, over the watch.”
“Which watch?” asks Nene Larrieu, pricking up his ears like a gun dog every time he got wind of some new-sounding information.
“A Casio digital, gold wristband, stopwatch, lovely it was, and Subsuperintendent Greco turned round and said I’d pocketed it. When, say I, as yous know I wasn’t alone with … for more than a few minutes and he didn’t have a ring any more or even a hand and they weren’t going to bury him wearing his watch and jewellery were they if only ’cause of identification right? So I really don’t know what happened to that watch, ’less Villalbas pigs ate it.” He chuckles at his own joke before going on. “If you ask me it was Greco himself as took it and comes along later accusing me so nobody’d suspect, You don’t know well maybe you do what that man was capable of. Let’s go and ask Chacón if you don’t believe me I never saw that watch in my life I swear to God, but Greco was already digging a hole for me, first he got me labelled as a thief over the watch and then soon as he could—”
“So it was you,” I interrupt.
“What do you mean it was me?” His eyes narrow, without actually focusing. “You calling me a liar? I told you I never touched that watch.”
“No no, I know. You just helped to kidnap and kill him and …” I can’t pronounce the sharp, clear words tearing my mind apart, so I just say, “… get him out … of Villalba’s.”
“Oh. Yeah right. Yeah. Why?”
He’d blurted it out all on his own, but he was looking at me as if I’d made him do it on purpose.
“All right, all right,” I mutter through the livid strips of aggression hanging between us. “Nobody’s keeping you here. You can leave when you like. We’re not in headquarters here.”
“Kicking me out are you?” His attempt to make his voice sound butcher rises to a cackle that makes him spin round in fury to see who’s laughing at him. I keep out of the others’ attempts at calming him down. Sayago knows that when he reaches the end of his tale the happy hour’s over, and it occurs to me his constant digressions might be a ruse to delay the fateful moment for as long as possible. He looks more upset than Scheherazade and it takes another glass to calm him down.
“What the Super wanted was to find the right spot”—he addresses not me, but the general audience. “I’ve already told you Superintendent Neri liked to do things properly. Very particular he was, very well organised. So he spent the time reading some report or other he’d been sent till well into the evening.”
The genesis and evolution of Malihuel’s lagoon must not be interpreted using a localist approach, for such an interpretation would, per se, be lacking the indispensable bases of its rational understanding. We must view it as the result of processes affecting our entire plain, and it is of interest to us from the point of view of Applied Geography. We believe, however, that, even extending the study to the entire Pampas, such an approach would still be one-sided, and it must therefore be seen in its precise dimensions in relation to phenomena on a continental or even planetary scale that …
Viewed on a continental scale, the problem of the subsidence of one small block is minimal and would not appear to be of any great interest, but from the point of view of human facilities and the works of man, it is important. In the investigation of a plain such as ours, methods used in areas where outcrops and structures are visible cannot be applied. In the sector in question, we see an almost total lack of them, and must therefore sometimes focus exclusively on the behaviour of the surface waters and of …