“The proverbial three subjects short of his degree.”
“So why didn’t he finish?” asks Iturraspe.
“Gave it up apparently when his old man got blown away. Another copper. Only child, father a hero, mother a widow. That was his version at least.”
“But?”
“Goodness only knows. Didn’t have it up here if you ask me and the excuse fitted like a glove.”
“You’d be better off sticking to what you know and going and fetching me some smokes from Chacón’s. Tell him to put them on the tab”—Don León puts the sceptic in his place.
“SO HE WAS having this house built on a policeman’s salary was he?” I ask Mati next day, one cold, grey Saturday, after his father’s finally worn him down.
“He had a cheap source of labour,” Guido winks at me.
“The cons,” I say to confirm. They smile in agreement.
“Got them to paint the headquarters first mind. The way it is now, that was the last time it saw a lick of paint. Had them classified by occupation and milked the lot for all they were worth. If you ask me that’s how it should always be right? Get them doing something useful while they’re in,” airs Mati.
I nod, much as I beg to differ. I don’t feel up to arguing the toss.
“The master builder was from Elordi remember?” Mati addresses his brother. “Used to work for Titín and had a fight with his cousin I think it was. Killed him with a Bic to the jugular. That’s accuracy for you. When he got out he’d developed an attachment for the town and wanted to stay but there was no work.”
“He had to pay the architect though. Couldn’t find anything to arrest him for,” cracks Guido.
“And the materials I should think,” I butt in. “I mean if it was going to be such a luxury home …”
“It was even going to have a pool, the first in town. We’ve got several now though, now we’ve lost the lagoon … Too bad you didn’t come in summer ’cause otherwise …” starts Mati and stops, studying the ground plan possibly with a professional eye.
Now that I was seeing it I remembered it clearly — the cement floors cracked apart by weeds and undergrowth, the walls shrouded in hanging gardens of campanulas. As teenagers we’d played one last rubble war here, which was cut short when Guido sent a brick flying into his brother’s forehead and we all ended up at the little ward with Doña Isadora giving him first aid. I look at Mati in astonishment, then at Guido. Has it taken me twenty years to realise my great childhood friend wasn’t Mati but his younger brother?
“So why did they leave?” I ask. “The Neris, I mean.”
“Actually I can’t really remember but I think the Ezcurra affair had something to do with it didn’t it Guido?” Mati asks his brother, who he seems to get on much better with outside the family circle. “Ezcurra had something to do with it I’m sure.”
“HERE IT IS SIR …” Nene Larrieu will remark, plonking the stained cup down on the table, “… an ex-presso for an ex-con.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of that joke Nene?” Haroldo Cuesta, the ex-con in question, will reply to him the day he made his way over to the bar at Licho’s invitation, and then to me, “I was in the jailhouse from January sixty-six to June seventy-seven, I’ll never forget. Then I was sent to Coronda for another year and eight months. Nothing political. Rustling.” He will explain: “Got to eat. So yeah I got to know the headquarters from the inside back in old Hog Neri’s day.”
“Is that what they used to call him?” I’ll ask.
“He liked to throw his weight around,” the ex-con will expand. “Not just anybody mind. Never laid a finger on any of us; we weren’t worth the trouble. He only dished it out to the hard nuts, the heavyweights, the ones who stood up to him … Getting smacked around by Hog Neri was a mark of distinction, a blessing from the bishop. ‘I moved all the way down here because I was told this town had real men in it,’ he’d say. ‘So let’s see where that good ol’ Malihuel grit is shall we?’ I think deep down he liked it when you stood up to him. He showed you more respect after that. As I said, the man was naive.”
“Naive? Why naive?”
“’Cause he thought we felt the same way. The badge wasn’t enough, no, he wanted us to respect him as a man too. Always had something to prove did old Hog.”
“AN UPRIGHT MAN, a decent man,” will be Dr Alexander’s diagnosis when I visit him. “The day he left town he wore the same suit he was wearing when he came. How many people can you say that about? Superintendent Neri was an exemplary human being. Ehhhm, where’s this going to be published? Ah. No, because I’d been told …”
“DIDN’T NOTICE THE SUIT. Couldn’t take my eyes off the Torino Grand Routier he’d picked up in Fuguet. Brother what a set of wheels!” Iturraspe will remark when I tell him the story.
CITING ASSORTED FATIGUES, they’ve retired for the night — Vicente, Mati’s grandfather and Mati’s wife, who, having lashed her husband with several withering looks, has taken the children to sleep at the house next door. Toying with the last threads of our flagging after-dinner chit-chat, that leaves Don Ángel, the dutiful Mati, the rather livelier Guido and Leticia, Celia, who’s toiling in the kitchen and resurfaces every now and then to offer another round of coffee, and myself.
“He had Don Manuel breathing down his neck for a whole year Superintendent Neri did. What he was asking him to do was straightforward enough — drag Ezcurra out of his house kicking and screaming and put a bullet in him there and then for all the world to see. He’d have settled for less earlier. But now the military were in power Don Manuel wanted to have his cake and eat it. All that waiting had whetted his appetite.”
“Withdrawal symptoms,” I remark. “Happens to the best.”
“So I reckon he dealt with them direct,” Don Ángel goes on, “when he saw the police chief playing hard to get. He had his contacts Don Manuel did that’s for sure. And that’s where things got complicated see. We’re not talking about just any old spade either mind you. An Ezcurra no less, one of the Ezcurras of Rosario, and an Alvarado on his mother’s side. Right here in town. If the Super did what Rosas Paz asked him the whole town would be down on him like a ton of bricks. And if he didn’t the military would run him out of town, and what was the use of that, ’cause Greco wasn’t going to turn his nose up at the chance.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Oh didn’t I tell you? Greco’s … Neri’s boy he was. Subsuperintendent Greco, he stepped into Neri’s shoes as chief when he retired. He ended up sticking his oar in too.”
“BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE,” confirms Don León, sprawling in his bar chair, and lights his 43/70 after offering them round, while everyone gathered around him nods almost imperceptibly. “He was a few months off retirement and thought he’d make it through by passing the buck, but he didn’t. He’d decided to stay on in Malihuel as well. And I’ll tell you something else. Just between ourselves I’ll tell you something as lots of folk don’t know — he intended to stand for mayor when your dear grandfather’s term was up, ’cause by then he was having health problems that’d force him into early retirement if I remember right. Had the slogan sorted out and all, the Super had, told me in private he did—‘Firm hand, clean hands’. Not bad at all eh? But Rosas Paz set the cat amongst the pigeons. They were ruining his prospects as mayor before he’d even got started. And there was something else — there’d been pressure to move the headquarters and the courts to Toro Mocho for years. Think where we’d be now — no government offices, no island beach resort … Because my place for now … You lot’d be the only ones left eh Guido?”