Here’s the deaclass="underline" the bank and the nearby police station are both undergoing renovations. The construction workers leave for lunch around one and return around two. Fifteen minutes past one, the three of us arrive dressed as workers. I’ve already scoped out a place where we can get the company’s uniforms. You hang a sign in the door that says “Closed for Renovations” and stay put. Luckily most of the windows will be papered over for construction. You subdue the guard while I pack up the cash. At one thirty there are no squad cars on the streets. Especially not on that Monday when Independiente will be playing the final against the Brits. At the same time, another man will be blocking the police station parking lot with a truck, claiming he’s got materials to deliver. While the duty cop goes to find out what’s what, the guy driving the truck vanishes. We’ll make the handbrake on the truck stick, which will give us a few extra minutes. The getaway car will be at the door of the bank. We’ll be wearing suits and ties under our overalls. We’ll leave them in the car. The driver will drop each of us off at a different place. We’ll meet up three days later at a place I’ve already picked out.
The technical part of the discussion continues till midnight. They work out the details, weigh all the pros and cons. They decide that Mole will look after the loot and how they’ll divvy it up. The most complicated part is choosing the team. The three of them trust and respect each other, but it won’t be an easy matter to choose two others. One guy’s inside, another’s sick, the other’s retired, they don’t trust that one and that one’s crazy. They deal out then discard one name after another and finally decide on Fastfingers to drive the getaway car. Valentin, a drama student, will drive the truck. Mole will be in charge of setting things up with them. Valentin will place the order at the lumberyard. A few minutes before the order leaves the warehouse, he’ll show up and ask them to add a few things to it, then he’ll get in the truck with the driver to show him the way. Their destination will be an abandoned house that has a long driveway to the back of the property. When they get there, he’ll subdue him and leave him tied up in a shack in the back. Then he’ll take the truck to the police station and act out the delivery scene.
Mole hands out a few thousand to make sure nobody gets into trouble before the day of the robbery. At the door to the restaurant, Bangs stops the first taxi that drives by.
Where’re you kids going? I’m staying in the centre. I’m going to Haedo. I’ll get you close. No, no problem, I want to walk a little.
Dandy starts down Leandro Alem, then turns down La Boca on his way to his dealer’s house; he wants some good blow, not like that shit he sold him last time and that he’ll have to make good on now. Miranda starts toward Retiro. He’s going to scope out some weapons for the heist. He turns into Villa 31. When he’s a few yards from his destination he sees someone coming out of the same shack he’s headed for. Quickly, he slips down a side street and watches from the shadows as Horacio leaves. He can tell he’s a cop in a split second. He watches him walk away whistling. Then he steps out of his hiding place, goes up to the curtain and claps his hands. When One-Eyed appears and greets him, the stench of cheap wine on his breath hits him in the face like a backhanded slap.
What’s up, Mole? I’m right as rain, and you? Good, what brings you here? I’m looking for some equipment, but it looks to me like you’re keeping some pretty questionable company lately. What are you talking about? The guy who just left. What’s wrong with him? What do you mean, what’s wrong? I can see the mark of the police cap on his forehead. He’s out of the force. You don’t say. I’m telling you. What did he want? We’ve got a gig. Oh, really. You’ll be happy. Why? Let’s just say it’s the guy who nabbed you last time. You don’t say. And when’s that coming down? Don’t know, soon. What do you need? Guns. Just tell me how many…
10
It’s been two days since Ramona left him at a pension in Chacarita with a few australes, a bottle of analgesics and a lot of advice. She said she’d call or come by, but he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of her and has no way of getting in touch. This morning the owner came to ask him how long he’d be staying because someone else was interested in the room. He also told him he’d have to pay in advance.
He counts the money he has left. He’s got to do something, and he’s got to do it now. He gulps down three aspirins, gets dressed and goes out without a clear idea where he’s headed or what he’s going to do once he gets there. He walks through the streets, trying to recognize this Buenos Aires that’s shining in all its plastic splendour. The new economic policy, the Austral Plan, is basically just more of the same: a repeat performance of the plata dulce, or “sweet money” period during the dictatorship. Finally free from state terror, consumers are partying it up, officials are getting their knickers in a twist talking about democracy, and the majority say they never heard of the atrocities committed during the Dirty War. The dollar is worth less than the austral, and people are rushing all over the place trying to buy the very latest imported toys. Shop windows manage to look little better than a bad imitation of their cheapest American counterparts. The frenetic compulsion to buy is heightened by the unconscious certainty that this prosperity is fleeting. In the meantime, the faces of hunger and poverty that nobody seems to want to see are already showing up at the party. The captains of the financial sector accumulate capital as they gnaw constantly at the feet of the presidential throne where, buoyed up by his image as the champion of democracy, Alfonsin reposes in confidence.
He heads for the city centre. He’s considering a visit to police headquarters; he’s still got one friend in Criminal Records, but it may be too dangerous to get anywhere near the place. If the Apostles killed Jorge, he might be in their sights as well. Ramona’s fear when she found out and the alacrity with which she washed her hands of him can only mean one thing: he’s a marked man. She didn’t say it in so many words, but it is implicit, and even if he was being paranoid, entering headquarters through the main door doesn’t seem like the best way to find out.
He keeps walking till after one o’clock. He sits down on a bench in Plaza Lavalle. The effect of the aspirin begins to wear off, and the wound in his chest starts to hurt, less than yesterday though, and more than tomorrow, Lascano thinks in an unusual burst of optimism.
The shootout happened just a few blocks away; that was the day he saw Eva for the last time. He’d rented a safe deposit box at a nearby bank and put twenty thousand dollars in it. Eva had found the money by accident in a house she was hiding in when the military came to get her. Then, when all hell broke loose with Giribaldi and his death squad, they went to get the money so they could get out of town, but there they met Giribaldi’s henchmen, right at the door to the bank, and that’s when it all came down. The last thing he saw was Eva running away. Did she manage to get the money? Maybe yes, maybe no. What if it all happened so fast she didn’t have time, and she had to escape without it? He knows he’s desperately clutching at straws, out of necessity, because he can’t come up with another idea. Someone he used to know, a guy named Fermin, worked at that bank. He decides to go there, only a few blocks away. When he gets there, he sees that there is, indeed, a bank. His memory of it, though, is quite different: the one he remembers had a kind of Soviet-style austerity and a different name. He goes in anyway. The safe deposit boxes used to be in the rear, almost within reach, the offices have made way for desks separated by carpeted partitions, and the tellers are all very young women dressed in uniforms of skirts and jackets, which look just like men’s business suits with a touch of sexy “lite”. Banks used to look like prisons; now they look more like a cross between a boutique and a brothel. The walls are covered with posters showing young men and women, smiling and prosperous, offering “package deals” with bombastic names, that include bank accounts, credit cards, loans for the life you deserve. Everything carefully designed to neatly package and tie up the customer. The deviousness here is so obvious that even the guy who designed the poster should be put in jail. On one side is the only office with glass walls. A small sign says “F. Martinez — Manager”. Lascano lowers his eyes and meets those of Fermin, who looks at him as if he were seeing a ghost.