They did nothing, and for a long time the boy didn’t talk to them again about the matter. He continued to go about his normal life, going to school and coming home at the usual times, going to his room for an hour or sometimes two every afternoon to do his homework, and going out some weekends with Chato Pezzuolo. Though he did so reluctantly, pushed by Don Rigoberto and Doña Lucrecia, he also went out occasionally with other boys from the neighborhood, to the movies, to the stadium to play soccer, or to a party. But in their nocturnal conversations, Rigoberto and Lucrecia agreed that even though this seemed normal, Fonchito wasn’t the same boy he’d been before.
What was different? It wasn’t easy to say, but both were sure he’d changed. And that the transformation was profound. A problem of his age? It was a difficult transition from childhood to adolescence: A boy’s voice changes and becomes hoarse, and the fuzz that announces his future beard starts to appear on his face; he begins to feel he’s no longer a child but not yet a man, and in the way he dresses, sits, gestures, and talks to his friends and to girls, he tries to become the man he’ll be later on. Fonchito seemed more laconic and withdrawn, much more sparing in his answers to their questions at meals about school and his friends.
“I know what’s wrong with you, kid,” Lucrecia challenged him one day. “You’ve fallen in love! Is that it, Fonchito? Do you like some girl?”
With no hint of a blush, he shook his head no.
“I don’t have time for those things now,” he replied seriously, without a shred of humor. “Exams are coming and I’d like to get good grades.”
“I like that, Fonchito,” Don Rigoberto said approvingly. “You’ll have plenty of time for girls later on.”
And suddenly his rosy face lit up with a smile, and in Fonchito’s eyes the impish mischief of earlier times appeared.
“Besides, you know that the only woman in the world I like is you, Stepmother.”
“Oh, my God, let me give you a kiss, my boy,” Doña Lucrecia commended him. “But what do those hands mean, my husband?”
“They mean that talking about the devil suddenly sets my imagination and some other things on fire, my love.”
And for a long while they took their pleasure, imagining that the joke about the devil and Fonchito had passed on to a better life. But no, it hadn’t passed on yet.
VII
It happened one morning when Sergeant Lituma and Captain Silva, the latter distracted for a moment from his obsession with Piuran women in general and Señora Josefita in particular, were working, all five senses focused on the task, trying to find the link that would give focus to the investigation. Colonel Ríos Pardo, alias Rascachucha, the regional police chief, had reprimanded them again the night before, ranting like a madman because news of Felícito Yanaqué’s defiance of the crooks in El Tiempo had reached Lima. The minister of the interior had called him personally to demand that the business be resolved immediately. The press was following the story, and not only the police but the government itself was being made to look ridiculous in the public eye. The rallying cry from headquarters was: Get your hands on the extortionists and make an example of them!
“We have to justify the police, damn it,” the ill-tempered Rascachucha bellowed from behind his enormous mustache, his eyes like red-hot coals. “A couple of hicks can’t laugh at us like this. Either you hunt them down ipso facto, or I swear by San Martín de Porres and by God Himself that you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!”
Sergeant Lituma and Captain Silva analyzed with a magnifying glass the statements of all the witnesses, made file cards, compared and cross-referenced data, shuffled through hypotheses and rejected them one after the other. From time to time, taking a breather, the captain would burst into praise, charged with sexual fever, of the curves of Señora Josefita, with whom he’d fallen in love. Very seriously, and with salacious gestures, he explained to his subordinate that those gluteals were not only large, round, and symmetrical but also “gave a little jiggle when she walked,” something that aroused his heart and his testicles in unison. For that reason, he maintained, “in spite of her age, her moon face, and her slightly bowed legs, Josefita is the goddamnedest woman.
“Hotter than gorgeous Mabel, if I’m forced to make comparisons, Lituma,” he went on, his eyes popping as if he had the backsides of the two ladies right in front of him and were hefting them both. “I acknowledge that Don Felícito’s girlfriend has a nice figure, aggressive tits, and well-formed, fleshy legs and arms, but her ass, as you must have noticed, leaves much to be desired. It’s not very touchable. It didn’t finish developing, it didn’t blossom, at some point it went into decline. According to my classification system, hers is a timid ass, if you know what I mean.”
“Why don’t you concentrate on the investigation instead, Captain?” Lituma asked him. “You saw how furious Colonel Ríos Pardo is. At this rate we won’t ever get rid of this case or be promoted again.”
“I’ve noticed that you have absolutely no interest in women’s asses, Lituma,” was the captain’s judgment, pretending to commiserate with him and putting on a grief-stricken face. But immediately afterward he smiled and licked his lips like a cat. “A defect in your manly formation, I’m telling you. A good ass is the most divine gift God gave to female bodies for the pleasure of males. I’ve been told that even the Bible recognizes this.”
“Of course I have an interest, Captain. But with all due respect, in you there’s not only interest but obsession and depravity too. Let’s get back to the spiders now.”
They spent many hours reading, rereading, and examining word by word, letter by letter, stroke by stroke the extortionists’ letters and drawings. They’d requested a handwriting analysis of the anonymous letters from the central office, but the specialist, in the hospital following hemorrhoid surgery, was on a two-week leave. It was on one of those days, as they were comparing the letters to the signatures and writing samples of criminals on file in the office of the public prosecutor, that a suspicion sprouted in Lituma’s mind. A memory, an association. Captain Silva noticed that something had happened to his colleague.
“You look like you’re in a trance all of a sudden. What’s up, Lituma?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing, Captain.” The sergeant shrugged. “It’s silly. I just remembered a guy I met. He was always drawing spiders, as I recall. Just bullshit, I’m sure.”
“I’m sure,” the captain repeated, staring at him. He brought his face up close to Lituma’s and changed his tone. “But since we don’t have anything, bullshit is better than nothing. Who was this guy? Go on, tell me.”
“A pretty old story, Captain.” The police chief noticed that Lituma’s voice and eyes were fraught with discomfort, as if it bothered him to root through those memories, though he couldn’t avoid it. “I imagine it doesn’t have anything to do with this. But, yes, I remember clearly, that motherfucker was always drawing, scribbling things that could have been spiders. On papers, on newspapers. Sometimes even on the ground in chicha bars, with a stick.”
“And who was this so-called motherfucker, Lituma? Tell me right now and don’t keep beating around the fucking bush.”
“Let’s go have some juice and get out of this oven for a while, Captain,” the sergeant suggested. “It’s a long story, and if you don’t get bored, I’ll tell it to you. My treat, don’t worry.”
They went to La Perla del Chira, a little bar on Calle Libertad next to a lot where, Lituma told his boss, in his youth there used to be a cockpit that had pretty heavy betting. He’d gone a few times but didn’t like cockfights; it made him sad to see how the poor animals were destroyed by pecking beaks and slashing razors. The place had no air-conditioning, but fans helped to cool it down. It was deserted. They ordered two eggfruit juices with lots of ice, and then lit their cigarettes.