“The motherfucker’s name was Josefino Rojas and he was the son of Carlos Rojas, the bargeman who used to carry cattle from the ranches to the slaughterhouse on the river during the flood months,” said Lituma. “I met him when I was very young, still wet behind the ears. We had our little gang. We liked binges, guitars, beers, and broads. Somebody nicknamed us ‘the Unconquerables,’ or maybe we did it ourselves. We wrote our anthem.”
And in a low, rasping voice, Lituma sang, in tune and happily:
We’re the Unconquerables,
for us working has no class:
only guzzling!
only gambling!
only girls fucked up the ass!
The captain congratulated him, bursting into laughter and applauding. “Nice, Lituma. I mean, at least when you were young you paid attention.”
“There were three of us Unconquerables at first,” the sergeant continued nostalgically, lost in his memories. “My cousins, the León brothers — José and Mono — and yours truly. Three guys from Mangachería. I don’t know how Josefino hooked up with us. He wasn’t from Mangachería, he came from Gallinacera, near the old market and slaughterhouse. I don’t know why we let him in the group. Back then there was a terrible rivalry between the two neighborhoods. Fistfights and knife fights. A war that made a lot of blood flow in Piura, I can tell you.”
“Come on, you’re talking about the prehistory of this city,” said the captain. “I know where Mangachería was, in the north, from Avenida Sánchez Cerro down, near the old San Teodoro cemetery. But Gallinacera?”
“Right there, close to the Plaza de Armas, beside the river, toward the south,” Lituma said, pointing. “It was called Gallinacera because of all the gallinazos, the turkey buzzards the slaughterhouse attracted when they were killing cattle. We Mangaches were Sanchezcerristas and the Gallinazos were Apristas. The motherfucker Josefino was a Gallinazo and told us that when he was a kid he’d been a butcher’s apprentice.”
“So you were gang members.”
“Just street kids, Captain. We made mischief, nothing very serious. It never got past fistfights. But then Josefino became a pimp. He’d seduce girls and put them to work as whores in the Green House. That was the name of the brothel as you left Catacaos, when Castilla wasn’t named Castilla yet but was still Tacalá. Did you know that whorehouse? It was really fancy.”
“No, but I’ve heard a lot about the famous Green House. A legend in Piura. But getting back to the pimp. Was he the one who drew the spiders?”
“The same, Captain. I think they were spiders, but maybe my memory’s playing tricks on me. I’m not really sure.”
“And may I ask why you hate this pimp so much, Lituma?”
“Lots of reasons.” The sergeant’s heavy face darkened and his eyes grew red with anger; he’d begun to rub his double chin very quickly. “Mainly for what he did to me when I was in jail. You know the story, they ran me in for playing Russian roulette with a local landowner. In the Green House, to be exact. A white guy, a drunk whose last name was Seminario and who blew his brains out during the game. Taking advantage of the fact that I was in jail, Josefino stole my girl. He started her whoring for him in the Green House. Her name was Bonifacia. I brought her here from Alto Marañón, in Santa María de Nieva, in Amazonia. When she started in the life, they called her ‘Selvática,’ Jungle Girl.”
“Ah, well, you had plenty of reason to hate him,” the captain admitted, shaking his head. “So you have quite a past, Lituma. Nobody would think so seeing you now, so tame. As if you’d never killed a fly in your life. Really, I can’t imagine you playing Russian roulette. I played only once, with a buddy of mine one night when we were drinking. My balls still freeze up when I think about it. And this Josefino, may I ask why you didn’t kill him?”
“Not for lack of wanting, but I had no desire to go back to the slammer,” the sergeant explained briefly. “But I did give him a beating — he must still be aching from it. I’m talking at least twenty years ago, Captain.”
“Are you sure the pimp spent all his time drawing spiders?”
“I don’t know whether they were spiders,” Lituma corrected him again. “But he definitely was drawing all the time. On napkins, on any piece of paper he had in front of him. It was his mania. Maybe it has nothing to do with what we’re looking for.”
“Think and try to remember, Lituma. Concentrate, close your eyes, look back. Spiders like the ones on the letters sent to Felícito Yanaqué?”
“My memory’s not that good, Captain,” Lituma apologized. “I’m talking about something that happened years ago, I told you — maybe twenty, maybe more. I don’t know why I made that connection. We should probably forget it.”
“Do you know what happened to Josefino the pimp?” the captain insisted. His expression was grave and he didn’t take his eyes off the sergeant.
“I never saw him again, or my cousins, the other two Unconquerables. Since I was readmitted to the force, I’ve been in the mountains, the jungle, in Lima. Going all around Peru, you might say. I came back to Piura just a little while ago. That’s why I said my idea was probably silly. I’m not sure they were spiders. He definitely was drawing something. He did it all the time and the Unconquerables made fun of him.”
“If Josefino the pimp is alive, I’d like to meet him,” said the chief, hitting the table lightly. “Find out, Lituma. I don’t know why, but it smells right to me. Maybe we’ve bitten into a nice piece of meat. Tender and juicy. I feel it in my spit, my blood, my balls. I’m never wrong about these things. I’m beginning to see light at the end of this tunnel. Good for you, Lituma.”
The captain was so happy that the sergeant regretted telling him about his hunch. Was he sure that back when they were all Unconquerables, Josefino never stopped drawing? Now he wasn’t so certain. That night, when his shift was over and, as usual, he walked up Avenida Grau to the boardinghouse where he lived in the Buenos Aires district near the Grau Barracks, he struggled with his memory, trying to be certain it wasn’t a false one. No, no it wasn’t, though now he wasn’t as convinced as he had been. Images of his years as a kid on the dusty streets of Mangachería returned in waves: He, Mono, and José would go to the sandy tracts of land just outside the city to set traps for iguanas at the foot of the carob trees, hunt birds with slings they made themselves, or hide in the thickets and sand dunes to spy on the women who washed their clothes in the river near the culvert, in water up to their waists. Sometimes, because of the water, their breasts would show through their clothes and the boys’ eyes and crotches would burn with excitement. How did Josefino get into the group? He no longer could remember how, when, or why. In any case, the Gallinazo joined them when they weren’t little kids anymore. Because by then they were going to the chicha bars and spending the few soles they earned doing occasional jobs — like selling bets on horse races — on gambling, carousing, and drunken binges. Maybe they weren’t spiders, but they were definitely drawings, and Josefino made them all the time — he remembered that very clearly — while he was talking, or singing, or beginning to brood about his evil deeds, isolating himself from the others. It wasn’t a false memory, but maybe what he drew were frogs, snakes, pricks. Lituma was assailed by doubts. Suddenly they were the crosses and circles of tic-tac-toe, or caricatures of the people they saw in La Chunga’s bar, one of their haunts. La Chunga, that slut! Did the bar still exist? Impossible. If she were alive, she’d be so old by now that she wouldn’t be physically able to run it. Though who knows. She was a tough woman who wasn’t afraid of anybody and could hold her own in confrontations with drunks. Once she even challenged Josefino when he tried to act smart with her.