Ernesto Mallo - Sweet money

Mama is in the kitchen putting the last touches to the meal. The room that was his is exactly the same as it was the day he left it. That his mother has left it intact feels a bit creepy, even ghoulish, like when parents of a child who has died make cenotaphs of their rooms. Marcelo came to look for something he left there when he used to be a clerk in Judge Marraco’s court, documents pertaining to an investigation that was left unresolved — the Biterman case. When he takes the envelope off the bookshelf, he knocks to the floor a book by Kelsen his father gave him when he started studying law. He sits down on the bed, puts down the envelope and picks up the book. In spite of being an impenitent reader, his father didn’t like writing at all, not even a dedication, but he did highlight one paragraph in yellow: Justice, for me, is the shield under whose protection science — and along with science, truth and sincerity — can flourish. This is the justice of freedom, the justice of peace, the justice of democracy, the justice of tolerance.

He smiles. That morning he has been working on several cases of children of the disappeared, those who were stolen by the military during the dictatorship. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo had supplied him with evidence, some of which mentioned a military base in the provinces that was used as a base of operations and clandestine detention centre, named Coti Martinez. It was believed that Coti was short for Comando de Op-eraciones Tacticas I. Several witnesses implicated a major by the name of Giribaldi. He made note of that name, which was somehow familiar. He had seen it before, and he spent all morning trying to remember exactly where. In the afternoon, while he was having lunch with Monica, his friend and mentor, a judge in the criminal courts, suddenly, between bites of Don Luis’s steak with mushroom sauce, he remembered: his name had figured in the Biterman case.

Superintendent Lascano, otherwise known as Perro, gave Marraco all the evidence related to Biterman’s murder, in which Giribaldi was a suspect. The situation was as follows: as was common at that time, the task force, or death squad, commanded by the major had executed two young people, a man and a woman, in an empty field. By chance, a truck driver stopped on the shoulder to take a piss and saw the dead bodies. He drove away and reported what he’d seen at the Puente de la Noria police station. A little earlier that same night, a man named Amancio Perez Lastra had an altercation with Elias Biterman, a money lender from the Once neighbourhood to whom he owed a lot of money. Biterman ended up dead. Perez Lastra then turned to his old friend Giribaldi to help him dispose of the body. The major suggested he dump it in the same place where he’d shot the two subversives. In the meantime, Lascano was sent to the scene to investigate the two dead bodies the truck driver had reported, but when he arrived, he found three dead bodies, one of which exhibited many features different from the other two. Lascano realized that this corpse had been dumped there rather than executed by the military. He began investigating and all hell broke loose. He identified the murderer and the weapon used in the crime, and specified each link in the chain of complicity. Marraco did not include any of this evidence in his investigation, and Marcelo was an eyewitness to this intentional concealment of evidence. Instead, the judge instructed Marcelo to take the file to Giribaldi, which Marcelo did after he made photocopies of its contents. Those documents, which implicate Giribaldi in the death of a civilian, are in that envelope he is now holding in his hands.

Tomorrow he will try to find Lascano. He has the feeling he might be biting off more than he can chew. His mother calls him to the table. He puts all the documents back in the envelope. He decides to also take Kelsen’s book with him.

The aroma wafting down the hallway makes his stomach growl like a crocodile: his mother makes the best risotto in the world.

Jorge shaves meticulously and for a long time. He opens the tap and contemplates with satisfaction as the bathroom fills up with steam. He undresses and steps into the very hot shower. His wife says he boils himself rather than bathes. He washes his hair with herbal shampoo, scrubs his body with scentless glycerine soap, then rinses twice. He dries himself off in front of the open window, feeling his pores closing in the cold breeze. He takes a bottle of Fahrenheit cologne out of the medicine cabinet. He aims the spray at the ceiling and lets the cloud of scent fall over his skin like a morning mist. These moments of his morning ablutions are when he plans his day, when he feels most inspired. He’s quite satisfied this morning. Despite all the Apostles’ manoeuvrings and the pressure they applied to secure the position for one of their own, he got it. He remembers Filander’s angry look the day he was sworn in, and he smiles. Now he must quickly dismantle their operation. Those guys are no sissies, and he can’t expect them to roll over and play dead. That very morning he will begin to execute his plan to decapitate the organization. He knows he doesn’t have a moment to lose; he can’t give them time to get a foothold, surround him, throw him off balance. In one fell swoop he will move Cubas to the Oran precinct, he’ll open an internal investigation of Valli and Medina — up to their eyeballs in the racket of stripping stolen cars — and he’ll put Bellon and Garcia on administrative leave. Filander has to die. He’d rather avoid such a measure, and he resorts to it only when he has absolutely no other choice; this, he believes, is such a case. Filander is a dangerous lunatic. He trusts the rest will scurry away like cockroaches when the lights go on. Then he’ll deal with them in a few days. Ladeski has had it in for Hernandez ever since he got the upper hand and kept the fifteenth precinct. If he promises it to one of them and gives the seventeenth, for example, to the other, he’s got a good chance of getting them both on his team. He’ll first have to see their reactions, but he’s almost sure they’ll come on board with him. He just has to wait and see.

He goes back to the bedroom, where Cora has laid his clean clothes out on the bed. The shirt is impeccably ironed, the trousers have a crease so sharp you could cut salami with it — as his old man used to say — and the shoes are shined so brightly he could use them as mirrors to shave in. He takes a sip of mate through the bombilla straw as he contemplates himself in the mirror. He isn’t carrying an ounce of fat, and the few grey hairs that have appeared here and there give him a touch of distinction.

I’ve still got my good looks.

He gives the mate back to his wife and puts on the jacket of his spanking-new Chief of Police uniform.

So, my love, are you proud of your hubbie? You know I am, Jorge. It’s just that I’m worried that now I’ll see even less of you than I did before. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’m not worried, it’s just that the kids treat this place like a hotel, coming here to eat and sleep, and you work more and more every day, and all I do is sit here alone and watch the mould grow. You’ve got your mother, your friends. It’s not the same, Jorge, it’s just not the same. What do you say we go out to eat to celebrate? Oh, I don’t know, you think we should? I can’t figure you out. Should I tell the kids? No, just the two of us. Oh, I don’t know. I’ll call you later and we’ll arrange it. Whatever you say, Jorge. Would I have to get dressed? I guess, unless you want to go naked.

Graciela is waiting for him at the entrance on Moreno Street. She, too, is wearing a brand-new uniform. She greets him with a Good morning, sir, and a cheeky wink. They have a perfect understanding. The entire department suspects there’s something going on between them. And there is, but the secret they share is very different from the one the others imagine. She follows him into his office. Jorge asks her to get him the phone numbers of a series of people whose names she writes down on her pad. She closes the door behind her, sits down at her desk and begins to look up the numbers. Jorge, sitting at his desk, is figuring out what he should do first. In front of him he has the police organizational chart, with all the names and their corresponding positions. He begins the task of moving people around. Internal Affairs: he crosses out Crio. He puts a line through Superintendent Olindo Gaito and writes in Lascano. Vice: get rid of…