Carlos Gamerro - The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón

‘Sr Govianus, I don’t think you heard me. I have the ninety-two busts of Eva Perón, the ones we need to free Sr Tamerlán. I got them, I finally got them. But I can’t leave them in the street for long. Can you hear me, Sr Govianus?’

‘Yes, Marroné, perfectly,’ the accountant answered, in the same insipid tone. Perhaps what had happened was so huge, so unexpected, after all hope of good news had been lost, that he couldn’t take in the news. Marroné heard a prolonged sigh at the other end of the line. ‘All right, Marroné. Stay put while I get dressed and drive over.’

The accountant lived in Caballito: if he got his skates on, the light traffic would mean he’d be there soon, so Marroné decided to hunker down in the car and have breakfast, and not budge an inch until Govianus arrived; but a brand-new surprise awaited him back at the kerbside, which was empty of all other vehicles save the patrol car now parked behind his pick-up. Inside the car sat an overheated policeman, while the other sniffed around the pick-up, tugging at the ropes that fastened the tarpaulin to the box, trying to peek inside. Striding over to him, Marroné tried to contain the washing machine now churning in his empty stomach: they were under an administration that was Peronist in name at least, and there was nothing wrong, in principle, with transporting a cargo of busts of Eva Perón; but he had an educated accent and was dressed as a worker, which, until proven otherwise, made him a potential guerrilla. There was also the possibility that he was on the wanted list, his photo or identikit plastered all over the streets, and in newspapers, and on television; and as if that weren’t enough, he’d just parked a clapped-out pick-up truck with dodgy contents in a sensitive area of town containing, in a two-block radius, the Ministry of the Interior and the Central Police Headquarters, the Ministry of the Economy, the Libertador Building, which housed the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff, and last but not least, the Pink House.

‘Morning,’ said the policeman at large, with that curt urbanity they often affect once they’ve zeroed in on their prey.

‘Morning, Constable… er… Officer… Any problem?’ Marroné answered with an ingratiating, brown-nose grin.

‘This yours?’ he replied, pointing to the truck with pursed lips.

‘Errrr… yes. But I was just on my way, eh. I had to make a quick phone call,’ he said, with gestures that invoked a vaguely telephonic distance.

‘Hands on the bonnet if you don’t mind.’

He frisked him quickly, not forgetting armpits and crotch, then said:

‘Papers.’

Braced for the worst, he fished the white clam out of his pocket, extracted his identity card and handed it to the policeman, who gave it a couple of perfunctory flips, then froze at the photo of an immaculate Marroné in jacket, tie and slicked-back hair. Working hard to square it with the black-nailed, tangle-haired, stubbly creature that stood before him in flip-flops, he said flatly:

‘Car papers…’

It was just as he feared. He had forgotten, or rather been too preoccupied to dig out the papers for the pick-up. His only hope was that Don Rogelio was in the habit of leaving them in the glove compartment.

‘Excuse me.’

The policeman stayed the hand that Marroné had slipped into his pocket, felt it and helped him remove it, daintily, with a bunch of keys between thumb and forefinger. Marroné gave the officer in the patrol car a sidelong look. He was wearing mirrored shades, smoking a cigarette and swatting a fly that was trying to sip the sweat from his forehead. In the angle of his arm, resting on the open window, lolled the barrel of a shotgun. After rummaging in the glove compartment to make sure there were no lethal weapons or pamphlets for guerrilla organisations, his partner emerged with a cracked leather wallet that turned out to contain — blessed be the Mercy of the Lord — the papers for the pick-up. The policeman held it open in Marroné’s face, confronting him with the photo of a Don Rogelio a good ten years younger. Marroné knew the time had come to talk up a storm.

‘Errrr… He’s one of our suppliers. He had to make an urgent delivery to us and… found himself prevented from doing so due to this wee health problem he’s got… hernia. So I had to take charge myself. Which is why I’m dressed like… Oh, this is where I work,’ he said, pointing at the building. ‘I’m head of procurement here, if you’ll allow me.’ He pulled out his wallet again and took out his business card. Cracked and crumpled as it was, it looked like a leftover from a job he’d been fired from years ago.

The policeman didn’t so much as look at it, handing both sets of papers straight to his partner, who flicked his fag onto the street and got hold of the radio. Marroné took a discreet look at his watch: it had been twenty minutes since he’d called Govianus; as things were, his only hope was to keep the policemen busy until the accountant got there. His officer had gone back to tugging at the ropes and tarpaulin.

‘Would you mind?’

With a sigh, Marroné began to struggle with the knots, taking as long as he dared without arousing suspicion. When he pulled the tarpaulin to one side, a big fat beam from the still-rising sun fell on the first row of Evas like a spotlight. At least two were broken.

‘And what’s all this?’

‘Eva Perón,’ he said, for want of a better answer.

His partner called him over from the car. They whispered to each other for a few seconds, then his cop came over, the holster of his gun now conspicuously unfastened.

‘You’ll have to come with us.’

‘Listen, Cunstable… Officer…’ Then he remembered that one’s own name was always the sweetest in any language and, after glancing at his badge, added: ‘Duquesa…’ The surname was bizarre, and now it sounded like he was taking the mickey. ‘It’s taken me two weeks — the worst two weeks of my life — to get hold of these fu… busts, and if I don’t deliver them today, right now, the life of a very important person could be in jeopardy, and when they find out that you, Officer… The president will be here in just a few minutes — he’s the one I just phoned — so I’d ask you to be a little patient and kind…’

Marroné had again dug the bivalve out of the depths of his pocket and now, opening it, he tugged at the tip of a note; but, being all stuck together, they came out in a single wad, which it would have been rude to hold on to once proffered. The policeman took it between thumb and forefinger, then slid in a fingernail to divide it into two equal halves, like someone opening a sandwich to get rid of the filling, and handed one to his partner. He opened the back door of the Ford Falcon and ushered Marroné inside.

‘Five minutes.’

They felt like the longest five minutes of his life. The sun beat down on the tin roof and the sweat ran down his forehead in thick beads. The two cops had confiscated his crackers and milk, which they sampled without a word; he was desperate for a sip but didn’t dare to ask: he had to appear friendly and relaxed to avoid their suspicions.

‘Looks like it’s going to turn out hot, eh?’

They didn’t even bother to look at him in the mirror. The second hand ticked implacably on its course — only one and a half turns to go. His whole being was concentrated on the narrow rectangle of the rear-view mirror, which reflected nothing but the broad avenue, now a barren moor void of cars and pedestrians.

But Govianus arrived in the nick of time. Marroné, expecting a car to pull up behind him, at first didn’t recognise the accountant when he saw him sauntering down the embankment of Avenida Belgrano, whistling, rolled-up newspaper under one arm, hands in the pockets of his white-striped tracksuit bottoms, which, added to the matching top, the cream-coloured Adidas sneakers and the sunglasses, gave him the air of a football coach, while the two men on either side of him — a blond man with an American-style buzz cut and a swarthy one with a moustache, both also in sportswear — looked more like wrestlers or boxers. Completely ignoring the officers, who did get salutes from his bodyguards and responded in kind, Govianus inhaled deeply as if in the mountains, and looked around him.