Cesar Aira - Shantytown

That autumn, the newspaper Clarín had published a letter that read as follows: “Over recent years, the residents of 1800 Avenida Bonorino, in Lower Flores, have been subjected to an escalation of violence, instigated by a mafia whose headquarters are situated in the neighboring agglomeration of temporary dwellings. Firearms and drugs have become a daily presence in what was, until recently, a quiet working-class neighborhood, where children played in the streets. Now we live behind closed doors, day and night, held hostage in our own homes by rampant lawlessness. On the fifteenth of March, in an incident that is yet to be clarified, this deplorable situation lead to a fatality: a shot fired by an assault weapon ended the life of a fifteen-year-old girl. She was an outstanding student, her parents’ pride and joy. She was my daughter. We are still waiting for an explanation; the culprits are still on the loose, terrorizing the local community; our family has been destroyed, and it is only a matter of time before this tragedy is repeated.” Like all the readers’ letters in the papers, it was signed, with an address (which was, predictably, 1800 Avenida Bonorino) and a National Identity Document number.

Inspector Cabezas had the cutting in his wallet, not because of its content — any number of such letters had been published — but because the signatory shared his surname: Cabezas. That, on its own, would not have been enough to make him cut the letter out and keep it, but the man’s first name — Ignacio — was the same as well. This was a truly amazing coincidence because neither name was especially common. The inspector would have been very surprised just to learn that there was another Ignacio Cabezas, but the fact that his namesake also lived in Lower Flores, on his patch, and had made himself known to the public in that way, was something he could never have imagined, and it was enough to suggest the existence of a mechanism in which he had a part to play, though what that part might be he didn’t know. He had been carrying the cutting around in his wallet for months, just in case, without showing it to anyone.

He had made no effort to meet the other Ignacio Cabezas, nor had he bothered to check the file on the killing because he knew what he would find. What interested him lay further afield, in the shantytown, which he had examined without, so far, discovering anything useful. Drugs were sold there in large quantities, everyone knew that, but no one knew how they came in and went out. It could have been done in a thousand ways. Long hours of surveillance, to which the inspector was accustomed, had revealed that buyers came at the oddest hours of the day or night, always in cars. They would pull up for a moment, ask something (what?), drive on again, and end up doing as many as ten full laps of the circular road that bounded the shantytown. It was extremely difficult to follow them without being noticed, especially at night, when there was no one else on the road, and it was brilliantly lit by the profusion of bulbs. The actual sales seemed to take place after dark; the daytime visits must have been exploratory. Cabezas was not the only one to have noticed; some of his colleagues had also been discreetly observing this activity, and they had come up with the apt and eloquent nickname, “the carousel.”

The moment finally came to make use of that newspaper cutting. Cabezas knew that the meathead had a sister because he had seen the whole family coming out of the building on the corner, next to the police station. And he knew (police: what don’t they know?) that the girl was mixed up with some bad sorts in the neighborhood. In fact, he had a more detailed picture of her than of her brother, who was a completely unknown quantity. So one day Cabezas followed her on foot, and waited until she was a fair way from home, in the middle of an empty block, before accosting her. He called out her name, and she turned around, alarmed. She was a pretty little blonde, with a sour look on her face. There was a chance that she’d recognize him; she might have seen him going into the station or coming out. But he decided to risk it because he knew how inattentive teenagers are, wrapped up in their own little worlds.

“I’m not trying to threaten you,” he began. “I was going to talk with your parents, but then I thought we could come to an understanding, just the two of us. I don’t want to upset them unnecessarily; I’m a father too, I know what it’s like. They don’t need to find out about anything, as long as you cooperate.”

“Me? How? Who are you?”

The viper inside her reared up, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she was nervous and afraid. “Gotcha, little whore,” thought Cabezas.

“Do you have a minute?”

“No, I’m in a hurry.”

“Here, read this,” he said, giving her the cutting. This was such a strange and unexpected move that she found it paradoxically reassuring. The gesture itself was utterly familiar: the streets were full of jobless people handing out flyers. Except that it wasn’t a flyer this time but a piece of newspaper. She looked at both sides and began to read. Although she maintained a neutral expression, Cabezas could tell, as he studied her face, that she knew what it was about and that her twisted little brain was getting to work. When he reckoned that she had reached the end, he pointed to the sender’s name, and with his other hand held out his identity card, so she could see that the names were the same.

“That’s right,” he said, putting the cutting and the card back into his pocket, “I’m the father. For months now, I’ve been carrying out my own investigation; I wasn’t going to hold my breath waiting for the police to do something. They’re incompetent and corrupt,” he added, to give his speech an authentic touch, which anyone who’d watched a bit of television could recognize. And to cover himself, in case she happened to see him entering or leaving the police station later on: “I go to Station 38 every day to see if there’s any news, but they never do anything. I’ve found out all sorts of things, though, making my own inquiries.” Here he paused and looked at her steadily. He could tell that she wanted to say, “And what’s all this got to do with me?” but she couldn’t because fear had paralyzed her lips.

“I know you used to see those layabouts from Commercial College Nine who went to the shantytown to buy proxidine. But don’t worry, I’m not going to tell on you; like I said, I don’t want to upset your parents unnecessarily. All I want is for you to help me find the bastards who killed my daughter. I quit my job so I could focus a hundred percent on finding them; it’s all I think about. .”

“I never went to buy anything! I don’t care who you tell!”

“I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m just asking you to have some compassion for a father in despair. Look, I know you didn’t go to the shantytown to score. But you knew those kids; you used to hang out with them. People can do what they like, as far as I’m concerned. We’re all free, and everyone wants drugs, that’s obvious. What I said in the letter, it’s not exactly true. I know my daughter was no saint, but that’s no reason to kill her, is it?”

His question produced the desired effect. She nodded remorsefully.

“I want you to find out how the dealing is done in the shantytown. That’s the only thing I haven’t worked out, and until I do, I won’t be able to unravel the mystery. I don’t want you to tell me what you already know. You go ask your friends, as if you wanted to buy some yourself. I know where you live and where you go to school, and all the rest, so I’ll be in touch. Remember this is a good deed you’re doing. You help me, and I’ll help you.”