Mario Llosa: Who Killed Palomino Molero?

“Does Colonel Mindreau know you’ve come to see us?”

“Don’t be a fool. Of course he doesn’t know.”

“He’ll find out soon enough,” thought Lituma. Everyone looked surprised to see the three of them together. Then they stared and whispered to each other.

“Did you come just to tell us that the colonel found out we’d had a chat with Lieutenant Dufó and with Doña Lupe?” He spoke looking straight ahead, not turning toward Alicia Mindreau, and Lituma, who had dropped back a bit, could see that she also kept her head facing forward, never looking at the lieutenant.

“That’s right.”

“A lie,” Lituma thought. What had she come to tell them? Had the colonel sent her? In any case, she seemed to he having trouble speaking. Maybe she’d lost her nerve. Her brow was furrowed, her mouth half open, and her arrogant little nose twitched anxiously. Her skin was very white and her eyelashes extremely long. Was it her air of delicacy, fragility, of being a pampered child, that drove the kid wild? Whatever it was she’d come to tell them, she was sorry now and would say nothing.

“It certainly was nice of you to drop by and chat with us. Really, thanks a lot.”

They walked on in silence fifty yards or so, listening to the cries of the sea gulls and the roar of the surf. At one of the wooden houses, some women were expertly cleaning fish. Around them, snarling and jumping, was a pack of dogs, waiting to devour the waste. The stench was overpowering.

“What was Palomino Molero like, miss?” A chill ran down Lituma’s spine, he was so surprised to hear himself. He’d spoken without premeditation, point-blank. Neither the lieutenant nor the girl turned to look at him. Now Lituma walked just behind them, occasionally stumbling.

“The nicest boy in the world. An angel come from heaven.”

Her voice did not tremble with bitterness or nostalgia as she spoke. Neither did it express tenderness. It was that same unusual tone, something between innocence and sarcasm, in which there occasionally flashed a spark of rage.

“That’s exactly what everyone who knew him says,” murmured Lituma, when the silence began to seem too long. “That he was a really nice guy.”

“You must have suffered a great deal because of Palomino Molero’s tragedy, Miss Alicia,” said the officer after a moment. “Isn’t that so?”

Alicia Mindreau said nothing. They were passing a cluster of houses under construction, some without roofs, others with walls half finished. There were old men in T-shirts sitting on their front porches, naked children collecting shells, and knots of women. The air echoed with laughter, and the smell of fish was everywhere.

Lituma made yet another spontaneous remark: “My friends say I heard him sing one time in Piura, but no matter how I try, I can’t remember. They say his specialty was boleros.”

“And folk songs, too,” she added, nodding energetically. “He could also play the guitar really well.”

“That’s right, the guitar. His mother, Doña Asunta, from Castilla, is a little crazy on the subject of her son’s guitar. She wants to get it back. Who could have stolen it?”

“I have it,” said Alicia Mindreau. Her voice broke suddenly, as if she hadn’t meant to say the words she’d just spoken.

Again, the three of them were silent. They were heading toward the heart of Talara, and the more deeply they moved into the tangle of houses, the more people there were crowding the streets. Behind the fences, on the point where the lighthouse was located and on Punta Arena, where the gringos and executives of the I.P.C. had their houses, the streetlights had already been turned on, though the sun was still shining. This was also true up above the cliffs, on the air base. At one end of the bay, the oil refinery spewed out a plume of reddish-gold flame; the structure looked like a gigantic crab dangling its legs in the water.

“The poor old lady said, When they find the guitar, they’ll find the killers. Not that she knows anything. Pure women’s or mothers’ intuition.”

He felt the lieutenant turn to look at him.

“What’s she like?” said the girl. Now she turned, and for a second Lituma saw her face: dirty, pale, irascible, and curious.

“Do you mean Doña Asunta, Palomino Molero’s mother?”

“Is she a chola, a half-breed?” specified the girl impatiently. It seemed to Lituma that his boss guffawed.

“Well, she’s just an ordinary woman. Just like all these people around here, just like me,” he heard himself say, and was surprised at how annoyed he was with her. “Of course, she doesn’t belong to the same class as you or Colonel Mindreau. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“He didn’t look like a cholo,” said Alicia Mindreau in a softer tone, as if talking to herself. “His hair was very fine, even blondish. And he had the best manners of any man I’ve ever known. Not even Ricardo or my father have manners like his. No one would have believed he’d gone to public school or that he was from Castilla. The only thing cholo about him was his name, Palomino. And his second name was even worse, Temistocles.”

Again it seemed to Lituma that his boss had laughed. But he didn’t have the slightest desire to laugh at what the girl was saying. He was puzzled and intrigued. Was she sorry or angry at the boy’s death? There was no way to guess. The colonel’s daughter talked as though Palomino Molero hadn’t been killed in the horrible way they all knew he had, as if he were still alive. Could she be a bit crazy?

“Where did you meet Palomino Molero?” asked Lieutenant Silva.

They had reached the rear of the church. That was the white wall that Teotonio Calle Frías used as the screen for his portable outdoor movie house. Those who wanted to sit down to see the movie had to bring their own chairs, but most people just hunkered down or stretched out on the ground. To get a good view, you had to pay five reales, which allowed you to sit, crouch, or recline on the other side of a rope. The lieutenant and Lituma could always get in free. Those who didn’t want to pay could always watch the movie free from outside the roped-off area. Of course, the view was bad and gave you a sore neck.

Many people had already taken up positions and were waiting for it to get dark. Don Teotonio Calle Frías was setting up his projector. He had only one, which worked thanks to a wire he himself had run to the power line on the corner. After each reel, there was an interruption while the next was loaded. The movies, accordingly, were strung out in pieces and were extremely long. Even so, the improvised theater was always full, especially in summer. “Ever since the kid’s murder, I haven’t been to the movies once,” thought Lituma. What was on tonight? A Mexican movie likely as not. Yes, HiddenRiver, starring Dolores del Rio and Columba Dominguez.

“I met him at Lala Mercado’s birthday party over in Piura.” She’d taken so long to answer that Lituma forgot which question she was answering. “He’d been hired to sing at the party. All the girls were saying how beautifully he sang, what a pretty voice, how good-looking he is, he doesn’t look like a cholo . It’s true he didn’t.”

“These damned whites.” Lituma was indignant.

“And did he dedicate any songs to you, miss?” The lieutenant oozed respect for her. Periodically, Lituma realized, his boss revealed yet another interrogation tactic; this one combined infinite respect with extraordinary politeness.

“Three. ‘The Last Night We Spent Together,’ ‘Moonbeam,’ and ‘Pretty Baby.’”

“She’s not normal; she’s off her rocker,” Lituma decided. Alicia Mindreau’s bicycle, which the lieutenant was pulling with his left hand, had begun to screech intermittently. The recurring, piercing sound put Lituma’s nerves on edge.