Mario Llosa: Who Killed Palomino Molero?

“Don’t worry, son, we’re hot on the trail.” The pickup disappeared in a cloud of beer-colored dust.

Word of the outrages being perpetrated by a certain Air Force lieutenant in the Talara whorehouse was communicated to the Guardia Civil by one of the whores. Tiger Lily had come to the station to complain that her pimp was beating her up more than usual: “He leaves me so bruised I can’t turn any tricks. So I don’t bring him money and he beats me up again. Explain it to him, Lieutenant Silva. I try, but it’s like beating my head against a brick wall. I just can’t get through.”

Lilly told them that, the night before, the lieutenant had turned up at the whorehouse all alone. He tied one on, drinking pisco as if it were orange juice. He wasn’t drinking to have a good time but to get blind drunk as quickly as possible. When he was drunk, he unzipped his fly and peed on all the whores, pimps, and customers he could reach. Then he jumped up on the bar and did a striptease until the Air Force MPs came and took him away. Liau, the Chinese who owned the place, kept everybody calm: “If somebody socks him, we all get screwed. They close me down and you’re on the street. They always win, remember that.”

Lieutenant Silva didn’t seem to pay too much attention to Tiger Lily’s story. The next day, during lunch in Doña Adriana’s place, someone else told how the pilot had repeated his act of the night before. Only this time he’d supplemented it by breaking bottles, because, as he put it, he just loved to see the little chunks of glass flying through the air. The MPs had again turned up to take him away.

By the third day, Liau himself appeared at the station, sniveling: “Last night he broke his own record. He pulled down his pants and tried to shit on the dance floor. Lieutenant, the guy’s crazy. He only comes to stir up trouble, as if he wanted to get killed. Do something, because if you don’t, someone’s going to do him in. And I don’t want that kind of trouble with the Air Force.”

“Go take it up with Colonel Mindreau. It’s his problem, not mine.”

“I wouldn’t go near Colonel Mindreau for anything in this world. I’m scared shitless of the guy. They say he goes strictly by the book.”

“Well then, you’re screwed, because I have no authority when it comes to the Air Force. If the guy was a civilian, I’d be only too happy to do something for you.”

Liau, flabbergasted, stared at Lituma and the lieutenant. “Are you saying you can’t do anything for me?”

“We’ll pray for you,” said the lieutenant, ushering him out. “Bye-bye, Liau. Say hello to the ladies for me.”

But when Liau had gone, Lieutenant Silva turned to Lituma, who was using his best two fingers to type out the daily report on the ancient office Remington, and whispered, in a voice that sent a chill down Lituma’s spine, “This business about the crazy pilot is hard to figure, don’t you think, Lituma?”

“Yessir, Lieutenant.” He paused a minute, then asked: “What’s so hard to figure, sir?”

“Nobody throws his weight around in the whorehouse like that just for laughs. It’s where all the toughest guys in Talara hang out. And three days in a row. Something smells fishy to me. Don’t you think so?”

“Yessir,” replied Lituma automatically, though he had no idea what Lieutenant Silva was getting at. “What do you think we ought to do?”

“We ought to go have a beer over at Liau’s, Lituma. On the house, of course.”

Liau’s bordello had been chased from one end of Talara to the other by the parish priest. No sooner did Father Domingo catch wind of its reappearance than he demanded the mayor shut it down. A few days later, it would resurface in a shack three or four blocks away. Liau eventually won. His whorehouse was now located on the edge of town in a shed made of boards hammered together any which way. It was primitive and shaky, with a dirt floor Liau kept moist so there would be no dust and a tin roof that rattled in the wind because no one had ever bothered to nail it down. The walls of the rooms in back, where the girls worked, had so many holes that kids and drunks were always peeking in on the couples in bed.

Lieutenant Silva and Lituma slowly walked over to the bordello after seeing a cowboy movie in Mr. Frías’s open-air theater-the screen was the north wall of the parish church, so Father Domingo determined which movies Frías could show.

“At least give me some idea of what you’re thinking, Lieutenant. Why do you think this crazy pilot’s got anything to do with what happened to Palomino Molero?”

“I’m not thinking anything. Look, we haven’t turned up a thing yet in this case, so we’ve got to turn over every stone to see if something’s underneath. I’ll take anything. We can always say that we’re looking over the situation at the whorehouse and investigating the broads. Of course, the girl of my dreams won’t be there.”

“Now he’ll start in on Fatso. What a nut.”

“Last night I showed her my dick,” mused Lieutenant Silva pensively. “When I went out back to piss. She was just bringing water out to her hog. She looked at me and I showed it to her. I held it like this, with both hands. ‘All this is for you, baby. When will you give it what it really needs?’”

He laughed nervously, as he did whenever he talked about Doña Adriana.

“And what did she do, Lieutenant?” He knew that talking to him about Doña Adriana was the best way to tickle his fancy.

“She took off like a shot, of course. Pretended she was mad. But she saw it all right. I just know she was thinking about it. She probably dreamed about it all night. I’ll bet she compared it to Don Matías’s-his must be dead, all skin and no bone. I’ll get to her sooner or later, Lituma. She’ll go down, you’ll see. And when she does, we’re gonna get drunk-and we’ll only drink the very best. I swear.”

“Lieutenant, you’re relentless. Doña Adriana ought to give in, just to reward you for all the time you’ve put in on her case.”

There were few people in the bordello. Liau welcomed them with open arms. “Thanks a lot for coming, Lieutenant. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Come in, come in. Why do you think there are so few people here? Because of that nut, what else? People come here to have fun, not to get insulted or pissed on. Word gets around, and nobody wants trouble with a pilot. It’s not fair, right?”

“He’s not here yet?”

“He usually turns up at about eleven,” said Liau. “He’ll be here, just sit tight.”

He seated them at a table in a dark corner and sent them a couple of beers. A few whores came over to chat, but the lieutenant chased them away. He couldn’t pay them any attention: he was there on men’s business. Tiger Lily thanked Lituma for threatening to throw her pimp in jail unless he stopped beating her up, and kissed him on the ear. “Whenever you want me, just whistle,” she whispered. “He hasn’t slugged me now for three days,” she added.

The pilot showed up at about midnight. Lituma and his boss had already dispatched four beers each by then. Even before Liau signaled them, Lituma, who had taken note of everyone who’d come in, picked him out. Very young, thin, dark, a crew cut. He had on the regulation khaki shirt and trousers but wore no insignia. He came in alone, greeted no one, was indifferent to the effect he caused-nudges, nods, winks, and whispering among the whores and the few customers-and went directly to the bar, where he ordered a shot. Lituma realized his heart was pounding. He didn’t take his eyes off him as the pilot tossed down the pisco and ordered another.

“That’s how it goes every night,” whispered Tiger Lily, who was sitting at the next table with a sailor. “After the third or fourth, the show begins.”