Carlos Gamerro - An Open Secret

“I thought Neri didn’t take bungs in Malihuel.”

Bermejo laughs hoarsely, coughing smoke. I’m a tad disappointed none of his stained teeth are gold.

“That story still doing the rounds is it? What a shower.” He adjusts the bridge of his glasses with a jab of his index finger. “He’d go easy on butchers and grocers and tighten the screw on me and the Mochica and the bookies. It’s easy for some. Singled me out he did. It got so bad I started winding myself up about how they’d do me in in a blind alley, that’s why I’ve taken the precaution of carrying a piece ever since,” he says flashing the butt of a revolver under his jacket. “In the end Ezcurra was the one as copped it, but it could just as easily’ve been me. He had me in his sights I tell you. With Greco it was all a lot easier. If you coughed up on time he left you alone; if you didn’t you’d had yer chips. Everything clear as daylight. Even used to stop by the premises and have a few drinks with the good fellas. Straight up and down he was. Back there they say he ditched them in the flood. Good for him’s what I say. I’d’ve burnt down anything sticking out of the water. What?”

I repeat the question, a bit louder the second time.

“I was over here trying to close a deal on some premises. Wanted to get out of there at all costs. And if I’d’ve been at Ezcurra’s side when they grabbed him you know what”—he dramatised with index finger and thumb at right angles—“Two birds with one stone. Look, with the pigs you don’t have to use tongues but you do have to learn to live together. In my line of business you can’t afford to have them breathing down yer neck. Bad for business. The fuzz are people just like you and me when you come down to it, and over the years they lay down certain ground rules that both sides learn to respect. And incidentally my good friend Ezcurra conned me over that Expotencia deal as well, never saw a red cent of that dough again I can assure you. Short reckonings make long friends as they say. Well they didn’t in this case.”

“AH, THE BLESSED LETTER,” Don León Benoit had smiled understandingly, who’d turned up a while after Sacamata had left. “Yes, I heard about that too. There was no letter, least as far as I know. The lengths some people’ll go to to salve their consciences. If you asked back in those days people would swear on God, the Virgin Mary and all the saints of the year that the letter didn’t exist but that anyhow somebody else’d written it. Ask people nowadays, the way you are, and they were queuing up outside the Ezcurras’ front door, all clutching their envelopes to slip underneath.”

“SO AS SHOWTIME APPROACHES like the Super sends out a car and we get in me, him, Sergeant Chacón and some cop from Leopardi driving his name’ll come to me in a minute. The lagoon says the Super and there’s me well chuffed ’cause I wouldn’t miss Sandro for the world. The causeway was like this, bumper to bumper it was and we radioed ahead to the unit stationed on the island che set up a roadblock this way and the Super goes stick the siren on and off we set down the oncoming lane. The grain of sand as we called him look at that eh I just remembered they had him located at the hotel bar, put a man on all the exits and if he moves stick close to him the Super said, we’ll be right there.”

“Ezcurra’d gone to review the show,” Iturraspe supplies rather gloomily.

“Why grain of sand?” I ask.

“Dunno, it was the Super’s name for him God knows why, and we all started using it ’cause he seemed quite fond of it. The grain of sand, good God. The things you remember eh? And we sat there waiting for I don’t know what, the Superintendent said we wait and nobody was going to ask why, then we spotted Mayor Echezarreta approaching through the window, he was yer grandfather am I right in thinking? Gor my throat’s drying up with all this talking. Not used to it.”

Nene Larrieu responds to my nod. Without looking at anyone in particular as he pours he remarks:

“Looks like the drinks are on tap tonight.”

Sayago grins happily at him then turns his eyes back to his glass. Once again he bows his head with devout lips to the trembling golden rim.

“I WROTE HIM A LETTER,” Clara Benoit had confessed. “I don’t know if it’s the one they’re talking about. Probably never opened it, he was used to getting letters from his … I even tried to change my handwriting so he wouldn’t recognise me, tried to write like a man. I’ve never understood why men’s handwriting comes out one way and women’s another.”

“So you didn’t sign it,” I’d said to her, trying not to let my disappointment show.

“No,” she’d replied. “If he’d known it was from me he wouldn’t have believed what it said. He’d’ve thought it was another one of my desperate ruses.”

“NEARLY CALLED OFF it was the Los Churrinches’ set, they used to be called Los Atahualpas and they must’ve changed their name to get off the blacklists, but someone recognised them and went and told your grandfather,” Iturraspe takes advantage of the lull in the conversation to insert, “remember Los Atahualpas Licho?”

Licho begins to whistle a catchy tune and Nene Larrieu supplies the missing lyrics.

“Through the jungle of Bolivia

he advances with his rifle

A new knight ups the ante

no lord the Comandante

He’s the revolution’s armour

And his name is? …”

“ Che … what was it called?” asks Licho.

“ Zamba rebelde ,” Iturraspe replies. “So when your grandfather found out the Superintendent was at the lagoon he went right up and asked him What shall we do and the Superintendent goes Not now Don Julián and your grandfather went on blaming the artist’s agent saying he’d acted in good faith till the Superintendent got tired of telling him all right and yelled you can play the bloody communist march for all I care, I’ve got more important fish to fry today.” Sayago has weathered the interruption by taking off one sneaker and, with a pained expression, fiddling with a toe sticking out of his holey sock:

“Anything the matter?” Licho enquires politely.

“This ingoing toenail’s killing me.”

“Better kill it first then,” quips Iturraspe. “Once a cop always a cop eh?”

Sayago works out from his tone that it’s a joke and laughs without getting it. He takes the opportunity to regain the limelight.

“And there we were still waiting when we see one of the doubles approaching from behind and Subsuperintendent Greco gets out on the passenger side—”

“One of the what?” I ask.

“Doubles. Unlicensed vehicles. This one was a Dodge Polara Greco’d confiscated for his own personal use, a set of wheels that’d of won more than one race with a guy with balls at the wheel, so anyroad like Greco comes over to the window and says Excuse me Superintendent I was held up but I haven’t been briefed on the operation, maybe the Superintendent didn’t tell him on purpose, It’s all right Arielito don’t worry about it or something like that actually I didn’t pay much attention ’cause I was looking through the back window to see if Sandro was coming, pink limousine with real diamonds on the tyre covers I’d been told though some said he was coming straight by helicopter which was going to land on the hotel roof, sounded odd to me though ’cause to do that they’d of needed permission and we hadn’t been informed; everybody on tenterhooks ’cause the support acts had finished and I reckon I’ve never seen so many people at the lagoon, and I was thinking let’s leave it for another day or else they might lynch us Superintendent sir I was thinking when I hear the Subsuper insist The men are at their posts sir and the mark has returned to the hotel bar do you want me to give the order all grovelly and sucking up like and Neri goes to him It’s all right Arielito, Arielito, that’s what he used to call him, It’s all right Arielito we’re going to get this over and done with and we headed to the hotel the Super and Arielito go inside with Sergeant Chacón and me and this other guy stand lookout on the door outside just in case but nothing happened can’t of been inside two minutes they can’t when the three of them come out with Ezcurrita sandwiched between them looking more lost than a dog in a bowling alley I mean if so many people’d warned him he must at least of seen it coming right? If he really was as cute as people say he was. The moment he sets foot outside he starts spotting familiar faces What’s wrong don’t let them take me he tells them Whatsisface tell Mamá, Soandso tell Thingumajig to come over to the headquarters with Dr Someoneorother and them all going Yeah yeah take it easy while they were looking for somewhere to scarper, but of course it was hard going for them with the pressure of all those people, worse with the ones furthest away fighting to see, ’specially the ones who were from out of town and didn’t know, they wanted to get a closer look at what was going on and then as usual some big mouth starts shouting Sandro! It’s Sandro! and then there’s no stopping it when the running starts and the jostling that tell you the avalanche is coming right? Operations with crowds are the most difficult see they get out of hand at the drop of a hat we get special training at the academy but anyroad like at the ground right I’d like to see you cope with thirty thousand monkeys screaming their heads off, enough to make a brave man piss himself I was saying my prayers I tell you I’m not ashamed to say it right then we were more scared than Ezcurra you can bet yer life if you like and I reckon that must of been when it got pretty much impossible for us to find a way through ’cause we’d left the car by the causeway with the guy from Leopardi his name’ll come to me in a minute and the people were pushing us the other way somebody’s attention lapsed somebody tripped and before we know where we are Ezcurra gives us the slip and shoots off towards the stage and the stalls where all the people he knows are the town’s VIPs here’s a riddle for you chief tell me what they did you’ll tell me they shielded him with their bodies they hid him they yelled at him to at least escape? Did they fuck! What they did was scarper, couldn’t run fast enough they couldn’t, and to make matters worse they was tripping and falling over all the chairs there like a possum in a henhouse Ezcurra was with all the commotion he caused,” the ex-policeman recalls with a throaty laugh. “When you tell it like that it makes you laugh, I swear it does sir, but it was pretty nasty too to be honest.” He pauses for a moment to recover his gravitas and drains what’s left of his caña while he’s at it.