Carlos Gamerro - An Open Secret

Sayago pauses dramatically, conscious of the spell which, not his words as he believes, but the horrific events they drag behind them have cast on us. I take a last toke on a cigarette I seem to have been smoking for hours and, when I stub it out, I see all the others in the ashtray. I feel really sick and fight to turn my oncoming retch into a mere belch. Through the veil of nausea and hatred and alcohol I watch the features of the ex-police corporal as he orders another drink without waiting for my nod.

“To tell you the truth,” says Sayago, downing his drink in one the moment it hits the table, “till then I had full confidence in the Super but well like, to be honest he went down a bit there. I mean a chief say sends you into a confrontation go go go with the bullets flying and watches his own arse what do the troops do then? And I tell you the moment Greco realised he was on him like a wolf on a sick lamb I’ll take care of it if you like sir like that he said it to him in his little arse-licking voice but let’s not kid ourselves at that moment it was the worst insult he could of come out with. And at first the Super stands there struck dumb his eyes bulging, still had his finger on the trigger, and when he gets his voice back he goes You think I can’t do it. So it’s you who’s giving me classes now is it Sonny? What’s wrong, got an itchy arse and think you can scratch it better in my chair do you? You’ll sit in my chair the day the Virgin bangs her son you little dumbfuck, you’re hurrying me up? What if I just don’t fucking feel like it now? eh? What if I feel like waiting a bit? Got a problem with that have you? the Super yells this close to him and Greco sort of pauses and says to him in a different tone Not me Superintendent, but Colonel Carca will, and that was it, the Super couldn’t of stood there stiller if he’d been hit on the head by the slaughterman’s hammer. That was when the man went down in my eyes, me I knew him but he suddenly looked, how can I put it, ten years older, more … Looked like an old-age pensioner he did. Myself if he’d reacted at that moment and stood up to that Judas I’d of stood by him I swear, guns blazing if necessary but the Super he … was gone, vanished, poof, it was suddenly like he wasn’t there any more. But well, no wonder right? Greco, his protégé, his man, his right-hand man, had just fessed up to him he’d been working for the military behind his back,” says the ex-corporal, and for a few seconds he sits there staring into space, his mouth slack, before picking up the drooling thread of his speech. “That’s what Greco was like, soon as yer back was turned he’d stick the knife in, like a woman, ’cause he didn’t have it in him to do it to yer face, you need eyes where the sun don’t shine with his kind, sometimes not even that’s enough I mean look what happened to me and the Super,” mumbles Sayago sinking deeper and deeper into the muddy bottom of self-pity. “From then on the Super may have still been giving the orders but Greco was calling the shots, blew the padlock off with one bullet he did and kicked the door open and if I’m not wrong he went in first then the Super and he says to us Greco does Surround the place he says to us and make sure nobody comes near and closes the door so we can’t see.”

“What about Ezcurra?” I ask.

“What about Ezcurra?” asks Sayago forgetting to disguise his annoyance at the interruption.

“Did they leave him outside?”

For a second Sayago narrows his grim-looking eyes even more, then they swivel back to the empty glass and decide to smile again.

“If they left him outside why would they of gone inside? To give each other some tongue? I told you, the arse bandit stayed outside.”

“With you,” says Licho, and realises too late that his clarification sounds like an insinuation.

“What do you mean?”

Without waiting for my order Nene Larrieu fills Sayago’s glass and diverts his attention just in time. Sayago drains it before going on:

“I swear I can remember it like I was there, sun’d just come up and it was getting warmer, looked like another scorcher, no sign of the storm, blew straight past us in the end, can even remember a chimango on a tree branch, flew off at the shot, the metal walls made twice as much noise. People today still argue about which one pulled the trigger, for me it was the Super ’cause he had more blood on his clothes and besides he was an incredible shot, once went out partridge-hunting with him and he’d bring them down with a twenty-two, and when I counted them he’d hit them every one in the head or the neck, one shot, not one of them did I have to finish off.”

“It’s difficult to miss at five centimetres,” remarks Guido, hating him. Sayago’s too drunk to notice.

“But I can’t get Greco’s face out of my head. He was looking down so the Super wouldn’t realise but I saw he had this grin on him from ear to ear. I reckon if it hadn’t of been for him the Super wouldn’t of done it. Did it ’cause Greco provoked him he did. But there you go … Nene, I ordered another shot of caña for Christ’s sake, are you going to take all night! You tell him not to pour me any more Don? Come on then, what you waiting for? So there they were. It was just getting light and people’d just started walking the streets, not many, it was Sunday luckily, and we hadn’t brought spades or kerosene or anything. Then Sergeant Chacón got this bright idea. My brother-in-law’s smallholding, he says to Greco, it’s just down the road. Off the Fuguet road. We’ll have everything we need there and we won’t have to go through town. So that’s what we did. I didn’t go ’cause after we loaded him in the trunk of the first patrol car — me without looking ’cause the sight of blood makes me queasy — the Super sent us back, me and the Inspector … Bonfanti!”

“Inspector Bonfanti?” asks Nene Larrieu, taken aback.

“No, the one from Leopardi! Told you I’d remember! His name was Bonfanti!”

“Like I give a fuck,” mumbles Guido, audibly grinding his teeth.

“The inspector I can’t remember what his name was, and the Super says to the inspector, his name’ll come to me any second … Bonfanti, sonofagun! errr the Super says to him I did hear that properly ’cause he was right next to me he says to him Call Rosas Paz and wish him bon appétit from me, he’ll understand said the Super and after that they drove off down the highway in the other cars.”

“I’m going home for a lie down Fefe,” says Guido straightening up. “To get some kip before I drive you to the terminal.” He says goodbye to everyone except Sayago, who, if he realises, is doing a good job of hiding it, and as he leaves the cold gusts in from the street until the door closes again. I don’t blame him. A few short blocks away the body of his lovely wife warms the bed, and here he is, reliving a horror that’s none of his concern, only out of respect for the whims of his childhood friend who hasn’t had the common decency to explain to him why. If I were him, I’d have left some time ago. I’m not much good at playing the faithful friend.

“Yous leaving too?” Sayago says to me, a hint of panic in his voice.

“Can’t speak for the others,” I say. “You all know the drinks are on me so don’t worry.”

“We’re not staying to freeload but we do appreciate it,” says Iturraspe with a smile and Licho nods. “The most urgent thing I’ve got on tomorrow is reading the paper, after the Sacamatas’ve finished with it, ’cause I can’t even afford that. What about you Licho?”

“Waiting till you’re through with it,” he smiles.

“Well if you thought I haven’t got much more to tell you Buenos Aires get a load of this,” ex-corporal Sayago says to me in an altogether different tone of voice. His familiarity, which until recently had come and gone, is now systematic, even insolent. “That same day in the afternoon lo and behold Chacón’s brother-in-law shows up scared witless asking to talk to him. They tell him he’s gone to Rosas Paz and just then the Super walks past and sees him. What can I do for you Villalba my friend, anything wrong? And Villalba looking like he’d die there and then starts stammering and almost in tears he eventually plucks up the courage to explain that his dogs and pigs of started digging around there and ate off one of his hands and he don’t know what to do, he don’t want to move him without permission but if he leaves him there and the Super goes It’s all right Villalba, well done, we need more citizens like you, don’t worry, we’ll take it from here. Before you go there’s something I always meant to ask — you wouldn’t have anything to do with the Villalba they say ran our founder Comandante Pedernera out of town would you? And Villalba stammering again They’re just stories Superintendent sir, the Villalbas have always been law-abiding folk who respect authority, and Neri goes All right, go and put the kettle on, we’ll be right over, and then from the doorway to his office so as everybody could hear Jeez, they’ve gone soft on me the people in this town have, where’s that famous reputation for bravery? and sent for the Subsuper to discuss what to do. They needed to find a final location for him, somewhere even if people found out later they’d never get him back, somewhere safe from all the bleeding hearts, the telltales and the nosy parkers. Guessed where?”