Carlos Gamerro - An Open Secret

“Where did you get that from,” Leticia will ask me intrigued.

“Clara Benoit,” I’ll answer.

“Ah, the famous lagoon files.”

“Reckon it had anything to do with it?” I’ll return to Guido.

“When you look at it Ezcurra lost just as much money as they did if not more. This is what happened. He’d brought some people over from Santa Fe who were going to make the blessed flood canal we’d been promised since the colonial days — one day they threw a party at the Yacht Club and everything to celebrate the project going through. And there it is, still approved. Without the canal to control the floods there were no plots and Ezcurra promised to speed up work on the canal if they came in on Expotencia. So in the end the guys from Santa Fe turned out to be involved with the Montoneros or something like that and lasted all of two seconds in the provincial government, the whole Expotencia thing collapsed and on top of losing everything and being up to his eyeballs in debt Ezcurra ended up being tarred as the town lefty. He wanted to rub shoulders with the town’s big cheeses and wound up … I’m not saying his partners in town wanted his blood the way Don Manuel did. But when the chips were down they weren’t going to bend over backwards to save him were they.”

“SORRY, I’M AFRAID I’m not convinced the articles had anything to do with it. Don Manuel wasn’t one for wasting powder on chimangos ,” pipes Licho after Don León hangs up, running a polite finger over the pile of photocopies on the table. “But Don Rosas Paz did have two granddaughters of courting age that’s for sure — one, Elvira, ended up marrying a French agronomist with BO; the other, María Luisa — Pipina they called her — was left on the shelf. They were always coming into town whenever there was show at the lagoon — anything to get away from the estancia —and knowing our dear Darío’s reputation …”

“Nice theory,” rasps Iturraspe, “if it wasn’t for the fact they were both so ugly just looking at them was enough to make a bull a bullock, and for that at least we have to give the deceased his due — he had good taste. The thing is,” he says to me as he turns round, “everyone’s got their theory but actually nobody really knows why Rosas Paz had it in for Ezcurra.”

“Be that as it may,” Don León now goes on, who ever since Licho’s interruption has been looking daggers at the table in indignant silence, “Don Manuel decided to speed things up. He was dying, or at least he thought he was. Pulmonary emphyteusis he had and had to go everywhere with a nurse and a blue cylinder. Used to call it the “heir-scarer”. Even went out hunting he did — he’d plant the nurse and the blue cylinder in the back of his pick-up and shoot anything with legs, wings or fins that moved, edible or not, anyway he couldn’t touch any of it on account of his diet and what the farmhands didn’t take was left for the dogs … partridges, martinetas, ducks, hares, armadillos, caracaras, herons, lizards, possums, plovers, owls …” Don León interrupts himself to wet his lips in his second Ferroquina.

“ Chimangos ?” I ask giving Licho a wry sidelong glance.

“ Chimangos too. In the country if it ain’t got horns it’s a pest, he liked to say. Anyway duelling had gone out of fashion, quiet revenge wasn’t his style and there was no joy to be had from the legal system. So that left the police.”

“MALIHUEL POLICE HEADQUARTERS,” says Don Ángel referring to the building less than a block away that, together with the courts, occupies an entire block, “is in charge of all the police stations in the county including the ones in Toro Mocho.”

“One of the privileges we have as the oldest town in the area,” adds his brother Vicente with a smile, taking a sip of after-dinner coffee. “This is where they lock up all the lags.”

“When they lock them up that is. The police chiefs are appointed in Santa Fe and are generally from thereabouts. They don’t stay long, a year or two, and they’re sent off to thieve somewhere else so the area can recover. Like crop rotation,” chuckles Don Ángel at his own joke. “That’s what I’m telling you, Superintendent Neri was different.”

“That’s what my grandfather always used to say,” I impinge. “That he was a different breed of policeman. ‘The finest police chief in Malihuel’s history.’ Was he really that good?”

Don Ángel and Vicente glance at each other to see who’ll answer:

“Don’t know about the other towns see, that’d be asking too much. But we’re quite certain he didn’t lay a finger on Malihuel,” answers Don Ángel for both of them. “Don’t shit where you eat right? He was a sort of local Robin Hood Neri was. Stole from the rich towns and gave to the poor ones,” he chuckles again.

“Most police chiefs are just passing through”—Vicente completes his brother’s thought. “They don’t hobnob with the local population and get out as soon as they can. There are those as prefer a police station in Toro Mocho to the headquarters here. But not Neri. Actually I reckon he’d grown rather fond of us,” he ventures and glances at his brother.

“He was more devoted to the town that’s for sure. It was his last destination and he’d decided to stick around with his wife when he retired. Had no children did they Vicente? They’d started work on the house and everything, two storeys it was going to be, the first in town. Don’t know if you noticed it when you used to come, on the right as you come up the lagoon road. You can see the foundations clear as anything. You should take him to see it Mati if he’s so interested in the story. Why not go tomorrow now you’re here?”

“One of Malihuel’s big tourist attractions,” whispers Mati with a wink that attempts to be conspiratorial.

“I DON’T KNOW about the best, no, that’s saying a lot, but he certainly was different. Not at all like a copper. He and Professor Gagliardi used to play chess at that window table there. Gagliardi had several regional tournaments under his belt but the Super didn’t always come off worse,” recalls Don León, sipping his brimming Ferroquina in Los Tocayos. “And here in town he never missed a trick. If the owl in the belfry winked Neri wanted to know which eye. I don’t know if he was as honest as they say but at least he was efficient. And had an education — you’re the one as knows Nene — was he actually a lawyer or not?”

“The proverbial three subjects short of his degree.”

“So why didn’t he finish?” asks Iturraspe.

“Gave it up apparently when his old man got blown away. Another copper. Only child, father a hero, mother a widow. That was his version at least.”

“But?”

“Goodness only knows. Didn’t have it up here if you ask me and the excuse fitted like a glove.”

“You’d be better off sticking to what you know and going and fetching me some smokes from Chacón’s. Tell him to put them on the tab”—Don León puts the sceptic in his place.

“SO HE WAS having this house built on a policeman’s salary was he?” I ask Mati next day, one cold, grey Saturday, after his father’s finally worn him down.

“He had a cheap source of labour,” Guido winks at me.

“The cons,” I say to confirm. They smile in agreement.

“Got them to paint the headquarters first mind. The way it is now, that was the last time it saw a lick of paint. Had them classified by occupation and milked the lot for all they were worth. If you ask me that’s how it should always be right? Get them doing something useful while they’re in,” airs Mati.

I nod, much as I beg to differ. I don’t feel up to arguing the toss.