Rodolfo Walsh's Last Case E-Book

Elsa Drucaroff

• Herausgeber: Corylus Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 264

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

A key figure in the politics and literature of Argentina, Rodolfo Walsh wrote his iconic Letter to my Friends in December 1976, recounting the murder of his daughter Victoria by the military dictatorship. Just a few months later, he was killed in a shoot-out – just one of the Junta's many thousands of victims. What if this complex figure – a father, militant, and writer who delved the regime's political crimes – had also sought to reveal the truth of his own daughter's death? Elsa Drucaroff's imagining of Rodolfo Walsh undertaking the most personal investigation of his life is an electrifying, suspense-filled drama in which love and life decisions are inseparable from political convictions as he investigates the mystery of what happened to his own daughter. The head of intelligence for Montoneros, a clandestine Peronist organisation co-ordinating armed resistance against the dictatorship, Rodolfo Walsh was also a prolific writer and journalist, seen as the forerunner of the true crime genre with his 1957 book Operation Massacre. What if beneath the surface of his Letter to my Friends lay a gripping story lost to history?

Leseprobe

Rodolfo Walsh's Last Case

Elsa Drucaroff

Translated by Slava Faybysh

Corylus Books Ltd

Copyright © 2024 Corylus Books Ltd

Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case is first published in English in 2024 by Corylus Books Ltd in the United Kingdom, and was originally published in Spanish in 2010 as El último caso de Rodolfo Walsh. Copyright © Elsa Drucaroff, 2010Translation copyright © Slava Faybysh, 2024Elsa Drucaroff has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. Cover artwork by Barry McKayAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher. All characters and events portrayed in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or not, is purely coincidental. Translation of Rodolfo Walsh, "Esa mujer," from Los oficios terrestres (Editorial Jorge Álvarez, 1967; Ediciones de la Flor, 1986). Published by arrangement with Ediciones de la Flor. Translation © 2004 by Cindy Schuster. Translation published 2004 by Words Without Borders (www.wordswithoutborders.org).  Reprinted by permission of Words Without Borders. All rights reserved. This work has been published within the framework of the Sur Translation Support Programme of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of the Argentine Republic. Obra editada en el marco del Programa Sur de Apoyo a las Traducciones del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Comercio Internacional y Culto de la República Argentina.

Prologue

July 1972

Double Baptism

I

There’s not much traffic early in the morning on the Pan-American Highway, where a van and a Fiat 1500 are behind a truck from the Molinos Río de la Plata company. The truck driver is about fifty years old, and hanging from his rearview mirror is a picture of the Virgin of Luján and a small plastic frame with photographs of Perón and Evita. The Fiat driver signals to the van, which pulls ahead of him. In the Fiat, Pablo and Mariana watch this maneuver in tense silence.

The two vehicles in front screech to an abrupt halt as the van crosses in front of the truck in the middle of the highway. Meanwhile, Pablo and Mariana leap out of the still-moving Fiat and rush over to the truck. They are very young. With precise movements Pablo opens the truck door and climbs up on the footboard, pointing his revolver at the driver’s head. Mariana, who’s in on the other side now, is also pointing a gun at him. Their hands are trembling; the driver sits completely still. Pablo begins reciting a speech he’s evidently memorized. His voice comes out thin at first, cracks, then resumes with more confidence. “We’re from the Montoneros Organization, and this is a revolutionary expropriation. You’ll be fine, as long as you don’t make any sudden moves. We have no intention of hurting a fellow worker. Now please step out of the truck slowly, and don’t say a word.”

The man begins to move and Pablo steps aside to give him enough room to climb out, still pointing the trembling gun at him. Suddenly a shot goes off. There’s a hole in the roof of the truck and the three of them stare at it, transfixed. A second later, Mariana tries to make eye contact with Pablo, her face a mixture of terror and relief. Pablo, meanwhile, is gaping at the truck driver, who’s frozen stiff midway through the process of getting out. The twenty-year-old boy’s face looks terrified, like his son’s face that time he was playing with matches on the living room floor and nearly set the rug on fire.

“Take it easy, sonny,” the man stammers, without moving a muscle, “You wouldn’t want to shoot down a Peronist worker, right?”

II

Pablo’s driving the truck now and Mariana’s in the passenger seat. They left the driver behind at the edge of the road, asked him to wait a while before calling the police—and that’s what he’ll do. Pablo and Mariana’s faces are drained of all color and they sit in silence.

With the van right behind them, the truck barely makes the turn off the Pan-American Highway onto the bumpy dirt road into the slum. Curious at the sight, people come to their doors. Some kids run beside the vehicles.

The truck comes to a stop. Pablo steps out and climbs up on the bumper. He had been on the brink of killing a man, out of sheer clumsiness, but he’s already forgotten this in his euphoria. He opens the back of the truck and jumps inside. He smiles, because now comes the sweet part of the operation. The cargo consists of cooking oil and sacks of flour.

The van driver sets off a streamer bomb, and confetti flies through the air as Pablo, megaphone in hand, shouts excitedly, “Compañeros! Montoneros has expropriated 250 gallons of oil and 10,000 pounds of flour from the Molinos Río de la Plata company, which belongs to the multinational consortium of Bunge and Born! Montoneros has come here to return to the people what belongs to the people! We have taken back from the imperialists these goods that were produced by the sweat of the people’s brow! Compañeros! We fight for social justice to continue the work of General Perón and Evita, the work for which our general was exiled from his people! We fight together until he returns to his rightful place! Perón or death! Venceremos!”

Pablo and Mariana work quickly in the back of the truck, passing bottles and bags, first to each other, then to the assembled crowd. The youngest kids are shouting excitedly. Some older ones bring out a drum, and they begin dancing around it. It’s mostly women reaching out for the food. Many of them have smiling faces, but some are standing at a distance looking on with distrust. Most are curious. People say “gracias.” Some even go so far as to say, “gracias, compañeros,” “Can I have another one? I have a big family,” “Did you really steal this?”

A pregnant woman takes a bottle of oil from Mariana. “What a godsend, you have no idea!” Mariana grins at her, then looks at Pablo, who’s standing with a bag of flour hanging from one hand, beaming.

The truck gives up its cargo in this fashion as the party goes on around them. A voice shouts from the megaphone, and Pablo and Mariana discover for the first time that they want to be together.

III

They’ve just parked the truck on an almost empty suburban street, next to a vacant lot. Pablo and Mariana jump out and run a couple of yards down a side street. It’s winter and gets dark early. The light is already fading.

IV

Night falls. On a narrow suburban side street, a modest well-kept house is surrounded by bare land. Visible behind the softly lighted window are the outlines of people moving about. A family is getting ready to eat. The mother is arranging a tray, assisted by her daughter. The father, who’s just come home from the factory, is watching the news on TV. The son puts away his notebooks so his mother and sister can set the table. No one’s looking out the window at the yard that the father tends to on weekends, or the small vegetable patch, the two tire swings he made for the children, the vacant lot full of tall weeds that extends beyond the barbed wire fence. There, somewhere in the weeds, at a safe enough distance, the sound of muffled moans can be heard, then a brief gasp of pain, sighs, then giggles. It’s there, on the cold ground surrounded by tall grass and bushes, where Pablo and Mariana are now lying still. Pablo slowly detaches himself and covers her with his jacket.

Mariana is radiant. “First job. First time. I guess you can call it a double baptism,” she says. It’s night now, and though the stars are sparse in the sky, a brilliant orange moon is rising from behind the low houses.

Thursday, September 30, 1976.

Mothers and Fathers

I

Rodolfo Walsh, head of Communications and Intelligence for Montoneros and the founder of ANCLA, the Clandestine News Agency, is sitting in an armchair in his living room, stony-faced behind his glasses. He’s past fifty now, no longer the young father of a newborn baby girl—but the light in his myopic blue eyes still shines as it did in his youth. He’s staring at Pablo and Mariana, the couple sitting across from him on the sofa. Rodolfo’s attractive thirty-something wife, Lila, is sitting in another armchair. Four years have gone by since Pablo and Mariana’s first operation together. They’re in their mid-twenties now and seem anxious about something. Pablo raises his voice to make himself heard above the radio. “We’ve got something to tell you,” he says.

But Mariana can’t stand all the preliminaries and jumps right in: “I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Lila springs from her chair to give her a hug.

Walsh also stands up to congratulate them. Amid all the hugging, Mariana abruptly grows serious, says, “You should’ve heard the earful my old lady gave me. She says I’m crazy.” Her words fall on silence. The four of them stand there, looking at each other.

“Mariana and I’ve thought about it a lot,” Pablo says. “We want to keep the baby.”

“And there’s always my sister,” Mariana says. “She’ll take care of the baby if anything happens to us. And my old lady’s not going anywhere, either. Trust me, I know her. And then there’re Pablo’s parents—”

“We want to keep it,” Pablo repeats. He brushes his hand along Mariana’s shoulder.

“You only get one life, right?” Lila says, agreeing with Pablo.

Just at that moment, they hear the familiar sound of the Radio Colonia jingle. From across the river in Uruguay, Ariel Delgado announces all the news that’s prohibited by the Argentine military government. Some of Delgado’s information reaches him in mysterious white envelopes with no return address, and comes in the form of photocopies on letterhead paper. The heading says, next to a picture of a small anchor, “ANCLA, Clandestine News Agency.” And it is precisely these four people gathered around this living room that constitute the entirety of this agency, along with the ancient Remington typewriter sitting on the desk in the corner, and a network of volunteers who don’t officially belong to the organization—in some cases they’re not even members, just sympathizers, and they don’t know each other. All they know is who they get their information from, and who they pass it on to.

Walsh shushes everyone and hurriedly presses the record and play buttons, written in English on the radio recorder. The time is 12:30 AM. Radio broadcasting in Río de la Plata is synonymous with Ariel Delgado’s unmistakable voice: “And now for today’s disssssspatchchch: Buenos Aires. A prolonged and violent armed confrontation … ”

Pablo, Mariana, Lila and Rodolfo rush back to their seats. Mariana picks up a pen and notebook, ready to take down the information.

“ … took place yesterday morning in Villa Luro, as the Argentine Army surrounded a house located on the corner of Corro and Yerbal.”

Pablo unfolds a marked-up map of Buenos Aires and looks for Villa Luro. Lila gapes at the radio recorder expectantly. Walsh rests his elbows on his knees and holds his head, keenly focused on each word.

“Approximately 150 men armed with rifles, a light tank and a helicopter opened fire on the house. Although there was no official word on the operation, unidentified witnesses confirmed that five people inside the house responded to the attack, including four men and one woman, presumably members of the Montoneros Organization.”

At “four men and one woman,” Walsh raises his head a little. His eyes show fear behind his glasses.

“After a prolonged and unequal battle, security forces apparently shot dead the alleged guerrillas.”

Lila stands up, then goes and sits down on the arm of Rodolfo’s chair. She rests her hand on his shoulder. Pablo and Mariana are still concentrating on the radio, their eyes on the map and notebook.

“Nevertheless, one eyewitness expressed doubt as to the woman’s fate, claiming that she continued to return fire up until the last minute, and that she appeared to have been taken prisoner alive. Other witnesses insisted that five lifeless bodies were loaded onto the Army truck.”

Walsh is staring at the speakers, his fingers interlaced tightly. Since his hands are resting on his knees, no one can be sure whether or not he’s praying.

“Although the Army did not release the identities of the five militants, reports suggest that the names of the men were Beltrán, Coronel, Molina and Salame. As for the woman, it was María Victoria Walsh … ”

Lila covers her mouth. Walsh closes his eyes and begins making the sign of the cross over and over.

“ … the daughter of Argentine writer and journalist Rodolfo Walsh. Come back for more informashshshshun!”

“Vicki,” whispers Walsh.

Mariana takes Pablo’s hand.

“Meeting adjourned,” says Rodolfo as he clicks off the radio.

II

There is a radio recorder in retired Colonel Carlos E. König’s luxury apartment that’s the same brand as the one in Walsh’s house—and Ariel Delgado is giving his signature sign-off: “Come back for more informashshshshun!” The clock says 12:33 AM, but this time, the hand that switches it off is large, aged, hairy.

König is pushing sixty. There’s a solid oak bed set and a crucifix in his master bedroom, and that’s where he’s lying down now. Upscale fragrances, powder puffs and compacts, and two embossed-leather jewelry cases in front of the vanity mirror mark his wife’s territory—she’s sleeping soundly at his side. A Silvina Bullrich novel lies on the nightstand next to her. On her husband’s side are three stacked books: Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Tattoo, and John Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

König can’t sleep. He’s just finished listening to the radio and looks preoccupied. He puts on his slippers, then his robe, and leaves the bedroom. He’s a thickset, beefy man, and though he holds his back straight, there’s something heavy about his movements, as if he is being drained of vitality.

He walks the length of the hallway, towards the living room illuminated by a flickering Coca-Cola sign. The lights from outside encroach through the large picture windows into his pricey Buenos Aires high-rise apartment.

III

It’s the middle of the night on a residential street. Rodolfo Walsh leaves his house and heads to a nearby bar located at the last stop of one of the city bus lines. At this hour, it’s full of regulars: cabbies and bus drivers.

Since the payphone is all the way in back—right before the staircase to the basement, next to the storage room and the filthy bathrooms—there is a certain measure of privacy. Walsh deposits a token. He’s rattled, but trying hard not to let it show. He dials a number from memory.

In a downtown apartment, the phone rings. A woman about forty-five years old, half-asleep in bed, reaches out blindly for the phone on the nightstand. “Hello.” She too was once a young mother. But the passage of time shows more on her face than his.

“Marta, it’s me.”

“What happened to Vicki!” This wasn’t a question, but a cry of certainty and hopelessness.

“Radio Colonia said there was a confrontation with the Army, and they gave her name as a possible victim.” Rodolfo is whispering because he doesn’t want to be heard, but perhaps he also can’t bring himself to speak any louder.

“What happened to Vicki?” Marta says, still confused.

“The radio gave her name as a possible victim in a—”

“What happened to Vicki! Please, Rodolfo, just tell me what happened!”

He takes a deep breath and says, his voice gravelly, “They killed her, Marta! I think they killed her!” His voice is louder now, but he doesn’t shout. Because he can’t.

Marta is speechless. What she has just heard is slowly registering. On the other end of the line, Walsh isn’t moving a muscle. He’s falling apart. Since she says nothing, he decides to speak. “Marta, listen to me. It’s still unconfirmed. I want you to go to—”

“Shut up.”

“Just, listen—”

She screams, “You killed her, you sonofabitch!” and slams the phone down.

IV

Meanwhile, the thickset man in his living room is sitting in pajamas at the bar, watching the shadows change with the on-and-off glow of the Coca-Cola sign. He stretches to flick on a low lamp next to a glass curio case with precious antiques, his gaze focused on an exquisite eighteenth-century figurine with a broken arm, a small porcelain shepherdess.

König goes over to the bar and pours himself a whisky. He drinks, lost in thought, then turns off the light, leaving the room dark, illuminated alternately by the blinking red and white sign, then only the glint of his ice cubes. During a brief interval of light, he leans toward the display case and opens it. With surprising care his fat hands pick up the shepherdess. He observes it closely, gravely, then sets it back in its place. The man has grown bulky, but cannot yet be called elderly. The ice tinkles on its way down to his mouth. He draws his eyebrows together as he savors his drink, brooding darkly. Alone, inescapably alone, in his enormous, empty living room.

V

The sunlight backlighting her, the haze, the silhouette of a beautiful woman. She seems to be standing somewhere high up, but in the dream it’s unclear why. Is she up on a roof? Is she standing on some hilltop? Her mop of short dark hair contrasts with the flowing white dress running the length of her body. She is not wearing anything beneath the dress, and the subtle outline of her breasts is visible through the cloth. She’s barefoot. Though the vision is a blur, he can almost see her large and youthful black eyes, fixed on some point in front of her. There’s something terrible, something definitive in her gaze. Swaying gently, rhythmically, toes to heels, the girl raises her unbent right arm. Two dark doves take flight from her fingertips with a violent sound, a savage sound, and as they do so, the woman arches her back sharply, laughing like a teenage girl, eyes looking up, her face to the sun, laughing.

Superimposed over the sound of her laughter is another laugh that will soon drown it out. This second laugh is also youthful, but it is more level, a young man’s laugh. He’s laughing in a dream, this very young soldier, and his head is slightly raised, as if looking at the girl looking at the sky. But the soldier’s laugh is not simple and carefree. There is feeling in it, a tenderness. Perhaps he’s laughing and crying, at the point of awakening from so much laughter at this early hour, on the bottom bunk, surrounded by other bunkbeds, in the barracks with the other recruits.

VI

König strides across the street toward Café La Paz, on Corrientes and Montevideo. His insomnia has kept him up until all hours, but he woke up bright and early anyway, although he had to wait before putting into effect the plan he’d sketched out at dawn. As he’s walking up to the pool room on the second floor, he thinks it’s probably going to be empty and he’s wasting his time. The clock says eleven. A young guy practicing alone, with his back to him, is bent over the table with his cue. A couple of retirees are playing chess nearby. König heads their way. “Morning, fellas. Pardon the interruption, do you two come here often?”

The men eye him somewhat distrustfully. One of them stops the clock. “I suppose you could say that,” he answers vaguely. “Why?”

“I’m looking for a friend who used to play chess here, Rodolfo Walsh. I’d like to leave him a message. You know if he comes around here much?”

At the mention of Rodolfo’s name, the youngster playing pool turns ever so slightly, in a careful and controlled fashion. König doesn’t notice because he has his back to him. Neither do the chess players. One of them shakes his head, but it seems to ring a bell for the other one. “Rodolfo—the journalist, right? Nope, we haven’t seen him around here in a looong time! He used to come by at night, but that had to be about two years ago. Nah, he doesn’t come in here anymore—”

“Well, bad luck, I guess. Thanks anyway.”

König heads towards the stairs. The pool player’s eyes follow him out. It’s Pablo. Abruptly, König turns around, as if he could sense someone was watching. Pablo averts his gaze immediately and pretends to be concentrating on his next move as König walks back over to the chess players, takes out a card, leans on the table to write something, and says in a voice that’s almost too loud, “Look, just in case, if you happen to see him, would you give him this card for me? Tell him it’s from an old buddy.”

“Okay, but I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“Well, if not, just throw it away and don’t worry about it.” The colonel marches out of the room, and the old men resume their game. They’re not very much interested in the matter. But Pablo is. He’s turned around, and now he seems to be watching them play. Although if you were to really look at his eyes, you’d see that’s not what he’s doing. There’s the card, resting quietly on the edge of the table.

VII

A few hours later the telephone rings in König’s apartment.

“I heard you were looking for me. Something about a broken two-hundred-year-old doll. A shepherdess. Derby porcelain.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“Yes, I’ve been looking for you,” the colonel confirms. “Can you come by?”

“What for?”

“I can find the missing arm. Well, maybe.”

“Not sure if I have the time right now, Colonel—”

“Just listen to me, man, don’t be so thick. I can help. You of all people should know the value of the shepherdess, it’s priceless.”

Silence on the other end of the line. Then a clipped sigh. “Fine. I’ll meet you sometime between three and four, on Florida Street between Rivadavia and San Martín Plaza. You just walk around. I’ll find you.”

VIII

There’s a crowd on Florida Street. It’s banking hours, and everyone’s still at work. Rodolfo Walsh catches up with König, and they walk side by side.

“Took you long enough. I was starting to lose my patience,” says König.

“You’re the one who wanted to see me.”

“I was only thinking about your daughter. I mean, I was wondering if it was really your daughter … My sincere condolences, Walsh, really, I mean it.”

For a brief moment, Rodolfo’s face contorts violently as if something got in his eyes and was burning acutely, as if an insect had suddenly flown into his face. It only lasts a second, then he shakes his head, and his face once again goes blank, hard. “So you’re saying she’s dead,” he says.

“I think so. But don’t misunderstand me, I hope she’s dead. You and I both know why. But—the truth is I have no idea if she’s dead or alive. These days, not even I know what’s going on.”

Walsh doesn’t respond. They walk in silence.

“Listen, man,” König says all of a sudden, “Why don’t you come over to my place? It’s the most secure spot I can think of. I’ve got some good whisky, too. How about a truce? Look—I’m raising the white flag, you’ve got my word of honor. We’ll just talk. And as soon as we’re done talking, we can be enemies again.”

Walsh hesitates.

“Word of honor, Walsh,” König says without guile.

Walsh stops walking and turns to him, staring hard. The colonel holds his gaze and smiles sadly.

IX

It’s early evening, but the light’s still good. From the tenth-floor picture window, the river has a silver cast, and the horizon is exceptionally crisp.

Swaying on his feet, Walsh browses through the dignified antique bookcase that commands the living room. He can’t help but smile when he sees a first edition of Worldly Offices, whose author is Rodolfo Walsh. He leafs through pensively and stops at one of the stories.

The Colonel compliments me on my punctuality:

“You’re a punctual man, like the Germans,” he says.

“Or the English.”

The Colonel has a German surname.

He is a corpulent, graying man, with a broad, tanned face.

“I’ve read your work,” he advances. “I congratulate you.”[1]

As he serves two generous shots of whisky, he informs me, casually, that he worked in intelligence for twenty years, that he studied humanities, that he takes an interest in art. He doesn’t dwell on anything, he simply establishes the terrain on which we can operate, a vague zone of common ground.

​From the picture window of his tenth-floor apartment you can see the twilit city, the pallid lights of the river. From here it is easy, if only for a moment, to love Buenos Aires. But it is not any conceivable form of love that has brought us together.[1]

“Has it really been fifteen years?” König asks with a smile, pointing to the book.

“I believe it has been. But I have to say, I’m a little confused why you never got angry over this.”

“Why would I get angry? It’s literature, Walsh. I know a good book when I see one. And I don’t like all the obvious stuff … Pfft, no respect—you’re just like my daughter.”

“Colonel—why did you bring me here? Don’t waste my time.”

The colonel finishes pouring the two glasses of whisky. “Don’t be so cynical, man, not everyone’s out to get you. How about a little patience?”

On the side table there’s a framed picture of a pretty twenty-something woman. She’s wearing an Indian tunic over tattered jeans. Her hair is long and shaggy and she’s smiling defiantly at the ostentatious furniture, the antiques, and the expensive paintings adorning the living room walls. Walsh picks up the photo.

“My daughter. The useful idiot,” König sighs. “She’s studying anthropology, right? Then she goes to that protest this year over the entrance exam. Now here’s what I want to know. If she’s already in, why would she go and do something like that?”

Walsh doesn’t answer.

“Treats me like I’m some kind of mangy dog. Been this way for years. She moved out of the house—still comes back and visits her mother sometimes, though. If she only knew you were here with me—and risking my life!”

Once again Walsh can’t help but smile. He’s beginning to understand. “Your daughter sounds like a pretty interesting character. But I never met her, so if that’s why you brought me here, I tell you, there’s no need to worry. She must be very low in the organization, I mean, if she’s even a member at all. An officer’s daughter would be good to have around—I’d know.”

“Well, I hope so, I really do. How old is … was … your daughter?”

“Twenty-six. Yesterday was her birthday, actually.”

“Mine’s twenty-three. A woman now. I know what you’re thinking—why worry? But I’ll tell you what, Walsh, she’s a damn fool! She’s got that bug they have nowadays, and fools like her seem to think no one ever heard the word injustice before they came along, and they think they can just—”

As the colonel’s hands flail, Walsh remembers how wired he himself had been fifteen years ago, when he was trying to find Evita’s body, and the colonel had had it hidden right here in this living room after Perón was overthrown, and then the new military government buried her under a false name in some forgotten cemetery in Italy. But it makes no difference to Walsh that this man, who’s now grown old, is still as cocky and ridiculous as ever.

“Colonel,” he interrupts, “I need to know what happened to Vicki. What do you know?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, so what exactly did you mean when you said you could help me?”

“I don’t know. I suspect not very much. I can try to make inquiries. I will do that, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Why?” Walsh steps closer and looks him in the eyes.

“Well, you know, I’m retired. I mean, those guys put me out to pasture in ‘56. Been a while since I’ve been on the inside, but I’ve still got my connections, and they trust me. Anyway, things change. A lot of these groups—the head doesn’t know what the tail is doing. There’s the Navy—”

“No, Colonel. I know all that. I’m asking why.”

The ex-colonel finishes his whisky and refills the two glasses, smiling. “You wrote a story. I read it when it came out in that filthy rag of yours. There was only one good thing in that entire paper, one precious jewel in the midst of all that political crap. That story. I read it. Then I bought the book—the one you just saw on the shelf there.”

“That was just a story, Colonel. Let’s not make too much out of it.”

“I was there. I was there. And you know it. And that corpse was there. Oh, hell, no, she wasn’t. Listen to me. I held back the facts on you that time. Now the facts are useless because it’s all public knowledge. The facts, I had them, and I kept them from you. But I also showed you a side of me that not everyone gets to see—only people who’ve read that story. I showed you I wasn’t just any old sonofabitch. I showed you that I did what I thought was right. And you let me talk. I mean, in the story, you vindicated me in that story, Walsh. You understood me—”

“It was a story, Colonel. Yeah, we talked—but that was just a story, and I didn’t vindicate you. And we’re not friends.”

“Listen. Look at it this way. I studied literature. Well, philosophy, but I took literature classes. That was my favorite subject, actually—that and art history. Look, I’m a military man, but I signed up for philosophy after high school. Let’s just say I was an officer with an intellectual side, okay. A rare bird.”

The officer looks at the guerrilla. He expects him to say something, to make some sign, but Rodolfo is staring at the wall.

“Did you know that Hugo Ezequiel Anchorena is a fan of yours? He talks about your detective stories.”

“Is that right? Well, those stories are a bunch of crap! That’s why Anchorena likes them. You know what else? That sonofabitch’s a piece of crap himself!”

The colonel shrugs his shoulders. “Well, I think they’re brilliant. Perfect, actually. Little gems.”

“Colonel,” Walsh says, articulating his words slowly, “I shit on little gems if they ignore the dispossessed.”

“Man, that’s heavy. Well, it’s a good thing you already wrote them then. Anyway, look, this discussion is going nowhere, all right? Whether you like it or not, the man who runs the Navy’s newspaper likes your detective stories. And whether you like it or not, you wrote that story about me. This business about your daughter, it’s a done deal, okay? I’m going to do my best and try to figure out what happened.”

At these words Walsh’s anger finally dissipates. He finishes off his whisky. He gets up and shakes the colonel’s hand. He’s conscious of the fact that what he is about to say is his roundabout way of saying thank you. “Since you’re a literary guy, isn’t it funny how we’re getting together again because of a woman, whereabouts unknown.”

“Life imitates art.”

“Yeah,” Walsh replies gruffly, “and my daughter had to be the one to prove it. Well, Colonel, thanks, I appreciate the help.”

“Don’t mention it. I owed you one.”

Walsh knows he should probably go, but something’s still eating at him. “Look, I’ve got to tell you something. And you might not want to help me anymore once you hear it. But it’s the truth. About what you were saying before—”

“Uh-huh—”

“I think you’re a sonofabitch. I think everyone on your side’s a sonofabitch. And since you’re on the side—”