Holy City by Guillermo Orsi Page A

shouting in Spanish.
    With this couple—a man and a woman in their sixties who both have very blond hair—now being asked to get out of the car at gunpoint, that makes six passengers from the
Queen of Storms
, staying in three different hotels, who have been abducted. So far no reports, no official complaints have surfaced in the media. Nothing to disturb the tourists grounded in Buenos Aires. Not so much as a rumor. The three kidnappings were clean, lightning operations carried out by professionals. All of them took place almost simultaneously, in the street and far from their respective hotels, while the victims were walking along without a care in the world, but separated from the rest of the herd.
    â€œThe Babel of a city you see before you is best enjoyed if you walk around it without following any fixed route, wandering as you please,” each couple was informed by one of the guides from the ship, the one who often gets given books written by his revolutionary lookalike, or T-shirts with his image printed on them. “You’ll always come across a local who will be happy to help and direct you if you are lost,” Pacogoya told them by way of encouragement. “We Argentines are very friendly toward all foreigners, provided they don’t come from Bolivia.”
    Only the capture of the drugs baron Osmar Arredri and his beautiful girlfriend Sirena Mondragón appears to have aroused the interest of the charlatans in the press, if not the police. The latter are well aware that the Colombian drugs-mafia boss’s kidnappers come from within their own ranks. The credentials they showed to get into the hotel were real. Worst of all, and what most infuriates Deputy Inspector Walter Carroza of the serious-crime squad in the federal police, is that he is sure several of those involved work in his own office at headquarters. Possibly they even sit very close to him and smoke his cigarettes while they are writing their reports.
    â€œLet’s meet and talk of old times,” Walter Carroza tells Verónica. She called him when she saw his ungainly figure on television. As ever when facing the press, he made declarations he did not want to make and, like most of his colleagues, resorted to phrases such as “no comment while the investigations are ongoing,” investigations which are always “about to be brought to a successful conclusion.”
    They meet in a bar on calle Alsina. At midday it is full of office workers having lunch, but by this time of evening it has taken on the charm of a refuge. Only a few of these secret hiding places are left in Buenos Aires and this one only stays open since its owner stubbornly refuses to close earlier because, he says, “I like watching couples kissing and cuddling at nightfall over a cup of coffee.” The couples who give pleasure to this immigrant from Ourense in Galicia, who has been living in Argentina for forty years, are penniless adulterers, office workersand shop assistants whose only opportunity to meet, talk of love and play at being happy comes at this time of day, and in hidden corners like this one.
    â€œYou know I can’t talk in the department. All our phones are tapped by the intelligence services, no matter what our rank is or what case we’re on,” says Walter, lighting up a cigarette that the bar owner lets him smoke so long as he keeps it hidden under the table. Verónica did not want to see him for old time’s sake. She is more interested in passing on the information she received the previous night when she went round the market with Chucho. “You should never have accepted that job, Verónica, it’s too dangerous.”
    â€œYeah, I could be killed, I know. So what? Every time I open my front door I tell myself: here comes some animal who’s going to beat me up or stab me so he can get his hands on fifty bucks to feed his habit.”
    â€œThoughts like that can become