Holy City by Guillermo Orsi Page B

premonitions. Try to think positively”
    â€œLook who’s talking!”
    When he laughs, the teeth Deputy Inspector Carroza reveals are 90 percent nicotine and 10 percent tooth enamel. His sharp, angular features look even more gaunt. This is something he cannot or will not change—“my skull has the right to enjoy life too” is his motto.
    Verónica’s informer at the market is a smuggler from Jujuy, an indian who has made a pile but still likes to take a personal interest in his peripatetic business. From the first day, to win the inspector’s favor he has offered to find her a digital camera or a latest model laptop, at a cost equivalent to half a dozen pairs of the knickers the Bolivian women sell.
    â€œHe lives on the quiet there in the Descamisados de América shanty town. He saw them when they were being taken out of a Japanese 4×4 in broad daylight. In twos: a French couple, then a Japanese pair, then two Germans. All of them elderly and all obviously rolling in it.”
    â€œIf he saw them, others must have done so too.”
    Carroza’s thought is both banal and pointless. Both he and Verónica know that nobody in shanty towns talks to the police. Every shack is a silent tomb.
    â€œWhy haven’t there been any reports of the kidnappings?”
    â€œThere have been, but they’ve all been quietly filed away. The minister spoke in person to the police chief. He passed on the order. When people in power have us by the balls, we cops are even more silent than the shanty-town dwellers.”
    Carroza explains that the minister wants everything sorted out quickly before the news gets out. There are big cheeses in the hotel owners’ associations and tourist agencies. In recent years tourism in Argentina has turned into a gold mine: investment funds have poured millions into the hotel business and so have important money launderers, the kind of people who do not take kindly to a bunch of gunmen spitting on their barbecue. Nor does the minister want the enticing prosperity that comes ever closer with each new hotel built (contravening all the city-planning regulations) to be put at risk by any untimely request for information from the opposition, egged on by members of his own party annoyed that the minister did not invite them to the trough.
    Veronica and Carroza agree that the secret cannot be kept much longer. The money to be made from revealing the kidnappings is increasing with every passing hour. The dealers in leaks to the press (most of whom nest inside the Central Police Department) are simply holding their breath, testing the atmosphere, judging how best to do a deal with the media without getting caught out.
    â€œSome colleague or loudmouth from the shanty is going to strike a match in the distillery in the next few hours,” says Carroza.
    â€œTalking of fires, you’re filling this place with smoke. You’ll get the poor Spaniard’s bar closed down.”
    â€œThe fire-brigade chief is a friend of mine,” Carroza reassures her. “Now tell me the real reason you called.”
    â€œRomano,” says Verónica, point blank. “I want to know who killed him.”
    Carroza crushes out the cigarette on the floor. The bones of his skull stand out as if it were Hallowe’en. He leans back in his chair, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
    â€œWhat for, Verónica? Knowing who it was won’t change anything”
    â€œDo you know?”
    She has been asking him this ever since he has known her. Almost from the time, soon after their marriage, that she and Romano invited him to dinner. Before turning up, Carroza went down to the port. Ignoring the tramps in the street, he called in at a bar on the corner of San Martín and Córdoba where the ladies of the night gather, and picked out the one who looked least like a professional whore. After speaking to her for a minute to make sure she did not swallow her