City of Knives Read online

"State your business."

  "Federal Police, Homicide Division. I'm here to see Señor Sabino and Señora Courcelles."

  "Display your ID."

  Marta did as she was told. The lenses on both cameras started to move, one zooming in on her face, the other on her ID. Then a long pause.

  "Entry approved. Drive to the house and park in the circle in front. You'll be met by an escort."

  The gate slid open. Marta drove in. The entry procedure, especially the no-nonsense disembodied voice, was closer to what she'd expect at a military base than at a private residence.

  The road, lined with perfectly spaced eucalyptus trees, wound its way up a slope. Though it was early autumn, the mowed meadows on either were still brown from the intense summer heat.

  When she first spotted the house, it struck her as less than grand. But as she drew closer she began to comprehend its subtle beauty. This wasn't a fairy-tale castle like some of the great estancias in the pampas, but a contemporary one-story stone and glass structure that embraced the surrounding land. A perfect house for a perfect modern movie star couple, she thought, whose faces were sufficient to impress. The old cattle ranch millionaires imported castles stone by stone from Europe because they could only impress by showing off their wealth.

  Her escort turned out to be Juanita Courcelles. The actress, smaller than expected, didn't much resemble the super-glamorous figure Marta had seen so often on the screen. She wore no makeup and was dressed very simply in running shoes, black T-shirt and black nylon shorts. But even with a gloss of sweat on her forehead, her beauty was apparent—the high cheekbones and famous large dark almond-shaped eyes that drew one's sympathy no matter what sort of role she played.

  "Hi, I'm Juanita," she said, offering her hand. "I know who you are. We followed your work on Casares. What a treat to meet you in person."

  Marta couldn't help but feel flattered. Not only had Juanita Courcelles gone to the trouble of introducing herself, she was behaving as if Marta were the celebrity instead of the other way around.

  "You caught us playing basketball with our kids. Juan's still at it. Come out back and meet the gang."

  Juanita led her into the house, then through a vast living room toward a wall of sliding glass doors. Even though they were moving fast, Marta caught a glimpse of a large painting by Botero above a couch.

  The doors gave out onto a wide stone terrace with spectacular views of the surrounding land. There was a large rectangular pool and pool house just below, a tennis court on one side, a half basketball court on the other. Here Juan Sabino, in shorts and tank top, sweat marks on chest and back, was running around with four middle-school age kids. Marta had read about these kids, all adopted, each from a different country: a girl from China, another from Mexico, a handsome black boy from the Sudan and a boy of pure Indian extraction from Peru.

  "Lemonade?" Juanita asked.

  Marta stood at the terrace railing watching the action on the court. Everyone looked to be having a good time. Sabino was dribbling, dodging and weaving among his kids, making faces, faking moves, finally shooting, and, when he missed the basket, mock-shaking his fist at the kids as they cheered. Marta would have thought he was grandstanding if he'd shown any awareness she was there. But he seemed totally involved with the children. She couldn't help but smile as their laughter bubbled up from the court.

  This is like a well-staged scene, she thought. Active loving family at play.

  Later, after herding the kids into the pool, Sabino climbed onto the terrace. With his hairy arms, craggy face, flashing eyes and unkept mustache, he certainly wasn't pretty. It was his dashing ultra-masculine manner that caused the fan magazines to dub him "our own Clark Gable." He had a way of squinting when he grinned, and an ironic expression that suggested he knew he was a cad, and, moreover, that he knew women adored him for being one.

  Like Juanita, he spoke of the admiration with which they'd followed Marta's work on Casares. There seemed nothing artificial about him, nothing Marta could identify as insincere. And yet, she reminded herself, she was in the presence of a pair of highly skilled actors famous for their ability to make people like them and sympathize.

  "We know why you're here," Sabino said. He was lying back on a chaise longue, sipping his lemonade through a straw. "It's poor Ivo, isn't it?"

  "How well did you know him?" Marta asked.

  "Pretty well. He was our personal bodyguard for two years. Handled all our security. Lovely guy. The kids adored him. But after a while we realized he wasn't right for us, the kind of lives we lead. Not that he wasn't a total pro. We couldn't fault him. He took the job seriously and performed it well."

  "Which was just the problem," Juanita added.

  "Not sure I understand."

  "We have an informal lifestyle. Yeah, we're well off and well known, but we try not to let that affect our lives. Ivo was too strict about security. He always acted as if we were being stalked, that anyone who approached us was a threat. His attitude frightened fans. As much as we liked him, it wasn't relaxing to have him around. He made everyone too...tense."

  "We finally decided to let him go," Sabino said. "It was, I'm happy to say, a friendly parting of the ways. A bodyguard relationship is pretty intimate. Ivo knew all our flaws and eccentricities. When he left, he could have peddled our little secrets to the tabloids. But he never talked about us to anyone, never sold us out. It was sad around here the day he left. Even sadder this morning when we read he'd been killed. We still haven't told the kids."

  "How did you happen to hire him?"

  "We found him through an agency. He had excellent references. He'd worked presidential security in Yugoslavia. He told us he didn't like what was happening in his country. When his marriage broke up, he decided to move here and start a new life."

  "He said it was here or Australia, didn't he, darling?"

  "I think so. Something like that."

  Marta studied them. Were they lying? There was no way to know. But instinct told her there was something too quick and familiar about the way they'd opened up to her.

  "What did he do after he stopped working for you?" she asked.

  "He started some kind of tourist business, I think," Sabino said. "We really haven't seen him in a year and a half. Not that we didn't want to, you understand. But we're busy people and we couldn't very well see him socially. It would have been embarrassing for him and for us."

  Since the couple had been seen leaving Granic's house, Marta knew that they were lying. Annoyed, she decided to trap them in even more specific lies.

  "Because he knew your family secrets?"

  Sabino gave Marta a sharp look. "Because he'd been an employee. Normally one doesn't socialize with former servants. It's not comfortable."

  "This tourist business he went into you didn't know it was a call girl/ call boy service?"

  Juan and Juanita exchanged a look. "You're serious?"

  Marta nodded. Their performance was faltering now. She was disgusted by them, but decided not to show it.

  "Your old bodyguard became a whoremaster." She deliberately used the vulgar term. "From what we hear, he also organized sex parties at his house. Prominent people were seen coming and going. Politicians, opera singers, people like that. There're rumors he videoed sexual encounters, then used the videos to blackmail participants."

  "That's horrible!" Juanita said.

  "Truly hard to believe," Sabino added.

  "I'm afraid it's true. Where do you suppose he found the money to buy that very nice house?"

  She caught a quick look of complicity between them. But they were too bright to fall into her trap.

  "We never saw his house," Sabino said. He pulled off his shoes and socks. "Excuse me. I'm going to cool off in the pool. Got to keep an eye on the kids."

  He stood, peeled off his shirt exposing the etched muscles of his abdomen. Then he made a running dive into the pool. The kids cheered when he hit the water, then the five of them engaged in a screaming wa
ter fight.

  "I think I upset your husband," Marta said.

  "We didn't know any of this." Juanita paused. "Are you sure that's what Ivo did?"

  "I'm sure," Marta glanced at her watch. "Time for me to go."

  They both stood, then there was an awkward moment between them as if Juanita was going to say something then thought better of it. She insisted on escorting Marta back to her car.

  "Do you come into the city much?" Marta asked as they retraced their way through the house.

  "Not often. When we aren't working on a film, we spend most of our time out here. To break the rhythm, I'll go in one day a week to see friends. We'll meet up at our gym, work out together, have lunch, then I'll drive back. Juan and I rarely go out at night. Unlike a lot of people in our business, we're old-fashioned family types. We like the simple things best." She smiled at Marta. "Do you have kids?"

  "A daughter," Marta said.

  "How old?"

  "Eleven."

  "Great age! Having a child of your own, I'm sure you know what I mean."

  Marta nodded, but didn't reply. Driving back down the road, she thought: Family types! Liars!

  Three days later her investigation was stalled.

  Rolo had discovered that Granic paid two hundred thousand dollars cash for his house and plenty more for its renovation. But his real estate attorney shrugged when asked where Granic obtained the money.

  The two other girls and the boy who worked for Granic's service were not to be found. The same with his domestics. It was as if everyone connected to him was scared, and had either left town or was hiding out.

  Rolo did locate Silvia Santini's apartment, but it was as clean as Granic's: no prints, cell phone, address book or computer. Moreover, there was nothing to suggest Silvia had been killed there. It was as if the cleanup crew in the dark van had cleaned out her place too.

  "Who are these people?" Marta asked.

  "Nobody's talking," Rolo said.

  "Basically all we've got so far is a couple of lying movie stars."

  They were in Marta's car, Marta driving, Rolo by her side, on their way to San Telmo where their kids took tango class together. It had been raining all afternoon, so hard at times that Marta's windshield wipers could barely keep up.

  As she rounded a corner, she was nearly run off the road by a bus.

  Rolo rolled down the window. "Asshole!" he yelled.

  To defuse his anger, Marta flicked on the car radio. There was a program they both liked, Radio La Colifata, in which a deadpan interviewer asked inmates at the Borda Psychiatric Hospital their opinions on current events.

  "...we live in a banana republic," one female inmate was saying. "But where are the bananas. See, that's the great Argentine mystery. The bananas! Where are the bananas?"

  Rolo laughed. "She makes as much sense as the politicians."

  Which was true, Marta thought. At least that was one thing they could laugh about.

  "There're two ways we can handle this," she told him. "Haul everyone's ass down to headquarters, stick them in little putrid interrogation rooms, then intimidate them till someone talks. Or we can find someone who's wavering, appeal to his better instincts, convince him to help us solve a couple of horrible torture-homicides."

  "In Narcotics we always use the first method."

  "I prefer the second," Marta said. "Who do you think's likely to help?"

  Rolo thought about it. "Only one guy, the day concierge at the Royal. He was the hotel link to Granic. Struck me as fairly decent. He gave me the first names of the other call girls and told me about the sex parties. If approached right, he might have more to say."

  "I'll see him in the morning. Meantime, interview Granic's neighbors again. I want to know what other celebrities people saw coming and going from that house. Government types especially. People who can't afford a scandal."

  The tango class, conducted in what had been a furniture showroom, was just finishing when they arrived. Proud parents, they stood watching from the wall as their kids completed the short uninterrupted tanda that traditionally signaled the end of class. When the teachers, a male/female couple, dismissed the children, Marina and Manuel ran to them, eyes bright, faces flushed.

  "Cousin Manuel stepped on my foot," Marina reported.

  "Teacher said Cousin Marina was dancing too sexy," Manuel tattled in turn.

  Everyone laughed, then piled into Marta's car. Marta dropped Rolo and Manuel at their building, then drove Marina home. The rain had stopped by the time she parked in a large puddle on Bartolomé Mitre. She and Marina went into a neighborhood grocery, picked up apples, carrots, potatoes and a pre-roasted chicken for dinner, then walked the three flights to the apartment door. As Marta was turning the key, Marina pointed at the floor. "Look, Mommy. Someone left a package." Marta picked it up. It was a folio size envelope with the words La Incorrupta written in block letters on the front. She opened the door, sent Marina to her room to clean up, took the groceries into the kitchen, then sat down to see what was inside.

  She found five large, extremely lewd, highly graphic color photographs of two attractive women making love. In four of the shots the women's heads were cut off at the frame-line, but in the fifth there was a clear image of Silvia Santini. There was also a small snapshot of a couple in swimsuits sitting on a beach.

  The accompanying note was written in block capitals:

  DEAR LA INCORRUPTA:

  THE ENCLOSED SHOULD INTEREST YOU. THE FIRST WOMAN YOU ALREADY KNOW. HER BODY WAS FOUND FOUR NIGHTS AGO BY THE CEMETERY WALL IN RECOLETA. THE WOMAN IN HER EMBRACE IS GRACIELA VIERA, SPOUSE OF OUR HIGHLY AMBITIOUS FINANCE MINISTER. A SMALL SNAPSHOT FOR VERIFICATION IS ENCLOSED. IT WAS TAKEN LAST MONTH ON THE BEACH AT PUNTA DEL ESTE. WITH THE HOPE YOU WILL FIND THESE DOCUMENTS USEFUL. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

  AN ADMIRER

  If it weren't for the enclosed snapshot, Marta would have regarded this offering as trash. But the beach photo, which showed Viera and his wife in swimsuits, revealed a small tattoo on Señora Viera's right shoulder blade that matched a tattoo on the second woman in the lesbian love-making photos. The tattoo consisted of a small heart pierced by an arrow containing the entwined initials of the Vieras: G and J. Moreover, the background in the large photographs matched Marta's memory of one of the bedrooms at Granic's house.

  That night, after Marina completed her homework and was put to bed, Marta and Leon made love. Then, lying side by side beneath their slowly revolving ceiling fan, Marta showed Leon the pictures.

  "Jesus!" He sat up. "Looks like someone caught Graciela just as she was getting off!" He turned to her. "These are political dynamite."

  "Tell me why?"

  "Because, as the note says, José Viera is ambitious. A lot of people think he's going to make a run for the presidency. He's been positioning himself for months."

  "With the economy like it is, how can the Finance Minister run for President?"

  "He'll claim he's not responsible. He's just part of a caretaker government doing his patriotic duty. He'll say he decided to run because he wasn't allowed to take 'necessary measures.' He'll separate himself soon. you'll see. The campaign'll get nasty. The columnists are predicting we're in for 'the politics of violence.'"

  "But what's his running got to do with his wife? Who cares if she's bisexual or lesbian?"

  "Marta darling, you're such a pure soul!" He kissed her, stroked her cheek. "Presidential politics are about machismo. A thing like this would be ruinous for Viera, especially in the provinces. A Minister of State whose wife is a lesbian—that's bad enough. But involved with a call girl! That tells the world she had to pay to be satisfied. If Viera runs for high office and this gets out, it'll put the worst possible set of horns on him. He'll be a public laughingstock."

  In the morning, wanting to be sure of her ground, she drove over to Granic's house, had the police guard let her in, then checked out the bedrooms.

  As she suspected, the decor of one bedroom matched perfectly with t
he background in the five large photographs. Satisfied that the pictures were taken there, she drove to her office, made a set of color copies of the large photos, then two copies of the beach snapshot, one as received, the other with the Vieras' faces blocked out.

  She walked the originals and the cropped beach photo copy over to Irma Mariani, a photoanalyst in the Scientific Branch. Then she called the Finance Ministry to request a same-day appointment with Hugo Charbonneau, José Viera's confidential assistant and chief of staff.

  When Charbonneau's secretary asked what the proposed meeting would be about, Marta told her it concerned "a highly sensitive matter pertaining to a homicide investigation."

  She could hear the secretary intake her breath. "Very good, Inspector. Señor Charbonneau will see you at four p.m."

  The day concierge at the Hotel Royal was Antonio Beltrán, a short, friendly, balding young man with a pencil-line mustache. He didn't have much to say, just that he knew the call boy who worked for Granic, a kid named "Eduardo," who hung out at a Recoleta dance club called Contramano.

  "How do you know he hangs out there?" Marta asked.

  "I've seen him there quite a few times."

  "You're gay?"

  "Yes."

  "You've danced with him?"

  "Yes."

  "A good dancer?"

  "Wonderful dancer. Far better than me. Which is why I've had only a few opportunities to dance with him. It's a cruel world in the clubs, Señora Inspector."

  "I can imagine," she said. "What was Granic's service called?"

  "He called it 'Las Bellezas'."

  "You told Detective Tejada that Granic held sex parties. Did you attend?"

  "No. But I heard about them."

  "From Eduardo?"

  "Yes."

  "This Eduardo—did he service both men and women?"

  "He was versatile, yes."

  "Eduardo is a pretty common first name. Is that all you can tell me about him?"

  Beltrán closed his eyes, held them closed for several seconds. "He's tall, very lean, very pretty with very beautiful eyes," he said. When he looked again at Marta, he smiled softly. "And no matter who else is in the club, he will always be the best, prettiest boy-dancer on the floor."