The night will be long, p.17
The Night Will Be Long, page 17
Jutsiñamuy looked at Laiseca, giving him an order with a glance that his officer understood immediately. Laiseca took a couple of steps forward into the middle of the room and said, “Are you familiar with a restaurant in Jamundí called the Jamundí Inn?”
This time the woman looked surprised. “Of course. We’ve taken the kids there for the day, maybe three times. They’ve got a pool.”
The questioning clearly made her uncomfortable.
“Did it seem like somewhere expensive?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“Kind of,” the woman said, “but I didn’t know anything about Óscar’s money situation, how much he had. After all the trouble he got into in the army, I tried not to think about that. If there was money, great, and if not, same difference. He was an extravagant guy, and sometimes even when he was broke he’d give us presents, buy expensive things. A real spendthrift.”
“But when you went to the Jamundí Inn, did you feel comfortable there?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“No, sir. But I never felt comfortable anywhere.”
He felt bad for keeping up the pressure, but sometimes people under pressure remembered things they thought they didn’t know. “Never?” he asked. “What was that like? Talk to me about that.”
The woman looked around, visibly uneasy. Realizing what was going on, the prosecutor apologized to the rest of the family, offered the widow his hand, and said, “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”
The father stood up immediately. “No need, sir. You all stay here and we’ll leave.” He herded the family out a side door.
Jutsiñamuy continued. “All right, now tell me, ma’am . . . Ángela?”
“Yes, Ángela Suárez Medina.”
“Nice to meet you.”
She stroked her cheeks with her fingertips and said, “What I wanted to say, sir, is Óscar had another woman. That’s why I didn’t want to talk in front of the kids. All that secrecy on the phone was partly because he didn’t like us knowing about his work, sure, but it was mostly because of this woman. They’d been together about two years. When we’d go to the Jamundí Inn, he’d hide from the waiters so they wouldn’t say hello to him—I noticed it. He’d make faces and shake his finger no at them. But they all knew him because he used to go there with that tramp. Her name is Luz Dary Patiño. She works at Almacenes Sí, in the school uniform department. Can you guess how they met?”
“I assume he was buying uniforms for the kids,” Jutsiñamuy said, gesturing to Laiseca to take note: name and place.
“Exactly,” the widow said. “Can you imagine? A young girl, and not even that pretty, actually. I don’t know what she gets out of taking up with a married man who’s got kids. Not even money, because what money? He was broke.”
She was silent a moment.
“When Óscar disappeared I thought he was with his hussy, so I didn’t worry about it. Just between the two of us, sir, I’ll tell you Óscar and I hadn’t done anything for at least two years. I was even sleeping in the kids’ room. Lots of times when he was away for a while it wasn’t because he was working—he was away with her on a trip. I knew. I’d call to ask for her at the department store, and they’d tell me she was on vacation or out sick. Always. Sometimes he’d come back with a tan, and I’d ask, Oh, did you go to the beach? And he’d say, Yes, we had to provide security for somebody in Coveñas. A couple days later I’d be at Almacenes Sí and see that tramp across the floor, her brown as a nut too.”
A phone rang in a nearby house. Instinctively, Laiseca touched his jacket pocket.
“This time, since he’d been gone more than two weeks,” the woman continued, “I went to Almacenes Sí, but there she was, standing all snooty behind the register. I wanted to go up and ask, but in the end I didn’t. I thought it must be true that he was working, and look. Turns out he was dead. Go talk to her, sir. She’ll know more about the bastard than I do.”
With that, the prosecutor saw that the visit was over. He got up, and they went to the door. “Give my thanks to your family,” Jutsiñamuy said. “And if you remember anything important, please call.” He handed her his card.
He was almost out the door when he suddenly turned back. “Sorry, ma’am, one last thing. Does the phrase ‘We are healed’ mean anything to you? Written on an open hand?”
She thought a moment and said no, no. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Why?”
“One of your husband’s tattoos, on his left side, under his nipple.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. He liked covering himself in those tattoos—things for soldiers and losers. I don’t remember that one in particular.”
Jutsiñamuy met her gaze. “You told me you two hadn’t had anything for at least two years,” he said quietly.
“Yes, but I saw him shower and dry himself off by the window every day.”
“I see.”
“Go ask that other woman,” the widow said. “Maybe she saw it.”
Jutsiñamuy tapped his lips with his index finger. “Another thing, Doña Ángela—what about the name Mr. F? Did you ever hear it?”
“No, sir, what’s that? It sounds like the name of a gym.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, ma’am, to figure out what happened to your husband. What about the name Fabinho Henriquez?”
“No, like I said, I never knew anything about his work.”
Johana and Julieta ate breakfast early, at about seven, beside a large picture window that looked out on the abandoned mansion that had once belonged to the illustrious nineteenth-century writer Jorge Isaacs, with a rusty sign announcing a shopping center that was never built.
The menu was a huge buffet with fresh orange and mango juice, sliced fruit, cheese, cereals, and scrambled eggs with onion and tomato. Plus a selection of arepas, cassava cheese bread, and croissants. Julieta was tempted to spend the whole morning there, but she was feeling restless. She glanced at her watch every two minutes, picked up her coffee cup, turned it in her hands, and put it back down without drinking.
Her appointment with the pastor was at nine thirty at the InterContinental Hotel.
“Do you want me to go with you, boss?” Johana offered.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Julieta said. “Let’s go together, and we’ll see once we get there. I’m a little nervous.”
“I can tell. Don’t worry. The InterContinental is really close by.”
Julieta pulled out her notebook.
“All right, Johana, let’s go over it again. Why the hell did I ask for an appointment?” She answered her own question. “To see his reaction when I ask him about two things: one, the gunfight in San Andrés de Pisimbalá, and two, the kid. Other things will come up from there. Oh, and the guy on the motorcycle who’s been following us.”
Johana watched her write it down and said, “Ask him about his life too: how he started, that sort of thing. He probably likes talking about himself, and it’ll earn his trust.”
“Don’t worry about the how—I’ve got a handle on that,” Julieta said. “Men are so vain, you always ask them how they got where they are. They love that.”
“So why are you so nervous?” Johana asked.
“The way he looks at me, I don’t know. It’s unnerving,” Julieta said, irritated.
“Maybe it’s best if you’re not alone.”
“We’ll see when we get there. If he’s alone, I’ll go in on my own.”
“When you ask about the gunfight,” Johana said, “he’s obviously going to deny it.”
“I want to see his reaction and let him know that we know,” Julieta said.
They drank a third round of coffee, then a fourth. What time was it? Almost nine. They went up to brush their teeth. At 9:27 they were in the InterContinental’s vast lobby. A young man was behind the reception desk.
“We have an appointment with the pastor from New Jerusalem Church,” Julieta said.
“Yes, of course.” The receptionist studied a schedule. “Ms. Julieta . . . Lezama?”
“That’s me,” Julieta said, and gestured to Johana. “This is my assistant.”
“Follow me,” the receptionist said. “He’s in the Belalcázar Suite, but you’ll need to go through a brief security check first.”
“Of course.”
They went up to the second floor, where they proceeded down a corridor to an X-ray machine similar to the ones you see in airports.
“Could I have your bag? Do you have a laptop? Cell phone?”
They put everything in the trays. Julieta walked through the metal detector, which beeped. A young, muscular, good-looking guard came over with a hand-held wand. Julieta met his eyes.
“Raise your arms, miss,” he said. “Great. Now turn around.”
“You want me to turn around?” she said jokingly. “Without offering me a drink first?”
The guard flushed. The other officers laughed.
“Go on.”
They walked down another corridor, this one lined with sets of double doors with the names of conference rooms. Finally they turned onto the last hallway and saw it in front of them: Belalcázar Suite. Three guards were standing by the door. Their bags were searched again. They walked into a room where there were three more people.
A secretary.
“Ms. Julieta Lezama?”
She stepped forward. “That’s me. This is my assistant.”
“Pastor Almayer would like to see you alone, miss.”
“No problem,” Julieta said. “Johana can wait for me here.”
The young woman escorted her to the rear of the room and, with a somewhat theatrical gesture, opened a set of double doors.
When Julieta walked in, the pastor had his back to her.
She was bothered by the room’s dim light and stark atmosphere. He was wearing the same black outfit he’d had on for the service. Outside of that context, it didn’t look like a priest’s clothing. Before she could say anything, she heard the door close.
“Good morning, Julieta,” the pastor said, his back still to her. “Please, come closer.” He spun in his chair. He was holding a book of classical religious paintings, opened to a page in the middle. Rather than getting up or looking at her, he kept studying the images. “It’s incredible what man is capable of when he seeks transcendence, don’t you think?”
Feeling awkward, she looked at the illustrations. She had no idea what to say. At last the pastor looked up at her.
“Would you like some tea?”
“I just had breakfast, thanks.”
The pastor silently turned the page, looked at one more illustration, and closed the book.
“My assistant told me you’re a journalist and showed me some of your articles. I appreciate your interest in me. What did you think of my talk yesterday?”
Julieta met his eyes. He had thick, very black brows.
“Effective and direct,” she said. “Devoid of anything your audience might understand, but very moving.”
The man rested his chin on his hand. “Moving? Effective? Explain what you mean.”
“You moved people, you made them believe in your words,” Julieta said.
“What about you, Julieta? Were you moved?”
“I’m not a believer.”
“You don’t need to believe in something to be moved,” the pastor said.
“In a way you do,” she said. “I can say I was struck by the staging and the way people idolize you. They really believe in you.”
The pastor scratched his chin. “Staging . . . You use tough words. Theater, drama? A performance, fundamentally, is an artifice. All I do is take the words people carry inside them and put them in contact with other words, those of the Bible and those of Jesus. There’s no artifice in that.”
“The Bible, Jesus, his story, his words,” Julieta said. “I get it. But for a nonbeliever like me, it’s all unrealistic.”
“Unrealistic?” the pastor repeated, more surprised than angry. “In what way?”
“It’s an exciting story, full of wisdom and lovely metaphors,” Julieta said, “but as far as believing it’s true . . .”
Pastor Fritz’s eyes widened. There was a strange gleam in them, and Julieta lowered her own.
“Interesting,” he said. “And do you think that what the people feel is an artifice too?”
“Just because they believe it doesn’t make it true . . .”
“Truth is merely our perception of the truth,” the pastor said. “How do you know all of this is real? This room, this hotel?”
“The same way you do,” Julieta said. “But let’s drop the rhetoric and metaphors, pastor. I’m here for another reason that you may be able to . . . intuit.”
Pastor Fritz rubbed his chin. It was clear he was ready for a frontal assault. “I’m listening.”
“There was a shoot-out on a road in Tierradentro, near San Andrés de Pisimbalá,” Julieta said. “Ten days ago. Two SUVs and a black Hummer were attacked with assault weapons, and in the end a helicopter intervened. A man dressed in black and two women got out of the Hummer.”
Not a muscle moved in the pastor’s face.
“Exciting tale,” he said. “What happened next?”
“That’s what I’d like you to tell me,” Julieta said.
“I’m not familiar with the story, sadly.”
Julieta forced herself to meet his eyes again. “You were there.”
“There? You mean . . . ? I don’t understand.”
“You’re the man in black who got out of the Hummer,” she said. “I know that much. What I haven’t been able to find out is who attacked you and why. That’s what I want you to tell me.”
Fritz smiled faintly. Their faces weren’t all that close, but if she’d wanted to touch his, she could have simply reached out her hand.
“I’m touched by your faith, Julieta. Do you really think it was me? Tell me what makes you so certain.”
Julieta thought longingly of a cigarette. She was dying to smoke. She glanced around but didn’t see any ashtrays. It must be prohibited in the entire hotel.
“Is something wrong?” Pastor Fritz asked.
“I’d like to smoke,” she said. “I quit a while back, but I started up again a week ago.”
“Don’t worry,” Pastor Fritz said. “Sigmund Freud quit for thirty years, and then one day he lit one and started smoking again. Know what he said? ‘I couldn’t concentrate.’”
Julieta smiled briefly.
“Let’s go over to the window,” Fritz said. “You can smoke there. I’m a former smoker myself. They won’t give us any trouble.”
With the first drag, she felt her soul being restored. She blew the smoke out into the sweltering air of the city.
“But don’t forget your story,” Fritz said. “You were about to tell me how I’m related to this gunfight.”
“You must be a powerful man, pastor. The police made everything go away and covered it up with a story of an intoxicated driver firing shots into the air.”
Pastor Fritz moved away from the window, paced around the small room, and returned to her.
“The problem with this conversation, Julieta, is that you already knew I’d say it wasn’t me. And yet you came to ask anyway.”
“Of course,” she said. “It’s no surprise that you’d deny it.”
“So why come, then?” Fritz asked.
Julieta realized she wasn’t going to get very far. “I wanted to know who you were. The bit about the orphans at the end of your talk struck me.”
“You want to know who I am?”
Julieta again looked at him steadily. “Yes, that’s what I’m most interested in. Knowing who you are and what kind of person does the things you do. I don’t represent the law or anything. I’m interested in stories, in telling a story that is good, convincing, and true.”
“If you want to know who I am and why I do this, I’ll have to tell you my story,” Pastor Fritz said, smiling. “I don’t know if you’re interested. It’s called ‘The Boy on the Park Bench.’”
“Let’s hear it,” Julieta said, lighting another cigarette.
The pastor went to sit in one of the armchairs in the corner, where it was darker. Maybe to avoid her gaze so he could choose his words better.
“The Boy on the Park Bench,” that was my nickname for a while. It’s a short, simple story. Listen.
The father took the boy to a bench and told him, “Wait for me here, son. I’m going to take care of some business nearby, and I’ll be right back.” The boy sat and watched him walk away, head down some stairs, and go down a side street until he disappeared from view. The boy didn’t dare stand up, so he couldn’t see which building he went into. What is he doing? the boy wondered, swinging his feet. Beside him was the bag his father had left. Curious, he opened it and found a sandwich and an apple.
By noon, he was feeling hungry, so he took out the apple and ate half, leaving the rest for later. At about five, people started coming to the park and the boy got impatient. Every time he saw someone in the distance, he’d think, He’s coming, he’s coming, but he never was.
Soon night fell.
Before dinnertime, the park again filled up with people from the neighborhood. He saw other children playing, but he didn’t dare move from his spot, afraid that his father would come back and fail to find him. A little while later everybody returned to their homes, and the boy was left alone. He took a couple of bites of the sandwich and kept waiting. A breeze picked up, and he felt cold. He put his legs up on the bench and lay down to sleep. He was sure that while he was sleeping his father’s hand would shake him awake, his voice saying, “All right, son, we can go now.”
But he opened his eyes, very early in the morning, and he was still there, alone.
