turns out negative, he’ll try with Lia. He’s afraid a woman won’t turn him on any more. Truth is, at first it was a question of habit, of satisfying his need to stick his flesh into another person’s body, but he’d surprised himself lately fantasizing about the night, about Andres, about his fantastic blow jobs, about his body. He’d also started dreaming about his eyes, and that’s what had him most worried. Once he’s had the test he can deal with the third problem, Duchess, and find out if she has another man. The idea doesn’t make him mad — he’ll understand, he’ll have to understand — but the pain just might kill him. He feels the need to know the truth, and he doesn’t want to hear it from anybody else; he wants to see it with his own eyes. For a few days, he’ll watch her every move. He’ll hide near her house and find out everything. He’ll hide as only he knows how to hide.
He was the champion in his neighbourhood. None of the other kids could ever find him. When they played hide-and-seek it was like he’d been swallowed up by the earth; that’s how he got his nickname, Mole. His natural ability to blend into the landscape, that chameleonic talent he was born with, had served him well his entire criminal career. He had cultivated it and perfected it throughout his life, and many times it had saved him when the police had him surrounded. Very few people know that hiding is a skill that can be honed, that has rules and laws. If you want to hide effectively, the first thing you’ve got to do is ask yourself what your pursuer is looking for. A particular shape, a guy who’s so tall or so short, who weighs so much, has a certain colour hair, is fat or skinny, has a moustache or big ears, is dressed this way or that. Whatever. The pursuer’s eyes will quickly sort through everything they see, selecting anything resembling the image of the person they’re looking for that he has in his head.
Miranda liked to watch documentaries about animals with his son when he was a little boy. Scientists who studied frigate birds observed that the chicks automatically opened their beaks when the mother approached to feed them. They believed this was due to the chicks’ detection of their mother’s shape and colour. So they did an experiment to find out if the chicks would respond to only shape and colour. They made a doll that looked like the bird, they painted it black and placed a circle of red on its chest, just like the adult females. When they saw it, the chicks opened their beaks. The researchers kept simplifying the doll until it was nothing more than a black cardboard triangle with a red mark. The chicks kept responding in the same way. Shape and colour. That’s what they look for, what they recognize. The more urgent and intense the hunt and the more individuals that have to be evaluated, the fewer details get considered, and the image of the individual they’re pursuing gets pared down to a few outstanding features. The quicker and more complex the hunt, the less detailed the image. Mole always knew that, instinctively. As the years passed, and thanks to his observational skills, he elevated the practice of hiding to an art form, the art of completely changing his appearance with clothes, movements, body language. He is an actor who can look eighteen years old or seventy from one minute to the next; he’s the king of disguise. He also has certain innate characteristics that help: he is of average height and weight, and his face lacks any distinguishing features; it’s the face of any man, every man. His hair is straight and manageable, he can style it any way he wants. Only his eyes are distinctive, not because of their average brown colour, but because of the look in them: inquisitive, furtive, focused, intelligent, predatory — like the eyes of a hawk. But eyes can be easily hidden behind glasses, by looking away, by lowering the lids, and by employing that extremely rare ability to lie with them.
Night is falling when he boards the train that will take him to his hideout. The station is packed. The passengers waiting on the platform silently vie for a spot next to the edge and pray that the door will open right in front of them. The train slowly enters the station, blowing its whistle. The crowd, eager to get a seat and afraid of being pushed onto the rails, nervously jostle for position. Miranda stands in the back, neither too far away nor too close. When the train stops, the race to find a seat begins. Those closest to the doors rush headlong into the train; those further away climb in through the open windows. The second row of passengers push the first. In the third row are the old people, the pregnant women, the mothers with small children, the weak, the disabled, those who no longer want to fight. Miranda heads for the freight car. He gets in behind a group of punks dressed up for a party.
2
His chest hurts less this morning. Venancio Ismael Lascano, Perro Lascano, is wondering… Who’s my protector? Who rescued me when I was lying in the street, dying, with a nine-millimetre bullet lodged between my ribs that busted my lung, already destroyed by cigarettes? What’s more, his saviour had made arrangements for him to be taken care of, for medical treatment, and for rehabilitation. He set him up in this house, with a nurse, and two boring, silent guards. How long has it been? He doesn’t know for sure. When he told Ramona that he was sick of being so isolated, she said that was a sign that he was recovering. Then he heard her talking on the phone in the next room, and later she announced the imminent arrival of his benefactor. That’s what he’s waiting for while he’s thinking about Eva. Where could she be, what could have happened to her? He looks out the window. A car drives down the dirt road and past the grove of eucalyptus trees, leaving a dense trail of dust in its wake. The weather has been unusually dry the last few days. The Ford Falcon stops in front of the gate, someone gets out, opens it, waits for the car to drive through, closes it then walks slowly toward the house, a standard-issue police gun bulging under his jacket. The car pulls up next to the worn-out hammock, its back door opens, and lo and behold, who should get out but Chief Inspector Jorge Turcheli, commonly known as “Blue Dollar”, because even the biggest fool in town knows he’s counterfeit.
To Lascano, this is quite a surprise; Turcheli is his antithesis, a corrupt policeman who got rich by making a business out of assigning precincts; cops, after all, have their preferences. The man dresses like a dandy and always looks tanned and fit. As he starts walking toward the house he sees Perro at the window, smiles and waves. Lascano doesn’t respond to either the wave or the smile, he just turns to face the door Turcheli’s about to enter. He thinks how good a cigarette would feel at that moment, but the doctor, who comes to check on him periodically, told him he’s got to kiss cigarettes goodbye, forever. Turcheli opens the door and walks in, smiling like a diplomat.
How’re you feeling? I’m intrigued, Jorge, very intrigued. What cruel doubt assails you? I don’t know, first you hand me over to Giribaldi on a silver platter, then you save my life and hire a bunch of people to protect me and take care of me. A bit difficult to wrap my head around. Hey, I didn’t hand you over to anybody, on the contrary, I placed you face-to-face with Giribaldi to give you a chance to get out of the mess you’d gotten yourself into. Ah, I see I have more than one reason to thank you. You’ve got nothing to thank me for. If you think I’m doing any of this out of the goodness of my heart, you’ve got another thing coming. Tell me something, how did you know where Giribaldi’s men were going to hit me? I didn’t know anything, you just got very lucky. Oh, really? Just when the shootout starts in Tribunales and you hit two of Giribaldi’s men. A squad car gets there and calls an ambulance, because you’re still breathing. Pure chance the guy on dispatch is my nephew, you know him. Who’s your nephew? That Recalde kid. You don’t say. Right then they call me on the radio and tell me you’ve been shot and you’re fading fast. I tell them to take you to the police hospital. I go there and arrange things with the director, a friend of mine, tell him to make sure they take good care of you and put you in a private room. I spread the word that they killed you, and that’s what I tell that dimwit Giribaldi, who swallows it whole and doesn’t even check for bones. And the girl? What girl? Eva, she was with me. Don’t know anything about her. Tell me, if it’s not out of the goodness of your heart, why are you doing this? I’m no use to you. You’re wrong there, Perro, you see, if everyone was like me we’d be totally fucked. The police force is a wonderful business opportunity, but in order for it to stay like that it’s got to be minimally effective, it’s got to be for real. Some of the guys don’t get that, they don’t realize how important that is. They don’t get it that they’ve got to let cops like you do your job. Now, we’ve also got to make sure the likes of you don’t get too powerful and throw a spanner in the works with your ideals. You know how Ford defined an idealist? Sounds like you’re going to tell me. An idealist is a man who helps another man get rich. And the other man, what is he, a cynic? Could be, but let’s not get moralistic. As I was saying, there were those who wanted to get you out of the way, not just Giribaldi and the military, in the police, too. That’s why it’s better for you to stay “dead”, that is, if you don’t want to be for real.
Turcheli stands up, looks out the window, walks over to the door, closes it and returns with a triumphant smile. I’m going to tell you a secret. I’m listening. I’ve bagged the Chief of Police job. How’d you manage that? Last year I joined the sect. What sect? There’s these retreats, see, they’re called Christian Training Courses. All the military bigwigs, they’ve all been to one. It’s like this. Twelve guys get together in a convent for three days. The only thing you can do is read the Bible and pray. You can’t talk to anybody. Every half-hour a priest comes and gives
