Word of the outrages being perpetrated by a certain Air Force lieutenant in the Talara whorehouse was communicated to the Guardia Civil by one of the whores. Tiger Lily had come to the station to complain that her pimp was beating her up more than usual: “He leaves me so bruised I can’t turn any tricks. So I don’t bring him money and he beats me up again. Explain it to him, Lieutenant Silva. I try, but it’s like beating my head against a brick wall. I just can’t get through.”
Lilly told them that, the night before, the lieutenant had turned up at the whorehouse all alone. He tied one on, drinking pisco as if it were orange juice. He wasn’t drinking to have a good time but to get blind drunk as quickly as possible. When he was drunk, he unzipped his fly and peed on all the whores, pimps, and customers he could reach. Then he jumped up on the bar and did a striptease until the Air Force MPs came and took him away. Liau, the Chinese who owned the place, kept everybody calm: “If somebody socks him, we all get screwed. They close me down and you’re on the street. They always win, remember that.”
Lieutenant Silva didn’t seem to pay too much attention to Tiger Lily’s story. The next day, during lunch in Doña Adriana’s place, someone else told how the pilot had repeated his act of the night before. Only this time he’d supplemented it by breaking bottles, because, as he put it, he just loved to see the little chunks of glass flying through the air. The MPs had again turned up to take him away.
By the third day, Liau himself appeared at the station, sniveling: “Last night he broke his own record. He pulled down his pants and tried to shit on the dance floor. Lieutenant, the guy’s crazy. He only comes to stir up trouble, as if he wanted to get killed. Do something, because if you don’t, someone’s going to do him in. And I don’t want that kind of trouble with the Air Force.”
“Go take it up with Colonel Mindreau. It’s his problem, not mine.”
“I wouldn’t go near Colonel Mindreau for anything in this world. I’m scared shitless of the guy. They say he goes strictly by the book.”
“Well then, you’re screwed, because I have no authority when it comes to the Air Force. If the guy was a civilian, I’d be only too happy to do something for you.”
Liau, flabbergasted, stared at Lituma and the lieutenant. “Are you saying you can’t do anything for me?”
“We’ll pray for you,” said the lieutenant, ushering him out. “Bye-bye, Liau. Say hello to the ladies for me.”
But when Liau had gone, Lieutenant Silva turned to Lituma, who was using his best two fingers to type out the daily report on the ancient office Remington, and whispered, in a voice that sent a chill down Lituma’s spine, “This business about the crazy pilot is hard to figure, don’t you think, Lituma?”
“Yessir, Lieutenant.” He paused a minute, then asked: “What’s so hard to figure, sir?”
“Nobody throws his weight around in the whorehouse like that just for laughs. It’s where all the toughest guys in Talara hang out. And three days in a row. Something smells fishy to me. Don’t you think so?”
“Yessir,” replied Lituma automatically, though he had no idea what Lieutenant Silva was getting at. “What do you think we ought to do?”
“We ought to go have a beer over at Liau’s, Lituma. On the house, of course.”
Liau’s bordello had been chased from one end of Talara to the other by the parish priest. No sooner did Father Domingo catch wind of its reappearance than he demanded the mayor shut it down. A few days later, it would resurface in a shack three or four blocks away. Liau eventually won. His whorehouse was now located on the edge of town in a shed made of boards hammered together any which way. It was primitive and shaky, with a dirt floor Liau kept moist so there would be no dust and a tin roof that rattled in the wind because no one had ever bothered to nail it down. The walls of the rooms in back, where the girls worked, had so many holes that kids and drunks were always peeking in on the couples in bed.
Lieutenant Silva and Lituma slowly walked over to the bordello after seeing a cowboy movie in Mr. Frías’s open-air theater-the screen was the north wall of the parish church, so Father Domingo determined which movies Frías could show.
“At least give me some idea of what you’re thinking, Lieutenant. Why do you think this crazy pilot’s got anything to do with what happened to Palomino Molero?”
“I’m not thinking anything. Look, we haven’t turned up a thing yet in this case, so we’ve got to turn over every stone to see if something’s underneath. I’ll take anything. We can always say that we’re looking over the situation at the whorehouse and investigating the broads. Of course, the girl of my dreams won’t be there.”
“Now he’ll start in on Fatso. What a nut.”
“Last night I showed her my dick,” mused Lieutenant Silva pensively. “When I went out back to piss. She was just bringing water out to her hog. She looked at me and I showed it to her. I held it like this, with both hands. ‘All this is for you, baby. When will you give it what it really needs?’”
He laughed nervously, as he did whenever he talked about Doña Adriana.
“And what did she do, Lieutenant?” He knew that talking to him about Doña Adriana was the best way to tickle his fancy.
“She took off like a shot, of course. Pretended she was mad. But she saw it all right. I just know she was thinking about it. She probably dreamed about it all night. I’ll bet she compared it to Don Matías’s-his must be dead, all skin and no bone. I’ll get to her sooner or later, Lituma. She’ll go down, you’ll see. And when she does, we’re gonna get drunk-and we’ll only drink the very best. I swear.”
“Lieutenant, you’re relentless. Doña Adriana ought to give in, just to reward you for all the time you’ve put in on her case.”
There were few people in the bordello. Liau welcomed them with open arms. “Thanks a lot for coming, Lieutenant. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Come in, come in. Why do you think there are so few people here? Because of that nut, what else? People come here to have fun, not to get insulted or pissed on. Word gets around, and nobody wants trouble with a pilot. It’s not fair, right?”
“He’s not here yet?”
“He usually turns up at about eleven,” said Liau. “He’ll be here, just sit tight.”
He seated them at a table in a dark corner and sent them a couple of beers. A few whores came over to chat, but the lieutenant chased them away. He couldn’t pay them any attention: he was there on men’s business. Tiger Lily thanked Lituma for threatening to throw her pimp in jail unless he stopped beating her up, and kissed him on the ear. “Whenever you want me, just whistle,” she whispered. “He hasn’t slugged me now for three days,” she added.
The pilot showed up at about midnight. Lituma and his boss had already dispatched four beers each by then. Even before Liau signaled them, Lituma, who had taken note of everyone who’d come in, picked him out. Very young, thin, dark, a crew cut. He had on the regulation khaki shirt and trousers but wore no insignia. He came in alone, greeted no one, was indifferent to the effect he caused-nudges, nods, winks, and whispering among the whores and the few customers-and went directly to the bar, where he ordered a shot. Lituma realized his heart was pounding. He didn’t take his eyes off him as the pilot tossed down the pisco and ordered another.
“That’s how it goes every night,” whispered Tiger Lily, who was sitting at the next table with a sailor. “After the third or fourth, the show begins.”
That night, the show began after the fifth or sixth. Lituma kept count, watching the lieutenant through the couples dancing to a transistor radio. The pilot rested his head on his hands and was staring fixedly at the drink he had between his elbows, as if protecting it. He didn’t move. He seemed to be meditating on matters that isolated him from the whores, the pimps, and the whole world. He mechanically raised the glass to his lips. Then he became a statue again.
Between the fifth and sixth drink, Lituma looked away. When he looked back, the pilot was no longer at the bar. Lituma searched for him and found him on the dance floor. He was resolutely striding toward one of the couples: Redhead and a pudgy little fellow wearing a jacket and tie. The fat little man was dancing very carefully, holding on to the whore as if she were a life preserver. The lieutenant grabbed him by the lapel and yanked him out of the way, saying in a voice that everyone in the place could hear: “ ‘Scuse me, but it’s my turn with the young lady.”
The squat body jumped and looked around as if he wanted someone to explain just what the hell was going on and tell him what to do. Lituma saw Liau signal the guy to keep calm. Which is just what he did, shrugging his shoulders. He still looked upset, but went over to where the tarts were sitting and started to dance with Freckles. Meanwhile, the pilot was shaking around exaggeratedly, waving his hands and making faces. But there was no sign in all his clowning that he was having fun. Did he just want people to look at him? No, he wanted to be a pain in the ass, too. All that jumping and shaking gave him an excuse to elbow, shove, and bump anyone in his way. “What a motherfucker,” thought Lituma. “When should they take charge?” But Lieutenant Silva went on smoking calmly, amused as he watched the pilot through puffs of smoke, as if congratulating him on his antics. The patience of those present was immense. The customers bumped by the pilot just got out of his way, smiled, and shrugged, as if to say, “What can you do with a maniac like this?” When the song was over, the pilot went back to the bar and ordered another pisco.
“Know who he is, Lituma?”
“No, you know him?”
“The boyfriend of Colonel Mindreau’s daughter. You heard right I saw them holding hands at the big party on Aviation Day. And Sundays, too, at Mass. ”
“That must be the reason the colonel puts up with all this bullshit. Anyone else he would have thrown in the brig and put on bread and water for discrediting the service.”
“Talk about bullshit, watch this, Lituma.”
The lieutenant had jumped up on the bar with a bottle of pisco in his hand and was standing there as if about to make a speech. He spread his arms wide and shouted, “Watch me empty this, assholes!” He brought the bottle to his lips and took such a big drink that Lituma’s stomach began to burn as he imagined how it must feel to swallow all that hooch at once. The lieutenant’s stomach must have been burning, too, because he made a face and doubled over as if he’d been punched. Liau came over, smiling, saluted, and invited him to get off the counter and stop making an uproar. But the pilot told him to fuck off and said that unless Liau kissed his ass he was going to break every bottle in the place.
Liau stepped back with a resigned expression on his face. He ran over to Lituma and Lieutenant Silva. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
“Wait till he’s a little drunker.”
Now the pilot was daring the pimps and customers to strip, though everyone tried not to look at him and went on dancing, talking, or smoking as if he weren’t there. “What’sa matter? Ashamed someone’s gonna see your balls? Maybe you don’t have any? Maybe they’re so small you ought to be ashamed of them?” He was justifiably proud of his own balls.
“Take a good look and see what a good pair looks like!” he roared. He unbuckled his belt and Lituma saw his khaki trousers slip down, revealing skinny, hairy legs. He watched him try to kick his pants off his feet, but the more he kicked, the more entangled he became. Then he tripped and came down head first from the bar to the dance floor. The bottle in his hand smashed, his body bounced like a sack of potatoes, and the crowd started laughing.
Lieutenant Silva stood up. “Let’s dance, Lituma.”
Lituma followed him across the dance floor. The pilot was on his back with his eyes closed, his legs bare, his trousers twisted around his ankles, and covered with shards of glass. He was gasping. “What a fucking jolt,” thought Lituma. They grabbed him under the arms and stood him up. He started swinging, muttering curses, and drooling all at the same time. They pulled up his pants, buckled his belt, and dragged him out of the bordello. The whores, pimps, and customers applauded, happy to see him go.
“Now what do we do with him, Lieutenant?”
“Let’s take him over to the beach.”
“Lemme go, bastards,” commanded the pilot, making absolutely no attempt to get loose.
“Right away, son,” said the lieutenant in a friendly way. “You just stay calm and don’t get upset.”
They dragged him about a hundred and fifty feet up a sandy path dotted with clumps of dry grass until they came to a sand and pebble beach. They sat him down and then sat down next to him. The neighborhood shacks were dark. The wind carried the music and noise from the bordello out to sea. It smelled of salt and fish, and the groaning tide was like a sleeping potion. Lituma felt like stretching out right there on the sand, covering his face with his cap, and forgetting the whole thing. But he’d come to work, damn it. He was nervous and worried, thinking that this semiconscious body next to him might have some horror to reveal.
“Feeling better, buddy?” Lieutenant Silva sat the pilot up and propped him against his own body, putting his arm around his shoulders, as if they were the best of friends. “Still drunk, or are you getting over it?”
“Who the fuck are you, motherfucker?” His head was resting on the lieutenant’s shoulder, and his aggressive voice was contradicted by his docile, soft body, which he was leaning against Lieutenant Silva as if against a chair back.
“I’m your friend, buddy. You should thank me for getting you out of the whorehouse. If you went on showing off your balls like that, someone might have cut them off. Do you want to end up a capon?”
He shut up because the pilot had begun to gag. He didn’t vomit; but just to be on the safe side, the lieutenant turned the pilot’s head away and bent him forward.
“You must be a faggot,” he gasped, still furious, when he’d stopped choking. “Did you bring me here so I’d fuck you up the ass?”
“No, buddy,” said Lieutenant Silva, laughing. “I brought you here so you could do me a different kind of favor.”
“He’s got a way of getting things out of people,” thought Lituma admiringly.
“And what kind of favor do you want, motherfucker?” He hiccuped and drooled, leaning heavily on Lieutenant Silva’s shoulder as if he were a kitten come to get warm next to mama.
“I want you to tell me what happened to Palomino Molero, buddy.” Lituma almost jumped out of his skin.
The pilot didn’t react. He neither moved nor spoke, and to Lituma it looked almost as if he’d stopped breathing. He remained frozen for quite a while. Lituma looked over at his boss. Would he repeat the question? Did the pilot understand, was he pretending he didn’t?
“Maybe your mother’s cunt can tell you what happened to Palomino Molero,” he whimpered finally, in a voice so low that Lituma had to stretch his neck to hear. He was still nestled up against Lieutenant Silva and seemed to be trembling.
‘My mama doesn’t even know who Palomino Molero is, but you do. Come on, pal, tell me what happened.”
I don’t know anything about Palomino Molero!” the pilot shouted, jumping to his feet. “I don’t know anything, anything at all!”
His voice had cracked and he was shaking from head to foot.
“Of course you know, pal. That’s why you come to get drunk at the whorehouse every night. That’s why you’re half crazy. That’s why you pick fights with the pimps. As if you were tired of living.”
“I don’t know a thing! Nothing about nothing!”
“Tell me about the kid and you’ll feel better,” the lieutenant went on as if petting a sick dog. “I swear you’ll feel better, pal. I know, because I’m a bit of a psychologist. Let me be your confessor. I really mean it. You’ll feel better.”
Lituma was sweating. He felt his shirt sticking to his back, though it was actually quite cool. The breeze raised small waves that broke a few yards offshore with a nerve-racking hiss. “Lituma, what are you scared of?” he thought. “Take it easy.” In his mind he could see the dead singer up there on the rocks. “Now I’m going to find out who killed him.”
“Be a man and tell me. You’ll feel better: And stop crying.”
The pilot had begun to sob like a baby, his face buried in Lieutenant Silva’s shoulder.
“I’m not crving because of what you think. I get drunk because that motherfucker knifed me in the back. He won’t let me see my woman! He’s ordered me not to see her. And she doesn’t even want to see me, the bitch. Can you believe anyone would do that?”
“No, pal, I can’t. The motherfucker who ordered you not to see your girl is Mindreau, right?”
This time, the pilot raised his head from the lieutenant’s shoulder. In the moonlight, Lituma could see his face covered with snot and drool. His pupils were dilated and shiny. He moved his mouth, but no words came out.
“And why did the colonel order you to stay away from his daughter, buddy? What did you do to her? Knock her up?
“Shh-shh! For chrissake, shut up and don’t mention any names. You want to screw me up?”
“Of course I don’t, pal. I’m trying to help you. I got worried seeing you like this, all fucked up, drunk, in trouble. You’ll ruin your career, carrying on like this, do you realize that? Okay, I won’t mention any names, I swear.”
“We were going to get married as soon as my promotion went through next year. The motherfucker made me believe everything was okay, that we’d get engaged during the holidays. He screwed me, see? Did you ever hear of anyone being such a rat in your life, goddamn it?”
He’d moved, and now he was looking at Lituma.
“Never in my life,” stuttered Lituma, confused.
“And who is this asshole? What’s he doing here? Where’d this motherfucker come from?”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s okay, he’s my assistant, a guy you can trust.” Lieutenant Silva calmed him down again. “And don’t worry about Colonel Mindreau, for that matter.”
“Shh-shh. No names, damn it.”
“Right, right, I forgot. Fathers are always put out when their daughters get married. They don’t want to lose them. Just let time pass, he’ll let up and the two of you will get married. Want some advice? Get her pregnant. Then her Old man won’t have any choice. Now tell me about Palomino Molero.”
“Lieutenant Silva is a genius,” thought Lituma.
“Her old man won’t ever let up because he’s not human. He’s got no soul, can’t you see that?” Another choking spell came over him, mixed with drunken hiccups. Litunia figured that by then his boss’s shirt must have been pure slime. “A monster who’s treated me like some damn nigger, get me? Now do you understand why I’m fed up? Do you understand why the only thing I can do is drink till I drop every night?”
“You better believe I understand, buddy. You’re in love and you’re pissed off because you can’t see your woman. But who in his right mind would fall for the daughter of that bully. Come on now, pal, tell me once and for all about Palomino Molero.”
“You think you’re real clever, don’t you?” It was as if he were no longer drunk. Lituma was about to grab him; it looked as if he might try something with Lieutenant Silva. But he didn’t; he was too drunk. He couldn’t sit up straight and fell over again against Lieutenant Silva.
“Come on, buddy, it’ll do you good, it’ll take your mind off your problem. You can forget about your girl for a minute. Did they kill him because he tried something with an officer’s wife? Is that it?”
“I won’t tell you a fucking thing about Palomino Molero! You can kill me first.”
“That’s the thanks I get for fishing you out of the whorehouse alive. They would’ve cut your balls off. I brought you here so you could sober up and then go back to the base in good shape and not get reported. I’m your handkerchief, your pillow, and your crying towel. Just look at what you’ve done to my shirt, drooling all over me. And you won’t even tell me why they killed Palomino Molero. Are you chicken or what?”
“He won’t get a thing out of him,” thought Lituma, depressed. They’d been wasting time, and, which was worse, he’d got his hopes up. This drunk wasn’t going to reveal anything.
“She’s a shit, too, a bigger one even than her old man,” the pilot complained through clenched teeth. He choked, then gagged, then went on, “But even so I love her. Damn right. Heart and soul. And what a piece of ass.”
“But why did you say your girl’s a shit, too, pal? She’s got to follow her old man’s orders, same as you, or is it that she doesn’t love you anymore? Did she tell you to get lost?”
“She doesn’t know what she wants. She’s her master’s voice, like the little dog in the RCA ads. She only does and says what the monster tells her to. The one who told me to get lost was him speaking through her.”
Lituma tried to remember exactly what the girl looked like when she made that brief appearance in her father’s office. He could reconstruct the words they exchanged, but he couldn’t remember if she was pretty or not. He could draw a mental picture of her silhouette-she was slim; and she must have had a strong personality, to judge by the way she talked. She was certainly vain, with a face that would have looked good on a queen. She’d wiped the floor with this poor pilot, wrecked him completely.
‘Tell me about Palomino Molero, man. Anything you want. At least, if they killed him for messing around with an officer’s wife over in Piura. Come on, at least that.”
“I may be drunk but I’m not an asshole, and you’re not gonna treat me like your nigger here.” He paused and then added, bitterly, “But if you want to know something, here it is: he asked for it and he got it.”
“You mean Palomino Molero?”
“Why don’t you call him the motherfucker Palomino Molero.”
“Right, the motherfucker Palomino Molero, if you prefer it that way,” purred Lieutenant Silva, patting him on the back. “How did he ask for it?”
“Because he reached too high. Because he poached on somebody else’s territory. You pay for mistakes like that. He paid, and how.”
Lituma had goosebumps. This guy knew everything. He knew who killed the kid and why.
“I’m with you, buddy. A guy who reaches too high, who poaches on somebody else’s territory, usually pays for it. But whose territory did he poach on?”
“Yours, motherfucker.” The pilot tried to stand up. Lituma watched him crawl, get halfway up, and fall flat on his face.
“No, it wasn’t my territory, pal, and you know that for a fact. It happened over in Piura, on the Air Force base. In one of the houses on the base, right?”
The pilot, still on all fours, raised his head, and Lituma thought for a second he was going to start barking. He stared at them with a glassy, anguished look, and seemed to be fighting hard against the alcohol. He was blinking incessantly.
“And who told you that, motherfucker?”
“I always remember what that Mexican comic Cantinflas says in all his movies: ‘There’s this little problem.’ You’re not the only one who knows things. I know a few things mvself. I’ll tell you what I know, you tell me what you know, and we’ll solve this mystery together.”
“First, tell me what you know about the Piura base.” He was still on his hands and knees, and Lituma thought he wasn’t drunk anymore. He was speaking clearly and no longer seemed afraid.
“Sure, pal. My pleasure. But sit down over here and have a smoke. You’re feeling better now, right? Good.”
He lit two cigarettes and handed the pack to Lituma, who took one out and lit it.
“Look, I know that Palomino Molero had a girlfriend over in the Piura base. He would serenade her with his guitar, singing in that beautiful voice he was supposed to have. Only at night and in secret. He sang her boleros, his specialty. That’s it. That’s all I know. Now it’s your turn. Who did he serenade?”
“I don’t know anything!.” He was frightened again. His teeth were chattering.
“Of course you know. You know that the husband of the woman he serenaded found out about it, or maybe caught them in the act. And you know that Molero had to get out of Piura on the double. That’s why he came here and enlisted in Talara. But the jealous husband found out where he was, came looking for him, and bumped him off. For doing just what you said, pal. For reaching too high, for poaching on someone else’s territory. Come on, don’t hold back. Who did it?”
The pilot started gagging again. This time he vomited bent over, and made spectacular noises. When he’d finished he wiped his mouth with his hand and began to grimace. He ended up crying like a baby. Lituma was disgusted and sorry for him. The poor guy was really suffering.
“You wonder why I keep asking you to tell me who it was.” The lieutenant was blowing smoke rings. “Curiosity pal, that’s all. If the guy who killed the kid was from the Piura base, what can I do? Nothing. You all have your own laws and rights, your own courts. I can’t even stick my nose in. Just curiosity, see? And besides, I want to tell you something. If I were married to a certain chubby woman I know, and someone came to serenade her and sing her romantic boleros, I’d nail him, too. Who knocked off Palomino Molero, pal?”
Even at a time like that, he was thinking about Doña Adriana. He was sick. The pilot moved away from his own vomit and sat down on the sand, in front of Lituma and his boss. He put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He must be feeling the tail end of the booze. Lituma could remember that feeling of emptiness and chills, an undefined, general malaise he knew only too well from his days as an Unstoppable.
“And how did you find out he serenaded her on the Piura base?” At times he seemed frightened, at others mad, and now he was both at once. “Who the fuck told you?”
Just then, Lituma noticed shadows moving toward them. A few seconds later, they were standing in a half circle right in front of them. There were six. They carried rifles and billyclubs, and in the moonlight Lituma recognized their armbands. Air Force MPs. They patrolled the bars, parties, and the bordello, picking up any Air Force personnel making trouble.
“I’m Lieutenant Silva of the Guardia Civil. Something wrong?”
“We’ve come to pick up Lieutenant Dufó.”
“Brush your teeth before you say my name, boy.” He managed to get up on his feet, although he weaved back and forth as if he might lose his balance at any moment. “No one takes me anywhere, goddamn it.”
“Colonel’s orders, Lieutenant. Sorry, but we have to take you back.”
The pilot rasped out something and slowly collapsed on the ground. The warrant officer gave an order and the other silhouettes closed in. They picked up Lieutenant Dufó by his arms and legs and carried him off. He let them, mumbling some incomprehensible complaint.
Lituma and Lieutenant Silva watched them disappear in the darkness. In a few minutes, they heard a far-off jeep start up. They finished their cigarettes in silence, absorbed in thought. The lieutenant got up first to begin the trip back. As they passed the whorehouse, they heard music, voices, and laughter. A full house.
“You really are something for getting people to spill their guts, Lieutenant. What a job you did, bringing him along until he told at least something.”
“I didn’t get all he knows. If we’d had more time, he might have told the whole story.” He spit and took a deep breath, as if to fill his lungs with the sea air. “I’ll tell you something, Lituma. Know what I think?”
“What, Lieutenant?”
“That on the base everybody knows what happened. From the cook to Mindreau.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. At least that’s the impression I got from Lieutenant Dufó. That he knows perfectly well who killed Molero.”
They walked a good distance in silence through a sleeping Talara. Most of the wooden shacks were dark, except for an occasional candle. Up above, behind the fences in the restricted zone, it was also pitch-dark.
Suddenly the lieutenant spoke in a different tone of voice. “Lituma, how’d you like to do me a big favor? Go down to the fishermen’s wharf and see if The Lion of Talara has set sail. If it’s gone, just go to bed. But if it’s still there, I’ll be over at Doña Adriana’s.”
“What, Lieutenant? This must mean that…”
“It means I’m going to make my move. I don’t know if tonight’s the night. Maybe yes, maybe no. But why not take a shot at it? It’s taking much longer than I ever thought it would, but someday it’s gonna happen. Know why? Because I’ve made a vow: I won’t die until I screw that fat bitch and until I find out who killed Palomino Molero. Those are my two goals in life, Lituma. Even more important than a promotion-although I wouldn’t take that too seriously if I were you. Go on, get going.”
“How can he feel like doing that now?” He thought about Doña Adriana curled up in her bed, dreaming, unaware of the visit she was going to get. “Damn! What a crazy fucker this Lieutenant Silva’d turned out to be. Would he screw her tonight? No way.” Lituma was sure Doña Adriana would never give in. Most of the boats had already sailed, and there were only a half dozen on the beach. The Lion of Talara was not one of them. He checked them one by one to be sure. Just as he was leaving, he noticed a shadow leaning against one of the beached boats.
“Good evening.”
“Evening,” said the woman, as if annoyed at being interrupted.
“For God’s sake, what are you doing here at this hour of the night, Doña Adriana?” She wore a black shirt over her dress and was barefoot, as usual.
“I came to bring Matías his lunch. And after he left, I stayed to cool off. I’m not sleepy. And you, Lituma? What brings you down here? Meeting a girl?”
Lituma laughed. He hunkered down in front of Doña Adriana, taking advantage of the dim light to examine her abundant figure, those generous curves Lieutenant Silva lusted after.
“What are you laughing at? Have you gone crazy, or are you drunk? I know, you’ve been over at Liau’s place.”
“Nothing like that, Dofla Adriana. If I tell you, you’ll die laughing, too.”
“Tell me, then. And don’t laugh by yourself like that; you look like a jerk.”
Doña Adriana was usually in a good mood and was a spirited woman, but Lituma could see that tonight she was a bit melancholy. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest and was digging in the sand with one foot.
‘Something bothering you, Doña Adriana?” Now Lituma was serious.
“Bothering me? No. But something’s got me worried Lituma. Matías won’t go to the clinic. He’s so stubborn and I can’t convince him.”
She paused and sighed. She said that for at least a month her husband had been hoarse and when he coughed hard he brought up blood. She bought him some medicine at the pharmacy and almost had to force it down his throat, but it hadn’t helped. It might be something serious you couldn’t cure with drugstore medicine. He might need X-rays or an operation. He wouldn’t even hear of going to the clinic; he always said it would go away by itself, that only fairies went to the doctor for a cough. But he couldn’t fool her: he felt worse than he let on, because every night it got harder for him to go out fishing. He forbade her to mention the spit-up blood to their sons. But she was going to tell them anyway on Sunday when they usually visited. Maybe they could drag him to a doctor.
“You really love Don Matías, don’t you, Doña Adriana?”
“We’ve been together for almost twenty-five years. It seems incredible how fast the years go by. Matías caught me when I was just a girl, about fifteen years old. I was afraid of him because he was so much older. But he kept after me for so long that he finally wore down my resistance. My folks didn’t want me to marry him. People said he was so much older that the marriage couldn’t last. But they were wrong, see? It’s lasted, and through it all we’ve gotten along pretty well together. Why did you ask me if I love him?”
“Because now I’m a little ashamed to tell you what I was doing here.”
The foot digging in the sand stiffened a few inches away from where Lituma was hunched down. “Stop being mysterious, Lituma. Or is this a guessing game?”
“Lieutenant Silva sent me down to see if Don Matías has gone out to sea,” he whispered in a malicious tone. He waited, and since she asked no more questions, he added: “Because he went to pay you a visit, Doña Adriana, and he didn’t want your husband to catch him. He must be knocking on your door right now.”
There was a silence. Lituma heard the nearby waves lapping on the shore. After a moment, he heard her laughing, slowly and mockingly, holding it in, as if she didn’t want him to hear. He started to laugh all over again. And they both laughed out loud.
“It’s not right for us to be laughing at the lieutenant’s passion this way, Doña Adriana.”
“He must still be there, knocking at the door and scratching at the window, begging and begging for me to let him in. Promising me the moon and the stars if I let him in. Ha-ha-ha! Talking to the man in the moon! Ha-ha-ha!”
They laughed some more, and when they fell silent, Lituma saw that Doña Adriana’s foot had again begun to dig methodically and obstinately in the sand. In the distance, the refinery whistle blew, announcing a new shift. He could also hear the sounds of trucks out on the highway.
‘The truth is, the lieutenant’s crazy about you. If you ever heard him. He doesn’t talk about anything else. He doesn’t even look at other women. For him, you’re the Queen of Talara.”
He heard Doña Adriana give a pleased little laugh. “He’s got a dozen hands, that guy, and someday he’ll get slapped for getting fresh with me. Crazy about me? It’s just a game Lituma. He’s got it in his head that he’s got to conquer me and since I won’t give in, he won’t give up. Do you think I can believe that a boy like him is in love with a woman who’s old enough to be his mother? I’m not a fool, Lituma. Some fun, that’s all he wants. If I did it just once, you’d never hear another word about love.”
“And are you going to do it-just once-Doña Adriana?”
“Not a chance in the world.” Her voice was angry, but Lituma could see she was faking. “I’m not one of those women. I have a family, Lituma. No man but my husband touches me.”
“Well, the lieutenant’s going to die then, Doña Adriana. Because I swear I’ve never seen a man as much in love with anyone as he’s in love with you. He even talks to you in his sleep, imagine that.”
“And what does he say to me in his sleep?”
“I can’t tell you that; it’s dirty.”
When she finished giggling, she stood up with her arms still crossed and walked off. She went toward the restaurant followed by Lituma.
“I’m glad we ran into each other. You made me laugh and forget my worries.”
“I’m happy, too, Doña Adriana. Our talk made me forget the dead kid. He’s been on my mind ever since I saw him up in the pasture. Sometimes I even get nightmares. I hope tonight I won’t.”
He said goodbye to Doña Adriana at the door of her restaurant and walked to the station. He and the lieutenant slept there, Silva in a large room next to the office and Lituma in a sort of shed near the cells. As he walked through the deserted streets, he imagined the lieutenant scratching at the restaurant windows and whispering words of love to the empty air.
At the station, he found a piece of paper stuck on the door handle so someone would see it. He carefully took it down, went inside, and turned on the light. The note had been written in blue ink by an educated person with good handwriting:
Palomino Molero’s killers kidnapped him from Doña Lupe’s house in Amotape. She knows what happened. Ask her.
The station regularly received anonymous notes, usually about unfaithful wives or husbands or about smugglers. This was the first about the death of Palomino Molero.