Holy City Read Free Page B

that’s not because of me, is it?”
    Embarrassed, Verónica gathers up the bath-towel and covers herself. In her mid-forties and with two dead partners on her conscience, shestill feels a sense of shame that, despite being only just twenty, Ana Torrente seems to have shed completely.
    â€œGet dressed or we’ll be late,” says Verónica. “The magistrate isn’t going to wait for you just because you’re the Queen of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.”
    â€œAll magistrates are skirtchasers,” Ana replies, pushing Verónica gently out of her way in front of the mirror with a swing of her hips. “The scent of woman is the only code they really respect.”
    â€œGet a move on,” Verónica repeats as she leaves the bathroom. She is resigned to the fact she is going to have to spend the morning with Ana at the law courts. She cannot think of any other way to get her some protection and is sure that if she abandons her it will not be more than a few hours before the discovery of another body is reported with the same screaming headlines on Crónica Television.
    The magistrate does not receive them, but his secretary does.
    â€œHis honor has taken a short vacation,” he tells them, his eyes fixed on Miss Bolivia’s chest as if it were a teleprinter he was reading the words off. “But you needn’t worry,” says this individual, a fat, balding man in his forties, with thick lips and the slanted eyes of a lecherous pig, as Miss Bolivia describes him when they have left his office. They needn’t worry, because his honor has taken every measure to ensure that the days of Counselor Cozumel Banegas are numbered: “There is far too much evidence against him for the provincial government to go on protecting him; he will be judged and stripped of his position any day now,” he promises in a reedy voice, thrusting his snout and dribbling lips up against Miss Bolivia’s face. She leaves the court wiping off the microscopic spots of saliva.
    â€œStay at my place for a couple of days, at least until that skirtchasing magistrate gets back and puts some protective measures in place and gets you a police bodyguard.”
    â€œI don’t want a bodyguard. I don’t trust your country’s police,
doctora
, I don’t trust any cops. And I don’t want to be in your bed whenyou turn up with one of your men; I don’t like threesomes and tourist guides aren’t exactly to my taste, particularly if they’re Paraguayan.”
    â€œSo you were listening behind the door. But who said I was going to bring him home? Pacogoya’s got a fabulous apartment in Recoleta, with a balcony that looks out on our illustrious dead, and in an area with the best restaurants in town, or at least the most expensive.”
    With the air of a lodger who pays her rent and after extracting a promise she will not have to witness someone else’s sex, Ana Torrente agrees to stay in Verónica’s apartment. She won’t sleep in the living room, won’t leave even to go shopping, won’t open the door even if she hears Leonardo di Caprio’s voice on the entry phone and under her pillow she’ll keep warm the Bersa .38 that Verónica’s first husband left her.
    â€œYou take off the safety catch, raise the gun, keep your arm steady and bang!”
    â€œWhat happens if it really is Leonardo di Caprio?”
    â€œI’ve heard he doesn’t do visits—they take women to his hotel suite.”
    Pacogoya is waiting for her at La Biela, a café packed with foreign tourists and local clients who fill the interior and spill out onto the broad pavement outside. It is mid-winter, but the weather is like a humid summer evening; costly furs are dangling over chair-backs, and bags stuffed with Buenos Aires souvenirs catch the greedy eyes of pickpockets who come and go, watched by their old acquaintances from the nearby police