“But there are still the murders of my niece, Mrs. Ferracuti and the rest of the boys from DICA!” the Commissioner screamed. “Is that not enough for you?”
Handal kept quiet. There was no use now in trying to explain to them that those deaths had been accidental. Chele Pedro turned to look at him with a sarcastic expression that read: You’re screwed.
“Tell him what they were up to, Pedro.”
The DICA Chief explained that Agent Pineda’s group was investigating the Cali cartel that operated throughout the country, not just in terms of drug trafficking, but they were also looking at investments and money laundering.
“The gringos are going to go apeshit,” the Commissioner said. “They’re going to want a good explanation, not the garbage you just gave us. Get me that son-ofa-bitch tonight!”
The Deputy Commissioner went down the staircase again. He was pissed off. Those two idiots didn’t understand how much work he’d put in, but when he got that Bustillo they’d have to eat crow. Especially Chele Pedro. He could shove those sarcastic little looks right up his ass.
He told Villalta to move over, he’d drive. They left headquarters at top speed, tires screeching, the siren blaring as loud as it could go, as if they were on their way to a place where the yellow Chevrolet sat waiting for them. But they were only driving around with no real destination. They were getting closer to the bars, keeping in touch with the units they’d placed on surveillance, when Flores casually suggested they head for the Zona Rosa entertainment district — the best place to find the kind of crowds Bustillo liked to target.
“Of course!” Handal exclaimed.
He asked for backup cars to patrol the area before the suspect and his snakes could show up to cause a panic and end another dozen lives.
“Listen boss, he still might find a whole bunch of people on Los Mártires Boulevard,” said Villalta while the Deputy Commissioner parked the Nissan by one of the intersections just before the Zona Rosa. Handal told him not to be an idiot. That was a main artery and there were crowds all up and down it, not concentrated in little areas, like at the supermarket or the gas station. But Bustillo hadn’t ever repeated targets. Handal leaned back in his seat to get comfortable. This could be a long wait. Outside, a bunch of well-dressed kids were coming and going from bars and clubs, in little groups, drinking and smoking marijuana. They always made sure to stand as near as they could to the nicest car, the most expensive one, the least attainable.
“Looking at them makes you wonder whether it wouldn’t be a good thing to have a few Jacinto Bustillos to get rid of all that stupidity,” Handal murmured after a few minutes of silence, once his anger from the meeting with the Commissioner and Chele Pedro had diminished.
“Man to man, boss, what do you think happened to Bustillo?” Flores asked from the back seat.
It was getting cold. None of the units had reported any suspicious activity. Handal scratched inside his ear with his little finger and mumbled, “Maybe only Doña Sofía Pineda knows.”
They were there until three in the morning, along with the other units who were searching all the streets that led to the Zona Rosa, a strategy that was supposed to lead Bustillo into a trap he couldn’t escape from, but for whatever reason, that never happened. They decided to go back to headquarters and sleep, if only for a few hours, as long as Bustillo didn’t decide to attack again at dawn. Their return was a little like defeat, and all of them wanted to forget about the case for a while. In a few hours, when the Black Palace was up and running on Saturday morning, they’d be exactly where they were now: with a great theory to explain the tragic events of the previous day, but still lacking the arrest that would be the mother of all proof.
Handal went up to his office, turned off the lights and leaned back in one of the armchairs. His instinct told him that was it for the day, that Bustillo and his snakes were dozing in the yellow Chevrolet, hidden in a garage somewhere. Maybe one right near the Black Palace.
At twenty after six the next morning the Deputy Commissioner made a few checks, but the suspect hadn’t shown up anywhere. He called his wife to tell her that he’d be by in half an hour to shower, change and have a decent breakfast. They’d just brought him the newspapers. Now he’d really start feeling the pressure, he thought, even though Rita hadn’t published anything about the link she suspected between the deaths of Sofía Bustillo and Agent Pineda.
But he didn’t get out of the office. Chele Pedro called him to say he needed to talk to him; there were reports that could refocus the investigation. He’d better wait for him; he’d be there in half an hour at the latest. Other reports? That son-of-a-bitch was already trying to position himself to take charge of the investigation.
Flores and Villalta came in to ask for permission to take an hour to go home and shower. He told them to hurry. Chele Pedro was already trying to get them thrown off the case. There was no way those shits from DICA were collecting the medals for the work his team had spent all yesterday doing.
He took a shower, but put on the same clothes as the night before. He figured he’d get a quick breakfast at Mc-Donald’s or at Biggest. What the hell was Chele Pedro going to come up with?
Then the phone rang. The operator told him a man who refused to give his name had called to say that up to half an hour ago, the yellow Chevrolet had been parked at the Lomas del Guijaro, a new housing project still under construction, just a few kilometres away from Jardines de la Sabana, in the suburbs. Handal looked at his map of the city. If the anonymous tipster was telling the truth, Bustillo and his snakes were camping out near the city limits. Why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? He ordered a unit to go search the area where, according to the tip, the yellow Chevrolet had spent the night. He backed away a little from the map, which covered a large part of the wall, after sticking red pins in the places Bustillo had struck or been seen. There wasn’t any logic to it, or at least none that he could see. It seemed the suspect was picking his spots at random.
That’s when Chele Pedro came in, solemn and with a stern look on his face. Pineda’s group was investigating some bankers who were involved in laundering drug money, he said. He took a seat, rubbed his double chin without speaking and waited, as though this new revelation would suddenly enlighten Handal to the hidden motives behind the crimes. But the Deputy Commissioner, still standing, kept quiet and gave no sign that he understood.
“Mrs. Ferracuti,” Chele Pedro finally muttered. “She was from a banking family. .”
So now this idiot was trying to turn this case into a settling of scores by drug traffickers, without any proof, when that woman’s death had been completely accidental, Handal thought. Just what he needed.
“Someone saw the yellow Chevrolet a little while ago,” Handal said.
“Where?” Chele Pedro asked.
“In a new housing development called Lomas de Guijarro, near where he was operating last night.”
“We have to get him,” Chele Pedro replied as he walked out of the office, as if he were already in charge of the investigation.
The Deputy Commissioner sat back down in his swivel chair. He needed to eat something right away; his stomach was starting to burn. The phone rang. The operator said that someone wanted to talk to him directly to give him an urgent message.
“Put him on.”
“The snakes just attacked Dr. Abraham Ferracuti’s house,” an anxious voice mumbled. “On the street that goes up to the volcano.”
“What!” Handal exclaimed, jumping to his feet.
“I’m a neighbour. I saw the old yellow car they described in the newspaper go to the doctor’s house. Then there were shots. Then the car left and headed up the street. .”