Read Online No One Loves a Policeman by Guillermo Orsi, Nick Caistor - Free Book Online

Por Cuatro was once owned by a Basque dairyman but had now been converted by his grandchildren into a tango bar. It still had its carriage entrance, and there was an old milk cart in the yard, shafts pointing to the sky. Nobody uses horses in Buenos Airesnowadays, but at weekends they harness some old nag to it and take Yankee and European tourists out for a ride. They cannot go far because they do not want to get into the busy avenues, but the driver and his attendants are glad of the tips in dollars.
    â€œBut you’re not blond, like Mireya was.”
    I was not very keen on calling her Mireya, which made me wonder if it was because I did not really want to name her at all. We lose what we put a name to. It’s like shining a bright light on a flower so we can examine it more closely. Love fades, for this and many other reasons, but always, always too soon.

    I left Bahía Blanca and sped along the highway at 140. I paid more attention to my rearview mirror than to the road ahead. I am always afraid that the shot will come from behind, or the push into the ravine when we are standing at the top admiring the view.
    It may no fun
being
a policeman, but it is worse to
have been
one. The memories weigh too heavily: there is too much past you cannot return to. And yet nothing is dead and buried. Not even the corpses.

    Isabel and Mónica were not waiting for me at the Cabildo Hotel in Tres Arroyos. In fact, they had not checked in.
    For a brief moment I tried to convince myself they must have headed straight for Buenos Aires. It made sense: what would they have gained by waiting for me? It simply meant they were caught up in an affair that had nothing to do with them, only hours after Edmundo’s death.
    I called the hotel in Bahía Blanca. According to the receptionist, the two women had left early that morning, in the midst of all the turmoilover the discovery of the dead body. He obviously fancied his chances as an informer for the yellow press. “They took a taxi to the bus station,” he said.
    When I called the bus station they told me there was no morning bus to Buenos Aires, but one to Tres Arroyos. I had told Mónica and Isabel to rent a car, but they must have preferred the bus: Isabel could console her mother while keeping quiet about the mess they were in that was not of their making, and did not really seem to have anything very much to do with Edmundo either.
    I went to Tres Arroyos bus station. The bus from Bahía Blanca had arrived on time. “Not many people got off,” the driver told me. He was a lanky, pallid individual who looked as though he had either slept very badly or had just been dumped by a consumptive girlfriend. I found him at the bar of a fast-food stall, tucking into a hotdog with a glass of white table wine.
    â€œLet’s see if I can remember,” he said when I asked him if he had seen an older woman and a tall, pretty young woman with good breasts, a nice backside and long dark hair. “Let’s see if I can remember,” he repeated, digging into a decayed tooth with a toothpick and gently belching the smell of hotdog and cheap wine all over me. His memory improved when I slipped a ten-dollar bill into his open left hand, resting as if by coincidence on the counter in front of me.
    â€œYes, they got off here, with a gentleman.”
    â€œA gentleman?”
    He shifted uneasily on his stool. The surprise in my voice must have made him realize his information was worth more than I had paid him.
    â€œWhat was he like?”
    â€œLet’s see if I can remember.”
    I took out another ten-dollar bill, but this time laid it on top of the paper napkin where the half-eaten hotdog was.
    â€œEither you remember or you don’t.”
    As I slammed down the banknote, the half-eaten hotdog rolled ontothe floor. I ordered another one and more white wine, but something drinkable this time.
    â€œI have to leave for Tandil in fifteen