Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord (2 page)

The Finance Minister glanced again at the disconcerting testicle, and shuffled his feet. ‘Those statistics were published only last month, and I had omitted to inform you of them. They derive from a source in the United States, were reported in the
New York Herald Tribune
, and then were repeated in our own press, I believe.’

‘But are they true, Emperador, are they true?’

Señor Coriolano flushed, and said, ‘I believe they probably are, I am afraid, boss. We have been operating on a false assumption for a very long time.’ He looked at the President’s face, and then back at the floor. ‘I meant to tell you, but circumstances made it difficult, you know there is a lot at stake, and . . .’

His Excellency folded up the newspaper and slapped it down on the table with a disgusted expression. ‘Listen, Emperador, I am not naive, and I know very well that practically everyone is getting a cut, especially if they are a Minister of State. I will tell you something unofficially, OK? You can take as much from them as you like, but don’t ever give them what they want in return, and always tell me everything you know, OK? From now on we don’t turn a blind eye, because the solvency of the Republic is at stake and it is driving me crazy trying to run a bankrupt country, you understand? When I leave office I intend to go down in the history books not only as the man who won the Los Puercos War, but also as the man who put this place in the black for the first time in forty years.’

The Minister of Finance looked back wryly. ‘That would be a greater miracle than the parting of the Red Sea, boss, but I too would like to see it.’

His Excellency raised his eyebrows and remarked, ‘And if I catch you out withholding information or giving me lies, I will have you investigated, and that could mean a firing squad, my friend, if it turns out to be treachery.’

‘Yes, boss.’

President Veracruz dismissed his Minister and rang up the offices of
La Prensa
to ask for all back copies which contained Dionisio Vivo’s coca letters, and went to call in on his wife’s chamber.

She was in a negligée, sprawled across her bed, feeding Turkish Delight to the huge black cat. His Excellency took in the touching scene and said, ‘The naughty little schoolgirl is feeding my bonbons to the cat again: I think she wants a spanking.’

‘Oh Daddikins,’ she pouted, ‘be sweet, and let me off this time.’

‘Just a little spanking, then.’

Later on, in bed, His Excellency furrowed his brow and said resentfully. ‘Why do you suppose that the coca people have never offered me any money? How come they bribe everyone else?’

‘Oh Daddikins, don’t worry about it,’ she replied, kissing him on the forehead, and thinking about her bank account in Panama.

DIONISIO AROSE RELUCTANTLY
from his bed, went to the window to see what kind of day it was, and went to the telephone to ring the police.

After two wrong numbers a voice full of disenchantment on the other end of the line said, ‘Police.’

‘Ramon, is that you? This is Dionisio from the Calle de la Constitucion. Listen Ramon, I have another Colombian cravate in my front garden. Can you come and take it away? It is my third one this year.’

‘Okay, Dionisio. Can you keep the vultures off it until we get there? It will make identification easier for us.’

‘If I shoot them will you take their bodies away as well?’

‘You know it is bad luck to shoot vultures,’ said the policeman. ‘Just scare them off.’

Dionisio laughed. ‘You know I do not believe in stuff like that. If I were superstitious I would lose my job and my credibility.’

‘You once said to me, Dionisio, that today’s science is tomorrow’s superstition. Maybe also today’s superstition is tomorrow’s science. Think about it.’

Dionisio snorted and said, ‘God save us from philosophical policemen. You are supposed to be brutal and stupid.’

‘You do not believe in God, either,’ retorted the policeman, ‘so he cannot save you from me. Escuchame, I will come up and take away your cravate. Keep the vultures off.’

‘Claro,’ said Dionisio. ‘Goodbye, and see you in a while.’

Dionisio rummaged through his washing basket and dug out the cleanest of his dirty clothes. He got dressed and went downstairs to look at the corpse. It was a crumpled young man in a blue but now bloodstained shirt. He had no shoes, fashionable trousers, a cowhide belt, and a face of such mixed ancestry as to be unclassifiable. His black hair was thick with cheap shiny gel, and his tongue protruded grotesquely through the slit in his throat. Dionisio remembered how he had vomited and retched the first time he had seen this, and reflected that it was frightening to become inured to it so quickly. He bent down and brushed away some of the ants that were crawling over the man’s face and going in and out of his mouth, and then he threw a stone at the vulture that landed noisily and clumsily in the pine tree. ‘Hijo de puta,’ he shouted at it in a sudden fury, and then realised that he must be more upset than he had thought. He looked at his watch and saw with resignation that he was going to be late for his lecture again, and wondered whether the principal would believe again the same bizarre excuse of a body in the garden. He sat with his back to the trunk of the tree and irritated the vulture by tossing stones at it until Ramon arrived with another officer. They put on yellow kitchen gloves as they came through the gate.

‘Hola,’ said Ramon, ‘another fine start to a perfect day.’

Dionisio smiled at this old classmate who had made the incomprehensible choice of becoming a policeman despite the horror of his friends. They all called him ‘cochinillo’ to his face, but he took the tease in the spirit in which it was meant, and usually gave as good as he got. ‘How is my little Socrates?’ he asked.

‘I am a little tired of all these Colombian cravates,’ replied Dionisio, smiling weakly. ‘Why do they always dump them in my garden, and not someone else’s?’

‘Either,’ said Ramon, ‘they think that you need a little excitement, and are very charitably providing it, or else they are giving you a little warning. I favour the latter hypothesis myself.’

‘A warning?’ echoed Dionisio.

‘Don’t be disingenuous, Dionisio. You know I am talking about the letters.’

‘The letters are hardly a big thing,’ said Dionisio. ‘Anyway, how do you know about them?’

‘Everybody does, including me, because despite being a cochinillo I read an intelligent newspaper like
La Prensa
. Believe me, there are narcoticos who read it as well. Your letters have made you a local celebrity, because no one else from around here gets letters published regularly in important newspapers. There are plenty of people who want you to shut up and mind your own business.’ The policeman raised one eyebrow and tapped one side of his nose. ‘That is my advice as well, cabron, or you will end up like our little amigo here, with your tongue pulled through a pretty little hole in your neck.’

‘Do you know who he is?’ asked Dionisio.

‘Yes I do, and I can assure you that there will be no mourners at his funeral. As far as I am concerned, these canallas can kill each other as much as they like. To lock them up would be a criminal misappropriation of public funds.’

Ramon stroked his stubble thoughtfully, tipped back his cap to a jaunty angle, and spat onto the ground next to the body. ‘Come on,’ he said to his companion, ‘let us do our duty.’ They slung the body into the back of the van, and Dionisio came around to the driver’s door to shake the hand of his friend. ‘I will buy you a drink,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

The policeman winked. ‘Let us waste no time,’ he said, ‘in bringing perfection to this world.’ He drove away leaving Dionisio wondering whether that was a learned quotation or whether he had just made it up.

IPASUEÑO LAY ACROSS
a plain and mountainside on the western reaches of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Margarita. The whitewashed houses rose up above each other glistening in the sun like the snows high above them, and the inclined streets were raucous with the sound of mule-trains, the crashing of the gears of ancient lorries, and the cries of streethawkers selling arepas and pineapple juice. The streets were narrow and the light restricted because of the overhanging balconies draped with washing. It was a small town, which made it easy to call in on one’s friends and to spread rumours, and it was very self-contained. Food was mostly bought from the Acahuatec Indians who farmed on terraces in the Sierra, and from the inhabitants of Cochadebajo de los Gatos in the east. The town was famous for producing the finest Supremo coffee-beans, and for the quality of its cocaine, manufactured by the sulphuric acid and petroleum process. The town was not, however, so famous that outsiders ever wanted to go there, nor so dull that the inhabitants ever wanted to leave. This meant that the population had not changed in its basic nature since the sixteenth century, when it was founded by the Conde Pompeyo Xavier de Estremadura, who was later to perish with eight hundred and fifty souls in an avalanche of snow during an expedition of 1533 to locate the legendary Inca city of Vilcabamba. This is the same aristocrat who was eventually brought back to life by Aurelio the Sorcerer, and who became resident in Cochadebajo de los Gatos, where he met and cohabited with Remedios, the communist guerrilla leader.

Seven years, six months and thirty-three days after the illusory war of La Isla de los Puercos (after which President Veracruz was re-elected on the ‘victory vote’) Dionisio Vivo, professor of philosophy, was twenty-eight years old, and was celebrating his birthday in the serpentine embrace of Velvet Luisa in Madame Rosa’s Famous Casa de Putas in the Calle Santa Maria Virgen. Downstairs Jerez was being sick into the lap of the whore known as The Biggest Boa in the World, and Juanito was using his good looks and his powers of persuasion to induce Rosalita to do it for nothing. The Biggest Boa in the World was shrieking with dismay and was about to waste a bottle of Aguila by breaking it over Jerez’ head, and Rosalita was being coy because she was in love with Juanito and was hoping to leave whoring in order to marry him. Jerez and Juanito shared a house with Dionisio and were helping him to enjoy his birthday in the brothel, by enjoying themselves, and thus affirming their solidarity and their brotherhood.

Madame Rosa’s whorehouse was remarkable not only for the fact that the girls were pretty and clean, but for its genial atmosphere. Madame Rosa got the girls checked every week at the clinic, and was always genuinely happy when one of the girls married one of the clients, drifting away to a new life of children and domesticity. She was already resigned to the fact that in a little while she would lose the most popular whore she had ever had.

Velvet Luisa had a twin sister who was at university. At the age of seventeen they had tossed a coin as to which of them would go to university first while the other supported them both, and Luisa had lost. She had taken to whoring with verve and vivacity, knowing that she was condemned to it for only three years, and positive that in retrospect it would prove to have been a character-forming and constructive experience. She slept only with clients that she genuinely had an eye for, and brooked no nonsense or violence from anyone, which was why she had a pistol under her pillow and an electric bell for summoning Madame Rosa’s husband in the event of a contingency.

Madame Rosa’s husband was a formidably huge negro of gentle disposition, who was as fond of the whores as he was of his own daughters and his horse. He had met Madame Rosa in Venezuela, whither she had fled from her previous husband in Costa Rica. This gentleman had himself been an insatiable whoremaster with a vile temper and a habit of drunkenness. Madame Rosa was in truth a bigamist, but she considered that if the Holy Father had known that her first husband used to fire his revolver at huge imaginary spiders at all hours of the day and night, he would undoubtedly have annulled that marriage without hesitation. She had great faith in the Holy Father, and considered that she ran a truly Catholic brothel, with a crucifix on the wall of every room, and days off for the girls on their Saint’s day.