Holy City by Guillermo Orsi

door and windows, but he knows he cannot leave empty-handed. If he doesnot get the goods, no-one will buy from him again: in this business, reputation is everything. And once you have lost it, there is no way to get it back. And it is good money, always bulging in his pockets. No, he won’t give that up just because of a moment’s weakness. Besides, Uncle would not deliberately send him to the slaughter. “Fifteen years, nephew,” he tells himself, hearing the dealer’s affectionate voice in his ear, encouraging him to open the door.
    â€œSo he does telepathy as well as drugs,” Verónica scoffs.
    â€œI swear I could hear his voice. But he should have been telling me: get out of there, don’t go in, don’t get your hands dirty, go back to being a cruise-ship Romeo—you may earn less but as long as there are no shipwrecks, you’ll live to a ripe old age.”
    â€œYou will live to a ripe old age, Paco. Anyway, you’re already old, it’s just that you can’t accept it.”
    The delivery faun stares at her. He really does seem to have aged after the race to San Pedro, then the terror in that rundown house by the orange groves.
    He finally goes in. The door is not locked. It opens noiselessly as though the hinges have recently been oiled. It is dark inside; there is no electricity, only a shaft of sunlight halfway down the corridor. It falls vertically and is as round as the hole in the roof that lets it in, as round as the face of the man lying there, eyes wide open, staring up at this miserly midday zenith.
    â€œYou should have left the way you came.”
    â€œBut trust makes you relax. And curiosity killed the cat, Verónica.”
    He had gone there to get what was his, on Uncle’s recommendation. Never so much as a drop of blood before then. You get used to the world appearing to be something it’s not.
    He opens the door wide behind him to let in more light, but the corridor is still in darkness. It is obvious the man is not sleeping, but he could have had a heart attack. If anyone killed him, they must be far away by now. The best thing would be to leave straightaway withouttouching anything. Pacogoya does not follow his own advice, because he still wants to believe that if he goes further along the passage he might find what he came for.
    He trips over something and comes to a halt, terrified. It is the feet of the dead man. He reaches down and pulls, to drag the body toward the light from the open door. It is only a couple of meters. The body is not heavy; it slides along easily.
    He should never have taken money for orders he could not fulfill; he should not have driven to San Pedro; he should not have gone into the house. But you venture into the unknown thinking you are only going into the next room.
    â€œI bent over the body looking for something; a piece of paper, a key, some clue, something.”
    It is then that horror tears at his guts and takes his breath away, as if he had brushed against a high-voltage cable. Far from the body, at the spot he had dragged the corpse from, the sun is still plunging like a knife into the dead man’s open eyes.

8
    By 6 a.m. next day Verónica is already in her office at the Riachuelo market. It is a circus caravan furnished with a notebook, printer, telephone, coffee machine and a whale calf, her bodyguard, two meters tall and weighing 120 kilos. He would find swimming difficult, but on dry land he can kill without turning a hair.
    The smell of freshly brewed coffee cannot disguise the stench from the Río Riachuelo. Day has only just dawned, but the stallholders havealready begun to pack up. They tell her it was not such a good night. There were bomb threats. One of the stallholders was kidnapped on the Camino Negro: he was taken to Lomas cemetery, made to dig his own grave, then brought back to the market.
    It is not yet 7:00 a.m. when she calls the magistrate at home in Lomas de Zamora. The