The Secret in Their Eyes by Eduardo Sacheri Page A

to smile beneath the layer of dried blood that covered his face below his nose. He was missing two front teeth, and I was sure their loss was recent. Speaking as well as he could, he told me that now he was hurting a little less, but that his companion had been kicked in the ribs repeatedly and had wept until he’d fallen asleep a little while ago.
    The police officer returned and announced that Lieutenant Sicora had gone out. “Then get me the captain,” I said.
    “He’s having lunch.”
    “I don’t give a fuck!” I shouted. It wasn’t often that I descended to such a barrack-room level, but I was incensed.
    When I returned to the Palace of Justice three hours later, instead of going to my own office, I went to Section No. 18. I walked down the narrow aisles separating the desks and advanced between the rows of tall, bulky file cabinets without a word of greeting to anyone. When I reached Romano’s desk—he was sitting at it, absently reading the newspaper—it was my turn to stick a piece of paper under his nose. “Listen up,” I said. “I’ve just come from the Appellate Court, where I filed a complaint against you and your fuckwit friend Sicora for physical coercion and abuse. The medical examiners are conducting an examination of your two suspects right now, on my orders. “
    I was trying not to lose control of myself. Romano had lowered the newspaper and was trying to think. I kept talking: “I’ll bet my balls that the idea of beating the shit out of those two was yours and not that idiot Sicora’s. He went along with it so he could play the hero and score points with the court. Fucking jackass. So I’ve got two recommendations for you. First, if you want somebody worked over, do it yourself. And second, if you’re going to beat the shit out of someone, make sure he has some connection to something, because the two guys you brought in are nothing but poor working stiffs.”
    I turned on my heels and dropped a copy of the complaint on the nearest desk. “When you finish reading that, send it to my office,” I said. All of Romano’s colleagues, naturally, were looking at me with the utmost surprise.
    Maybe I should have shut up at that point, but just as it was hard for me to become really angry, once I boiled over, I found it equally hard to cool down. So I said, “You know, Romano, I’ve always thought you were pretty much a jackass. But that’s not it. Well, yes, you’re a jackass, all right, but what you really are, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is a lowdown, worthless, no-account son of a bitch.”
    Back then, I was unaware of the problems that day had planted like seeds in my destiny, and of the harvest I’d sooner or later have to reap. I suppose no one can read, in the fluff of the present, the signs of his future tragedies.

10
    That very evening, during my first private conversation with Ricardo Morales, I made my decision to help him any way I could. We were in a bar at 1400 Tucumán Street, sitting next to the guillotine window that separated us from the sidewalk. Outside, a torrential rain was very gradually letting up.
    After chewing out Romano, I’d gone to my office, sat at my desk, and taken deep breaths, trying to calm down. It had occurred to me that the poor widower was probably hurrying over to the court at that very moment, convinced that he was about to learn the truth. And in fact, twenty minutes later, he arrived; I heard two timid knocks on the door of the court and an impersonal “Come in” from one of the young office workers.
    Soon the kid who’d waited on Morales came to me and said, “Excuse me, sir, there’s someone to see you.” I raised my head and spent a few moments thinking that if the new intern was speaking to me so formally, it surely meant I’d crossed the threshold into maturity.
    When he saw me approaching the reception area, Morales said, “I got a telephone call at the bank.” Maybe herecognized me as one of the two who’d brought him the