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I sip my cortado carefully. I normally wouldn´t have a coffee but I´m not about to be fussy in a situation like this. I had thought of Las Violetas but it would have been a detour and was rather expensive nowadays after the renovation and the reopening. Instead we were at Retiro. Not the train station with it´s elegant art noveau coffee shop but the bus station. A depressing cafe with scattered tables and a waiter dressed in black pants and white shirt half tucked in. This is a pit stop for passengers waiting for their bus rides to Rosario and Tandil and places elsewhere. Pipo ( Scarmiglione, the goon´s last name ) had turned onto Antartida Argentina and navigated it´s hellish grinding congestion - trucks, buses, taxis, vans, cars - and made it to the parking lot from where you can see Villa 31´s sordid and dangerous alleys. It´s claustrophobic and on a sweltering day, opressively so. I put down my cup and look at Cagnazzo and Pipo. Their coffees are pitch black, little pools of stickyness enclosed in faded porcelain. I stare at the pitch and see nothing in it. I´m lost and I don´t like what I see but I must speak. Three times three times three plus three brings me to thirty. This is not Milton´s land. This is Dante Alighieri´s terrain. I push my cup away from me and speak, as I must.

Hay mas y mas gente que llegan aca ... y buscan mudarse aca. I start slowly.
Compran casas, departamentos...
Pipo looks bored. Cagnazzo looks impatient. He leans forward.
Keeley, basta de joder. Que nos ofreces?
I´d better cut to the chase.
El edificio en Camet, en la costa. Hay un juicio.
Cagnazzo raises his eyebrows. Good.
Rojas el dueño firmo donde no hubiera ... hay un embargo.
Quien lo jodio? Pipo wants to know. Interesting.
Una arquitecta y un abogado.
Cagnazzo and Pipo exhange a look. Pipo shrugs but looks positive all the same. Cagnazzo speaks.
Y que hacemos jefe?
I´m not sure whether to smile at his sardonic little dig. I don´t.
Para mi que apretamos los que hicieron la maniobra.
I look back at my words as if from another place. I can´t believe I said that. Putting the squeeze on two scam artists that are trying to cheat Rojas out of his building. The gossip came from the manager of the carwash next door. I hope to hell it´s true. My life may depend on it now. Cagnazzo is quiet, calculating some figures I suspect.
Cobramos el 10 por ciento del edificio a cambio de resolver este asunto para ese Rojas.
That seems a lot of money but the fact that he´s calculating percentages seems a good sign.
Podriamos refaccionar. Condominios por ejemplo y venderlos ...
Complicado eso. Que Rojas nos paga y hace lo que le canta con ese edificio.
I have to be more concrete. I venture an estimate.
Mira, hay unos 10 departamentos ahi. Algunos mas de cien lucas otros menos. Asi que ... ponele un palo y medio.
Cagnazzo nods with a dry grin at my use of luca and palo ( a thousand and a million ). Apparently he´s come to similar figures. So the shakedown might be as much as 150,000 US ... I wonder what Cagnazzo and Pipo are capable of. How much is bluff? Cagnazzo has been down to Mardel a few times and I think I recall him meeting Rojas. Helping Diego with his inheritance ... Diego. I speak quietly and tensely,
No se si Diego se interesa en esto ...
Isadora flinches despite herself, terrified of what Cagnazzo might say about her ex husband and father of Oriana. Cagnazzo looks steadily at us.
No falta involucrar a Diego con los detalles. El esta tranquilo en Mardel.
Me and Isa can´t help breathing involuntary sighs of relief. We shift in our chairs uncertain of what to do next. I have to keep going.
Ahora bien no se con que juez esta el expediente ...
Cagnazzo waves off the matter of the lawsuit over the building. He´ll arrange that himself. I continue.
Quizas si Rojas decide vender podriamos hacer un sitio de web para inversores de europa por ejemplo ...
Vos Keeley, encargate de eso. Sabes de eso?
Cagnazzo has handed me my task. I´ll have to find someone who actually can design us a website. Assuming Rojas wants to sell the building after Cagnazzo and Pipo finish with him. But he´s a scrapper himself. And if things go pear shaped, I´ll be the sacrificial goat. Cagnazzo turns to Isadora before I can answer him.
Vos sabes de diseño de web? O tu hija .... Oriana?
Isa pauses, swallows and smiles, and tries to sound in control.
Oriana sabe algo y tiene contactos.
Cagnazzo nods and looks at us,
Algo mas?
We shake our heads in unison and we all stand. He´s paid for our bus tickets as if we were schoolkids going on summer holidays. Our bus leaves in about twenty minutes. Cagnazzo leaves us at the platform with a brief nod and Pipo grins at us as he follows him downstairs and outside to the parking lot. We´re alone again in the heat and exhaust fumes. I put a tentative arm around Isa. Then I pull her towards me.
Va resultar amor. Ya veras.
Isa remains quiet. She´s managed to hide a few hundred dollars from our stash and we´ll have that to live on till Cagnazzo pays us. Our bus soon pulls in and we climb in relieved to be heading out of the city.