The briefcase I bought at Bentley´s in the North Renfrew Mall is finally being put to good use. Until now it´s carried various papers and folders with documents and passwords to paypal and myspace and other sites and lists of contacts I haven´t bothered keeping in touch with. I brush the side of my foot against it and stare out the window. We´ve just passed Chascomus and the scenery is empty again. Copses of eucalyptus, willow cypress and plane trees. Presumably it´s pasture around here but I rarely see any cows from the bus window on the drive to and from Buenos Aires. I shift in my seat and glance at the nearest screen. They´re playing The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The air conditioner is full on but it´s still muggy inside. Late February is a disaster. March as well. All the heat and humidity gathered up during the summer linger heavily over the pampa and it seems fall will never come. It does of course, sometime in late March or early April so we have at least a month more of this before the weather changes for real. And Buenos Aires is always much hotter than Mar del Plata - it´s a surprising difference given the 400 odd kilometers separating the two cities. I adjust my pillow and try to close my eyes and relax. I can´t nap even though I was up at 5:30 to catch this bus but at least I can rest a little. I brush my foot against the briefcase again, making sure it´s under my legs.
25,000 Shekels and five possibly fake passports. And I´m alone on this trip. Scarmiglione is picking me up at Retiro and supervising the transactions I imagine. When I found the passports under a bed in Felix Marino ( imagine several dozen teengagers singing La Marcha Peronista on a late February afternoon with the thermometer at 34, never mind the humidity, and me crawling through several of their bedrooms looking for something, anything ) I immediately wondered why anyone would leave three Italian and two Slovenian passports stuck under a bed. Five europassports wouldn´t be something a crew would leave behind would they? And it was the same method Kabe had used to hide his Shekels. I had imagined this was all an elaborate test concocted by Cagnazzo as I had slid them into a plastic bag I had brought with me for just that purpose. Outside in the courtyard the kids had finished singing their political anthems and were organizing themselves noisily into two volleyball teams. Felix Marino was a campground/resort but it felt like a school - the architecture was similar to the elementary schools built run by Exxon in Venezuela that I had attended four decades ago. I had waited in the lunchroom for Scarmiglione to enter from the courtyard. I guess both he and Cagnazzo were part of the Cordoba branch of the party. He had entered alone and I had waited till he had sat down at the table were I was sitting and then I had simply said,
Todo bien
He had looked curiously at me so I had had to add,
Passaportes europeos ... cinco.
He hadn´t looked that impressed but Cagnazzo had later phoned to say that I should take them with me to Buenos Aires along with the Shekels to see what I could get for them on the black market. So the very mobile Pipo who had returned to Cordoba with the kids a few days ago was now to meet me at Retiro in about two hours. A Petrobras service center slides by, it´s confiteria half full with families returning from their summer holidays. I´m wearing jeans and a t shirt. I´d like to have my WalMart sandals but I don´t think they´ll be helpful when I´m navigating dowtown Buenos Aires trying to change Shekels and fence stolen passports. I decide to eat my alfajor and gaze distractedy at the screen three seats ahead. The traffic is constant, almost heavy, and I´m tired. I wish I could nap.
Estas si, pero estas no
Edgardo says emphatically pointing at the Italian passports approvingly but dismissing the Slovenian ones. After we had changed the Shekels at HSBC´s ( I had to show my passport but the transaction had gone smoothly - did Cagnazzo know the manager? ) I had sarcastically mentioned to Pipo that we should find a Peruvian restaurant owner in Once who was itching to move to say, Spain. He had surprised me by enthusiastically agreeing to my proposal and we were now in Edgardo´s Peruvian restaurant not in Once but in nearby Almagro. Pipo knew the place and the owner and had overheard that he was trying to help his daughter move to Spain, despite the recession there. So we were in the kitchen trying to convince him to buy all five passports. The heat was horrid although the front room was air conditioned and fairly cool. A waiter brushed past me with a huge tray loaded with several plates of Cebiche Mixto. I asked Edgardo as quietly as I could given the noise,
Ella habla Italiano?
Habla cinco idiomas!
He answered looking offended. Was his daughter a translator? I was about to suggest how he could sell all the passports to her colleagues when Pipo cut me off.
Con seis tenes los cinco.
Cuatro answered Edgardo.
Cinco.
Cuatro he insisted. Pipo shrugged and looked at me skeptically. I nodded, dripping sweat. Egardo nodded at us both and guided us out into the front room. He wanted us out of there quickly so he could get back to business. We went into a little office behind the cash resigister and he peeled off forty hundred dollar bills from a roll he kept in a small safe. We handed him the passports and shuffled out to the sidewalk. Pipo walked around and opened the door of the Honda Pilot and then opened up the passenger door from inside. I clambered in and shut the door behind me. He handed me US $2000 - less than I had hoped for given I had netted them 10,000. I had to try and get a little more out of this ...
Che, mira arme todo esto asi que ...
Pipo handed me five more bills and then said briskly
Bueno loco tengo que volver a Cordoba.
So he was leaving me here in Almagro and heading back to Cordoba. How much mileage did he and Cagnazzo put on that SUV? I was still finding it hard to get used to how quickly things move after a job is done. But it makes sense. You don´t hang around and let people change their minds.
Me llevas al subte? I ask hopefully.
Te llevo a Medrano
Pipo says a little wearly. He seems geniunely tired. I wonder to myself if I should probe a little into Cagnazzo´s past but I dismiss the idea. We pull away from the sidewalk and head towards Rivadavia and Medrano. As we pass through Once I notice the metal shutters being lowered on many of the clothing stores even though it´s still evening. Is it a summer thing? Or was Isa right when she said that the Koreans liked to do business during the day unlike the old rag merchants in the diminshed Jewish community in Once who have moved on to bigger and better things but used to keep their shops open late? I lean back and sigh. Pipo laughs but it´s a friendly laugh. Poor little rookie me. Fifty one and hardly knows how to work a scam. Thank god for the Pilot´s air conditioning.
25,000 Shekels and five possibly fake passports. And I´m alone on this trip. Scarmiglione is picking me up at Retiro and supervising the transactions I imagine. When I found the passports under a bed in Felix Marino ( imagine several dozen teengagers singing La Marcha Peronista on a late February afternoon with the thermometer at 34, never mind the humidity, and me crawling through several of their bedrooms looking for something, anything ) I immediately wondered why anyone would leave three Italian and two Slovenian passports stuck under a bed. Five europassports wouldn´t be something a crew would leave behind would they? And it was the same method Kabe had used to hide his Shekels. I had imagined this was all an elaborate test concocted by Cagnazzo as I had slid them into a plastic bag I had brought with me for just that purpose. Outside in the courtyard the kids had finished singing their political anthems and were organizing themselves noisily into two volleyball teams. Felix Marino was a campground/resort but it felt like a school - the architecture was similar to the elementary schools built run by Exxon in Venezuela that I had attended four decades ago. I had waited in the lunchroom for Scarmiglione to enter from the courtyard. I guess both he and Cagnazzo were part of the Cordoba branch of the party. He had entered alone and I had waited till he had sat down at the table were I was sitting and then I had simply said,
Todo bien
He had looked curiously at me so I had had to add,
Passaportes europeos ... cinco.
He hadn´t looked that impressed but Cagnazzo had later phoned to say that I should take them with me to Buenos Aires along with the Shekels to see what I could get for them on the black market. So the very mobile Pipo who had returned to Cordoba with the kids a few days ago was now to meet me at Retiro in about two hours. A Petrobras service center slides by, it´s confiteria half full with families returning from their summer holidays. I´m wearing jeans and a t shirt. I´d like to have my WalMart sandals but I don´t think they´ll be helpful when I´m navigating dowtown Buenos Aires trying to change Shekels and fence stolen passports. I decide to eat my alfajor and gaze distractedy at the screen three seats ahead. The traffic is constant, almost heavy, and I´m tired. I wish I could nap.
Estas si, pero estas no
Edgardo says emphatically pointing at the Italian passports approvingly but dismissing the Slovenian ones. After we had changed the Shekels at HSBC´s ( I had to show my passport but the transaction had gone smoothly - did Cagnazzo know the manager? ) I had sarcastically mentioned to Pipo that we should find a Peruvian restaurant owner in Once who was itching to move to say, Spain. He had surprised me by enthusiastically agreeing to my proposal and we were now in Edgardo´s Peruvian restaurant not in Once but in nearby Almagro. Pipo knew the place and the owner and had overheard that he was trying to help his daughter move to Spain, despite the recession there. So we were in the kitchen trying to convince him to buy all five passports. The heat was horrid although the front room was air conditioned and fairly cool. A waiter brushed past me with a huge tray loaded with several plates of Cebiche Mixto. I asked Edgardo as quietly as I could given the noise,
Ella habla Italiano?
Habla cinco idiomas!
He answered looking offended. Was his daughter a translator? I was about to suggest how he could sell all the passports to her colleagues when Pipo cut me off.
Con seis tenes los cinco.
Cuatro answered Edgardo.
Cinco.
Cuatro he insisted. Pipo shrugged and looked at me skeptically. I nodded, dripping sweat. Egardo nodded at us both and guided us out into the front room. He wanted us out of there quickly so he could get back to business. We went into a little office behind the cash resigister and he peeled off forty hundred dollar bills from a roll he kept in a small safe. We handed him the passports and shuffled out to the sidewalk. Pipo walked around and opened the door of the Honda Pilot and then opened up the passenger door from inside. I clambered in and shut the door behind me. He handed me US $2000 - less than I had hoped for given I had netted them 10,000. I had to try and get a little more out of this ...
Che, mira arme todo esto asi que ...
Pipo handed me five more bills and then said briskly
Bueno loco tengo que volver a Cordoba.
So he was leaving me here in Almagro and heading back to Cordoba. How much mileage did he and Cagnazzo put on that SUV? I was still finding it hard to get used to how quickly things move after a job is done. But it makes sense. You don´t hang around and let people change their minds.
Me llevas al subte? I ask hopefully.
Te llevo a Medrano
Pipo says a little wearly. He seems geniunely tired. I wonder to myself if I should probe a little into Cagnazzo´s past but I dismiss the idea. We pull away from the sidewalk and head towards Rivadavia and Medrano. As we pass through Once I notice the metal shutters being lowered on many of the clothing stores even though it´s still evening. Is it a summer thing? Or was Isa right when she said that the Koreans liked to do business during the day unlike the old rag merchants in the diminshed Jewish community in Once who have moved on to bigger and better things but used to keep their shops open late? I lean back and sigh. Pipo laughs but it´s a friendly laugh. Poor little rookie me. Fifty one and hardly knows how to work a scam. Thank god for the Pilot´s air conditioning.
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