Excerpt: Only Bandits and Soldiers

(From chapter 6; Johnny pays a visit to a prison. It doesn’t go terribly well!)

The oppressiveness of the prison only increased the further that he went down the hallway, heading through the whitewashed walls of the officers’ quarters and past the main staircase. Where had the screaming gone? He couldn’t hear it now, but since he was heading leftwards, he listened closer, trying to focus. It only kept on from some uncertain location, echoing down the staircase to reverberate through the hallway like the howling of a ghost.

The blond guard should have flinched, but he didn’t even come close. Johnny had to admit that he no longer felt himself shake, even though he felt the urge to do so. The prison itself no longer spooked him. Only the screaming startled him now, but the screaming would not stop.

At least the hallway was short. One sharp turn to the left followed, as the boy beckoned Johnny to follow. The office off the second door in the hallway was surprisingly welcoming, full of warm wooden furniture and plush-cushioned chairs. A glance around the surroundings made him aware of a liquor bottle on the wooden file cabinet. Johnny had to smile at that. Argentine pencil pushers were obviously no different from American ones.

This was not the chief superintendent. He would have had a nicer office. But this was evidently someone who was being paid rather well to keep folks like Roberto penned up. A flash of hate swept over him, and he almost missed the other man’s entrance.

“Ah! Our journalist visitor, wouldn’t you be? Señor Clark!” The jail official was every bit as solicitous as Johnny had expected him to be. He was all toothy smiles and broad gestures, like some caricature of middle management. There was something slimy and off-putting about him too, a slickness that would have served him well in journalism, as Johnny knew from experience. He had to fight the urge to step back from the guy, out of revulsion.

“Sir,” Johnny said. He afforded the sketchiest sort of smile that he could manage. “Thank you for this opportunity to meet with you. I’m sorry that I called in such a hurry, and I appreciate your effort.” His Spanish was as crisp and clear as he could make it.

The official waved a hand, stepping towards the file cabinet. “No hurry at all, Señor Clark! Please, sit down. Can I offer you a drink?”

“I don’t drink,” Johnny lied. He hoped he sounded apologetic and believable. He didn’t want to drink anything that the guy had to offer to him, and he hoped that the man would not call his bluff.

“That’s all right.” The bright smile slipped a little bit, slightly taken aback. But at least the other man avoided pressing the issue. Instead, he settled, folding his hands, and introduced himself. “I am Deputy Superintendent García. I think that I spoke with you on the telephone, several days ago. You had said that you’d meet with me in a week.”

Johnny could do the math. “You did, yeah. I’m sorry for arranging a hastier meeting than you had expected, but you can understand that I need to find this young man.”

“Why?”

Like the screaming that had rung through the hallway a few moments ago, the question caught Johnny by surprise. From the direct manner in which García looked at him, Johnny knew that he couldn’t possibly bullshit his way out of answering. Instead, he sighed and tried to give himself a moment or two to think about the issue.

How could he possibly explain this without involving Luisa? If he mentioned her name, the bastards would get her before too long, just like they had gotten her brother. He couldn’t do that to her, not after he had promised to help her. That would be the worst kind of betrayal ever.

“I need to find him,” Johnny said slowly, feeling like an idiot, “because I need to talk to him for my article. I want to write a piece on the universities here, and if I want to write good things about education, then I need to speak to the students, don’t I?”

García sipped his booze. “You’re lying.”

For Christ’s sake, Johnny thought. He clutched at the arms of his chair, feeling the blood draining from his face and his fingers curling upwards. “Sir?”

“You’re a drinking man,” García replied. He smiled warmly, gesturing towards the bottle. “Have some wine, won’t you? Let’s see if we can find this Señor Herrera for you, then.”

It would be suspect as hell to refuse, he knew. Even though the prospect of a drink horrified him on some weird level, he would just have to suck it up and drink the wine. Otherwise, he would run the risk of making García distrust him, and he didn’t want to chance that quite yet.

“I’d rather not,” Johnny began, wanting at least to clarify that, “but I guess, when in Rome… Thank you, sir.”

García plucked the bottle of wine from the file cabinet, looking quite pleased that Johnny had changed his mind, all smiles again. Johnny hoped that he’d only get a tiny glass of wine, but knew that was a futile wish here in the land of cheap drinks.

If he were being honest with himself, the wine was not half as bad as he had dreaded. Despite all his other faults, Deputy Superintendent García definitely knew his alcohol. The wine was honeyed and rich, probably a vintage from Mendoza or trucked in from Chile over a pass in the Andes. It was expensive stuff, and lingered on his tongue. Evidently being the deputy superintendent of a makeshift prison paid a lot better down here than it would in the United States, if there was any truth in what he had heard about the jails in Miami-Dade.

He had come in here with the intent of avoiding a drink and making short work of his task, and instead here he was sharing a drink with the very man who was probably in charge of killing people like Roberto. The superintendent might not dirty his hands with business like that, but the deputy superintendent definitely would.

“You don’t like it?” García’s question was abrupt. Johnny almost dropped his glass in surprise, tightening his hand quickly on the stem.

“No, sir.” Johnny licked his lips. “I mean, yes, sir. I like it. That’s not the issue, though. And besides, it’s just--it’s a long story. I’ll spare you the details, because they’re barely worth the telling.”

García’s attempt at approximating a smile did not quite succeed. “Ah. Well, whatever your problem is, please let me know if I can do anything to help you, Señor Clark.”

The solicitousness had crossed the line from merely annoying. It pressed at him now, nagging at him like the worst canker sore. Johnny swallowed hard, staring at the glass of wine and the few drops of liquid that remained inside the bowl. He set the glass down uncertainly and backed away from the man’s desk. “If I need your help with any of my own problems, I’ll let you know. For now, though, all I’m worried about is Señor Herrera Suárez, so please--if you’ll help me on that front, it would be most appreciated.”

García looked at him for a long moment, but said nothing.

Johnny had to avoid dodging the intense gaze. He drew himself up as straight as possible, his shoulders squaring, and wondered if this was how soldiers felt when their superiors inspected them on some kind of military detail.

The man’s voice was like a deadweight settling on the back of his neck. “We don’t have the Herrera boy.”

The deputy superintendent hadn’t even looked. The kid in the hallway had made more of an effort to find the name by just leafing listlessly through a few pages. Johnny wanted to grab the man and shake him.

There were so many things that he wanted to explain. He wanted to explain to him that he had to find Roberto. He wanted to explain that Luisa’s life probably depended on Roberto returning safely to her home, and that he didn’t want to see a tragedy happen. Tragedies happened everyday down here, though, and not just to Luisa. He could threaten the man and apply his journalistic immunity, but he didn’t want to take that chance. That might get Roberto freed, and it might even keep Luisa safe, but how many of the Herreras’ friends would it send to a drugging, a quick plane ride, and an even quicker disposal in the Atlantic Ocean?

“Thank you, sir.” Johnny smiled. The expression was plastic, even if it was a bit loose from the alcohol. “I appreciate your honesty.”

He was taking a chance, but he was damned if he was going to walk out of here without getting in a good shot at the deputy superintendent. If the officers here were going to jerk him around, he was going to make it clear that he knew exactly what they were doing, and that he didn’t appreciate them doing it at all.

Even so, his hand was a little shaky as he reached for the door. He did his best not to look at Deputy Superintendent García on his way out.

“Be safe, Señor,” the man called out after him.

Was that a threat? Johnny wondered about it for a moment, but he wasn’t about to stick around the prison long enough to find out for sure. Instead, he double-timed it to the door, doing his best to ignore the Hitler Youth to whom he had previously spoken.

The blond kid rose to his feet. “The deputy superintendent asked before that you should meet--”

Johnny grimaced, but he didn’t stop walking, heading through the blur of whitewashed walls and fine portraits again. He didn’t have to stick around here long enough to find out whom the superintendent wanted him to meet. He wasn’t a citizen, he wasn’t in custody, and he wasn’t going to submit to the control of the deputy superintendent. The only thing that he had going for him down here was his freedom to do what he needed to do. Giving that up was too seductive and too easy.

He had to get out of this place. So he headed into the sunlight, blinking and stumbling his way back to the rented Renault. His hands didn’t stop shaking until he was on the highway out of Buenos Aires, and he didn’t let off the gas until he was a good few dozen kilometers down the road, away from the endless apartment buildings of the city.

Here, they had done a hell of a job spooking him from the word go, he realized, in a way that no other prison had done. Was it the contrast between the propriety of the building and the evil of the prison contained within? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t care, either. Let them keep their creepy little prison in Núñez. He would stay as far away from it as he possibly could. Roberto would just have to be somewhere else, because there was no way he was going back to that place.