Free Mapuche by Caryl Férey, Steven Randall Page B

of,” Jo explained. “So far as the rest goes, get used to it. Not to mention that María could have slept with other men during the same period.”
    â€œShe got pregnant at the end of November, according to the analysis. You were together that week, and your portraits are hanging in the middle of her loft. Sorry to have to tell you this, but everything suggests that the baby is yours.”
    The bags under the singer’s eyes got a little heavier under his makeup.
    â€œI imagine she never told you about it to avoid having to get a clandestine abortion in the event that you insisted on it,” Rubén added.
    Abortion was still not legal in Argentina. Jo Prat emerged from his thoughts.
    â€œDo you think the fact that she’s pregnant has something to do with her disappearance?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    A siren howled in the street. The news left the ex-star in the middle of a minefield. For a moment, he remained perplexed in front of his cold tea. Images were rushing through his head: María’s smile when they’d had sex in the hotel room in Rosario, the champagne she’d hardly touched, his not using a condom—as usual with women he already knew—her sweet, peaceful look on the pillow when they fell asleep in each others’ arms after making love . . . Did María already know, by some feminine magic, that she was carrying his child? Was she planning to tell him someday?
    The silence that followed the revelation brought him back to the voice of Nick Cave coming out of the speakers. Jo ran his hand over his slicked-back hair.
    â€œDo you know anything else, Calderón?”
    â€œThat María Campallo’s father is financing Torres’s campaign, that she left a message with an opposition journalist, and that nothing has been heard from her since. For the moment, that’s about it.”
    The vampire paled in the gloom of the twilight that was filtering through the venetian blinds. Even if María had concealed the existence of this child from him, even if she was only looking for someone to father her child, she’d chosen him. He couldn’t leave her like that, lost out there somewhere.
    â€œWho are you working for?” he asked the detective.
    â€œNobody.”
    â€œYou think María has disappeared?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThat’s what I’m trying to find out.”
    Jo Prat hesitated a moment. Then without a word he got up, stepped over the white cat lying on the floor, and went to the desk near the front door. He dug around in a drawer and came back to Rubén, who was still the prisoner of the Japanese bench.
    â€œHere’s thirty thousand pesos,” he said, his eyes dark. “As an advance.” (An envelope dropped on the tea table.) “Find her,” the rocker said. “Her and my damned kid.”

5
    A short note in the day’s newspapers referred to an unidentified body found the day before near the old ferry in La Boca: a man about thirty years old. Nothing more. The barbarous mutilation, the possibility of a sex crime, the victim’s gender, and all the sordid details of the affair were not mentioned.
    Jana had risen early to buy the newspapers and after reading them she called the La Boca police station to obtain explanations: according to the cop she talked to on the phone, the investigation was proceeding. It was impossible to determine the victim’s full identity, to find out whether his family had been informed, whether the police had questioned any suspects or found Luz’s purse in the area. Jana had persisted, but the cop on the phone got exasperated: if she had revelations to make, she could request an appointment with Sergeant Andretti; if not, there was no point in calling back.
    A violent wind was blowing on the metal structures in the shed in Retiro. It was ten in the morning, and Jana was pensively finishing her breakfast when Paula slid