Free No One Loves a Policeman by Guillermo Orsi, Nick Caistor Page A

coincided with an easing of the storm. The rain fell more gently now. Crickets began to strike up their music.
    I got out of the car and clambered through the wire fence onto the property. The torch and the .38 in my hand belonged to Isabel. I could not imagine her with a weapon, and wondered if she knew how to use it, where she had learned to shoot and who had taught her. Edmundo was not someone who favored guns: he was an old-school type, saidthey were the devil’s work. I am not a great fan of them, either; that is why I have not used one for years. Besides, you do not need a .45 to sell toilets to the middle classes.
    I walked toward the only light I could see. I had to watch my feet on the uneven, slippery ground. Despite the darkness it was obvious the land had not been worked for years, like so many small farms on the fertile pampas that were created by the subdivision of big estates, generations of inheritances wasted by the descendants of decadent oligarchs, then dismembered by the miserable ambitions of bureaucrats who had never smelled damp earth or cow dung in their lives.
    By the time I arrived at the source of the light I was covered in mud and exhausted. Before me stood a big, square old house with a veranda. It was here that my guiding star was hanging. A 4×4 was backed onto the veranda. There was not enough light for me to be able to tell whether or not it was red.
    The estate agent would have been surprised if we had gone out there that afternoon, because lights were on inside the house and there was the steady hum of a generator from the back.
    I felt for the snub-nosed .38 in my jacket pocket. I was not even sure the gun worked: women who carry weapons never seem to bother to maintain them, and see no reason to dismantle them from time to time to clean them. I also guessed that whoever was inside would probably have as much firepower as the Israeli army. I was not going to survive a shoot-out; my only chance was to remain unnoticed until I could learn something of what was going on.
    The mud plastered all over me was useful camouflage. Besides, they say it does wonders for old, dry skin. It nutrifies all the molecules, and for a while at least you are as soft as a baby’s bottom. I crawled along like a lizard, going past a drinking trough and finally stopping to get my breath back next to the wind-pump tank.
    Bank employees moan because policemen can retire ten years before they do, but I would like to see
them
up to their ears in mud, on eitherside of their fiftieth birthday, or being bashed on the head or shot from behind by an accomplice of the thug they have just caught red-handed. When I left the Buenos Aires police I swore that I had done my last of these pentathlon events, and yet here I was. And the rain was pouring down again.

    I sheltered under the eaves, next to a small window that turned out to be the bathroom vent. The electrical storm lit the vast empty pampas once more. I peered round the corner of the house and confirmed what I had suspected: the 4×4 was red.
    There was no sound from inside the house, not even voices. They were probably asleep, or sitting there in silence because they had nothing to say to each other. I crouched down and was backing away from the wall when I felt hot breath on my right cheek. I froze, expecting a blow or a challenge, but all I heard was a low growl. Cautiously, I turned my face as slowly as possible. I found myself staring into the muzzle of an enormous farmyard dog.
    How can I describe what I mean by a farmyard dog? They have all kinds of genes, from the most aggressive to the most docile. They have pedigree or mongrel blood, and can, of course, be of any size. The only thing they all have in common is that they hang around farmhouses, which they are never allowed to enter, hoping to snaffle a few scraps and perhaps even a friendly look from some human being—although only very rarely a pat or a stroke.
    I decided to sit down and relax,