17 Stone Angels Read Online Free Page A

Comiso.”
    He turned off the cell phone and heard a low chanting at his open door: “Bo-ca! Bo-ca! Bo-ca!”
    It was Fabian, crowing about Boca’s victory over River in last night’s SuperClassic. River had lost it on a last-minute goal, enabled by a questionable hold by a Boca wing. Fortunato had bet on River.
    â€œIt was a foul, hijo de puta . The referee was in on it.”
    Fabian strode in, one hand extended like an orator. “Comi! The SuperClassic is sacred! Even that jackal Morelo has to try to be honest for an hour and a half! Though the effort costs him.” Fabian was dressed today in a lime green jacket and a flamboyant tie plastered with little gold roosters.
    Fortunato looked at the handsome, ridiculous man, with his curly blond hair and his clownish garb. “You would know,” he said, picking up his pen. “You’re the one who spends all his time at the stadium and the hippodrome.”
    Fabian nodded at the Comisario’s freshly tidied office. “The place is looking good. Even the calabozos smell like a pine forest. La Doctora Fowler will be very impressed. What a piece of woman, no?” His superior’s annoyance at being stuck with the investigation returned all at once. “She’s here to investigate a homicide, Fabian, not to hear your verses. You made us look like idiots last night with your little story about being a writer.”
    Fabian couldn’t seem to lose his smile. “But it’s true, Comiso!”
    He held up his hand. “I know. You’re going to fill yourself with silver at any moment, and now is the chance for a smart woman to hook you and ride you to Hollywood.”
    â€œComi,” he gave an intimate little shrug, “I don’t have a monopoly on verses here.”
    Fortunato leveled a long dusty gaze at his subordinate that, over the course of five seconds, dried up Fabian’s grin and sent his left hand fidgeting at the inside of his pocket. “Listen, Romeo, while the Doctora is here I want you to stay busy with your own investigations. If she asks you something about the Waterbury case, direct her to me.”
    â€œThat was a strange case, no? Six chalks of milonga and a dead foreigner. Domingo was telling me about it. Somebody was settling accounts.”
    Fortunato’s stomach tightened at Domingo’s name. He didn’t welcome Fabian’s interest in the case. “Thus the theory.”
    Fabian nodded. “I looked over the expediente a few months ago. Nothing’s going to come out of that mess.” Fortunato didn’t answer andFabian dropped it. “Whatever, it should be interesting to work with a police from the United States,” he said.
    â€œShe’s not a police. She’s a professor. A specialist in Human Rights.”
    Fabian raised his eyebrows and shook his head, laughing as he turned to leave the office. “This is a thing of gringos!”
    She arrived promptly at eleven o’clock, accompanied by a young weightless attaché from the United States embassy. The embassy man, a Mr Wilbert Small, introduced himself with an accent that tried hard to accommodate the Italianate cadences of Buenos Aires. Fortunato could tell he was a man of little rank. If the embassy was serious, they would have sent over someone from the FBI. Fortunato offered them a coffee and ceremoniously took a few coins from a wooden box. He handed them to a sub-inspector and asked for him to bring three cortados , the thick spicy coffee with a dollop of milk.
    They sat down and the embassy man started in with his embassy verses: the United States was grateful that the Bonaerense had agreed to indulge the family in one last attempt to put the case to rest.
    â€œIt’s a tragedy,” the Comisario said. “I’ll do everything possible.”
    He and Wilbert Small chatted lightly about Argentina and the United States for a few minutes until the diplomat left them to