Lieutenant Pedro Gutierrez sighed, reluctantly moving his admiring gaze from the ample rump of the uniformed mestizo maid pushing a child in a stroller across the street, shifted his bulk from the sagging seat, and got out of his unmarked Chevrolet at the kerb. He ignored the ‘Estacionamiento Prohibido’ sign, spat loudly on the sidewalk, and then reflected that gringos saw this as vulgar. Perhaps no one had seen him. Or perhaps they had, so he spat again, a vile eructation of phlegm and spit that left a yellow stain upon the pristine white pavement. He pushed the bridge of his sunglasses back on his fleshy nose, patted his hip where his concealed revolver lay, and noted, on seeing his reflection in the glass door of the school building he was entering, that apart from his weight, he was a fine-looking fellow for a forty-year-old. He would have preferred to make his entrance in uniform–much more impressive– but the jefe had admonished him not to.
‘It is a matter of state security. You do understand that, Gutierrez?’
Maldonado had looked at him with pained impatience. ‘Sometimes you have to put aside the club. A policeman is not always a thug. The mission is a delicate one. You do see that, don’t you?’ The impatience was now annoyance. Damn the man. He had no cojones.
All these plainclothes types were the same. No cojones.
‘Si. Entiendo.’ He clicked his heels, saluted, and was on his way.
The Escuela Inglesa spread itself impressively along the base of the Altamira mountains, with a fine view of the city below. The gringos always got the best real estate, he knew that. In a cool marble corridor out of the blinding sun, Gutierrez saw the sign Office, and entered. A secretary who would have been good-looking without her glasses, but whose ample breast cheered him nevertheless, asked him ‘May I help you?’ in English.
‘I have an appointment with the headmistress,’ he responded in Spanish, ‘I am Lieutenant Gutierrez.’
He was ushered into a pleasant room filled with plants and sunshine, and lots of Scandinavian furniture, comfortable, not too formal. Gutierrez approved.
‘She is in a classroom at the moment,’ said the secretary in faultless Spanish. ‘She knows she has an eleven o’clock appointment with you, and she is always punctual.’ She left the room.
Gutierrez glanced at the clock, and seeing that it was ten to eleven, wondered idly if this was meant as reproof and decided he didn’t care if it was. He sat down heavily. No matter if he was early. He’d have time to size this dame up. Detectives did that in the American gumshoe stories he’d read in English. He sniffed. No female scent in the air. No photos of kids or husband on the desk. A tidy desk-top with some unopened mail and a closed file too uninteresting to inspect. And in the drawers– he sprang up to lean over and slide open the top drawer from the front with unsuspected agility and practiced ease, resuming his seat in an instant– no clutter of female paraphernalia there: no lipstick, compact, no vanity mirror or nail-file. An academic type, then, one of those liberated women, squat and hairy, with a moustache like his own, no doubt, too ugly to attract a man. It figured.
‘Lieutenant Gutierrez? I’m Caroline Judge. Sorry to have kept you waiting.’
