The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa Read Free Book Online Page B

At last the very young, beardless policeman returned and had him go in. The light inside the station was as dim and sad as on the streets of Castilla. This time the officer didn’t show him to Sergeant Lituma’s tiny cubicle but to a larger office. The sergeant was there with a higher-ranking officer—a captain, judging by the three stripes on the epaulets of his shirt—short, fat, and with a mustache. He looked at Felícito without joy. His open mouth revealed yellow teeth. Apparently Felícito had interrupted a game of checkers. He was about to speak, but the captain cut him short with a gesture.
    “I’m familiar with your case, Señor Yanaqué, the sergeant brought me up to date. I’ve already read the letter with spiders that they sent you. You may not remember, but we met at a Rotary Club lunch in the Piuran Center, a while ago now. There were some good carob syrup cocktails, as I recall.”
    Without saying anything, Felícito deposited the letter on the checkerboard, disturbing the pieces. He felt that his rage had risen to his brain and almost kept him from thinking.
    “Sit down before you have a heart attack, Señor Yanaqué,” the captain said mockingly, pointing to a chair. He chewed on the ends of his mustache and his tone was arrogant and provocative. “Oh, by the way, you forgot to say good evening. I’m Captain Silva, the chief of police, at your service.”
    “Good evening,” Felícito said, his voice strangled by irritation. “They just sent me another letter. I demand an explanation, officers.”
    The captain read the paper, bringing it closer to the lamp on his desk. Then he passed it to Sergeant Lituma, muttering, “Well, well, this is heating up.”
    “I demand an explanation,” repeated Felícito, choking. “How did the gangsters know I came to the station to file a complaint about this anonymous letter?”
    “In many ways, Señor Yanaqué.” Captain Silva shrugged, looking at him with pity. “Because they followed you here, for example. Because they know you and know you’re not a man who lets himself be extorted but goes to the police and complains. Or because somebody you told that you’d filed a complaint repeated it to somebody else. Or because, suddenly, we’re the ones who wrote the letters, the villains who want to extort you. That’s occurred to you, hasn’t it? That must be why you go around in such a bad mood, hey waddya think, as your fellow Piurans say.”
    Felícito repressed his desire to tell him yes. At this moment he was angrier with the two officers than with whoever wrote the letters.
    “You found it the same way, attached to your front door?”
    His face burned as he replied, hiding his embarrassment.
    “They attached it to the front door of a person I visit.”
    Lituma and Captain Silva exchanged glances.
    “This means, then, that they have a thorough knowledge of your life, Señor Yanaqué,” Captain Silva commented with malicious slowness. “These bastards even know who you visit. They’ve done a good job of intelligence, it seems. So we can deduce that they’re professionals, not amateurs.”
    “And now what’s going to happen?” the trucker asked. His rage of a moment ago had been replaced by a feeling of sadness and impotence. What was happening to him was unfair, it was cruel. What were they punishing him for up there? Holy God, what crime had he committed?
    “Now they’ll try to scare you to soften you up,” the captain explained as if he were chatting about how mild the night was. “To make you believe they’re powerful and untouchable. And pow! That’s where they’ll make their first mistake. Then we’ll begin to track them down. Patience, Señor Yanaqué. Though you may not believe it, things are going well.”
    “That’s easy to say when you’re watching from the audience,” the trucker philosophized. “Not when you’re receiving threats that upset your life and turn it upside down. You want me to be patient while these