Read 17 Stone Angels for Free Online

answered. Carlo who? They let the silence work on Waterbury as they crossed into the exurbs of La Matanza.
    â€œTell Don Carlo that he has nothing to worry about,” Waterbury said from the floor and then yelped, which told Fortunato that Domingo had kicked him in the head again.
    â€œ Tranquilo ,” Fortunato said in his calmest voice.
    Waterbury spoke again after a few minutes, sounding more frustrated than fearful. “I didn’t do anything! You understand? You have to tell him that. Or better, I’ll tell him. Take me to him right now and I’ll explain the whole thing myself.”
    â€œOf course,” Domingo laughed. “But no one needs your explanation.”
    Fortunato sensed that even now Waterbury retained a certain amount of composure. Still banking on his passport. He probably thought that things like this didn’t happen to people like him.
    â€œListen, tell Señor Pelegrini that all I want to do is go home to my wife and daughter and forget all about this. I know nothing and I care about nothing. Understand?”
    Carlo Pelegrini . The vaguely familiar name made Fortunato uneasy, but then Domingo kicked another yelp out of the gringo. “Shut up, faggot! Nobody wants to hear your lies!” Fortunato took a breath and reassured himself. Waterbury was a blackmailer and he had to learn the hard way. It was a necessary part of the operation.
    They’d reached the poorer streets where the houses became scabbed with tar paper and corrugated tin. Weedy lawns languished beside vacant lots. Onda’s headlights in the rear view mirror. The Northamerican couldn’t see anything, but maybe he sensed that he had reached his ultimate destination. Fortunato could hear a new timbre in his voice. Now he was truly afraid. “This is Renssaelaer, isn’t it? Renssaelaer sent you.”
    The sound of the gringo name puzzled the Comisario. Renssaelaer . . . and Pelegrini . . . What was this?
    â€œTell Señor Renssaelaer he has nothing to fear from me. I’m going home and I won’t tell anyone. I’ll go home tomorrow!”
    The fire extinguished, the declarant examined the body and found itwithout signs of life. The cadaver was of masculine sex, in a fetal position with his dorsal side to the back of the car and his head towards the passenger side. The cadaver’s hands were cuffed in front of him, with handcuffs of make Eagle Security .
    Idiot Domingo! To leave the cuffs at the scene! Eagle Security was the police brand. Why didn’t he just write down his badge number on the dashboard! The gringa was scribbling something in her notebook, something about the handcuffs, and he felt his stomach tighten.
    The cadaver presented five wounds, presumably from firearms, one in the left hand through the palm, one in the left thorax, frontal zone, one in the frontal zone of the right thigh, one in the testicles and rectum, one in the right temple apparently exiting through the left socket .
    â€œThey tortured him!” La Doctora said, shuddering. Her sharp green eyes flickered into Fortunato’s.
    Fortunato didn’t answer, hiding in the dispassionate typescript of the declaration. Finally he croaked, “The one in the hand is a defensive wound.”
    The night was going off again, like an alarm. Domingo and Vasquez in the back seat, Vasquez with his swastika tattoos and his papelitos of merca one after the other. Vasquez, an addled coil of blue-tinted muscles, a guapo of the new style, always ready for a fight, but preferring a few bullets pumped from behind to a head-on contest with knives. Bad news from the start, and now coked up so high that his eyes were blazing. They’d pulled Waterbury upright in the seat so they could hit him in the face more easily, Domingo shouting, “You think yourself clever!” A blow. Waterbury’s nose bleeding, his eye swelling up. “You think yourself clever, eh?” Waterbury no longer protesting