The Night Will Be Long by Santiago Gamboa

Author:Santiago Gamboa [Gamboa, Santiago]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2021-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

He walked with her to the cash register, offered his condolences again, and thanked her. He pulled out a business card and handed it to her.

“If you remember anything else, miss, please give me a call. Could I take your number?”

The young woman wrote it down on a promotional flier for the Legionnaires of the Black Christ School in Buga. They parted ways.

“What do you think, boss?” Laiseca asked.

“She’s being honest,” the prosecutor said. “It’s weird that neither the widow nor the mistress knew that Mr. F’s name was Fabinho Henriquez. That makes him more suspicious, don’t you think? I’ve got the guy’s name underlined three times—let’s follow that up.”

“Aye aye, boss,” Laiseca said.

“We should start at the famous Jamundí Inn, right?” Jutsiñamuy said. “I’ll see if I can find a woman to go there with me.”

He thought of Wendy, but figured she must be starting the process of infiltrating the church and decided not to bother her. He called his secretary and told her he’d be staying in Cali another day.

“Anything new on that end?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, you got a call from Cafesalud, something about a mix-up with a doctor’s visit payment. And the University of El Rosario called to confirm whether you’ll be coming to give a talk about fighting corruption.”

“Piedrahíta didn’t call?”

“No, sir. But if you want, I can put him in touch.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll call him in a bit. I’m heading to the hotel. Forward any calls to me there.”

“Of course, sir. Have a good night.”

It was getting dark now, so he hailed a cab. Before getting in, he said to his two agents, “Go hard after intel on that Brazilian pastor. I want to know everything—what brand of underwear he wears, every ache and pain, what kind of suppositories he uses, understood?”

“Understood, boss.”

“I bet he wears pink Punto Blanco boxers, but I’ll get back to you on that tomorrow,” Cancino said.

Jutsiñamuy looked at him, his face expressionless. “Hilarious.”

He climbed into the taxi.

When he got to the hotel, the prosecutor took off his black suit jacket, shirt, and tie. He smoothed them with his hand and hung them in the closet. Then he pulled an alternative outfit out of his suitcase: sweatpants, a knockoff Lacoste polo shirt, manufactured in Paraguay and purchased in San Andresito for eighty thousand pesos, and Adidas sneakers, also from Paraguay, that matched the shirt. It was his warm-weather uniform. He lay back on the bed and lifted his legs against the wall. Seven minutes on the nose, mind empty, and he was set, feeling like new. Transformed, he grabbed his computer and went up to the roof terrace. He snagged a table with a diagonal view of the river and fired up his laptop to check his email.

“It’s like she heard me,” he thought when he saw the new message: from Wendy, his undercover agent, with her first report.

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