No One Loves a Policeman Read Online Free PDF

policeman.
    â€œInspector Ayala,” he replied, in a formal manner that took me by surprise. “And that’s Officer Rodríguez,” he said, pointing toward the man in the corridor.
    I tried to draw breath, but the effort was a punishment.
    â€œDon’t worry, the doctor will soon be here.”
    â€œHe must be cleaning his teeth,” came the voice from the corridor. “He’s obsessed. First of all he brushes them, flosses them one by one, and then gargles with mouthwash. It takes him at least half an hour.”
    â€œIf I were a woman, I’d have him lick my cunt,” said the man beside me. The two of them laughed so loudly at this that it sounded like a duet for two drunks, with a low and a high voice singing from very different scores.
    â€œI spent all the money I had in Pro Nobis,” I said, feeling my empty pockets. “So why did they mug me?”
    Inspector Ayala wiped away his dirty cackle like crumbs with a napkin.
    â€œYou should know,” he said drily.
    â€œI’ve never been beaten up to thank me for something,” Rodríguez said.
    I realized then that I was not in a cell because there was nowhere more comfortable to accommodate me.
    â€œAs far as I’m aware, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m a single father. My daughter lives in Australia. Her mother abandoned her when she left me, so nobody is asking for any alimony.”
    â€œWhy did you come to Bahía Blanca?” Ayala wanted to know.
    From out in the corridor, Rodríguez offered him a cigarette. Ayala asked if he had forgotten he had given up two months ago. He was finding it hard going, so why didn’t Rodríguez stop messing him around and just get on with poisoning his own lungs. Rodríguez shrugged andlit his cigarette, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye either for support or to keep tabs on me.
    Ayala was still waiting for my reply.
    â€œAm I being charged?”
    He stood up and turned as if to leave the cell, asking Rodríguez if that wasn’t the doctor he could hear, parking his sky-blue Volkswagen outside the station. As Rodríguez was saying he did not think so, the inspector wheeled round, leaned down, and slapped me as hard as he could across my left cheek.
    â€œThat pain in your stomach is going to seem like an itch compared to this,” he said, knocking my head in the opposite direction with another blow.
    I have only a few teeth left, and most of them are rotten, but luckily I have never gone in for false ones. If I had, I would have lost them all with that second backhander. I cursed him as loudly as I could as my mouth filled with blood.
    â€œBlue Volkswagen pulling up outside, Inspector,” said Rodríguez.
    â€œIf the doctor asks, tell him you fell over,” Ayala explained patiently. “You were beaten up in the street, and when you tried to stand, you fell against the curb.”
    â€œSon of a bitch.”
    â€œIf you ever say that to me again, you’re a dead man. Our good doctor doesn’t have any scruples when it comes to signing death warrants. He wouldn’t be a forensic expert if he cared a great deal about living specimens.”
    I believed him. I had no idea why I was so reluctant to answer their questions. There was nothing suspicious about why I had come all this way to Mediomundo, even if I had arrived to find a friend who had been shot and a young blond who had jumped into my car and then vanished along with it.
    The doctor came in staring at the floor and did not say hello to anyone. He was a short, bald, plump man in his fifties. He wassweating, although inside the cell it was as cold as an ice box. His breath anesthetized me while he poked around my stomach with his stethoscope. When he pressed on my ribs, though, I howled with pain. He gave me a strip of gauze to wipe the blood from my mouth, and asked if I had lost any teeth. I said I had not, that I had a dentist who was