Trash - Andy Mulligan [22]
Let me tell you something else – I think I will tell it now.
On that computer we had found out about José – the man whose bag it was. José Angelico, God rest his poor soul, was a dead man. His name had been in the news. Gardo had said, ‘What if he’s a killer?’ – but it turned out the poor man had been killed.
Guess where he had died?
He had died in a police station. The newspaper said that he had died while police were interrogating him. In the same police station as me? I wondered. In the same room?
Had they dropped him from the window on purpose? By mistake?
I was passing a little park, and I ducked into it for a moment and sat on the grass. The rain was so light and cool. I guess I was in deep shock, so I just sat for a while, and I thought more about poor José Angelico.
He had been arrested on suspicion of a major, major crime – it had made all the papers. After the computer, we had gone to the papers – one thing there’s a lot of on the dumpsite is old news papers. It didn’t take us long to find the right ones, and we sat there like three little old men, me reading it all out to Rat, who nodded and stared. The police had arrested José Angelico for robbery.
Six million dollars.
We sat back and tried to imagine what even a thousand dollars looks like. Gardo tried to translate it into pesos and got a headache so bad he had to lie down. We were laughing, trying to imagine how you walk with all those million dollars in your pocket, and then we stopped laughing.
José Angelico had died in a police station, they said, and that’s why I stuck to the lie, even as they held me out of that window – for the sake of José Angelico and his serious-faced little girl. I also think José was with me, because I know the dead come back.
The crime he was accused of was robbing a government man – the vice-president – of six million dollars, and maybe he’d done it and the money was waiting somewhere. He must have put that bag in the trash before they got him – I think perhaps they made him confess to it, and that’s when they came looking.
One newspaper told us a little bit about him. It said that he had been an orphan, but had been adopted by a man called Dante Jerome Olondriz, son of Gabriel Olondriz. That was the name on the letter we’d found – Gabriel Olondriz, the man in Colva Prison. José Angelico, it said, had worked as a houseboy for the vice-president for eighteen years. It said that José Angelico had an eight-year-old daughter and no other family. That was why he was writing to Gabriel Olondriz.
I sat shaking in the rain, and I knew for sure now that we would have to go to Colva Prison and deliver the letter.
4
My name is Grace and you will hear only one thing from me.
Father Juilliard has asked me to say what kind of a man José Angelico was, as I worked closely with him. I am a maid to Senator Zapanta – the vice-president who was robbed. I have been his maid for four years, so I knew the senior houseboy well. I can say that José was kind, gentle, trustworthy and honest. He had a very quiet voice. He didn’t smoke. He took a little brandy at the weekend, but not so much. His wife had died before I knew him, and he was paying for his daughter to go to school. Her name was Pia Dante, but she could not live with her father. José was live-in staff, and the senator’s house is a long way from schools. He boarded her with a family near to her school, and they saw each other once a week. He had also had a son, but the little boy had died very young.
I don’t know what else to say.
I was very, very upset when I heard about it, and like everyone, I said it was impossible. José Angelico was the most trustworthy man, and he did not seem brave. As soon as I could – after he had been taken – I went to find his daughter. But when I found the house, I was told she had gone. I asked where, I asked when, and I honestly tried to find a way of looking for her – but the family that had boarded her were not helpful. I don’t know what happened to the little girl.