An Elmore Leonard-style fast-paced crime thriller, a meditation on 1965 society gone violent and grotesque, Money to Burn makes for a gripping, spellbinding, engrossing read – once I opened the book, I simply couldn’t put it down; I even continued reading while taking my afternoon walk, keeping to paths so as not to be hit by a car, and eyes still riveted to the page, kept on reading deep into the night.
Based on actual events, Argentine author Ricardo Piglia’s novel begins with an action-packed, multimillion dollar bank robbery and bloody getaway in Buenos Aires and ends in the legionary battle in Montevideo between the cocaine-fueled bandits and three hundred Uruguayan police. I had the feeling I was right there with the desperados, living through their blood-splattered, death dealing mayhem.
The life of each bandit is laid bare: drug-happy, trigger-happy Twisty Bazan, sex obsessed Crow Mereles, bossman Mad Malito with his phenomenal intelligence, a man who knew absolutely everything about motors, circuits, planning, scheming, controlling, a man who could assemble a bomb in minutes to send an entire police station up in smoke, and, lastly, two bandits so bonded together they consider themselves twins: little Kid Brignone and Blond Gaucho Dorda.
Skinny, pale, agile Brignone turned his back on his well-to-do family to embrace a life of violence and crime with all his heart; big, corpulent, slow moving Dorda is a psychotic killer and, according to his mother who saw him in action as a child, thoroughly evil; he hears women’s voices in his head and can go for weeks without speaking a word, and, oh yes, Dorda is obsessed with drugs. In addition to having occasional sex together, one of the many things Kid and Blonde Goucho share: they would both like nothing more than to see the entire Buenos Aires police force lined up against a firing squad.
Did I mention cocaine back there? The bank robbers imbibe the white powder before and during their bank hoist, machine gunning down with glee bank tellers, guards, police and pedestrians. And they didn’t take a break from cutting lines all through their getaway in a nifty, souped-up Chevrolet. Well, once they reached their first hideout, occasionally the boys did switch to drinking whiskey and popping speed and happy pills, but only very occasionally. Witnesses later remarked how young they all were.
Rumors float the police had their dirty blue hand in the robbery so as to get a cut of all those millions. And what part did politics play in the hoist? When occupying their last hideout, the apartment on the ninth floor in Montevideo, they're surrounded, and the chief of police tells the robbers via a loudspeaker to hand themselves over. The Kid calls down, taunting, claiming they are Peronist activists, exiles fighting for the General’s return and have information they can use against Police Commissioner Silva. As perhaps expected, the Buenos Aires Commissioner himself is on the scene in Montevideo to make his presence felt. In the rich tradition of Latin American literature, Money to Burn is a very political novel.
No doubt the strong arm of politics manifests in Police Commissioner Silva. Among Silva’s first moves following the robbery - round up sixteen-year-old Blanca Galeano, girlfriend of Crow Mereles, and beat her face to a bloody pulp in an attempt to extract information. A big burly man in his fifties, representing the state, torturing and defacing a sixteen-year-old girl. To repeat, part of the author’s running commentary on a society gone violent and grotesque.
One of the more intriguing aspects is how Mr. Piglia's story is encased in documents of one variety or another, that is, events are detailed and conversations relayed with the aside “as reported in the newspaper” or some such reference to other media coverage or official papers. In the short Epilogue, the fictional author (maybe Ricardo Piglia?) goes on to tell us he has utilized original sources in his account of what the characters say and do and documents have been employed to confirm the facts as they appear throughout the book. My own sense is the “facts” add to the vast imaginative landscape in each creatively constructed chapter.
Another telling example of the media’s influence: the trapped banditos watch on television as police take up various tactical positions, in the building opposite, up on the roof, down below on the street. Recall members of the Palestinian terrorist group at the 1972 Olympics admitted doing exactly the same thing: watching on television as soldiers with high power rifles climbed on the roof in order to catch them by surprise.
The siege by three hundred police equipped with tear gas, bombs and military-style rifles takes on epic proportions – much more than simple cops and robbers, spectators at the scene and millions of viewers glued to their television screens are witnessing a historic event on the level of a decisive military operation. And, as if on cue, the three robbers (yes, only three in that apartment!) mount an effective counterattack inflicting multiple casualties.
Some months after the siege, the narrator relates his conversation on a train to Bolivia with Blanca Galeano who served six months in jail for her association with the gang and was now fleeing from the authorities. She recounts the astonishing tale and the narrator takes it in: “I listened to her as if brought face to face with the Argentine version of a Greek tragedy. The heroes were determined to confront and resist the insurmountable, and chose death as their destiny.”
One of the giants of Latin American literature, Argentina's Ricardo Piglia (1941- 2017)
"That's how they spoke, filthier, more crude and brutal in their speech than even the cops, for all their experience in inventing insults intended to humiliate prisoners to the point where they became useless floppy puppets. Tough guys, from out of the toughest jails, broken on the electric grill, surrendering at last, after being forced to listen to Commissioner Silva insulting and applying the torture machine to them for hours on end, to get them to spill the beans." - Ricardo Piglia, Money to Burn
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