The one in charge is a tall, heavyset, dark-haired, mustached man with a striking sense of authority. He brandishes a .45 caliber pistol in his right hand. He shouts in a deep, husky voice that makes him sound drunk at times. He is wearing light pants and a short, olive green jacket: it is the uniform of the Argentine Army.
Mr. Horacio has taken a step back, terrified. He manages only to put his hands up, still holding onto the hot water bottle that at this point is burning his fingers. The leader of the group knocks it out of his hand with a smack.
—Where is Tanco? —he shouts.
The head of the household looks at him, not understanding. It is the first time he has heard the name of the rebel general whose dramatic escape from the wall in front of the firing squad people will only hear about a few days later. The leader of the group pushes him aside and walks up to face the other one, to face Giunta.
Giunta is simply petrified. He is still in his chair, open-mouthed, eyes enormous, unable to move. The leader approaches him and deliberately, delicately, puts the gun to his throat.
—Don’t be smart with me! —he says to him in a deep voice.— Put your hands up!
Giunta puts his hands up. Then he hears that mysterious question for a second time, the one that keeps being repeated like a nightmare. Where is Tanco. Where is Tanco?
His stunned silence earns him a blow that nearly knocks him off his chair. We will see this left-handed punch—which is protected by the menacing weapon that the right hand is brandishing—again. It seems to be a favorite of the man who is using it.
The scene was electrifying and it happened fast. What follows happens just as fast and in the form of a crackling of commands:
—Grab that old guy and this other guy and take them out to the car!
They don’t even have time to object. They are taken out and thrust into a Florida precinct car, a Plymouth. A red bus and a light blue police van with a mobile radio are parked on the same sidewalk.
In the meantime, it seems that a man has escaped from the patio of the building—Torres—and someone else—Lizaso—has tried to do the same and failed.
The patio belongs to the apartment in front, but is connected in a roundabout way to the back through a little door. The little door opens into the corridor, the one with the privet hedge.
The whole episode is confusing and no two versions of it are alike. A consolidation of all the different versions suggests that Torres, accompanied by Lizaso, was walking to Mr. Horacio’s apartment, taking the same route as usual, to ask if he could use the phone, which he did quite regularly. It was then that they heard and maybe saw the police arriving.
Torres doesn’t hesitate. The fence around the patio is not very high. He jumps it in one try and flees through the neighboring buildings. In his frenzied dash, he jumps over hedges and roofs, rips his clothes, seriously wounds his hand and neck—he’ll never know how—zigzags across blocks and blocks, finally gets on a bus and, bleeding and exhausted, finds shelter. In a way, he was the first survivor.
There are three versions of Carlitos Lizaso’s story. The first is that he was able to reach a nearby piping plant where the night watchman would not let him hide, which in turn led to his capture. The second is that he was caught in the patio after the fence collapsed under his weight. The last is that he did not even try to escape. The only thing we know for sure is that he was arrested.
In the meantime, the same astounding and savage scene has taken place in the back apartment. The police encounter no opposition when they enter. No one budges. No one protests or even resists. The guard Ramón Madialdea will state later that “a gun with a pearl handle” was confiscated here. That weapon (if it existed) was the only one in the house.
They order them onto the street, one by one. The leader of the group is waiting for them there, quick to shout at them again, punching and kicking them as they load them onto the bus. He hammers Livraga in the stomach with the barrel of the gun, yelling: