Thirty is not fifty, she told herself firmly, but in the back of her mind she remembered bits of conversation from some of the other office workers in her building, conversations she caught while seated at the counter of the nearby lonchería. Young men complaining a certain bar was filled with hags with saggy tits. Where could the trim, young cuts be found? And Maite, sinking in her seat, staring at her reflection in the mirrors behind the counter.
Thirty is not fifty, she repeated as she did her hair. At least she had good hair, even if her aunts had both gone partially bald at an early age. Would she face the same fate? Maite inspected her hairline.
Stop being silly, she whispered and continued with her preparations. She still needed to feed the cat in Leonora’s apartment, and she didn’t want to be late.
Cristóbalito had liked her hair. Tumbling down her back, so long it almost reached her waist in those days. When she lay naked in bed with him it could cover her breasts, as though she were Lady Godiva. Who’d want to see her naked now, though? Her skin was dry and her thighs—
No, she wasn’t going to be upset today. Today was a good day. Today was a day when things would happen, even if nothing ever happened to Maite. She was merely a weathervane, tossed from one point to another by indifferent winds, but now something was happening to her, and it wasn’t only the lunch with Emilio Lomelí, it was Leonora’s mysterious disappearance, Rubén asking her for assistance, it was the whole of it.
She was part of a story.
She must hurry. Maite decided not to feed the cat. She’d be late if she did. She was already late as it was. She’d worry about the cat later. It’s not as if she’d be gone for hours and hours.
She dashed out of her apartment and down the stairs. It would have been easier if she could take a cab, but she needed to watch her expenses and so it was public transit and a bit of a walk.
Emilio Lomelí lived in Polanco. She’d seldom been in that part of town. It was a neighborhood that had been for a number of years now the favorite destination for upper-crust Jewish families, American and British diplomats, and a growing contingent of affluent Mexicans who wanted to enjoy the delicatessens, European-style bakeries, and coffee shops not far from Chapultepec Park. This was the kind of place where you could order corned beef and red wine to be delivered to your home, or stop at Frascati’s for paella. Women attended fashion-show luncheons and charity benefits.
Everything was new in this area: there was no sign of moldy colonial palaces and old tezontle. Everything was beautiful. It was a pageant of prosperity, so far removed from the neighborhood where Maite had grown up that she might as well be a tourist on another planet.
Emilio Lomelí’s house was painted white, looking deceptively simple from the outside. Emilio opened the door and showed her in, and Maite swept her gaze up and down. The ceilings were extremely tall, and the walls were paneled in dark, rich oak. The space was very open, as though the architect had forgotten the meaning of the word wall, the dining room flowing into the living room. Acrylic bubble chairs, a long, beautiful red velvet couch, a table big enough for eight, green glass vases filled with flowers…it all seemed plucked out of a catalogue. Maite’s atelier, which she’d thought quite adorable, now became shabby in comparison.
Emilio was like a jewel in a beautiful setting. He almost sparkled against the expensive furniture, his hair artfully slicked back, looking a bit like David Janssen in The Fugitive. Only Emilio was much more handsome.
To keep from gawking at him, she set herself to admiring the photographs on the walls. These were all very large black-and-white images, close-ups really, of body parts, in silver frames. A woman’s eye, lips, a manicured nail. She couldn’t know if this was one woman or different women. The style of the photos anonymized them.
“Are these your photos?” she asked.
“Yes, it was a whole series. I exhibited it a few years ago,” he said, moving his arm and pointing from one end of the house to another. “I have my own darkroom upstairs.”
She glanced at the stairs. She wondered if he’d decorated the second floor with those same pictures, a multitude of eyes, ears, and lips. She wondered what his room looked like, whether the photos in there were bolder. Pictures of nipples and tongues and vulvas above the bed. Leonora’s nipples could be rendered in shades of gray. Her eye might be staring at Maite from that photo on the wall, the pupil completely dilated.
It was an odd thought, but it was the word darkroom that conjured it, which suggested secrets and the cover of the night. It meant nothing, and yet her mind leaped at it and was filled with the strangest, most fantastical thoughts when she heard certain words.
“The lunch is cold cuts and cheeses, I’m afraid. I have a cook come in a couple of days a week, but on weekends I keep it simple,” he said, carelessly gesturing toward a side table that was prepped with several plates.
“Oh, anything is fine, really,” she said and meant it. She was too nervous, wouldn’t be able to get down a single bite with him looking at her.
“Can I fix you a martini?” Emilio asked.
“Oh…” Maite said. She wasn’t the type of person who had a three-martini lunch. She’d never taken to drinking, and it wouldn’t have done at her office to come in plastered. Besides, as with the food, she wondered if the taste wouldn’t sit with her.
Emilio must have noticed her panicked expression. He smiled. “Would you prefer mineral water?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks. I was starting to feel like a terrible host,” he said, opening a bottle of Perrier and filling a glass for her.
Emilio had a smoothness about himself…the way he spoke and handed her the glass, like she’d seen men do in the movies and never experienced in real life. And his eyes! Amber-colored, like two jewels, matching his light brown hair with its few strands of gold glinting in the sunlight.
“Thanks for coming over, by the way. You said something about Leonora’s camera in your message? Did you find it?”
“It’s a little bit more complicated than that,” she said, holding the glass with two hands and peering down at it. “Leonora has gone missing, and I think it’s because of that camera.”
“What do you mean?”
“She hasn’t come home. I have reason to believe she had some pictures which would have been…compromising. Pictures of the Hawks.”
She looked up at him, trying to gauge his response. He didn’t appear surprised. “Did she talk to you about that?” he asked.
Rubén had told her not to mention him, so she nodded.
“What else did she say?”
“She only said that. Nothing more. I don’t know what it means. I’m worried, and I was thinking maybe you might be able to explain what’s happening.”
Emilio sighed and sat down on the velvet couch while Maite carefully sat on one of the bubble chairs, leaning forward, grasping her glass tight as she took a sip. She wondered if he liked her dress. Maybe it was too short. Maybe she looked like an idiot. She discreetly tugged at the hem with her free hand, attempting to pull it down a little and cover her knees.
“It’s hard to explain. Last week Leonora told me she was thinking of visiting a journalist friend of mine who lives in Cuernavaca. She doesn’t have a car, so she needed a ride. But I was busy and couldn’t take her, and in the end she didn’t truly seem interested in going, so I thought that was the end of that.”
“But then you went to see her last weekend and she wasn’t around,” Maite said.
“Yes. That’s when I realized she’d gone to see Lara after all. She must have obtained a ride from someone else.”
“You came for a camera. Did you know it had compromising photos?”
Emilio nodded gravely. “That’s why I wanted it. Because I was afraid of what Leonora might do with it. I was afraid she’d change her mind and visit Lara.”
“And
she did.”
“She must have.”
“What’s so terrible about the pictures?”
“I haven’t seen them, she wouldn’t let me, and she was cryptic about them, but what she did mention worried me. It’s a dangerous climate out there, and Leonora…Leonora doesn’t understand how dangerous it is, and those friends of hers…well, they’re very dangerous too.”
“You mean Jackie?”
“You know her?” Emilio asked.
Maite traced the rim of the glass with her index finger. “No. I haven’t met her. But I know she’s an activist.”
“An activist. That’s a nice way of putting it. We have a problem in Mexico. You only have to look around for five minutes to see that. Poverty, instability, corruption. I agree with that. A lot of people do. We need change. Jackie and people like her want to solve these problems through an armed revolution. She’s read Guevara and Marighella. You remember a few months ago, they captured those terrorists who attacked a bank in Morelia? That’s what Jackie wants to do.”
“I’m not sure what that has to do with Leonora.”
“Leonora idolizes Jackie. It’s Jackie this and Jackie that. Leonora has an uncle who was in the military. He’s a well-connected guy. And I think through him she got those compromising pictures of the Hawks and wanted to give them to a journalist, to Lara. But I told her to reconsider.”
“Why?”
“Because it could get her into a lot of trouble. What if someone came after her? What if she was painting herself into a target? I said she needed to be ready for this. I actually worry about her. Unlike Jackie. She’d have Leonora go into a ring with an angry bull.”
She didn’t know what to say. She gulped down her water instead. Finally, she managed a few words. “Sounds like you don’t believe in Jackie’s cause…in…in this change.”
Emilio smiled charmingly and shook his head. He stood up and took her empty glass from her hands. Their fingers touched for a moment, then he was placing the glass back on the side table.
“Change should come peacefully. We need a more educated nation, we need to come to agreements. President Echeverría has said he is willing to have conversations. He’s different from Ordaz, he’s more open. Conversations can’t take place when you have folks like Jackie trying to kidnap businesspeople and rob banks. I don’t trust Jackie.”
Emilio leaned back against the table and crossed his arms, grimacing. “God knows what she might have told Leonora to do,” he muttered.
“You care a lot about her?” Maite asked softly. She wondered if she disappeared, if anyone except her pet bird would care. Her mother would probably shrug and say she must have done something wrong. Her sister would be equally unmoved.
“Yes,” Emilio said. “I do.”
How she wanted someone to care about her! A thick, destructive yearning flamed inside her chest, and a flicker of emotion must have shown on Maite’s face because he chuckled and quickly added, “It’s not love. Not like that. We broke up.”
“Yes, I heard,” Maite said, playing with the bow on her neck, trying to seem nonchalant even as she felt herself blushing. “What…may I ask, what happened there?”
“Nothing special, diverging interests. She’s young, I’m not.”
“But you’re not old,” she protested.
“I’m twenty-eight, Leonora is twenty-one. When you’re twenty-eight you begin to get serious about life, you begin to think about things like a family, to plan for a real future. She wasn’t ready for any of that. I mean, I was a founder of that art collective she’s a member of, so I understand the impulse to want to leave your mark. But there’s more to life than that, don’t you think?”
“I’m not an artist,” Maite said, smoothing down the bow at her neck.
“You should consider yourself lucky. Art is a constant torment. I still take a few pictures, but my business takes up most of my time now,” he said and pointed at one of the photographs on the walls.
“Antiques?”
“Yes. I own a beautiful shop. Not flea market merchandise, either. Genuinely enchanting pieces. I have gorgeous Chinese porcelains and a Louis XV chair right now. Leonora is not much for antiques. That was the other thing. New, new, new. Everything had to be new.”
“I can’t say I know much about antiques, but I do appreciate the value of an old heirloom. It seems to me something that has been preserved for a long time acquires a certain gravitas.”
“I’d agree. It’s the same with people: age refines us.”
She liked that thought. That she was refined. It was like an alchemical process. From coarse lead one could bring forth precious gold. A man of the world, such as Emilio Lomelí, would be able to discern that. She observed him carefully, taking in the curve of his smile.
“It’s very good of you to worry about Leonora, you know?” Emilio said. “Some people wouldn’t care if their neighbors lived or died in this city.”
She remembered the money the girl owed her and how she desperately needed to fix her car, plus the delight she obtained from her thieving escapades, the delight she was feeling now sitting in this living room.
“I suppose I’m old-fashioned. Always have a cup of sugar handy and all that,” she told him and looked down at the floor. She’d heard you can tell a liar by their gaze, and for a minute she thought maybe he’d look into her heart and discern all her untruths.
He sighed. “I wish we knew where she’s gone.”
“Would that journalist, Lara, know?” she asked.
“I could phone and ask. Would you let me know if you hear anything?”
“Of course,” she said, raising her head and looking at him again.
“I’d also like to ask you…if by any chance you do happen to find those photos, please, bring them to me. I don’t want anyone else getting in trouble because of them.”
“You shouldn’t worry about me.”
“I admit I am a little concerned.”
Concerned! About her! Maite almost undid the ribbon, her fingers clumsy. He was sweet! Then, for a second, she remembered that scary man who had come to her office, and she wondered if it wasn’t sweetness, if it was merely levelheadedness and she was a fool. Shouldn’t she be a little frightened, after all? She had been, the previous day. But now his proximity intoxicated her, now she felt like she was in one of the issues of Secret Romance.
The phone rang. Emilio excused himself and picked up, smiling apologetically at her. “Yeah? No, I have a visitor. No, there’s no word on that…We’ll be done soon, yes…I wish you wouldn’t.” He turned his back to her for a moment, muttering something into the receiver before hanging up.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Work,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m needed at the store.”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to take so much of your time. You didn’t even have a chance to eat your lunch.”
“It’s fine. I’ll grab something later. Besides, I’m glad you stopped by. We’ll be in touch?”
“Of course,” she said.
It wasn’t until she was almost home that she realized she had somehow pledged assistance to two entirely different men. It was a contradictory, impossible task. She’d told Rubén she’d help him find Leonora. She’d now told Emilio the same. And by keeping Rubén’s involvement in this quest quiet, she had perhaps endangered her nascent friendship with Emilio. He might be upset if he found out she’d gone to see him at Rubén’s insistence. And there was that man Anaya. She had no idea what she was going to do about him. She hoped he wouldn’t bother her again.
It was all turning into a mess.
Angrily she remembered that she still didn’t have her car back. And the cat! She must feed the cat.
As Maite walked down the street, toward her apartment, she was so distracted that she didn’t noti
ce the man stepping out of a car and following her until he touched her arm.
14
“WHAT THE FUCK are you doing this far away? Can you even see a damn thing?” Elvis asked as he sat down in the passenger’s seat. He’d brought a bag of peanuts and a couple of sodas. Elvis was going to take a short shift so El Güero could head back to the apartment and get a little shut-eye.
El Güero snorted. “I ain’t blind, like others, Mister Magoo. I can see the door of the building fine from here. Besides, I can’t park any closer. Too fucking obvious, and someone else’s already staked out the prime spot.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning we’re not the only ones watching this building. Can I have some of those?”
“Stuff yourself,” Elvis said, handing him the bag and craning his neck. “Who else’s watching?”
El Güero tore the bag of peanuts open and tossed a couple into his mouth, chewing loudly. “Like I know? Can’t very well go asking them, can I? But I can tell.”
“DFS, maybe,” Elvis muttered, remembering what Justo had said about the dude named Anaya.
“Not those fuckers, damn it. What they want?”
“I’m not sure.”
“There she is. Finally,” El Güero said as Maite Jaramillo stepped out of the building.
“Follow her.”
El Güero sighed. It seemed his naptime would have to be deferred. The woman was easy enough to tail. Elvis was more worried about the car ahead of them that also seemed to be tailing her, though once they reached Polanco, the driver either noticed Elvis’s car behind them and decided to split or simply changed his mind. Either way, by the time they parked, it was only El Güero and Elvis following the woman.
Elvis noted the address the woman went into, scribbling it in a tiny notebook. He opened his soda and they waited. Often, when they had to watch someone, Elvis brought a crossword puzzle or a book, to keep the boredom at bay. But he hadn’t bothered with that this time; he’d been too tired to remember. He hadn’t forgotten the word of the day, thank God. It was dilated. The way Elvis tried to memorize the words was to use them in everyday conversation, but El Güero thought he sounded like an idiot when he did.
Velvet Was the Night Page 14
