Trouble Down Mexico Way

by Nancy Nau Sullivan

  “That was a lovely dinner,” Blanche said. “Thank you so much for having us. Haasi loved it, too.” She would play the game.

  “It was our pleasure. And gracias for the flowers and candy. Very nice gesture,” he said. “Where is la Señorita Haasi?” The detective’s voice was pleasant, even soothing.

  “She’s taking pictures at Chapultepec park for the stories we’re supposed to be working on. That project seems to get shoved further aside every day. It is the reason we are here, though.”

  He leaned back. The corners of his eyes crinkled in what Blanche determined was not really a smile but a thoughtful gaze. “Blanche, you better get to the business you came for. The situation at the Palacio is moving slowly. And we don’t have anything on Emilio. But I’ll let you know when we do. He’ll turn up. I am sure.”

  “I’m not so sure, and I can’t wait around for something to happen.” Blanche jumped out of the chair and started pacing the office.

  The detective’s hands raked through the documents on his desk. All of a sudden, he was busy. “We are doing what we can. And now, I have work to do, a meeting at noon. Maybe I’ll have some news this afternoon. If you please …”

  “Are you trying to get rid of me? Or are you being nice?”

  “Both.”

  Blanche ignored the flurry of activity at his desk. She’d give him a minute. She was not about to leave, just yet. She turned toward the window and looked down at the vendors on the curb, a young man pushing a baby carriage, people hurrying, people resting. Life was going on down there with an easy rhythm, and up here her heart and head were out of tune.

  She went back to his desk and positioned herself next to him, not across from him. “Detective, I have an idea.”

  “Dios mío.”

  “No, it’s perfect. It’s a great idea.” She raised both hands as if to stop the objections she knew were coming. “You know I’m a journalist. Again, that’s why we’re here, to write stories of Mexico City. I want to use that business. I want to use my press card.”

  “To do what?”

  “To interview El Patrón.” It was all she could do to keep a straight face, something Blanche was totally incapable of.

  The detective hardly looked up. “Loca loca loca.” He took a swig of something in the Thermos and slammed his chair against the wall. “Blanche that is imposible. Do not even entertain the idea. Besides, you don’t know who he is or where he is.”

  “Oh, I’ve got pretty good interviewing skills. I was over to see our friend at the tourist bureau, and I asked her to get involved here. We did a little digging. She’s going to set up the interview.”

  “Blanche, this is a terrible idea. Read a couple of books or magazine articles, if you want, to get, what do they call it, flavor. You can interview me about life on the hacienda …”

  Blanche looked around his office. One sad dieffenbachia, nineteen thousand manila folders, and a bunch of yellowing citations on the wall. “Olé.”

  Now the detective was on his feet. The room was small, but he managed to fill it with his pacing and his fretting. He looked at her ferociously. “Don’t you think El Patrón knows about your little ‘detainment,’ as you call it? He probably ordered it.”

  “He doesn’t know who I am, or Haasi. Emilio told our abductor we were kids, young students on a supposed tour. El Patrón never clapped eyes on me, and he certainly doesn’t know his thug locked up a travel writer.”

  “The abductor will be out there. On the ranch. He might identify you …”

  “That’s the chance I have to take. It was dark. I was blindfolded. I’m going to wear a blonde wig when I pay my visit. And glasses.” She didn’t want to mention the addition of a particularly thuggish one who looked like a jagged rock, the one who paid her a visit in the lock-up and promised tortillas. She’d worry about him later.

  “Blanche! Let me handle this.” Cardenal was bent over his desk, fingers tented on piles of papers, blood pressure spiking. He sat down, hard. “What did the tourist bureau tell you?” Now softly, disbelieving, he eyed her.

  “Background. El Patrón’s name is out there, especially for his involvement with the Palacio and the arts. My contact told me how to get in touch for the interview. First Amendment and such,” she said. The words tumbled out fast, and the detective was having difficulty stepping around them.

  “Now, wait one moment, Blanche. We don’t have a First Amendment here in Mexico comparable to what you’re thinking. Not like what you have in North America. You have twenty-seven amendments to your constitution? Ours has been amended five hundred times!” He raked the top of his head. He reminded Blanche of a lion with all that hair, and he was roaring. “Blanche, we have brave journalists, and a lot of them have been killed for their reporting. Don’t you read the newspapers?”

  “This is not an exposé on the cartels. I’m hardly here to do that. I want to go in as a travel writer. I think Aracelli at the tourist bureau can get us in.” She was firm, arms crossed. She hadn’t budged from her place next to the detective. Every word pushed her further into her plan, and she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to help it.

  “This is ridiculous!” He sat and studied her. Calmed down just a bit. “What in the world are you thinking?” It was pin-drop quiet.

  He wants to know what I’m thinking? He actually asked me that?

  Blanche sat down. Now she had control of the conversation. This was her territory. The business of writing. She smiled. “He’s a longtime patron on the hacienda, a businessman of central Mexico. Don’t you see? I want to get in there, get him to talk. Under the guise of getting color, as we say in the trade.” She held back.

  “Color. The only color I see is red. Rojo. The color of blood.”

  “Do you want to go with me?”

  “How would that look? The detective and the travel writer. I’m sure the information you are looking for would flow …”

  Blanche cleared her throat and clasped her hands. Set her lips in a tight line, and then she leaned on his desk, just inches from his nose. “I am not looking for information about tourist attractions around Mexico City. I’m looking for who’s behind all this stuff at the Palacio. I’m looking for Emilio.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  OUT ON THE HACIENDA

  Rodrigo Ortiz “El Patrón” de Avila lived on a hacienda north of Mexico City in the foothills near Hidalgo. The locals knew the exact location of his multi-acre spread. His family had lived in the area since the Spanish Crown gave the Avilas a land grant in the sixteenth century. It was said that they were nobility from Toledo on the outskirts of Madrid, but El Patrón did not tout the royal connection. Instead, he let it linger in conversation and local history. He believed in aura. Fostering a bit of the unknown and keeping those he dealt with off balance and uninformed. The Avila escudo hung on his enormous carved front door as a reminder for all who entered, and it was emblazoned above the grand fireplace in the great room at the center of his house. For all his rapacious dealings with the land and the local people, El Patrón exuded royalty. He had power. He also had wealth, and where it came from was questionable. He had vineyards, fields of corn and alfalfa, and cattle; his hacienda was nestled in a particularly fertile area of the country. But the enormous amounts of money he threw around did not come from the fruits of the land; the pesos (and American dollars) mostly came from evil transactions. Some people knew this, and El Patrón paid them handsomely to work for him and keep their mouths shut. He kept his staff lean, and himself lean. He was even known as a kind of an ascetic, posturing as an El Greco figure with his gaunt face and pointy beard.

  Blanche had done a bit of research on El Patrón so she would know what she was walking into.

  I have no idea what I’m walking into.

  Aracelli had been prompt about getting a time for the interview—the next day, after Blanche’s meeting with Detective Cardenal. He was so adamant that she not go out to the hacienda that she left his office with her plan hanging
in the air. Promising to get back to him.

  Soon. After I make a visit to the “boss.”

  The detective didn’t need to know the timetable. She’d be so quick about it, out and back. Why, what could go wrong?

  At the tourist bureau, Blanche had been casual, leaning on the shiny counter and fiddling with a pamphlet, while her insides were pinging around just south of her throat. She wanted “a taste of old Mexico,” including a feature about a longtime hacendado with ties to old Spain, and his view of living on Mexico’s lush plateau farmland in comparative luxury. She’d really worked on that list of areas to cover in the articles. Aracelli had reached out to the old rancher on the spot, and it clicked. He had been reticent, but then he agreed to meet with Blanche. If the interview went well, they would get photos later. Or maybe they would use stock photos for the stories. Blanche did not relish the thought of making more than one trip to El Patrón’s hacienda.

  Blanche sat in the middle of the bus. Her blonde wig was itchy, but she would endure it. She’d spent a pretty penny on it, but it still itched. She took some Benadryl and sat on her hands so she wouldn’t keep scratching her head, which was not a good look. She’d practiced wearing it, being suave and smooth with not too much sexy thrown in. A lot of breathing exercises were involved, and some yoga stretches. El Patrón was not known to be a womanizer, but he did have a reputation for charming the ladies. Blanche had even succumbed to make-up! Haasi had lined her eyes, blushed out those cheeks with some sparkly Pink Rose, and applied a bit of glistening Peel-a-Grape lip gloss. Blanche wanted to throw the wig out the window and wash her face. She concentrated on doing neither; she focused on getting her head wrapped around interviewing one of Mexico’s notorious lords of corruption.

  Haasi was driving. She was somewhere out there, probably north of Mexico City by now, or maybe already parked near the hacienda. Waiting. She’d rented a car and planned to meet Blanche after the interview. Blanche stared out the window of the bus at the fields of brilliant yellow sunflowers that blazed for miles. They’d gone back and forth about how to travel to the hacienda and decided the best way was to go semi-incognito. They were not to appear together on this mission. But they were very much together—Haasi as back-up to Blanche’s scheme to get into El Patrón’s ranch, interview him (check around for any clue of Emilio’s whereabouts), and get the hell out of there. Haasi and Blanche were good at escaping. They were a team. Blanche’s stomach tightened at the thought that this might be one of their trickiest capers of all.

  They were close now to Blanche’s stop near Huehuetoca. She gazed out the window of the bus.

  I’m on official newspaper business, and I must act like it. She recited the mantra about ten times. It helped, but she was still nervous as hell.

  She pulled at the tight black pants and shot the sleeves on her high-necked, cream-colored top—with a mesh panel below the throat. She’d picked it up in a resale shop near the hotel. She was going for a 50s Hollywood look. The wig had cost ten times the top and pants.

  Back at the hotel, Haasi had taken one look at Blanche in the get-up and asked: “Why?”

  “Dunno. Just seems to fit the times and the challenge. Don’t ask me why.”

  “And that wig! Pretty cool.”

  “I want to look real.”

  “Oh, you look real. Fur-ril,” said Haasi. “Ready for central casting.”

  “That’s it.”

  Blanche wasn’t very good at acting, and she had no filter. Now she was having second thoughts about the get-up, but it was too late. She had to try. She focused on the fields and small houses and signs whipping past the window of the bus, and it calmed her. Blanche fumbled in her bag for the cellphone. She longed to call Haasi, but she resisted. She was glad to have the cheap burners to communicate, just in case, and to finally check in and leave together. Haasi would pick her up, posing as a hired driver. It should work. It had to work.

  If Detective Cardenal knew she was minutes away from meeting El Patrón, he’d probably kill her. If someone else didn’t get to it first. She’d left the detective nearly in mid-sentence and gotten out of his office before he could argue further.

  She shivered at the thought she was pretty much on her own, but she couldn’t sit still and let all this happen around her.

  Blanche withdrew the notebook from her bag and flipped through her notes. The W’s. Who, what, where, when, why, and how. She would cover all that in the interview and hope there would be a shot of tequila involved during which time her interviewee would relax and open up. Maybe he’d even let her roam the ranch a bit. That was going to be the tough part. If Emilio was out there, or El Patrón knew where he was, Blanche was going to have to follow that trail.

  Be flexible, Bang. And don’t shoot yourself in the foot.

  Staring out at the vista of scrubland and cactus, the mesquite and oaks, the farmer pushing a plow by hand, she felt a burst of love for Mexico, mostly centered on Emilio who seemed to care so much for the people around him. It saddened Blanche that she was dealing with a seedy underside, but it was as Maria Obregon had said: the history of Mexico is complicated, one of generosity and kindness, and snakes. The bus rumbled past acres of sunflowers, a thing of beauty used for food and dye. They revered flowers here. She’d seen pictures of the altars and carpets of marigolds and dahlias during the Day of the Dead. She imagined the Aztecs growing them and blessing them for food and worship. Tradition lived long, and hard. It was something she appreciated. It was different for Blanche, an island girl who was used to waves and shifting sand on a bit of land that changed shape regularly and depended on tourism and fish.

  Blanche gathered her things and stood up in the aisle of the bus. She was the only one traveling from Mexico City who got off at the dusty terminal. It had been so dry. She’d read there was little rain now in late spring, but soon in the next half of the year, the rain would start and come down in torrents, with little warning. Everything—the colorful outdoor display of fruit, the Pacifica beer sign on the small corner grocer, a narrow café open to the interior with a table and dog out front—all of it seemed to be coated in a fine, hazy film, the sun beaming through it like in a dream. She could hear the faint mechanical creak of the local tortilladora turning out tortillas, the music of many Mexican streets. This street was eerily deserted, except for a dog.

  Blanche sighed and hefted her purse. She was getting used to the wig and the glasses, and even getting psyched for the meeting. She’d made it this far. It was show time.

  A couple of taxis waited next to the portico outside the bus station. She ducked her head at the first, and he waved her in. “Buenas.”

  “Buenas, Señor. A la casa de Señor Rodrigo Ortiz de Avila, por favor.”

  The cab driver’s thick eyebrows shot up, a mix of surprise and curiosity. For more than a beat, he said nothing. “¡Vámonos!” And the cab lurched away from the bus terminal.

  Blanche was taken aback by the cabbie’s reaction. She thought to ask him about it, then decided the better part of valor was to shut up.

  Put on your game face, Blanche.

  She caught sight of herself in the mirror of the taxi, the dark eyebrows and green eyes. The cat-eye glasses with green rims. And that hair. She wanted to think she looked stunning, like Haasi said, but shocking was more the word. They drove out into the farmland, and once again Blanche was struck by how quickly the landscape could change, from gleaming buildings to donkeys in the field. She saw the occasional tractor, but mostly it was a stretch of sleepy beauty, the struggle in green and brown under the harsh sun. The cab passed over a bumpy dirt road under an arch of laurel trees. A small stucco house lay deserted in the shade, tires in the yard holding down a blue tarp. A single chair sat next to an incongruous, beautifully carved door, and vines of flowers looped around a gate.

  Blanche looked for Haasi’s car but didn’t see it anywhere. It gave her a sinking feeling, but Blanche knew she could depend on sister-cousin. Haasi was good at hiding. Blanche sett
led on this and felt better.

  The cool length of trees ended at a sunny vista of flatland, and the road turned to fine gravel. Off in the distance, a startlingly white hacienda rambled on and on like a mirage in the dust. Its whiteness, its humps of separate additions with small windows, shown against the stark landscape. Blanche sat back on the seat her hands braced on the frayed upholstery. She caught the taxi driver’s eyes in the mirror, watching her, gauging her. She leaned forward more resolute than ever. She paid the driver and leapt out. The taxi zipped in a circle and was gone in a flash.

  A dog as big as a cow ran out of the front door across a landscape scattered with various types of cacti—one more than a story high, another with a fountain of shoots, a few with paddles of prickly pear and red buds of “tuna,” a cluster of tiny round ones like a herd of baby hedgehogs. And behind the dog, a tall figure in black, loose-limbed and casually strolling toward Blanche. He held a cane, but he didn’t lean on it. He waved it at the dog. “Bella!” he shouted. The dog collapsed in a puddle of fur, almost blending with the sandy earth of a flowerbed.

  They walked toward each other. Blanche felt her knees wobble, and her insides were worse. “Ah, the writer,” he said.

  “El Patr…,” she started. Then she caught herself. “Señor de Avila. Encantada.”

  “Bienvenido a mi casa.” His eyes were black and unreadable, but his voice was so soft she had to lean in. He had a frightening pallor and slicked back hair.

  “Gracias, señor. Me allegro.”

  She offered her hand and he bowed slightly. She wanted to yank her fingers out of his grasp. She looked around for Haasi, more of a reflex than anything else. She did not expect to see her close by, but she had to believe she was out there.

  “Por favor, ven,” he said, and stepped aside so that Blanche had no choice but to walk up the paving stones to the grand front door that stood ajar. It was deadly quiet, except for the chirping … of birds? Frogs? Edible grasshoppers? The sounds of the hacienda, of the sun on slithering things and shimmering growth.