Mexico City Noir

by Paco Ignacio II Taibo

  “What’s your name?”

  “I don’t have name, chief. I’m nobody.”

  “Don’t call me chief. I’m Mrs. Chávez, the head of the neighborhood association.”

  “Yes, chief.”

  “People are complaining about the drunks and drug addicts who hang around here. I just reported you. You’re the one they call Vikingo, right?” “I’m nobody.”

  He tries to get her to let go of the cart, but she holds on as if she has claws. He tries again but with little success. Vikingo’s bones have lost their strength, they feel like putty, watered down, drained of energy. He wants to beg the woman to let him go, to tell her he has to keep walking, but the only things out of his mouth are the same words as always.

  “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything either. I’m nobody …”

  “You’re gonna tell me you don’t know anything about the dead guy they found this morning near the government parking lot? They say there was a bum hanging around with a supermarket cart. And you’re the only one around here who’s always dragging a cart. Have you seen yourself? The least you could have done is washed off the blood after killing the man.”

  “Fernando …”

  The woman smiles triumphantly and her face twists into a malicious mask.

  “Yes, Fernando Aranda. See, you do know. Now you’re gonna tell the cops everything.”

  “I don’t know anything. I just …”

  Desperation gives him strength to move the cart but he still can’t get the woman to let go.

  “You’re not going anywhere, you criminal!”

  “I swear, I don’t know anything.”

  People begin to gather and listen to the argument. Some are from the neighborhood and they know both him and the woman. Others have only noticed them in passing. There’s some murmuring. Vikingo recognizes words like corpse, homicide, killer. He remembers how, whenever there was a dead guy, the uniforms used to come for him and his friends around Parque Delta and they’d interrogate them in the bowels of the police station. He remembers the wet towels stinging his skin, the electric shocks, water spurting into his brain. Screaming in pain. The mocking questions and giving the answers over and over until he was exhausted. The answers the only words left in his brain. In his fogginess, he also remembers that before the interrogations, he knew who he was. His name. His past. A big wave of fury and panic passes through him as he distinguishes the blue and red lights from a squad car on a nearby window. The murmuring increases. The dead, they say. He killed him. He jerks the cart forcefully to loosen it and the woman screams.

  “Ay! Beast! You broke my nail!”

  The onlookers part as he makes his way toward them, while the woman runs in the direction of the squad car. I don’t know anything, chief. I didn’t see anything. I’m nobody.

  Two uniformed cops get out of the car. Vikingo sees them and realizes they’re the same guys who went after Fernando. Without hesitation, he grabs the liquor bottle, opens it, and drains the last bit. The alcohol makes his stomach tremble, then spreads a pleasant warmth through his body. Fernando, that was his name. They shouted his name. I didn’t see anything.

  “Hey, you, cabrón! Stop!”

  It’s the same voice from last night. They’re even the same words. The only thing missing is Fernando’s name. Fernando. Yes. But, unlike that guy, Vikingo doesn’t run: he just walks. “I don’t know anything, chief. I never see anything. I’m nobody.” He recites his litany as footsteps come up behind him. He figures that history repeats itself, that they’ll take him to the station’s bowels, or to some other cellar, to squeeze the truth out of him, that they’re going to stick him with the murder of a guy he didn’t even know, like they’ve done so many other times, and that after a few weeks or a couple of years in the penitentiary they’ll throw him back out on the streets, where he’ll have to find a doorway to sleep in again and a supermarket cart to keep walking. He wants another cigarette really badly. But there are no matches. “I swear, chief. That’s right.” When the footsteps slow down behind him, Vikingo recalls the face of the corpse from the night before. “I don’t know anything. I’m nobody. I just walk. A step. Another. Then one more.”

  PRIVATE COLLECTION

  BY BERNARDO FERNÁNDEZ

  Vallejo

  The set of jungle music Lizzy programmed on her iPod to wake her up went off at 7 in the morning. She stretched, untangling herself from the black silk sheets on the king-sized futon.

  Just like every morning, the first thing she looked at when she opened her eyes was a painting by Julio Galán on the wall directly in front of the bed in her Polanco apartment.

  Fifteen minutes later, her personal trainer was waiting for her in the adjoining gym with an energy drink in her hand. Helga was an ex—Olympic finalist from Germany who accompanied her everywhere.

  “Guten Tag,” said the blonde. Lizzy replied with a grunt. Lizzy did forty minutes of aerobic exercise and an hour of weights.

  At 9, after a cold shower, Lizzy ate a bowl of cereal with nonfat yogurt and drank green tea while checking her e-mail on her iPhone. Alone in the immense dining room, she peered out her large windows overlooking Chapultepec Castle. Pancho brought her breakfast from the kitchen, where he had prepared it himself.

  At 10, in her office parking lot in Santa Fe, Lizzy stepped out of her car, a black 1970 Impala with flames painted on the sides.

  On her orders, the car had been salvaged from a shop in Perros Muertos, Coahuila, and sent to Los Angeles for restoration.

  She busied herself during the morning hours with financial matters. Tired of the fiscal chaos left by her late father, she had sought advice from an investment counselor who suggested she diversify her portfolio.

  She loved verifying her account dividends and was fascinated to see how she was getting richer every day.

  At noon, she had a cold beverage, fresh fruit, a high-fiber muffin, and tea. Before lunch, at 2 in the afternoon, she took a call from a gallery in Europe. Although she’d studied at the Toronto School of Art in Canada, she’d abandoned her creative career to concentrate on building a contemporary art collection.

  “Lizzy, darling, I have something that’s going to blow your mind,” said Thierry in his thick French accent.

  “I’m not sure, Tierritas. Last time you came up with pure garbage.”

  “You are going to die, mon amour. I have seven pieces by David Nebrada.”

  After a tense silence, Lizzy asked: “How much?”

  Money was never a problem.

  At 2:30, she entered the VIP room at Blanc des Blancs, on Reforma, where she greeted Renato, an old industrialist friend of her father’s, who was dining with the minister of labor.

  The two old men invited Lizzy to join them, a proposal she gently declined before moving along to her favorite table in the back of the restaurant.

  On the way, she ran into Marianito Mazo, the son of a telenovela producer, who was sitting with a couple of pop singers enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame. Marianito greeted her with a kiss, introduced the two girls, and invited her to a cocktail party he was having at his parents’ house in the Pedregal the following Saturday.

  “I think I’m going to be away then,” said Lizzy, smiling. “Let me check and I’ll have my secretary confirm it with your people.”

  After another warm farewell, Lizzy finally sat down. She ordered an arugula salad, salmon carpaccio, and white wine. She ate in silence while checking her e-mail on her cell. After the meal, she called her cousin Omar, who worked as a deejay at an Ibiza nightclub.

  “Mademoiselle?” the waiter interrupted. “This cocktail is from the gentleman at that table.”

  She looked where he was pointing.

  The general solicitor of the republic’s private secretary winked at her from across the room.

  That evening, she asked Bonnie, her secretary, to cancel all her appointments so she could get a mud-therapy treatment at a spa in Santa Fe, just a few blocks from her office.


  “Don’t forget that you have to go to the warehouse,” noted the gringa with her clipped Texas accent.

  “I won’t forget, I’ll go later tonight,” Lizzy responded.

  She decided to walk to the spa, much to Pancho’s consternation; he didn’t like her wandering around unprotected. But she always managed to do as she pleased.

  The French girl who applied the mud for the massage, a recent arrival from Lyon, couldn’t help herself and said, “You have a beautiful derriere. As firm and smooth as a peach.”

  “Thanks,” said Lizzy.

  At 8, they arrived at Tamayo Museum in her father’s old armored BMW, Pancho driving. Two light Windstar trucks packed with bodyguards followed them.

  She was dressed completely in black leather, her hair pulled back in a bun speared with little chopsticks. She looked almost beautiful.

  “Wait for me outside. I don’t want to attract attention,”

  she said from the door of the museum.

  “Miss …” protested the bodyguard with the cavernous voice.

  “Do as I say.”

  Pancho ordered the team of eight Israeli-trained escorts—two of them women—to be placed strategically in key positions around the museum. The old bodyguard monitored their movements by walkie-talkie.

  The girl’s whims made him nervous, but he had sworn to the Señor, her father, that he’d take care of her.

  Inside, unconcerned with her bodyguards, Lizzy distributed kisses to gallery owners, art collectors, curators, critics, and artists. She was an art world celebrity. Everyone knew about her collection and her peculiar tastes. She’d surprised more than a few with her resources. No one asked where her funds came from.

  The opening was for a retrospective by an Armenian-American painter named Rabo Karabekian. Eight of the pieces belonged to Lizzy’s collection. As usual, she had asked that they be credited to an unnamed private collection. She didn’t want any publicity.

  She had to cross a human gauntlet to greet the artist, who managed to spot her even at a distance.

  “Lizzy, baby!” The old artist’s face lit up when he saw his favorite collector.

  “How you doing, Rab?”

  They chatted animatedly for half an hour. When the press wanted to take photos, Lizzy demurred.

  The painter told her that there would be an after-party at the curator’s apartment in Condesa, that he would love it if she came by. She apologized.

  “Got some business to take care of, sorry,” and she said goodbye to everyone.

  On the way to the car, her cell rang.

  “Got ’em,” growled a voice on the other end of the line.

  Seconds of silence.

  “You have them with you?”

  “Correct.”

  “I’m going to give you a kiss on the nose, like Scooby-Doo,” Lizzy said before hanging up.

  She got in the BMW and asked to be taken to the warehouse.

  Pancho silently directed the car toward the warehouse that MDA, their ghost company, had leased in an industrial park in Vallejo. They did not exchange a word during the trip.

  The security team at the warehouse waved them in, surprised by the late hour of the visit. A heavy steel door slid open to let the BMW and the Windstars pass.

  Bwana, Lizzy’s lieutenant on the north side of the city, received them. He was a cholo, an ex—juvenile delinquent who had learned something about chemistry during his years as a science student. A violent type, he had been raised on the streets of East L.A.

  Secretly, Lizzy found him attractive and was fascinated by the wild beauty of his indigenous features; his athletic body, always clothed in baggy jeans, was like a basketball player’s; his naked torso was covered with tattoos of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Santa Muerte; his nipples sported rings.

  Sometimes, in her deepest dreams, Lizzy allowed herself fantasies about the muscle-bound cholo. Fantasies that vanished as soon as she woke up.

  “What’s up, boss?” said Bwana in greeting just outside the warehouse. He had a .38 sticking out of his pants and a green bandanna covering his shaved head.

  “I want this over with. Where they are?”

  “This way,” he said as he entered the warehouse. Lizzy followed, leaving behind her escorts and the warehouse security guards.

  Bwana guided her through narrow corridors of boxes labeled with Korean characters. Pancho walked behind them, a few meters back, with a canvas backpack on his shoulder that caught Bwana’s attention.

  Lizzy had specified that the walkways be designed like a labyrinth. Only a few people knew the way to the center. The architect, a gay old maid who used to walk his dogs on Amsterdam Avenue, had been found dead on the freeway to Toluca after he’d finished the job.

  The cholo was saying something to his boss but she found it impossible to understand because of the rapid mix of Spanglish and border slang. Every time they reached a door, Bwana keyed an access code into the electronic lock that protected the crossing.

  When they arrived at the center of the warehouse, Bwana entered another code. This time, a trapdoor opened, revealing stairs that led to an underground chamber; these were covered by a layer of high-density foam rubber, just like a recording studio.

  Moans could be heard coming from below. Barely audible, more like murmurs.

  “Welcome to special affairs, boss,” said Bwana.

  Lizzy descended the steps. The basement was dark. A switch was touched and a light went on, revealing where the sounds were coming from.

  A man and a woman were tied with barbed wire to vinyl chairs and gagged with cinnamon-colored gaffer tape. The woman had a ruptured eye. They were covered with dry blood, a pool of excrement gathered at their feet.

  “They stink,” mumbled Lizzy.

  Pancho obediently sprayed both bodies with the Lysol he carried in the canvas backpack. The man and woman twisted from the sting of the aerosol.

  Lizzy approached the woman and looked with curiosity at her ruined eye.

  “You said she was with him when they got him?”

  “Correct. She’s his bitch. Bad luck.”

  The Constanza cartel boss turned toward the bound man.

  It was Wilmer, assistant to Iménez, the Colombian capo with whom Lizzy had been negotiating just weeks before. Bwana’s people had discovered they were bringing Brazilian amphetamines on their own into the country.

  Bad idea.

  Wilmer had been the person in charge of the operation. Then, he was a real mean motherfucker. Now, what was left of him whimpered like a kicked puppy.

  Lizzy noticed a tear sliding down his filthy cheek.

  “Deep in shit, everybody’s the same.”

  Then she kicked the man’s jaw aikido-style. She felt the bone crack under her foot. The blow knocked him to the ground. His scream would have echoed in the chamber had it not been soundproofed.

  The woman began to struggle, trying to shout from under the tape sealing her cracked lips.

  Lizzy tore the tape off in one quick move. In the process, she also tore off a good bit of skin.

  “What did you say?”

  “Please … pu … pu-leeze … you … I have … a daughter …”

  On the ground, the man sobbed. Lizzy flipped him over with the tip of her boot. “Cry like a woman for what you couldn’t defend as man,” she said, then reached her hand out to Pancho.

  The bodyguard removed a wooden bat with a Mazatlán Deers logo from the canvas backpack; it had a dozen fourinch steel nails sticking out of it. Lizzy had inherited it from her father.

  “We deal with amphetamines here,” she said to the man on the ground, “and I don’t like sudacas who get in the way. This is what happens to anybody who tries to horn in on my market. Consider this a declaration of war.”

  She advanced toward the man with the bat in her hand. Pancho was silently thankful to have only one eye and to have the scene play out on his blind side. Discreetly, Bwana turned his gaze to the door.

  When t
he woman in the chair saw what was about to happen, she began to scream uncontrollably.

  THE CORNER

  BY PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II

  Doctores

  Don’t even think you’re making me happy, okay? Don’t even think it. Don’t say a word, just shut up, puto. Don’t even open your fucking mouth or I’ll shut it myself … Everything is your fucking fault.”

  The last two words didn’t actually come out like that, but more like “foshin foolt,” because of all the blood in his mouth. Then he spit, half vomiting, half choking. And then he died. Of course he had to die like that, like a pendejo, trying to blame somebody else.

  Agent Manterola approached the dead guy and took his car keys, his wallet, and the pair of very big, very dark sunglasses off his head that made him look like a Mayan mummy. Then, after thinking about it, he dropped them back on the ground near the body. Manterola grabbed the guy’s nose and pulled on it. Dead guys aren’t so scary. He took off one of the guy’s shoes, just for the hell of it, and put it on his belly. He didn’t even glance at the other body, that stupid fucking corpse, because it had been that one’s fault that the whole mess started in the first place.

  Now it was the fault of the fucking pins with the multicolored heads. Fucking diaper pins, Manterola muttered to himself. And he was right. Modernity had arrived at the Office of Urban Crimes, but only in the form of two old computers, though they had somehow managed to get their hands on a huge map of Mexico City, where they marked crime scenes with the multicolored pins. Red for murder, pink for sex crimes, yellow for altercations, green for assaults, blue for kidnappings, lavender for robberies in taxis, orange for carjackings. The Boss of Bosses had passed through the office earlier in the day and had been furious when he saw that that fucking corner couldn’t take one more fucking pin.