City Without Stars

by Tim Baker

  ‘We’re going to prove those motherfuckers wrong.’

  Fuentes glances back at the airport parking lot. ‘If we don’t do it soon, we’re never going to do it. It’s like a football game. When you’re down two–nil, even three, you can maybe fight back.’ He gets in the car, still talking. ‘But once you pass a certain point, the whole team gives up. For them, the game is already over. That’s where we are right now. The whole fucking country. We’re right on the verge of giving up for good.’

  Fuentes starts driving back towards town. He glances up at the rearview. Through the curtain of dust rising behind them, he sees a sedan with Texas license plates following. He indicates the car to Gomez with a jerk of his head. ‘They’re the people who were outside your place this morning. They never saw us leave. The motherfuckers were tipped off.’

  ‘They probably have a police radio.’

  ‘They were tipped off.’

  Gomez turns to Fuentes. ‘You said you thought they killed them somewhere else for a reason …’

  Fuentes glances at his partner then at the rearview mirror, the car dropping back but still tailing them. He shrugs. ‘The way I’ve got it figured, it’s some kind of ritual killing. A black mass.’ He turns to his partner, who is staring hard at him.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? Murder in a controlled environment. How do you figure it?’

  ‘Snuff films.’

  Fuentes considers for a second. ‘Have you ever seen a snuff film?’

  ‘Who the fuck do you think I am?’

  ‘A cop. Answer the question. Have you ever seen a snuff film?’ Gomez shakes his head. ‘Neither have I, and I’ve seen every other kind of film you can imagine. I’ve seen every perversity out there; ones I didn’t even know existed till I saw them. But the only thing I have never ever seen is a snuff film.’ Fuentes gives Gomez a challenging look. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Restricted distribution?’ Fuentes slams the steering wheel, moaning in frustration. ‘It makes sense,’ Gomez says defensively. ‘Fear of prosecution.’

  ‘You could say the same thing about pedophilia. But that’s out there in huge volumes … I’ll tell you why no one’s ever seen a snuff film. It’s because they don’t exist.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  ‘Fuck maybe, this case has gone on way too long for any more maybes. Maybe this, maybe that. Jesus, how about some clinical, precise detective work.’ He looks at Gomez, the car slowly drifting to the side. Gomez reaches over and guides the wheel back. ‘So how did Paredes figure it?’

  ‘A loner,’ Gomez admits, looking away, embarrassed.

  ‘Eight hundred plus women and that’s the best he can come up with?’ Fuentes gives a disdainful scoff. ‘That’s some mother-fucking hardworking loner. It’s ten times as many as Camargo or López, in half the time frame. And they both killed under cover of civil war.’

  ‘And that’s not what we have here?’

  Fuentes hates to admit it but Gomez has a point. ‘What did you say to Paredes when he told you his loner theory?’

  ‘I told him it was impossible. But he wouldn’t listen to me.’ His look is savage. ‘He treated me like a kid.’ The car’s engine punishes the uncomfortable silence. ‘My opinion didn’t fucking matter.’

  ‘That’s not the case with me.’

  ‘I know. You’re perfect.’

  Fuentes lets the sarcasm settle. ‘If that’s not her blood, how do you think it got there?’

  ‘Maybe she put up a fight before they killed her? Maybe he hurt himself transporting the body?’ Gomez pauses for a moment, trying hard to think. ‘Maybe he had a dispute with one of the other killers?’

  ‘They’re all possible. But you know what I think? I think he cut himself shaving. I think the motherfucker killed her, then got ready for work – shit, shower and shave – and dropped her off on his way to get some morning coffee. I think that’s how casual it’s become. And that’s why we’re going to catch him and once we have him, we have the others. There’s no way one man’s done all this.’ Fuentes rubs the stubble on his chin, and glances at Gomez’s five o’clock shadow. He gives a dark smile. ‘At least we both have alibis …’

  The radio quivers into life. Gomez turns up the volume, repeating the address. He shakes his head. ‘That can’t be for us … They’ve made a mistake.’ He goes to take the mouthpiece from the dash but Fuentes pulls it from his grip, buttoning down hard as he responds. ‘Affirmative.’

  Gomez stares at Fuentes. ‘You asked for this?’ Fuentes ignores him, which tells him that he did. ‘I don’t get it. What the fuck do we want in a shithole like Anaprata?’

  ‘Answers.’

  30

  Padre Márcio

  Like a group of senior matadores fighting over who would be the padrino to a young prodigy about to take his alternativa, everyone wanted to consecrate Padre Márcio at his ordination. Two cardinals and the papal nuncio were forced to share the minor roles of sponsors as the former Vicente Salinas himself selected his mentor, the bishop of Ciudad Real, to perform the ceremony that transformed him into Padre Márcio.

  The stigmatic’s ordination received national coverage. María Félix attended wearing trousers, which created a scandal – not at the ceremony but only later, when her photos appeared in the newspapers, sparking grateful editors to life. But during the actual ceremony nobody noticed; their eyes were riveted not on the movie star but on the blood that flowed forth spontaneously just after Padre Márcio took his vows.

  Even former President Alemán sent a telegram of congratulations, although it arrived a day late because the mayor had declared a public holiday in Ciudad Real to mark the occasion.

  Padre Márcio spent the evening of his ordination in his quarters in the bishop’s palace, reflecting on the journey that had taken him from abused child to exalted priest.

  At first he felt pride.

  Sinful pride.

  But then he felt anger, and the more he let this most corrosive of emotions into his soul, the more it grew. It swelled into a painful tumescence which burst like a cyst. A simple thought had occurred to him for the first time: the positive changes in his circumstances had had nothing to do with the Mercy of God, only with a child’s despairing cunning born from desperation. And yet all the distinguished guests at the ceremony had lauded Divine Grace instead of a small boy’s guile. They had made offerings of thanks to the Lord, but there had been no acknowledgment of Padre Márcio’s fearful ability to survive the unsurvivable.

  To endure the unendurable.

  To change the unchangeable.

  As is always the case with the most intense and consuming anger, it was directed against God, though a certain part was reserved for himself. Enduring for the sake of survival was meaningless if it was not followed by vengeance. There had to be consequences to his survival; not for himself but for his tormentors.

  He wondered why he had never thought of this before. Was it his pathetic relief at having been saved from the assault of the brothers which had made him so emotionally passive? Or was it his guilt at having escaped what the other children could not?

  Perhaps it was something even more complex; the end of his deliberate subterfuge. The crystals that Pablo Grande had planted in his palms had worked their magic, maintaining his open sores without need of daily intervention. Like most imposters, Padre Márcio was beginning to believe his own artifice. Whatever it was, for the first time a crisp conception of the future took precedence over the painful blur of the past.

  The morning following his ordination, Padre Márcio made his first apostolic decision: to request a surprise visit, in the company of the cardinals, the papal nuncio and the bishop, to the orphanage of the Little Brothers of Perpetual Succour. They were accompanied by an official delegation made up of the state governor, the mayor, the police chief and several others, including the editors of the town’s three newspapers.

  As Padre Márcio had expected, n
othing had changed inside an institute solely constructed to facilitate the torture and abuse of children. He knew all the secret passageways leading to the punishment chambers and isolation cells. He escorted his appalled guests past victim and perpetrator, exposing all the procedures and processes of carefully organized rape performed under the guise of Holy Orders and in the Name of God.

  He claimed Divine Intervention, citing a post-ordination dream that had instructed him to find and expose these horrors. His audience had no option but to believe him, because any other explanation was unthinkable. Several of the more corrupt, if naïve, amongst them wondered if the young priest would dream about their crimes as well.

  Padre Márcio knew that if he had exposed the brothers’ crimes just to members of the clergy, nothing would have been done. The brothers would have been dispersed to other parishes, where they would find new victims, their evil crimes continuing unchecked; a contagious plague of cruelty. But in front of this group, such concealment was not possible. Someone would talk and, more importantly, someone would listen.

  Within two hours, all the brothers had been arrested and the children liberated into the care of medical staff. With outrage burning like a fatal fever, city authorities swore decimation.

  Padre Márcio called a meeting in the late vice-rector’s quarters, and it was there that he came of age as a politician. He urged discretion. A scandal such as this would not only destroy the orphanage, but the town itself. He reassured the troubled witnesses that they were not responsible, that they were above reproach. Why then should the guilt of a few sinners be allowed to tarnish social order and civic reputation? Not to mention the necessary ebb and flow of commerce.

  He therefore volunteered to oversee the running of the orphanage, to cleanse it of its sins and restore it to a position of trust and decency. Above all he pledged to save the children from future harm. They had the potential to form a holy legion to spread Christ’s word – to become soldiers in an army fighting for Jesus.

  All the dignitaries agreed with a mixture of relief and gratitude. The brothers would be stripped of their ecclesiastical status and thrown into the state penitentiary of Absalom to await trial – in the knowledge that such a trial could never be allowed to take place.

  The coup was complete. Padre Márcio had achieved the first step in his plan to take over the Order of the Little Brothers of Perpetual Succour, not just in Ciudad Real but in all of Mexico. And he had succeeded in his scheme to make the entire community – or at least its formal representatives – complicit in his plan. He was on his way to controlling the entire town, and with it the state. And there was only one man who could oppose him.

  One man who knew a truth that could undo all his work.

  Pablo Grande.

  31

  Pilar

  Everything happened the way they had hoped. The two fuck-ups working as security guards went out to the food truck at eight, after the women had all arrived, and the manager – who was really only the son of the manager – was late as usual.

  Pilar and three other agitators rolled down the front and back grilles, then bolted them to the ground. A cry of triumph went up from the thirty-four women barricaded inside. They had secured the premises.

  The occupation had begun.

  It was chance that had partly determined which maquiladora had been selected for direct action, but Pilar knew they couldn’t have chosen a better one – or rather a worse one – to shut down in the whole of Baja California. The lowest rate of pay in all of Tijuana, which was saying something. A lack of hygiene so alarming that it constituted a health threat not just to its own employees, but to those of neighboring sweatshops. Most despicable of all, the product that it manufactured was a lie. ‘Hand-made indigenous art’ turned out on an assembly line. It wasn’t just cultural appropriation, it was outright theft. Stealing revenue from the Yaqui, Hopi and Mayo peoples with mass-produced counterfeit silverware, woodwork, paintings and pottery. They were occupying the premises, but Pilar felt like blowing it up.

  The lockdown went well at first. The women were united in their anger about their working conditions; the arrogance and indifference of the young manager; the constant bullying of the guards, who were always trying to threaten and intimidate in the hope of sexual favors. That was how stupid they were. The women were even angry with themselves for their complicity in perpetuating a fraud. Most of all, they were angry with their customers: cynical market-stall hawkers, gullible tourists, and even gallery owners, who should have known better. The occupation quickly made the news. They were interviewed by telephone on a local radio talkback show. They waved through barred windows to supporters and a picket line as TV cameras filmed them. Thrilled with their success, they ate lunch together, laughing and singing.

  Then one of them broke into the accounting section and found the money.

  There were arguments. Juana, a popular woman known for her stinging tongue, said that the money belonged to them, the women who slaved over the machines, the people whose underpaid work made a fortune for the pinche young manager and his pinche fat father. She said that they might as well take the money because they would all lose their jobs anyway.

  Pilar fought back. They were not like their bosses. They were not criminals; they were workers, proud women who were standing up for their dignity, publicly condemning scandalous conditions and outright fraud.

  Juana said that the bosses wouldn’t even miss the money. Insurance would pay for it.

  Pilar said that they had a duty to all the other women working in all the other sweatshops. Just because the bosses were crooked didn’t mean the women had to be. Unlike the bosses, they needed to behave with honor.

  Juana said honor was a privilege of the rich.

  Pilar said honor was the banner of the poor and dispossessed.

  After much shouting and some sobbing, they took a vote. The money stayed where it was. Everyone felt proud, even Juana. They had proved to themselves what most people never get a chance to find out: that they were not thieves.

  Not that it changed anything.

  The police forced their way in just after 3 p.m. and arrested them all. For trespass. For vandalism. For attempted kidnapping. And for theft of monies in the accounting department. (The boss stole the money himself, but blamed it on the workers. Later he would claim it back from insurance. Juana had been right all along. No matter what you did, the bosses always won.)

  The violence of the raid was excessive. Municipal police and, surprisingly, a pelotón of rurales behind them, had surged in with the aim not just of overpowering the women but of hurting and humiliating them. The police stood back, watching with smiles as the rurales tore tunics from backs, yanked at bra straps and ripped trousers. They pulled hair, slapped faces, punched breasts and pummeled asses. The women were dragged out, sometimes by their ankles, their bare arms and backs already tattooed with bruises. Pilar looked around with mounting fear as she was pulled and shoved outside. There were no picket lines, no supporters, no TV cameras.

  No witnesses.

  They were jeered when they were forced to board a bus. The women were silent at first when they started heading east, hoping that they’d take the first turnoff back to Tijuana. But instead the bus kept going towards La Presa. The women whispered uneasily amongst themselves as the landscape darkened with hills that lifted around the great dam, as though preparing to blot it out forever with their shadows. The skies grew somber, distant rain skirting the horizon with wisps of gray. Pilar looked out her window, watching the Jeep Cherokees shadowing them. ‘Where are they taking us?’ Juana asked. No one answered. There was the murmur of prayer, and the hot chokes of someone trying to suppress her sobs.

  The bus pulled up in front of some stables half hidden from the road by a large ranch house. The wind moaned a warning across the arid land as the women huddled protectively beside the bus, watching the police shaking hands and joking with the rurales, money changing hands the way it always does; the ranch own
er careless and indifferent as he handed out notes, the servile smiles of the police nodding thanks fading to resentment as they turned and walked back to their marked cars, abandoning the women to their fate.

  Pilar looked back at the bus and caught the eye of the driver, who nodded towards the stables. She watched as some boys, no more than ten, started leading horses out, passing behind the bus towards an open-air corral. She turned back to the driver, who smiled, a huge gap in his teeth like an abandoned well, dark and threatening; hinting at a bottomless chasm.

  The men started pushing them towards the stables, the women intuitively forming a circle, their backs to each other, the smallest of them protected in the center. A flash of sunlight burst across Pilar’s face as a car turned fast towards the ranch house, its windshield going golden with the setting sun, masking whoever was inside it as it accelerated towards them.

  The ranch owner stepped out of the group. She knew him from the papers. Raúl Abarca. A little man with big ambitions. He was an activist for the governing party in Lomas Taurinas and had been at the PRI rally when Colosio was assassinated. He was rumored to be involved in the counterfeit cigarette trade. ‘It’s better if you co-operate,’ Abarca said. ‘That way we won’t go so hard on you.’ There was impatient laughter from the men, amused by the false promise of mercy in a land without pity.

  A gust of wind stirred the ash-colored soil, sending it undulating fast towards the corral, as though the earth was so insulted by what was about to happen, it had to flee.

  ‘Isn’t that why you brought us out here?’ Pilar said. ‘To go hard on us, as hard as you possibly can, you weak fucking cowards!’

  Abarca turned slowly, staring at Pilar. ‘We’re going to start with her. We’re going to ride her ass into the dust.’