City Without Stars

by Tim Baker

  Wrong question.

  Her eyes immediately cataracted. He was no longer there; and as far as the neighbor was concerned, neither was she. If she’d had one, the woman would have slammed the door in his face.

  The response was an intuitive, almost physiological reaction to a terrible error of judgment: revealing information to people who shouldn’t possess it. Information is the only thing you can own in a place like Anaprata. You don’t sell it cheaply. And you never give it away. Normally it involves narcos. But sometimes, as Fuentes guessed was the case here, it concerns something on a higher plateau: something esoteric; maybe even divine. Ten to one, Rosario Flores was a bruja. The world of the brujería is like that of the narcería: you never ask for explanations, let alone specific information. You are either trusted enough to be taken in or else you are called into the world, as if by spirits.

  Afterwards, Fuentes and Gomez cruise the streets of Anaprata for half an hour until they get lucky, Fuentes slapping Gomez’s arm hard, nodding down the street at Pilar, who is just stepping out of an illegal miscelánea with a fruit box full of groceries in her arms. They watch her walk down a gravel road, a bloom of torpid dust rising behind her. Gomez slows the car, putting extra space between them.

  The makeshift houses she passes are built from peeling clapboard, unpainted cinder block or faded whitewashed adobe. Plastic and tar paper make up most of the roofs, rustling with regret in the hot wind. Trash litters the road, plastic shopping bags rolling lazy as tumbleweeds. A dog sleeps on a piss-stained mattress in the shade of a burnt-out car.

  Two youths lounging inside an old Chevy whistle at Pilar as she passes but their hearts aren’t in it. Pilar ignores them with dismissive indifference. Fuentes and Gomez sit in their car, watching Pilar disappear inside a narrow green entrance. ‘I don’t get it,’ Gomez says. ‘Why always her?’

  ‘Know what I’ve noticed?’

  ‘What?’

  Fuentes pats his partner consolingly on the shoulder. ‘There are a lot of things you don’t get.’ He steps out and walks towards the Chevy, Gomez watching him through his windshield.

  One of the kids in the Chevy is fossicking in his jean jacket for a light, a newly rolled joint between his lips, when a hand appears through the window, offering a match. The kid leans forwards with a nod of thanks as he frowns through the smoke, sitting up fast when he sees it’s Fuentes. Fuentes grabs the kid and hauls him through the open car window, onto the road. His friend springs out of the car and comes round the front with a knife in his hands, his eyes full of the fear that he might have to use it.

  Fuentes shows his badge, pinned against his holster, mastering the situation with the threat of real violence. The knife drops to the ground. Fuentes kicks it under the car. The one he pulled out through the window slowly gets to his feet, both of them standing there, defiant but fearful, hinky eyes measuring routes for escape. Fuentes indicates the green entrance. ‘Who lives there?’

  The two exchange glances. Like many people in Ciudad Real, they suffer from short-term memory loss. Only seconds before, they were both trembling with apprehension. Now they are already reverting to their habitual stance of mannered defiance. One of them even shrugs. Fuentes moves fast, seizing a fistful of hair in each hand, bringing their heads sharply together. There is the hot slur of tires and the hammer of a door, Gomez already applying a headlock to one of the youths.

  Fuentes bundles the other to the back of the police sedan and opens the trunk. Gomez is puzzled but joins him with his prisoner. Fuentes pushes the head of his captive into the trunk, shouting to Gomez. ‘Take them out to the desert and shoot them.’

  Gomez stares at Fuentes, totally confused, the youth he has captured sagging under his grip. Fuentes tries to bundle his captive into the trunk, the boy’s voice muffled as he cries out. ‘Please, wait!’

  ‘Now you want to talk. Too fucking late.’ Gomez looks around with anxiety. Neighbors are watching. Fuentes mouths: Fuck them.

  Sensing Gomez’s confusion, the other kid almost squirms free of his grip. He turns to Gomez, pleading, ‘Don’t do this, man!’ Fuentes lets go of his captive, who tumbles to the ground. He grabs the other kid by the hair. ‘Who lives there, motherfucker?’

  ‘Rosario Flores.’

  Something rustles behind Fuentes. It’s the first kid, scrambling to his feet, his footsteps pounding fast away until they can’t hear them anymore. His friend watches him disappear, wilting from the betrayal. Gomez is about to give chase but Fuentes shakes his head and turns his attention back to the remaining prisoner. ‘I want more than a name.’

  ‘She’s a bruja. She talks to the dead.’

  ‘Who’s with her now?’

  The boy’s voice is barely audible. ‘The mama of Isabel, the girl they found. That’s all I know, man.’ Fuentes nods and Gomez lets him go. He waits a moment, then puts out his hand. Fuentes stares at him. A second ago, he was threatening to kill the kid and now he’s expecting a payoff? The kid shrugs. ‘Information’s information.’

  Gomez slaps him across the ear. ‘Get the fuck out of here before we change our minds.’ The kid scampers away to a safe distance, and then turns and shoots them the finger. The street is motionless except for the neighbors’ curtains all falling back. Fuentes straightens his shirt sleeves and starts walking towards the house of Rosario Flores.

  Gomez follows, shaking his head. ‘What are we doing here?’ But Fuentes has already vanished inside.

  Fuentes peers into the strange, flickering shadows that lie just beyond the entrance. He unclips his holster. Something bangs into him from behind. It’s Gomez, who removes his sunglasses with hasty embarrassment.

  They both move cautiously down a corridor lit by devotional candles, leading into a room aglow with dozens more. Women of all ages sit on the floor, holding hands in a circle as they softly chant. Fuentes allows his eyes to adjust to the dimness, glancing around the walls, which are covered with masks, feathers and sacred devices.

  Sitting in the group is Pilar. She sees Fuentes and Gomez before they see her, rising to her feet, astonished. Other women in the circle turn and look, their chant dying away with the approach of the intruders. Fuentes scans the faces of the women.

  His eyes settle on an exhausted, middle-aged woman with a face hollowed by the disbelief of the very early days of mourning. When things still aren’t real. She wears a serape with an image of La Guadalupana. ‘Señora Torres? I’m Inspector Fuentes.’ For the first time, the small woman looks up at him, eyes inflamed from hours of weeping. ‘And this is Detective Gomez. We’re investigating your daughter’s …’ Señora Torres turns away from him, answering a secret call only she can hear. The women rejoin hands, closing the circle, and the chant begins again. Louder this time. Fuentes recognizes it now. The rosary.

  Pilar motions for Fuentes to follow her out a back door. Gomez starts to join them but Fuentes shakes his head. Gomez pulls a face, leaning against a wall, watching as Fuentes closes the door behind him. He stares down at the women, first in boredom, then without even realizing it, becoming consumed by the familiarity of the chant, by its promise of assistance, if not redemption; falling into the nostalgic trance of detached early memory: the women of his home – their strength, their devotion, their protection; his lips automatically finding the words, moving with the innate, unthinking synchronicity of a child reciting multiplication tables.

  It’s cool outside, the narrow yard shaded by damp bed linen hanging high and heavy. Pilar sits on an upturned milk crate, smoking. She doesn’t look up at him when she speaks. ‘You followed me?’

  Fuentes studies her evasive gaze. ‘We came to interview the mother.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me. How did you know she was here?’ He doesn’t answer. She looks up, making eye contact in her anger. ‘You fucking followed me.’

  ‘What’s it matter how we found her? We need her help.’

  ‘You won’t get anything from her. Not before the funeral.’

  ‘We can’
t afford to wait. Why are you here?’

  ‘I’m a friend of the family.’

  ‘You didn’t even know their name yesterday.’

  Pilar slowly stands, staring into Fuentes’ face as though she were scrutinizing the blind marble gaze of a statue, looking for a flaw in the stone; its close proximity to reality only serving to heighten its inhuman remoteness. ‘Today, every woman in Ciudad Real is a friend of the family.’

  He sighs, turning away from the intense gaze. ‘I want to stop the killings.’

  ‘Just like you wanted to stop the strikes in Tijuana? You didn’t succeed there either.’

  For a moment Fuentes’ face tics with anger. Then it’s still again, impassive. ‘We can work together, share any information we have.’

  ‘I don’t work with the police.’

  ‘You can trust me.’

  ‘Don’t insult my intelligence.’

  ‘Even if it’s the police doing this, we’re not all alike.’

  ‘I never said it was the police.’

  ‘But I just did. You’re not stupid. You’ve heard the rumors. And I know you believe them.’

  Pilar gives him a hard, penetrating look. ‘Don’t you?’

  He offers her a card. ‘One day you’re going to need a policeman you can trust. Especially if the rumors turn out to be true.’

  Pilar glances at the proffered card. ‘You’re always handing me things.’

  ‘It’s better than taking things from you.’ Pilar slips the card in her pocket. ‘If you need me, at any time; it doesn’t matter: call me.’ Fuentes goes back inside. Pilar stares after him, her eyes narrowing against her cigarette smoke, considering what he’s just said.

  Fuentes closes the door quietly behind him and stays there for a moment, allowing his eyes to readjust to the darkness. Gomez is where he left him, slouching against a wall as he mouths the rosary. Fuentes walks slowly around the perimeter of the room, trying not to disturb the circle of women. But just as he’s passing, the chant stops, filling the house with silence. Fuentes freezes, looking back at the group. Señora Torres is standing, her arms outstretched towards him. ‘Bring back my daughter.’ Fuentes gazes into her eyes. They stare at him, but are unfocused. When she speaks again, her voice is louder, stronger; there is the lilt of a new chant in the way she says, ‘Bring Isabel back.’ The other women repeat the refrain, creating a soft, disturbing echo.

  Fuentes takes hold of Señora Torres by the elbows. It could be for support. It could be to keep her away from him. ‘Señora, I promise we will have your daughter’s body back to you as soon as possible.’

  Señora Torres seems mastered by the pledge at first, her eyes drifting away from Fuentes. But then she shouts, making Gomez jump. ‘Rosario? Is it true?’ All the women in the circle turn to Rosario Flores, her fierce, ancient face framed by white hair pulled so severely back that it resembles the crust of a calcified skull. Rosario raises her hands in the air, her lips trembling.

  A hush goes through everyone in the room. Even Fuentes feels its power. He lets go of Señora Torres, who begins a low sob. Fuentes and Gomez exchange unsettled looks, Gomez pleading with his eyes for them to go.

  But before he can move, Rosario rushes up to Fuentes with a swiftness astonishing in one so old. She seizes his hands by his wrists and slowly turns them over, so they are palms up.

  She stares at the palms in the gloomy light then lets out a long moan. Fuentes tries to free his hands but her clutch is fierce, her voice loud and fervent as she cries: ‘I see death. I see death!’

  She too begins to sob, falling to her knees, finally releasing her grip on Fuentes. The others crowd around her, supporting her as she rocks backwards and forwards. Daylight enters the back of the room. Fuentes glances up at Pilar, standing in the doorframe. She looks at Rosario then back at Fuentes, and motions for him to go quickly.

  They hurry along the candlelit corridor, Gomez brushing a mask with his shoulder, almost knocking it off the wall. He adjusts it, then on a whim lifts it off its hook. ‘Check this out, boss,’ he says, glancing back into the room to make sure none of the women are looking, then puts the mask over his face. Something black tremors across the inner rim. He pulls the mask fast away from his face. Cradled inside is a red-knee tarantula. ‘Holy fuck!’

  He slams the mask back against the wall, the spider disappearing back into the crevice in the face. One of its legs quivers through an eyehole, hairs catching in the splinters of the lacquered wood. Gomez hurries after Fuentes, bumping into him again in the blinding daylight outside. They both pause to put on sunglasses.

  ‘That was a cute trick with the mask.’

  Gomez shivers. ‘I hate spiders.’

  ‘So why wear one on your face?’

  ‘I didn’t know it was there!’

  ‘You didn’t know because you didn’t look. That’s a serious fault of yours. Not looking.’

  ‘Jesus, with you all the time it’s a lecture. It’s a lesson. It’s a fucking parable! Don’t blame me for all that creepy shit going on inside there. I see death! I see death! What the fuck was that about? I don’t even know why we’re—Oh man!’ Gomez freezes in disgust. Someone’s dropped a turd on top of the hood of their car.

  Gomez glances all around the street: there is no movement, no sign of life. ‘Check it out: the whole fucking street’s innocent.’ He turns to Fuentes. ‘It was one of those niños you threatened to take out into the desert and kill. See what that attitude of yours gets us? Nothing but shit!’

  ‘Not us. It’s on your side. You clean it off.’

  Gomez picks up a piece of cardboard and brushes the shit away, his nostrils tightened against the smell. He looks all around the deserted street, at the poor houses, the abandoned cars, the fucking dog still sleeping on its piss-stained mattress. He slams the roof of the car in frustration. ‘Why the fuck are we even here?’

  Fuentes opens the car door, then pauses. ‘Because no one else wants to be.’

  34

  Fuentes

  When Fuentes enters without knocking, Valdez looks up and swivels in his chair, using the great empty bulk of his desk to protect himself. It’s an even bigger frontier than the border: that gulf between worker and boss.

  Seated opposite Valdez are the two men who were in Paredes’ house the night before. Valdez presents Fuentes to the unimpressed American, who clearly thinks he’s the controller of the pair, and his Mexican partner, who is happy to let the gringo delude himself. ‘I’d like you to meet our top man on the case. Inspector Fuentes was brought in from Tijuana to take over the investigations. Agent Gordillo from the PJF and his guest, Agent Bush …’

  The American shifts in his chair. ‘Byrd.’

  ‘Agent Byrd, forgive me … Agent Byrd of the DEA. He’s come all the way from El Lobo to talk with us.’

  If the gringo understands irony, he doesn’t show it. ‘Texas. Have you executed any of my countrymen lately?’

  ‘Should we have?’ Byrd tries to share a smile with Gordillo, who’s not interested. Byrd rubs his nose gingerly, as though testing to see that it isn’t coming loose. ‘We do whatever it takes to reduce crime.’

  ‘As we all do,’ Valdez says.

  Gordillo turns to Fuentes. ‘So have you made any arrests yet?’ There is a moment’s pause and then Byrd cracks up, coughing in a vain attempt to cover it up.

  ‘You think that’s funny?’ Fuentes glares at Byrd. ‘You know, when you come to my country, sticking your nose in other people’s business, you should at least try to speak a little Spanish.’

  ‘You come up to our side of the border and try finding just one Mexican who speaks any English,’ Byrd says.

  A pulse ticks in Fuentes’ cheek, his smile full of ice. He leans against the desk, his back to Valdez. ‘So, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?’

  ‘As if you didn’t know,’ Gordillo says.

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘Well, it’s a … a fruit matter,’ Byrd says.

&nbs
p; Gordillo laughs, playing straight man to the Yanqui. Fuentes’ eyes slowly travel the length of Byrd, measuring his worth – or lack of it. ‘United Fruit?’ His voice is low, hinting at menace without quite arriving at threat. ‘What are you planning now, another coup?’

  ‘Nothing so complicated.’ Byrd shifts his weight away from Fuentes, shielding himself from the hostility. ‘We found ourselves a bad apple.’

  ‘And we’re looking for the tree it came from,’ Gordillo says.

  ‘Then, my friend, I suggest you look in Cali or Medellín.’ He turns back to Byrd. ‘Or better yet, why not look in your own neighborhoods; in your colleges and nightclubs. In Hollywood.’

  Byrd and Gordillo exchange looks, rolling their eyes in unison. ‘We know where the tree is and we’re going to rock it hard,’ Byrd says. ‘And all the rotten apples are going to start falling, and by the time we stop, my guess is there won’t be anything left up on the tree.’

  ‘Hardly an optimistic picture,’ Valdez says.

  ‘With all those raining apples, you should be careful you don’t get hit on the head.’

  Byrd glares at Fuentes. ‘Is that a threat?’ he says, thankful for the change to open aggression.

  ‘Just a reminder of the laws of gravity.’

  Gordillo leans past Fuentes, giving a vague kind of salute to Valdez. ‘Thanks for your time, el jefe.’ He and Byrd leave without another word to Fuentes.

  ‘A pleasure sharing extraterritorial co-operation with you gentlemen,’ Valdez calls out after them.

  Fuentes watches them through the glass of Valdez’s office. ‘Shouldn’t that be extraterritorial humiliation?’ He turns back to Valdez, sitting down in one of the abandoned chairs.

  Valdez shrugs, throwing his heavy feet up onto his desk. ‘Paredes was a liar, a thief and a drug smuggler. Why should they trust us?’