City Without Stars

by Tim Baker

  But Ventura isn’t one of those women. She hates tears, in women and especially in men. They aren’t just a sign of weakness, but of manipulation. Of capitulation. Of surrendering custodianship of one’s own anguish and bequeathing it, unwanted, to another. So often, it is an opportunity for exploitation; especially with men. How many times has she seen men cheat on their women and then come crawling back, voices quivering with emotion, eyes watering, searching for pity like a scolded dog. Usurping the tears of the women they have betrayed. How many times has she seen male neighbors sobbing as they cradle their wives in their arms, covering black eyes and bruised arms with kisses, saying they didn’t mean to do it, it wasn’t their fault. They were drunk. They were jealous. If only the women could understand the stress they were under. As though their violence was the fault of their women; women like her own mother.

  Evil domestic memories are disinterred from her childhood. Her father explaining to her mother that if she really didn’t want him to punish her, she wouldn’t have done whatever it was he was accusing her of: dressing up like a whore; looking at some man in a way she shouldn’t; spending too long at work; speaking that way to him in public. Why wasn’t his food on the table when he came home? he’d demand, the shock of his fist making empty plates leap, mocking the use of the word home. Surely home should be a refuge, not a dwelling shared with an unstable, violent monster.

  Dark thoughts tumble out from the past as she showers and dresses. Tears hover, then are stubbornly suppressed as she walks alone across a carpet of jacaranda flowers in Mayor’s garden, thankful for the color in a city of black and white; for the solitude in a time of sirens. She is remembering her first boyfriend, explaining in a high, trembling voice that he hadn’t meant to hit her – but she had no right to say the things she had, before breaking down into sobs of self-pity, as though he was the one who had been hit. Leaving him that day had made her the woman she’d become. A woman capable of saying no. Of walking away to protect herself and her dignity. A woman able to take care of herself in a world of masculine advantages. Her work had gotten her noticed. She lived the life she wanted to lead. She got to choose her partners, not the other way round.

  She had chosen Carlos.

  And he had damaged her sense of self-worth.

  Is it true what they say? That all children are condemned to repeat the mistakes of their parents. That all girls marry their fathers and all boys their mothers. That the loop of failure can never be broken? What does that say about her? What does that say about the whole country?

  Her anger at Carlos washes over her like a drowning tide, tugging her down into cold currents of contempt. For him. And for herself. For the entire nation. She can taste it on the back of her tongue: metallic. Iodic.

  Toxic.

  Carlos hasn’t bothered to contact her since he fled, and for that she is relieved. She can’t bear to think of the cartel people finding him; enacting narco revenge. And if they can’t find him, they’ll try and find her. She hates him now, but only two days before she still thought she was in love with him. Such a schism is too traumatic to think about. So she has put all thought of him out of her mind, until this morning. Now she knows that she has to do the inevitable: escape like Carlos. She has to run from all of her past. From this inherited legacy of male violence, betrayal and infidelity.

  From being afraid and at risk, simply because she is a woman, alone.

  It was a mistake to leave Mexico City and return to Ciudad Real; a colossal error of judgment. She had allowed Carlos to dictate the terms of her life because of tax advantages to his business. Because of his needs, not hers. And now because of that decision, she is being hunted; but at the same time, she is strangely free.

  Free from a man who lied about his love; who was reckless enough to try to defraud professional killers.

  Free to leave her hometown and this time never, ever return.

  But before she leaves town, before she starts running from her past towards a new future, there are three things she has to do.

  She wants to complete the research for her story, because it is her duty as a woman to tell it.

  And she wants to help with the strike at the maquiladoras because the union people are right as well: women will never be safe until they enjoy the same advantages as men. Economic equality. Protection from exploitation.

  Her having to hide in Mayor’s house proves that. Juan Antonio said it at dinner the night before. The only way to make the women of Ciudad Real safe – to make all working women safe – is by improving their living and working conditions and giving them the economic independence to choose how they want to live, and with whom. So if they ever want to walk away from domestic violence or just an unhappy relationship, they can.

  But most of all she wants to shoot everything; not as reportage but as testament. This isn’t just another story, this is something far bigger. And she will be there when it unfolds; on the right side of history. Her side. She has faith in her work. She has faith in her instincts. She has faith in her talent. And most of all, she has faith in her ambition. If everything coalesces, this will be her legacy.

  Just three things, she thinks, and then she will be free.

  57

  El Santo

  El Santo has never liked going to church. It isn’t just that it’s mind-numbingly boring. He can’t see the point. Wasting your time worrying about what’s going to happen when you die? As if he doesn’t know. The answer is dumbass simple. Absolutely nothing.

  Eternal life?

  Immortal souls?

  El Santo has seen inside more people than your average heart surgeon; he’s opened up living bodies while their owners called out to God to save them. And guess what? God never did. El Santo knows from firsthand experience, there is no such thing as a miracle, much less a soul. There are only muscles, sinews and indecent amounts of blood. It’s the same with church. Empty. If you really want to forget your earthly worries, go to a disco.

  The whole concept of churches still does his head in. There’s all that stone, which makes you feel like you’re in a castle, which is kind of cool. But then they spoil it by throwing in all that glass. Invulnerable meets breakable. What’s that all about? The only thing he doesn’t mind is the artwork. Not the gory crucifixes, as phony as a George A. Romero flick. What he likes are the retablos. All those little tin squares painted with stories of help, salvation and devoted thanks. When he was a kid he read them like they were comic books nailed up on a wall. How El Santo Niño de Atocha came to the party with a basketful of food. How the Virgin’s tears put out a fire. All those crazy Sacred Hearts floating in the sky like flying saucers, beaming healing rays down on poor sick kids. His favorite lámina was one with the devil, slick and blue as Mister Fantastic, getting tossed into a volcano by a royally pissed Santiago. Those pictures and the stories they told were all kind of cool.

  Then came the House of Death, and there was no more time for stupid dreams and naïf drawings; for churches and blah-blah about salvation.

  So it’s weird that he’s back in one now, talking to an old man who looks like Jerry Garcia, only with holes in his hands, who might be insane or, more probably, just cunning as a shithouse rat. One thing’s for sure – he ain’t no fucking saint.

  ‘Fifteen percent is outrageous,’ Padre Márcio says, although he doesn’t sound outraged at all. In fact he seems bored out of his mind. Maybe being in a church does his head in too.

  El Santo gives his tell me about it shrug. ‘That’s the usual rate.’

  ‘I’m not the usual customer.’ El Santo can’t argue with that. ‘I do enormous good with all the money I raise. Why would you want to take food out of the mouths of poor orphans?’

  ‘Why do birds shit white? It’s the way of the world, Father.’

  The priest sits down, right there on the altar steps, clenching his hands together, not in prayer but in computation, like a bookie hesitating on expanding the odds. ‘Your world, perhaps. Not mine.’


  El Santo and Oviedo had arrived at the cathedral just after lunch. Not that he could hold anything down. Not even a glass of Noche Buena. The way things were going, that slug to the gut was going to cost him at least five kilos, and let’s face it, he was already a couple of kilos under slim. His mother’s goddamn metabolism. She knew. She was always at him to have a second helping, while fat fucks like El Feo, who could audition for the Michelin Man, put on weight just driving past the panadería. The last thing he needs is to end up looking so gaunt, people will think he’s using. Bosses who abuse their own product are like a curbside needle jockey sitting in a puddle of piss. Beyond redemption. To be put out of their misery to save embarrassment at the first opportunity.

  When they arrived at the church, some battle-ax nun flapped around, trying to get them to leave. She had picked them out as sinners as soon as she spotted them stepping through the incense smoke. But wasn’t that the point of a fucking church? To welcome the good and bad; the rich and poor; the healthy and the dying, and people like him who have a say in who is who?

  But when Sister Hitler got a sniff of the money El Santo was waving in her face, she ran off to get the old bleeder. He listened for maybe a minute with a look on his face like El Santo was standing on the other side of an eight-lane highway, trying to shout out an order from a Chinese menu. It wasn’t until Father Holy Holes noticed Oviedo standing by the baptismal font that he decided to give him the time of day. El Santo remembers what Amado used to say: respect is born out of intimidation. He could go one further. Intimidation is born out of enforcement. El Santo could snap his fingers and Oviedo would murder Padre Márcio right here in the cathedral. There’d be a shitstorm like no other but … That’s what makes people fear narcos so much. They don’t give a fuck about the consequences of their actions. They do things as though they’re batshit crazy, and these days most of them are. So seeing Oviedo standing there in the shadows, the old priest’s attitude has finally readjusted. He’s focusing on El Santo. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘What are the compartments for?’

  ‘Compartments?’

  ‘You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Father.’ He feels the intimidating weight of Oviedo’s presence stepping up behind him. It even gives him a little chill. Imagine what it does to the priest. ‘You know exactly what compartments I’m talking about.’ Padre Márcio’s eyes flicker up at Oviedo, then nervously dance away. Oh yes, the fear is working its magic now.

  ‘The automobile compartments?’

  This is why he can’t stand priests. They never go with simple words. They use deceased instead of just plain dead. Excommunicated instead of out on your ass, and salvation instead of saving it. ‘What are they for?’

  ‘Contraband.’

  There he goes again. ‘The way I figure, it’s cash. I suppose it could be drugs, but I doubt it. Whatever you do, don’t tell me Bibles.’

  ‘What is being smuggled is of no concern to you.’

  ‘This is where we have a major problem. Everything that crosses that border concerns me.’

  ‘I am prepared to pay you fifty thousand dollars a crossing.’

  ‘I want fifteen percent. That’s one hundred and fifty thousand a crossing.’ Or three million a month if his calculations are correct. Again with the wringing hands routine. No wonder they bleed all the time. ‘Who are you working for?’

  ‘You understand that I can’t tell you.’

  El Santo knows a phony statement when he hears one. ‘I think my friend here thinks otherwise.’

  Padre Márcio glances up at Oviedo, as though he’s finally realized how much a guy like Oviedo would love to hurt a priest like him. Because Oviedo is a man of faith’s worst nightmare. A devout believer. Not in God, or even the devil, but in the devil’s by-products: torment. Everlasting pain. He can already hear him, sharpening his knife with the honing rod; that slate-scratching catch in the grooved stainless steel that makes your blood run cold.

  He recognizes the beat-up look on the priest’s face. Surrender. Or, as the priest would say, capitulation. Well, that was fast. ‘I will pay your exorbitant tax but I cannot tell you the identity of the person I work for.’

  ‘Then I will have to kill you.’

  ‘Then you will never see your money. Free will. That’s what makes humans different from the animals. I’ve made my choice. Now you need to make yours.’ He has to admit, that’s pretty ballsy for a guy who never uses them. This priest is a good talker. He remembers that from his First Holy Communion lessons. Fuck it. He’ll take the money now, get the information later. ‘We’re not done yet,’ El Santo says.

  The priest smiles. El Santo almost misses it, because it’s not the kind of smile you’d expect to see in a place like a church, even for a non-believing narco like him. An evil smile. ‘Not by a long shot,’ Padre Márcio says.

  58

  Gomez

  Gomez is still at the ranch house when he gets the call from Fuentes. The two wounded gunmen have just shown up at the morgue. Fuentes is seething. Gomez couldn’t give a fuck. Fuentes is acting like it’s part of some great, overarching conspiracy but Gomez saw the state of both of them at the ranch house. The legs of the one in the bedroom were basically only attached to the body by congealed blood. And as for the güey they pulled out of the Navigator, it was like he only survived the shotgun blast so he could experience the thrill of driving a speeding car into solid rock.

  They’re both dead, and as far as Gomez is concerned, that is a better outcome than pissing away money on a trial just for a couple of years in jail, with the risk of a counter-suit against the department for excessive and unnecessary force leading to permanent disability. No one made the two gunmen shoot at him and Fuentes, just like no one forced them to kidnap and rape the girl. Fuck them. The moment you show remorse for lowlife killers is the moment you better hand in your badge, because in Ciudad Real, every sicario carries three bullets marked pity, hesitation and regret.

  The first time Gomez killed someone, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. For months. In the first week after he pulled the trigger and watched a junkie with a knife spin fast and drop slow, he couldn’t get the scene out of his head. His first ever partner, Ortega, had carefully approached the body, aiming at the head while a woman shouted some hysterical shit from a window above. Ortega kicked the knife out of the dead man’s hand and sent it whirling into a fire-blackened doorway. Then he turned to Gomez with a hateful smirk. ‘You just became a man,’ Ortega said, as though Gomez were a teenage nephew he had caught sneaking out of a Chatarrita whorehouse.

  After he’d shot the junkie, everything had gone silent for an instant, then the woman had started yelling from the window. It was the memory of those shouts – like a banal song you can’t get out of your head – that always launched the involuntary recurring sequence. A perpetual memory which dominated his waking hours, and infested his mind during hypnagogia. Even when he was able to sleep, he’d soon wake from the force of those screams hovering above his head. He’d try and remember what the woman was shouting: a warning? A cry for help? Was it just a manifestation of hysteria or fear, or simply hateful invective – the universal curse delivered to any approaching cop with a gun in his hand? It didn’t matter. For him it had long ceased to be communication. It was a soundtrack to a nightmare that no longer bothered to distinguish between day and night; lucidity and unconsciousness. All his thoughts were fused to that single moment of murder: it was a fatal synapse, one that changed him; that began to threaten his sanity.

  Then after a month, the burden of that brutal synthesis lifted without him even realizing it. He was pouring himself a beer after work one day when it hit him: he hadn’t thought about the shooting since the night before.

  He was free. What everyone had said was true. The memory had gone with the simple passage of time. He thought he was over that first killing.

  He thought wrong.

  It was as though he had weeded an infested garden, and convinced himself he had r
emoved the problem. But seed-pods must have broken sometime during the clearance because he kept flashing back to the shooting. It wasn’t like before, a constant weight that obliterated all other thoughts; all other emotions. Now it was something active and unpredictable that would alight at the most unexpected of times, chiseling away at his supposed recovery. He actually preferred it before, when it so dominated his mind that there was nothing he could do but muster his strength and try to live with it, even though he knew it would linger like an opportunistic infection. Now it would take him by surprise. Ambush an instant; leave him stinging and in shock. It made him doubt himself. It made him wonder: was he capable of defending his life again if he had to? That in turn led him to the most uncomfortable question of all, one he had been avoiding until then: did a junkie with a switchblade on the other side of the street really constitute a mortal threat?

  Other killings followed in the line of duty. Other reactions too. They were never as severe as that first shooting. But there was always something extra deposited afterwards. Something that hurt but helped. It was like he was growing a new layer of skin. Ballistic-proof and one size too tight. It changed him. It made him harder.

  It made him feel as though he didn’t give a fuck.

  And then came the moment when Paredes and he had chased down two serial muggers. Junkies turned maimers. They had blinded one of their victims; crippled another. It wasn’t malicious intent. It was worse. It was selfish disregard; brain-dead incompetence. They needed money for their next hit, and they got it any way they could. And now he and Paredes had them cornered. They looked at each other, and without any noticeable signal passing between them, executed both of the motherfuckers right there and then.