by Tim Baker
‘We could smuggle it into the United States, launder it through the Order as charitable donations. Protect it from the IRS.’
Amado smiled, and he was saturated with relief. Up until that moment, he hadn’t been sure he would be walking out of the ranch house. ‘How would you get it out of the country?’
Padre Márcio had no idea. He wasn’t a smuggler. Anything he suggested would reveal him as an amateur; even expose him as a liability. Amado had set a trap, and his vanity had led him into it. He could feel the trigger mechanism under his foot, hovering in its eagerness to snap shut. And then an otherworldly voice, as though from the grave, slurred its way across the hot kitchen air. ‘Shit, if I have to sit here until you two come up with the only logical solution, the least you could do is pour me a drink.’ The American spat a voluminous mix of saliva and blood. Something sat atop the squall of sputum, before slowly sinking from sight: a tooth. He slowly raised his face, staring at Padre Márcio through the eye which wasn’t swollen shut. ‘Hollis Earl Jeetton. But you can call me Tex.’
66
Fuentes
Not snuff films, not a black mass, but a forced initiation ritual. Ultimate blackmail. And somehow, Marina – Paredes’ one-time lover, now with his ex-partner – holds the key …
Fuentes pulls up outside a row of cinder block buildings with barred windows. He gets out, dogs sentrying the evening with their sad, futile howls. He pauses, looking up and down the street; his second illegal entry in three days. But he doesn’t feel like a criminal.
He feels like a target.
He goes up to the front door and listens. There’s pleasant laughter from the neighboring house. The sound surprises him, almost as though it has no right to be there. People start singing ‘Happy Birthday’.
It’s a cheap pin tumbler with a protruding cylinder. He places the head in a vice grip, waits for the applause at the end of the song, then twists and pulls. A credit card takes care of the latch. The door slips open. Fuentes is inside. He closes the drapes, crosses the living room to the kitchen, then hits a switch, fluorescent tubes stuttering in confusion, disturbed by the unexpected intrusion. He begins checking all the likely hiding places, starting with the cupboard under the sink. Cockroaches scuttle in panic. Pots, pans, cleaning products. Dregs from a sad domestic life in need of cleaning or, better yet, simply tossing.
He enters the bathroom, a naked lightbulb glaring down at him. Eyes glide across surfaces. Fuentes almost misses the fresh mastic on the access hatch around the bathtub. The rest of the tiles are sealed with a grouting gone gray with mildew. He gets a knife from the kitchen drawer and sets to work, peeling away at the secret.
It’s surprising how few real hiding places there are in the average home. The back of furniture. The rims of high shelves. The underside of drawers and the interiors of curtain rods. Puny treasure is carefully concealed behind heating grilles or skirting boards; locked away inside the mechanical mysteries of air-conditioning units. Or simply shoved under mattresses. But for highly illegal articles – firearms, narcotics, vacuum-sealed wads of cash – plumbing is always the hiding place of choice. The proximity to sewers and drains; to murky, stagnant water, and the steady drip of guilt, anxiety and greed.
He jiggles the hatch open. The stink of mold and grit of rust. The dark stain of corrosion and the grave. He wraps a dirty towel around his hand, grabs the light cord and gently tugs in the direction of the wall switch. There is mild resistance, then the rip of rotten plaster, the electrical cord unzipping the ceiling, creating a trail of dust as it frees itself, running down the wall and halting at the bank of tiles. It gives him more than enough length to peer inside the hatch. Lining the dead space between tiles and tub are two shoeboxes, taped shut and sealed inside heavy plastic.
He pulls them out, stacks them on top of the washing machine and is just about to slit through the wrap when a woman’s loud moan makes him jump. He hasn’t even checked the bedroom yet. He spins in the direction of the sound, the knife raised defensively. Nothing. Then another, longer moan – not from the bedroom as he first thought, but from behind the bathroom. The other neighboring house.
He listens intently, and then he hears the rhythmic creak of a bed tapping insistently against the wall; a Morse code message of hard, fast fucking. Birthday celebrations on one side, sex on the other. And Fuentes stuck in the middle in a damp-fudged room. He slices open one of the shoeboxes and peels back the plastic skin to reveal stacks of photos.
He holds the light cord over the contents …
Fuentes curses and slams the lid back on the box, as though there were a scorpion inside, dropping the light. He hears it shatter against the washing machine. It takes a while to register that he’s in the dark. He stands there, trying to control his breathing. In the distance, the sound of automatic gunfire rattles the night. From the direction, it sounds like it’s coming from Chatarrita. That’s where the heroin is sold. That’s where you find the crack and meth houses full of blistered lips and vacant eyes; lice infestations and human shit in dark corners. AIDS, HB, HC and ODs. Daylight stabbings and nighttime shootouts. Chatarrita is a barrio where hope and junkies are treated as equals: both placed on a butcher’s block and pounded to a red and stringy pulp.
The talk about the War on Drugs is always from the American perspective. But the problem is more domestic than anyone wants to admit, especially the local authorities. In the old days, Mexican black tar was strictly for export. There are now five times as many heroin addicts in Mexico than there were only ten years ago. The same with crack; with crystal meth. Lives are being ruined, families destroyed, neighborhoods marginalized, politicians criminalized, police neutralized. Cities are falling to the inexorable logic of addiction. Democracy is becoming narcocracy. Violent crime has gone through the roof; set fire to houses, turned towns to ash. What has happened to Chatarrita is already spreading to the rest of Ciudad Real. Left unchecked, it will eventually engulf the whole nation. Cortés destroyed an entire civilization once, just for gold. And it’s happening again. Only no one dares admit it. It is a form of collective narcolepsy; a communal denial in the face of a single brutal truth: the country has been sold wholesale to the narcos, and as long as they get a lick of the salt block of profit, no one in power really gives a fuck.
He stands there, in the darkness, amongst the shards of the broken light, listening to the hammering of the bed climaxing, then slowly falling away into silence. He picks up the two filthy shoeboxes and walks out of Marina’s home, not even thinking as he slams the door behind him.
67
El Santo
The Heartbreak Hotel had gone up in the early 1970s as an ode to optimism and a sly wink to Vegas. It was the International without Elvis, the Sands without the crap tables. It was the place where government fat cats and porker businessmen took their mistresses for a steamy afternoon that sometimes got out of hand. That’s how it picked up its nickname: the Heart Attack Hotel.
But after the December peso crisis of 1994, it became a lot harder to lay off an afternoon tryst as a business expense or claim it back as petty cash, and no one wanted to spend money on what they could get in an empty evening office or the back of a car. Vacancies grew. Maintenance slid. Paint peeled and concrete cracked. Five stars became two. Now the Heart Attack Hotel is the venue of choice for budget wedding banquets. Afternoon bingo and a bridge club take turns sitting in the oversized ballroom. Indoor plants wilt, surviving on the charity of ice cubes from guests’ glasses emptied amongst cigarette butts and pistachio shells. The whole joint has the disorientated look of a grandma who has managed to do the makeup on only one eye before slipping out the door to go wandering. You still kind of love the place, but it breaks your heart enough to make it easier to stop thinking about it all together. Whatever you once imagined Mexico could be, this is what it has become.
Sad.
So it makes perfect sense for El Feo’s cheap-ass family to book the Heartbreak, and on a midweek discount too. El Feo an
d his brother, Curro, are famous for being penny-pinching with their families but lavish on their own needs. Hookers, drugs, flashy clothes and jewelry. Cars. Donations to the Church. El Feo and Curro figure they’re worth it. But their kids go to local schools, their wives work in the supermarket and a big night out is a family dinner at TGI Friday’s.
El Feo’s brother breaks protocol and rings El Santo himself. ‘You know you’re not supposed to call.’
Curro hums and haws like a priest at a baptism waiting for his envelope. ‘It’s just Teo’s not answering his goddamn phone.’ Teodoro to Teo to El Feo. Not a stretch. ‘He promised he’d split everything fifty–fifty and now I’m liable to get stuck with the bill.’
All unhappy families are the same – it’s always about money. ‘I wasn’t supposed to tell you this, but El Feo is in Tijuana,’ El Santo says, ‘risking his neck so his jerk-off brother can afford to puff out some fucking candles.’
Long pause. Curro has noted the tone of reprimand. He knows that El Santo considers him a shitty little cheapskate, but he can’t help himself, because that’s exactly what he is. ‘Still … it’s a lot of money to put out on your own.’
‘Tell you what: I’ll go halves with you.’ Sullen silence. Curro’s been around this block before. The boss makes a promise, but then the boss doesn’t deliver.
Question: Who’s going to call the boss out?
Answer: Are you for fucking real?
So when Curro sees El Santo coming through the hotel doors for the party, he’s servile but surly. Acting all sad and put-upon, like a slum landlord who has to turn on the water to put out a fire. If there’s one thing a narco can’t stand, it’s having to pay for something not connected to his dick or his nose. ‘Just got a call from your brother. He’ll be back before ten.’ Curro cracks a smile not of joy but relief. ‘Now where’s the Noche Buena?’
Curro’s forehead furrows in fear. ‘Seeing as it’s May and …’ His voice fades away, undone by his puny excuse. El Santo grabs him by the lapels, pulls him in close. ‘I’m going to tell you something that I never want you to forget. Christmas comes but once a year. So once a year you stock up on Noche Buena. It’s easy. When you see the nativity scenes and las posadas and the piñatas and the fucking poinsettia growing out of everyone’s ears, that’s when you know it’s time to stock up. Now is that simple enough for a moron like you?’ Curro nods nervously, like a bobblehead dog in the back of a pickup.
Why did El Santo even bother? Curro’s not going to make it through this evening, let alone next Christmas. But the irritation of his short conversation with Curro makes El Santo feel better about what is going to happen next. When you’re going to kill someone, it’s important to believe that they deserve it.
He looks at his watch. Five minutes and counting. He crosses the crowded dance floor, avoiding the entreaties of the men who are all trying to push their wives and mothers into his arms and force them to dance with the boss.
Thanks but no thanks.
A roar goes up from all the dancers and for a crazy instant he thinks it’s already begun. But it’s just some second-rate singer starting up a new song, a narcocorrido about El Feo and Curro, for Christ’s sake, los hermanos chingones. Bad-ass brothers? More fat-ass brothers. He’s running a temperature, it’s so hot around the dance floor and the Heart Attack Hotel sold its air-conditioning units for scrap years ago. He was expecting maybe twenty guests, but there’s more than one hundred. El Santo had no idea El Feo and Curro knew so many people, but then again, it’s hard to say no to free food, music and an open bar. Not to mention the coke and the strippers that will turn up once they finally get rid of the women and children.
He steps off to the side of the band, crappy music blaring then fading, the world going dim after crossing the spotlights. El Santo takes a seat away from the windows in the shadows, his shirt wet from sweat, the stitches itching and burning at the same time. He can barely touch the area around his wound. It’s bright red and slightly puffy. He doesn’t like the look of it. Let’s face it, Life on its own is just one colossal fuck-up after another, but Life plus this kind of Pain? May as well put a gun to your own head. The only thing that keeps him going is knowing he’s going to feel better soon. And he isn’t just thinking of the stitches coming out. Vengeance always puts a spring in his step.
Some fucking old man with a vaguely familiar face shambles towards him, his pants hanging around his hips like Cantinflas on a bad day. El Santo waves him away with a bank note. ‘Go buy yourself a belt.’ The old goat gets the picture – he gives him a mentada as he shuffles over to the bar. Up yours too, Pops – chances are he just saved what’s left of his miserable old life.
El Santo looks at his watch. Two minutes. He slots in earplugs and slips on a pair of polycarbonate glasses. The whole joint goes dark. Then he takes out a Glock 17 with a taped grip, and racks the slide with only one hand the way Oviedo taught him, pulling his elbow backwards with a harsh, sudden tug, keeping his arm parallel to the ground, then thrusting it forwards as fast as he can. Fuck! He feels more than a reload, he feels something like a rip. That was a big fucking mistake. He checks his bandage under the shirt. No bleeding – yet. He glances up, his glasses nearly flying off in shock. The fucking clown has already appeared. Either his watch is slow or the clown’s early. He may be wearing an Omega but the clown’s wearing a crazy red leer; and it seems to be telling everyone: time’s up.
The clown goes over to the singer and gestures to take the microphone. The singer likes the sound of his own voice too much to comply. The clown slaps him hard across the face and tugs the mike from the singer’s hand. The music wavers as two or three of the musicians down their instruments, wondering if this is part of the show or if they shouldn’t just kick this clown’s ass. If any of the guests notice, it doesn’t stop them from dancing. There’s the screech of feedback and then the clown’s shouting: ‘¡Ahora! Venga, venga, venga!’
And all hell breaks loose.
First thing El Santo notices is that the crew are all wearing plastic Hulk masks. They look like a gang of fucking Martians. And they’re suited up in ballistic vests, which is kind of unfair because the only protection he’s wearing is a fucking bandage over a gunshot wound. He can tell which one is Oviedo – he’s dressed like the Terminator, in black leather jacket and biker’s boots. All that’s missing are the red rays shooting from his eyes.
He thought he had picked a place out of the line of fire. He thought wrong. Nowhere is out of the line of fire. Even with the earplugs the barrage is insufferable, like one continuous howl of death. Glass and shit goes flying everywhere; plumes of muzzle flash burst across the room in meteorite storms of fire. His glasses don’t seem to filter the bursts of light; instead they magnify them, disorientating him – like he’s driving into oncoming traffic on a wet, dark night with broken windshield wipers. Then he realizes he’s breathing so hard, he’s fogging up his own lenses. He’s hyper-fucking-ventilating. The gunfire increases in tempo, if that were possible, rising in register to an ecstatic death wail, salvo upon seething salvo. Relentless. Implacable; the air going misty with heat haze and splatter spray.
This must be what it’s like in war, when you’re galloping your horse at the assembled armies of Emperor Maximilian or Porfirio Díaz; your heart beating as fast as your mount’s hooves, and the bullets raining down on you from a hot lead sky.
Detonations. Destruction. Shattering mirrors; the floor vibrating and the ceiling weeping plaster tuff for tears.
Upturned tables.
Collapsing fucking walls.
Bottles dancing then exploding in relief. The sluicing ignition of tracer trails combusts all the oxygen in the room, leaving a choking, impossible panic. There’s screaming, hollering; the yowl of orphaned children. The thud and whack of wood taking multiple hits. All hell breaking loose again. Not just shock and awe. This is profligate. This is scandalous. Total y chingadamente loco y tonto. And an unlikely thought occurs to him; one that would
normally never occur to a man like El Santo, whose nature is not given to such self-reflection: Have I gone too far?
The unrelenting gunfire hammers home the answer: Fucking A, I have.
A ringing, shocking sound whips through the room, making him want to heave from its force. It’s like he’s never heard it before in his life: silence.
He takes off the glasses, everything sliding into sharper, surreal focus as he looks around the combat zone. Waiters lying dead, their white shirts red. Barmen slumped over counters. Musicians over bullet-scarred instruments. Wives and mothers and children toppled over fallen chairs and collapsed tables. The dance floor sheened into a red-gloss mirror. It is unspeakable. It is impossible. It was never supposed to be this bad.
Carnage writ large.
A fucking bloodbath.
The worst part? It isn’t even over yet.
What the fuck was he thinking?
A panic rises inside him, fusing fast with anger. This is all because of that asshole, El Feo. The clown strides through the mayhem, a ball-head hammer in his hand, like a slaughterer at an abattoir, smashing the skulls of the wounded. El Santo raises his firearm. The clown jumps in the air with the force of the shots then falls backwards, knocking over the last standing drum on the stage: a classic comic pratfall; a showman to the end.
Oviedo marches up to El Santo and says something. El Santo rips out his earplugs. ‘What?’
‘We better get you the hell out of here, boss.’ He takes El Santo’s arm and leads him through the debris; the mayhem. The massacre. Some of his sicarios are already emptying jerrycans of gasoline. He looks back one last time, and then thank Christ he’s outside, and it’s like he’s fallen into a swimming pool. The smash splash of reality. He’s awake. Compos mentis again. He gets in the passenger seat, listening for sirens. There aren’t any.
