City Without Stars

by Tim Baker

  ‘But that’s exactly what it is, boss, war …’

  There he goes again, from loyal lieutenant to psycho paramilitary. Oviedo must be bipolar or something, but whatever it is, El Santo makes up his mind then and there: as soon as he gets over this infection, he’s taking Oviedo out. He’s through with crazy people who want to be Napoleon.

  ‘Wrong. That’s exactly what we don’t want! We need to lie low, not escalate.’

  Oviedo stares at him with those pagan eyes of his. They’re not so much like a god’s eyes but the eyes of a victim of a vindictive god’s punishment. It’s as if he’s been staked face up on top of a sun pyramid until he’s gone blind. The apparition vanishes and then Oviedo gets all sulky, and goes over to the kitchen and starts sharpening knives again. Sure, he gets points for being industrious, but for fuck’s sake, how sharp is sharp?

  ‘I did some calculations, about shifting the cash in the cars.’

  El Santo’s happy to change the subject. ‘What number did you come up with?’

  ‘Sixteen billion dollars …’ He says it with all the emotion of someone buying a bus ticket to a neighboring village.

  El Santo crosses to the kitchen. Funny how his stitches don’t seem to hurt right now. ‘Sixteen million?’

  The rasp of blade against sharpener extends the silence, protesting against the slow unfurling of time. Finally Oviedo looks up at him. ‘Billion, boss. Billion.’

  ‘Fuck me.’ Oviedo puts down the sharpener and then starts chopping garlic cloves in half, not bothering to shell them. Thank Christ, the shriek of sharpening was making his blood run cold. ‘Jesus, imagine if we could lay our hands on some of that?’ He actually laughs at the thought and is too excited to acknowledge the blister-burst of pain the laughter gives him.

  Oviedo starts raking the garlic cloves up and down the grooves of the honing rod, grating them into milky obliteration. ‘I already have.’ He puts the sharpener down and goes to the Sub-Zero wine cooler, taking out a bottle of Cristal. The cork fires fast from his fists, making El Santo jump. ‘Remember that ex-spook who told you how to use your phones?’

  ‘That crank? Who gives a fuck about him, tell me about the money. How much did we get?’

  ‘It was Tex who led me to it – all of it.’ Oviedo offers a glass to El Santo.

  ‘All of it?’ That’s insane. So fucking crazy that another truly insane idea occurs to El Santo; one that has never been conceivable, let alone possible, before: retirement. He can see it now. A beach house somewhere close but far away, without extradition treaties. Brazil, or Nicaragua. Just like Amado. Toss it all in and disappear, for good. Oviedo raises his own glass and they toast. ‘To sixteen bil,’ El Santo says, finishing the entire glass in one gulp. It burns but in a manageable way. Oviedo refills him. El Santo stares at the amber-colored champagne rioting inside his glass, bubbles detonating on the sleek surface. ‘Jesus, look at this drink. It’s the closest we’ll ever get to swallowing gold.’

  ‘Poetic, boss. And prescient …’ Whatever that means. He can tell Oviedo is shifting again, going over to that other side of his; the dark shore. He puts his glass down and returns to what he was doing before, grating garlic up and down the honing rod in the same methodical, almost robotic manner he does everything else: cleaning a rifle; picking a lock. Preparing a fuse.

  ‘So where’s the money?’

  He looks up at El Santo with a dull, almost hostile expression, as though he’s annoyed to be interrupted. ‘All over the place, boss. A lot of it is in the States.’

  ‘Wait a minute, you said before you had it.’

  ‘Sure, boss, I have it – I just don’t have it in my hands yet.’

  ‘But you will …?’

  Oviedo laughs – a short rolling chuckle that fades to black. He shrugs modestly.

  ‘Listen, we need to focus here for a second …’

  Oviedo freezes what he’s doing. ‘Sure, boss …’

  El Santo peers at the tiny pieces of garlic caught within the serrated surface. Apart from being distracting, all this cooking preparation is stinking the place up; tainting his champagne. ‘What’s with all the fucking garlic, anyway?’

  ‘It’s to induce blood poisoning. In case the wound isn’t fatal.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not that you need help, what with your problems, but … Old habits, right?’ Oviedo takes one step towards El Santo and lifts his left arm up at the elbow. It’s almost a polite gesture, as though he were excusing himself brushing by in a crowded bar, and then Oviedo drives the sharpened end of the honing rod under El Santo’s arm, into the yielding pouch of skin covering the armpit. ‘Never use a blade.’ The rod travels far. ‘People always panic when they see a blade. Always.’

  El Santo looks down on the ground. He’s standing on his tiptoes. He stares at his feet, wondering how the fuck that just happened, as though he’s been elevated, and then he sees them, the beads of blood slowly tambouring onto the kitchen floor.

  Now that he’s gained entry, Oviedo pivots his weight suddenly, straightening up at the knees and using the additional force to drive the rod through the thin opening between two ribs and on into the thoracic cage. ‘Plus blades snap against bone. Happens all the fucking time.’

  There is a slight resistance as El Santo makes a sound like he’s winded and the glass in his right hand drops and breaks. Then the rod travels on, a wheezing noise like a bike tire losing air passing between them as the left lung collapses quickly.

  Oviedo knows he’s almost home now. He pushes hard, and the rod enters El Santo’s heart.

  El Santo stands there, his left elbow still raised, his right hand moving slowly through the contracting light, then gripping Oviedo’s wrist, trying to defend himself as Oviedo begins to twist the handle of the rod, struggling at first, then gaining traction. El Santo lets out a sigh like an old person stirring in their sleep, his right hand twitching violently.

  Oviedo steps away, and El Santo sways for a moment, steadying himself against the counter, blood pooling inside and around his shoes. ‘You were just a fucking kid with a gun and a mask. Ballsy and bright.’ El Santo stares at Oviedo’s face, but it’s already beginning to blur. ‘Now look at you. You remind me of a bolt-shot steer still on its feet, too fucking stupid to even know it’s dead. What the fuck happened to you, hombre?’

  El Santo’s eyes widen in recognition and one word escapes his lips. ‘¿Amado?’

  77

  Pilar

  The entire morning has been a requiem for Pilar’s defeat; her neat betrayal at the hands of professional male activists who have long since traded ideals for favors and personal power – all of them adept at the opaque barter of industrial action: the tenuous balance between threat and withdrawal.

  She’s navigated this terrain many times before, but had convinced herself that Ciudad Real would be different, tethered as it was to the femicides. She was wrong and it has hit her harder than she could ever have imagined. But the sight of the police blocking the road ahead jolts her out of her apathy; her shameful self-pity. Pilar’s old defiance is reawakening. Police deployed to stop a demonstration, but never to save a woman’s life? She recalls the mantra of her early student days, the fierce warning of Victor Hugo: police partout, justice nulle part. It is as though nothing ever really changes … except that things have a way of getting worse.

  And that is no longer acceptable.

  She strides to her rightful place, at the front of the procession, ripping a bullhorn out of the hands of an astonished young man. ‘Protection for the women! Justice for the victims! Protection for the women, justice for the victims!’ Scattered voices take up the call, hesitant at first; others joining in, finding the cadence that is always present in any spoken truth, unifying at last the hundreds of students and the handful of local activists in their common goal: provocation.

  Juan Antonio looks all around, feeling the power of that instant of coalescence. He curses, knowing what it means; what it will lead to. Ho
w much it will cost. In front of them, not a hundred meters away now, are the riot police, their visors glinting from the reflected sun, batons resting against shoulders and thighs. Fuck it. This is what he does. This is what he will always do. He pushes his way to Pilar’s side, one hand holding hers, the other punching the air with a clenched fist, his cry joining the others, the chant a single harmonious voice: ‘Protection for the women, justice for the victims,’ shouted so loud, it drowns out the police as they charge.

  78

  Fuentes

  The station is deserted except for the front desk, the officer rising in her seat when she sees Fuentes and Gomez. ‘Valdez has been looking everywhere for you,’ she says. Code for letting them know she’s been ordered to call him as soon as they appear. ‘Ten minutes, guapa, that’s all we need,’ Gomez says. It isn’t condescension so much as complicity. Gomez and she are or have been lovers, and Fuentes didn’t even know. He isn’t really surprised. Focus like his blinds him to everything else. But it’s now time to shift that focus a little – from investigation to survival.

  Numerically it’s enormous. Eight hundred and seventy-five victims, but most of the files are surprisingly thin. Over half of them hold no more than four documents: incident report, autopsy findings, death certificate, release to next of kin. Eight boxes. Fifteen minutes. Two men. That’s all it takes to transport 875 lives to the trunk of Fuentes’ car. ‘What do I say?’ the desk clerk asks Gomez, beginning to dial Valdez’s cell phone.

  ‘Tell him we came in together, and when we found out he wasn’t here, we went out looking for him. Tell him we were pissed.’

  She pauses, something passing between her and Gomez. Regret. Maybe farewell. ‘Be careful,’ she says, then punches in the last two numbers.

  Gomez is shifting the boxes, trying to make them all fit in the trunk, when he sees the Ruger M77. He whistles. ‘Someone’s been a bad boy.’

  ‘I borrowed it.’

  ‘Like those shotguns you borrowed?’

  ‘They came in handy, didn’t they?’

  ‘That’s not the point. You’re compromising evid—’ He slams the trunk shut. ‘Fuck it, we need all the help we can get.’ Gomez gets in behind the wheel. ‘Órale. Where to?’

  Fuentes doesn’t even have to think about the answer. There is only one place where they could seek refuge now.

  79

  Ventura

  It isn’t the way she imagined. A prolonged battle like you see on the news, with tear gas and rubber bullets. High-pressure water cannon and dogs. It is elementary, and it is over before it has ever really begun. She feels almost disappointed.

  The police charge, and the students turn and run. Batons swing wildly. A few students go down. Some are kicked. Others dragged away. Then it is over, the demonstrators slowing, looking back, stopping to examine each other’s injuries, abandoning a dozen or so of their companions who are being led to waiting police cars.

  She has shot a roll of thirty-six with a fast shutter speed but a maximum aperture of only f/5.6 and is changing film, hoping for the best, when it finishes. The whole incident lasts maybe two minutes. No one challenges her as she stands there taking photos. It’s like the police don’t even notice her as they walk past and board the buses, speaking to complacent drivers, who sigh as they start the laborious process of turning around and going back the way they came, the police motioning to them in side windows as they reverse onto the fields, even halting traffic to let the buses swing back onto the road.

  The buses don’t get very far, pulling over to let the students board, and Ventura has to run to catch the last one just before its doors spring shut. It isn’t even two-thirds full, but the mood inside surprises her. There is laughter and excited voices talking over each other. She walks to the back, sitting down next to Pilar, the two of them riding along in silence, staring out the window, jumping in unison in their seats every time they hit a pothole.

  ‘What we needed were professional agitators, not babies,’ Pilar says too loudly.

  There’s a long, uncomfortable pause. Some of the students towards the back of the bus have heard her. Like them, Ventura has no doubt she would be included amongst the babies. A young student stares at Pilar with a mixture of defiance and curiosity. ‘Where would you find someone crazy enough to fight riot police?’

  Pilar shrugs. ‘Homeless shelters. The streets … Psychiatric hospitals – you did say crazy. The political fringe, both left and right.’ She stands, raising her voice, more faces turning towards her. ‘You look for certain types. Radical anarchists. Punks and bikers. Boxers. Bouncers. Illegal immigrants. Moonlighting cops. Former prison guards. Off-duty soldiers. Out-of-work laborers, dispossessed farm hands. Ex-convicts.’

  She recites the list as she moves down the aisle, all the passengers turning, listening to her. ‘What you want are angry men. Desperate men. Men with scars on their faces and their fists. People who don’t give a damn what happens to them anymore.’ She lowers her voice for dramatic effect. ‘Drunks and drug users …’ She turns back to the youth who asked her the question in the first place. ‘What you’re searching for is simple and brutal: men who like to hurt. Men who don’t mind being hurt … Men who enjoy being hurt.’ There is nervous laughter. ‘In any city, in any country, you can always find men ready to battle police.’

  She points accusingly at the youth. ‘But they’re not the people I’m referring to when I speak about professional agitators, because they’re amateurs, not professional. And they are disrupters, not agitators.’ Her voice rises as she scans the faces staring up at her. ‘I’m talking about people who are disciplined, who create a plan and stick to it; who eschew improvisation. People who show integrity to the cause, loyalty to each other, and fearlessness for their own safety. I’m talking about the women I have trained and organized and worked with for the last fifteen years.’

  The young students listen to her, enthralled, crying out encouragement, some of them rising in their seats. ‘I’m talking about the future of this country, the future of women, when they can live in dignity, secure in their equality. Respected in their work. When they can walk the streets alone at night without fear or anguish. I am talking about change. Listen to me, all of you, isn’t that what you want?’

  There is a chorus of agreement, of something approaching adulation. ‘Is that why you’re here today? Are you ready to turn your dreams into acts?’

  The roar is so monumental that some fruit pickers sitting in the back of a flatbed passing on the other side of the road look up as one, staring after the bus.

  Juan Antonio is in the lead bus, too far away to hear the cry of approval. He is standing with his back to the road, talking to the driver, when something catches his eye and he sees Pilar’s bus swerve and take the turnoff heading towards the maquiladoras. He swears, watching the bus peeling away from them, then turns to the driver. ‘Take the next turnoff.’

  The driver nods. ‘Where are we heading?’

  Juan Antonio watches Pilar’s bus disappearing in traffic. ‘Somewhere we were always supposed to go.’

  80

  Pilar

  They are too early for the afternoon shift. It doesn’t matter. Her bus drives through the gates, wire exploding inwards, the other buses following. Four guards come out, not in aggression but in confusion. Disbelief. One of them smiles, as though it were the circus coming to town. The demonstrators stream out and charge through the main doors, sweeping the guards aside. Pilar strides in their midst, the patchwork light, the noise, the rows of bent-over women like a childhood dream suddenly remembered.

  She takes the steps two at a time, the women standing away from their work benches, their watchful silence in contrast to the unyielding hum of the machines; devoted to their eternal duty.

  López leaps up from his desk, and when he sees the numbers rushing in, reaches for a drawer. Pilar kicks it shut on his hand. López howls in pain and is wrestled to the floor. She wishes this was something else; not a strike but a c
ivil insurrection, a bloody coup d’état, and she could be free to take the revolver he had gone for and shoot him through the heart. But that would be against her nature, and the nature of the movement. They are not revolutionaries; they don’t want insurgency, they simply want reason. A state that is normal and just; equal opportunities. An end to corruption and privilege. Their needs are moderate; which is what makes them so dangerous.

  There is a dense mechanical clatter and then all the lights go out, and the maquiladora falls silent. Pilar steps out of the office and gazes across the quilt of solar illumination and ice-cold shadow, the sunlight squared by economic imperatives. ‘Sisters, today we have buried one of us, Isabel Torres. We have already buried hundreds, and we will bury hundreds more unless our demands are met. We have negotiated. We have signed petitions. We have boycotted and we have asked for outside help. No one has listened, because our voice is too small. Today we need to shout to be heard, and the only way we can do this is to close the maquiladoras.’

  Pilar pauses, listening to the quality of the silence. Silence has many meanings: rejection. Contempt. Anger. Capitulation. Fear. Awareness. Both prey and predator are silent before they meet. Which silence is this? Pilar listens, trusting in her instincts. It is the silence of a maquiladora which has been captured and shut down.

  It is the silence of victory.

  ‘I invite you all to join us. And I invite you to remain if you so wish, and continue your work …’ The students who stand around her exchange confused looks. ‘I invite you to follow your conscience; your instincts. The economic necessities of your life; of your household. No one will be forced to come with us. No one will be criticized for staying.’ She gazes down at all the faces of the women, and sees Maria and Lupita on the factory floor, staring up at her, tears in Lupita’s eyes. ‘For today we all possess that most precious of commodities … choice.’