The Hidden Light of Mexico City

by Carmen Amato

  Eddo spread them out on the other bed, feeling the anger and anxiety bubble up all over again. The four pencil sketches were each a portrait in evil. “She said she couldn’t draw faces,” he muttered.

  Tomás said something but Eddo didn’t reply as he remembered the call. How Tomás’s voice had cracked as he’d told Eddo that the El Toro cartel had Luz. Eddo had agreed to a meeting, knowing he’d be trading himself for Luz. The next hours were agony until Tomás called again with the news that Luz had been found alive but injured.

  But the meet was still on.

  “Start at the beginning,” Eddo said.

  Tomás was halfway through the story when Eddo began pacing the room. Fifteen steps from one end to the other and he kept his arms folded so he wouldn’t slam a fist into the stucco wall.

  “I knew it had to be one of us,” Tomás wound up unhappily. “From what she told me, her attackers knew who she was and where she lived. Diego and Miguel were both in the car when I took her back to Lomas Virreyes.”

  “Miguel,” Eddo said flatly.

  Tomas nodded. “Nobody’s seen him since the day it happened. Cell phone’s out of service. His mother is frantic.”

  “You think he connected with Hugo?”

  “Like that kid in Anahuac,” Tomás said. “Couldn’t resist the money.”

  Eddo rubbed the side of his head where the scar tingled under the shrubbery. Sotos Bild, Yanez Luna, Miguel. The lure of cartel wealth was as much of an addiction as cocaine or meth.

  “He would have told him we knew about the postings page,” Tomás went on. “Banco Limitado.”

  “Los Hierros.” Eddo slumped down on the other bed. “This won’t make tomorrow night any easier.”

  “Here’s your leverage.” Tomás got a CD case out of his carryon and tossed it to Eddo. “Central Bank records and everything else we’ve turned up. Vasco, Conchita, and Ana have backup copies.”

  “Conchita got the Central Bank CD out of my office?”

  “No.” Tomás wiped his palms on the cloth of his pants. “With her investigating Yanez Luna, Vasco and I decided we didn’t want her to take any chances. Luz got it out.”

  Eddo was pretty sure he’d heard wrong. “What?”

  “The week after your so-called accident we paid off the regular cleaner who does your floor and Luz substituted. She opened your safe and got the stuff out.”

  “And cleaned my fucking office?” Eddo sputtered, jumping to his feet. “When were you planning on telling me? Maybe that’s how they got to her!”

  “Yes, she cleaned your fucking office,” Tomás shot back. “And no, they didn’t trace her.”

  “You used her.” Eddo had a hard time staying in control.

  “We were out of time and we couldn’t afford to burn Conchita.”

  “Luz was there, all by herself?”

  “We had a team picketed around the building. I picked her up.”

  “Madre de Dios.” Eddo slammed a hand against the wall, suddenly hating hotels. He hadn’t wanted Luz to be touched by this mess and she’d landed--badly hurt--in the middle of it.

  Tomás found some miniature bottles of whiskey in the minibar, poured one into a water glass and held it out to him. “Look, Luz could have said no. But she didn’t and handled everything like a pro. She’s really something.”

  Eddo shotgunned the whiskey and took a couple of deep breaths. “You sure it was Miguel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck.” Eddo turned away from Tomás and put his empty glass on the dresser, feeling like a clock ticking down the last seconds before the alarm went off. “Let’s go do some recon.”

  When Tomás stood up Eddo swung around and punched the heavier man, frustration and anger weighting the blow. Tomás fell backwards onto the bed, unconscious.

  “Oye,” Eddo said in surprise. He never expected to knock out Tomás. But it had been like hitting a cement truck. His hand hurt like hell.

  By the time Eddo came back with ice from the machine down the hall Tomás was coming around.

  “What did you do that for?” he croaked.

  “That was for asking Luz to get the CD,” Eddo said calmly. He wrapped a towel around some ice. “Here. Put this on your face.”

  Tomás sat up and fingered the welt rising under his eye. “Not bad for a has-been rock star.”

  Chapter 44

  The ocean rippled gray under the night sky. In the far distance they saw the lights of ships lined up to pass through the Panama Canal. The soft rain made Eddo feel soggy but no cooler.

  Panama City’s Amador Causeway ended in a parking lot that led to a pedestrian plaza lit by streetlamps and surrounded by water on three sides. A cluster of popular restaurants served people from the cruise ships docked nearby. Further from the parking lot, with the water lapping up to the railings, was a Duty Free store and a restaurant called Alfredo’s Café. Across the wide open space was a private marina full of glittering white yachts with signs to keep out those who didn’t belong. The marina was full.

  People could be seen through the windows of Alfredo’s Café. The sound of muted speech and laughter drifted along on the moist air from the covered outdoor seating areas of the restaurants beyond the parking lot. Eddo and Tomás strolled along the water’s edge, the only people outside in the soft night rain. Eddo resisted an urge to look at his watch.

  “Ana and I decided to . . . uh . . . do the family thing when I get back,” Tomás said. His face was still puffy from yesterday’s punch.

  “About time,” Eddo said, forcing a smile. If you get back.

  A thin man in black, no bigger than a shadow, crossed the plaza from the distant parking lot. He stopped several yards from them, vaguely Asian in the uneven light. “Cortez?” His voice was a gravelly whisper.

  “Yes,” Eddo said.

  “Follow me.”

  The thin man walked past them and they followed him to the marina gate. He unlocked it and gestured for them to step down onto the floating pier. Eddo heard Tomás say “Fuck” as the pier heaved under their weight.

  They continued walking down the pier, the boats on either side moving gently in the swell caused by their passing. At the end of the pier the thin man indicated a boat. He said something to someone on board and a light flashed on.

  The boat was one of the smallest in the marina. Eddo grabbed the ladder at the stern and clambered up. Another man dressed all in black met him at the top and pulled him into a dark cabin. Tomás got similar treatment.

  From inside the cabin, the boat’s running lights glinted through the windows, making small, angular patterns on the walls. Engines revved and the boat began sliding out of the slip, throwing Eddo and Tomás against the built-in benches that lined the cabin. No one spoke as they were righted and roughly patted down. The lights of the Amador Causeway receded as the boat picked up speed, churning the gray ocean into dirty foam. They passed a few yachts anchored beyond the marina and kept going, apparently headed for open water.

  Eddo’s cell phone was pulled out of his pocket and handed to a guard who left the cabin. Through the window they watched him dump it over the side. Tomás swallowed a protest as his phone went overboard, too. The man in black found the CD.

  “Señor Cortez can keep his CD.”

  The overhead lights came on in the cabin. The speaker, a heavyset man in his late forties with thick black hair and an impressive set of jowls, was seated alone on a swiveling upholstered chair bolted to the floor. He wore a plaid button-down shirt, khaki pants and a navy blue windbreaker. Except for a scar disfiguring one eyebrow, he could have been a banker, a doctor, the friendly father-in-law.

  Gustavo Gomez Mazzo, otherwise known as El Toro.

  Eddo took back the CD. “Nice boat,” he said.

  “It belongs to a friend.” Gomez Mazzo gestured to a cushioned bench bolted to the wall. “Please. Sit down.”

  Eddo and Tomás came forward, bracing themselves against the pitch of the boat, and sat. The boat moved swiftly a
nd the fishy tang of the Pacific night blew in. Apart from the patterned upholstery, the cabin was colorless and impersonal.

  “Even the most zealous public servants enjoy a beverage now and then,” Gomez Mazzo said. One of his bodyguards opened a cabinet door to reveal a well-stocked refrigerator. The bodyguard took out a rum cooler and handed it to his boss. Eddo counted six bodyguards, all wearing black and all armed. El Toro’s version of Hitler’s elite.

  Gomez Mazzo raised the bottle and looked at Eddo and Tomás inquiringly.

  Eddo shook his head. “This is a business meeting.”

  “This is your funeral.” Gomez Mazzo grinned, baring his teeth.

  Eddo tapped the CD against his palm. “This is a complete record of your arrangement with Hugo de la Madrid Acosta including every bank transaction he’s made through Banco Limitado, its connection with Montopa, and the money laundering transactions. Shut down your operation with Hugo and you can keep it.”

  Gomez Mazzo took a long pull from his rum cooler before speaking. “There is no operation with Hugo de la Madrid Acosta.”

  “No one operates in the Anahuac corridor without your support,” Eddo said. He felt himself sweating as the El Toro bodyguards lounged against the cabin walls, obviously accustomed to the movement of a boat.

  Gomez Mazzo spread his hands apart, one still clasping the incongruous rum cooler. “I am a simple businessman here in Panama. Hugo is Mexico’s very important Minister of Public Security.”

  “You sold him the land near Anahuac before or after you moved to Panama?” Eddo asked. Gomez Mazzo had large, scarred hands. Two nails were missing. The hands didn’t go with the conservative clothes and the tidy boat.

  “Very nice, Señor Cortez.” Gomez Mazzo was amused. “What comes next?”

  “Drugs into El Norte along the Anahuac route. Some of the money gets laundered by your company here in Panama and some goes into the quasi-legitimate Banco Limitado and out to a bogus company in Mexico City called Hermanos Hospitality.” Eddo paused and then threw the dice. “From there it gets piped into Lorena Lopez de Betancourt’s presidential campaign.”

  Gomez Mazzo grinned. “So our meeting tonight is not a waste of time.”

  “If she wins you’ll own the presidency,” Eddo said.

  “I will own every drug route in and out of El Norte,” Gomez Mazzo corrected him.

  One of the bodyguards left the cabin. A few seconds later the engine quieted and the boat slowed. No one said anything as they heard the anchor run down. There was only darkness outside the cabin windows.

  Another bodyguard collected the empty rum cooler bottle. Gomez Mazzo sighed, stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “The rumor is that Lorena is a hell of a fuck. Did you do it with her, too?”

  “No,” Eddo said.

  “Now it comes back,” Gomez Mazzo said, waving his scarred hand idly as if remembering. “You’re the one with peculiar tastes. Of course not so peculiar as Hugo. He likes children. Is that why you two don’t get along? You should just let him buy you off.”

  Eddo heard Tomás make a noise. His friend’s face was green in the dim cabin lighting, either from seasickness or rage Eddo couldn’t tell. The color contrasted with the red welt.

  “Keep the CD,” Eddo said. “Withdraw your support from Hugo’s operations and he’s out of business. Do what you want with Montopa.”

  The Asian, who’d been a silent shadow standing against the wall, got Gomez Mazzo another rum cooler. The cartel leader chugged some down, belched, then pointed the neck of the bottle at Eddo. “Lorena’s money dries up and her campaign stops. That’s not necessarily in El Toro’s interest.”

  “She’s not going to be president, either with or without your money.”

  “If you go public with this information you won’t last a week.”

  “You’d have to send out better than last time.”

  Gomez Mazzo made an expansive gesture. “Maybe the ocean swallows you up tonight.”

  “If we don’t come back tonight the CD is released to the media in Mexico, Panama and the United States tomorrow morning.”

  “Hugo has much of Mexico’s media in his pocket,” Gomez Mazzo countered. “The story may die, too.”

  Eddo held up the CD. “It will be front page on every major norteamericano newspaper and website.”

  “You’d destroy your own government,” Gomez Mazzo said. “The yanquis would descend like locusts, screaming that los mexicanos can’t run their own country.”

  “Once they finish screaming, the yanquis will find you,” Eddo said.

  “They’re not very smart.”

  “They will be with this information.”

  Gomez Mazzo tapped the cooler bottle thoughtfully. “This is very creative.”

  “As a simple businessman, I thought you would appreciate that.”

  Gomez Mazzo laughed, a shouted bark that rang in the cabin. “El Toro likes this man!” he exclaimed to his bodyguards. He leaned forward. “A mutual blackmail, no? We have each other by the short hairs, eh?”

  Eddo grinned and it felt like death.

  “El Toro keeps the CD and Hugo’s, ah, operation, as you say, goes away.” Gomez Mazzo waved the rum cooler bottle in the air, his battered hand dwarfing it. “But you have a copy of the information and can take it to the media or the army or whoever you think will help if I don’t keep my part of the bargain. But if you make it public, we leak that you made a deal with the El Toro cartel.” He took a pull from the bottle, still smiling in triumph. “Romero’s pretty boy the dirtiest of them all. You would not survive prison.”

  “That would appear to be the deal on the table,” Eddo said evenly.

  Gomez Mazzo gestured at another bodyguard who took out a small laptop. Eddo handed over the CD. He could feel Tomás rigid next to him. Gomez Mazzo watched the screen intently. His jowly face hardened as he toggled through various files.

  Eddo lost track of how long they sat in the cabin, the boat rocking gently as Gomez Mazzo combed through the data on the CD. Tomás was seasick for sure. His breathing was hoarse and his fingers dug into his thighs.

  “We can come to an agreement, Señor Cortez,” Gomez Mazzo said at length. “El Toro may have lost a president but won an Attorney General.”

  Eddo swallowed back a retort and took out copies of Luz’s sketches and a picture of Miguel. “These men aren’t part of the agreement,” he said. “If I find them, I will kill them.”

  Gomez Mazzo looked at the Asian whose only reaction was a barely perceptible lift of one shoulder.

  “These are not El Toro’s men,” Gomez Mazzo said.

  “So you won’t miss them.”

  A smile flickered at the corner of Gomez Mazzo’s mouth. “She was a maid.”

  Eddo met the other man’s eyes. “Nobody touches her.”

  “Some maids are very good with . . . starch.”

  “Just so we understand each other,” Eddo said.

  Gomez Mazzo stood and rapped on the ceiling. Almost immediately they heard the sound of the anchor chain going up and the engines starting. The boat pitched and gained speed. Gomez Mazzo and the Asian left the cabin, walking easily on the rocking deck.

  Outside the windows, the dark horizon shifted as the boat turned. Tomás looked green and desperate.

  Eddo hauled Tomás to his feet. The bodyguards tensed. “Look, he’s going to puke,” Eddo said. “Needs some air.”

  One of the bodyguards went ahead and led them out onto the deck. Tomás leaned over the rail and gulped salt air. To Eddo’s relief, the Amador Causeway twinkled in the far distance. On the other side of the boat, almost hidden behind the bulk of the cabin, Eddo saw Gomez Mazzo talking to the Asian.

  As they neared the marina, lights came on in one of the big yachts. Gomez Mazzo, as if he’d known all along that Eddo and Tomás were on deck, turned and saluted. Eddo raised a hand in return. Gomez Mazzo went back into the cabin. Eddo needed a bath.

  As the boat maneuvered into its slip, the
thin Asian man handed Eddo a cheap cell phone. “From el señor,” he said in his thready voice. He led them off the boat and locked the marina gate behind them. All the restaurants were closed. Eddo and Tomás were left alone in the dark at the end of the plaza.

  Two hours later, as they sat in the airport, Eddo scrolled through the cell phone’s applications. The only thing he found was a series of numbers and letters listed as an address.

  “They’re coordinates,” Tomás said, peering over his shoulder. “GPS coordinates.”

  Chapter 45

  The hospital decorated for Christmas. Luz’s bruises faded. The bandages came off her hand and the doctors and nurses all told her that she was making a wonderful recovery from the surgery. A police officer was always with her and today it was Diego, whom she liked very much.

  In the afternoon Hector came. Luz introduced the two men and waited for Hector to say he’d brought Rosa.

  “I am sorry for your misfortune.” Hector was his usual impassive self in a dark suit and tie. He nodded at Luz then wheeled in a brand new black suitcase with a retractable handle. He slid it over to the wall near the window and took out two envelopes.

  “Diego, could you go outside for a few minutes?” Luz asked softly.

  Diego gave Hector a hard look and walked out.

  “You have my finiquito, don’t you?” Luz asked when the door closed.

  The legally mandated finiquito severance payment was a muchacha’s only safety net. It was the most specific thing in the vague contract between employer and domestic employee. If a domestic servant quit, there was no payment. But if the employer let the servant go, the employer paid a finiquito of one month’s salary, plus an amount equal to twenty days of salary for each year worked.

  “You have to sign this first.” Hector handed her one of the envelopes.

  It contained a document from an attorney stating that Luz accepted the amount of 15,300 pesos as finiquito associated with the termination of her employment with the Vega family. By accepting it Luz acknowledged that she was being terminated because of the theft of 250 pesos.