“To your office?”
“Right.”
“You couldn’t come here?”
“It would be difficult, señorita. It would be much better if you came here. Juárez is a small city. The wrong people might see me with you.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
I went out to the street, stood on the curb, and tried to hail a cab, cursing Carl for sending me on this mission, out into the lonely and possibly dangerous night with nothing to protect me but a series of T’ai Chi lessons. And would I be able to summon the Chi if I needed it? I was mad at myself for having said yes, for being here at all, but once you’re in the river you can’t stop the flow. I knew where it was leading: out to sea.
It took a good fifteen minutes to find a cab. As if to compensate for our paths not crossing sooner, the cabdriver drove with mucho gusto but the traffic got in his way. It took another twenty to get to Menendez’s office. I thought about asking the cabby to stick around and wait, but that was a cowardly idea, and it was obvious that he was eager already to get back to the fray.
From the sidewalk I could see the light in Señor Menendez’s window on the second floor. He had left the street door open. I let myself in and climbed the flight of stairs. My footsteps had the hollow sound of a watchman pacing an empty building. I got to the top of the stairs, turned to the right, and saw the light through the glass in Licenciado Menendez-Jimenez’s office door, the only light in a long, dark hallway. I knocked at the glass, which was loose and rattled in its frame. There was no response. The knob turned easily in my hand and I slid open the door.
“Señor Menendez,” I called. The only answer was the light shining through the partially open doorway to the inner office, lighting the slick covers of the Vanidades magazines, casting a long shadow behind the table on which they lay. “Señor Menendez,” I called again, expecting a sound, a cough, a chair scraping against the floor. All I heard was the ticking of a clock somewhere in the darkness of the building. As I crossed the waiting room, the floorboards groaned beneath my feet. “You’re an ass,” I said to myself, “go home, get out of here.” But my feet continued anyway. I reached the inner office, took hold of the doorknob, and peered around the door. Señor Menendez was there all right, his head lying on the impressive desk, one eye visible and bulging, the blood drying on his neck, the diamond big as a pea glittering on his pinky.
“Menendez,” I gasped. Motionless, I took in the scene, with the cold clarity of shock and thought absurdly of all the paperwork that had been spoiled by the blood, as if he were in a position to give a damn. He was, there was no doubt, dead, like a lump of a dog beside the road, and very recently, too.
I walked around the desk, being careful not to touch anything, especially anything with blood on it. I did then what I should and shouldn’t have done—I opened the gray metal file cabinets. They were unlocked, the button at the top was sticking out, and the key was in the lock. I was still wearing my white suit and lavender blouse. I took off the jacket, and with that between my fingers and the handle, I opened the drawers, looking for Rs. Using the tail of the jacket I flipped through the manila folders. The names were mostly gringo: Ralph, Rich, Richardson—and there it was: Roberts, Carl Roberts.
The file seemed thin to me. I flicked through it quickly. There were some documents in Spanish, a few letters from Carl on his firm’s stationery, various billings and scraps of paper with dates and numbers on them. I took it from the file cabinet and as I was closing the drawer I heard a slurping sound behind me.
“Who’s that?” I turned sharply, my hand at my throat. I needed it now—where was the Chi? The doorway was empty, a pile of legal papers had slipped from the desk, spilled across the floor. It was no place for Neil Hamel, but I wasn’t ready to go just yet. I leaned over Señor Menendez’s already stiffening body and looked at his desk calendar for the day just ending, April 9th. There were several names that I didn’t recognize—Garcia, Archuleta, Vasquez—and one that I did: my own. The entry that seemed the most interesting was the last one, el perro dogo. What did that mean? The dog dog? The double dog? This wasn’t the moment to think about it, so I left Señor Menendez as I had found him, left the light on, left the inner door ajar, the outer door closed. I walked, not ran, the long blocks to the hotel, looking at no one, no one looking at me. I got to El Presidente, found my room key, went up the stairs, let myself into my room, went to the bathroom, and threw up the mole and flan I had once long ago eaten for dinner.
5
I SPENT THE night alone with the telephone, a standard black model with push buttons. Reach out and touch someone. Who? Another licenciado? I didn’t know anyone in Juárez. The police? In Mexico you are guilty until paid innocent, and locked up for witnessing even a car accident. What good would it do Señor Menendez for me to be a suspect, stuck in a Mexican jail knitting sweaters for tourists? That’s how they keep the prisoners occupied here, give them needles and yarn and put them to work. Menendez would be found in the morning with or without my help. I could call Carl, wake him in the night. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t answer the telephone. I could call Brink, listen to him clear his throat and say, “Carl Roberts should do his own dirty work.” And the Kid—if I could find him—“Don’t worry, chiquita,” he would say, “don’t worry.”
I turned out the light, pulled up the sheet, and tried not to worry. What information did Menendez-Jimenez have? Why had he been murdered? Had anyone seen me there? It was a long night, chasing those thoughts around the bed. But no matter how many hours I don’t sleep, I’m always out when the alarm goes off or the phone rings. It was a jangling, jarring sound that the black phone made, and I was wide awake the instant I heard it. The plane didn’t leave until eleven and I hadn’t left a wake-up call: I knew that much.
“Hello,” I said.
“Señorita Hamel?”
“Yes.”
“There is someone to see you.”
“Me? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely, señorita, they asked for you.”
“All right, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
I dressed slowly and brushed my teeth with a sense of grim inevitability. Who could it be but the police, and how had they found me? There are eyes in the walls in Mexico, eyes behind closed doors. I had a bleak vision of myself in a foul cell, knitting, fending off the guards with the needles. Damn Carl. He’d gotten me into this, he could get me out. Whatever it cost, he’d pay it. He’d have to.
I made my way down the stairs and into the lobby. It was, of course, the last person I would have expected: Sam. Sam, whose last name I didn’t even know, was standing in the lobby, wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt, jeans, and black sneakers.
“Sam,” I said. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Hi, Nellie.” He grinned. “This here’s Maria.” Standing next to him was the young and lovely Maria, small as a child herself, with a beautiful black-haired baby wrapped up in her rebozo. It’s practically the Mexican national costume, a rebozo with a baby in it.
“Neil,” I answered automatically. “My name is Neil. How did you ever find me here?”
“We knew you’d be in the best hotel,” Sam said.
Maria smiled shyly, unwrapped the baby, and held him up for me to admire.
“He’s beautiful,” I said. “Is it a boy?”
“Sure,” Sam said.
“You didn’t tell me you had a baby.”
“Didn’t I?” Sam kept right on smiling. “I guess I forgot.”
Forgot? Would he forget he had a hand or a foot, a mouth or a brain? There were two ways to look on this visit. With one thought in my mind—to get out of Mexico—Sam was an unwelcome distraction. On the other hand, he was a diversion. I had two hours to kill before my plane left for Albuquerque. It was better to wait nervously at the hotel than nervously at the airport, where I would be more noticeable. I invited them to have breakfast with me.
The baby gurgled placidly while we ate our hu
evos rancheros. He was a good baby and didn’t require much attention. Maria was free to watch and listen while Sam and I talked. Her eyes moved back and forth as she followed the course of the conversation. Sam said she was learning English, but I don’t think she understood a whole lot; her eyes had that cloudy look, the look of someone who doesn’t understand the language. Sam made small talk for a while, and if I appeared distracted, I was. Every time the door to the restaurant opened, I looked up, expecting a policeman with my name on his lips.
“There was a murder last night,” Sam said. The door opened for the tenth time. A businessman entered. If Sam was waiting for a response, he got none from me. “His name was Menendez-Jimenez. Someone slit his throat.” He drew his hand slowly across his own throat. The baby gurgled and stared in my direction as if he wasn’t sure whether I was part of the wall or not.
“Really,” I responded.
“He was a very rich lawyer with ties to the States,” Sam continued, playing with his knife and fork, tapping a tune on the table, his Satan’s Sinners tattoo rippling across his forearm; a red sequined rose, a streak of lightning, and a skull on his black T-shirt; his arms tan and hard. “Did you know him?” All their eyes were on me; Maria’s soft and quizzical, the baby’s blank and unfocused, Sam’s gone hard suddenly and brittle as ice.
“I met him only once,” I said, not mentioning that “once” was yesterday.
“An important man in this town, Menendez-Jimenez. Lots of friends,” Sam said, setting up a tinny vibration with his fork. “At least one enemy. He arranged adoptions for rich gringos.”
“So I heard.” I looked at my watch and signaled for the waiter. “I have to be going. I have a plane to catch.”
“They say some gringos will pay thirty thousand dollars for a baby.”
“That’s probably an exaggeration.” I reached for the check.
“I’ll get it.” His hand slid into his pants pocket.
“No, let me. I owe you a favor.”
He brought his hand back to the table. “Say it was only twenty-five thousand; that’s a lot of money in Mexico. A whole lot of money.”
I counted out the pesos. Breakfast for three in the best hotel—$2.50.
Sam took the baby from Maria and held him up. He showed me a tiny wrinkled hand and little fingernails. “He’s very beautiful, isn’t he? Look how perfect his hands are.”
“I told you he was.”
“You think someone would pay that kind of money for a little kid like this? You think a lawyer could set that up? How much would he get?” There it was again, that joking tone, the malice underneath it.
My patience was gone. “God damn it, Sam,” I snapped. “If you’re thinking of selling your own baby, don’t tell me about it.” I stood up.
“My own baby. Would I think of that?” he laughed. “Nice seein’ you again, Nellie. Sorry you have to go. Give my love to Albuquerque.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “Mucho gusto,” I said to Maria.
“El gusto es mío,” she took the baby from Sam and wrapped him up again, tight as a watermelon, in her rebozo.
6
THERE WASN’T A cloud in the New Mexico sky, nothing but thirty thousand feet between me and the irrigation arms ticking green circles on the ground. I called Carl from a pay phone at the airport as soon as I got in. The receptionist put me on hold and I listened to Lovell, Cruse, Vigil, and Roberts’s Muzak play “Woman” while I waited for Carl’s voice. Poor John Lennon, I thought. Shot down by love, turned to mush by Muzak.
Angelina, Carl’s secretary, came on the line. “Neil, it’s good to hear from you. How have you been?”
“I have been better, Angie, but thanks for asking. Is Carl around?” If she had any curiosity about why I was calling, she didn’t let it show.
“He’s on the phone.”
“Do you think you could put me through? It’s important, and I’m calling from a pay phone.”
“Just a sec.”
“Neil,” Carl said, “you’re back. How are you? How did it go?”
“Badly,” I replied.
There was a pause. “I’m sorry to hear that.” I bet he was.
“I need to see you.”
“Okay. How about after work, say five thirty?”
“Not after work. Now.”
“Couldn’t we make it a little later? I’ve got a full day.”
“I’ll be in my office in half an hour,” I said, and hung up.
The Rabbit was in the discount parking lot a half mile from the terminal. I bailed it out and drove to the office, struck once again by Albuquerque’s Sunbelt charm; discount stores, fast food chains, one street just like the next. Anywhere U.S.A. but it was the U.S.A., and at least I knew the rules. I had been at the scene of a murder in Mexico, but I could not report it. Leaving the scene of a crime was a necessary but not a lawyerly thing to do. I wanted to know what had happened to Licenciado Menendez-Jimenez. I wasn’t responsible, I wasn’t involved—yet I was.
Anna was wearing her hair down. She has thick, honey-colored hair, and it curled against her shoulders. She had on plum frost eye shadow and was placing the last dab of matching polish on her fingernails when I came in. “Welcome back,” she said, flicking her hand across the typewriter, drying the polish and handing me my messages in one economical gesture.
“Thanks. Is that all?” I asked.
“You’ve only been gone one day.”
“A day? Seems like a year to me.”
“You look tired. You all right?” She peered at me from under her frosted lids.
“I am tired, that’s all. Carl Roberts will be here any minute. Send him in when he arrives.”
“You got it.”
I had just barely settled myself at my desk, gone through the messages, and lit a cigarette when Carl opened the door and walked in.
“Neil,” he said, taking my hand. “Was it awful?”
“It wasn’t fun.”
“What happened?”
I motioned for him to shut the door. “Menendez-Jimenez was murdered,” I said, getting right to the point.
“Murdered?” I told him the gaudy details of the crime, and he shook his head in disbelief. “His throat was slit? In his office? Jesus Christ. You didn’t go to the police?”
“No.”
“That’s good. They are the last people you want to get involved with in Mexico. You don’t think the murder had anything to do with—with the notes, do you?”
“Who knows? You’re not the only client Menendez-Jimenez ever had.”
“Were you able to find out anything before…?”
“Not a whole lot. He said he had something to tell me. I was on my way back there but they got to him first. I took your file. It was all I could do.” I handed the file to him.
“Have you been through this?”
“I glanced at it. Menendez-Jimenez told me the adoption records are sealed in Mexico—whatever that means—but I guess you already knew that. He said once he knew who the mother was, but he had forgotten.”
“Forgotten? Did you believe him?” Carl asked as he flipped slowly through the papers.
“Who knows? I had no reason not to.”
“Here are the court documents.” He showed me some papers in Spanish. “No record of the parents on these. Here are some letters from me.”
“Do you think anything ever was written down?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible. I know very little about where Edward came from. I didn’t want to know. Menendez-Jimenez said the mother was a girl who got into trouble, a good family—of course, he would say so. Edward was healthy; I let it go at that. Did he indicate he had anything in writing?”
“He was vague. The file cabinet had been unlocked. It’s possible something was stolen.”
“There is something here,” he said slowly. “It’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“ ‘We?’ ” I said.
He ignored that and continued reading the papers. “
Here are records of the phone calls he made.” He showed me scraps of papers with dates and numbers on them. “He itemized the calls, although he never actually billed me for the time and charges. He charged me a flat fee…. These are out of order.” He frowned and rearranged the calls in a way he found more suitable. “There, that’s better,” he said, handing the scraps to me.
There were several numbers in Mexico, some numbers in Albuquerque. Carl’s office number was there, and his home number too—I recognized it, though I had never called him there. There were times, long Sunday afternoons with nothing to do, when I had gone to the phone book, looked up the number and then poured myself a Cuervo Gold instead of calling.
“Those are your numbers, I gather?” He nodded. “There’s another Albuquerque number that he called, let’s see… six times. Do you recognize it?”
“That’s Peter Esterbrook, Celina’s father.”
“Why on earth would he be calling Celina’s father?”
“In addition to owning a ranch, Peter Esterbrook is an importer. He buys produce in Mexico, sells it up here. He was my connection to Menendez-Jimenez. Menendez-Jimenez represented him on some transactions. Peter knew he handled adoptions and he called him for us.”
“Say Esterbrook called Menendez and Menendez returned the call. That would be one call. Why were there six?”
“Perhaps they wanted to discuss it further.” Carl shrugged. “I don’t think it’s important. Maybe they had other business.”
“Does the phrase el perro dogo mean anything to you?”
“Perro means ‘dog,’ and dogo means ‘dog,’ that’s all I know. Why?”
“That was the last entry on Menendez’s desk calendar yesterday.”
“I hope your name wasn’t on there.”
“Why? Do you think the long machete of Mexican justice will track me down here?”
“Probably not. The Federales are not known for their enterprise and ingenuity. Listen, I appreciate what you’ve done, Neil, and I’d like to pay you for it.” He reached for his checkbook.
“I’ll bill you,” I replied.
North of the Border Page 4
