“I suppose I have once or twice…You don’t get to be my age without having seen a thing or two…” She made a gesture that left her words hanging in the air, and then brought her hands back gracefully to her sides.
“A round bed. Was it in a rented house, or what? Where was it?”
“You’re serious?”
“Totally. You took a little roll in the hay with some big-time politicians, government ministers. Somebody took pictures. And if certain people find out about those pictures, you can kiss your sweet ass good-bye. Where was it?”
“That’s not possible.”
“I’ve seen the pictures.”
Marisa Ferrer went over to the night table and got her cigarettes. She lit one.
“Pass me the lighter, will you?”
With his good arm, Héctor took a crumpled pack of Delicados from his shirt pocket. The actress held out a gold lighter and lit his cigarette. They stared at each other through the flame.
“Does Elena know about it?”
Héctor nodded.
“What does she think of me?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you?”
“It gets harder all the time for me to judge…I wouldn’t have done it myself,” he said, meaning it as a joke.
“Sometimes you feel like an old glove…At first it makes you feel sick to use your body. They always told you it wasn’t something to play with. But you wash it off and it’s as good as new, better even. And so you keep on going…pursuing your career without having to starve yourself, taking revenge on the friends from high school who called you a whore, and on your aunt in Guadalajara who won’t talk to you anymore. And walking over the rest of them. Have you heard that line before, about walking over the rest of them? I said it in Flower of Evil…another stupid movie. And it doesn’t do any good now to cry and say you’re ashamed. Sure, I’m ashamed. God, how ashamed I feel. Weren’t there other men? Gentler, more honest, more human, less screwed up…with less money, less power…Sooner or later you find out even they’ve got nothing to give you. And still I’ve got this.”
She spoke her words without looking at the detective, half turned away, part profile, with her beautiful, gentle face, periodically contorted with rage, outlined against the bluish light. Héctor lay on the bed, aching all over, wishing he could take off his shoes, turn on the TV, and change the channel, like someone changing lives. He looked around for somewhere to put the ash from his cigarette. He didn’t feel like hearing about her problems; he didn’t want to try to understand. He just wanted to be left alone.
Marisa Ferrer stood up, tore the straps off her dress, and reaching around her back, but calmer now, attuned to the established rhythm, lowered the zipper and let the dress slide over her hips and onto the floor. Her breasts glowed in the soft lamplight. She wore only a tiny pair of white panties and her black leather boots, shiny as cat fur.
Héctor was tempted to reach his hand out and touch her soft skin. The woman rolled the panties down her legs and dropped them on the floor.
“Do I scare you?”
Héctor held out his hand, and the woman stretched out at his side, naked except for the boots, abandoning the striptease that had suddenly failed because it left her irrevocably, undeniably human.
She pressed herself to his side, and Héctor hugged her to him silently. Staring up at the ceiling, he exhaled a lungful of smoke. Solidarity was all he had left to give her. Solidarity from one screwed-up human being to another, here in this country where we live and die, that takes us in, and sends us out again on our own, leaving us like carrion for the vultures. He kept his eyes fixed on the formless ceiling, the rising column of smoke.
“What a scene.” She got up from the bed, and walked across to the closet to put on a robe.
Héctor thought about reaching out to stop her, but he lay there hypnotized, watching her move away.
“How are you doing?” she asked on her way back.
“Rotten.”
“Let me fix your arm for you. It’s not very deep, but you should probably see a doctor. You might need a few stitches.”
“Where’s the round bed?” Héctor asked.
***
Belascoarán climbed into his car, and while it warmed up, he turned on the radio.
Hello, sleepless friends. Is it really all that bad?
The voice of El Cuervo Valdivia emerged from the rear speakers.
“No, it’s worse,” mumbled Héctor Belascoarán Shayne.
Quit taking yourself so seriously…Do you think I’m here talking to you for my health? You’re not the only one that has to work for a living.
“That’s right,” said the detective as he put the car in gear. He braced his injured arm against the window. Now it didn’t hurt so much as the pit of his bruised stomach and the leg he used on the clutch. He pulled onto Insurgentes and pointed the VW to the north, glancing here and there at apartment windows where light bulbs flickered off above late-night lovers. He imagined warm beds, a glass of milk on the night table, the last word spoken on the last movie on TV.
Today was as bad for me as it was for you. I even thought about putting a bullet through my head…
But then I remembered I had a date for tonight with my brothers and sisters of the shadows, the last human beings on earth, the desperadoes, the lonely ones…So here I am again, sharing and learning in the night. Solidarity out of the solitude.
Why do I bother to talk about such sad things? It’s because I want to share a little bit of everything with you, brothers and sisters.
“You ought to go have a little chat with a lonely movie star I know,” Héctor suggested out loud to this Valdivia whose voice came out of the radio speakers in the fluorescent darkness.
I’ve got a couple of urgent messages before I get back to the music. First of all, will the owner of a dog at one seven-five or one seven-seven Colima please put the poor animal out of its misery. It’s been howling nonstop for two hours and there are five students trying to study for tomorrow’s exam.
The second message goes out to our good friend the independent detective. He’s bound to be roaming around out there somewhere, caught up in the clutches of this black and beautiful night. I’ve had two calls in here from somebody threatening to kill you. You probably get this kind of thing every other day, but I’ve got the calls on tape if you’re interested.
Take it easy, buddy.
Now, in memory of what didn’t happen to me today, and in dedication to our lonely friend the detective, a special samba from Argentina.
“The Samba Not to Die By.”
This is El Cuervo Valdivia, with the only show on the radio that mere words cannot express.
“My voice will break the quiet afternoon…” began the samba. Héctor stopped the car at the corner of Insurgentes and Felix Cuevas, listening to the song.
Fifteen minutes later he pulled up in front of his office.
“What’s happening, neighbor?”
The inevitable, the eternal, Engineer El Gallo Villareal sat hunched over his drawings.
“Don’t you ever get bored with that stuff?”
“You betcha,” answered the engineer, pausing between each syllable.
“Any messages?”
“Nope. What brings you around here this time of night?”
“I’ve got to check something I stowed in the ‘safe’ on day one.”
“Day one of what?”
“Day one of this whole mess,” Héctor explained, taking a soda pop out of the secret compartment, along with the file from Delex that had introduced him to the case of Alvarez Cerruli.
“I’ve got something for you,” said El Gallo, holding out a sheaf of photocopied pages.
“What’s that?”
“The other d
ay, after you asked me about what could put the fear of God into the Delex crowd, I took a look at your notes, and then talked it over with some buddies of mine in the government. This is what I came up with.”
The report was titled Illegal Traffic in Precious Metals, and was dated a year and a half earlier.
“This is it,” concluded the detective, after reading several pages.
“That’s the feeling I had when I got my hands on it.”
“I owe you one, neighbor.”
The engineer looked up from his maps for the first time.
“Look at you,” he exclaimed. “You’re a mess.”
“Nothing a couple of aspirin won’t cure.”
Héctor turned back to the file. Now all that was left were a few loose ends to tie up, debts to collect.
Carefully he read through the testimony of the various witnesses, the secretaries, the policemen from squad cars 118 and 76, security guard Rubio. It all added up. What had Camposanto said before he died?
“i already knew what was going to happen, because he’d already asked me…”
So the murdered engineers had threatened to blow the whistle on Rodríguez Cuesta’s operation and the policeman had killed them. Out of greed. And to cover his own ass.
All that was left was to find out where, at which one of his three addresses, Commander Paniagua kept the picture of the dead man’s wife. The macabre trophy. That should be easy enough.
“I’m going home and get some rest, neighbor.”
“What about your chair?”
“This body wants a nice soft bed.”
He left the smiling engineer to his maps and his thin cigars. The light had gone out again in the hallway, and only a dim glow filtered through the glass on the office door. The detective lit his cigarette lighter, and held it up beside the metal shingle:
Héctor belascoarán shayne: detective
gilberto gómez letras: plumber
“gallo” villareal: sewer and drainage specialist
carlos vargas: upholsterer
He held the lighter a moment longer and fired up a cigarette. Every city gets the detective it deserves, he thought.
The first burst of machine-gun fire shattered the glass on the office door and splintered the detective’s right femur. With the second blast he felt as if his head were exploding into a thousand pieces. As he fell to the floor, he brought his hand up, in an absurd and pointless reflex, toward his gun. He lay bleeding on the floor, with his hand on his heart.
Chapter Eleven
It’s nothing to do with brute force. This is a game of intellect.
—George Habasch
(reported by Maggie Smith)
“After a couple of months you ought to be able to throw the cane away. If you don’t rush yourself, I think that little by little you’ll regain full use of your leg. As far as your left eye goes, however, you shouldn’t harbor any illusions. Some of my colleagues suggested the possibility of an operation in Switzerland…but, to be entirely frank, you’ve lost all sight in the eye, and the eye is dead, Señor Shayne.”
“Belascoarán Shayne,” said a hoarse voice from the chair opposite the doctor.
“Señor Belascoarán. Excuse me.”
“Do you think you can get me a black patch, Doc? I don’t like having to look in the mirror at my dead eye, as you call it.”
“Of course. You can pick one up right away at the orthopedic dispensary.”
Héctor limped out of the doctor’s office, leaning heavily on a black cane with a curved handle. All in all, his appearance had improved significantly. A black patch over his left eye, a stubbly beard, and a cane which, with a little modification, could be engineered to hide a stiletto blade, like that of the Count of Monte Cristo.
Returning to the room where he’d spent the last three weeks, he tossed his books and pajamas into a small, plaid suitcase, slipped his gun into its holster, and hung it carefully around his shoulder.
He drew the gun again and checked the chambers and the safety. Then, dropping down onto the bed, he picked up the latest letter from the woman with the ponytail. He took his last cigarette from the bedside table, crumpled the empty pack in his hand, and tossed it at the wastebasket. He missed by a mile. Have to get used to judging distance with only one eye, he thought.
I’ll have to throw a big party for your two buddies the plumber and the upholsterer. Thanks to their strange letters I know that you’re getting better, even though you still aren’t well enough to write. They sent me several wonderful letters that began with things like: “Dearest pony-tailed señorita, greetings from Carlos and Gilberto, the loyal friends and neighbors of Héctor the detective…”
They also sent newspaper clippings.
I see you finally made the headlines.
How are you?
I’m coming home. But don’t think it’s to be a nurse to this strange character who goes around leaving pieces of himself all over the neighborhood. No, the truth is, my search is over. And there was nothing at the end of the road. Nothing, that is, except a starlit night on the terrace of an Athens hotel spent putting off the advances of a German diplomat and an American Army captain on his NATO tour of duty.
With a quadruple iced crème de menthe in my hand. A sad ending to my quest. So at eleven p.m. I went out to find a travel agent that was still open and made reservations from here to Paris and from there on to Mexico.
I’ll give you an extra week after this letter gets there, so you’ve got time to get used to the idea.
Here’s a list of the Visigoth Kings of Spain. You be the detective, and underline the names of the murderers:
Alarico, Ataúlfo, Sigerico, Valia, Teodoredo, Turismundo, Teodorico, Eurico, Alarico II, Gasaleico, Amalarico, Teudis, Teudiselo, Agila, Atangildo, Liuva, Leovigildo, Recaredo, Liuva II, Viterico, Gundemaro, Sisebuto, Recaredo II, Shintila, Sisenando, Kintila, Tulgo, Kindasvito, Recesvinto, Vamba, Ervigio, Egica, Vitiza, Akila, and Rodrigo.
How’d you do? If you failed to underline even one, then you blew it. This bloody bunch of hoodlums murdered thousands of people in their time.
There’s a butterfly sleeping on my windowsill.
I love you,
ME.
A note was written in pencil in the margin: Iberia flight 727 from Paris, Wed. 16th. He smiled, and crumpling the letter in his hand, tossed it at the wastebasket. It hit the rim, hung there for a moment, and fell in. With this first small victory behind him, he got up and left the hospital.
***
“You’re going to drive yourself crazy, boss,” said Gilberto, adding up an elaborate bill for unplugging a customer’s sink.
“What is there about fixing a drain that takes you half an hour to figure out the bill?” asked the upholsterer, who had turned the classified section of Ovaciones into his portable bible.
Héctor was stuffing his briefcase with the files and papers dating back to the beginning of his involvement in the three mysteries. He left the photographs stuck up on the wall as a final clue in case everything else went wrong. Then he got out the sticks of dynamite.
“The cave could be right here in Mexico City,” he said out loud. “Who says it’s got to be in Morelos?” He picked up the telephone, and dialed a number.
“Carlos? Have you got any friends who know their way around the worst parts of town?”
***
He was surprised to discover the priest didn’t dress in the traditional uniform. He was a young man, wearing thick-lensed glasses and a gray turtleneck frayed at the elbows, with unkempt hair.
“Caves? I know of a couple, but I suppose there could be a lot more. Do you want me to ask the compañeros for you?”
Héctor nodded and the priest went out. The sun shone through the broken window of the parish office. A pair of posters h
ung on the wall: “christians for socialism.” “the word of god has the power to liberate the people or to put them to sleep. how are we going to use it?”
“One of the compañeros suggested a third place,” said the priest, coming back into the room. “I haven’t been there myself, but…”
Héctor offered the priest a cigarette, and they smoked together in silence.
“Thanks a million,” said Héctor, getting up. The priest handed him a small piece of paper with directions.
“Don’t mention it. I remember what you did for us in that scandal over the Basilica…”
***
“I couldn’t see any reason to keep her here…What would you have done?”
Héctor shrugged his shoulders.
“She wanted to go, but she felt helpless by herself, powerless. Her mother said, ‘Here’s the plane ticket, let’s go away together and start over again…’ It seemed like the best thing…”
“The best thing…” Héctor repeated.
“You know something? You’re looking pretty handsome, brother.”
Héctor smiled, and raised a hand to order another espresso.
All he retained from the weeks prior to the machine-gunning was the feeling that he’d been overwhelmed by sleepiness, and this new habit of drinking cup after cup of strong coffee.
“Where’d they go?”
“Poland, I think. She got herself a grant to work in the Polish theater, and Elena was all excited about studying graphic design. She signed a piece of her cast for you and left it at the house.”
Héctor paid the bill and stood up.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Collect on some debts.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Héctor shook his head and limped away.
***
“They broke the strike about three days after you went into the hospital—with the cops charging in on horses, the whole shooting match. They brought their scabs in, but our men refused to go back to work for fear of reprisals. So the company agreed not to take any action against the organizers, and everyone went back to work. Of course, the struggle goes on inside. It ebbs and flows. There were a couple of guys got fired the other day…”
An Easy Thing Page 19
