“He was in Morelos from nineteen forty-seven to nineteen sixty-two.”
“Then in nineteen seventy, an old man named Sebastián Armenta, just like yourself, came here to live in this neighborhood. He settled into his cave, and now he makes his living selling sweets at the entrance to the movie theaters on Avenida Revolución. Coconut candies, alegrías, that kind of thing.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you know where I can find the man I’m looking for?”
The old man sat in silence. Héctor offered him a cigarette from his pack of Delicado filters. The old man took one, bit off the filter, placed the cigarette between his lips, and waited for Héctor to give him a light. Then he took a deep drag, and exhaled the smoke toward the ceiling of the cave.
“You’re looking for Emiliano Zapata,” he said at last.
“That’s right.”
The old man continued to pull on his cigarette as if he hadn’t heard Héctor’s answer, his eyes fixed on some distant point, far beyond the red curtain that hung in the darkness behind the detective’s back.
“No. Emiliano Zapata is dead.”
“Are you sure, General Zapata?”
“He’s dead. I know what I’m talking about. He died in Chinameca in 1919 at the hands of traitors. The same carbines would rise up again today…The same men would give the orders…The people mourned him once already, why should they mourn him again?”
Héctor stood up.
“I’m sorry I bothered you at this time of night.”
He held out his hand and the old man took it ceremoniously.
“Don’t mention it. Where there’s good faith, that’s all that matters.”
Héctor stepped out past the curtain.
Outside, the black night, a starless sky.
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