The midday sun fell ruthlessly over the plains and scattered ranches, the cedar and oak trees with parched trunks and cracked branches, the cacti leaning heavily as if they could no longer endure the burden of the heat. There was a single, drawn-out cloud hugging the horizon, with metallic-hued trimming. Fernandez gnawed a piece of beef jerky.
Annie Tadic hadn’t been made to suffer. That was the only good thing.
For weeks Rafael Fernandez stood by helplessly and followed the unfolding of Operation Stop Train. The state police and FBI doubled their vigilance in train stations and patrolled the tracks of the country’s rail systems, looking for places where the killer might be hiding out. They raided care centers, town squares where illegals gathered to look for work, and homeless shelters where vagrants were given shelter for a night. The Railroad Killer’s photograph was made public and appeared in all the national and local newspapers and television broadcasts. In some counties they printed WANTED posters with the word in capital letters, together with his picture and a cash reward for anyone who gave information leading to an arrest.
Eight days after Noemí and the elderly woman were murdered, they found Noemí’s Honda Civic near the train tracks in a small town outside San Antonio. That prompted a frustrated FBI agent to say on camera: “Everything indicates that he crossed the border and escaped into his own country. Which would be a shame for us. They don’t have capital punishment over there, and you see how well that’s working.”
Dawn Haze took advantage of that comment to devote two whole episodes of her show to badmouthing the Mexican justice system and attacking the “liberal” states that didn’t have capital punishment. Fernandez belly-laughed at her arguments, but then chastised himself because he knew it wasn’t a laughing matter, it was all miserable and pathetic, and there were a lot of people who agreed with Dawn.
The following day, Dawn broke an “exclusive” on the show: the Railroad Killer had been detained by the INS near El Paso before his latest murder spree, and despite running a check on his file, they had still deported him to Mexico. The INS must have been perfectly aware that the detainee was a murder suspect. The INS responded lukewarmly: “The INS computer network was not connected to other agencies and had no way of accessing information from the FBI or Texas Ranger systems. What’s more, the suspect used a series of aliases, which complicated things.”
“Excuses, excuses,” the anchor railed. “Not only did they show negligence by releasing him but also in failing to connect their computer system with other agencies’. Nothing can bring the victims of these murders back to life, which is the result of your gross incompetence.”
Fernandez had to admit it, this time Dawn Haze had nailed it.
Back in the office, Fernandez compiled a list of the Railroad Killer’s victims (the nickname had stuck, even he was using it now).
Victoria Jansen. Mrs. Havisham. Joanna Benson. Noemí Dominguez. Norman and Lynn Bates. Annie Tadic.
Seven murders. Surely there were more. Almost all of them were women. Two of them were elderly women. He was a spineless killer who looked for easy prey. He remembered the lyrics of a corrido: “Gregorio Cortez said / with a pistol in his hand: / no Mexican / would run with a gutless Ranger swine.” It was funny to think that now the Ranger was him and he was pursuing a gutless Mexican. Several years had passed between the first two murders and the more recent crimes. What could have happened? Quantico’s updated psychological profile was like something straight out of a manual on psychopathic behavior: the killer was driven to commit the crimes to quench his thirst for blood, but he had grown more accustomed to killing and quickly became bored with less vicious behavior, so the time between murders was decreasing. After several years of successfully restraining his impulses, the Railroad Killer was now rampaging out of control; the next crime was likely to take place very soon.
Did the victims have anything in common? Something that might determine who was next in line? The murders occurred in the vicinity of train stations, but who would be the next ill-fated soul to encounter the predator in the confines of a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom? Who next would find herself eyeball to eyeball with an illegal alien bristling with years of amassed rage and a butcher knife in his hand?
Sergeant Fernandez pitied the next victim.
That night he and Debbie rendezvoused at the downtown Ramada Inn. He felt her fingernails dig into his back during sex, as if in desperation. As she straddled him, he glimpsed her face, concentrated, the cascade of chestnut hair that hid her eyes. His imagination took over and he floated in and out of the moment, when suddenly the image of Annie Tadic’s crushed skull flashed through his mind. He had to get that image out of his head.
She came, but he didn’t. She kept working on him, but to no avail.
“What’s wrong, Rafa? Work getting to you?”
“Sorry, gorgeous. You know what’s on my mind.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said and desisted. She got up and lit a cigarette, then lay back down by his side. “It’s still frustrating though.”
He pulled her over and kissed her. She leaned against his chest.
“I don’t want to stay in Landslide.”
Fernandez contemplated her straight nose and prominent cheekbones, the cigarette dangling between her lips.
“I have a cousin up north, in Ontario.”
He shouldn’t let the veiled threat get to him. He had to take her as she came, understand it as merely the strategic maneuvering of a woman who wanted more than she had. The truth is, something about the comment had disturbed him.
“Canada? Why so far away? That’s north of north.”
“Yeah, I know. You once said you’d follow me to the ends of the earth. Why don’t you come with me?”
“Sounds like a great idea, but what about my job?”
He got out of bed to use the bathroom, hoping it would bring a change of subject. When he came out, she was already dressed and zipping up her boots.
“Something wrong?”
“No, everything’s peachy. Just that time’s up. That’ll be a hundred and fifty dollars.”
He grabbed his wallet from the nightstand and rummaged for the bills, but she didn’t give him enough time: she walked out and slammed the door behind her.
Fernandez didn’t know whether to run after her, to wait for her, or to call her. Eventually he just lay back down in bed, telling himself that she’d come back. But she didn’t.
She’ll calm down. Just give her a little time.
McMullen told Fernandez that the FBI had been researching the suspect vigorously, and all leads pointed to a small town called Rodeo in Mexico. Reyle was married and that was where the wife lived. The Mexican authorities sanctioned extraterritorial jurisdiction for the FBI to operate in their country, and they staked out Reyle’s house in Rodeo. The Mexicans wouldn’t allow them to take the investigation a step further by alerting the wife; they were afraid she’d find a way to warn her husband.
They had to sit tight and wait for Reyle to fuck up, try to return home.
Fernandez broke down and called the FBI offices in Houston. Agent Johnson got on the line, the person in charge of Operation Stop Train. Fernandez was friendly with the robust, affable black man whose favorite pastime was fishing in the Gulf. They’d worked a couple of cases together.
“Hey there Wayne, how’s the fishing?”
“Depends on which kind we talkin’ about . . .”
“Listen, I have an offer to make. It’s not official Ranger stuff, I’m out on a limb here. You know I speak good Spanish, no gringo accent. So in a place like Rodeo I wouldn’t call any undue attention to myself. I could get close to Reyle’s wife, tell her about her husband and ask for her help. Earn her trust.”
“Too risky,” Johnson said without thinking twice. “What would we gain? If he’s organized a double life for himself, sooner or later he’s going to let down his guard and return home. It’s better just to wait it out.”
Fernandez ins
isted: “The alternative is not better. We sit by and stake out his house and wait, but he’s not going to return willingly, he’s gotta know we’re on his trail. But he’ll find a way to get a message to his wife. And when that happens, just maybe, if we earn her trust, she’d be willing to surrender him in exchange for something.”
Johnson said he’d let him know. He wasn’t entirely convinced, but he’d put it through the channels.
Days went by. Fernandez imagined long meetings to discuss his plan. The FBI wanted to be in full control of the cases they were investigating.
That weekend Johnson finally called back. They accepted his offer, but an FBI agent would accompany him. “We considered just doing it ourselves, but it felt like we were stealing your idea. So now you’re coming with us.”
If it didn’t work, at least they could say they tried. What else could Fernandez do? Accept. If he didn’t, they’d go talk to her themselves.
He told them it was OK by him.
5
Landslide, 2009
I returned to my normal shift in Taco Hut; I carried my Moleskine with me to work and spent my breaks illustrating my adaptation of “Luvina” or doodling ideas for my story. I sharpened the main character’s profile, Samantha, a Latino woman obsessed with cleansing the world of vampires, zombies, and werewolves after one of them killed her baby girl. The postapocalyptic territory called Marcela was divided into the North and the South and separated by a river. I told the story to my coworkers; Osvaldo and Mike liked it, but Oksana, a Russian girl who had recently started working with us, didn’t get it.
I went on creating my universe, even the tiniest details—the chemical waste that turned men into zombies, the abandoned mansions that alluded to gothic literature and suggested the end of time—but it was hard for me to really let myself go, get the story to flow like lava. Ana haunted me at all hours of the day. I couldn’t face her, or the person I imagined she would be—a long black braid, a shadow who turned its back to me. I was paralyzed and failed.
Reading was the thing that gave me a little peace. But I couldn’t read just anything, only the first few chapters of The Sandman. Over and over again, I’d finish reading and then start all over again.
Fabián wasn’t good working company, either. He would sit in front of his computer answering emails, perusing blogs, or rummaging around in the hard drive, paranoid that the deans had introduced some spyware virus that sent them copies of his communications. I took stock of his defects. He wheezed now, and it was hard to tell if it was asthma or an allergic reaction; he locked himself in the bathroom, and I could hear what sounded like retching. He’d come out as if nothing had happened, open a bottle of wine, snort a few lines on a mirror or a credit card. I always refused to join him and preferred to look the other way. Later we’d watch a B movie from the 50s—Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, The Fifty Foot Woman; he knew how much I liked them and had bought an eighty piece DVD collection (a Home Shopping offer he saw once at three a.m.). Sex was irregular due to the drugs: a few fiery nights would be followed by others when he couldn’t get a hard-on.
Fabián could be very tender at times, like when he’d write tacky emails from the office telling me how much he missed me, how he couldn’t imagine his future without me. There were moments when I felt moved in a very deep way, when I could see his fragility peeking out from behind a few sentences: “i was standing beside myself dressed in a black suit that looked like it belonged to an undertaker. i put some cables to my head and pressed a button and received a shock. the person that was me said you’re not well you’re not well you’re not well you’re not well. he grabbed my hand and said that he would take me to an amusement park and i told him yes, of course, and i turned into a child. I had a balloon in my hand and suddenly i wasn’t with myself anymore and i felt very lonely. would you like to go to an amusement park? six flags isn’t very far away.”
Some evenings we’d stroll around the neighborhood, walk by the baseball diamond in the park whose perimeter was all lit up in bright white lights. We’d often see the groups of people there who gathered regularly: business professionals who played softball after work, foreign students from the university chasing after a soccer ball. We’d stretch out on the grass and watch the games. These were times when I would make an effort to project some sort of shared future, despite knowing full well the limits we’d established where that was concerned—I’d try to imagine myself in a home near the sea, writing and illustrating until dawn while he slept. I always failed to conjure a clear image of it.
There were days when I’d call after my shift in Taco Hut and he’d tell me he didn’t want to see me, and his stony, detached, measured tone of voice conveyed just how far he’d shut himself away. Other times his tone would turn suspicious and he’d ask if I was a spy for the deans. At those times he usually sounded drunk or stoned. The weeks slipped by like that, following this manic, bipolar rhythm.
I still hung out with Sam, who offered to read what I wrote and kept trying to make sense of why I rejected any deeper kind of relationship with him. Every once in a while I’d check in with La Jodida, but all she ever talked about was alcohol-drenched affairs and coked-up bed-to-bed encounters with near strangers (she only began cheating on Megan after she found out that Megan had been cheating on her). I ran into her at a bus stop one afternoon—her pants were sagging, she had a black bandana on, and her shirt was all wrinkled and filthy; she told me she might have to go back to Puerto Rico. Her grades had plummeted and she had a bunch of incompletes in her classes; her adviser said she was at risk of losing her scholarship. She didn’t seem that worried about it, though. We parted with an ambivalent embrace.
Sam invited me to go with him to the inaugural cocktail party given by the university museum for Martín Ramírez’s retrospective. I didn’t want to go with him, so I convinced Fabían to accompany me.
Fabián made an effort to dress elegantly, though his jacket was scruffy and his pants too short. There were art history professors there, and some of Fabián’s colleagues; few academics liked to crawl out of their hiding places to attend events in fields not strictly their own. I saw Ruth and said hello. She was surrounded by a group of doctoral students arguing that Ramírez shouldn’t be qualified as a Mexican but as a Latino, a Hispanic, a Chicano, a Mexican-American (he had lived in the US for forty of his sixty-eight years).
I was in no mood for an academic discussion about identity, so I left Fabián with Ruth and moseyed my way through the exhibition. It was divided into subjects that represented the painter’s obsessions: horses and riders, landscapes, women, trains, and tunnels. The drawings were massive and they captivated me, they were like a revelation. I was already aware of Ramírez’s talent, but until then I had only appreciated it from a distance, the way one can value art without actually responding to it or feeling anything. I hadn’t really grasped it, apprehended the work. I could have made the typical excuses—seeing reproductions in books and online is never the same as when you experience work live—but in this case it wasn’t really true. Now I wished I had written the essay for the catalogue; I had missed a great opportunity.
I particularly admired the horses and riders section; it was the most crowded of the show, and the one with the lion’s share of paintings. I homed in on the details of the drawings—the belts loaded down with bullets, the horses looking skyward, the parallel lines framing the compositions, the dominant colors of red and violet. I read the commentaries. Some three hundred drawings were attributed to Ramírez, eighty of which featured riders on horseback.
It was about creating symbols out of obsessions, mapping the great territory of the world in order for a few objects or individuals to become part of a personal mythology. Now I realized my problem: I had begun backwards. It takes years of painting and writing before a person can find what their specific recurring themes are. The process maps the principal coordinates of any work of the imagination. I hadn’t even begun telling my story yet, hadn’t given it a
body, and I expected it to be full of symbols.
I came across one of Ramírez’s painted calaveras in the section dedicated to landscapes. They’re illustrations featuring skeletons. There was a skeleton playing a violin beside a couple dancing to the music, sketched completely out of perspective (the man’s head was enormous). Undulating fields were drawn in wavy lines, houses in childlike strokes, cars motoring along a dirt road.
I was already familiar with José Guadalupe Posada’s calaveras and with other artists who are now closely associated with the Day of the Dead and Mexican folk art. They were usually cheerful in their satire, dressed in festive clothes, ready for a party. Here, Ramírez’s skeleton expressed a sort of grotesque grimace; it looked like a villain’s mask for a Hollywood horror series. But I found the combination fascinating: a disfigured face, a festive violin.
So there’s my novel. Instead of zombies and skulls with Freddy Krueger–style faces, they will be Mexican, but seen through the lens of North American horror films.
I went looking for Fabán to tell him what I had come up with, and found him causing a scene: there was a crowd around him and Ruth, who were locked in a heated argument. I walked over to see what was going on.
“Get out of my face, you fat piece of shit,” Fabián shouted. “I’ll kill you! Ramírez is Mexican, not Chicano, I couldn’t care less how long he lived in California. People like you are destroying the university. Nobody can have an opinion because of your political correctness. And if someone dares, you gang up on him, like what you’re doing to me.”
Norte Page 19
