by Rolo Diez
*
All of a sudden no one is paying attention to the film any more. This is because a thin, fair-haired man has come into the room, gun in hand. He smiles unpleasantly. The widow mirrors his unpleasant smile. The rest of us look serious. Very serious.
“Are these the ones?” Blondie asks, as though there could be any doubt.
Estela Lopez de Jones nods. Then she slaps me as hard as she can. I can see her forcing herself to hide how much it hurts her hand.
I don’t know why or how, but the next thing I know is Quasimodo and I are in a van, handcuffed and with handkerchiefs gagging our mouths, although this would not stop me speaking or shouting if I felt like it. But I don’t because I couldn’t care less. Also because of how deserted and dark the dirt road outside we’re bumping our way along is. I wink at Quasimodo, and he winks back, twisting his snout in a smile under the gag to show he forgives me. I nod gratefully. If we get out of this alive, I’ll install him in San Pedro de Los Pinos. He’ll be my brother, and I’ll use him to scare Lourdes whenever she tries to make me a slave to her outrageous whims.
The van comes to a halt. Estela and the maid haul us out roughly. I consider breaking their legs with a couple of well-aimed kicks, but there isn’t time. “Two cops found dead on a back road.” I’m the first. I collapse on the ground. I have a burning sensation everywhere except for my frozen chest. We’re only given a fraction of a second to understand death.
“I don’t like the look of this. He’s got a fever.” Miss Mengele put a hand on my brow; in the other she was wielding a syringe. Hernandez was nothing but shame and joy. Lots of shame and even more joy.
Chapter nineteen
So I got out of the clinic after spending three days there more or less in a coma, diagnosed as having cerebral concussion from severe trauma as a result of the accidental collision between my head and a stone, possibly during my rapid descent of the gully after having been shot at on a side-road on the way to Hidalgo.
I felt strange. Very strange. I couldn’t understand what had made me behave the way I did against my boss, given the obvious fact that his is the hand that feeds me, the length of time I have been in the force, my career, my two families and the amount of money I need for their upkeep.
Nobody in their right mind would have done what I did. The only explanation must have been a temporary loss of my reasoning faculty due to concussion.
This was how I understood what had happened; but something inside me refused to accept it. I was assailed by grave disturbing thoughts that I had been on the verge of something tremendous, coded messages which suggested perhaps it had been the most important moment of my entire life, something intimately connected with the being or nothingness of Carlos Hernandez. A very romantic way of looking at it. Dreams of freedom that can’t buy you a thing anywhere and that usually only serve to destroy the person deluded by them.
Something to remember, all the same.
My case might be a maze of complications, but it had more positive aspects too. The Commander had two choices: either he accepted that Carlos Hernandez was a traitor, a common delinquent who broke into his house and threatened him with a gun – and if he did this, that led to another choice, because he then either arrested Hernandez and faced the hazards of a trial, possibly revealing the laxness of his command, which other zealous defenders of law and order would be bound to point out, in the spirit of solidarity so characteristic of our police force. If he chose to do this, it could mean the end of his career, retirement and a future of playing dominoes or sitting outside his front door with a cigar in his mouth staring at women passers-by. If, on the other hand, he decided to liquidate the traitor, he would still have the problem of what to do with Quasimodo and Arganaraz. A difficult choice, because even he can’t go around rubbing out everyone. Then again, he could decide to adopt the old adage of “nothing happened here”. Or rather, something did happen – and not just anything, especially not something Hernandez is going to get off with lightly – but something that despite its serious nature can be controlled, particularly as far as the future is concerned. In other words: Hernandez suffered a temporary fit of madness, a mental overload due to the pressure of work, the sort of unhappy episode that can happen to anyone and lead them to commit outrages they themselves would find it hard to imagine in their normal state. On the basis of this diagnosis, there was hope that Hernandez might recover, as long as a strict and careful watch was kept on every stage of his progress. And despite the fact that this option meant leaving the dangerous individual – i.e. me – at large, it did seem to be the most convenient, least troublesome choice. I suppose my boss consulted someone, and in some elegant office or other one of our honourable citizens told him that if he could guarantee I was kept under control for the moment it would be better not to stir things up, because the main thing was to make sure the Jones case was well and truly closed.
In order to sound me out, the Commander asked me to dinner. I had spent three days eating boiled chicken in the clinic and with a treatment that kept me asleep the whole time, while elsewhere it was being decided whether it would be better to put me to sleep forever, so the sight of a plate of ravioli and a couple of bottles of Chianti seemed so attractive that I even felt capable of putting up with the Commander’s pathetic attempts to recruit me again. Above all, I wanted to get out of there. In my delirium in the clinic I thought I had seen Lourdes and my kids. I knew I had tried to take on Estela Lopez de Jones, and had ended up as another victim of the blond assassin. I wanted to get out into the streets, to find Arganaraz and put a bullet in both his knees – although it was Quasimodo’s deserting me that hurt most. I needed to see him to find out why he had thrown me to the wolves. I could imagine his excuses: “You looked so bad, Carlitos, that I thought I had to protect you, even against yourself.”
The Commander greeted me as though nothing had happened and took twenty minutes to deliver his well-rehearsed speech. It went along the following lines: hierarchy – he was my boss and I was his subordinate; position – his was correct, I was mistaken; blackmail – in spite of all the extraordinary consideration he had shown me, not only had I been insubordinate, but I had committed offences which would cost me dear. If my attacks on the institution of the Mexican police ever got out, some people would be calling for my head on a plate. He himself was worried and hurt by what I had done, but also considered that only a severe mental disturbance, which had robbed me of my powers of reasoning, could explain my conduct; the bribe – considering all of which, as far as he personally was concerned and without being able to speak for others (others who were more dangerous, more vengeful than him), it was not entirely impossible for him to be able to understand – to forgive, he meant: he left the word itself floating in the air – and pretend that nothing had happened; then the offer to take me back: to which end he needed to know what I thought of my actions, and what my plans for the future were.
He was throwing me a lifeline. I needed one, but I was also mightily angry and wanted to settle the score with the paid assassin who had betrayed me. So that while I admitted he was right about everything and thanked him for being so patient – truly like a father, because only a father responds to attacks by not cutting off all links, whereas a friend would tell you to go to hell, refuse to talk to you and, if he were violent, smash your teeth in; a father on the other hand maintains the family bond and twists it round your neck so that you feel like a piece of shit for the rest of your life; regretted my evil actions, my only excuse being that being deranged is like being possessed by the Devil, forgetting who you are and what you really feel; accepted all the blame and said I was determined to spend the rest of my life making good the damage I had caused . . . I also regretted, well and truly regretted, that the responsibility was not being shared by the man who was the vilest person I had ever had the misfortune to meet.
“I’m talking about a sly double-crossing individual who is unworthy of wearing a policeman’s uniform, a man as treache
rous and poisonous as a snake. I’m talking about the coward who disarmed me at your house, simply to look good in your eyes, when he was the one who took advantage of my bout of madness to incite me to commit those criminal acts, which I am still at a loss to explain how I came to agree to.”
I was sending him to jail. Why not? Arganaraz was a bastard who had ruined the most important thing Hernandez had done in years: to create that look of terror in the purple face of this other bastard who was buying me with Chianti.
The Commander turned to the question of my companions. It was shameful. We had formed a gang, and that could damage the reputation of our Mexican institutions. What was he to do with us?
It was obvious he was trying to get information and to win me over. Fifty-fifty. I’ll forgive you, if you can guarantee there’ll be no problems. Come up with solutions, because you’re the one in trouble. I can and will help you, but I’m not going to take any risks. Got it?
Yes, sir.
“Quasimodo is my friend, and I’ll vouch for him,” I said. The monster was going to owe me another favour, and this time he’d be paying me back for a long, long time. “He was as confused as I was – all he really wanted to do was to help. He must feel remorse for what we did and will be grateful if you show him mercy. And given the amount of information he can lay his hands on, having him grateful could be no bad thing for any future collaboration that might improve the DO’s performance.
“But I’m worried about Arganaraz as well,” I said.
The Commander poured more Chianti, which meant now we were plotting about how to get me back on the force. I helped him find a practical and even-handed solution. There was no way he could pardon three loose cannons who had not played by the rules. That would be to undermine his authority. But if he pardoned two and punished one, his authority and fairness would not be called into question. On the contrary, he would be praised for being both decisive and understanding. I suggested he send Arganaraz to Chiapas, Oaxaca or Sinaloa. Let’s see how he got on with the Indians and drug traffickers. I had been thinking of leaving him crippled for life, but the ravioli and Chianti put me in a generous mood, making me feel tolerant and forgiving.
I left the restaurant a pardoned man, a member of the DO once again.
Chapter twenty
The office I work in is like a microcosm. I usually get thoughts like that when I return to it after several days away and find that nobody seems to have done a thing apart from stuff themselves with sandwiches and use sensitive files to wrap them in. The wastepaper baskets are full of condoms that have apparently been put to good use. The few people who have decided to catch up a bit on their work have created even more of a mess: waiting on my desk for me is a huge pile of papers, which only the prevailing stupidity of Mexican bureaucracy could see as being of any interest whatsoever.
Silver Bullet was not in yet. I growled at the secretaries from afar and climbed into my cage to make a call.
Quasimodo sounded genuinely pleased to hear me. He had some news. The Lizard’s gang had been caught: the delinquents who for weeks had been terrorizing the residential neighbourhood of Copilco with their break-ins. More than ten houses had been burgled when no one was at home; in other cases, the owners and their servants had been mistreated and abused. Quasimodo and I had talked about it before, and now he was offering the information in case it might be of some use to me. The Lizard and his gang were perfect collaborators: they accused each other so extensively that the police had completely wrapped up the case already, and the public prosecutor, seeing that there were no extenuating circumstances, would be calling for two hundred years in prison. Estela Lopez de Jones’s house was not mentioned in any of their statements, which was understandable because it was merely an attempted break-in, besides which no one can expect the criminal to do the detective work on the police’s behalf.
Maribel is a transparent woman. Even without being able to hear what she was saying, just by watching her from ten yards away anyone can tell that the boss is not in the office and at the far end of the line there’s some poor guy trying to control his hard-on.
*
“This is getting worse all the time,” the Commander had said, pointing at me with his glass of Chianti. “We’re faced with a poisonous, red-hot affair, one of those you end up getting burned by if you’re not careful. Look: we’ve got a gringo, a Cuban and two Colombians murdered. That means three embassies are involved. Listen closely. Apparently, the gringo was a high-flyer, because as soon as the US Embassy gets involved, everything becomes very hush-hush. The Cuban was a typical anti-Castro nut, with a criminal record that would get him thrown out of a sewer. And he’s murdered right now, just when relations between Mexico and Cuba are full of too many imponderables for those of us caught in the middle. And we never know what Colombians are really up to, even though everyone knows that to say ‘Colombia’ is to say drugs. Sometimes I think the right of asylum and all that is a good idea. But unfortunately, times have changed. In Lazaro Cardenas’s day, it was the children of Morelia and boatloads of Spanish poets who arrived. Now we get Marielitos and drug traffickers; Uruguayans who’ve taken over the sale of encyclopaedias; Argentinians who are pushing Mexicans out of all the university posts; starving Guatemalans and Salvadorians who don’t even know how to sell books door-to-door and don’t have a single university graduate among them even if you pay to find one; and that’s not counting the Chileans, who are like air pollution because they get in everywhere. You know me. I hate racism. But we Mexicans are big-hearted, and our generosity isn’t always repaid as it should be. Look how we were expelled from international football for two years. The Guatemalans flood our frontiers with fleeing criminals and think that’s fine, but if one of ours makes a mistake writing his birth date they want to take us to the United Nations. Give me a break! But to return to what we were talking about: it’s a mess. It has to be dealt with, Officer.”
While the Commander was saying all this, I took advantage to forge ahead with the ravioli and wine. “It’s time to organize another party with those girls of yours,” he said, and I ate another mouthful. “I’ve got another bundle of dollars and I need a buyer,” and I knocked back more wine. “Either we look after ourselves or we’ll lose money, Hernandez,” he went on, while I made a start on the dessert and realized that he wasn’t going to send me to the cemetery because he needed someone to take on all these tasks for him. When he paused for breath, I asked:
“What are we going to do, boss?”
That wasn’t an easy question, and there would be no easy answer. The proof of which was that there was no answer at all from him.
“You’re in charge of the case.”
“And you give the orders.”
He smiled. The way someone on the make smiles at someone else on the make, when they don’t get in each other’s way.
“As long as we don’t have sufficient reason to change our point of view, we’ll have to continue with our first line of enquiry. But after carrying out your investigation and information-gathering, and bearing in mind the relevant considerations, tell me whether you have any specific ideas which might bring positive results, without affecting any outside interests and respecting all the different possible jurisdictions.”
Typical DO shit.
He paused again then roared:
“We’ve got to put a stop to this Godawful mess once and for all!”
Time to show I could be precise and efficient.
“Yes. I’ve got an idea, boss,” I told him.
The Commander’s smile broadened.
“I wasn’t making an idle comment, Officer, but simply seeking to remove all doubt as to who was my best man. Tell me your idea.”
I told him.
*
Silver Bullet came into the office, saw me and went off to talk to Laura. I realized he was upset with me because he felt Quasimodo had taken his place. And since to be a boss means making concessions, balancing the general good with one’s own, no
t to mention the little matter of a backlog of payments I needed the help of an assistant to collect, I called him over and – after explaining in minute detail what I would do to him if he even thought of trying to pull a fast one or in any way of going beyond the mission I was entrusting him with – I sent him off to meet Rosario, collect my debt and arrange an appointment in two days’ time.
I immediately saw it was a mistake: his eyes shone far too brightly.
After I left the office I phoned Jones’s widow. She was thinking of travelling to Colombia in four days. I told her what her trip depended on.
*
The Lizard was called Rodolfo Angel Osorio Mena. He was twenty-four, lank, dyed-blond hair, a shiny black eye and a huge split mouth which gave him his nickname. He was wearing black trainers, black jeans and T-shirt with a red design on it. He stood in a corner of the cell and stared at me suspiciously.
