by Sam Hawken
“I’m not powerless. I know a man in the city police and he can ask questions. Understand me now: with the drugs wars, everything else is pushed to the side. They have suspects and they have a confession. This isn’t something anyone will want to reopen.”
Ella shook her head and frowned. “Those men were not American and Paloma’s brother was not one of them.”
“I know that,” Sevilla said. “But it is different to know something than it is to prove it.”
“Then prove it,” Ella said. “We are all witnesses! We saw it happen!”
Sevilla put his hand on Ella’s hand and she didn’t push it away. He used his voice in the way he’d been taught a long time ago. Some things never changed. “I will find out. I promise you I will not stop asking questions. Someone must know the answers. I will find them.”
“Don’t promise what you can’t do,” Ella said.
“I’m not. This I can do. When the time comes I’ll be sure you have a voice. You’ll tell everyone. They will listen.”
TWO
“HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING?” Enrique asked Sevilla when they were together in the living room and sure no one was watching through the window. Sevilla pulled the drapes. He had felt eyes all day when there were none around. Coming home he drove around his block three times, and though he felt foolish doing it, he could not help himself.
“Not at all,” answered Sevilla truthfully.
They sat at opposite ends of a little coffee table with brightly painted legs and a worn top made of old flooring. It was one of Liliana’s finds. Sevilla thought of it as charmingly ugly. His notes were strewn across it now.
“There is no report,” Enrique said. “I made three calls. Too many calls. Someone will know I was asking, but I wanted to know. There is no report.”
“Those women did not lie to me, Enrique.”
“I’m not saying they did. I am saying there is no report.”
“The truck. The man. Ortíz. He’s the one,” Sevilla said.
Enrique sorted the pages of Sevilla’s notes like cards, as if searching for a hidden picture that would appear if only they were placed in the right order. His brow creased and his frown threatened to break the corners of his mouth. To Sevilla he looked like a real policeman. “And there’s Madrigal.”
“Rafa Madrigal is not a criminal,” Sevilla said. “I met him once in Mexico City. It was an event for a police charity. We spoke for several minutes. He’s a rancher, he owns two maquilas. What would he want with someone like Ortíz?”
“That is what I asked myself. What would he want with someone like Ortíz. You didn’t see Los Campos, but I did; men like him do not get to go inside unless they are invited. Neither you nor I could go.”
“His elder son died of a drug overdose across the border in Texas, I think,” Sevilla said. “He has no interest in crooks. You said it yourself: at best the man is a gambler and a boxing manager. At worst he’s a pimp.”
“Then why did he go there? How did he get in? Think, Señor Sevilla.”
Sevilla slumped in his chair. Half-formed ideas and thoughts swirled, but one was steadily settling that he did not want to entertain and for the first time all day he wanted the drink he hadn’t wanted before. “I don’t know,” he said.
“You do know.”
He looked at his notes. Text was boxed and underlined and marked with arrows. He had written five pages with Ella Arellano and the mothers of the missing. Twice he drove past the little station where they made their report, both times with the same thought nagging at the back of his mind and slowly pushing itself forward.
“Ortíz could not make a police report disappear.”
“No,” Sevilla agreed.
“But he knows Garcia. If there’s anyone with experience of making evidence vanish, he’s the one.”
“Captain Garcia doesn’t do favors for just anyone,” Enrique said. “I’ve been with him for two years. I’m La Bestia’s servant. I would know.”
“That’s wrong,” Sevilla said. He straightened. The thought was nearly there if only he could speak it.
“What is?”
“You’re not his servant. If you were, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t ask these questions. That I know for certain.”
“Then you know—”
“Don’t say it,” Sevilla interrupted.
“Someone has to.”
“You said it yourself, Enrique: neither you nor I would see the home of someone like Rafa Madrigal. And if not us, then certainly not La Bestia. Ortíz is the go-between, the cut-out. If he speaks to Garcia, no one raises an eyebrow. No one even pays attention because who cares? We have narcos killing narcos in the streets. The goddamned chief of police was murdered. What’s two men having lunch together?”
“What’s one missing report?” Enrique added.
When Sevilla looked at the pages of his notes again, he saw the picture and it made him tremble. He squeezed his hands into fists and let them go. The skin on the backs of his knuckles was old. He was old and he felt his age.
“What are you thinking?” Enrique asked.
“I think you will follow Ortíz again. And I will do something stupid.”
THREE
THE BANK WAS THE KIND BUILT when such places were meant to be palaces, fortresses of money or cathedrals of a sort, where petitioners came with offerings of a few hundred pesos to lay the foundation of a dream. Sevilla could remember when he was twenty-two years old and had saved enough to open his account. The bank had not changed much at all.
Brass-fitted bars still enclosed the tellers, but behind this was a thick layer of bulletproof glass to protect against modern bandits. Desks where suit-wearing men rendered judgment on loans and accounts were laden with computers instead of typewriters and at some point in the intervening decades air conditioning had been installed to cool the whole edifice.
Sevilla felt sick to his stomach, and from time to time as he waited in the pre-lunch crowd of customers he thought of reconsidering and fleeing, but he didn’t. When at last it was his turn, the teller raised both eyebrows at the amount on the green withdrawal slip. “Are you sure of this, señor?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Sevilla said, though he was not.
“Do you want this amount as a cashier’s check?”
“I want it in cash. Large bills.”
“Would you like to speak with a manager?”
“No.”
Sevilla put the money in a briefcase and for a moment he felt like one of his narcos, packing thousands into neat bundles and then bricking them together until there were just rows and rows of brand-new five-hundred-peso notes.
He went to a place he found in the telephone directory, careful to put his pistol in the glove compartment of his car and lock it because this was no time for awkward questions.
Inside the shop there were dummies wearing suits, some completed and others still in a state of construction. Bolts of rich fabric nestled in hardwood cubbies and there was the smell of hot wire and cigars in the air. The tailor was a gray-bearded man a head shorter than Sevilla. He had pins stuck into a band around his left arm and wore a green visor that reminded Sevilla of the bank he’d just left.
“Good day, señor,” the tailor said.
“Buenas tardes. I need a suit.”
The tailor motioned with his hand to encompass the cloth, the dummies and the storefront. Behind him was a broad table with measuring sticks built into its surface. An open door to the back room revealed two sewing machines and still more fragments of suits uncompleted. “I will do my best,” he said.
“The thing is,” Sevilla said, “I need more than one. And I need them quickly. Within three days. The first I will need tomorrow.”
“This I can do, but a rush order is more expensive.” The tailor looked at Sevilla’s suit, the deep wrinkles and the dulled color of what had once been nearly perfect white. He did not sniff, but Sevilla saw his contempt. “Is this the first time señor has had a suit tailored?”<
br />
“Is it so obvious?” Sevilla joked.
“Yes, señor, but no matter. Every man has a first time in a suit fitted to him. For some that time comes early and others not.”
Sevilla stood with his hands out at his sides. “What do we do?”
“First señor makes a deposit for his suits.”
FOUR
ONCE AN HOUR AND SOMETIMES more, Garcia called Enrique’s phone. Each time Enrique silenced it. After a while he turned off the ringer altogether. He didn’t expect a call from Sevilla and if one came he would be able to return it quickly enough. If worst came to worst, Enrique could leave a message at the Hotel Lucerna under the name Villalobos.
In poker they called this all in, a term Enrique learned from watching games played in Las Vegas, USA, for more money than he would ever earn in a lifetime of work. The men and sometimes women were so assured in their movements, pressing stacks of chips worth thousands of US dollars into play as if their value was nothing more than that of the clay of which they were made. He knew there must be fear behind those blank expressions, those poker faces, but they might as well have been ordering lunch.
At first Enrique argued with Sevilla, but the longer they argued the more it made sense. In the end they were alone because the case they pursued was already closed. The men who did it were confessed, all but convicted and, in the case of Estéban Salazar, dead. No judge need hear the case, nor jury be convened. One might come to call for Kelly Courter, but then only if he returned to the world of the living. He was suspended as everything else was suspended. This way was the only way out.
The black pick-up truck moved through traffic ahead of him and Enrique followed. Ortíz was like a policeman working a beat, patrolling endlessly and never staying in any one place too long. He visited casinos and brothels and gymnasiums and, shark-like, moved on. Before long Enrique had his rhythm, understood the pattern of quarry and pursuer, and his hands relaxed on the wheel. He was able to think.
His phone vibrated on the seat beside him. He didn’t bother to look down. Up ahead the truck made a left-hand turn. Enrique barely managed to squeak through the light.
Again the truck slowed. It was the large, shiny fitness club again. Enrique cruised gently to the curb and stilled the engine. He put down the window and let the light, heat and smells of the street come in.
FIVE
THE SUIT DIDN’T FEEL RIGHT BECAUSE it fit so well. Sevilla was used to the idiosyncrasies of his own clothes, the way they cinched and pulled where they shouldn’t and where they hung comfortably loose. Without years of washing and wearing behind them, the suit also lacked the smell of well-worn clothes. He felt trussed up and foolish, but when he approached the maître d’ at the Misión Guadalupe without a reservation he wasn’t shooed away and that was how he knew the suit was as it should be.
“I would have called before,” Sevilla told the maître d’. “But I’ve been so busy.”
“Of course, señor,” the maître d’ replied. “We have a table we can make available for you. It will be just a few minutes. Would you care for something from the bar while you wait?”
Sevilla licked his lips unconsciously and then covered for it with a cough. “No,” he said. “No, thank you. I can wait.”
“Very good.”
The restaurant was traditionally Mexican in its cuisine, though taken through the filter of fine dining. Light-colored walls, blond wood and marble bespoke elegance and the menu announced dishes Sevilla had eaten all his life but with variations he didn’t recognize. The leather chairs in the waiting area were angular and modern looking and not welcoming when he sat down. It was as he suspected; all for show and not for use.
In the dining room three massive alabaster plinths dominated the space. Sevilla saw the bar, backlighted like some valuable statue, its expanse carved of the same stone. He was given a table near the back of the restaurant, set for one. He passed Madrigal’s table along the way.
Rafa Madrigal held court at a large, round table with four other men. Three were his age, leonine faces set off by deep tans and whitening hair. The fourth was much younger, only in his twenties, but no stranger to his surroundings. The forest of crystal and silver surrounded them. The comida corrida was not for men like these a succession of peasant foods, but dish after dish of handcrafted excellence. As Sevilla took his seat he saw one set of plates whisked away and another laid in their place by a coterie of waiters in black pants and tight, matching T-shirts.
He was not close enough to hear what they were saying, though the conversation was continuous. Sevilla made an effort not to look too often in their direction. He forced himself to examine the menu.
When ordering he felt a fool, an ape-man pretending to be a gentleman, but his server seemed to pay no mind to his hesitation or his awkwardness. An appetizer of quesadillas with huitlacoche came to his table within minutes, and though Sevilla expected he would be too distracted to notice, the flavor was extraordinary. He tried not to think about the cost.
Of the five at Madrigal’s table he recognized only the man himself. The others may have seemed vaguely familiar, but Sevilla dismissed the thought; sometimes a policeman could convince himself he knew more than he did and then make assumptions that could be crippling. Madrigal he knew. The rest he did not. He wouldn’t pretend to himself or anyone else that it was otherwise.
Sevilla didn’t much care for fish, but he ordered salmon anyway. Like the quesadillas, it was amazing. For a few moments he struggled between his plate and the men at Madrigal’s table, but the salmon was gone too soon and he was left to his water glass.
Madrigal was at least two courses ahead and when Sevilla saw the servers bring coffee he knew he could wait no longer. His hands were damp. He wiped them on his napkin. When that was done, he took two deep breaths and rose from his seat. He crossed the dining room lightheaded. By the time the first head turned in his direction, Sevilla was smiling.
“Excúseme, gentlemen,” Sevilla said. “I hate to interrupt. Rafa Madrigal? Juan Villalobos. You may not remember me, but we met once a few years ago.”
All the men looked at Sevilla and he tried not to shrink under the combined strength of their gazes. Most of the faces were blank, but the young man’s expression curdled. Madrigal’s eyes were unreadable until the moment the corners turned up and he grinned. “In Mexico City, is that right?” he asked.
Sevilla felt clenched inside. “Yes. The policemen’s charity.”
“Yes, yes, I remember. You were with your wife. I’m sorry, Señor Villalobos, but I had forgotten your name. It’s good to see you again.”
Madrigal offered his hand and they shook. The man had a strong grip. His hair was turning prematurely white, but his handshake reminded Sevilla the man was not yet old. His face was lean and clean shaven. Though he had paid for too much for a salon treatment, Sevilla felt unkempt in his mustache and beard.
“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Sevilla said. “I will leave you to your meal.”
He turned to go. Madrigal caught at his sleeve. “No, no, please stay. Are you still eating? Have them serve you here, if you don’t mind the company.”
Sevilla pretended to waver. “All right, but please don’t feel you must. I only wanted to say hello.”
“Nonsense, please sit.”
The man signaled a waiter and Sevilla’s food was transferred from his table to the empty space among the men. Sevilla was directly across from the young man whose expression still had not changed. The others were merely curious now and each greeted Sevilla kindly as they were introduced.
“And this is my son, Sebastián,” Madrigal said.
“Mucho gusto,” Sevilla said.
“Igualmente,” the young man replied without enthusiasm.
Madrigal seemed not to notice. “When you’re finished, you must try this coffee,” he said to Sevilla. “It has a taste of licorice. Very good. I don’t pretend to know what they put in it; I always forget when they tell me.”
“You are involved with charities?” asked one of the other men. His name was Hernández.
“Yes. Particularly those to do with police and hospitals. We seem to need both very much these days.” As Sevilla spoke he didn’t recognize his own voice. He went on to talk about three different charities as if he was a regular contributor and he did not stammer once. He told them of his home in Mexico City, his wife’s death, his retirement boredom. Food came and went. He was as smooth and flawless as the chichilo negro poured over the tenderloin. He was a master.
Sebastián said something Sevilla didn’t hear.
“I’m sorry?”
“Why are you in Ciudad Juárez?” Sebastián asked again.
Sevilla put up his hands. “It was somewhere to go. Besides, I think the steak here was worth the trip alone.”
The older men laughed, but Sebastián did not. He fell silent.
“How long will you be in the city?” Madrigal asked Sevilla.
“A week, perhaps two. I was thinking about going across the border for a while. I’ve never seen the Alamo.”
“You’ll be disappointed,” Señor Hernández said. “It’s in the middle of the city!”
Madrigal’s coffee was long finished and the table was nearly empty. A server placed a cup and saucer before Sevilla as quickly and gently as a ghost and was gone again. For their part the other men didn’t seem to notice the presence of anyone outside their own group; it was as though the room was theirs and theirs alone and everything was brought to them by magic.
“Do you play golf?” asked Madrigal.
“I don’t play well, but I play.”
This made the men laugh again. Madrigal waved that away. “It’s no matter. If you have the time, why not come out to Los Campos for a round? Who knows the next time you will be in the city?”
Sevilla used a tiny spoon to put sugar into his coffee. He observed his hands as if from a distance. They did not shake. “That would be very kind of you, but I wouldn’t want to impose.”
