Dance With Snakes

by Horatio Castellanos Moya

  Matías tells her she’s got two jobs to do: write an article as quickly as possible about the disturbance at the Presidential Palace, placing a special emphasis on how the President fled, then finish up her in-depth report.

  Rita goes back to her desk, calls Roger to explain what happened and to tell him it’ll be impossible for them to have dinner together. She turns on her computer and starts writing, just like that, with no outline. She already knows what she wants to say and if she stops to think about it, she might get stuck.

  But she finds it impossible to write the article in first person, to confess how terrified she was after she saw the wrong yellow car, to explain the chaos she caused in the building. The two pages she’s written scarcely explain the details of the President’s evacuation.

  She prints it out, rereads it and walks over to Matías’s office.

  “This is no good,” he says, throwing the paper on the desk. He uses the butt of his cigarette to light another. “I asked you for a first-person account, something about your own experience, something with colour, something strong, not a press release.”

  Rita is standing in front of the desk. She feels an unbearable urge to pee.

  “But I can’t write that I caused all that commotion because I thought it was the car with the snakes,” she stammers.

  “Why not? That’s what you have to write!” Matías shouts. “You say you were going inside to cover the emergency cabinet meeting when you saw an old yellow car. You told the chief of security and that’s when the ruckus started! Stop pussyfooting around! This is garbage!” he says, pointing at the paper. “You didn’t even need to be there to write that!”

  She doesn’t answer. Red-faced and gritting her teeth, she leaves. Who does that foul-breathed, bald-headed fool think he is, screaming at her like that? He wants to make her look ridiculous, to burn her, to get an exclusive at her expense.

  She sits back down in front of the computer. She’s hungry; she needs to put something in her stomach. She’ll ask one of the couriers to get her a salad at the pizza place on the corner. Feverishly, almost furiously, she starts to formulate the story she’d like to write – not the one Matías is demanding, not the one Roger would dream up, but her own. An intimate story, the one she’d like to tell to herself in order to understand how, in twenty-four hours, life can suddenly take on a whole new meaning, and what you once thought was solid and secure can be exposed as incredibly vulnerable.

  But the phone takes her out of her thoughts.

  She lifts the receiver.

  A rasping, nasal voice like that of an old drunk mumbles, “You don’t know me, but you’ve written about me and I know you’d like to meet me. My name is Jacinto Bustillo, the driver of the yellow Chevrolet, a friend of the snakes, the one you thought you saw a few hours ago in front of the Presidential Palace. Don’t talk, don’t ask any questions, and don’t interrupt me, because if you do, I’ll hang up. I’ll tell you what I have to say and that’s it. Everything that’s been written and said about me hasn’t captured the essence, the real truth, of what’s happening.”

  He pauses and sucks in a breath. He’s smoking, Rita thinks to herself. She turns on her tape recorder and connects the microphone to the receiver.

  “Your article this morning and the editorial took a shot in the dark. But I’m not crazy, and I’m not a criminal. I’m just someone who through tremendous effort and sheer will became what I am today: Jacinto Bustillo, the man with the snakes.”

  Another pause. Without letting go of the phone, Rita gestures to Jonás and El Zompopo, who just came into the office. She covers the mouthpiece and whispers that Jacinto Bustillo is on the line and to tell Matías to come quickly, before he hangs up.

  “It must have been me you saw driving by the Presidential Palace,” the voice continues. “But that’s not important. I’ve been all over the city. If I didn’t get inside the politicians’ lair it’s because I wasn’t meant to.”

  Matías comes running, exhilarated. He tells her to ask Bustillo for an interview, anywhere he likes and on his conditions. She keeps her hand over the mouthpiece and explains that she can’t interrupt him or he’ll hang up. Matías orders the staff to be quiet, pushes the loudness button and then, in the middle of the tense, expectant atmosphere, they hear the voice calmly say, “There’s no plan and there’s no conspiracy, the way they’re saying on the radio. Only chance and logic have allowed me to complete my mutation. But you wouldn’t understand.”

  There’s another pause, another drag on the cigarette.

  “I’ll call you back.”

  He hangs up.

  They stand there open-mouthed for a few seconds. Then they all start talking at once, loudly and excitedly. A few wonder whether it could have been a hoax, others mention the tone of his voice; those who have just arrived scold Rita for not having been more aggressive.

  Matías tells her to transcribe the recording right away and to bring him a copy as soon as it’s ready.

  “We’ve done it!” he exclaims, delighted. “With your account of what happened at the Presidential Palace and this transcript, we’re going to blow them out of the water.”

  “What if he calls back?” Rita asks.

  “Cut him off. Start talking to him. Make him trust you, tell him you do understand.”

  But she’s not happy about having to transcribe the tape. She needs to finish her article and then start her in-depth report. Isn’t that enough already?

  Matías says fine, Jonás will write the transcript while she concentrates on writing a piece that needs a new dimension, now that Jacinto Bustillo himself has confessed that he and his snakes drove by the Presidential Palace and caused all the commotion that forced the President and his ministers to be evacuated.

  That’s why Rita is so pleased, sitting at her computer. Her distraught entry into the corridors of power wasn’t the product of a hysterical young woman’s terror of being attacked by a bunch of snakes, but an astute reaction that enabled her to save the President of the Republic and his Security Cabinet from a possible attack by Jacinto Bustillo’s reptiles.

  Now she can write freely and at length. She can describe in detail the politicians’ panic and vent her emotions in the first person, without having to avoid mentioning her own cowardice, or even her initial fit of panic.

  Minutes later the phone rings again.

  The entire office goes still. All eyes expectantly turn to look at her.

  She lets it ring a few more times.

  She bites her nails.

  Matías comes over, nervously chewing the filter of his cigarette.

  “Pick it up! Don’t let him get away!”

  She lifts the receiver, a million questions in her mind, waiting to hear that same quiet voice, but the switchboard operator tells her it isn’t the man with the snakes.

  “Villalta,” Rita says, relieved.

  A collective jeer goes up around the room.

  Matías goes back to his office.

  “We know Bustillo called you,” the detective says.

  She assures him that he didn’t say anything worthwhile.

  They need the tape right away; it will help them enormously with the investigation. It’s the first time the suspect has made any contact, and the forensic psychologists can use it to create a profile.

  She doesn’t have the tape. She’s extremely busy writing an article about what happened at the Presidential Palace. He should talk to Matías; he’s the only one who can turn it over to them. She’ll transfer him right away, so Villalta can explain it to him.

  The detective passes the receiver to his boss, Deputy Commissioner Handal. This is an official request now, and it would be out of place for Villalta to order the news editor of one of the biggest newspapers in the country to give up the tape.

  It’s a matter of national security, Handal explains so there can’t be any doubt on the other end of the line. It’s for the sake of the President himself. They have to hand over the Bustillo tape wi
thout delay.

  But Matías knows how to play this game.

  “Of course, Deputy Commissioner, I just need a written request and a letter from the Commissioner promising it will only be used for police purposes and won’t be shared with any other news outlet.”

  Handal is probably in his swivel chair with his feet up on his desk, hating this insolent hack who has very little sympathy for the government and even less for the police. Meanwhile, Matías can barely contain his satisfied smirk. He feels like blowing smoke rings.

  “We need to keep in close contact,” Handal mumbles. “So we can trace the call if he phones again.”

  “He’ll call back, Deputy Commissioner, I’m sure of it. He promised.”

  Handal tells him he’ll send an officer over who’ll contact police headquarters right away to tell them which line Bustillo is on.

  “Yes, but under the same conditions. I want a promise from the Commissioner that nothing will be leaked to other papers,” Matías warns him. “If you want to set up a sting operation from here, I want an exclusive.”

  Fifteen minutes later, while Rita is still feverishly working on her first-person account, an extremely personal piece which, according to Jonás and Arturo, is going to win her the Best Journalist of the Year Award, detective Villalta himself comes into the office. He’s excited; his large jaw is clenched and it’s as if his radio is burning in his hands. He knows that in a few minutes, he’ll be in the home stretch of the hunt. He’s like an old bloodhound flexing his muscles after sniffing out the scent of his prey.

  He wants to explain the tactics he’d like Rita to follow when she gets the call to make sure they have enough time to trace it accurately and set up plans to surround the area and arrest him right away.

  But Rita is too involved in her piece, glued to her monitor, typing frantically. She tells him to get lost and not interrupt or distract her; to wait until she’s finished.

  “But you need to be prepared,” Villalta complains. “What if the phone rings right now?”

  She’s unimpressed. She tells him to either keep quiet or leave, they’ll call him when they have Bustillo on the line. Does he think she’s an idiot who doesn’t know how to handle this?

  All he wants is to follow Handal’s instructions, which are a key part of the plans being laid all over the city to get Bustillo: the entire operation’s success rests with her ability to keep him talking. Handal and Flores are at headquarters right now on red alert, in constant communication with units stationed near phone booths at strategic points across the city, particularly on the outskirts, because Handal has a gut feeling the yellow Chevrolet is out in the open, even though continuous helicopter searches have turned up nothing.

  Minutes, hours, the entire afternoon goes by, and Bustillo still hasn’t called.

  In that time, Rita has finished her article, and gone into Matías’s office brandishing her three pages, victorious. This time that bald-headed fool will have to congratulate her. She’s eaten her salad while chatting with Villalta, who’s feeling incredibly restless from the long wait. Now she’s working on the in-depth report, making use of some of the comments Bustillo made on the phone (even though they’ll print the entire transcript separately) to question the theories that the crimes are part of a conspiracy to destabilize the government, or are acts of retaliation by drug traffickers.

  She’s received several calls from colleagues who have been following the story, from girlfriends looking for gossip about the “vipers,” and one from Roger. She told him that the arrest of the lunatic with the snakes is largely dependent on her, much to the disgust of Villalta.

  And just as Handal predicted in the afternoon, Jacinto Bustillo waits until dark to call her back, when Rita’s nerves are completely shot from waiting.

  She gets the call at seven-oh-three. She’s barely halfway through her article.

  The murmurs start at the switchboard and grow like an enormous, threatening wave.

  When her phone rings, everyone at the newspaper is shaking.

  Villalta immediately contacts headquarters.

  A loaded, airless silence falls over the editorial office.

  Many reporters who already finished their assignments have stayed behind just for this moment.

  After the fifth ring, she lifts the receiver.

  Matías and Villalta are watching her tensely, as if they’re afraid he’ll hang up the phone at the first sign that something’s up.

  “Hello,” she says, trying to control the tremor in her voice. The urge to pee and to bite her nails has gone.

  “It’s me again,” says the voice, calm and mellow.

  Her phone is programmed to record and it’s on speaker so the entire staff can listen in.

  “Don Jacinto, I’d like you to help me, I don’t want to print anything that isn’t true. Please, let me ask you a few questions.” She’s talking quickly, vehemently, not giving him a chance to cut in. “What’s your real motive for these attacks? What do you mean when you say you’re trying to complete your mutation? Could you clarify what you said about it being an act of sheer will that changed you into what you are today? Do you feel any remorse for what’s happened and for the people who have died?”

  He doesn’t answer. It’s as though Rita’s barrage of questions has stunned him.

  “Don Jacinto, I’d also like to know about your relationship to the snakes,” she adds, staring at the paper she scrawled notes on while she was eating and Villalta was explaining how to keep a suspect on the line.

  “Where and how did you get them? How many are there? What kind are they? Do they follow your commands or do they act on their own? Why didn’t they bite your wife?”

  “I told you not to ask me any questions,” Bustillo mumbles distractedly. “I called you because I was surprised that your newspaper devoted so much space to the ladies’ work. This is the first time you’ve talked about me, and you haven’t even met me. But something tells me you aren’t being honest with me.”

  He slams the phone down. The newspaper office erupts into chaos.

  Villalta radios headquarters to see if they were able to trace the call. El Zompopo, Jonás and Rita will ride with him to cover the arrest; it’s part of the deal the Deputy Commissioner made with the news editor.

  Handal orders him to hurry to the southwest end of the city. All units are headed there, near San Mateo, where the Bustillos lived. A helicopter squad and a Special Forces unit armed with flamethrowers are also on their way.

  Rita doesn’t even turn off her computer; she nearly slips as she runs down the stairs. She gets in the Nissan just as Villalta is pulling out. She knows she’ll have the full story now, but Jacinto Bustillo’s final words to her play over and over in her head: “Something tells me you aren’t being honest with me.”

  FOUR

  I slept soundly, until noon, when heat, hunger and thirst woke me. I was sore from the beating I’d taken the night before, tired of all the commotion, and hungover. My body was just getting used to its new condition. The ladies weren’t in the car; perhaps they’d used the broken windshield to get out and lie in the sun. They too were tired, and unafraid of being discovered in the middle of the scrapyard. I was surprised no employee had come by to ask about the yellow Chevrolet. We were lucky we hadn’t been noticed. The caretaker at the gate was probably an illiterate who didn’t follow the news. It was noon on a Saturday and the place was completely deserted. It was just for us, as we deserved.

  I got out of the car to stretch. A harsh sun beat down on the empty grounds. I drank some water and found one of the bottles of rum I’d taken from Raúl Pineda’s house. I laid out some of the leftover upholstery next to the Chevrolet and lit a small fire, poured some water into one of Don Jacinto’s empty tin cans, tossed in the pieces of Valentina’s flesh and got ready to make a soup that would energize me. While I waited for the water to boil, I picked up the bottle of rum, took a long swig and started to limp around the scrapyard, curious to see whether I co
uld find any escape routes. And then I saw the ladies: the three of them, looking like those schoolgirls you see lying together at the beach enjoying the sun and the stares of onlookers. They didn’t notice me. I kept walking. I inspected the fence that surrounded the yard. The part that faced the street was made of grey brick, but the areas next to the empty lots on either side of the scrapyard were made of chain link and had several holes in them. The far side ended abruptly at a ravine with a stream at the bottom. The yard was the size of a city block. Dozens of cars were piled up haphazardly. On my way back to the Chevrolet I found a faucet. I turned it on and a small but steady stream of water came out. The soup still hadn’t boiled. I walked back over to the ladies. I sat down on the ground, in a thin shadow cast by a stack of three car frames. I took another sip of rum.

  “This is my last cigarette,” I said.

  I crumpled the pack into a ball and threw it as far as I could.

  They were in another world, in a state of such total relaxation and enjoyment that neither I nor anyone else could reach them; so peaceful they seemed almost harmless. They were all so different; each had her own character, her own style, her own look. And yet they were so supportive of one another, so committed in their affection. I missed Valentina, the most beautiful and sensuous, the warmest of them. I started to feel the nostalgia and sadness of someone who remembers a loved one.

  “I’m making a soup with Valentina’s remains,” I mumbled.

  They continued to ignore me.

  I took another sip of rum, went back to the car and took out Valentina’s skin so it could dry in the sun. The soup was boiling now, but I wanted to wait for the meat to be ready. It had to be tender and delicious, worthy of a girl like her. And since I didn’t have any seasoning, I looked for the bags of marijuana I’d taken from Raúl Pineda’s table and emptied them into the soup.

  Moving all that junk around, I found a small radio in a corner of the car, behind the empty cans. It worked perfectly, as if it had new batteries. I tuned in to a news update on the state of emergency that had been declared by the Presidential Palace because of an imminent snake attack. In the end, it turned out to be a false alarm caused by a yellow Ford whose driver had nothing to do with the perpetrator of the attacks destroying the city. The announcer said Rita Mena, a journalist with Ocho Columnas, was at the scene at the Presidential Palace covering an emergency cabinet meeting, and reported that stress and tension were prevailing even at the highest levels of government. Other sources claimed it was the reporter herself who had raised the alarm when she saw the yellow car as she entered the Presidential Palace.