Margarito arrived at city hall just as the ceremony was about to begin. The new mayor and his team saw him enter the legislative chamber through the side door, but acted as though he didn’t exist. Unsurprisingly, every aspect of the event was designed to keep everyone at least ten feet from the new mayor, so he wouldn’t have to shake anyone’s hand.
He wasn’t yet forty, but the port’s highest-ranking councilman was already a household name nationally. The chief had contributed to his fame—though not as the mayor would have liked—with that business about the foreign girl who took a ten-story fall from one of his parties. More recently, after announcing his candidacy he’d visited every major tourist beach in the country—Isla Mujeres, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta, Huatulco, Ixtapa, Los Cabos—and then moved on to Miami, Cartagena, Rio de Janeiro, and even Mar del Plata. He claimed that those places had inspired him to turn La Eternidad into a first-world waterfront and that he was going to transform the town into a tourist destination of their caliber. At least, that was his campaign promise.
He seemed younger than he had the last time Margarito had seen him, like he’d gotten rid of a few wrinkles. And then there was that blond hair—as silky as a woman’s and teased so high it eclipsed even his bad reputation—and his lips, which plumply suggested a plastic surgeon’s intervention. When he saw Margarito, the mayor pursed those lips and thrust out his chin, shaking the locks that framed his face. The chief said nothing, but he was not a fan of the man’s coif.
A moment before the ceremony began, he noticed El Flaco gesturing to him from the hallway.
“What’s up?”
“We got them, sir. They say they’re from Chiapas, but their accents are Central American.” The chief had almost forgotten about the suspicious characters he’d seen near city hall. El Flaco had done a good job. “Their arms are covered in tattoos. Could be a couple of the Maras they’re looking for in Tampico. I sent them to headquarters for a chat.”
“Were they clean?”
“They didn’t have weapons or drugs on them. One other thing …” El Flaco gestured toward the parking lot with his chin. “Your son’s security detail wants us to turn over the patrol vehicles. I told them they can have them once we’ve gone back to the office and signed what needs to be signed. That until then, they can walk. Right, boss?”
The chief looked at his son. “Give them your vehicle and tell El Dorado to take my son in the Suburban. You and I will follow in the other squad car with La Tonina. Everyone else should go back to the office after the event.”
“Yes, sir,” El Flaco replied and left.
Just then Margarito’s cell phone rang with a call he needed to take: it was the federal agent investigating the threat on his life. The night before, fully aware of the risk, the chief had decided he’d need the help of Adrián Melgoza, a young technician from Los Coquitos he’d personally sent through the police academy and who was now working for the federales in the Department of Intelligence. Extortion and kidnapping had become such a huge problem in the past few years that the government had been forced to train a new generation of police officers in computer science and cybernetics so they could identify and trace suspicious calls from the country’s capital. The chief had called Adrián on his private line and asked him to trace the threat, without his superiors’ finding out. The kid had promised to look into it the next day, as soon as he got to the office. So the chief slipped out onto the terrace with all the discretion he could muster.
The best thing about city hall was the little terrace on the second floor, overlooking the water. It was a shame he’d spent so much time inside that building over the years and so little time out there. But he hadn’t come to admire the view.
“I’m sorry,” the agent said. “I did the best I could, but I hit a wall.”
The young man apologetically explained that the caller had used a distortion device, which made it impossible to know exactly where the signal had come from. The only thing he could say for certain was that the call had been made somewhere in the vicinity of La Eternidad.
“Could the call have come from the federal prison?”
The chief knew, because he himself had allowed it, that there was no shortage of prisoners in La Eternidad’s penal system who extorted money over the phone and who used devices to distort the signal so their victims couldn’t trace the call. They called random numbers or homes suggested by a contact on the outside in the middle of the night, claiming to have kidnapped a close relative of the person on the other end of the line. If the victims got scared enough, they’d take out a bunch of cash from an ATM and leave the supposed ransom in a remote location. It was one of the most common forms of quickie kidnapping: the fake kind. The chief knew all the culprits. He’d trained them himself and taken a share of their profits. He had to make money somehow, now that he wasn’t allowed to sell stolen cars. But the specialist put an end to his concerns.
“Not plausible. It’s too far outside the area.” When Margarito didn’t respond, he added, “Would you like us to put a tap on your phone, Chief? That would let us see where the call is coming from, if they contact you again.”
Margarito didn’t even have to think about that one. He couldn’t afford to have them record any of the other conversations he had on his personal phone. And that thing was going to be getting some serious use over the next few hours.
“No, thanks. I’d rather not. But I appreciate your help.”
He was about to pull a cigarette from his pack when he noticed that someone had followed him outside.
A gringo with thinning hair approached, offering a light. It took Margarito a minute to place him: it was Consul Don Williams, one of the most annoying men he’d ever met. He looked gaunt.
“My dear Consul, how are you doing?”
“Margarito. I didn’t think you remembered me. I’ve been waving at you.”
The chief told himself it was time to get a good pair of glasses; he hadn’t seen the man at all.
“Tell me, Consul, what can I do for you?”
“I was just wondering if you’ve found anything in connection to Cristina de León’s kidnapping.”
A seagull flew by.
“Ah, my dear Consul. I can only divulge that information to the girl’s parents. And, as I understand it, you’re no longer advising them.”
Williams shot him a fiery look.
“It was interesting, don’t you think, how your patrol vehicles blocked the exit of Mr. De León’s residential community. Cost us valuable time.”
“I already told you, we were pursuing a fugitive. It was a matter of public safety.”
“Say whatever you like, but when we were finally able to respond to the call for help, all we found was one of Rafael de León’s bodyguards, dead in an empty house. And the lead detective on the case, missing. As if the guilty party wanted to cover his tracks.”
“Don’t get too wrapped up in this, Consul. I know more than one guy who spent his last days mulling over these cases. Let it go. Enjoy your retirement.”
The gringo exploded at him.
“You’ll see soon enough what it’s like to fall from power. Everyone’s going to be coming for you. Run while you still can, Margarito.”
The policeman smiled broadly.
“I appreciate the advice. Hey, do you remember the package of product that went missing when they seized that American plane? They say a package like that could buy a house on the beach. In California, say …”
He heard a round of applause and looked inside to see that the mayor had started without him. You son of a bitch, he thought. What an asshole you turned out to be.
“If you’ll excuse me, I should head back inside. See you around, Williams.”
He turned back one last time before opening the door.
“Malibu. That’s the beach I was thinking of.”
They’d had so many run-ins over the past few years they hardly bothered him anymore. He’d lost track of the consul for a while, and now he was back. Some gringos could get attached to a jail cell after working there for a day.
Margarito took the first empty seat he saw in the audience. He scanned the other attendees and was surprised to see his ex-wife in the front row, next to the deadbeat who followed her everywhere, supposedly her new partner. Pino Panetta was his name; he was another Italian who’d decided to put down roots in La Eternidad. Slim and blond, he owned the restaurant La Buona Notte and was known in the late nineties—when Margarito and his wife were separating—for being quite the ladies’ man. A real Casanothing, thought the chief, who couldn’t stand the guy and used to encourage his men to park the department’s old Jeep in front of his restaurant, blocking the entrance. He smiled at his wife, but she just rolled her eyes. The chief cursed under his breath when his greeting was returned by a nod from her companion.
Seated just behind them was La Eternidad’s new generation of politicians, the luxury models. There were the dazzling councilmen, the campaign advisers, and the port’s resident moneybags—all of them with fancy moisturizer on their faces and lovely wives on their arms. More than one avoided his eyes. Ingrates, thought the chief. All right, so he’d been blackmailing a few of them recently, but he’d also preserved some semblance of order in the port, which meant they weren’t bothered by every delinquent with a sense of initiative. Besides, that degree of disdain hardly seemed gentlemanly, to quote his old friend Detective Elijah. Fucking Elijah, I’d like to hear what he’d have to say about all this.
“The nerve of that old bastard, showing up here …”
The comment came from the middle of the crowd, where the unruliest attendees were sitting. He immediately picked out the ones who’d given him the most trouble over the years: human rights advocates who recently started taking positions in the government, and a few key figures for the opposition—the widow whose husband had been killed at a military checkpoint, the students who’d suffered bullet wounds on their way to class, the woman who led an organization demanding the safe return of missing husbands and relatives, the man who ran an orphanage for children who’d lost their parents to the violence. The only ones who’d shown up to support him were his security detail and the inner circle made up of his secretary, Robusta, plus El Sony, La Gordis, and El Chino.
In the back, flanked by a small detail of soldiers, General Rovirosa greeted him with a wave. Now there’s a professional. The Three Stooges were also in attendance, standing closer to the mayor’s men than to his own; if they’d seen him, they weren’t showing much enthusiasm. His seven colleagues from the office, counting Cástulo, the old night watchman, stood in the back with La Caterpillar, who sometimes turned up around there. They were the only ones who shouted “Bravo!” when they saw him; of the group, only La Cat applauded.
“Gentlemen,” said the mayor, flashing the journalists a cardboard smile. “The city I’ve been elected to serve is about to be strengthened by one of the most respected officers who have ever worked for the local police force. His reputation for fulfilling his duties with exemplary zeal precedes him. We have no doubt his presence will help us move past this period of instability that has so negatively affected the image of La Eternidad.”
He said a new generation stepped in to replace the old every fifteen years in all human societies, and it was his time to take over. The port was going to become one of the country’s foremost tourist destinations.
“There will be palm trees running the length of this street, yachts docked offshore, new restaurants and hotels. We’ll lay new cobblestones, build benches for the little old ladies to enjoy, pave the road to the airport. Like all of you, I want to turn La Eternidad into a better place to live.”
By that point, Margarito had stopped listening.
“And we are confident that our new chief of police will be a great asset in this decisive war we have declared on crime.”
Decisive? thought Margarito. Only if you mean you’ve decided to lose. I haven’t seen any new weapons, uniforms, or patrol cars.
Without a single kind word about Margarito’s nearly thirty years of service, the mayor talked about the future and the political party that had just risen to power after more than eighty years of corruption in the city. Maybe the chief was being paranoid, but he felt like certain jabs were directed at him. The mayor criticized the many sins of the old system, like hiring untrained, superstitious individuals with proven criminal ties: long-haired, easygoing deadbeats who lived in their swim trunks. His gaze fell on the twenty young men and women fresh out of the academy, standing guard with their backs to the mayor and new police chief, well groomed and purposeful, dressed in white. To Margarito, they looked like they were about to take their First Communion.
“I have one question for you, Ricardo. How far are you willing to take this fight?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“You have my full support.”
As if they’d rehearsed it, the audience immediately erupted in applause. The politician smiled, his blue eyes and wavy blond hair accenting his warm, earnest expression, and he reached out to shake Ricardo’s hand in a flurry of camera flashes. A man to the chief’s right commented to the woman beside him that the mayor was on his way to a governorship. When the applause and flashes died down, the young lady from public relations handed Margarito an envelope.
“Your letter of resignation is inside. The mayor asks you to please sign it.”
Margarito took the envelope, folded it, and shoved it into his back pocket.
“Tell him I’ll send it to him,” he said.
The girl seemed horrified by where he’d stowed the letter, but left without another word.
The mayor’s communications team had done a good job: most of the questions posed to the group seated at the table seemed to have been set ahead of time. The journalists asked Ricardo if he would give preferential treatment to any of the criminal organizations that were devastating the region. “Absolutely not,” he replied, saying he would throw the full weight of the law at anyone who threatened public order. They asked him if he planned to use any of the knowledge he’d acquired abroad, and he answered that he was ready and willing to do so. Finally, they asked if he would be bringing on and training more officers. Ricardo looked discreetly at the mayor, who was still wearing his frozen smile. Catching the gesture, he responded immediately.
“Of course he will. We’ll make sure he has all the resources he needs. Otherwise we wouldn’t have offered him the job. And that,” the mayor asserted, “will be all for the question and answer. The new chief has work to do.”
The mayor was already rising from his seat when he saw Juan de Dios, who’d arrived late, raise his hand.
“Juan de Dios Cuevas, for Proceso. I was wondering, Chief, if you’re going to look the other way on what’s been happening around there these past few months or if you plan to do your job. We’ve had crimes of extraordinary violence here every few weeks for the past two years, and none of those cases have ever been solved. They weren’t even investigated by your predecessor. Where do you stand on this?”
Ricardo cleared his throat. “If I may …”
The camera lights went on again and the reporters aimed their recording devices at the nearest loudspeaker.
“If you’re referring to the mass killings on the outskirts of the city, the law will deal with those crimes as it would with any other. Every crime will be investigated. That’s one of my main objectives.”
“Even yesterday’s massacre of twenty people off Highway 180?”
“That crime is a high priority. In fact, I’m planning to investigate it myself.”
There was a moment of enthusiastic applause, but the reporter did not let go of the microphone. Instead, he took the opportunity to address the mayor.
“Your Honor, what are your thoughts on the rumors regarding the hotel industry, specifically those that indicate collusion—”
The mayor pursed his pouty lips. “I’m under no obligation to respond to those slanderous allegations against my administration. I was elected by the people of this city, and I will answer to them if called upon to do so. I will not answer to malicious critics.”
To Margarito’s surprise, the comment was met by a wave of whistles and applause among the municipal employees. He’s got them all in his pocket, he thought. He signaled to El Dorado and La Tonina, and they approached his son.
“Whenever you’re ready, we’ll take you over.”
“There’s no need. My team is here. I’ll see you at the office, to take care of the paperwork.”
Margarito shook his head while Ricardo instructed his future assistant on how to prepare the convoy.
“These guys don’t look like they have any experience at all. Let me take you.”
Ricardo looked him in the eyes and shook his head.
“I’ll see you at headquarters. Bring a lawyer.”
Margarito gestured to El Dorado and La Tonina, who headed downstairs beside him. They ended up in a shoving match with the new security detail, which wasn’t even in the same weight class as them. Without meaning to, they bumped into one of the human rights advocates as they passed.
As he stepped into the hall, Margarito noticed how the nearby gardens were catching the morning sun, flashes of green and yellow illuminating the palm fronds. But he’d have plenty of time to take in the landscape soon enough—that is, if they didn’t send him to the clink. For now, he headed down to the parking lot where Ricardo and his secretary had already climbed into the Suburban and closed the doors, indicating they didn’t want company. When he saw El Flaco in the pickup La Tonina had been driving back at the airport, he turned and hurried to the truck, which sat there with a door slung open for him.
He watched one of his vehicles, carrying two of the new recruits, pass the Suburban and exit the parking lot. The driver clearly didn’t know the port very well, because he stopped when they got to the gate. Eventually, he pulled out to the right and the Suburban followed, with El Dorado at the wheel and Ricardo and his assistant inside.
He caught his son’s eye only once. At the very last moment, Ricardo had smiled and waved to his father. The chief tried his best to do the same, though he knew his sadness was written all over his face.
As soon as he sat down in the back seat of the dual-cabin truck where El Flaco and La Tonina were waiting for him, he cursed the fact that the vehicle didn’t have air-conditioning in the back. The leather upholstery had gotten as hot as hell itself. He’d have to keep the window open.
“Step on it, goddammit,” he said. “Don’t lose them.”
“All right, boss. I’m on it,” La Tonina replied, though at that point he couldn’t have cared less about getting anywhere on time.
To the chief’s surprise, instead of heading for the waterfront, which would have been the obvious choice, the first vehicle in the convoy took a cobblestone side street that was often jammed with cars parked along the right-hand side. For fuck’s sake, these guys are green, he thought. But he was in no position to give orders anymore. The first beads of sweat dripped from his forehead; the heat was suffocating. He felt a weight on his chest and opened the top button of his shirt. In the front seat, El Flaco turned the air all the way up.
As was always the case at that time of day, the streets were full of people: women taking their children to school, nine-to-fivers running to work, vendors selling fried food, old ladies on their way to the supermarket, gringos and tourists looking for a nice place to have breakfast.
The chief’s mind was on his immediate future. He’d been hoping that one of the politicians he knew would offer him another gig, so he could hang on to some of the benefits of being a government employee. But the hour had come, and none of them were returning his calls, so it looked like the transfer of power would take place as planned in a few minutes. He glanced at El Flaco and La Tonina. Most of his men were probably right behind him on his way out the door.
When the vehicle at the head of the convoy reached the corner of Matamoros and Allende, he saw a gas tanker up ahead of it pull out in reverse, blocking the street. Nice driving, genius, he thought. The convoy waited for the tanker truck to park. He saw the typical trio of street kids come running toward them, jockeying among themselves to wipe the vehicles’ windshields for some spare change. They smiled like piranhas as they approached. The look of desperation. And what if he stopped messing around and just asked his godson for a job? He knew how to keep an eye out for the law.
“Fuck!”
La Tonina slammed on the brakes. Margarito was about to give him hell when he saw the driver reach for his sidearm.
And then he understood.
He saw the smiles frozen on the faces of the boys—who weren’t actually boys, just short and skinny—and he saw that the smiles were just a disguise. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was criminals who smiled before they struck.
It felt as if a crowd was throwing stones at the dual-cabin truck; the air around him buzzed as a second wave of hail crashed against the left side of the vehicle. La Tonina and El Flaco began to shake as if someone had dropped scorpions down their shirts, and the spiderwebs covering the front windshield made it impossible to see. The chief felt his shoulder whip back and noticed a hole in his shirt. La Tonina launched forward, a little out of sync with the hailstorm blanketing them. The burning in his shoulder got worse. Before he could grasp what was happening, he saw El Flaco slump over and fall sideways onto La Tonina’s lap. The vehicle rolled a few feet and hit something, but that didn’t stop another hail of bullets from clattering against its left side like angry protesters banging on its doors. The back window shattered and he understood.
A young man in a green hoodie was killing La Tonina. It looked like he was spraying him with blood. Satisfied that his bullets had found their target, he turned his weapon on Margarito. From where the chief sat, the gun looked like a toy.
The thug in the hoodie stepped onto the curb, looking for a better angle. Margarito lost precious seconds struggling with the door on the right-hand side of the vehicle. When he managed to get it open, he fell rather than jumped out, landing with all his weight on his left shoulder. A jolt of pain brought him to his feet, and not a second too soon, because a spray of bullets had taken the spot where he fell.
He crawled back toward the truck and leaned against the rear tire. He knew he needed to draw his weapon, but the pain in his shoulder wouldn’t let him. He heard a sound to his left and managed to catch sight of the Suburban up ahead, where El Dorado had pushed open the passenger door and was trying to get out. He couldn’t, entirely, but he did manage to draw his gun and aim it at the man shooting at him from beside the gas tanker. Fuck, thought Margarito. We’re fucked. But El Dorado kept firing until his assailant went down. That’s one asshole less, at least.
Seeing this, a man dressed in black, who looked to be around forty, stopped shooting at the first vehicle in the convoy and bounded toward the Suburban with the efficient movements of a professional. A young man with a long goatee, wearing track pants, followed close behind him. The man in black took careful aim at El Dorado and bang, he ended up like La Tonina.
Then, with the same steady hand, he pointed his gun into the Suburban. As if he were hunting deer. It took Margarito a second to realize he was aiming at his son.
“Hey! Asshole!”
In one motion he struggled to his feet, drew, and fired. The man in black and the kid with the goatee both turned and leveled their guns at him. Margarito took cover behind the open door of the vehicle and exchanged shots with them from there, until the man in black caught a bullet to the leg, momentarily used the kid with the goatee as a human shield, and then limped off, disappearing between two parked cars.
Margarito was trying to get the kid’s head in his sights when the thug in the hoodie popped up on the other side of the truck. The chief barely had time to duck before he started shooting at him again.
He launched himself toward the nearest vehicle and slumped down, his back against the car’s rear fender. From what he could gather, the guy in the hoodie and the one with the goatee had managed to get on either side of him. If they walked toward him on different sides of the vehicle, it was a matter of seconds before they had him. There was nowhere to run.
The dual waves of bullets hit the car in front of him with a hellish clatter. He tried to figure out the nearest attacker’s position, but the only thing he could make out clearly was the sound of tourists running for safety. Just one little boy remained, staring at him through the window of an eyeglass shop.
A chilling silence fell over the street.
The chief tried to catch the boy’s eye, but he was looking in horror to the police officer’s left. He realized there was someone there, about to ambush him. He reached up and emptied his magazine in that direction. The kid with the goatee fired one last spray of bullets in the direction of the shopwindow before landing faceup on the street.
Before he could turn, the thug in the green hoodie appeared on his right, weapon in hand. Suddenly, the young man’s other hand jerked up toward his back in search of the knife he imagined was sticking out of it; spitting blood, the thug collapsed right next to him.
For a few moments, the only sound was the first raindrops of a storm falling on the waterfront.
Then came footsteps on broken glass, more shots, and a woman’s voice.
“Chief! Over here!”
He didn’t answer, but he recognized La Gordis’s voice. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air, and the rain had started falling harder, the drops sharp as knives. At the end of the street, he saw a group of girls running and several people huddled in the doorway of a stationery store. A woman on the ground. A man in a white guayabera, shielding another woman behind a column. He heard a siren approach.
He got to his feet and realized the little boy in the eyeglass shop was actually just an image on a poster. La Gordis and the others had almost reached him. He gestured frantically to them, waving one hand.
“They went that way. Go!”
He ran toward the Suburban, looked inside, and then headed for the corner. With his back to the gas tanker, he scanned the street for the man in black. There were no cars around. Just then, it started to pour so hard it seemed like someone had opened a faucet, and he couldn’t see anything anymore.
He counted three bodies and a cholo about to expire on the pavement. Chief Margarito, the highest authority on the police force for thirty years, scourge of the people and friend to evildoers, doubled back, crossing through sheets of rain, toward the giant coffin that used to be the Suburban. He looked at his watch. Two hours and twenty minutes had elapsed between the start of the ceremony and the attack.
Two hours twenty, he thought. You did better than the guy in La Nopalera.