MATÍAS WATCHED THE AZTECA NAMED Ramón Ayala through one-way glass.
Ayala was just a kid, twenty years old, but a longtime member of Los Aztecas. According to the records Matías requested and received, Ayala had first gotten into Aztecas-related trouble when he was twelve years old. He had already served time in jail.
There was no mistaking his affiliation: both of his arms were sleeved with tattoos that told the story. On one side, a profusion of images associated with the ancient Aztecs. On the other side, guns and women and the number 21. Matías hadn’t yet had a look at the ink Ayala wore on his chest and back, but he was sure it would be more of the same.
Of the ten men they’d taken from the Azteca house in the raid led by Muñoz, two names had floated to the top consistently. Ramón Ayala’s was one of them. At this point Ayala had been kept up for forty-eight hours, denied anything but water and then given no access to the bathroom. Both Sosa and Galvan had visited him at regular intervals.
Matías could see it in Ayala’s eyes, though Ayala did not know anyone was watching. Desperation had its own particular look, a tightness in the facial muscles, a pallor of the skin that artificial light only made more pronounced. And Ayala was sweating heavily, such that the material of his shirt clung to his body.
He closed the shade and cut off the view, collected his things from the interview table behind him and left the room. Out in the hall he could hear jailhouse noise filtering down: snatches of shouts, clanging metal and the general din of many conversations happening at once, reflected off concrete.
At the next door he paused and made sure he was presentable, then he let himself in.
Ayala was hunched over the table. Up close Matías could see that perspiration had made it into his hair, matted it together. There was a bucket in the corner of the room. Maybe it wasn’t sweat at all. Matías had not watched Sosa and Galvan at work.
It was all theater, what Matías did. As he had done with all the interviewees up to this point, he made a careful show of laying out his notepad, his pen, his folder of paperwork. He knew he looked like Ayala’s polar opposite: clean and well-tailored and most of all rested. The illusion was that this could go on forever in an endless cycle and no one in authority would be bothered enough to even show a hair out of place.
Matías could smell the despair coming off Ayala. The young man reeked of urine and stale body odor. When he looked at Matías, he trembled in anticipation of the blow. It occurred to Matías that maybe they’d been too hard on this one, or maybe he was just letting sentiment obstruct his better judgment.
“Hello,” Matías said when he sat down.
“H-hello,” Ayala said.
“I don’t know if you smoke. Would you like to smoke?”
“I smoke.”
The pack came from inside Matías’ jacket. He slipped one cigarette free and offered it to Ayala. The man took it with his free hand. His lower lip was split and distended and Matías feared the cigarette would fall. Ayala barely kept the tip steady for Matías to light it.
Matías let Ayala smoke for a minute or two uninterrupted. The trembling was less pronounced now, but the air of distress didn’t leave the man.
“I think you know why I’m here,” Matías said at last.
Ayala exhaled smoke. “Someone snitched on me.”
“Yes.”
“And now I have to confess.”
“Yes.”
“How much do you have?”
“Five signed statements attesting to your role in the shooting of a half-dozen Salvadorans outside a social club. I could get more, but we’ve left the girls out of it for now. I’m sure you bragged to at least one of them.”
The tremor was back as Ayala took another drag. Matías let the smoke curlicue up between them, catch in the beam of the overhead light and dissipate at the ceiling. The smell of tobacco made Matías want a cigarette, too, but he had quit three years before and would not risk starting again.
“How much will I get?”
“Most likely? Life. If you’re willing to give me the names of the other shooters, then maybe concessions can be made. A better prison. Privileges. At the very least, you won’t have to go to prison alone.”
Ayala’s face screwed up and he rubbed at one black eye. “I was just doing what they told me to do.”
“You can give me the names of those who gave the orders. Then they can pay, too.”
A tear fell down Ayala’s cheek and Matías had to steel himself from wrinkling his nose in disgust. Men like Ayala did not deserve the luxury of tears. He wondered if there would be any tears at all if Sosa and Galvan had not made their case so strenuously.
“I’ll tell you whatever you want,” Ayala said.
Matías took up his pen. “You know, you’re very lucky this didn’t happen on the other side of the border. In the States they have the death penalty.”
“You still get my life.”
“But not fast enough, mi amigo. Not fast enough.”