We returned to Mexico City two days before November 20, 1979. We thought about spending the 20th together in Quintana Roo to celebrate the renewal of our acquaintance on that date three years earlier. It was the same memorable day a coup was supposed to have solved the crisis at the end of the Echeverría government and brought to a close the long era of civilian rule following the Mexican Revolution. Three years later, Rojano had been killed, more crises was brewing, and Anabela and I had been together, then separated. Now we were back in the dark playing a new game whose unreality made it all the more unnerving. Like the country, we were burning up in mid-air, set ablaze by the speed with which things were happening. Anabela’s inner turmoil and chronic fever were becoming apparent in her face and gestures, unmasking the rage she’d been able to contain up to now. In retrospect, it seemed as if the whole Rojano affair were simply the tragic outgrowth of her cold and unyielding will that was rivaled only by the fury seething beneath Pizarro’s equally impassive exterior.
I couldn’t get her to name the emissary, but I did piece together the history of his alleged triumph over Pizarro eight years earlier. It all began in March 1971 with the union elections at the Atzapotzalco refinery in Mexico City. It was the first time Lázaro Pizarro fell prey to temptation and ventured beyond his natural sphere of influence in Poza Rica. He cast his lot with a slate of Veracruzan immigrants that he supported with money, organization, and his by then notorious clout with the union’s national executive committee. He circulated confidential information about the corrupt doings of the rival slate and offered PEMEX a sweetheart contract with the Poza Rica local in exchange for supporting his candidates at the refinery. He also activated a so-called “security detail” which accomplished its pre-election mission by threatening key workers (departmental delegates whose influence and prestige could swing the election). Certain members of the rival slate were roughed up in bar fights or on account of supposed romantic rivalries. Shooting broke out at a meeting of the rival slate, and the gathering turned into a pitched battle. Several of those present suffered bullet wounds and one man, the brother of the candidate for secretary general, was stabbed to death.
The brawl on May 15, 1971, drastically altered the tone and strategies of the pending election. The dead man’s family was sufficiently extended to include a group of secret service agents who, thanks to the sacking of a police chief and the ensuing moral renovation campaign, had been fired. Driven by the affront to family honor and the promise of soft union jobs in the event of victory, the out-of-work cops sided with the slate being harassed by Pizarro. Before the week was out, news reached Poza Rica of the death in a bar fight of the leader of the security detail Pizarro had dispatched to the plant, and the disappearance of two subordinates following a night of carousing. The tale was credible except for the fact that the deceased, like each and every one of the bodyguards hired by Lázaro Pizarro, didn’t drink.
Pizarro swore to avenge these deaths with others and to restore union autonomy to the refinery by eradicating the non-union violence besetting it. The commando related to the opposing slate didn’t wait in Mexico City for Pizarro to take the offensive. They correctly surmised that recent losses and the dispatching of additional security to the capital would leave Pizarro lightly protected in Poza Rica. They hit the road at nightfall and by dawn, with help from another foursome of fired cops, proceeded to occupy Quinta Bermúdez. They caught the guards on the loading docks and the ones dozing in a van near the main entrance by surprise and tied them up. They climbed over the walls and subdued the guards inside who also were asleep. At 6:00 in the morning, they broke into Pizarro’s own office just as he and Roibal were meeting to plan their day. They beat, bound, and blindfolded Roibal and sat Pizarro in the chair behind his desk. The leader of the assailants sat down in front of him, put one submachine gun on the desk within Pizarro’s reach and another within his own reach. Then he slowly lowered his hands until they rested on his legs.
“I know you ordered me killed,” he told Pizarro. “Here I am so you can kill me.”
Pizarro didn’t move.
“This is between you and me,” the commando leader said. “No outside interference.”
Pizarro didn’t flinch. The scene lasted half an hour with the submachine at his fingertips on the desk while his rival waited for him to make the first move. Finally Pizarro said, “What do you want in return?” Under the arrangement that followed he capitulated. The opposing slate gained control of the refinery local in a peaceful election, and the union’s national leadership, having feared division and unseemly violence, breathed a sigh of relief.
The chief of the commando who had challenged and subdued Pizarro was Anabela’s emissary.
“Is that the emissary’s version?” I asked shortly before our plane landed in Mexico City.
“It’s my friend in Xalapa’s,” she replied.
“He’s not your friend,” I said. “He’s an idiot. He’s your enemy.”
“I go by what he does,” Anabela said. “I’m not afraid of what might happen, the worst has come and gone already.”
“You and your children are left,” I said, purposely excluding myself from the survivors’ list.
“My children aren’t in this fight,” Anabela said. “I’m the one left, and it’s going to cost him.”
She wanted to go straight from the airport to Cuernavaca upon landing, but I wouldn’t let her. I had the children brought from The Hideaway to the apartment on Artes and then called Internal Security. My contact was out of town, so I spent the afternoon tracking him down and finally caught up with him by phone in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, where a noisy split in the state chapter of the ruling PRI was heating up. The affair would later trigger riots and an electoral triumph for the very moribund Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution.
“Delighted to hear from you,” my contact said. “Is it something urgent or can it wait for me to get back to Mexico City tomorrow?”
“It’s urgent for me.”
“What’s up?”
“More of the same.”
“Our friend in Poza Rica?”
“He’s broken his agreement with the widow,” I said.
“Broken it, how? Has something happened?”
“It has.”
“I’d rather not talk about it on the phone,” my contact said.
“Just answer my questions, yes or no. Has anyone been hurt?”
“Not yet.”
“Answer me—yes or no,” he demanded. “Are you together in Mexico City?”
“Yes.”
“At your place of residence?”
“Is the place of residence where you are under pressure or surveillance?”
“No.”
“I’m sending a protective detail to stand guard until tomorrow when you can explain the situation to me in person.”
Comandante José Luis Cuevas came with two of his men. He checked the apartment and the accesses to the roof, explained that the entrance would be under constant watch, and left a walkie-talkie with which we could reach him at any time.
“What’s going on?” Anabela asked when the commandante and his men had left.
“An Internal security detail.”
“You called Internal Security?”
“I did.”
“Why did you call them?”
“As a basic precaution,” I said.
“What kind of precaution, Negro? What did you tell them?”
“That’s what we need to talk about.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Everything’s been taken care of. Don’t get in the way. There’s something else you ought to know. I didn’t send the emissary. He came to make me an offer on his own, and told me what he was going to do. He was going to do it anyway.”
I nodded towards the table in my office where Tonchis was listening intently to our conversation while pretending to skim an issue of National Geographic. Anabela took him to the bedroom where she and Doña Lila had improvised cots for him and Mercedes. She got him into his pajamas and turned on the television, then resumed her complaint.
“We can’t stay too long in this apartment. We seem like gypsies. Our house is in Cuernavaca. We have nothing to do here.”
“You’re not leaving here until security has been arranged for you and the kids,” I said, refusing to drop the subject.
“What are you talking about, Negro? Under the circumstances the worst thing I can do is seem concerned.”
“The worst thing you can do is try to look smart. Who do you think you’re dealing with?”
“I’m not afraid, Negro. I already told you I didn’t do anything.”
“This is a battle I don’t want to fight. I want to stop it.”
“You want to stop it? That’s why you called Internal Security?”
“No.”
“What did you tell them then?”
“That Pizarro was breaking the agreement to leave you alone.”
“Did you tell them about the emissary?”
“I told them you were in danger, but tomorrow we’re going to discuss it face to face.”
“And you’re going to tell them about the emissary?”
“Maybe.”
“You can’t do that, Negro. I told you that because I love you.”
“I have no idea why you told me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said. I don’t know what your reasons were for telling me. What did you expect from me?”
“I expected your complicity,” Anabela crossed her arms. “Your support.”
She sat down on the sofa next to me. She lowered her head and hunched her shoulders as if trying to ward off the cold.
“That’s exactly what you’re getting,” I told her.
“What are you talking about? You’re making me nervous. My hands are freezing. Feel them.”
She lay a cold hand on my neck, reminding me that I’d been through this scene before and was in no mood for a rerun.
“You’re going to be protected while the emissary does his job.” I said.
“Don’t talk to me like that.” She got up from the sofa. Her arms remained crossed as if she sought shelter in the safety of her own embrace. “Don’t lie to me. I haven’t done anything.”
“Then give me the name of the emissary.”
“No way.”
“With his priors it would be easy to get.”
“Only if you tell them what I told you. Are you going to tell Internal Security?” She sat back down on the sofa.
“Did you plan on Internal Security’s finding out?”
“What plan, Negro?” she said, leaning back.
“The plan you set in motion on the assumption that I’d get you protection while your emissary did his job,” I repeated. “And if the emissary fails, we at least have the beginnings of a defense in place. If he succeeds, then everything’s taken care of.”
“You’re crazy. What are you talking about? Don’t lie to me.” She leaned over me and made a very convincing show of embracing me.
“The question is, do I tell them about the emissary or not?” I said.
“Don’t tell them,” Anabela said, holding onto me now, adjusting the rhythm of her breathing to mine.
“If I tell them, he could be stopped.”
“The emissary could be,” Anabela said. She nuzzled my neck, and her nose was also cold. “But who’s going to stop Pizarro?”
“That is the point, my love,” Anabela said. “The point has always been, who’s going to stop Pizarro?”
At 2:00 the following afternoon my contact arrived at Sep’s Restaurant on Insurgentes Centro. We were a block and a half from my apartment and three blocks from where the Federal Security Directorate had its offices on the Plaza de la República in front of the Monument to the Revolution. In those days Sep’s had tables overlooking the street, but I sought an inside corner protected from the sun. My contact entered behind me as if he’d been awaiting my arrival from somewhere nearby.
“I can’t eat with you,” he said. He took his seat and removed his glasses. They were slightly tinted to protect his light-sensitive eyes, and they served as an apt symbol for the shadowy nature of his work. “But I didn’t want to let your call go unanswered either. I was very worried when you phoned me yesterday because I assumed everything had been taken care of. Tell me what happened.”
He’d come to Sep’s with no clear idea of what I was going to tell him. Driven by a sense of obligation, he seemed more than certain about how to proceed. When it was my turn to speak, I listened to myself as if I were listening to another person.
“We got two phone calls threatening Anabela.”
“Meaning the widow of the mayor of Chicontepec?” My contact avoided the familiarity that the use of her first name would have implied.
“The widow, yes.”
“What did the calls say?”
“They were death threats to her and her children. Both said what happened to the mayor would happen to them, that they hadn’t been forgotten.”
“November 2nd and November 3rd,” I heard myself say.
“Today’s November 19th,” my contact replied. “You let two weeks go by without telling me. Why was it so urgent yesterday?”
“Because the widow didn’t tell me until yesterday. She had a panic attack.”
“She’s not the kind of woman who has panic attacks. She must be very worried.”
“She wasn’t. We even went on vacation,” I said, knowing he could easily find out. “But yesterday there was an incident with her son in Cuernavaca.”
“What kind of incident?”
“He disappeared for three hours. He went to a friend’s house without letting anybody know and came back three hours later. It was all quite normal, but that’s not what the widow thought.”
“What did she think?”
“That the threats were for real. We were just back from our trip and were here in the city,” I said, continuing to elaborate. “When she heard from Cuernavaca that her son hadn’t come home, she told me about the threats. That’s why I didn’t call you until yesterday.”
“Is there anything to indicate the calls came from our friend in Poza Rica?” my contact said.
“The phone call repeated Pizarro’s motto.”
“What motto?”
“Destroy to create. Whoever can add can divide.”
“Anyone who’s read your column knows those mottoes,” my contact said.
“Before you try convincing me there’s no problem,” I said, “let me remind you how this all started and how it ended.”
“I remember perfectly well.” He took a cigarette from his case and lit it with his habitual fastidiousness. I watched his small eyes through the smoke. Irritated from lack of sleep or from the smoke itself, they were fixed on me in a suspicious stare. “What can we do to avoid risks?”
“Leave the surveillance up for a while,” I requested.
“Agreed, but that’s a temporary solution.”
“It’ll suffice for the time-being. The widow’s planning to get out of Mexico. She’s probably going to live in Los Angeles.”
“When is she thinking of leaving?”
“In two or three months.”
“That’s too long in a situation like this, paisano.” Smoke from his cigarette curled about my contact as his inner calculator went to work. “We also need to negotiate with Pizarro.”
“We already negotiated with Pizarro.”
“Then we’ll do it again,” he said with mild irritation. “I’m surprised that he’d continue this fight on his own.”
“I’m talking about facts,” I said, raising my voice. “You can believe them or not, but don’t forget how this began and how it’s played out.”
“Do I have your permission to sound out Pizarro?” my contact asked, ignoring my flareup.
“He’ll deny everything,” I predicted, discrediting once and for all what Pizarro would say by way of discrediting me.
“I know. But do I have your permission?”
Since he was going to do it anyway, I simply repeated that it didn’t make sense and agreed.
“Tell the widow she’ll have all the protection she needs while she makes her travel plans.” By his tone of voice my contact brought the interview to a close. “Here or in Cuernavaca as she likes. In Cuernavaca it would be even easier. And I’ll find out if what you and she are thinking has any basis in fact.”
He put out his cigarette without crushing it, simply scraping away the burning tip.
“I have to go.” Once again he gave me a hard look. “Do you have anything else to tell me?”
I said no.
“Then we’ll be in touch. And don’t worry about the security.”
“Let me know what you find out,” I said.
“And you be sure to tell me all you know,” he said meaningfully. “I wouldn’t want to be operating on false premises.”
Nothing happened on Artes in the days that followed except for the stowing of the cots and the children’s boredom. We spent our impossible anniversary, the 20th of November, disgruntled and immobilized, avoiding discussion, leafing through newspapers and magazines, and watching television. Comandante Cuevas checked regularly to see that all was well, and it became apparent to the children that an odd silence went along with their confinement. Mercedes passed the days making a Christmas manger out of papier maché attended by cows, mules and goats in unheard-of numbers. Tonchis memorized every photo in the collection of National Geographies in my office. Anabela acted as if she’d been shut in against her will, and slept with the children the whole time.
In early December 1979, I took part in a one-day presidential tour of the port of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca. The place showed signs of developing into the major deep-water industrial port that would mark the beginning of a new era for Mexico as a 21st century power in the Pacific Basin. We toured the naval base, visited a model warship, and dined in the warehouses on a meal served by the dockworkers. From there, I went looking for an aide in the press center that had been set up in the customs office some 800 meters from the dinner. I had an urgent call from Anabela, but by the time I got to a phone, it had been cut off. I called my number on Artes and got an immediate answer. (When reporters were with the president, whether in Salina Cruz or Moscow, they always had an open line that could reach any phone in Mexico City, simply by dialing a few extra numbers.) She asked if I’d seen the inside pages of La Prensa. I hadn’t. She asked me to look at them and call her back.
I found a set of daily papers in the press center, and recovered a copy of La Prensa from the sailors on guard at the entrance to the wharf. It was the most widely read paper in Mexico City, a tabloid that leaned heavily to police stories, natural disasters, major accidents, and especially brutal crimes with banner headlines on the outside and lots of details inside. I redialed my phone on Artes.
“It’s on the back page,” Anabela said. “Have you read it?”
On the back page I read that a pearl-colored LTD sedan had crashed and exploded on the road between Tulancingo and Poza Rica. Its four occupants—two of whom were ex-members of the secret police—had burned to death.
“I already read it,” I told Anabela. “What about it?”
“I’ll tell you what about it,” Anabela said. “The second name on the list was the emissary.”
I found the rest of the story on the inner pages. The second name on the list was: Edilberto Chanes Corona, age 45, former member of the secret police, a smalltime crook all his life who fancied himself a contract killer. His obituary followed.
“It could have been an accident,” I said.
“He had no business being in Tulancingo,” Anabela replied. “He said he was taking the plane to Veracruz.”
“He could have been returning overland via Tulancingo.”
“No,” Anabela said. “If that were so, we’d have gotten other news as well. When are you coming back?”
“Tonight. Possibly tomorrow.”
“I’m asking one thing of you.” Anabela’s voice on the phone sounded crestfallen, not angry but exhausted. “I don’t want you doing anything. Don’t ask any questions, don’t go looking for anybody. Don’t do anything until we talk.”
“Right.”
“I’m very unhappy, Negro.”
We returned that same night very late. It was almost dawn by the time I got to the apartment on Artes. Anabela was awake and sitting on the sofa, her eyes bloodshot from prolonged crying. She was pouring vodka straight from the bottle into her glass. She seethed with frustration and rage that flared out of her like flames from a window at night. Her eyes were red. The tendons in her neck and the veins of her arms were bulging. Her cheeks were puffed, and her lips were swollen. I tried to get near her, but she wouldn’t let me. She gulped the vodka and threw the glass down on the sofa.
“It can’t be. I’d have to see Pizarro alive to believe it.” Her voice was hoarse and broken, as misshapen as her face.
“It was an insane idea,” I said.
“All right,” she continued, paying no attention to what I said. “Suppose he’s alive. I’ll only believe it if I see him, but suppose he’s alive. Then the question is what to do, where to look. That was my only card, but there have to be more. Where are they?” She paced back and forth across the sala. “In what cave should I look? Because there has to be one. Somewhere in the cellars, in the slime there has to be someone able to make Pizarro another notch on his gun. Where is he? The imbecile screwed up, it says so in La Prensa. So all right. Suppose for a moment that Pizarro’s alive.”
“Pizarro is alive,” I said irritatedly.
“No, Negro,” Anabela contradicted me, and her fury grew a degree hotter. “He appears to be alive. But he’s been dead for quite a while.” She rubbed her arms and started to tremble. “He’s very, very dead though he may not know it and you may not know it. Perfectly dead ever since that night in Chicontepec.”
“He beat you again,” I said drily. “You have to get out of the country.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m not going to run.”
“You’re not in this alone. Tonchis and Mercedes are also involved.”
She spun around and glared at me again, out of control. She lunged towards me, turning into a scrawny, suddenly strange being, a woman I didn’t know. Her hair had gone dank and curly, her hands were wrinkled, her neck was a knot of bulging veins and taut tendons.
“I have no fear, Negro. I had none before, and I don’t have any now. This fight has nothing to do with Tonchis and Mercedes. But they’re in thrall to the fight. And so is Little Darling and anyone else who happens to care for Pizarro. They became orphans in this fight, and I may very well lose them in this fight. But that’s the way it is, and God help anyone who thinks they can get away. You listen to me, whoever gives in is doubly fucked. They can kill my children, they can tear me to pieces, but they’ll never make me the least bit afraid of anything. Because the minute they think I’m horrified by what could happen to my children, they’ll tear them apart on the spot. Do you understand? This isn’t about Tonchis or Mercedes, Negro. It’s about where there’s a man up to killing Pizarro. That’s the only question. Because Pizarro’s dead. Good and dead ever since that night in Chicontepec.”
She poured herself another shot of vodka and drank it in a single gulp. She went to my desk and sat down behind it with her hands in her hair and her elbows on my typewriter. She sobbed convulsively and groaned with rage. “Imbecile. Imbecile. Imbecile.”
She slept in the room with the children, and I slept alone in my own room. Early the following morning, I was awakened by the commotion echoing through the apartment. I heard Anabela’s voice issuing orders to Tonchis and the babble of Mercedes coming and going in the hallway. As I looked out, Anabela scurried past with a suitcase on her way to the sala. She had on what looked like tailored overalls and had tied her hair in a bandanna. She came and went, kissed me on the cheek, and left a perfumed fragrance in her wake. I caught up with her in the room where she was tying a bundle and got her into my room.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re going back to Cuernavaca,” she said with a smile as fresh as her perfume.
“You can’t go back to Cuernavaca,” I said.
“Yes, I can.”
“You’ve got Pizarro on your tail,” I reminded her.
“When you get right down to it, the only one who’s ever been on my tail is you,” she joked.
“I mean what I say.”
“And your breath smells awful.”
“You can’t go back to Cuernavaca. Staying in Mexico City is bad enough.”
“I’m going to Cuernavaca with my children and without your goons. I have nothing to fear, and I fear nothing. How do you think it looks for me to be cooped up in your apartment surrounded by your goons?”
“It’s not a question of appearances. Pizarro is not an appearance.”
“I have no memory of Pizarro. Have you forgotten that I’m the merry widow?”
“Last night you were just a widow, period.”
“I wasn’t myself last night. Erase last night from your memory.”
“You can’t go, Ana.”
“I’m going, Negro. It’s for the best, it’s safer. Do you really think those three idiots outside with their walkie-talkies can stop Pizarro?”
“They can make it difficult for him.”
“It’s not a matter of difficulty. Is he out to get us or not? That’s the question. Once his mind is made up, you can put every officer in the Federal Security Directorate outside, and he won’t care. He’ll find a way.”
“The difference is making him have to find it.”
“The difference is I’m not afraid. That’s all you have to understand. And love me.”
She got to her feet, took my face in her cold hands, and looked at me for a long time. Her eyes were clear and unclouded without a trace of last night’s fever and devastation. “And love me,” she repeated.
I couldn’t stop her. I asked Comandante Cuevas to guard her in Cuernavaca, and two hours later, around ten in the morning, I went to the offices of my contact in Plaza de la República.
“I want to apologize for what I’m about to tell you,” I said.
I proceeded to recite in every detail the saga of the emissary. He wasn’t annoyed. He slowly took a white card and his gold pen from his jacket pocket. He wrote a few lines on the card and rang the bell hidden beneath his desk drawer. His gigantic aide appeared with the aplomb of a ballerina.
“For Raul,” my contact said as he handed him the card. “Have him dispatch a detail today.”
He took out another card and wrote on it. “Whatever there is in the files on this.” He passed the card to the aide. “And get me the office in Veracruz right away.”
He swiveled his chair so he was sideways to me and stared out the windows that looked down on the Plaza de la República.
“I don’t like hearing about things after the fact,” he said, twirling his pen between his fingers. “I don’t like your attitude or how far this has gone. What do you want from us?”
“Friendship and understanding, paisano.”
It was the first time I’d appealed to our shared origins in Veracruz since the days when I was doing favors for Rojano. My contact took it in with a grimace that bordered on a smile.
“I hope you understand the seriousness of the situation,” he said. “Tools are like magnets, paisano. They attract users. This being the case, we can assume that the response from Poza Rica is on its way.”
“It could be.”
“We have very little time, and I don’t know if we’ll succeed,” he said, turning his chair back towards me. “What I want you to understand is this. You and the widow have gone beyond my range of operation. We’ll certainly keep the guard detail in place, we’ll even reinforce it. What I have to tell you, though, is if the train has left the station, the guard detail won’t be enough to stop it.”
“I know.”
“I hope you keep it in mind. We’ll investigate exactly what happened and try to negotiate with Pizarro. But it’s now up to him and not us to decide. Everything depends on them now. Stay in touch with the guard detail throughout the day. Make sure they always know where you are so that I’ll know. And check with me every afternoon to find out what we’ve got.”
He escorted me to the door and put me out of his office without saying goodbye. By going beyond his range of operation, I’d come under his authority.
I went from there to the newspaper. I needed urgently to track down our correspondent in Veracruz. It took three phone calls to catch up with him at the mayor’s office in Xalapa.
“I want you to run a check on Lázaro Pizarro in Poza Rica,” I told him.
“Right away. Are you after anything special?”
“Just find out if he’s in Poza Rica. See if there have been any recent incidents, if everything’s in order, if there have been any rumors of something out of the ordinary. All you need to do is run a check.”
“Right,” the correspondent said. “If you give me a number where I can reach you, I’ll get back to you in an hour.”
I gave him the phone number of the bar in Les Ambassadeurs Restaurant on Reforma and had him give me his number. Though it was 11:30 in the morning, I headed for the bar. It was empty at that hour, recently swept and redolent of air freshener. I ordered a whiskey on the rocks and let the sensation of being caught in a countdown sink in. I imagined for the thousandth time the emissary’s confession in front of Pizarro after his capture, and how Pizarro might go about sending a return message. On what number of the countdown were the emissaries with the return message? Internal Security’s investigation got under way that same morning, but the fact remained that it was starting late. I also couldn’t discount the possibility that the emissary had been taken out early on, well before he could talk. Pizarro may have considered the whole affair nothing more than the settling of an old score, in which case all the morning had accomplished was to tie me to Anabela once and for all in the black hole of Internal Security’s confidential files.
Two whiskeys later, my imagination remained stalled on the same track, obsessively recycling the same sets of variations until the call came from the correspondent in Xalapa.
“Everything seems to be in order,” he said, “but Lacho’s not in Poza Rica.”
“Where is he?”
“No one knows. I asked for his aide Roibal, but no one could find him for me.”
“Find out where he is.”
“From here in Xalapa, that’s hard to do, sir.”
“Then go to Poza Rica.”
“That’s what I was going to tell you. The union local is giving a dinner for state government officials today in Poza Rica. The secretary of internal security for the state is going and he’s taking a helicopter from here in Xalapa in half an hour. If you tell me to, I’ll sign on and be in Poza Rica in half an hour.”
“Get on the helicopter. I’ll talk to your editor.”
“I was going to ask if you would.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“And where do I call you from Poza Rica?”
“Right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
I called the newspaper and explained to the editor what I needed from his correspondent. He wasn’t fond of done deeds either, but he agreed. I got to my fourth whiskey before checking with Anabela in Cuernavaca. It was nearly one, and she and the children had arrived two hours earlier without incident.
“Your goons have already taken over the yard and the entrance,” she said, pretending to be more annoyed than she really was. “And reinforcements arrived just a few minutes ago. Did you tell the other side something?”
“Not a thing,” I said. “I’m checking on Pizarro in Poza Rica.”
“Very good,” Anabela said, “because if he’s in Poza Rica, we can send him flowers. Are you going to keep me abreast of your investigation or do I have to resort to feminine intuition?”
I gave her the bar’s phone number so she could give it to the guards.
“Don’t worry,” Anabela said. “If I get killed, you’ll find out anyway.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Of course not. But do you realize how long it’s been since we’ve screwed? I’ve just been thinking that if Pizarro’s on the rampage, he better not catch us with any sexual accounts pending.”
“Yes.”
“So then what’s the mystery, what’s to investigate? Send Pizarro some flowers, and come here where it’s warm.”
The Ambassadeurs bar seemed warmer for the moment. It showed early promise as a place to run to, and served as an undercover center of operations.
Around 2:00 in the afternoon a couple of radio reporters and Miguel Reyes Razo, who at the time worked for a major Mexico City daily, showed up at Ambassadors. Though they’d come to eat, they joined me at the bar for an aperitif, which naturally led to my ordering a fifth whiskey. Half an hour later the next call from Poza Rica came in.
The dinner had gone off without Lacho Pizarro, the correspondent said. Loya, who was by then mayor, had attended as his representative. Loya made the appropriate excuses but said nothing to explain the absence. His silence triggered rumors and speculation, but neither the union or Pizarro’s own people knew anything.
“The rumor is that he made an emergency trip to Houston for a checkup,” the correspondent said.
“An emergency checkup?” I said. “What about Roibal?”
“He’s not here either, sir. They left together.”
“Is there a way to verify the Houston trip?”
“No, because, as I said, no one’s talking. I got it in an aside from one of the guards.”
“Offer that guard money and get him to tell you what he knows,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And call me right here as soon as you have something. I’m not going anywhere.”
Reyes Razo and his friends invited me to eat. We took a table in the rear next to a Cuban piano player whose nightly repertoire was a mix of Agustín Lara and Cole Porter. They ordered steak and wine. I had a shrimp cocktail and my next dose of whiskey.
“You’re drinking quite heavily, esteemed master,” Reyes Razo said.
“Fellow travelers are welcome, good sir.”
“You have me at a great disadvantage, esteemed master, but I will allow myself to journey with you a ways.”
He called for the head waiter. “Don Lorenzo, my esteemed master here has been drinking alone for many a half hour. Does such self-absorption seem fair to you, such disregard for basic solidarity?”
“By no means, Don Miguel. It’s absolutely unfair.”
“What suggestion have you to remedy this situation? Because the situation is intolerable.”
“I suggest that you drink with him, Don Miguel.”
“Then you agree that a situation of this sort must not be tolerated?”
“Under no circumstances, sir.”
“Then bring me a double whiskey over lots of rocks.”
We drank in solidarity with one another during the meal at a ratio of two whiskeys to one, Reyes Razo’s doubles to my singles. We’d reached the dessert when another call came in.
“He’s at Methodist Hospital in Houston,” the correspondent said. “He apparently got sick and fainted.”
“When?”
“Early this week.”
It was Friday. The car Chanes and his henchmen were traveling in crashed early Wednesday morning. The assassination attempt must have been Monday or Tuesday. Had they gotten to him?
“What else did the guard tell you?”
“Nothing else. There was no need for money. That’s all he knew.”
I thought I recalled a stringer in Houston who occasionally sent stories to my newspaper. I tried to look him up, but two months previously he’d moved to Los Angeles. I returned to the table with a fresh whiskey provided straight from the bar where the phone was. Its tranquilizing effect was giving way to a bout of active euphoria followed by an insatiable and unquenchable thirst.
“Has your reverence’s paper a correspondent in Houston?” I asked Reyes Razo.
“Only in Falfurrias, Texas, your reverence.”
“Seriously, have you got someone?”
Reyes Razo laughed.
“It’s all they can do to hold onto me. Do you need a connection in Houston?”
“Urgently.”
“Then ask, esteemed master. Say, ‘I need a connection in Houston.’ What would my paper be doing with a stringer in Houston? It’s all they can do to remember where Toluca is. You know how our correspondent in Durango datelined his first story? Seriously, you know what he put? He put ‘Durango, Dux., such and such a date.’ Durango, Dur! Do you think we’d get someone in Houston just so he could put Houston, Hous.?”
“Seriously, your reverence.”
“Seriously, your reverence. The other day for purposes of publicity and my own information, I asked the front office what our circulation was, and I got an answer from the director himself. He acted insulted and annoyed as if I’d called his mother a bad name. ‘And what difference does our circulation make to you, Reyes Razo? Are you our advertising agent or are you going to place an ad to sell your fleabag hound, your used wife, or your defunct Packard? Circulation figures are a state secret at this paper, Reyes Razo. You don’t play around with them, they’re sacred.’ So it turns out that circulation is sacred. Damn, I start back to the newsroom and on my way past the presses I run into El Ulalume, the chief pressman Don Pedro Flores Díaz. El Ulalume is jet black, an ex-alcoholic who never stops preaching. ‘I’ve now gone ten years eight months and twenty-five days without a drink, Miguelito. I’m a new man, I swear I’m a new man’ and the next day, ‘You know how long I’ve gone without a drop of the poison, Miguelito?’ ‘Well, yes,’ I tell him, ‘you’ve gone ten years eight months and twenty-six days, Don Pedro.’ ‘That’s right, Miguelito. I see you keep track for me.’ I got him a watch so he could count the hours too. I really did. So I’m going from the front office to the newsroom and on my way by the presses I run into El Ulalume, and I say, ‘What was last night’s press run, Pedro?’ And he says, ‘Well, last night 30,000 complete copies came off the presses, Miguelito, 3,603 to be exact plus 312 for the night watchmen to sell on their way home. So that comes to 3,365 copies of your paper, Miguelito. But if the information is for advertisers or the general public, I have the latest memo from the front office right here. It’s dated May 31, 1979. It says weekday circulation 152,300; Sundays 224,150.’ Just think,” Reyes Razo went on, “that was the paper’s state secret. And if I were to ask El Ulalume for a copy, he’d keep the copy and give me the original. So, your reverence, what makes you think such a paper would have a stringer in Houston, Hous.? If what you need is a connection, say so, and get it over with. Do you want a connection?”
“Once you finish slandering your paper, good sir.”
“Over and done with, dear colleague. But description’s not slander. Do you want a connection in Houston, or not? You want one? All right. Here you go.” He got out his address book and paged through it. “Come eight, come nine, as my mother used to say. Let’s see. Mendoza, Mexueiro, Miller. Marjorie Miller, your reverence.”
“Marjorie what?”
“Your connection, dear colleague, Marjorie Miller. She runs The Los Angeles Times bureau in Houston, Texas. Or, as they say, she’s based out of Houston, Texas. She’s the author of the most in-depth piece on the Mexican oil boom yet published in the United States.”
He proceeded to describe with numerous digressions how, early that year, he’d served as Marjorie Miller’s guide during her month-long trip to Mexico City and Tabasco to cover the oil story. “A first-class journalist, good sir. She went to the jungle and visited the off-shore rigs where even our Mexican men won’t go. She came down with a case of dysentery so bad I thought I’d have to send her home with a coroner’s report. Do you want her address and phone number?”
He retrieved his address book once again, took off his glasses, and poked through it with his nose so close to the pages he seemed to be sniffing them. “Technical difficulty,” he said, still flipping the pages. “It’s not in here. Partake of another whiskey, your reverence, while this grievous oversight is remedied.”
“He brought the dictionary to eat with us,” one of our tablemates said.
“By oversight I mean error, mistake, foolishness, ignorance, or outrage,” Reyes Razo said. Turning to me, he went on, “I beg your forbearance, your reverence, while I enlighten these ignoramuses. But I leave it to you to explain that ignoramus has nothing to do with ignition or igniting.”
He got Miller’s phone number from his house following a series of heated altercations with his maid and returned exactly one whiskey later with the reply in hand. Marjorie Miller answered the phone.
We exchanged jokes about her contact in Mexico, then I asked her to check for any Mexican nationals admitted to Methodist Hospital in the past five days with specific reference to the surnames of Pizarro and Roibal and with the reason for admission if possible.
She agreed and asked us to call her back at 7:00.
“That’s 8:00 our time, esteemed master,” Reyes Razo said. “There’s an hour’s difference. We are delayed, as they say, by the imponderables of the profession.”
I thanked him for his willingness to keep me company. He had just completed a long and successful series on the dark side of the musicians’ and tourist haunts in and around the Plaza Garibaldi, and was taking time off to prepare his next project. When our table mates from the world of radio left, we took care of the bill between us and retired to the bar to lubricate our forced sojourn. It was 7:00 in the evening. When Marjorie Miller called back at 8:00 all systems were well lubricated.
“No Pizarro,” Marjorie Miller said from Houston. “But there is a Roibal.”
“When was he admitted?”
“Patient G. Roibal entered Tuesday at two en el noche,” Marjorie Miller said in broken Spanish.
“What kind of sickness?”
“The list doesn’t show sickness. That’s confidential at Methodist.”
“Can you find out, Miss Miller?”
“I can try.”
“And there’s no Pizarro on the list?”
“No Pizarro. There’s a Pintado, a Pérez-Rosbach, and Pereyra. That all the P’s.”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s a Rodriguez, then a Tejeda and so on.”
“A Tejeda?”
“L.P. Tejeda.”
“L.P. Tejeda. That’s the one.”
“Be discrete, your reverence,” Reyes Razo said at my side. “You’re audible all the way to Bucareli.”
It was true. My shouting had caught the attention of the other bar patrons. I turned to face the wall and hunched forward over the phone. “When was Tejeda admitted?”
“Tuesday, two at night.”
“With what sickness?”
“The sickness is not on the list. It’s confidential at Methodist,” Miller repeated.
“But can you try to find out why they were admitted?”
“I can try,” she reiterated. “Is it urgent?”
“Very urgent.”
“Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“We must know today, Miss Miller.”
“Today is difficult.”
“Today.”
“I can try. Call me at nine. Same number.”
I hung up, and Reyes Razo asked, “Pizarro en Houston?”
“Get it out of your head, your reverence. This is a deal between Mrs. Miller and me. How old is Miller?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Good reporter?”
“First rate.”
“The next call’s at ten. Another whiskey?”
“Only until I start seeing pygmies, your reverence.”
I lost count of the whiskeys, doubles on the rocks for Reyes Razo and singles with soda for me.
“You have something good on Pizarro in Houston, your reverence?” Reyes Razo asked.
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Heavy duty?”
“Heavy as a tombstone, your reverence. And quiet as a cemetery.”
“That’s a dress parade of metaphors, dear colleague. Your allusion to cemeteries rules out the murmur of the trees, I suppose.”
“And the howls from the tombs. But this whiskey is much too pale.”
When I redialed Marjorie Miller, my speech was slurred. “The people you look for left Methodist Hospital this noon,” Miller said. “They gave the Hyatt Regency in this city for an address, but I checked the Regency, and those people are not there. About sicknesses, I got nothing specific. Patient Tejeda was admitted to traumatology. Patient Roibal to surgery.”
“Roibal to surgery? He was injured too?”
“Injured? I don’t know. It’s the report I got from Methodist Hospital. More information requires more time.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I can try tomorrow.”
“I’ll call tomorrow, Miss Miller. You’re saving my life.”
“My pleasure. But get some sleep. I can smell your booze through the line.”
“Whatsamara, mis Miller, nou spic inglish?”
“Get a little sleep. The phone line smells of alcohol.”
“When I go to Houston, I’ll give you the whole story straight out.”
“Just say when.”
We ate, then kept drinking until nearly one in the morning, becoming more dogmatic and repetitious as the night wore on. An icy wind blew down Reforma as we left, and I insisted to the point of blackmail that Reyes Razo go somewhere else with me. He refused. He was a lot less drunk than I and was not in the habit of exceeding his limit. I wouldn’t let him help me into a taxi. He paid the fare anyway and made the driver promise to look after me. I could barely keep my balance, but I knew exactly and urgently where I needed to go.
At 1:30 in the morning the dance hall on Palma where I’d last gone with Rojano still looked half empty and lifeless. I ordered Anís de la Cadena as we had then and, face by face, outfit by outfit, set out to find the woman he picked up. I found her waiting in line to use the restroom, and paid the fee to take her out for the night. Stumblingly, I led her to the Hotel del León where we’d slept with Rojano the last time. We took a room, and she began to undress. Before she could finish I tried to hoist her onto my hips and penetrate her the way Rojano had. But she wasn’t the slender woman with crooked teeth and peroxided hair that she was the last time. She was a well-padded mulatta who wasn’t about to let herself be pushed around. She pushed back and staggered out of the room, leaving the door open behind her. I could neither stop her nor go after her. I could barely move. A cold draft wafted between the door and a window that hadn’t been closed. I lay slumped next to the bed with my mouth open, listlessly drooling down the left side of my body onto the floor. With the cold came the unshakable illusion that I was lying, not in a draft on the floor of a hotel room on Brazil Street in Mexico City, but at night on the cobblestones of the plaza in Chicontepec like Rojano beneath the darkened poinciana, all energy gone, awaiting like Rojano the stones, the blows, the torches, the ropes, the flaying, the smothering, the bullet in the temple from Roibal.