Authors: Roberto Bolaño
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary Collections, #Mystery & Detective, #Mexico, #Caribbean & Latin American, #Cold Cases (Criminal Investigation), #Crime, #Literary, #Young Women, #Missing Persons, #General, #Women
Three months later, Kelly
disappeared in
the phone call. Her partner, an ugly young woman who adored her, called me.
After many tries she had managed to reach me. She told me that Kelly should
have been back from Santa Teresa two weeks ago and had never shown up. I asked
if she'd tried to call her. She said Kelly's cell phone was dead. It rings and
rings and rings and no one answers, she said. I could see Kelly having a fling
and disappearing for a few days, in fact she'd done it more than once, but I
couldn't see her not calling her partner, if only to advise her how to handle
business during the time she planned to be away. I asked her if she had gotten
in touch with the people Kelly was working for in Santa Teresa. She said yes.
According to the man who'd hired her, Kelly had left for the airport the day
after the party, to catch the Santa Teresa-Hermosillo flight, and then she had
planned to fly from
this happen? I asked. Two weeks ago, she said. I imagined her sniffling,
clinging to the phone, nicely but plainly dressed, her makeup smudged, and then
it occurred to me that this was the first time she had called me, the first
time we had talked this way, and I got worried. Have you called the Santa
Teresa hospitals or the police? I asked. She said she had and no one knew
anything. Kelly left the ranch for the airport and disappeared, simply vanished
into thin air, she said in a shrill voice. The ranch? The party was at a ranch,
she said. So in other words she had to be driven, someone dropped her off at
the airport. No, she said. Kelly had rented a car. And where's the car? They
found it in the airport parking lot, she said. So she made it to the airport, I
said. But she didn't get on the plane, she said. I asked her for the name of
the people who had hired Kelly. She said it was the Salazar Crespo family and
she gave me a phone number. I'll see what I can find out, I said. Actually, I
figured Kelly would turn up before long. Probably she was off with some man,
and the way things were unfolding, almost definitely a married man. I imagined
her in
looking to have a good time and not attract attention. So I tried to be calm
and wait. A week later, however, her partner called me again and told me she
still had no news of my friend. She talked to me about one or two lost
contracts, said she didn't know what to do. In short, what she was trying to
say was that she felt alone. I imagined her more disheveled than ever, pacing
that dark office, and it made me shudder. I asked her what news she had from
Santa Teresa. She had talked to the police, but the police didn't know or
wouldn't tell her anything. She's just vanished, she said. That afternoon, from
my office, I called a trusted friend who had worked for me for a while, and
explained the problem. He said it would be best if we spoke in person and we
agreed to meet at El Rostro Palido, a fashionable coffee shop, I don't know
whether it still exists or whether it's closed now, fads in
know, disappear or go underground like people and no one misses them. I
explained Kelly's story to my friend. He asked some questions. He wrote down
the name Salazar Crespo in a notebook and told me he'd give me a call later
that night. When we said goodbye and I got in my car I thought that anybody
else would be afraid by now or beginning to be afraid, but all I felt,
increasingly, was anger, an immense rage, all the rage the Esquivel Platas had
stored up for decades or centuries, now suddenly lodged in my nervous system,
and I also thought, with bitterness and remorse, that this anger or rage should
have set in sooner, that it shouldn't have been driven, if that's the word,
propelled by personal friendship, even though that personal friendship
undoubtedly exceeded the very definition of personal friendship, that it should
have been triggered by so many other things I'd seen since I was old enough to
take notice, but no, no, no, that's fucking life, I said to myself, weeping and
gnashing my teeth. That night, around eleven, my friend called and the first
thing he asked was whether it was a secure line. Bad sign, bad news, I thought
instantly. In any case, I turned ice-cold again. I said the line was utterly
secure. Then my friend told me that the name I'd given him (he was careful not
to speak it) belonged to a banker who, according to his sources, laundered
money for the Santa Teresa cartel, which was like saying the Sonora cartel. All
right, I said. Then he said that this banker, in fact, owned not one ranch
outside the city but several, although according to his sources there hadn't
been a party at any of them on the days my friend was in the area. In other
words, there was no public party, he said, with society photos and that kind of
thing. Do you understand what I mean? Yes, I said. Then he said that to his
knowledge, and this had been confirmed by his sources, the banker in question
had good relations with the party. How good? I asked. Exemplary, he whispered.
To what degree? I pressed. They go deep, very deep, said my friend. Then we
said good night and I sat there thinking. Deep meant reaching far back in time,
very far back, in other words millions of years back, in other words to the
dinosaurs. Who were the dinosaurs of the PRI? I mused. Several names came to my
head. Two of them, I remembered, were from the north or had interests there. I
didn't know either one personally. For a while I thought about the friends we
might have in common. But I didn't want to get any friend in trouble. The
night, I remember as if it were yesterday and not years ago, was pitch-dark,
with no stars, no moon, and the house, this house, was silent, no sound even
from the night birds in the garden, although I knew my bodyguard was nearby,
awake, maybe playing dominoes with the chauffeur, and if I rang a bell one of
my maids wouldn't be long in coming. The next day, first thing, after spending
a sleepless night, I got on a plane to
was informed that Congress-woman Esquivel Plata was waiting for him, he dropped
everything and was with me in a flash. Probably we had met at some point. In
any case, I didn't remember him. When I saw him, smiling and sniveling like a
lap dog, I felt like smacking him, but I controlled myself. One of those dogs
that stand up on their hind legs, if you know what I mean. I do, said Ser-gio.
Then he asked me if I'd had breakfast. I said no. He had a
border breakfast, and as we were waiting, two city workers dressed as waiters
busied themselves preparing a table next to the window of his office. From the
window you could see the old
people going back and forth, on their way to work or idling along. It struck me
as a terrible place, despite the light, which glowed golden, very faint in the
morning and strong and dense in the afternoon, as if the air, at sunset, was
laden with desert dust. Before we ate I told him I was there about Kelly
Rivera. I told him she had disappeared and I wanted her to be found. The mayor
called his secretary, who began to take notes. What is your friend's name,
Congresswoman? Kelly Rivera Parker. And more questions: the day she disappeared,
the reason for her stay in Santa Teresa, age, profession, and the secretary
took down everything I said, and when I had finished answering the questions,
the mayor ordered the secretary to run and get the top boss of the state
judicial police, a man by the name of Ortiz Rebolledo, and bring him straight
back to city hall. I didn't mention Salazar Crespo. I wanted to see what would
happen. The mayor and I had huevos a la ranchera.
Mary-Sue Bravo asked her editor
to let her investigate the disappearance of the reporter from
La Raza.
Her
editor said that Hernandez Mercado had probably gone completely out of his head
and now he might be wandering one of the state parks, Tubac or
himself. There aren't any berries in those parks, said Mary-Sue. Well, then,
drooling and talking to himself, said her editor, but in the end he let her
cover the story. First she was in
La Raza,
and she talked to the editor, another man who looked like a
farmworker, and to the reporter who had written up Hernandez Mercado's
disappearance, a boy of eighteen, maybe seventeen, who took his job very
seriously. Then she went to Sonoita with the boy. Before they visited the
sheriff's office they stopped at Hernandez Mercado's house and the boy let her
in with a key he said was kept at the offices of
La Raza,
although to
Mary-Sue it looked like a picklock. The sheriff told her that Hernandez Mercado
was probably in
reporter had lots of debts (for example, he owed six months' rent and the
landlord planned to evict him) and with what he made working on the paper he
could barely feed himself. The boy, to his chagrin, confirmed what the sheriff
had said:
La Raza
didn't pay much because it was a paper for the people,
he said. The sheriff laughed. Mary-Sue wanted to know whether Hernandez had a
car. The sheriff said no, that when Hernandez had to leave Sonoita, he took the
bus. The sheriff was a friendly man and he went with her to the bus stop and
they asked whether anyone had seen Hernandez, but the information they got was
confused and useless. The day of his disappearance, according to the old man
who sold tickets and the few people who rode the bus daily, Hernandez might
have gotten on the bus and then again he might not have. Before she left
Sonoita, Mary-Sue wanted to see the reporter's house once more. Everything was
orderly, there were no traces of violence, dust was gathering on the few pieces
of furniture. Mary-Sue asked the sheriff whether he had checked Herndndez's
computer. The sheriff said he hadn't. Mary-Sue turned it on and began to go
through the files of the reporter and poet of
La Raza de Green Valley,
more
or less at random. She didn't find anything interesting. The beginning of a
novel, a mystery by the look of it, written in Spanglish. Published articles.
Sketches of the daily life of seasonal laborers and farmworkers on the ranches
in southern
The articles about Haas, almost all sen-sationalistic. And little else.
On December 10, some workers at
the ranch La Perdicion informed the police of the discovery of some bones at
the edge of the ranch, around mile fifteen of the Casas Negras highway. At
first they thought it was an animal, but when they found the skull they
realized their mistake. According to the forensic report, it was a woman, and
the cause of death, due to the time elapsed, remained undetermined. Some three
yards from the body a pair of leggings and a pair of tennis shoes were found.
In total, I spent two nights in
Santa Teresa, staying at the Hotel Mexico, and although everybody claimed to be
eager to indulge my slightest whim, we didn't actually get anywhere. Ortiz
Rebolledo struck me as a fudge packer. The mayor seemed to play for the other
team. The assistant attorney general looked limp in the wrist. They all lied to
me or said things that didn't add up. To start with, they assured me that no
one had reported Kelly missing, when I knew for a fact her partner had. The
name Salazar Crespo never came up. No one talked to me about the killings of
women, which were public knowledge by then, let alone connected Kelly's
disappearance to those shameful cases. The night before I left I called three
local reporters and announced that I was going to hold a press conference at my
hotel. There I told Kelly's story, which was later picked up by the national
press, and I said that as a politician and feminist, as well as a friend, I
would be unflagging in my determination to uncover the truth. Inside I thought:
you don't know whom you've crossed, you pack of cowards, you're going to piss
your pants. That night, after I had given the press conference, I went up to my
room and made phone calls. I talked to two PRI deputies, good friends, who told
me I could count on their support. Of course I expected no less. Then I called
Kelly's partner and told her I was in Santa Teresa. The poor girl, so ugly, so
hopelessly ugly, burst into tears and thanked me, I have no idea what for. Then
I called home and asked if anyone had tried to reach me in the last few days.
Rosita read me the list of calls. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was
the same as always. I tried to sleep but couldn't. I spent a while looking out
the window at the city's dark buildings, the yards, and the streets, empty
except for the occasional new-looking car. I paced the room. I noticed there
were two mirrors. One at one end and the other by the door, and they didn't
reflect each other. But if you stood in a certain place, you could see one
mirror in the other. What you couldn't see was me. Strange, I said to myself,
and for a while, as sleep began to overtake me, I made calculations and
experimented with positions. That was where I was when five o'clock struck. The
more I studied the mirrors, the more uneasy I felt. I realized it was
ridiculous to go to bed at that hour. I showered, changed clothes, packed my
suitcase. At six I went down to the restaurant for breakfast, but it wasn't
open yet. One of the hotel employees went into the kitchen and made me
orangeade and a cup of strong coffee. I tried to eat but couldn't. At seven a
taxi took me to the airport. As I passed through different parts of the city, I
thought about Kelly, about what Kelly had thought as she gazed at the same
things I was gazing at now, and then I knew I'd be back. The first thing I did
when I got to Mexico City was go to see a friend who had worked for the Mexico
City attorney general's office and ask him to recommend a good detective, a man
above suspicion, someone who had what it takes. My friend asked me what the
problem was. I told him. He recommended Luis Miguel Loya, who had worked for
the federal attorney general. Why did he leave? I asked. Because he could make
more in the private sector, said my friend. I couldn't help thinking my friend
hadn't told me the whole story, because since when is private business
incompatible with public employment in
went to visit Loya. He, of course, had been alerted by my friend and was
expecting me. Loya was an odd character. On the short side, but with a boxer's
build, not an ounce of fat, although when I met him he must have been fifty.
Good manners, well dressed, big office, and he had at least ten people working
for him, between the secretaries and the men with the look of hired thugs. Once
again I told Kelly's story, I talked about the banker Salazar Crespo, his
dealings with drug traffickers, the attitude of the authorities in Santa
Teresa. He didn't ask stupid questions. He didn't take notes. Not even when he
asked me for a phone number where he could reach me. I suppose he was recording
it all. When I left, when we shook hands, he told me he'd have news of Kelly in
three days. He smelled of aftershave and a cologne I didn't recognize.
Lavender, with a faint underlying scent of imported coffee, barely noticeable.
He walked me to the door. Three days. When he told me that, it didn't seem very
long. Making it through those days, waiting for them to go by, was like an
eternity. I went halfheartedly back to work. The second day of the wait I was
visited by a group of feminists who believed that the stance I'd taken after
Kelly's disappearance was admirable and most fitting for a woman. There were
three of them, and by what I understood, the group's membership wasn't large.
Ordinarily I would have gotten rid of them, but I must have been depressed, not
sure exactly what to do, and I invited them to sit down and stay for a while.
So long as we didn't talk politics, they were even pleasant. And one of them
had gone to the same convent school Kelly and I had, although this woman had
been two years behind us, and we shared many memories. We drank tea, talked
about men, our jobs, the three of them were college professors, two of them
divorced. They asked why I had never married again, and I laughed. Because deep
inside, I confessed, I'm the biggest feminist of all. On the third day Loya
called me at ten at night. He told me he had prepared an initial report and if I
wanted he could show it to me right away. I can't wait much longer, I said.
Where are you? In my car, said Loya, no need for you to come anywhere, I'm on
my way to your house. Loya's report was ten pages long. His work had consisted
of compiling a detailed account of Kelly's professional activities. There were
names, people from
of Kelly's jobs could simply be considered veiled prostitution. High-level
prostitution. Her models were whores, the parties she organized were for men
only, even her percentage of the take was that of a high-class madam. I told
him I couldn't believe it. I flung the papers in his face. Loya bent down and
picked them up and handed them back to me. Read it all, he said. I kept
reading. Garbage, complete garbage. Until the name Salazar Crespo appeared.
According to Loya, Kelly had worked for Salazar Crespo before, four times in
all. I also read that between 1990 and 1994 Kelly had flown at least ten times
to
and of those ten times, on seven occasions she had traveled on to Santa Teresa.
The meetings with Salazar Crespo were classified under the heading "party
planning." To judge by the flights from
she never spent more than two nights in Santa Teresa. The number of models she
took with her to the city varied. At first, in '90 and '91, she might travel
with four or five. Then there would be only two, and she made the final trips
alone. Maybe those times she really was planning parties. Another name appeared
alongside that of Salazar Crespo. Conrado Padilla, a
maquiladoras, a few transport companies, and the Santa Teresa slaughterhouse.
Kelly had worked for this Conrado Padilla on three occasions, according to
Loya. I asked who Conrado Padilla was. Loya shrugged his shoulders and said he
was a man with lots of money, in other words somebody exposed to every kind of
threat, every kind of unpleasantness. I asked Loya if he'd gone to Santa Teresa.
No, he said. I asked if he'd sent someone there. No, he said. I told him to go
to Santa Teresa, I wanted to see him there, at the heart of things, and he
should keep investigating. For a while he seemed to consider my proposal, or
rather search for the right words for what he had to say. Then he said he
didn't want to see me waste my money or my time. Do you mean you think Kelly is
dead? I shouted. More or less, he said without losing his composure in the
slightest. What do you mean, more or less? I shouted. For fuck's sake, you're
either dead or you're not! In
wanting to hit him. What a cold, detached man he was. No, I said, almost
hissing, no one can be more or less dead, in
world. Stop talking like a tour guide. Either my friend is alive, which means I
want you to find her, or my friend is dead, which means I want the people who
killed her. Loya smiled. What are you laughing at? I asked him. The tour guide
part was funny, he said. I'm sick of Mexicans who talk and act as if this is
all
Pedro Paramo,
I said. Maybe it is, said Loya. No, it isn't, I can
assure you, I said. For a while Loya was silent, sitting with his legs crossed,
very dignified, thinking about what I'd just said. It might take me months,
even years, he said at last. And also, he added, I don't think they'll let me
do my job. Who? Your own people, Congresswoman, your own party colleagues. I'll
be behind you every step of the way and I'll back you up, I said to him. I
think you overestimate yourself, said Loya. Fuck it all, of course I
overestimate myself, if I didn't I wouldn't be where I am, I said. Loya was
silent again. For a moment I thought he'd fallen asleep, but his eyes were wide
open. If you won't do it, I'll find someone else, I said, not looking at him.
After a while he got up. I went with him to the door. Are you going to take the
job? I'll see what I can do, but I'm not promising anything, he said, and he disappeared
down the path to the street, where my bodyguard and my chauffeur were trading
puns like a couple of zombies.