2666 (66 page)

A few days before Sergio Gonzalez came to Santa Teresa,
Juan de Dios
Martinez
and Elvira Campos went to bed together. This isn't anything serious, the
director warned him, I don't want you to get the wrong idea about where things
are going. Juan de Dios
Martinez
promised that she would set the limits and he would simply abide by her
decisions. The director found the first sexual encounter satisfactory. The next
time they saw each other, fifteen days later, the results were even better.
Sometimes he was the one who called, usually in the afternoon, while she was
still at work, and they would talk for five minutes, sometimes ten, about the
events of the day. It was when she called him that they made plans to see each
other, always at Elvira's apartment in a new building in Colonia Michoacan, on
a street of upper-middle-class houses where doctors and lawyers, a few
dentists, and one or two college professors lived. Their meetings always
followed the same pattern. The inspector left his car parked on the street and
took the elevator up, checking in the mirror to make sure his appearance was
impeccable, at least to the extent possible, considering his limitations, which
he would be the first to enumerate, and then he would ring the director's
doorbell. She would open the door, they would greet each other with a handshake
or without touching, and immediately they would have a drink sitting in the
living room, watching the dark move over the mountains to the east through the
glass doors that led onto the big terrace where, in addition to a couple of
wooden and canvas chairs and a sun umbrella furled for the night, there was
only a steel-gray exercise bicycle. Then, with no preliminaries, they would go
into the bedroom and make love for three hours. When they were done, the
director would put on a black silk bathrobe and go shower. When she came out,
Juan de Dios
Martinez
would already be dressed, sitting in the living room, gazing not at the
mountains but at the stars visible from the terrace. The silence was absolute.
Sometimes there would be a party going on in the yard of one of the nearby
houses and they would watch the lights and the people walking or embracing next
to the pool or coming in and out, as if at random, of the tents erected for the
occasion or the gazebos of wood and wrought iron. The director wouldn't talk
and Juan de Dios
Martinez
would contain the urge he sometimes felt to rattle off questions or tell her
things about his life that he'd never told anyone. Then she would remind him,
as if he'd asked her to, that he had to go and the inspector would say you're
right or glance pointlessly at his watch and leave at once. Fifteen days later
they would see each other again and everything would be just as it had been the
time before. Of course, there wasn't always a party at a house nearby and
sometimes the director couldn't or didn't want to drink, but the dim light was
always the same, the shower was always repeated, the sunsets and the mountains
never changed, the stars were the same stars.

•

Around this time, Pedro Negrete traveled to Villaviciosa to hire
someone trustworthy for his old friend Pedro Rengifo. He saw several young men.
He scrutinized them, asked some questions. He asked if they knew how to shoot.
He asked if he could rely on them. He asked if they wanted to make money. It
had been a while since he'd been back to Villaviciosa and the town looked the
same as it had the last time he was there. Low adobe houses with small front
yards. Two bars and a grocery store. To the east, the foothills of mountains
that seemed to shrink or grow depending on the progression of the sun and
shadows. When he'd made his choice, he called Epifanio over and asked privately
what he
t
hought. Which one is it, boss?
The youngest one, said Negrete. Epifanio let his gaze drift over the boy and
then he glanced at the others and before he went back to the car he said the
kid wasn't bad, but you never knew. Then Negrete let a couple of old men from
Villaviciosa buy him a drink. One was very thin, dressed in white, and wearing
a gold-plated watch. Judging by the wrinkles on his face, he was over seventy.
The other man was even older and thinner and wasn't wearing a shirt. He was
short and his torso was covered in scars partly hidden by the folds of his
skin. They drank pulque and every so often huge glasses of water because the
pulque was salty and made them thirsty. They talked about goats lost in the
Blue Hills and about holes in the mountains. During a pause, without fanfare,
Negrete called the boy over and told him he'd been chosen. Go on, say goodbye
to your mother, said the shirtless old man. The boy looked at Negrete and then
looked at the floor, as if thinking what to say, but suddenly he changed his
mind, said nothing, and went out. When Negrete left the bar, the boy and
Epifanio were leaning on the fender of the car, talking.

The boy sat beside him, in the back. Epifanio was at the
wheel. When they had left the dirt streets of Villaviciosa behind and were
driving through the desert, the police chief asked what his name was. Olegario
Cura Exposito, said the boy. Olegario Cura Exposito, said Negrete, staring up at
the stars, strange name. For a while they were silent. Epifanio tried to tune
in a Santa Teresa radio station but he couldn't get it and turned off the
radio. From his window the police chief glimpsed a flash of lightning many
miles away. Just then the car shuddered and Epifanio braked and got out to see
what he had hit. The police chief watched him head down the highway and then he
saw the beam of Epifanio's flashlight. He rolled down the window and asked what
it was. They heard a gunshot. The chief opened the door and got out. He took a
few steps to stretch his stiff legs, and Epifanio came ambling back. I killed a
wolf, he said. Let's see, said the police chief, and the two of them set out
into the darkness again. There were no headlights visible on the highway. The
air was dry but sometimes there were gusts of salty wind, as if before it made
its way into the desert the air had brushed across a salt marsh. The boy looked
at the lighted dashboard of the car and then he covered his face with his
hands. A few yards away the police chief ordered Epifanio to pass him the
flashlight and he shone it on the body of the animal lying in the road. It
isn't a wolf, said the police chief. Oh, no? Look at its coat, wolves' coats
are shinier, sleeker, not to mention they aren't dumb enough to get themselves
run over by a car in the middle of a deserted highway. Let's see, let's measure
it, you hold the flashlight. Epifanio trained the beam on the animal as the
chief laid it straight and eyeballed it. Coyotes, he said, are twenty-eight to
thirty-six inches long, counting the head. What would you say this one
measures? About thirty-two? asked Epifanio. Correct, said the police chief. And
he went on: coyotes weigh between twenty-two and thirty-five pounds. Pass me
the flashlight and pick it up, it won't bite you. Epifanio picked up the dead
animal, cradling it in his arms. How much would you say it weighs? Somewhere
between twenty-six and thirty-three, maybe, said Epifanio. Like a coyote.
Because it is a coyote, jackass, said the police chief. They shone the
flashlight in its eyes. Maybe it was blind and that's why it didn't see me,
said Epifanio. No, it wasn't blind, said the police chief, looking at the
coyote's big dead eyes. Then they left the animal by the side of the road and
went back to the car. Epifanio tried to get a Santa Teresa station again. All
he heard was static and he turned the radio off. He imagined that the coyote
he'd hit was a female coyote and it was looking for a safe place to give birth.
That's why it didn't see me, he thought, but he wasn't satisfied by the
explanation. At El Altillo, when the first lights of Santa Teresa appeared, the
police chief broke the silence into which the three of them had fallen.
Olegario Cura Exposito, he said. Yes, sir, said the boy. So what do your
friends call you? Lalo, said the boy. Lalo? Yes, sir. Did you hear that,
Epifanio? I heard, said Epifanio, still thinking about the coyote. Lalo Cura?
asked the police chief. Yes, sir, said the boy. You're kidding, right? No sir,
that's what my friends call me, said the boy. Did you hear that, Epifanio?
asked the police chief. Sure, I heard, said Epifanio. His name is Lalo Cura,
said the police chief, and he started to laugh.
La locura,
lunacy, get
it? Of course I get it, said Epifanio, and he started to laugh too. Soon the
three of them were laughing.

That
night the Santa Teresa police chief slept soundly. He dreamed about his twin
brother. They were fifteen and they were poor and they had gone out to roam the
scrub hills where many years later Colonia Lindavista would rise. They crossed
a gully where boys sometimes went
i
n
the rainy season to hunt toads, which were poisonous and had to be killed with
stones, although he and his brother were interested in lizards, not toads. At
dusk they returned to Santa Teresa, children scattering through the countryside
like defeated soldiers. On the edge of the city there was always traffic,
trucks going to
Hermosillo
or heading north or
on their way to
Nogales
.
Some were inscribed with odd phrases. One said:
In a hurry? Go right on
under me.
Another one said:
Passing on the left? just pump my horn.
And
another one:
Like the ride?
In the dream neither he nor his brother
talked, but all of their movements were identical, the same stride, the same pace,
the arm swinging. His brother was already quite a bit taller, but they still
looked alike. Then they were back on the streets of Santa Teresa and they
strolled along the sidewalk and the dream vanished little by little in a
comfortable yellow haze.

That night Epifanio dreamed about the female coyote left by
the side of the road. In the dream he was sitting a few yards away, on a chunk
of basalt, staring alertly into the dark and listening to the whimpering of the
coyote, whose insides were torn up. She probably already knows she lost her
pup, thought Epifanio, but instead of getting up and putting a bullet in her
brain he sat there and did nothing. Then he saw himself driving Pedro Negrete's
car along a long track that came to an end on the slopes of a mountain
bristling with sharp rocks. There were no passengers in the car. He couldn't
tell whether he had stolen the car or the chief had loaned it to him. The track
was straight and he could easily get up to ninety miles an hour, although
whenever he hit the accelerator he heard a strange noise from under the
chassis, like something jumping. Behind him rose a giant plume of dust, like
the tail of a hallucinogenic coyote. But the mountains still looked just as far
away, so Epifanio braked and got out to inspect the car. At first glance
everything looked all right. The suspension, the engine, the battery, the
axles. Suddenly, with the car stopped, he heard the knocks again and turned
around. He opened the trunk. There was a body inside. Its hands and feet were
tied. A black cloth was wrapped around its head. What the fuck is this? shouted
Epifanio in the dream. When he had checked that the body was still alive (its
chest was rising and falling, though perhaps too violently), he closed the
trunk without daring to remove the black cloth and see who it was. He got back
in the car, which leaped forward at the first thrust. On the horizon the
mountains seemed to be burning or crumbling, but he kept driving toward them.

That
night Lalo Cura slept well. The cot was too soft, but he closed his eyes and
started to think about his new job, and soon he was asleep. He'd been to Santa
Teresa only once before, with some old women who had come to the market to sell
herbs. He could hardly remember the trip now, because he'd been very small.
This time he hadn't seen much either. The lights of the highway ramps and then
a neighborhood of dark streets and then a neighborhood of big houses behind
high walls bristling with glass. And later another road, heading east, and the
sounds of the country. He slept in a bungalow next to the gardener's house, on
a cot in a corner that no one used. The blanket smelled of rancid sweat. There
was no pillow. On the cot there had been a stack of old newspapers and
magazines with pictures of naked women, which he put under the bed. At one in
the morning the two men who slept on the cots next to his came in. They were
both wearing suits and wide ties and fancy cowboy boots. They turned on the
light and looked at him. One of them said: he's a little guy. Lalo smelled them
without opening his eyes. They smelled of tequila and
chilaquiles
and
rice pudding and fear. Then he fell asleep and didn't dream about anything. The
next morning the two men were sitting at the table in the kitchen of the
gardener's house. They were eating eggs and smoking. He sat down next to them
and drank a glass of orange juice and a cup of black coffee. He didn't want
anything to eat. Pedro Rengifo's security chief was an Irishman named Pat and
he was the one who made the formal introductions. The two men weren't from
Santa Teresa or anywhere nearby. The bigger one was from the state of Jalisco.
The other was from
Ciudad Juarez
, in
Chihuahua
. Lalo met
their eyes and thought they didn't seem like gunmen, they seemed like cowards.
When he was done with breakfast the security chief took him to the farthest
corner of the yard and gave him a Desert Eagle .50 Magnum pistol. He asked Lalo
if he knew how to use it. Lalo said he didn't. The chief put a seven-round
magazine on the gun and then found some cans in the weeds that he set on the
roof of a car up on blocks. For a while the two of them shot. Then the chief
explained how to load a gun, how to use the safety, how to carry it. He said
his job would be to watch out for Mrs. Rengifo, the boss's wife, and he would
b
e working with the two men he'd just met.
He asked if he knew how much he would be paid. He told him that payday was
every fifteen days, that he personally paid everyone, and no one ever had any
complaints in that regard. He asked him his name. Lalo Cura, said Lalo. The
Irishman didn't laugh or give him a strange look or think it was a joke. He
wrote down the name in a little black book that he kept in the back pocket of
his jeans, and then their meeting was over. Before he left he told Lalo his
name was Pat O'Bannion.