The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (51 page)

ALEGRÍA HAD COME for the last inspection. She could not see Tacho’s eyes behind the mirror lenses of his sunglasses, but she could see his thin lips pulled up in a smile. She thought she would not be able to speak or even to breathe. Menardo asked what was wrong. He was gripping her hand and smiling and talking happily as he always did when she arrived.

“She knows,” Alegría said in a weak voice.

“What?” Menardo let her hand loose. “No! How could she? What makes you say so!”

Alegría sank her head back on the seat with her eyes closed. “Ask him,” she said, barely lifting a hand to point at Tacho. Tacho was watching them in the rearview mirror. Tacho nodded his head. Menardo felt his world had split into halves, one half flying behind him in the airliner with Alegría, the other looming ahead of him as Iliana’s old aunt stormed from the airport lobby, towing Iliana behind her as she rushed toward them. Menardo had fended off Iliana’s old aunt while Alegría rushed to catch a flight back to Mexico City.

Iliana’s aunt had already called the Portillo firm to speak with the senior partner. After the old aunt and Iliana had confronted Menardo, the old woman’s driver had taken her directly to a telephone to relay a
message to the Portillo firm: “Whore arrives
P.M
. flight.” Old man Portillo himself had met Alegría at the airport, with the firm’s lawyer at his side. Except for the surroundings and the noise, both of which had been chosen by Portillo deliberately, the whole affair had been surprisingly civilized and quick. She had agreed to resign her position immediately, and the firm had in turn presented her with a generous severance check. Portillo and the lawyer had concluded the business before the luggage off the arriving flight had been unloaded. Old man Portillo had been pleasant because she had proven all his arguments against hiring women at any level in their firm.

Just like that, Alegría had thrown away six years of university classes and her professional career, at least in Mexico. There had been “the tight white knot,” as the student radicals called the Eurotrash oligarchy. They themselves were all grandchildren of the worst oligarchs, which gave them, they argued, a special privilege to attack those who had spawned them. How the radicals would have laughed if they could have seen her paid off and dismissed in public with people staring at the tears running down her face after Portillo and the lawyer walked away. Just like that her career as an architect was gone. Obliterated. All for Menardo, and she had not even been aroused much by his chubby hands and the short, fat prick. She could have handled Menardo as she had handled dozens of others—clients, colleagues, and senior partners. Portillo himself had “accidentally” brushed her arm and breast a time or two himself; she could have bought a little “job security” from Portillo, but she had been too proud. She didn’t know why, but the pride was gone now. Had it been because Menardo had made promises right from the start? Was it because he had kept insisting he would take care of her? She had loved her work. She did not need a man to give her money. Something inside herself had listened each time Menardo had whispered in her ear. Had she believed Menardo’s promises about a business of her own? In the same town where his wife lived? Alegría had completely lost her good sense.

Somewhere in the equation, Bartolomeo’s name appeared. Alegría had dreamed about him and awoke crying because in a dream he had boarded an airliner to leave her forever. Bartolomeo would only make jokes about the loss of her job. Bartolomeo argued Alegría’s services rightfully belonged to the poor who needed shelter, and not to the sweat hogs of capitalism. Alegría’s designs—whitewashed walls and stone breezeways above sapphire-blue water—were pure decadence, capitalist pigstys.

Her job was lost, and her career in Mexico, maybe everywhere, was ruined. Bartolomeo would die laughing. All her schooling, all her bourgeois delusions cut down to size. And now maybe she would come to be with the rest of them, the people about to deliver Mexico a great revolution.

Mexico had never seen a great revolution, only rehearsals for the greatest uprising. Here was Alegría’s big moment. Her choice. She had only to say yes to Bartolomeo and she could be part of “it.” Whatever “it” was.

ANGELITA LA ESCAPÍA had been at the airport for nearly twenty-four hours. She had watched the comings and goings of cars and bodyguards and overheard heated phone calls by the old maiden aunt. Menardo was memorable that day. La Escapía had noticed him the first time when he greeted the young white woman who had arrived on a flight from Mexico City. Hours after Iliana and her old aunt have been driven home, La Escapía sees the pudgy half-breed monkey return, this time wearing stiff new jungle-camouflage fatigues and black combat boots. What was the deal? Red Monkey had passed La Escapía both times, the second time so close she could smell the alcohol fumes around his face. The monkey drank tequila. Red Monkey was the code name for Menardo when they discussed him and the trading and services he had increasingly been performing for General J. The long delay at the airport was a windfall for their people. Red Monkey was about to fall into the soup.

La Escapía watched the three small planes land one after the other as delicate and quick as moths. They taxied to the hangar area where she watched Menardo greet each pilot in turn, shaking hands and nodding vigorously all the while. Marx had been right about a great many things. The history of the Americas made revolution against the European domination inevitable. But Marx had also been a European, and
he and those following after him had understood the possibilities of communal consciousness only imperfectly. European communism had been spoiled, dirtied with the blood of millions. The people of the Americas had no use for European communism. That was why she and the others had voted to break with the Cubans. La Escapía strolled outside to the area shaded by hangar buildings. General J.’s jeep was parked next to the black Mercedes. The general and Red Monkey were standing in front of the three airplanes, gesturing wildly at one another and smiling. La Escapía and the others had expected the private air force for some time; after all, Menardo maintained his private security police as a service to the customers of Universal Insurance. La Escapía had been furious with intelligence reports because nothing had been found out about the link between the arms dealer in Tucson and General J.’s friends at the U.S. CIA. Yet they had collected volumes of detailed surveillance of Menardo’s sexual liaisons with the little lady architect from Mexico City. El Feo had only shrugged his shoulders at the intelligence officer. La Escapía had really been angry then. Why didn’t they admit it? They enjoyed watching the architect because she slept with comrade Bartolomeo, their Cuban friend.

La Escapía disliked the waste of valuable energy spying on their own members. Yes, she knew Bartolomeo was not strictly one of them. Bartolomeo was the liaison with Cubans and other friends of indigenous people. Bartolomeo was the funnel for financial aid wheedled away from comrades all around the world. She did not like Bartolomeo either. When the issue was the indigenous people, communists from the cities were no more enlightened than whites throughout the region. Still, Bartolomeo was weak enough for her and El Feo to manage as they wished. Accounting and receipts would be no problems. Bartolomeo was too lazy to be bothered to keep accounts.

“Yes, sir!” El Feo was saying triumphantly. “Things
were
what they appeared to be! Comrade Bart was fucking the architect at the same time she was fucking the enemy, Menardo.”

La Escapía kept hold of her temper. “So what?” she wanted to know. Were they implying Bartolomeo was a double agent? Did they know if the architect was also an agent? What was their proof? Only lunatics believed in guilt by association. El Feo had not disagreed or argued with La Escapía. He only smiled and nodded; La Escapía knew he was agreeing with himself and not with anything she might say, the stubborn, smelly he-goat. La Escapía could tell the direction El Feo’s thoughts were running, and she had to agree with El Feo this time. There
was no revolution and there would be no revolution as long as “outsiders” like Bartolomeo were telling the people how to run their revolution.

MENARDO THANKED GOD a thousand times for the three airplanes that had been delivered that afternoon. The airport, which earlier had been the scene of such terrible humiliation, before the sunset, had become the site of another of Menardo’s milestones, his greatest triumph since he had saved ten thousand new appliances from the tidal wave. Universal Insurance now boasted its own private air force. Menardo and General J. had kept themselves spellbound for hours talking about their partnership in the insurance business. Wherever revolution, mutiny, uprising, or guerrilla war might strike, Universal Insurance
would be there
to offer complete protection to clients. No need to depend on poorly equipped government forces. Besides, “government forces” could not be trusted. Military officers hatched mutinies left and right, and disgruntled police might develop “blue flu” and call in sick if the price wasn’t right. Universal Insurance would provide the answer for every security need. Legislative assemblies had fallen into the hands of radicals and madmen. Urgent needs to bolster the national defense were ridiculed by communists, terrorists, and anarchists of every sort. Chief executives of the future could buy policies with Universal Insurance to indemnify themselves against violent uprising or revolution.

“With the services of Seguridad Universal, all the client does is signal us with a Code Blue. Even if we have only the sketchiest details, we go to our computerized files where we locate the client’s instructions. Code Blue from a head of state guarantees said chief of state instant and complete mobilization of Universal’s Special Security Forces.”

The three light planes would become “gunships” equipped with .50-caliber guns.

Whenever Menardo recalled the terrible scene with the weeping woman in the airport lobby, he felt as if his intestines had dropped into his underpants. But Menardo had only to catch a glimpse of the three
small planes to feel reborn. The beauties were in his possession if only for a few hours, until General J.’s pilots flew them to Guatemala. Menardo almost broke into a run to reach the small, sleek planes. Greenlee had delivered one of the Piper Cherokees himself. He was standing with the other two pilots who had flown the planes from Tucson. Greenlee stopped talking and smoothed the imaginary wrinkles of his black driving gloves before he crossed the concrete apron to shake hands with Menardo.

Menardo ran his hands over the metal as if the planes were racehorses. Was Menardo pleased? Greenlee was only there to please one person: that person was the customer, Menardo. For purposes of confidentiality, Menardo had not introduced Greenlee to General J. The general’s own position was rather complicated, and he had cautioned Menardo to reveal their partnership to no one, certainly not the wives. The general reminded Menardo “women are blabbermouths.” The general had not mentioned Iliana by name, but Menardo’s heart began pounding again. He felt the familiar surge of adrenaline rush through his limbs. Menardo was afraid the general knew about the affair between himself and the woman architect. Everywhere the walls had eyes and ears. Only the other afternoon they had been discussing internal security over drinks at the ninth-hole shooting club. General J. had been drunk and loud as he had said, “No one can be trusted. A great storm is gathering on the southern horizon.” Menardo did not want anything to go wrong; he did not want a woman, not even a woman such as Alegría, to upset his partnership with the general. They would have the perfect arrangement: the general would not only perform his official military duties along Mexico’s southern border, he would oversee security operations for Universal Insurance Corporation. The general liked to say he had suffered the inadequacies and impotence of the army too long. It had been a lonely job for the general. He himself had seen Marxists in the highest levels of the Mexican government, Marxists who routinely castrated the budget requests from military commanders such as himself. Marxist conspirators in government refused the general the manpower and the modern equipment necessary to protect the southern border while Cuba was supplying Indian bandits and criminals sniper rifles with infrared scopes. All the general had for his troops were assorted carbines, some left over from the Second World War. The same subversive elements in the government sent him raw recruits—not soldiers—scrawny Indians who wore their army-issue boots dangling by laces around their necks. “Savages,” General J. was fond of calling them. They had calluses
on their feet thicker than the soles of any boots. Well, now the general had his own air force at his disposal. Soon Universal Insurance would have an entire security force on continuous standby call: a private army all their own.