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Raping
women and then killing them seemed more
attractive
to him, more
sexy,
than plunging
a cock into Farfan's oozing hole or Gomez's hole full of shit. If they keep
fucking each other, I'm going to kill them, he thought sometimes. First I'll
kill Farfan, then I'll kill Gomez, the three Ts will help me, they'll provide
the weapon and the alibi, the logistics, then I'll throw the bodies into the
abyss and that will be the last of them.

Fifteen
days after his arrival at the Santa Teresa prison, Haas held what could be
called his first press conference, attended by four reporters
from
Mexico City
and almost
all the print media of the state of
Sonora
.
During the question-and-answer period Haas reaffirmed his innocence. He said
that when he was interrogated he had been given "strange substances"
to break his will. He didn't remember having signed anything, any
self-incriminating statement, but he indicated that if he had it had been
achieved after four days of physical, psychological, and "medical"
torture. He warned the reporters that "things" were happening in
Santa Teresa that would prove he wasn't the killer. Among the reporters who had
come from
Mexico City
was Sergio Gonzalez. His presence this time wasn't due, as it had been the
first time, to a need for money and his eagerness to take on extra work. When
he found out that Haas had been arrested, he talked to the editor of the crime
page and asked him, as a special favor, to let him follow the case. The editor
raised no objection and when he found out that Haas planned to speak to the
press, he called Sergio at the arts page and told him he should go if he
wanted. It's finished business, he said, I'm not sure I understand why you're
interested. Sergio Gonzalez didn't really understand either. Was it simply
morbid fascination, or was it perhaps the certainty that in
Mexico
nothing was ever finished
business? When the improvised press conference was over, Haas's lawyer shook
each reporter's hand. When it was Sergio's turn he felt the lawyer slip him a
piece of paper. He put his hand holding the paper in his pocket. Outside the
prison, while he was waiting for a taxi, he examined it. The only thing on the
paper was a phone number.

•

Haas's
press conference was a minor scandal. Since when, it was asked in some circles,
could an inmate call a meeting with the press and talk to reporters as if he
were in the comfort of his own home and not the place the state and justice
system had sent him to pay for a crime, or, as the legal documents reminded, to
serve
a
sentence.
It was said Haas had paid off the warden. It was said
Haas was the heir, the sole heir, of a very wealthy European family. According
to this dispatch, Haas was swimming in cash and had the whole Santa Teresa
prison at his beck and call.

That
night, after the press conference, Sergio Gonzalez called the number the lawyer
had given him. Haas answered. Sergio didn't know what to say. Hello? said Haas.
You have a phone, said Sergio. Who is this? asked Haas. I'm one of the
reporters you saw today. The one from
Mexico
City
, said Haas. Yes, said Sergio. Who did you think
would pick up? asked Haas. Your lawyer, admitted Sergio. Well, well, well, said
Haas. For a moment both were silent. Do you want me to tell you something? said
Haas. Here in prison, the first few days, I was afraid. I thought the other
inmates, when they saw me, would come after me to avenge the death of all those
girls. For me, being in prison was exactly like being dumped on a Saturday at
noon in a neighborhood like Colonia Kino, San Damian, Colonia Las Flores. A
lynching. Being torn to pieces. Do you understand? The mob spitting on me and
kicking me and tearing me to pieces. With no time for explanations. But I soon
realized that in prison no one would tear me to pieces. At least not for what I
was accused of. What does this mean? I asked myself. That these shitheads are
impervious to murder? No. Here, to a greater or lesser degree, everyone is sensitive
to what happens outside, to the heartbeat of the city, you might say. What was
it, then? I asked an inmate. I asked him what he thought about the dead women,
the dead girls. He looked at me and said they were whores. So in other words,
they deserved to die? I asked. No, said the inmate. They deserved to be fucked
as many times as anyone wanted to fuck them, but they didn't deserve to die.
Then I asked him if he thought I had killed them and the bastard said no, not
you, gringo, as if I was a fucking gringo, which inside maybe I am, although
I'm becoming less and less of one. What are you trying to say to me? asked
Sergio Gonzalez. That here in prison they know I'm innocent, said Haas. And how
do they know it? asked Haas. That was a little harder for me to figure out.
It's like a noise you hear in a dream. The dream, like everything dreamed in
enclosed spaces, is contagious. Suddenly someone dreams it and after a while
half the prisoners dream it. But the
noise
you hear isn't part of the dream, it's real. The noise belongs to a
separate order of things. Do you understand? First someone and then everyone
hears a noise in a dream, but the noise is from real life, not the dream. The
noise is real. Do you understand? Is that clear to you, Senor Reporter? I think
so, said Sergio Gonzalez. I think I follow you. Do you, are you sure? asked
Haas. You mean there's someone in the prison who knows for a fact that you
couldn't have done the murders, said Sergio. That's it, said Haas. And do you
know who the person is? I have some ideas, said Haas, but I need time, which in
my case is paradoxical, don't you think? Why? asked Sergio. Because all I have
here is plenty of time. But I need even more time, much more, said Haas. Then
Sergio wanted to ask Haas about his confession, the trial date, his treatment
by the police, but Haas said they would talk about that on another occasion.

That same night, Inspector Jose
Marquez told Inspector Juan de Dios
Martinez
about a conversation he'd overheard without meaning to at one of the Santa
Teresa police stations. Those present were Pedro Negrete, Inspector Ortiz
Rebolledo, Inspector Angel Fernandez, and Negrete's watchdog, Epifanio Galindo,
although as it happened Epifanio Galindo was the only one who never opened his
mouth. The subject of the conversation was Klaus Haas's press conference. Ortiz
Rebolledo believed it was the warden's fault. Haas must have given him money.
Angel Fernandez agreed. Pedro Negrete said there was probably something more to
it. An extra peso or two to tip the warden in the right direction. Then the
name of Enrique Hernandez came up. I think Enriquito Hernandez twisted the
warden's arm, said Negrete. Could be, said Ortiz Rebolledo. Son of a fucking
bitch, said Angel Fernandez. And that was all. Then Jose Marquez came into the
office, said hello, and was about to sit down, but Ortiz Rebolledo waved him
away, making it clear he should leave, and when he went out Ortiz Rebolledo
himself closed and locked the door so no one else would bother them.

Enrique
Hernandez was thirty-six. For a while he had worked for Pedro Rengifo and then
for Estanislao Campuzano. He was born in Cananea, and when he had enough money
he bought a ranch nearby, where he raised cattle, and a house, the best he
could get, in the center of town, steps from the market square. All his
right-hand men were from Cananea, too. He had a fleet of five trucks and three
Suburbans, and it was believed he was in charge of transporting the drugs that
came by sea to
Sonora
and were dropped at some point between Guaymas and Cabo Tepoca. His mission was
to deliver the shipments safely to Santa Teresa, then another person took
charge of transporting them to the
United States
. But one day
Enriquito Hernandez met up with a Salvadorean who was in the business and who,
like him, wanted to go independent, and the Salvadorean put him in touch with a
Colombian, and all of a sudden Estanislao Campuzano found he no longer had a
transport manager in
Mexico
and Enriquito had become a competitor. Not that the
 
volume of sales
bore any comparison. For each kilo Enriquito moved, Campuzano moved twenty, but
wrath doesn't recognize differences of magnitude, so Campuzano, patiently and
without haste, waited for his time to come. Of course, it wasn't to his
advantage to turn Enriquito in, for reasons to do with the trade. Instead, he
wanted to put him out of circulation by legal means, then quietly take back the
route himself. When the right moment came (a wrangle over a woman in which
Enriquito went too far and ended up killing four people from the same family),
Campuzano notified the Sonora attorney general's office and doled out money and
clues, and Enriquito wound up in prison. For the first two weeks nothing
happened, but during the third week four gunmen showed up at a warehouse
outside of San Bias, in northern Sinaloa, and after killing the two watchmen
they carted off a shipment of one hundred kilos of coke. The warehouse belonged
to a peasant from Guaymas, in the south of
Sonora
, who had been dead for more than five
years. Campuzano sent one of his trusted deputies to investigate the matter, a
man by the name of Sergio Cansino (alias Sergio Carlos, alias Sergio Camargo,
alias Sergio Carrizo), who, after asking at the gas station and around the
warehouse, was able to learn only that during the robbery more than one person
had seen a black Suburban in the area, like the ones Enriquito Hernandez's men
used. Then Sergio went around to the ranches in the area, on the off chance he
might find the Suburban's owner. He got as far as El Fuerte, but no one there
and none of the few ranchers he came across had the money to buy a Suburban.
The fact wasn't reassuring, but that was all it was,
 
thought Estanislao Campuzano, a fact to be
considered in context. The Suburban might easily have belonged to an American
tourist lost in the billowing dust or a
judicial
passing through, or a high official on vacation with his family. Soon
afterward, as one of Estanislao Campuzano's trucks, loaded with twenty kilos of
coke, was driving along the dirt road from La Discordia to the border town of
El Sasabe, it was attacked and the driver and his companion were killed. They
were unarmed, because they had planned to cross over into
Arizona
that evening and no one crosses the
border armed when he's transporting drugs. You carry either arms or drugs, but
not both at the same time. That was the last anyone heard of the men in the
truck. Or the drugs. The truck turned up two months later in a scrapyard in
Hermosillo
. According to
Sergio Cansino, the owner of the scrapyard had bought the truck, which was a
wreck, from three junkies, petty criminals and police informers. He talked to
one of them, called El Elvis. El Elvis told him that a player from Sinaloa had
let him have the truck for four pesos. When Sergio asked how he knew the man
was from Sinaloa, El Elvis said he could tell by the way he talked. When Sergio
asked how he knew he was a player, El Elvis said it was his eyes, the way he
looked at you, like a player, openhanded, not afraid of anybody. He was no weekend
cowboy, he was the real thing, somebody who would just as soon shoot you in the
guts as trade you his truck for a Marlboro or a toke of weed. He gave you the
truck in exchange for a joint? Sergio asked, laughing. Half a stick, said El
Elvis. This time Campuzano really was angry.

Why is Enriquito Hernandez, in
his own way, of course, protecting Haas? Inspector Juan de Dios
Martinez
asked himself.
What does he get out of it? Who does he hurt by protecting Haas? And he asked
himself, too: how long does he plan to protect him? A month, two months, as
long as he thinks he needs to? And why rule out affection, friendship? Wasn't
it possible that Enriquito had befriended Haas? Couldn't it be a decision based
solely on friendship? But no, said Juan de Dios
Martinez
to himself, Enriquito Hernandez
didn't have friends.

In October 1995, no dead woman
turned up in Santa Teresa or the surrounding area. Since the middle of
September, the city had been able to breathe easy, as they say. In November,
however, a girl subsequently identified as Adela Garcia Estrada, fifteen, a
worker at the EastWest maquiladora, was found in the El Ojito ravine. She had
disappeared a week before. According to the medical examiner, the cause of
death was a fracture of the hyoid bone. She was dressed in a gray rock band
sweatshirt with a white bra underneath. And yet, her right breast had been
severed and the nipple of her left breast bitten off. The case was handled by
Inspector Lino Rivera and later by Inspector Ortiz Rebolledo and Inspector
Carlos Marin.

On
November 20, a week after the discovery of the body of Adela Garcia Estrada,
the body of an unidentified woman was found in a vacant
lot
in Colonia La Vistosa. The woman seemed to be about nineteen and the cause of
death was various stab wounds to the chest, all or almost all potentially
fatal, produced by a double-edged blade. The woman was wearing a pearl-gray
vest and black pants. When her pants were removed in the forensic lab, it was
discovered that underneath she had on another pair of pants, gray. Human
behavior is a mystery, declared the medical examiner. The case was assigned to
Inspector Juan de Dios
Martinez
.
No one claimed the body.