Mexico City Noir (6 page)

“Who brought you in, cabrón? It was that asshole Rojas, right?” He repeated his questions as he went through my papers. He took his time. I don’t think he’d ever finished elementary school. He gave them back to me with a grunt. “A maricón gringo detective! That’s all we need!”

He checked out my car; he went through everything. I watched him toss out my Los Castros record, a bra whose owner I couldn’t remember, and an empty bottle of tequila.

“Where’s the money?” he asked. Just so I understood him properly, he made his point by kicking me again.

“I have three dollars and twenty pesos in my wallet,” I blathered.

The gorilla bent down until we were almost face-to-face. If I’d been a romantic guy, I might have kissed him. But he wasn’t my type: blond and curvy.

“You fuck with me and I kill you. Do you understand me, gringuito?”

“I’m Mexican,” I managed to say. But he didn’t hear me. He took my dollars and left. It took a good while for me to get up. I don’t use a watch so I had to depend on my bladder. When the need to pee became greater than the pain, that’s when I made my move. The street was still empty. All I could see were the big doors on the mansions. I unzipped and began to unload my bladder. I had barely started when I heard a police siren. They’re never there when you need them. But they fined me on a morals charge.

I recuperated with five tequilas. There might have been more. I slept for two days straight and, when I got bored with the game shows on TV, I went back to work. I checked out the address on the paper the secretary had given me. It was in the Condesa neighborhood, just a few steps from the Roxy ice-cream parlor. I drove to an apartment building in front of a beautiful park with big trees and a duck pond. There were Orthodox Jewish mothers in the park with their baby strollers and old Spanish Republicans too, smoking aromatic cigars and still dreaming of killing Franco. It was an island in the city’s chaos. A sigh for immigrants.

There was a bike repair shop next to the side door of the building. They were also for rent, those machines which cause only pain and tears. An employee was reading
La Prensa
while eating tamales.

“Good afternoon, how you doing?” I asked as if I had nothing better to do.

“Bad, but it’ll get better when school lets out,” the bike mechanic said without a pause in his sacred lunch. In Mexico City, the lunch hour is blindly respected. Even if there were a war between Soviet and American missiles, everybody would still go out for lunch and get something greasy and spicy.

“I’m looking for a friend. She lives in this building. Maybe you know her: Andrea Rojas.”

“Miss Rojas? She lives in apartment 202. She’s sleeping,” he said, still chewing.

“Must have been quite a night. Drinks, partying …”

The guy opened his eyes wide as tortillas and laughed.

“No time for that! Don’t you know she’s in school and works too? She was drawing the whole night, doing her homework. I got her dinner so she wouldn’t lose any time.”

I must have looked like an idiot. My inkling had been a bust.

“I better not wake her then,” I said as I left. The mechanic continued eating.

I bought some ice cream, pistachio. I played lookout from one of the park benches. Andrea Rojas emerged a couple of hours later, after a herd of kids had rented some bikes and entertained themselves by leaving pieces of their knees all over the pavement.

She left the building and waved at the mechanic. He said something to her and pointed at me. Andrea Rojas turned toward me; I could see her better. Well, it sure was a pleasure to look at her. Her hair was black, very dark. Pine nut—colored skin highlighted her eyes. A slender but firm body. Every curve was where it should be. Dressed in a miniskirt, wearing black stockings. She also wore a beret tilted slightly to the left. She was a goddess, beautiful and hip.

“I don’t remember having you as a friend. But you’re not a cop: you’re too short and too shabby. Who are you?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

I considered responding right away, but decided to take my time so I could enjoy her. “I’m a friend of a friend.”

“This mutual friend, does he have a name or did his parents not have enough money to baptize him?” She was quick. She’d be a hard bone to chew.

“Moreno. Some call him Mario. Some don’t.”

Her deep black eyes stabbed me like a pair of knives and she cursed under her breath. “Tell him to quit fucking with me!” she barked.

I got up from the park bench and followed her. I had to hurry; she was fast.

“Funny you should say that. He said the exact same thing.” Andrea Rojas turned around in disgust. She raised her shoulders and screamed, “I’ve already told him it isn’t me! I didn’t send that note—” But before she could finish scolding me, I noticed the cobalt-blue Lincoln approaching us. I immediately threw the girl to the ground. The bullets whizzed right above our heads. By the time I got up, the car had vanished. Andrea remained on the ground. I liked that she didn’t cry. I’m attracted to strong women.

“We need to talk. And you have no idea how badly I need a drink.”

“Motherfucker, I need two,” she said, her face white as a ghost.

I almost proposed on the spot.

We walked a few blocks, slowly entering the trendy new neighborhood where bars, restaurants, and shops vied to trap unwitting tourists: the Zona Rosa. We followed my nose for cocktails and chose a tiki bar named the Mauna Loa. I told her who I was, what I did, and I told her about my life. That took about twenty minutes. When it was her turn, she talked for more than two hours. I didn’t care: a mai tai accompanied by those black eyes was pretty close to paradise.

She told me she studied architecture at the university. In her free time, she worked as a nanny and belonged to a student group that liked to talk politics, smoke pot, and fix the country with their ideas. That’s where she’d met her boyfriend. His parents were dead and his only kin was an uncle who lived in Guatemala. She was independent, exciting, and beautiful. I’d just landed the top prize.

“… young people should come together, the future is in our hands,” she said excitedly.

“I don’t see how I could change the world. I’d need to be Superman and put on that cape to defend justice. So long as I don’t have superstrength and the power to fly, I think I’ll stick with surviving,” I confessed. It was pretty low-grade philosophy, but it was mine, and I wasn’t just going to give it away either.

“Maybe that’s what you should do: be a superhero and save the needy, not work for the oppressors,” she scolded. She was even more attractive when angry.

“Like your old boss, Mr. Moreno? Is that why you black-mailed him?” I went at her hard. I didn’t need to be that cruel but I had to earn my money.

“He only hired me to take care of his son. He was married to another woman and didn’t know what to do. I helped him with the boy after the suicide,” she said offhandedly.

“And there wasn’t an extracurricular relationship? He’s pretty famous.”

“You think I was involved with Mr. Moreno? You’re a pervert!” she said, but she was laughing at me. My case was falling apart. She wasn’t blackmailing him. “He paid for the funeral and the services when Miss Myriam died. I don’t know if he loved her but he kept his promise to take care of the boy without letting the scandal affect his wife. Even so, the police always tried to implicate him.”

“The police?”

“Yeah, those guys with the shields, the guns, and faces like dogs. If you don’t know them, I’ll gladly introduce you.” She sipped her drink with a sly grin and let herself be contemplated. She knew I was caught in her web. “And you? Do you have a woman?”

“Not that I know of,” I blurted, thrown off by the question. “Do you have a man?” she shot at me. She was getting her revenge.

“No, I don’t have anyone or anything—animal, vegetable, or mineral. What about
your
boyfriend?”

“That’s in the past. He studied philosophy and letters. He loved social causes more than me. That’s why I left him.”

“Wow, a real Superman. Did he use that old trick with the eyeglasses to make himself appear as a nerd? I can do that even without the eyeglasses.”

She didn’t respond. Instead, she made a face—half smile, half disgust. After a moment, she said, “I’m not the person who sent those notes to Mr. Moreno. Anyway, it’s been nice.

I need to get home. Pancho Villa hasn’t eaten.” She put her beret back on.

“The guy in the blue car could be waiting for you. It won’t be good for your health,” I said. That didn’t stop her. She was a rock.

“Well, I’d have to go back someday. If they want to hurt me, I can’t stop them.”

“Let me go with you. I could be your hero …” I mumbled as I dropped a couple of bills to cover the drinks. I followed her to the door. “Pancho Villa?”

“My black cat,” she said in a schoolgirl’s voice. I melted.

By the time we got to her building, the kids who’d rented the bikes were gone, probably drinking hot chocolate at home. Nighttime gave the neighborhood a different air, refreshing it with the sound of families murmuring around their TVs. The mechanic was still at the shop. He’d replaced the tamales with a bottle of beer, some tacos, and a buddy.

He waved when he saw us. While Andrea searched her bag for her keys, I saw an enormous black cat at the window-sill. I figured it was General Villa and smiled at him.

As soon as Andrea opened the front door to the building, my nose was assaulted by a strong garlic smell. I recognized it.

I knew it was emanating from an orangutan wearing a wide tie. When I tried to stop Andrea, King Kong Jr. leaped from a corner, gun in hand. He threw his arm around the girl’s neck like a snake. I cursed myself for having left the Colt in the car.

“I told you to keep out of this, gringuito,” the guy grunted. Andrea didn’t even try to make a move. She knew this man wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her.

“I know he gave you money to give to her. But this is my doing. She doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. You shouldn’t have interfered, you asshole,” he sneered. Andrea didn’t seem surprised.

“You’re the cop in charge of Miss Myriam’s case,” she deciphered. The gorilla twitched unhappily, but didn’t let go. For an instant, he looked upset about being fingered. Then he went back to what he knew best: being a motherfucker.

“Shut the the fuck up, you fucking hag! And you, where’s the cash?”

I raised my arms. I was at the threshold of the building entrance. “It’s in my car.”

“Don’t lie to me or I’ll kill her!” he screamed.

I raised my arms even higher. “It’s hidden in the place I normally stash my gun. That’s why you didn’t find it last time,” I explained. He turned to look at Andrea. Ever the rock, she just stared back at him with her black eyes, attacking him for having involved her in something so unseemly.

“Let’s go. Don’t pull any shit.”

We moved toward the street. I walked slowly. The bike mechanic and his buddy were in the midst of their partying. If we made it to the car, trying to take off with the money would surely get us both killed. I quickly glanced around, then lifted one of the bikes and threw it with all my might at King Kong Jr. He wasn’t expecting it. He let go of Andrea to aim his gun. The bike hit his hand and knocked the weapon toward him, but his finger was still on the trigger. The bullet crossed his eyes. Just like in the movies, the gorilla dropped dead to the ground. There was no blonde to cry for him. The mechanic got up and approached the body. “Hijo de la chingada!”

“It’s fucking good.” I brought the cup to my lips and slurped the margarita, then put it back on the silver tray. I looked around. The place was beautiful. We were in a colonial hacienda, on the patio, serenaded by chirping birds and a gurgling fountain. A waiter, as discreet as an obstetrician, had just brought our drinks. Cantinflas had his own assistant on hand. It looked as if the newly opened restaurant at the San Ángel Inn was the place to be. All of its patrons seemed to work in the movies, TV, politics, or had at least been involved in sex scandals.

I removed the bundle of dollars from my pants pocket and put it on the table next to my drink. Mr. Moreno stared down at the bills for a second, then they disappeared into his mustard-colored jacket.

“I took my fee from the money. I hope there’s no problem with that,” I told him as I drank the wonderful elixir.

“Then you can guarantee that I’ll never be bothered by that blackmail attempt again? I’m surprised you don’t need the money …” he said with a funny smile; he had erased all traces of his surgery for this public appearance.

“I guarantee it. That’s not your problem anymore. I recommend you find another one,” I responded, finishing off my drink. It was a fact: the San Ángel Inn was the best place for a margarita.

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth, Mr. Pascal?”

“The same way I thought you were telling me the truth when you hired me. And, actually, you lied that time.” I moved a little closer to him. He didn’t budge. He rested on the stool with his legs crossed. “You neither told me you’d hired an ex—police officer to pay the blackmail, nor that when they asked for more money, you fired him because you wanted it to go away. You also never told me it was the same cop who’d interrogated you about the suicide.”

I waited for a reaction from the movie star. He really did deserve a Golden Globe. He didn’t even arch an eyebrow.

“I owe you an apology,” he said, as if he’d merely bumped into me.

I shook my head, disgusted, and got up. A waiter showed me the bill for the margaritas I’d been drinking. I passed it to the famous comedian.

“My pay includes expenses,” I said. The curtain had fallen. I was in the way now. I wanted to leave the terrace but found I couldn’t. I had to know the truth. “I keep asking myself if you knew that cop was the person blackmailing you in Andrea’s name. Maybe you hired him to protect her. Maybe you feared he’d hurt her. You wanted to save her. You wanted me to kick his ass and you’d come out of it squeaky-clean. Was that it?”

In an instant, he put in play the simpleton character that he’d had such success with in his movies. His voice changed, he moved differently. In other words, he ceased being Mario Moreno and became Cantinflas.