Tequila Blue (2 page)

At the hotel I ordered a rum and mineral water for my nerves and my thirst, both of which are par for the course in rooms like this. Exciting sounds were coming from the room next door, as if an Aztec virgin were being sacrificed on an altar. Interestingly, our bed was against the same wall: either a hippie or a communist idea that struck me as very clever. I soon changed my mind when it was obvious Maribel's interest in my charms was transferred to the wall. She stuck to it like a limpet. Naked and as wrinkled as an accordion, I lit a cigarette. Groans and sighs accompanied me all the way to the bathroom, where I pissed with
difficulty and found a glass. My professional training led me to take it back into the bedroom, place the top against the noisiest part of the wall and gesture for Maribel to come over and press her ear to it. Judging by the growing signs of ecstasy on her face, this had the desired effect. After I'd finished my cigarette, and given that a naked man can't stand around with his hands in his pockets, I started to undress her. Far from the pressures of offices and marriages, she let me get on with it. I undid her blouse and her bra, nibbling at her neck as I did so. I was still holding the glass in one hand while with the other I stroked her underarms, aroused her nipples with my fingers, bit her shoulder blades, licked her spinal column and at the same time encouraged her clothes on their slow journey to the floor. I lifted her skirt over her head. I took my time at her waist, filled both hands with her buttocks then started to take down her undies. Maribel was groaning, purring, her ear still pressed to the glass. I slid her pants down the narrow part of her legs. Maribel lifted one red shoe and freed herself. That was the moment I realized the gods were rewarding me for being such an excellent cop: I was going to make love to a woman whose head was buried in her skirt; I was going to fornicate with a woman who was listening to another couple fornicating; I was about to fuck a woman who still had her stockings and high-heeled shoes on. Three sexual fantasies in a single fuck! My prick flew up like an acrobat. I couldn't remember
ever having seen it so big and strong. I pushed it between her buttocks and set about taking her from behind. Maribel turned towards me, smiled rapturously and whispered:

“My back's incredibly itchy. You couldn't scratch it for me, could you, love?”

For the next seven minutes I scratched her back, convinced no power on earth could ever make me erect again.

Afterwards, when we got round to sighing and then to silence after the sighs, she wanted the whole works. Disaster. I only just managed to get her to pay for the hotel and drinks. I'd been thinking of touching her for a loan, but it hardly seemed the right moment.

*

Back at the office, the boss had one of his “we're going to get a few things straight” faces on. To rub it in, as usual, he kept on about what time it was and how I had gone off with his secretary. He wasn't that bothered – in fact he was probably grateful, because if someone else didn't do it, he would have to – but he was the boss, and had to show who was in charge. Then he quickly turned to what really interested him. No news from Red. Purple veins stood out in the bags round his eyes as he stared at me in a way I was well accustomed to: I was to blame for everything. And even though my role was simply as a go-between who had to appear and collect the money from someone who wasn't there, we were talking about thirty
thousand dollars, so there was no way the Commander was going to be reasonable about it.

“I'll call him right now,” I said, playing the part of Officer Hernandez to perfection. “And he'd better have the money in his hand, or else!”

The boss's wrinkles lost some of their creases. He began to lecture me on the need to take strict measures against traffickers whose only thought was to get all the dollars they could out of the country, who thought nothing of Mexico because money was the only homeland they believed in. He went on to describe Red himself, who, to judge by the thoughts he expressed, was so unworthy and unreliable he could not understand why he had ever entrusted any dollars to him.

With his exhortation to behave with all the firmness characteristic of the DO still ringing in my ears, I left the boss's office. “Get a move on with that, because a gringo's been killed in a row between queers, and I want you to be in charge of the case” were the last words I heard.

*

It was usually a case with a gringo or involving people who could not be tainted with even the slightest whiff of suspicion, the kind of thing that could not be left to illiterate uniformed cops.

That's what we in the DO are here for, to operate with our sharp surgeon's knife on the gangrenous social body, to give precision treatment to events which, left to inexpert hands, might produce negative, even uncontrollable results.

And even though our critics – there are always critics, because there's more envy in this country than there are husbands whose wives have been fucking around – say our aims were drawn up by the comic Cantinflas, we know what we're worth.

When the Directorate of Operations was set up, the old guard was up in arms. “All operations are secret. Only senators and undersecretaries could think of associating them with publicity.”

In private they said much harsher things.

Eighteen years on, they still think we're a bunch of pseudo-intellectual politicos on the make, and even though we have a smaller budget than any other department, none of the cops can forgive us for being able to write our own names.

As I left the office, Maribel did not even deign to look at me.

*

I called Lourdes from a payphone, and I have to say that she had only herself to blame for her foul mood. To calm her down, I told her I had the money in my pocket, and a desk groaning under piles of work; I suggested she get some things on credit from the store and promised I'd settle everything that evening. She asked me no less than three times if I really had the money, if I wasn't just trying to pull the wool over her eyes, and if this wasn't simply another of my stories. That woman's ability to doubt everything defies belief. I reassured her as best I could, then I got angry and hung up.

I wanted to hear more pleasant sounds, so I rang Gloria. No sooner did she hear my voice than the tears started. She accused me of being cruel, of abandoning her, of starving her children to death. Although I know she can be a bit over the top, I was annoyed that she seemed to be blaming me for everything too. I can remember a time when she made do with nothing, always had a smile for me and was a quiet oasis where I could rest whenever my wife was displaying her talents as a harpy. Though they had never met, in five years Gloria had become so similar to Lourdes they were like sisters. I swore I'd call in at her apartment that evening and promised to take money and presents for the kids.

Red was still not in his office. The nymphette told me in a singsong voice: “Doctor Rosenthal has flown to Guanajuato, but he left a message for you: he's very sorry and asks you to forgive the delay. He's got your money, and he'll settle everything first thing tomorrow.”

Up in the sky above me I can see clouds and crows sailing past. Bound hand and foot to a sacrificial altar on the platform of a low pyramid, I watch as a priest offers me extreme unction in a language I do not understand. The priest is wearing a dagger at his waist; a frothing green mist rises from the goblet in his hands. It must be an acid or poison that will dissolve my flesh like wax.

“This is the punishment for disbelievers,” the priest tells me. “This is what you get for voting for Cuauhtemoc Cardenas.”

He tips the goblet. As the liquid falls onto my face, its icy needles empty out my eyes then fill the sockets, and the frozen fire slowly penetrates my brain.

The urge to stay alive forced me upright in bed, screaming and waving my arms in the air. I saw Lourdes's mocking, angry face and sat motionless while she finished pouring the contents of the beer bottle over my head.

Then Lourdes spoke, and her words made no more sense than the priest's litany.

“I'm tired of being your mother, Carlos!” she said. “I'm tired of your betraying me with every woman you meet! I've had it up to here and
beyond with all your lies! I'm sick and tired of how useless you are, how you can't even support your own family! I'm leaving you right now. As soon as I can, I'll take the children. And do me a favour – don't say a word. Don't even think of trying to explain anything.”

“Hang on a minute!” Soaked and annoyed, uncertain whether to slap her or try to talk, I jumped out of bed.

Lourdes raised the bottle over her head.

“Come any closer and I'll crush your balls!” she threatened.

I collapsed onto a chair. I let my wife walk out on me without lifting a finger. I understood that her irrationality and egotism had leaped over all the barriers of self-censorship and shame and taken over every aspect of her character.

I went to the bookshelves – fifteen hundred works, some of them classics inherited from my father, others erotic novels or thrillers, or text-books from my school days, penal codes and other legal volumes – took down
Philosophy in the Boudoir
by the Marquis de Sade. I pretended to be enjoying reading it until Lourdes slammed the door behind her.

I lit a cigarette and got another beer from the fridge. I walked round the flat drinking and smoking. Lourdes had not even bothered to make the kids' beds while they were at school. On the dining-room table I found a sealed envelope for the children, marked “For Carlos and Araceli”. God knows what she could have to say as she
abandoned them. I considered steaming the letter open but in the end couldn't be bothered. I had a shower, then discovered that the bath towel was missing. I was indignant that she could have been so selfish as to take it. I was forced to wipe myself dry using dirty clothes from the basket. I had a shave and put on my brown suit, the only one of my three outfits still relatively decent. Only the previous day I had been thinking of getting Lourdes to take my grey one to the dry-cleaner's. In my stomach, a third-world protest demonstration was starting up to demand something more substantial than tar and barley juice. A thorough investigation of fridge and larder produced only disheartening results. In my house everything, absolutely everything, gets eaten, in unbelievable amounts. They say that rats are the living beings capable of eating the widest variety of substances. I reckon an objective comparison between rats and my family could lead to a change of opinion. I found two half-rotten bananas, a bit of cheese so old it was fit only for worms and cockroaches, a carton of milk I decided to keep for my children (they're growing so they need it more than me, besides which I hate the stuff), a few dried-out frozen tortillas and a bottle of
chipotle
chilli sauce. Fortunately, there were some beers. I always keep one or two handy, so that I can have some cold whenever I feel like it. I have to take care of this myself, seeing how little I can count on Lourdes for anything that might concern me.

I decided to eat some tacos near the office.

Before leaving the flat I called the money exchange, where a male voice told me Doctor Rosenthal was away on a trip and they had no idea when he would be back. I put on my tough voice: “This is Officer Carlos Hernandez, and I need to speak to Rosenthal urgently, so please give me his address and personal telephone number.” The person at the other end was obviously worried and answered: “One moment please”, then left me hanging on for ten minutes. Eventually another man came on the line, introducing himself as Perez Blanco, the firm's accountant. I pictured him as someone who wore a well-pressed grey suit, had thinning, neatly brushed hair, and used tortoiseshell glasses. A dumb-looking asshole, one of those unbearable pedants who think they have the right to say and do whatever they like provided they are unctuous and polite with it. He began by saying he was at my service for anything concerning the business. I pressed him for Red's address and phone number. As calm as could be, Perez Blanco said he was very sorry but he did not have Doctor Rosenthal's address, as he had recently moved, to San Angel, he believed. He added that he would be delighted to give me the phone number, but that unfortunately he did not have it to hand. Besides which, he understood that Doctor Rosenthal's telephone was out of order and had not yet been repaired.

“This is the police,” I explained. “I'll give you one minute to get the number and give it to me.”

“Yes. One moment.”

I could hear the accountant Perez Blanco breathing heavily. Twenty seconds later, I was dialling Red's number. A velvety voice came on the line to tell me: “The number you have dialled is out of service; we regret any inconvenience this may cause you.” I suggested something the velvety lips could do for me that would be sure to end all my inconveniences, then hung up.

I called the money exchange once more. I said who I was and asked to speak to Rosenthal's secretary. The same male voice from my previous call informed me that as of the day before Miss Esparza no longer worked for them. I asked to speak to Perez Blanco again and was told: “He's just gone out.” I didn't have to pretend to be angry when I asked whether Rosenthal himself still worked for them, and the voice at the other end – a spineless, pathetic sort, I surmised – was not pretending either when he expressed concern that no, Doctor Rosenthal was no longer with them, although there were still some loose ends for him to tie up. In fact, they were expecting him to arrive, or at least to hear from him, during the course of the day. I asked for his name – “TeodorGomezAtYourService” – so I barked “Tell him to phone me today without fail.”