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Twenty
minutes later a patrol car showed up. Pedro Rengifo's wife had a cut on her
forehead but she wasn't bleeding anymore and it was she who directed the
policemen's first steps. Her initial concern was for her friend, who was in a
state of shock. Then she realized that Lalo Cura
w
as wounded and she demanded they call another ambulance for him
and that both Lalo and her friend be taken to the Perez Guterson clinic. Before
the ambulances came, more policemen arrived and several recognized the
professional, who was lying dead on the sidewalk, as a state judicial police
inspector. Just as Lalo Cura was about to be put in an ambulance, a couple of
officers grabbed him by the arms, shoved him in a car, and drove him to
Precinct #1. When Pedro Rengifo's wife got to the clinic, after leaving her
friend settled in one of the best rooms, she went to check on the state of her
bodyguard and was told he had never arrived. She demanded that the medics from
the other ambulance be fetched immediately, and they confirmed that Lalo Cura
had been arrested. Pedro Rengifo's wife picked up the phone and called her
husband. An hour later the Santa Teresa police chief appeared at Precinct #1.
With him was Epifanio, looking as if he hadn't slept for three days. Neither of
the two seemed pleased. They found Lalo in one of the basement cells. There was
blood on the boy's face. The policemen who were questioning him wanted to know
why he had finished off the two gunmen, and when they saw Pedro Negrete come in
they stood up. The chief sat in one of the vacated chairs and made a sign to
Epifanio. Epifanio grabbed one of the policemen by the neck, pulled a
switchblade from his jacket, and slashed the man's face from mouth to ear. He
did it in such a way that not a single drop of blood landed on him. Is this the
one who fucked you up? asked Epifanio. The boy shrugged. Take off his
handcuffs, said Pedro Negrete. The other policeman took off the handcuffs, all
the while muttering
ay, ay, ay.
What's wrong, man? asked Pedro Negrete.
We made a mistake, boss, said the policeman. Get Pepe into a chair, it looks
like he's about to pass out, said Pedro Negrete. Between Epifanio and the other
policeman they sat the wounded officer down. How are you? Fine, boss, it's
nothing, I'm just dizzy, that's all, said the officer as he felt in his pockets
for something to press against the wound. Pedro Negrete handed him a tissue.
Why did you arrest him? he asked. One of the guys he shot was Patricio Lopez,
from the state judicial police, said the other policeman. Well, what do you
know, so it was Patricio Lopez, but why did you think it was the kid who did it
and not one of his partners? asked Pedro Negrete. His partners ran off, said
the other policeman. Goddamn, that's what I call partners, said Pedro Negrete.
So what did my boy do then? The policemen said that as far as they could
establish, it seemed Lalo Cura had proceeded to shoot at them. At his own
partners? That's right, his own partners, but before that, wounded in the
shoulder and seemingly for no good reason, he had finished off Patricio Lopez
and a shithead with an Uzi. It must have been the shock, said Pedro Negrete.
I'm sure you're right, said the officer with the cut face. Anyway, what else
could he do? asked Pedro Negrete. If Patricio Lopez had gotten the chance, he
would have finished the kid off too. That's true, said the other policeman.
Then they talked and smoked for a while longer, with a few brief interruptions
for the officer with the cut face to change tissues, and then Epifanio escorted
Lalo Cura out of the cell and helped him to the door of the police station
where Pedro Negrete's car was waiting for him, the same car that had driven him
away from Villaviciosa a few months before.

A
month later, Pedro Negrete visited Pedro Rengifo's ranch, southeast of Santa
Teresa, and demanded the return of Lalo Cura. I gave him to you, Pedro, and now
I'm taking him back, he said. And why is that, Pedro? asked Pedro Rengifo.
Because of the way you've treated him, Pedro, said Pedro Negrete. Instead of
putting him with someone experienced, like your Irishman, so my boy could
learn, you put him with a couple of faggots. You're right about that, Pedro,
said Pedro Rengifo, but I'd like to remind you that one of those faggots came
to me on your recommendation. True, I admit it, and as soon as I get my hands
on him I'll right the wrong, Pedro, said Pedro Negrete, but now we're here to
right your wrong. Well, as far as I'm concerned there's no problem, Pedro, if
you want the boy back, he's yours, and Pedro Rengifo gave orders to one of his
men to bring Lalo Cura from the gardener's house. While they were waiting,
Pedro Negrete asked about Pedro Rengifo's wife and children. About the
livestock. About Pedro Rengifo's grocery businesses in Santa Teresa and other
northern cities. The wife spends all her time in Cuernavaca, said Pedro
Rengifo, and we sent the children away to the United States for school (he was
careful not to say where), the livestock is more a worry than a business, and
the superstores have their ups and downs. Then Pedro Negrete wanted to know how
Lalo Cura's shoulder was. It's just like new, Pedro, said Pedro Rengifo. The
work is easy. The kid spends all day sleeping and reading magazines. He's happy
here. I know he is, Pedro, said Pedro Negrete, but the way things are, one of
these days he might get killed. Don't make it sound worse than it is, Pedro,
s
aid Pedro
Rengifo with a laugh, but then he turned pale. On their way back to Santa
Teresa, Pedro Negrete asked the boy if he'd like to be on the police force.
Lalo Cura nodded. Shortly after they left the ranch they passed an enormous
black stone. On the stone Lalo thought he saw a Gila monster, motionless,
staring into the endless west. They say that stone is really a meteorite, said
Pedro Negrete. In a gully, farther to the north, the Rio Paredes curved, and
from the road the tops of trees were visible like a green-black carpet with a
cloud of dust hanging over them where Pedro Rengifo's cattle came to drink each
afternoon. But if it was a meteorite, said Pedro Negrete, it would've left a
crater, and where's the crater? When Lalo Cura looked at the black stone again
in the rearview mirror, the Gila monster was gone.

The first dead woman of 1994 was found by some truck
drivers on a road off the
Nogales
highway, in the middle of the desert. The truckers, both Mexican, worked for
the maquiladora Key Corp., and that afternoon, despite having full loads, they
decided to stop for food and drinks at a bar called El Ajo, where one of the
truck drivers, Antonio Villas Martinez, was a regular. On their way to the bar
in question, the other truck driver, Rigoberto Resendiz, was dazzled for a few
seconds by a flash in the desert. Thinking it was a joke, he radioed his friend
Villas Martinez and the trucks pulled over. The road was deserted. Villas
Martinez tried to convince Resendiz that it had probably been the reflection of
the sun off a bottle or some broken glass, but then Resendiz saw a shape about
three hundred yards from the highway and strode toward it. After a while,
Villas Martinez heard Resendiz whistle and he set off after him, not without
first checking that both trucks were locked. When he got to where his friend
was waiting he saw the body, which was clearly a woman's, though her face was
a
bloody mess. Oddly, the first thing he noticed were the woman's shoes. She
was wearing nice tooled-leather sandals. Villas Martinez crossed himself. What
do we do,
compadre'?
he heard Resendiz ask. By the tone of his friend's
voice he understood that the question was rhetorical. Call the police, he said.
Good idea, said Resendiz. Villas Martinez spotted a belt with a big metal
buckle around the dead woman's waist. That's what was flashing,
compadre,
he
said. Yes, I saw, said Resendiz. The dead woman was wearing hot pants and a
silky yellow shirt with a big black flower stamped on the chest and a red
flower on the back. When the body reached the medical examiner, he discovered,
in astonishment, that under the hot pants the woman still had on white
underpants with little bows on the sides. He also noted that she had been
anally and vaginally raped, and that the cause of death was massive
craniocerebral trauma, although she had been stabbed twice too, once in the
chest and once in the back, wounds that had caused her to lose blood but
weren't necessarily fatal. Her face, as the truck drivers had observed, was
unrecognizable. The date of death was fixed, in a general way, between January
1 and January 6, 1994, although there was some possibility that the body had
been dumped in the desert on December 25 or 26 of the previous year, now
fortunately past.

The
next dead woman was Leticia Contreras Zamudio. The police reported to La
Riviera
, a nightclub
between Calle Lorenzo Sepulveda and Calle Alvaro Obregon, in the center of
Santa Teresa, after receiving an anonymous call. In one of the private rooms at
La
Riviera
,
they found the body, which exhibited multiple wounds to the abdomen and chest,
as well as to the forearms, which led to the conclusion that Leticia Contreras
had fought for her life to the last. The dead woman was twenty-three and had
been working as a prostitute for more than four years, without a single brush
with the police. After being questioned, none of the other girls could say who
was with Leticia Contreras in the private room. At the time she was killed,
some thought she had been in the bathroom. Others said she was in the basement,
where there were four pool tables, because Leticia couldn't resist a game of
pool and she wasn't a bad player. One girl even went so far as to suggest she
had been alone, but what would a whore be doing alone in a private room? At
four in the morning the whole staff of La
Riviera
was brought in to Precinct #1.
Around this time, Lalo Cura was learning the traffic cop beat. He worked at
night, on foot, and he drifted like a ghost through Colonia Alamos and Colonia
Ruben Dario, from south to north, in no hurry, until he reached the center of
the city, and then he could go back to Precinct #1 or do whatever he liked. He
heard the screams as he was taking off his uniform. He got in the shower
without paying much attention, but when he turned off the water he heard them
again. They were coming from the cells. He tucked his gun in his belt and went
out into the corridor. At that time of night, Precinct #1 was almost empty,
except
f
or the waiting room. In the
antitheft task force office he found another policeman, asleep. He woke him and
asked if he knew what was going on. The policeman said there was a party in the
cells, and he could go down if he wanted. When Lalo Cura left, the policeman
went back to sleep. From the stairs Lalo Cura smelled alcohol. There were
twenty people jammed into one of the cells. He stared at them without blinking.
Some were asleep on their feet. One who was up against the bars had his pants
undone. The ones in the back were a shapeless mass of darkness and hair. It
smelled of vomit. The cell must not have been more than ten feet square. In the
corridor he saw Epifanio, who was watching what was happening in the other
cells with a cigarette between his lips. He moved toward him to tell him the
men were going to suffocate or be crushed to death, but with his first step he
was silenced. In the other cells policemen were raping the whores from La
Riviera
. How's it
rolling, Lalito? said Epifanio, going to get in on the action1? No, said Lalo
Cura, you? Me neither, said Epifanio. When they'd seen enough they went out for
some fresh air. What did those whores do? asked Lalo. It looks like they bumped
off another girl, said Epifanio. Lalo Cura was quiet. The early morning breeze
along the streets of Santa Teresa really was fresh and cool. The scarred moon
still shone in the sky.

Two of the girls who worked with Leticia Contreras Zamudio
were formally accused of her murder, although there was no proof they were
guilty, except for their presence at La
Riviera
at the time of events. Nati Gordillo was thirty years old and had known the
dead woman since the latter came to work at the nightclub. At the moment in
question she was in the bathroom. Rubi Campos was twenty-one and she hadn't
been at La
Riviera
for more than five months. At the moment in question she was waiting for Nati
in the bathroom, with only the door of the stall between them. The two of them,
it was established, had a very close relationship. And it was proved that Rubi
had been verbally attacked by Leticia two days before Leticia was killed.
Another girl had heard Rubi say that Leticia would pay. The suspect didn't deny
this, although she made it clear that she had planned to beat her up, not
murder her. The two whores were transferred to
Hermosillo
and locked up at Paquita Avendano,
the women's prison, where they remained until their case was handed over to
another judge, who was quick to declare them innocent.

In all, they spent two years in
prison. When they got out they said they were going to try their luck in
Mexico City
, or maybe they went to the
United States
. The one thing
certain is that they were never seen in the state of
Sonora
again.

The next victim was Penelope Mendez
Becerra. She was eleven years old. Her mother worked at the maquiladora
Interzone-Berny. Her older sister, sixteen, was also an Interzone-Berny
employee. Her older brother, fifteen, worked as a delivery boy and messenger
for a bakery not far from Calle Industrial, where they lived, in Colonia
Veracruz
. Penelope was
the youngest and the only one in school. Seven years before, the children's
father had left home. At the time, they all lived in Colonia Morelos, near the
Arsenio Farrell industrial park, in a house Penelope's father had built himself
from cardboard and stray bricks and sheets of zinc, next to a trench that two
of the maquiladora companies had dug to build a drainage system that in the end
was never completed. Both parents were from the state of
Hidalgo
, in the middle of the country, and
both had migrated north in 1985, in search of work. But one day Penelope's
father decided that the family's living conditions weren't going to improve
with what he earned at the maquiladoras and he decided to cross the border. He
left with nine others, all from
Oaxaca
.
One had made the trip three times already and said he knew how to dodge the
migra.
For the others it was the first
attempt. The
pollero
who led them
across told them not to worry. If they were unlucky enough to be arrested, he
said, they should give themselves up without a struggle. Penelope Mendez's
father spent all his savings on that trip. He promised he would write as soon
as he got to
California
.
He planned to bring his family to join him in less than a year. They never
heard from him again. Penelope's mother imagined that maybe he had found
another woman, American or Mexican, and they were doing well for themselves.
She also wondered, especially in the first few months, whether he had died in
the desert, at night, alone, listening to the coyotes howl or thinking of his
children, or on an American street, killed by a driver who left him to die, but
these thoughts paralyzed her (in them everyone, including her husband, spoke a
different, incomprehensible, language), and she decided not to think them.
Also, if he had died, she reasoned, someone would have let her know, wouldn't
they? In any case she had enough problems at home without speculating about her
husband's fate. It was hard to keep herfamily afloat. But since she was a
neighborly and circumspect woman, optimistic by nature, and since she knew how
to listen, she had plenty of friends. Especially women, who found her story
familiar, nothing strange or out of the ordinary. One of these friends got her
the job at Interzone-Berny. At first she walked a long way to work. Her older
daughter took care of the other children. Her name was Livia, and one afternoon
a drunken neighbor tried to rape her. When her mother got home from work, Livia
told her what had happened and her mother went to call on the neighbor with a
knife in her apron pocket. She talked to him and she talked to his wife and
then she talked to him again: pray to the Virgencita that nothing happens to my
daughter, she said, because if it does I'll blame you and I'll kill you with
this knife. The neighbor said that from then on everything would change. But by
this point she didn't trust the word of men and she worked hard and put in
overtime and even sold sandwiches to her own coworkers at lunch until she had
enough money to rent a little house in Colonia Veracruz, which was farther from
Inter-zone than the shack by the trench, but it was a real little house, with
two rooms, sturdy walls, a door that could be locked. She didn't mind having to
walk twenty minutes longer each morning. In fact, she almost sang as she
walked. She didn't mind spending nights without sleeping, working two shifts
back to back, or staying up until two in the morning in the kitchen when she
had to leave for the factory at six, making the chile-spiked sandwiches her
fellow workers would eat the next day. In fact, the physical effort filled her
with energy, her exhaustion was transformed into vivacity and grace, the days
were long, slow, and the world (perceived as an endless shipwreck) showed her
its brightest face and made her aware, as a matter of course, of the brightness
of her own. At fifteen, her older daughter started work. They still walked to
the factory, but the trip seemed shorter with all their talking and laughing.
Her son left school at fourteen. He worked at Interzone-Berny for a few months,
but after several warnings he was fired for not being quick enough. The boy's
hands were too big and clumsy. Then his mother got him a job at a neighborhood
bakery. The only child still in school was Penelope. Her school was called
Aquiles
Serdan
Primary School
and it was on Calle Aquiles Serdan. There were children there from Colonia
Carranza and Colonia
Veracruz
and Colonia Morelos and even a few children from the center of the city.
Penelope Mendez Becerra was in the fifth grade. She was a quiet girl, and she
always got good grades. She had long straight black hair. One day she left
school and was never seen again. That very
evening her mother
requested permission from Interzone to go to Precinct #2 to file a missing
person report. Her son went with her. At the precinct a policeman wrote down
her name and told her she would have to wait a few days. Her older daughter,
Livia, wasn't able to come with her because Interzone was of the opinion that
it was sufficient to have given her mother leave. The next day Penelope Mendez
Becerra was still missing. Her mother and brother and sister showed up at the
police station again and wanted to know what progress had been made. The
policeman behind the desk told them not to be insolent. The Aquiles Serdan
principal and three teachers were at the station, inquiring about Penelope, and
it was they who led the family away before they could be fined for disorderly
conduct. The next day Penelope's brother talked to some of her classmates. One
said she thought Penelope had gotten into a car with tinted windows and hadn't
gotten out again. By the description it sounded like a Peregrino or a
MasterRoad. Penelope's brother and her teacher talked to the girl for a long
time, but the only thing they could get clear was that it was an expensive
black car. For three days her brother crisscrossed Santa Teresa on exhausting
walks looking for a black car. He found many, even some with tinted windows,
gleaming as if they had just come from the factory, but the people in them
didn't look like kidnappers, or were young couples (their happiness made
Penelope's brother cry) or women. Still, he noted down all the license plate
numbers. At night the family would gather at home and talk about Penelope in
words that meant nothing or whose ultimate meaning only they could understand.
A week later her body turned up. It was found by some city maintenance workers
in a drainage pipe that ran beneath the city from Colonia San Damian to the El
Ojito ravine, near the Casas Negras highway, past the clandestine dump El
Chile
.
The body was immediately removed to the medical examiner's office, where it was
established that the girl had been anally and vaginally raped, with
considerable tearing of both orifices, and then strangled. After a second
autopsy, however, it was declared that Penelope Mendez Becerra had died of a
heart attack while being subjected to the abuses described above.