Pacazo (55 page)

To the front gate, out and along, the gas station for a time. Then walking. Thickets of rebar rising from certain roofs. Karina left several messages and I would have answered them but there are too many ways tonight might go. Mexico at some point beat Korea and a mototaxi flashes its headlight. I had intended to walk. Perhaps it makes no difference.

I give the driver an address not far from where I wish to start looking. He squints at me, says that the roads are still very bad. I wait. He says nothing. I tell him that I will arrive whether he takes me or not. He nods, I climb in, and ideas come, spin and tilt and tremble, handcuffs and blowtorch, handcuffs and hammer and chisel, plastic bag. Plastic bag and coat hanger. Plastic bag and coat hanger and ax.

We jolt across a pothole and the driver swears, begs my pardon. I tell him that there is no problem though this cannot possibly be true. Colombia lost to Romania and something else is happening, something known and predicted and yet the newscasters pretend to be surprised: for two days there has been fighting in Marseille, young men from Germany and France breaking bottles over one another’s heads. Elsewhere there are other alignments. In Lima young men in Argentine uniforms fight young men in English uniforms, and all the young men are Peruvian.

Slowly across the bridge, and in the dim gray light on the banks are massive tractors and cranes brought at last to reinforce the columns. Farther downriver I have seen still larger cranes removing what has fallen. To and past the Mobil station where no one now sits and watches and throws. Turning and south along the avenue, past the stadium and into Castilla, that old kingdom, those riches, this dust.

The mototaxi sways hard with my weight, nearly topples when a streetdog rushes us and the driver swerves. Past the airport entrance. A few hundred yards farther on we leave the avenue and curl along the barb-wire fence that separates the runway from a dark mass of houses. Slower, and still slower.

The houses, their tin roofs and adobe walls, a lightless corner, and here the mototaxi stops. The driver asks if this is where I meant. I nod, step down and pay, and he wheels the mototaxi around.

When he has gone, I find the street that most nearly aligns with the runway and knock at the closest door. No one answers. Up the street and knocking at the next door, and again there is no answer though I can hear children crying inside. Voices respond at the next four houses but none of the doors open; four times I am told that I am at the wrong address, four times ignored when I ask for directions to the right one.

Across to the next block, another door, and no answer. Another, and the wrong address. Another, and the woman who calls through the door says that she has no idea what I mean. I am halfway to the next house when I hear her voice again. I turn, and her door is open, and she is pointing back down the street.

- Turn right at the corner, she says. You’ll see a light. Walk another block and ask again.

Before I can answer she has closed the door. I walk as she directed. In the middle of the first block is the light she mentioned, a single working streetlight. Standing beneath it are half a dozen young men.

The circle opens as I approach. The men nod to one another and smile. I walk directly to the largest of them, say that there is no reason to smile. He does not stop smiling, is not afraid of me at all. Another asks why I have come to a place in which I so clearly do not belong. The question was meant for his friends, but I am the one who answers: In my entire life, I have never belonged anywhere so well.

His laugh sounds like razors and rust. I answer again, tell the truth this time, and ask if he can help. This is not a response they were expecting. They look at one another. Finally the largest says he will take me, and the others look away.

The sidewalks are shattered here, the walls almost bare of paint. Three blocks along the man pauses at a corner, turns down a darker side street, and I follow. From there he takes me up a still darker alley, and points at a massive hole cut into the wall.

No light whatsoever comes out through it. I look at the man, and he shrugs, precedes me in. I follow the sound of him, stumble on a stone but do not fall. Along the side of a building. A corner, and we turn, have reached some sort of courtyard.

At its center is a table. Ten or twelve people are seated around it, a few of them arguing quietly, the rest listening. Beyond them is a door, and the light mounted above it is very bright.

- Here you are, says my guide. These are the Resolvers.

Everyone at the table turns and stares. All of them are men, most my age or nearly so, but at least one is quite old, and there are a few who look to be in high school. I approach, say hello, and no one answers. I say that I have come to help. Still there is no answer. A half dozen more men come out the door, and another adolescent, and five young boys. Now the oldest man stands from his position at the head of the table. He appears to be in his seventies. He thanks me for coming, says that my help is neither needed or desired, says that I may go.

- All right, I say. Catch him on your own then. It should not be too hard, because you have seen his face, correct? Some of you? At least one of you? No?

- Each and every one of us, says the old man.

He holds up a drawing. I walk to the table. He will not let me take the piece of paper in my hands but lays it flat on the table that I might see. It is a photocopy of the police sketch of the taxista who opened his door for Beatriz Silvana Cordero Huarcay.

I nod, congratulate the old man, ask him where he got it. He does not answer. I say that it is true, that the murderer looks much like this sketch. Everyone at the table nods. It is also true, I say, that there are many men in Piura who look like this sketch. But that does not matter, I say, because you have also seen him in person, yes? A few of you, at least?

- No, says another, and neither have you.

- But I have. And I have heard his voice. And I know part of the license plate of his taxi.

Silence for a time. The old man asks me to stand against the far wall. I wait while they converse. At last I am beckoned back.

- Welcome, says the old man. From now on, your name is Santiago.

In eight more minutes my students will have finished their essays and I will gather the papers and go. I walk up and down the aisles, pause at each desk, pretend to read through each text and be pleased. It has been some time since minutes took so long to pass.

This will be my fourth night in Castilla and very early this morning there was noise at my front door, knocking, Karina, drunk. I let her in and attempted to listen. She asked if I had lost my north. I said that nothing was out of the question. She said that she knows what I am feeling and this is not possible: I am feeling nothing, which is one of many essential tricks, I suspect. She shouted things about me, about her father and Italy and the green man, and finally left.

Brazil destroyed Morocco and Chile tied Austria and a French policeman is in a coma. He tried to break up a fight between one group of Germans and another, it is said, and his skull was crushed. There is talk of skinheads and cell phones and that first night we sat in the courtyard for hours. The air smelled of scrap iron and sweat. The old man’s name is Segismundo. He called for another chair to be brought, and another glass, and we drank chicha de jora—all of us, even I myself—and poured the last drops of each glassful into the dirt.

Three more minutes and I continue to walk the aisles but cease pretending to read. The Resolvers are less absurd than I had thought. Some are very sad, and others are very angry, and a few are both. One or two have lost hope. I do not know why they still come.

Also there are a few who are damaged. One is middle-aged and short and fat, and I believe he is the burglar who came over my wall. There in the courtyard we stared at one another, decided as if with one mind to act as though we had never met before, and perhaps it was true. He came to sit beside me, and said that his name was Félix. He spoke to me of the taxista, of ice picks, of mop handles and battery acid and I smiled, but then Segismundo called to us, asked us to focus on what was at hand, the logistics so much like my own, the searching of bars and murder sites, the posting of flyers.

At last the bell. I walk not to my office but directly to the gate. Several taxis pass by, and I wait for a mototaxi instead, take it to the airport entrance as if headed out on business, and walk from there. It is the best way, I am convinced.

Today Mireille came to the Language Center and before she could ask I informed her that I had no possible way of knowing but would notify her immediately should there be any need. English fans attacked a reporter in Toulouse and the reporter, too, was English. The fans thought he had given them a bad name. They hurled him against a concrete pylon and broke his collarbone.

I suspect that tonight we will search in Miraflores and the Resolvers are split nearly evenly between those who knew the second recent victim and those who knew the third. Segismundo has contacted the family of the first as well. They wanted nothing to do with us, want nothing to do with anything, and this will make the evening simpler for me if no one else.

The stadium, the airport gate, walking along and in. The streetlight and young men. The side street and alley, the hole. Men call to me as I enter, know me by my size.

Miraflores, says Segismundo, and several of us nod, those who guessed correctly. This new project began last night: taxi by taxi until we find him. Segismundo reminds us each of our roles. Then there is discussion as to whether my license plate information should still be considered central. Most believe that the taxista will have changed taxis, perhaps changes them after each kill, that the man’s face and voice are our best evidence. Others are certain that if we find the taxi pertaining to the earliest known murder, we will have begun climbing a chain that will lead us to the murderer though we cannot yet estimate its length.

Segismundo says that there is no reason not to consider faces and license plates simultaneously. The others stand from the table. I ask if I may speak briefly on a separate topic. Segismundo settles back into his chair and everyone else sits down, because I have seen the Face, because I have heard the Voice.

- I am very much in favor of this latest endeavor, I say. I have high hopes for its success. But there are other projects that could be undertaken as well.

I wait for them to nod, and now they do.

- Let us go to San Teodoro, I say.

The two youngest boys nod and smile. No one else reacts in any way.

- Daniela Rocío Espinoza Farfán, I say. The first of the recent victims.

- What about her? says Segismundo.

- Do you remember? Her family seized the body before the police could finish their autopsy. She was buried without anyone ever—

- No, says Segismundo.

- But—

- She has been buried and it is done. We will not be party to desecration.

- We could—

- If you wish to be one of us you will refrain from insisting any further.

I look around the table. No one meets my eyes, not even Félix. I nod, thank them all for listening, say that in that case let us proceed with Segismundo’s plan for the taxistas, and perhaps we will discuss the cemetery again some other time.

We stand, walk out and along and north into Miraflores, spread ourselves along the roadway and begin stopping taxis. Most often a glance at the face is enough and we let them go. In some cases they attempt to pull away before we have seen them properly, but already Resolvers are standing against the hood, against the trunk, against the side doors. Every so often there is one who resembles the sketch. We ask him to step out into the light such as it is, and if he refuses, I reach in.

We have been searching this way for an hour when I notice that the two youngest boys are perpetually close on my heels. The three of us stand on the curb and await the next taxi. I look at them and they look at me. I nod and they nod back and I ask for their names.

- The Resolvers call us Three and Four, says the taller boy, but our real names are Iván and Ciro.

I ask which is which and they point to show me. The shorter boy, Ciro, says that he is nine and Iván is eight, that they are Segismundo’s grandsons, that they live with him in the house where we meet. I say that it is a pleasure to make their acquaintances.

- You don’t recognize us, do you, says Ciro.

I look again. They are as familiar and unfamiliar to me as anyone else their age. I ask where they have seen me before.

- San Teodoro, says Iván.

I look once more, and remember.

- You carried flowers for me on the Day of the Dead.

- We would have helped you arrange them as well, but you didn’t want us to.

- From now on, I say, you will carry and then arrange, and I will pay you double.

The boys agree. A taxi comes, stops when I wave, and the driver weighs perhaps two hundred pounds. I apologize, say that instead we will walk. The driver shakes his head and pulls away.

- And do you also work on the bamboo ladders, cleaning tombs?

- Not yet, says Ciro. The older boys won’t let us.

- Do you think you are strong enough to carry one of those ladders? The two of you, together?

- Of course. They are very light. And even if they were not, we are very strong.

I look at Iván. He nods. Another taxi, and the driver is in his fifties.

- Where do they keep those ladders when they’re not being used?

- There’s a shed behind the chapel, says Ciro.

- All right. How would you like to do a little secret ladder work tomorrow night? The murderer left clues in the cemetery and I need to find them. It will only take two or three hours. I will pay you each as much as the older boys make in a day.

The thought makes them very happy.

- But only if you can keep the secret, I say. If I find out that you have told anyone, even your mother or father, even Segismundo, the deal is off.

- His real name is Eduardo, says Iván.