The Demands of the Dead (24 page)

“So, someone who can coordinate across agencies and also set something like this up in San Cristobal,” Walter said. “Doesn't sound like a Public Security base commander to me.”

“You know what I'm wondering?” Evelyn asked. “Janet said she was in town and was planning to try to meet with you anyway. But how did the embassy know about that office? It's obviously not a widely announced place. But from when we contacted her, we were able to go pretty much straight to the place because of the security officer.”
“Marchese...” I said. “I know him from home.”
I know him from home
, those words, ringing in my head bothered me, but I couldn't quite understand why.

“They got more going on at the embassy than we know,” Walter said.

“They also wanted to know where Chavez was. Why would they care where Chavez was?” I said out loud, though neither of them knew who Chavez was.

“Or maybe,” Evelyn said, “who at the embassy cares? Because I don't think Janet does.”

I turned to Walter.“You are heading back to the States?”

“We're both going,” Walter said. “The embassy knows where we are, people in Public Security are trying to kill you. All we can do now is bring heat on.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “But, if you're going to be in the capital soon, I was wondering if you could help me with something. There's a lot of need for self-defense in Mexico, a lot of weapons floating around. A lot of dogs, too.”

“Yeah.”

“I could imagine needing to protect myself from a dog, in an emergency.”

“Got it,” Walter said.

We arranged a meeting for later, in the capital.

I got up with the sun, packed my bag up, changed into my traveling clothes. Evelyn, in just the T-shirt again, came to the living room to kiss me goodbye, her hand on my chest, before going back to bed with Walter.

“There's a guy who should know how lucky he is,” I told her. And watched her walk away.

I would lose the day traveling, and that left me with just a night and a day to meet Chavez in Mexico City.

But first, I needed one last stop at the Cafe Historia. Susana came straight over to me, wiping her hands on her apron and kissing my cheek.

“I need a color printer,” I told her.

Cafe Historia had an office, as I suspected, adjoining the soundproof room. Good internet access, encryption software already installed.

As I put my own disk in to access my private key, I remembered last night, and I realized I knew who The Trainer was, and that I had wasted opportunity. More than once.

Maria had, indeed, sent me the picture I wanted from Shawn's files. It was a neat lineup, a perfect photo array. Salant, Rossi, The Trainer, and two cops I didn't know, all holding up paper targets with bullseyes shot through them. The sharpshooting course.

The Trainer looked younger, softer, closer to the way I remembered him.

Susana turned the printer on.

“Susana, the kid you were talking to, the night I got to Hatuey, the nine year old girl, did she start speaking?”

“Yes, she is OK. She... saw something in the forest.”

“Yes she did,” I said as the color printer wove the picture. I searched the desk for a pen and found a red marker. Perfect. I wrote “1” on Salant's bullseye, “2” on Rossi's, “3” on The Trainer's, and “4” and “5” on the other cops.

“She saw one of these men,” I said, handing her the paper. “She saw the man who killed Gonzalez and Diaz. Take this photo to Hatuey, tell her to point to the man she saw, send me an email with nothing but the number, and then burn this photo and don't tell anyone about it again.”

I got back in the street with extra time to wander around the cathedral before boarding the bus. Up close, the church's mustard yellow and red wine facade blocked the sky like a giant, painted cliff face, putting humans and our petty concerns in perspective. I could hear different masses going on in different Maya languages in different chambers, while a lively market just outside the church sold leather, clothes, Zapatista paraphernalia dolls and t-shirts.

I bought myself a clay car full of cloth rebels and stood outside the crowded Tzotzil mass for about half an hour. I knew my time had come when I caught myself watching the mangy dogs that hung around the cathedral instead of straining to hear the mass, which I couldn’t understand anyway. I took a cab to the bus terminal, unworried about the taxi driver, La Migra, Seguridad Publica, or the Embassy. I wasn't prey any more – now I was the hunter, and my quarry had slipped me for the last time.

Chapter 10

They had a ticket but they asked for my name. I gave them a fake one and took a window seat near the back, next to a shy older woman in the aisle. When I woke up from dozing, she was sleeping. I ate bread and sipped bottled water. The driver showed a year-old American movie on a video screen at the front of the bus, played some Spanish versions of American pop songs, and got us to the TAPO bus terminal two hours earlier than I expected.

I had American pizza at the food court of the bus station and got on the Metro, Mexico City's extraordinarily cheap labyrinth of a subway system. You could get anywhere in the city for 15 cents. On the train cars sellers wrestled their way through the crowds pushing electric razors, dime novels, and coloring books. The signs and maps of the subway system had pictures, logos to go with every station name. I was going to Isabel la Catolica station to check in to my hotel and wait for Chavez.

My hotel featured a bar with lots of locals, a mediocre restaurant, and huge rooms. My double room was bigger than my Brooklyn apartment, and several times the size of the cells of Cerro Hueco.

I drafted my memo to Hoffman, then dashed downstairs and picked up a copy of the newspaper Tourelle wrote for. Tourelle had filed a story on the Garcias, with quotes from Evelyn's interview and the latest information: they were in the Zapatista cell block.

I walked, then crawled along the perimeter of the room, taking apart the electronics, checking for bugs. Then I did it again.

I got dinner on the street. On my way back to my room, I reminded the receptionist to give my room number away to anyone who asked. He got the sense I was waiting for a young lady with a bottle of wine and gave me a knowing smile.

Was he ever going to be disappointed by who came knocking.

Then I turned the TV to the Mexican Discovery Channel and nearly fell asleep.

He knocked before midnight.

“?Hablaste con alguien?” I asked through the door.

“Si, un profe”, he said.

I let him in and closed the door.

He was wearing an old t-shirt, tight jeans, big sneakers, and big sunglasses. He’d lost at least ten pounds. He walked in, picked up the jug of water on the table and drank half of it before sitting down. He looked around, almost relaxed for the first time.

“I think we can talk here,” I told him. I didn’t sit. I walked over and turned the TV up.

“I haven’t seen my family. I sent them north. To Monterrey I’m afraid for them.”

“So is your cover blown?”

“I’m not sure. I left when they removed me from the case and the death threats started coming in.”

I sat at the table with him. “What are you going to do?”

“I want to go to the US.”

“I thought you might,” I said. “When you get to Monterrey, take your family northwest to the Parque Nacional Maderas del Carmen. Someone will meet you there.”

“
Un coyote
?”

“Not the way you think,” I said. “My guy will decide how to get you across. Maybe through the national parks, illegally. Or maybe you'll cross legally, with papers, and he'll meet you on the other side. But he'll get you across. Once you're across, go to New York, and Hoffman will get you help setting up. Maybe you can work for us.”

I went and checked the curtains at the window. They were already closed, but I didn’t want any light leaving the room. Just in case. I’d already switched the furniture around so there were no clear shots from the window or the door to the table. Just in case.

“Now,” I said, “do you have anything for me?”

“What?”

“A list of who at Hatuey military base is working for the narcotraffickers.”

“Only Diaz, who's dead, and Madero.”

“Escalante's clean? Beltran's clean?”

“As far as I know, yes. Commander Beltran is no friend, but he is not a narcotraficante.”

That was a surprise to me. “So,” I said, “it was Madero who put the paramilitaries on me. I thought it was Beltran.”

“Since you're alive, I can assume that the paramilitaries never caught you?”

Actually, a couple of Zapatistas, including the guy who'll be taking your family across the border, counter-ambushed them.
“Something like that,” I said. “When I saw the killer's tracks,” I continued, “I knew that it was not an elite soldier. He was a good shooter, but Special Forces, Recon Marines, Army Rangers, they all learn better how to cover their tracks, how to move in the bush. But the shooting, the timing, the escape, the ambush, were professional. A cop, not a soldier, I thought, not one with much bush experience. I told you that.

“I never really believed the Zapatistas did it. The Zapatista strategy is political, not military, and when they change it, it won't be to kill a couple of cops in the jungle. It'll probably be to take over the all the towns, like 1994, or something.

“So I followed the drugs. Drugs go through the jungle in the hands of cops. The drug-runners pay the cops and the paramilitaries protection money to let drugs through. Sometimes those cops just steal the shipments.

“Then there were the politics. The Institutional Revolutionary Party. PRI. Elections coming up. The PRI might just lose their first elections in 70 years. People are leaving the party and looking for a better deal. Gonzalez and Diaz did that. They left the PRI.

“Let's divide this case in two. Your job was to answer this question: ‘who killed Gonzalez and Diaz’. My question, the question for the outsider, was just this:‘was it the Zapatistas?’

“And it had to be the Zapatistas, because of the timing. How could the cartels time it so perfectly? How could they be there at the right time, to kill just those two boys, and be gone without a trace like that? Why would cartels spend so much time and energy learning the patrols and the routines, and strike at the last possible minute? Why not just go after the boys' families?

“And the same goes for the PRI. Ultimately, there’s only two ways you could know when and where Gonzalez and Diaz are going to be on the morning of their absolute last patrol. You either know all the patrols because you watch them, and that makes you the Zapatistas, or you know because you made up the schedules, and that makes you the police. Either way, you know who’s coming, and you really want to kill them. Specifically them.

“Now why would the Zapatistas go out of their way to kill two cops on their last day of patrol? Because Diaz was a paramilitary. He trained paramilitaries. And Marchese trained him. Marchese told me that at the funeral. Diaz must have been hated by the Zapatistas enough for a hit and then some. Gonzalez was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So you picked up two Zapatistas for the crime – that was you, wasn't it?”

“No. It was Beltran.”

“So Beltran picks up two Zapatistas, throws them in jail, and it’s done, right? But the Zapatistas are charged with—drugs? Not the murders? And you get removed from the case, put on mandatory leave. Why? Because of Gonzalez’s rifle. Why does Gonzalez have such incredibly bad luck with his rifle? He was quick enough to defend himself from the sniper but his gun jammed. His rifle broke down twice in a row. He was a sitting duck.

“And the Zapatistas, whatever else they can do, can’t get on to a Public Security base and sabotage Gonzalez’s rifle.

“Did he call you when they sabotaged his rifle the first time?”

“Yes,” Chavez said.

“You and Gonzalez were both part of the undercover anti-corruption unit. You sent Gonzalez in to work with Marchese and keep an eye on him. Gonzalez was doing fine, watching Marchese turn Diaz into a para and then a leader of paras. They did jobs for the PRI bosses, harassed the Zapatistas, kidnapped grandmothers, while Gonzalez gathered evidence. Then Marchese did something, screwed something up. Stole a drug shipment and kept the profits for himself. Promised Diaz a cut of the profits and then stiffed him. Diaz's wife said the boy thought big money was around the corner.

“So Marchese upset the narcos and the PRI and Beltran. He upset Diaz so much Gonzalez was able to turn him. You told Gonzalez to get out of there then, so he got them both a transfer.

“You went to work on Beltran and Saltillo trying to get them to get your man out of there, but you had to be careful because they wanted to keep a relationship with Marchese. He was still bringing in the American money and gear. You couldn’t tell them about IMECO.

“Then at some point Marchese figures it out. Maybe he talks to Diaz and Diaz tells him. He tampers with Gonzalez’s rifle and Gonzalez panics. He calls you and you tell him to stick it out. He files a complaint about the rifle and hopes Beltran will figure out Marchese’s messing with him. Beltran doesn’t do anything. Keeping Marchese happy is more important than Gonzalez.

“So you were pretty much helpless, hoping they’d make it those few days and get out of there, and Marchese pulls the trigger on them at the absolute last possible time. Beltran suspects but doesn’t know. Saltillo too. The US Embassy doesn't know either, even though he's been using their resources to follow us around and even take a shot at me the other day. They don’t really want to know. But you knew from the very beginning. I think maybe you threatened Marchese personally. He was afraid of you, for sure, and he doesn't scare easily.”