The Shadow of the Shadow (17 page)

"Made in Papantla. Excellent. Just like tire."

"So how do you want to run it? You want to use the same
angle as last time? A little cheap nationalism, the only Mexican
tire, etc..."

"Not cheap nationalism, expensive nationalism. You leave
spaces, we put in prices."

"Speaking of prices, how many lines are we talking about?"

"One, two, three good phrases. We take care of the rest right
here, writers, artists. You just give us one, two, three good ones..."

"Five hundred pesos, a hundred up front," said the poet,
preparing himself for Peltzer's counterattack.

"Pesos... Mexican pesos? This is a fortune. Impossible.
Mexican industry cannot keep up with foreign competition,
terrible situation. Better we do ad work here. No can do, my friend
Valencia. Mr. Valencia. So what's it going to be?"

"Look, if you ask me to do twenty ads, it'll cost you thirty
pesos each. But if you just want me to write the jingles, which is the most work, then my price is fixed, set, solid, good, excellent, the
only one, but not cheap, just like your tire. Five hundred pesos."

"Listen to me, poet. I see you do not understand the situation
of Mexican industry. We are still suffering the disaster of the
Revolution. Any day, another one. Instability everywhere, bad for
roads, bad for tires. Foreign competition is terrible. From Detroit
come tires, many tires, terrible quality, but cheap, very cheap.
Cars, there are many cars, five thousand imported last year, but
competition terrible. Textile crisis, mining crisis, crisis crisis. No
money. Lots of rumors. Rumors everywhere. Less money every
day."

"What kind of rumors, Mr. Peltzer?"

"Rumors, problems, United States. Rumors, problems, petroleum. Rumors, army, coup d'etat. Again, again. Rumors
everywhere, soldiers everywhere, even here."

The industrialist's voice took on a conspiratorial tone. He
looked at his watch and pointed with a fat finger toward the
door.

"Ten minutes and I have a visitor. You will see. Visitors come,
visitors go."

"Five hundred," said the poet.

"Four hundred and not a cent more."

"Five hundred, or I go to work for Detroit for free, out of
spite."

"Have a cigar. From Papantla, like tires."

"Five hundred."

"Everywhere rumors. Bad times. Strikes everywhere. Anarchists
in the factories. One day yes, one day no, riots, insurrection."

The poet sighed. It figured that the owner of the only tire
company in the country would haggle just like the owner of the
corner store. Mr. Peltzer would never become a millionaire at that
rate. Or who knows? Maybe that's what made a man a millionaire.
The truth is, it was a three-hundred-peso job, but from Peltzer
he wouldn't take anything less than four hundred. And whatever he could wangle out of him above that he'd give to the "riot and
insurrection" anarchists Peltzer was so worried about. Probably
some of Tomas' friends.

"I'll tell you what. Since you gave me a few ideas yourself about
the product, I'm going to give you a ten-percent discount. Only I
don't want you to get the idea that's the way I usually do business.
But seeing as how you're a Mexican company"-the poet bit his
lip-"competing with the foreign monopolies, and especially from
such a rotten city as Detroit..."

"You have been to Detroit?"

"No."

"Okay, four hundred and forty, a nice even number, or better
yet, four-fifty. Better, no?"

"Better yet four-sixty," said the poet, helping himself to a
Papantla cigar.

Peltzer smiled broadly.

"Good advertisement, good, like tire, excellent tire."

"The best, my friend," said the poet, feeling a little bit like
Diego de Alvarado selling glass beads to the Tlaxcaltecas.

Peltzer signed a voucher for the cashier and, after ceremoniously shaking hands, led the poet to the door.

Fermin smiled at Peltzer's secretary who he could just see
through the partially opened door to the broom closet adjusting
her stockings. He was heading through the swinging doors that
led to the salesroom when he walked smack into a uniform. To
be precise, he suddenly found his nose pressed against the upper
button of the uniform tunic of a thin young army lieutenant. The
poet mumbled an "excuse me,"but the officer stood staring at him
for a moment and then suddenly went for his gun. Fortunately for
the poet, the lieutenant carried a long-barreled Mauser automatic
in a showy leather holster. While he wrestled to work the gun free,
the poet kicked him in the shin and ran back the way he'd come.
He had a vague idea of seeing a second man following behind the
lieutenant, a blond dandy with a waxed mustache.

As he retreated, Fermin cursed himself for his carelessness
in going out unarmed, but who would have thought that even in
the offices of the Peltzer Tire Company... He ran through the
waiting room-where Peltzer's secretary was just emerging from
the broom closet with her stockings perfectly in place-and burst
through the door into Peltzer's office. The first gun shot exploded
behind him and the bullet sent splinters flying from Peltzer's
mahogany desk. Without taking the time to turn down a Papantla
cigar, Fermin ran past the Mexican tire king and threw open the
window. "Shit," he thought.

Peltzer's office was on the fourth floor of the Guardiola Building, near the corner of San Juan de Letran. Without hesitating,
the poet stuck his leg through the window and edged along the
narrow ledge. A light breeze blew in his face. He could hear shouts
from the office behind him, Peltzer arguing with the lieutenant
and his companion. Fermin smashed his fist through the window
in the next office over. Another shot whizzed by him and he
crashed in through the window, splinters of glass cutting into
his hand, ripping his trousers, and lodging in his hat. The sight
of a stranger bursting into his office amidst a shower of broken
glass was almost too much for the already high-strung accountant
of a firm that specialized in the sale of contraband Remington
rifles and sewing machines. The poor man nearly fainted from the
shock. Fermin Valencia filed away for later use the poetic image of
the exploding glass and ran like a soul pursued by the devil, out of
the accountant's office and into the hall. He didn't catch his breath
until he was seated in the bar of the Majestic Hotel, gulping down
a double Havana brandy and cleaning his wounds with a napkin
dipped into his shot glass.

PIOQUINTO MANTEROLA LIMPED over to the sink
and lathered his face with a thick coat of shaving cream. His eyes
sparkled in the mirror from inside the half circle of white foam.
He pulled a German steel razor from the leather kit his father had
given him years before, tested it on the hairs of his forearm, and
brought the blade to his face.

"You'll be leaving us today, isn't that right, sir?" asked the nun
who stood watching him.

"Today or tomorrow, Sister. The doctor said he wanted to
take another look at my leg either this afternoon or tomorrow. If
everything was all right, I could be on my way."

"That's wonderful. I hope you have a speedy recovery."

"By the way, Sister, do you think you could find someone who
might like that box of chocolates there? I've never been much of a
chocolate fan myself."

"Now, isn't that kind of you, brother? I know just the person,
too. There's a woman in the next room over who's recovering
from a bad case of bronchitis and hasn't had any visitors since she
arrived."

The journalist watched in the mirror as the nun picked up the
large box of chocolates tied up with a green silk ribbon and left the
room. Manterola drew the keen steel blade across his cheek.

For the reporter, the few minutes he spent each morning in
front of the mirror shaving was the best time of the day for getting his thoughts in order, a time when the world and everything in it
took on at least a minimum of cohesion. Not too much, of course,
but just enough, the absolutely necessary, the indispensable amount.
Although there were days when that was so little that he never
managed to get past a hazy fog of vague ideas, opinions, impulses,
contradictory emotions, black clouds, irrational depression.

But not today. The reporter was determined to concentrate all
his deductive powers on figuring out just what strange bird of prey
had been circling around him and his friends.

His eyes sparkled again in the center of the ring of foam
climbing up to his eyebrows.

"One," he said in a low voice as if he were praying, "they shoot a
trombonist in the middle of a pasodoble. Or was it a march? In his
pockets he's got enough jewels to open up a jewelry store. The dead
man is Army Sergeant Jose Zevada. The killer is left-handed."

Manterola slid the razor carefully over the scar on his neck.
"Two. A man falls out of a window at 23 Humboldt Street two days
later. An army colonel named Froilan Zevada..."

Numbers three and four went unsaid as he shaved carefully
around his upper lip.

"Five.Three thugs try and fill us full of lead in the street. None
of them live long enough to tell who sent them..."

He was busy considering number six when it suddenly came
to him again that he was in love, completely and absurdly in love
with the violet-eyed widow. This sudden realization ruined his
concentration and nearly cost him his life, but the razor slipped
harmlessly off his throat.

Love and suicide was an old combination for the journalisthe'd tasted it before, familiar and sweet, undesirable but real. People
fall in love and later they kill themselves... so as not to feel so
ridiculous when love goes away.

"Cheggidout, cheggidout. Good to see you up and around, old
man," said Gonzaga, El Democrata's star illustrator. "Thought you'd
still be in bed."

"Gonzaga, what a pleasant surprise," said the inkslinger, silently
blessing the man for saving him from his turbulent thoughts.

It had been ten years since anyone had told Gonzaga they were
glad to see him, and he stared at the journalist with a look of honest
perplexity. He carried his drawing pad in his right hand, and his
left arm sagged with the weight of a thirty-pound Smith Corona
"portable."

"I, uh...," he said, forgetting his characteristic cheggidout. "They
sent me over with a story for you."

Gonzaga set the typewriter down and waited for Manterola to
finish shaving. The reporter watched him in the mirror.

"That's the sweatshop mentality for you. They can't even wait
for a man to get out of the hospital before they saddle him with
more work."

"Cheggidout. Was my idea. Figured you'd like the story. Like it
was made for you." Gonzaga opened up his drawing pad and stuck
it in front of the reporter's face.

Powerful pencil strokes combined with charcoal shadows
to create the image of a lion tamer dressed in the uniform of an
imperial Hussar from the previous century, cracking his whip in
front of a dozen lions. The tall bars of the cage reached skyward in
the background. The lions roared aggressively or bared their claws,
while the lion tamer stood grandly with his left hand on his hip
next to his holstered revolver.

"Yeah? So what's it all about? Cut the telegraphic act and fill
me in.

"The Krone Circus, six p. m., got it? German-Spanish lion tamer.
Silverius Werner Canada. Crazy in love with a trapeze artist."

"Female trapeze artist or male trapeze artist? Let's get our facts
straight, Gonzaga."

Gonzaga eyed Manterola uneasily.

"Female, kind of a slut."

"There we go. That's a start."

"Tamer goes into cage in the middle of the show..."

"As usual?"

"As usual, but instead of going through with his normal routine, he starts to beat the crap out of the animals until they get so
mad they attack him and eat him for dinner."

"Holy... !„

"Cheggidout. Unforgettable love story. Public saw the whole
thing, scared out of their wits."