The Shadow of the Shadow (32 page)

"All right, Manterola. What do you want to do with this?" he
asked, lifting his eyes from the pages in front of him.

"I assume you've been following my campaign against Gomez.
Well, this is the final blow."

"I'd like to be able to cover my ass before taking this to press.
I'd like to talk it over with my brother first. You realize, of course,
it doesn't merely implicate the three colonels...' his Zevada is the
one they tossed out of the window in the building across the street,
isn't he?"

"One and the same. He must have been blackmailing the
other two."

"We have to think about the overall impact of something like
this, now that the government's about to enter into negotiations
with the oil companies. What we'd be doing is accusing the four
American oil companies of trying to organize a revolution to take
over the oil fields. It's not these two-bit colonels I'm worried about
here. It's the government's position."

"It'd be front-page news for a week, sir."

"I don't doubt that, Manterola, but I'd like to check up on it
first-if you're willing, of course. If you insist, we'll go to press
today. It's your story, and come hell or high water we're here to get
out the news. But, with your permission, I'd like to talk to a few
people first."

"That's fine with me, sir. How many days do you need?"

"Two at the most," said the editor, looking fixedly at the
reporter.

"There's one small problem, sir. This document here is like my
life insurance. If it doesn't get published, and they drum the two
colonels out anyway, I've got one foot in the grave, if you know
what I mean."

"You're safe as long as you're here at the newspaper."

"Safe from Colonel Gomez?"

"From Gomez and the entire Mexico City gendarmerie, if
it comes to that. You have my guarantee," said Vito Alessio. He
picked up the telephone. "Get me Ericsson seven-nine-one, direct
with my brother. Tell his secretary it's a matter of life and death."

"I'd like to keep the original, sir."

"Let me make a few notes, then."

"Be my guest."

"In the meantime, why don't you go down to the cashier?
You've earned a bonus, Manterola."

"I appreciate that, sir. You have no idea how expensive it can be
to go around dressed like a Hindu prince in a rented limousine."

Vito Alessio laughed as the reporter headed toward the door.

But not nearly as much as Gonzaga when he saw Pioquinto Manterola walk into the newsroom wearing a turban.

"Stand there a minute, will you?" he said. "This is something
I've got to draw."

"Go to hell."

"Cheggidout. That reminds me, there's a message for you
here. You've got a date with an army colonel who says he'll wait
for you every night this week in the... Let's see, I've got it here
somewhere... in the Black Circus Bar. Cheggidout. I get it now,
they want to give you a job as a doorman."

I N S I D E THE PAC KA R D, and much to the lawyer's surprise,
the poet pulled down his pants and cut out the bottom of his right
front pocket with a knife. Then he loaded his shotgun and started
to strap it to his right leg with a roll of sticking plaster. First he
wrapped the plaster around the barrel at his ankle, then at the knee
just beyond the double hammer, and again around his thigh and
the gun's wooden stock. He hitched his baggy pants back up and,
sticking his hand into his pocket, felt for the trigger.

"Perfect," he said. "Now all I have to do is remember not to
dance, because if this thing goes off on me, you're going to see one
elevated poet."

"I don't know... If we have to make a fast getaway, you're going
to have some problems."

"If we have to make a fast getaway, I'll just take off my pants
and run for it. Don't underestimate my strategy."

Verdugo checked the bullets in his revolver and replaced the
gun in its shoulder holster. Then he filled the pockets of his fortypeso white linen Palm Beach suit with extra bullets.

The reporter was waiting for them at the corner of Heroes
Street.

"What about your glasses?" Verdugo asked, pulling up to the
curb.

"Don't worry about it. If it comes down to gunplay, everything's
going to be at close range anyway," said the poet, tying a red silk
handkerchief around his neck. Verdugo glanced at the poet's dull
eyes and smiling face reflected in the rearview mirror. They got out
of the car and walked with the reporter toward the Black Circus
Bar, guided by the sound of the music.

The Black Circus was the jumpingest tropical-music joint in
Mexico City, and in those days there weren't very many. Located at
the corner of Heroes and Camelia in the tough Guerrero district,
it was patronized mostly by working-class dance freaks who had
made it what it was: the undisputed cathedral of rumba. Tonight
a twelve-piece Cuban-Veracruz conjunto called Extasis was
officiating from the pulpit. A wave of sound, sweat, and smoke hit
them in the face as the three friends walked through the swinging
doors.

It was a big box of a room, with twin bars on either side, a low
stage for the band at the far end, and a large circular dance floor.
Around the dance floor were some two dozen tables filled with
office workers, artisans, poor students, prostitutes, and musicians
who'd come to learn from the new tropical sound. Extasis was
just finishing off its second set of the night while a mulatto man
danced barefoot in the center of the floor. Verdugo returned the
stare of an officer and two civilians at a nearby table. At the next
table over, behind the officer and his companions, the Chinaman
and San Vicente sat drinking, pretending to be caught up in the
music. While the reporter and the poet headed straight over to the
officer's table, Verdugo surveyed the scene. He discounted almost
everyone in the crowded bar except for a pair of men sitting with
a woman three tables away from what appeared to be the center of
the action. His eyes teared from all the smoke.

"Good evening, Colonel. I'm Pioquinto Manterola," said the
reporter, and the man motioned him to take a seat.

The poet limped up behind his friend, pulled up a chair a little
way from the table, and rested his stiff leg on another chair, his
boot pointing at the belly of Colonel Martinez Fierro. Verdugo sat
down on the reporter's left, an arm's length from one of the colonel's
companions, a blond man with an absent-minded air which made
him all the more dangerous in the lawyer's eyes-Verdugo being a
man who believed in anything but appearances.

"These are a couple of friends of mine, Mr. Manterola," said the officer, motioning toward his companions.

"The lawyer Alberto Verdugo and the poet Fermin Valencia,
two close friends of mine," said the reporter.

"Will you join us in a drink?" asked the colonel. He was a
fortyish man with dark skin and deep-set eyes that shone brightly
despite the darkness of the bar. He held out a bottle of something
that was either mezcal or tequila, and poured out three glasses.
Manterola shook his head, and the poet politely declined. Verdugo
took a glass. Whatever Martinez Fierro had in mind, it wasn't
poison. The lawyer downed the mezcal with a single gulp. The
band finished their set with a fanfare of trumpets. Verdugo clapped
eagerly, looking around carefully for anyone who didn't, adding to
the list of possible targets a man who sat at the bar several feet
behind him with his head between his hands.

"Gentlemen, I'm not going to waste your time. You have a
certain document in your possession, or if you don't actually have
a copy of it, you're familiar with its contents. I tried to keep the
representatives of the Aguila Petroleum Company who stole it
from me from letting it get out but, one way or another, I was
unsuccessful. It didn't belong to them, it was mine, and I should
have destroyed it long ago. Now I just want to let bygones be
bygones. We can all forget it ever existed. You gentlemen go about
your business and leave me alone to go about mine. I'm talking
peace.

"And what exactly is your business, Colonel?"

"That's just the attitude that's gotten you in trouble before. My
business is my business, asshole. Understand?"

This isn't going to last very long, the poet told himself and,
feigning discomfort, adjusted his stiff leg so that it pointed at the
colonel's head. Then he slid his hand into his right pocket and
stroked the shotgun's double trigger.

"What's in it for us?" asked the reporter, his hands starting to
sweat. He knew his fear could paralyze him, and he didn't want to
waste any time.

"Listen, I'm not Gomez, I don't have a whole wad of bills to
give out to whatever stupid son of a bitch comes along asking for
a handout. I killed the Brit, and because you were stupid enough
to try and get involved, I hired those three idiots to take care of
you, too, but it turned out they couldn't shoot too good. It's not
always going to be that way. Hired guns in this town are cheap and
plenty. I'm offering you your own skin, gentlemen, that's all. You
decide what it's worth. What do you want money for? To leave it
for future generations to enjoy?"

"In other words, you're saying that if we keep quiet, we live.
Now that's a hell of a good deal, isn't it, Verdugo? A Mexican
Army colonel bought off by the gringos and ready to sell them a
piece of his own country says he'll let us live. A hell of a deal."

"Can I say something, Manterola?" asked the poet.

"Go ahead, Mr. Valencia."

"This idiot colonel's got us figured all wrong. I wouldn't let
scum like him lick my boots, let alone my dick."

"Very pretty, poet," murmured Verdugo, shoving away the
blond man who was pulling his gun out underneath the table. But
the lawyer wasn't quite fast enough to entirely avoid the man's first
shot, which sent his pearl gray Stetson flying and traced a thin
line of blood along the top of his head. The lawyer reached for his
gun, but before he could get it out of the holster, Fermin Valencia
opened fire with the shotgun on Colonel Martinez and his other
companion, tearing apart their faces and sewing the cabaret with
buckshot.

With the explosion of the shotgun blast, echoing through
the room like fireworks on Independence Day, the journalist fell
backward in his chair onto the floor. Verdugo whirled around
searching for the man at the bar, who he found pointing a large
Colt revolver in the reporter's direction.The lawyer fired three quick
shots, and as the man doubled over his gun went off, throwing up
splinters from the overturned table. Tomas Wong, knife in hand,
stared down the men at the other nearby table, who smiled timidly at him and the steely black hole of San Vicente's .38 revolver.

On the floor, the blond gunman got off another pair of shots,
but the reporter stopped him with a lucky shot to the shoulder.
Verdugo looked desperately around the room for any other
suspicious movements. A strange silence fell gradually over the
bar. Tomas stepped over and kicked the pistol out of the blond
gunman's hand. The poet hopped around trying to extinguish his
smoking pants leg.

"Shit, I nearly blew my damn toes off," he announced to
anyone who cared to listen.

Verdugo went and took a look at the dead colonel and his
bodyguard. The colonel's face was a disfigured mass of blood and
splintered bone. He couldn't help it: he started to vomit on top of
the corpses. Manterola stood up, fitting his wire-rimmed glasses
over his nose with trembling hands. The reporter and his four
friends were the only ones standing in the entire room. Somebody
sobbed from behind a table. That was the only sound there was,
that and Verdugo's retching. Manterola missed the rumba.