The Uncomfortable Dead (6 page)

“Identification, please,” he said.

June reached for her passport.

“Not you, madam, the gentleman,” he said, pointing to Elías.

Elías never raised his eyes or broke concentration on his reading. “American citizen.”

Although Elías had a wetback accent, the immigration officer hesitated. After a few seconds, which I suppose is long enough to keep the suspense high in a mystery novel, he did an about-face and walked off the bus. The driver got the bus on the way again and June, without a word, took the newspaper Elías was reading and turned it right-side up.

“Right! Musta been why I couldn’t find the sports page,” Elías said, and promptly fell asleep.

That night and during the whole trip, the Broken Calendar Club monopolized the bathroom in the back of the bus. Without ever consulting each other, we all blamed it on the
pozol
we’d had the evening before.

As we left the bus terminal, we said goodbye to Elías and took off in different directions.

When I returned later to La Realidad, I passed the message Elías had given me to the person in charge of the
caracol: The one with the big eye is already with the doctor.

I asked El Sup the other day, when I ran into him by the stream, if he was going to use us as Elías’s team in the book. He said he wasn’t, that we were only going to be in one chapter. I asked why, and he answered, “Cause dead people don’t have teams.”

So this is as far as we go. If we want to know what happens from now on, we have to wait to read the following chapters in the book. Sonovabitch! I don’t know about you, but me, I’ve had it with these mystery novels where all the characters are so intelligent and cultured and the only ignorant asshole is the reader. Well, I don’t know about being assholes, but we sure are ignorant, cause we’re always missing what’s missing.

Elías’s Trip According to Elías

So I did it: I went into the Monster. I woke up just as we were going down this very steep hill. The campamenteros were fast asleep. And then I saw the city. It was sitting there, it was still far away.

And it’s true what Belascoarán says about there’s lots of antennas, like skinny little hairs growing on the heads of the houses. When we was close I saw that besides antennas there was people, lots of people, and I didn’t count em but I think there was more people than antennas, although there was about as many cars as antennas. How to find my way?

Back home I could tell where a town was by looking at the trees. So I figgered the city people must find out where houses are by checking the antennas. Later I found out they don’t. What they have is streets with names and numbers. Then there’s also very tall houses, so tall you’d think they wanted to get up over the antennas, and they put numbers on those houses too.

When I got to the station, there was Andrés and Marta. They were the city comrades that was sposed to wait for me, but they were alive, you see, not deceased like me. I saw them from far away and I said goodbye to the campamenteros real quick so’s they wouldn’t recognize Andrés and Marta. Those campamenteros were real pale and kinda didn’t have any color, but I think that’s the natural color people have back where they’re from.

“Well, I’m here,” I said to Marta and Andrés.

Andrés asked if I had a suitcase and I said I only had my backpack, and he said let’s go and I said let’s go. And we got on one of those metro things they’ve got.

So, how did it go? Marta asked. No big deal, I said.

Then Andrés told me that it was going to take about an hour to get there, depending on traffic, which depends on whether there’s a soccer match, and that his team used to be the UNAM Pumas, but when he heard how that Rosario Robles and a Televisa announcer also went for the Pumas, he decided to change teams and he quit the Pumas for the Chiapas Jaguars, but they have fruity uniforms. So what team did I go for? I said the Underdogs, and that ended the soccer talk.

Finally we got to this house way up high in one of those buildings. I gave them the letter from El Sup and they read it. They asked how long I was gonna stay with them and I said about six months, learning how city people do things and maybe getting some jobs until El Sup’s communiqué comes out telling about the deceased Digna Ochoa and the deceased Pável González.

“Ah, some more uncomfortable dead,” Andrés said.

“Yes,” Marta said, “the downstairs dead are never quiet.”

“You got that right,” I said.

That was in July and August, I don’t rightly remember, but it was before the communiqués about the Good Governance Boards. We still hadn’t set out to find the biggest sonovabitch of all the sonovabitches in the world, including the bitch herself. I mean that sonovabitch Morales, who was like the Evil itself had married the Bad and they had an evil child who was that sonovabitch Morales. So a certain amount of time had gone by. I had forgotten until I got the letter from El Sup that closed with …

From the mountains of Southeast Mexico,
Insurgent Subcomandante Marcos
December 2004

CHAPTER 4

SHEER FORCETFULNESS DWELLS

T
he Black Palace of Lecumberri, the ancient prison of Mexico City, a pillar of the old city’s shadows, had been turned a few years earlier into the General Archives of the Nation. This political whitewash, this face-lift, had not succeeded in freeing the enormous building from its malignant aura, especially on one of those days at the onset of winter when the whole city becomes a kaleidoscope of grays. Thunderheads, smog, and a chill wind, somehow emanating from its past: The ominous building was crowned by clouds that were somehow blacker than the rest.

He saw Fritz cross over from the main entrance of the palace, dodging cars, trying to keep from getting run over and lighting a cigarette at the same time. They sat in the park before the statue of Heberto Castillo.

“Years, old buddy. It’s been years I haven’t heard from you. And something tells me I’m not going to learn anything about you now either. You’re undoubtedly going to ask me about some bullshit.”

Belascoarán smiled. For historical, political, and personal reasons, Fritz Glockner had spent the last four years digging into the history of the Dirty War, combing through the records of the secret police agencies of the old regime. Records that chance had sent to the National Archives in the old prison. Chance had made a good turn, for once—after the collapse of the PRI era someone had gotten them confused with the records of the old Commission for the Development of Territorial Waters, or something like that.

“What do you know about Jesús María Alvarado?”

Fritz studied Belascoarán for a moment before answering. And that was logical, because in spite of the Austrian name, Fritz was a country boy and naturally suspicious.

“He’s dead. They killed him in ’71, like they killed my father … a bullet in the back of the head.”

A cold draft flowed between them. Héctor stared at the silhouette of the palace where Alvarado had spent the last days of his life. The building sprawled out in all directions, heavy and somber.

“Why’d they kill him?”

“Go figure. Those days, they shot first and asked questions later. Maybe they thought he was in contact with, or was the lynchpin of, one of the armed resistance groups that sprang up after ’68 … or that he ran a group that was dormant but would get back into the action as soon as he got out … That might have been it. Or maybe some kind of personal vendetta by the prison authorities, because he was one of the organizers of the hunger strike in ’69.”

“Did you know him?”

“I saw him a couple of times, from far away.”

“Did he have children?”

“When I used to visit my father, Alvarado used to get visits from this very big older woman and, yeah, she had a kid with her, a bit younger than me. If I’m forty-two now, the kid would be about thirty-eight, or something like that. But I don’t know if it was his son, I don’t remember seeing a young woman with the child. Maybe it was a nephew, or a younger brother. I do remember the kid because during the visit he would be hanging around the fountains in the inner courtyard fooling around with a yo-yo.”

“During the investigations you guys have been doing, have you found out who killed him? Do any of the documents you’ve been reading mention his death in any way, or those responsible?”

“Let me check around and ask some of the other bookworms digging into those records. If anything turns up, I’ll call you.”

They embraced and Fritz repeated his suicidal ballet across the avenue. Suddenly, he stopped and turned around amidst the wildly honking cars.

“Why don’t you look up the Chinaman? That was his cell mate.”

“What Chinaman is that?”

“Fuang Chu, the only Chinese member of the movement of ’68. It was just him and the Mao Tse-tung posters. I think he’s living in Guadalajara now.”

Héctor Belascoarán Shayne had his office on Donato Guerra, near the corner of Bucareli, in the heart of hearts of Mexico City. And as it turns out, this was a heart, like in Juan Luis Guerra’s song, unaware of what it was, amassing little glory and making lots of noise. Mornings, the corners were overrun with newspaper distributors, making their bundles and their noises. Then the afternoons were taken over by the record shops and lunch counters.

The elevator was out of order, so he limped up the three flights. This made his limp worse and the pain stuck to the bone.

Bones hurt?

Only when it’s cold,
he answered himself.

He ran into Carlos Vargas at the door.

“You’ve got your progressive official in there, boss.”

But it was Tobías the dog that welcomed him first. He was limping, of course, his leg still in the splint, but it was probably on account of the cold as much as the broken bone. He took one look at Héctor, reared up, and hit him with a foot of slobbery tongue that left the detective and his new cigarette drenched. Héctor tossed the wet cigarette to the dog, who swallowed it, and would have smiled if he could.

“He likes them. He hates it when I smoke, but he likes to smoke himself, or at least to eat them,” Monteverde said.

Now that he thought about it, both of them, dog and master (you figure which was which), had faces like Droopy.

Héctor pointed to a black leather couch for the other Héctor to sit on, moved over to the safe, which was always open, and pulled out two Cokes and an automatic, which he placed on the table. He gestured to Monteverde to help himself to the cigarettes.

“I’ve got two new messages on the machine,” Monteverde said, lighting up a counterfeit Ronson that was a bit too golden and had probably been bought from a street vendor.

Héctor flipped the caps off the two Cokes using the sights of his automatic and handed one to his mysterious informant. He put the gun back in the safe and took a seat. Again he staged the Alec Guinness routine, but this time it was because he didn’t know what to say.

“So, where do you get the Cokes in bottles? In my neighborhood all they have is plastic.”

“Yeah, well, there’s this little kiosk down here and they’ve had them in stock for years,” Héctor answered.

More silence.

Monteverde produced another answering-machine tape and handed it over, shrugging as if apologizing. He blew a mouthful of smoke toward the ceiling and went into his own Alec Guinness.

They spent the next few minutes just sitting there, smoking. The sound of a merengue crept up the walls of the building, entering into an uneasy blend with something vaguely Tex-Mex. The result was awful. Maybe that’s why Belascoarán broke the silence.

“Does anyone else know about these messages?”

“No! Of course not! I live alone and I wouldn’t dare talk about them at my job … They’d think I’ve flipped. Besides, I don’t even know what Alvarado is trying to tell me; I can’t figure out what he’s talking about.”

“And is it Alvarado?”

“Jesús María Alvarado, or whoever it is. Who cares? Maybe it’s his ghost. But why me? I mean, we did know each other, but that’s about all … and it was so long ago.”

“So why you?”

Monteverde stood up. He was tall, but he was also a little bent. Tobías the dog got up too and limped over to his master.

“I swear, I’ve been going over this again and again, and I’ll be damned if I know.”

“So why me?”

Monteverde looked at him with a startled expression.

“Well, isn’t this what you do?”

Is this really
what
I do?

He strolled along Victoria Street looking for a machine for his office that could play the little tapes from Monteverde.
What
I
do.
Dead people talking in a country where the living are either not allowed to talk a lot or they talk too much.
What
I
do.

When he ran into some vendors with statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe ringed with rose-colored light bulbs, he remembered that December 12 was drawing near. It was about a month to his birthday.

This
is a story told by Jesús María Alvarado, and you’re really going to like it. One day in Burbank, Juancho, the bin Laden guy, was told he had to stop screwing the actresses in the films they were shooting in the studio next door
—
actually, the motel next door
—
for what they said were security reasons. Now, whenever Juancho went next door, he always took off the fake beard they made him wear for the communiqués and dressed up like a professional wrestler,
El
Horrible, wearing a green mask with little horns and talking in grunts. But his bosses were not happy because the guys in the other motel had offered Juancho a steady job with Lux Cal
XXX
studios, although they didn’t like the fact that he came too fast, and this right in the middle of the Bush election … You see? Juancho was always up and down, taking screen tests, borrowing the Kalashnikov and giving it back, drinking tea, getting his eyebrows plucked, but his superiors wanted him full-time and they kept telling him,
Mr. Juancho, no more fucky fucky,
and he just grunted, but then he snapped to attention cause they paid cash money, very important for a taco vendor who gave no credit and didn’t believe in banks, not even numbered Swiss accounts, because after the Salinas administration, people in Mexico aren’t even sure that Switzerland even exists, so he had a suitcase under his bed full of hundreds, which he laid out every night on his bed. In any case, he only
appeared
to be following orders, cause the next morning the agent who was always stationed by his door brought him some hotcakes for breakfast and discovered that Juancho was gone, how do you like that? Bin Laden beat it. But this bin Laden actually thought he was making commercials for turbans and field tents. This was a goddamn bin Laden who didn’t even know who bin Laden was. So how do you like that? And he took the mask, the dumb fuck
—

Then a busy signal. Héctor turned off the recorder and ran his fingers through his hair. He had it cut short and some white ones were peeking through. And now he was about to get a whole lot more. He looked out the window and began to laugh softly, as if he didn’t dare make any loud sounds. Then he lit up, still chuckling.

Héctor Belascoarán Shayne was Mexican, so absurdity was his daily bread. He was Mexican and had only one eye, so he could see only half of what other people saw, but more clearly. In recent years he had been living on the edge, on the borders between strange territories skirting incoherence, irrationality, and extravagance; this, along with tragedy, cowardice, collective insult, impunity, fear, and ridicule. These were territories that might be called anything but innocent, territories where you might suddenly lose an eye, have a friend die, or run into a shotgun blast as you come out from buying chocolate donuts. These territories were a challenge to rationality, but were full of dark reasons. The country was one big business, a territory being looted by phony, part-narco horsemen of the apocalypse, a supermarket run by a drunken Friedrich Nietzsche, but
really
drunk, where nothing was what it seemed. It was like a Venezuelan soap opera starring the forty thieves, with Ali Baba in a supporting role. But this? This was too much. Juancho—bin Laden was more than he could take. This was a planetary intrusion. It was like all of a sudden Mexico would run off with the World Cup, the Olympics, and the Davis Cup. It was like, without the like, a Mexican taco vendor had taken over CNN.

The second narrative relayed by Alvarado on Monteverde’s answering machine seemed a little more within the bounds of reality, but totally disconnected from the stories he had told before.

“Listen, brother, this is José María Alvarado,”
the gravelly voice said, cutting directly to the chase.

Do
you know how Morales got rich? He hired himself seven judicial policemen who were out of work because they had tortured the wrong person, a rich merchant related to a
PRI
member of parliament, and he bought one of those long barricades that rich people use to close off their neighborhoods, and he took it up to a high pass along a country road that was all mud and loose dirt, but used a couple of months a year by the coffee growers to bring their harvests down into town, so he had the barricade and his hired guns, and when the farmers arrived with their sacks, he would stop them and buy their coffee, but at about half the already shitty price they were getting from the middlemen twenty or thirty kilometers downhill. That’s what he did for a couple of years
—
fucking everyone, but nothing crude, no sir, he had himself a steel barricade like the ones rich people use with signs that say
Private.
That’s what he did. It was the shittiest of all the neoliberal shit: He privatized the public road, closed a pass, and fucked the poorest of the poor.

Héctor slowly dialed the eight numbers.

“Hey, listen, Monteverde, do you really believe all that Juancho—bin Laden stuff?”

“No way! Sounds completely crazy to me.”

“Had you ever heard of this Morales character?”

“Never.”

“So what do you make of all this?”

“I don’t even think about it anymore. I just receive these insanities and pass them on to you … You’re the one who’s supposed to make sense of it. What do
you
think?”

“That if the deceased José María Alvarado wanted to leave us a message, he really picked a bizarre way to do it,” Belascoarán said.

“That’s true, but if he wanted to get our attention, he has succeeded,” Monteverde noted.

“The fact is that reality is getting very strange.”

“Come again?”

“No, nothing, just something a writer friend of mine likes to say,” the detective answered, then hung up.

He was trying to imagine that road in the mountains—the pass, the steel barricade, the thugs with shotguns. Which mountains? Which state of the republic? Which coffee communities? What year? How did he get the barricade up the—

The telephone interrupted his chain of questions and imagery. It was Fritz.

“Listen, Belas, you want to talk to the Chinaman, to Fuang Chu? That right?”

“The one who was Alvarado’s cell mate.”

“Okay, if you go to Félix Cuevas’s Gayosso funeral parlor, you’ll probably find him there in the evening, after 10. He’ll be attending Samuel’s funeral, most likely, that’s what they told me. I’ll talk to you tomorrow cause I’ve got a few things on Alvarado …”