“Who do you work for?” Arkady asked, now tapping Elvis on the shoulder with the newspaper. A tiny tap. Elvis flinched and swallowed, the taste of bile coating his tongue. He’d once read about an asshole who beat a dog to death with a newspaper and wondered if you could do the same with a man. He wasn’t about to find out.
Reveal what you must, conceal the rest. That’s another thing El Mago always said. He decided to try that avenue. “DFS,” he muttered. A lie, but it sounded real enough. He was thinking about the DFS quite a bit lately, and it was safer to say he was with DFS than a Hawk. Even a KGB orangutan would think twice about putting a bullet in a DFS man. It would cause too much trouble.
“What do you want here?” the Russian asked.
“I’m guessing the same thing you want,” Elvis muttered. “An art education.”
“You mouthy idiot. What. Do. You. Want.”
Each word was followed by a blow and the rhythmic wah-wah of Clapton’s guitar until Elvis croaked a name. “Leonora,” he said, figuring what the fuck. He had to say something.
“Ah, Leonora. The girl with the pictures. Do you have any good leads?”
“My only lead brought me here, so it’s not much.”
“No, it’s not,” Arkady agreed. “Who’s your boss?”
“Some dude.”
Arkady hit him again. Half a dozen whacks to the face. Elvis’s mouth was bleeding. But if he answered too quickly, the man would know he was faking it. So he thought about Maite again, the picture he’d stolen from her apartment. The dark eyes captured in that snapshot, that quivering of the mouth, frozen in time.
Upstairs, the people were dancing again. The tap-tap-tap of their feet seemed to mark each blow. He couldn’t recognize the music. It sounded distorted, muffled by the radio in the room. Danzón, maybe. For all he knew, a tango. Yeah, probably a tango. He couldn’t dance. Put music on and he’d stand firmly in place, ramrod straight.
A fucking tango was taking place above his head, Los Hooligans were on the radio now that the song by Cream was done, and the damn Russian was striking him with indifferent, methodical blows while Elvis swallowed blood.
Another half dozen blows and Elvis spoke. “Anaya,” he sputtered. “It’s Anaya.”
It sounded honest, and Arkady seemed satisfied, though he still smacked him across the face with the newspaper one more time before stepping out.
Elvis waited a few minutes before testing his bonds. It was a good thing the men who had tied him up were nitwits because Elvis had never learned the finer points of undoing knots. He relied on stretching the rope and wriggling out of it in a rather clumsy manner, but it worked. He managed to untie himself.
Quickly Elvis put on his jacket and stuffed his possessions in his pocket. Then, curious, he looked into one of the many cardboard boxes around the room. It was filled with black-and-white flyers. The flyer said “UNITE!” in big letters. “Wake up to the struggle!”
The door to the storage room was garbage, and he jimmied his way out using his screwdriver; he didn’t even have to actually pick the lock. A couple of quick, efficient strokes and the door opened.
The Russian was gone, but outside the storage room was one of the men who had tied him to the chair. He looked quite startled by the sight of Elvis. Elvis paid him back by slamming him against the wall and kneeing him in the balls, then punching him once he was groaning and doubling over.
Elvis would have liked to pluck out the asshole’s fucking eyeballs, he would have liked to have found the damn Russian and slammed his screwdriver into his ear, but there was no time to waste. The storage room was on the ground floor, behind the stairs, and he sprinted his way to freedom.
Once outside, he kept running and didn’t stop until he was out of breath. His lungs were on fire, sweat dripped down his brow, and his hands were trembling. He didn’t know what to do. His training had taught him how to beat people and how to spy on them, but not much of this stupid game he was caught in.
El Güero was going to make fun of him, he knew it. He was going to say, you sad little fucker, getting beat up. And the Antelope wouldn’t be much better. El Gazpacho would have known what to do now, would know how to piece together all the info and deliver a report, cool and composed, but Elvis had no idea what was what.
Fuck, he’d been tortured by a damn KGB agent.
He found a public telephone in front of a tlapalería. He wiped his mouth with the back of his jacket’s sleeve. Copper. His mouth tasted of copper.
He grabbed the receiver, tossed a coin, and dialed El Mago’s number.
“Yes?” El Mago asked.
“Something happened, I need to come in,” he said. El Mago didn’t normally have any of them at his place—it was a rare treat—but he figured this was a special occasion.
There was silence.
“See you in half an hour,” El Mago said. “Bell number twelve, ring four times.”
Elvis hung up. Two streets from the tlapalería he hailed a cab. His face ached, and he rubbed his jaw.
He had almost forgotten El Mago’s address, and for a moment he panicked, thinking he wouldn’t be able to find it. But in the end he managed fine and rang the bell El Mago had indicated, four times. El Mago buzzed him in without a word.
Elvis climbed the stairs rather than using the old elevator. He didn’t need to knock. El Mago opened the door and let him in. El Mago took one look at Elvis and turned away from him.
“You need ice,” he said. “Come to the kitchen.”
The kitchen was as fabulous as the rest of the apartment, and despite the pain in his jaw he let himself admire it. The counters and cabinets were done in a dark wood, very classy, with silver knobs, and there were blue-and-white tiles on the walls. Nothing to do with the dirty linoleum and rickety furniture of Elvis’s childhood.
El Mago took out a few ice cubes and wrapped them in a kitchen rag. “What happened to you?” he asked, handing him the rag.
Elvis pressed it against his face. “I followed that woman, Maite, to Asterisk. I figured I’d go in there and do some talking with those artists, see what I could find, maybe even chat with her myself. Well, that shit priest we talked to the other day was also there. He recognized me and raised hell. There was a motherfucking Russian with him. He beat me up.”
“A Russian. Really?”
“No joke. And what’s worse, I still don’t know where this chick is. It’s like she’s vanished. Oh, and DFS? They’re on the same path as us.”
“How do you know that?”
“We’re not the only ones watching that woman’s building. There were other folks there. I can’t say who they were, but the name Anaya ring a bell? Justo said he might be into this whole thing.”
“Anaya.” El Mago shook his head. “Yes, I know Anaya. He is a nosy bastard who wants to climb up the ranks using my bones to lift himself up. Dirty thief.”
“Thief?”
“He has a side business smuggling stolen American cars into the country. It came out a little while ago, and it’s gotten him in a bit of trouble. That wouldn’t have been tolerated in my day, but now!” El Mago made a fist. “He believes if he can make me look bad, he can make himself look good. If he gets those pictures before I do, it’s all over. It is over for me and it is over for you. You understand?”
Elvis nodded. “I told the Russian I worked for Anaya. Figured it was better than saying I worked for you. And maybe he’ll go and stab that fucker instead of us, if he feels like it.”
Elvis switched the rag with the ice from one cheek to the other. El Mago crossed his arms, deep in thought, then began walking toward the living room. Elvis followed him. He glanced at the pictures above El Mago’s upright piano. There were two little girls in several photos. A younger El Mago with other family members.
“Sorry if I didn’t tell you over the phone, but I was try
ing to follow procedure,” Elvis said, and he had been. Keep chatter to a minimum over the phone, that’s what El Mago told them.
“You were scared,” El Mago said. “You are still scared. Scuttling around in fear. Well, you cannot. This was a minor incident.”
It didn’t feel very minor to Elvis with his jaw throbbing. “Sure.”
“What did you find out about Asterisk? Aside from the fact that they seem to have a Russian friend.”
“They think Leonora is a mole. And there’re a couple of people she might have turned to for help. Emilio and, yes, I know you said not to dig there, but also a dude named Sócrates. I didn’t get much chance to ask anything else.”
El Mago walked toward where Elvis was standing, by the piano. He lifted the lid and ran his fingers over the keys, playing a simple melody. “I can give you a file on Emilio. But you need to be cautious with him. He is no dissident.”
“If he’s hiding the girl, maybe he is.”
“Doubtful.”
“You have anything on Sócrates?”
“I have something on every member of Asterisk. Wait here.”
El Mago exited the room, and Elvis leaned down, looking at the piano keys. Then he straightened up and glanced around the room, at the beautiful books, the beautiful shelves, the antiques and decorative items. What a perfect, precious place this was. If only he could live like this instead of having the crap beaten out of him in a storage room.
He’d never wanted this, the fucked-up job he had, the fucked-up people he lived with, the fucked-up assignments watching folks when he didn’t give a damn if they were red or not—Jesus, what was the big deal about that? He needed the money. Needed the gig. If he wasn’t a Hawk he’d be a damn delinquent, a thief, a nothing. He needed the hope that at the end of the tunnel there was a place like this, safe and cozy. A little apartment with a piano and beautiful furniture and pictures in silver frames.
El Mago came back with two folders and handed them to Elvis. “Should we still be watching the girl’s neighbor?”
“She was at Asterisk, which is apparently a den of KGB spies these days. She spoke to Leonora. That woman must know something she is not telling us yet. Keep tabs on her.”
That was that. El Mago told him to go back to the apartment and clean himself up. When he reached the street it had started to rain. An anemic rain, but it felt good on his face.
17
“YOU NEED TO get Lara’s address from Emilio,” Rubén told her.
“He was going to his shop when I saw him earlier.”
“I know where that is.”
Maite thought it was rude to drop by uninvited, but there was a gun in a brown paper bag sitting on the dashboard. They were past the point of pleasantries. It scared her a little, but she also enjoyed the electric frisson it conjured. It was like one of her comic books. Except Rubén didn’t look much like a comic book hero, in his t-shirt and driving that ratty car. Would his appearance improve at all in a tuxedo? Who knew.
Emilio. So she’d get to speak to him twice in one day. She opened her purse and began digging inside of it, trying to see if she’d packed her lipstick. But she hadn’t. She pulled down the side passenger mirror and smoothed back her hair, trying to at least fix that.
Her reflection showed her all the little imperfections of her skin. She closed her eyes.
Rubén let her out exactly in front of Emilio’s shop, but he told her he’d park around the corner. She stepped out of the car, grasped her purse with both hands and looked at the sign, which said “LOMELÍ ANTIQUES” in large letters. In the window display there were porcelain vases and dishes, and one could see the glint of crystal and lacquered furniture in the background.
It looked like a very nice shop, as he’d promised.
She walked in, a silver bell ringing as she opened the door. The shop was charming, but a little crammed, and she had to walk carefully by a display with porcelain dolls. A young woman was sitting behind a counter, reading a magazine, her long, pink fingernails tapping a picture. Maite wound her way through the shop and clutched her purse tighter, wondering what she should tell the girl.
When she reached the counter, Maite placed her purse upon its glass surface. “Is Mr. Lomelí in?” she asked.
The young woman looked up at Maite. “He’s doing inventory. Do you have an appointment?”
“No. But I’m a friend of his. Maite. My name is Maite.”
The employee gave her a thin, skeptical smile. “I’ll see if he’s available.”
The young woman stood up. She was wearing a miniskirt and perilously tall heels. She swept a red curtain aside with a hand, stepped behind it, and closed it again.
Maite wondered if that was the way Emilio liked women. Slim, hair cut short, looking a bit like Twiggy, balancing atop shoes that were more like stilts. But no, Leonora didn’t look like that. Her hair was long. Yet she was also beautiful.
Maite glanced down at her yellow print dress, her sensible shoes, and her ugly knees.
Emilio opened the curtain. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt so his arms were visible up to the elbow, the collar of his shirt open. He looked very nice in this more casual look.
“Hey there, we meet again. Come around to the back.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t phone,” Maite said, quickly rounding the counter.
“It’s fine. You can drop by anytime.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“I’m sociable.”
He walked her into a well-kept little office. On his desk he had a lamp with a dark green shade, and on the walls there were antique engravings. She pictured him at the small desk, relaxed, going over figures and ledgers.
“What do you think of my shop?” he asked.
“It’s nice. Very different from your house.”
“Well, that’s home and this is work. Truth is, this is my father’s shop. I was more interested in photos and art galleries, but that was when I was younger,” he said, dismissively waving away his early twenties with one hand. “Anyway, I’m guessing you’re not here looking for a nice bronze sculpture?”
“I came to ask you for the address of that journalist friend of yours.”
Emilio leaned against his desk and cocked his head a little. “You plan to pay Lara a visit?”
“Someone must know something about Leonora’s whereabouts. Lara’s house might be a good place to start looking for clues.”
“Are you turning into a detective, Maite?” Emilio asked, but playfully, and then he turned around and began flipping through his Rolodex.
“I’m worried.”
“Aren’t we all? I’m not sure if Lara’s home, though. I phoned earlier, no answer. But I suppose you could be luckier than me. She doesn’t always pick up the phone if she’s on deadline,” he said, pulling out a card and copying the information onto a small slip of paper. He handed it to her. “Keep me informed, will you? I meant it when I said you can drop by anytime.”
“I’ll call as soon as I get back.”
Emilio smiled. He had a wonderful smile. Good teeth, like the porcelain in his shop. Good hair, good eyes, good everything. Why can’t the world be full of men like this? she thought, remembering the nobodies and losers she’d gone out with. One of the worst ones had been that bank clerk who liked to collect floaty pens—by tilting the pens one could move a boat down a river or make a Hawaiian dancer glide in front of a backdrop of palm trees—but there was also the man from the insurance company who chewed with his mouth open.
And Cristóbalito. She had loved without restraint, and he’d left a stain upon her soul, Cristóbalito. He’d been a portent of things to come, the beginning to a litany of bitterness.
She left the shop quickly, slipped back into the car. “I’ve got the address,” she told Rubén.
“Great. We can go back t
o your place and look at that box before we head to Cuernavaca,” Rubén said, glancing at his watch.
“You’re thinking of going to Cuernavaca today?”
“Or early tomorrow. Did you have any stuff you had to do this weekend?”
She shook her head, wishing she could tell him she had prior engagements. That she’d have to check her calendar.
When they reached the apartment, the first thing she did was feed Leonora’s irritating cat. If the girl didn’t come back, she wondered what she’d do with the animal. Something might have happened to her, after all. Or maybe nothing was wrong. Perhaps the girl was holed up with a friend. Leonora seemed to have many friends. She also had money. For all they knew, she was sunbathing in Acapulco.
After feeding the cat, Maite showed Rubén the box Leonora had left behind, and he began taking all its contents out, spreading them on the dining room table. There was nothing of interest there. Old newspapers, papers, magazines. Junk meant for the trash heap.
Maite let him dig through the box and put on a record. The notes of “Somos Novios” spilled out of her atelier. She went into her bedroom, looked at the mirror atop her vanity, once again examining her face. Under the subdued lights of her apartment the face looked somewhat prettier. She grabbed a tiny perfume bottle, another one of the stolen items from her collection, now displayed atop the vanity along with other trinkets, and dabbed a bit of perfume on her neck.
She’d stolen the perfume bottle, which had already been half empty anyway, from her mother, and it brought her great pleasure to wear it. But she only did on special occasions, rationing it. She supposed it was a special occasion. She seldom had any men in her apartment.
She walked back to the dining room, watching him as he sighed and put a newspaper down.
“There’s nothing here,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Unless there’s a cryptic clue hidden in one of these old newspapers.”
Velvet Was the Night Page 17