by Sam Hawken
‘Good morning, good morning,’ Gonzalo greeted them. ‘I hope I’m not late.’
‘No, you’re fine,’ Jack said. He shook Gonzalo’s hand.
‘Today is our first day,’ Gonzalo said. ‘A fresh start.’
‘I’ve made flyers,’ Bernardo said. ‘To spread around and show Patricia’s face to people. Would you like to see one?’
‘Of course.’
Bernardo retreated into the house and left Jack and Gonzalo alone. They stood opposite each other under the roof of the car park as the sunlight angled in. ‘I’m glad you came,’ Jack said.
‘It was not a guarantee,’ Gonzalo replied. ‘I thought twice. I thought three times.’
‘But now you’re here.’
‘Yes.’
Bernardo returned with the flyer. Gonzalo looked it over and pronounced it good, and then they all passed inside to sit in the living room. Gonzalo took a chair near the corner, while Jack and Bernardo sat facing the darkened television. Reina and the children were nowhere to be seen.
‘I do not have access to my file on this case,’ Gonzalo began, ‘but that doesn’t mean we start with nothing. I know what we have learned thus far and what we must do next. I’ve asked you before, Jack, and now I’m asking you again not to come with me while I work.’
‘I’m going,’ Jack said.
Gonzalo nodded slowly. ‘I won’t argue. But you must promise to follow my lead at all times and when I speak to stay silent. There are people we must speak to who will be hard enough to convince without an American pressuring them for information.’
‘I will.’
‘We also have a problem: everyone in the city knows the police have been suspended. I won’t be able to use my badge or even the threat of arrest. I’m just a man asking questions. We have no protections.’
The gun was at his back, hard and compact. Jack nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Bernardo, you will post the flyers today?’
‘Yes. Everywhere. Everywhere. Do you think someone will call?’ Bernardo asked.
‘Anything is possible,’ Gonzalo said.
‘When do we get started?’ Jack asked.
‘We get started now. Jack, we’ll go together in my car. Bernardo, be careful today. Let us hope luck is on our side. We need all the help we can get.’
SEVEN
THERE WAS THE LOW HUM OF MEN working outside the office where Ernesto Alvares sat and it made him feel as if things were functioning as they should: smoothly and with the highest degree of professionalism. When a citizen came into this station, he should be faced with an operation every bit as good as the one it had replaced. Or better. That was the goal.
The desk he used was stacked high with file folders, some green and some blue. They were arranged alphabetically by the last names of the men Alvares’ team had relieved, but he had taken one out of order and spread it on the clean blotter for closer examination. The name on the folder was SOLER, GONZALO.
Gonzalo Soler’s file photo had clearly been taken much earlier in his career, because the man no longer had the baby face of a young officer. He was forty-five and that younger face had been replaced with one lined with seriousness and encroaching age. In the younger Gonzalo’s expression there was a forthrightness that none of the policemen Alvares had seen or interviewed possessed. The reality of their work had drilled it out of them, perhaps permanently.
Alvares admitted to curiosity. Of all the officers discharged on the day of his arrival, Gonzalo was the only one who’d dared to stand in front of Alvares and deliver a full-throated rebuke. The others had accepted the decision mutely, or with a few mumbled words. They packed away their things and left without any resistance at all. Some even seemed glad to go. A part of Alvares did not blame them. He came from Mexico City and did not like these dirty little border towns, made even worse by the narcos that fought to hold them. But this was where the war was, and a soldier did not have a choice. At least these policemen had an out.
Gonzalo’s entry into the police force was not dramatic: he took the exam and was admitted to the academy. He was not the most excellent student in his class, but neither was he the worst. His first assignment was patrol duty with a training officer whose reports were positive. Before very long Gonzalo was on his own.
Police could be on their own then. Those early years in Gonzalo’s career were before the cartels began their open hostilities, and when Nuevo Laredo was a town built on the back of international trade and tourism. Now the thousands and thousands of trucks headed north were all potential vehicles for drug smuggling and the tourists were all gone. The United States guarded the Laredo port of entry as if it were under siege. Perhaps they were right to do so.
Alvares noted a yellow sheet in Gonzalo’s file. It referenced another file related to a disciplinary action, but there were no details. He paged through the next few pieces of paper looking for something related, finding nothing. On a pad of notepaper he wrote down the case file and resolved to ask for it when he had a spare moment. There was more to read here.
Gonzalo became an inspector and was partnered for a time with another young investigator named Amando Armas. The name was familiar. Alvares looked through the duty roster and found Armas there. He wrote Armas’ name beneath his other note. Perhaps Armas’ file was already in the piles, but if not, he would find it.
By the time he came to the end of Gonzalo’s career on paper, Alvares was surprised that Gonzalo’s story was so ordinary. At no point in his time with the Municipal Police had Gonzalo received a citation or some recognition of effort beyond the call of duty. Alvares had expected more, expected something, but Gonzalo was undistinguished in virtually every way. A man with that much passion must be extraordinary, Alvares thought, but he was wrong.
He tore the page from the notepad and left the office. He found Gervasio Chaidez near the fax machine trying haplessly to load too many sheets into the feeder. Chaidez looked around embarrassedly when Alvares touched him on the shoulder. ‘You,’ he said, ‘you’re handling the cases for Inspector Soler?’
‘Who?’
‘Gonzalo Soler.’
‘Oh, yes. I have everything arranged just like he said.’
‘What do you mean?’
Chaidez’s face fell. ‘Nothing, sir. What do you need?’
‘I want you to find this file. You might have to send out for it, but I want it just as soon as you get it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Alvares paused. ‘What was Soler working on when he left?’
‘A few things.’
‘Make me a list of all his pending cases and have it on my desk before you leave tonight, okay.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have you seen Lieutenant Casiano?’
‘He went out with the patrols, sir. He won’t be back until the end of the shift. Do you want me to get in touch with him, too?’
‘No, it’s all right. I’ll speak with him then. Now get to work. I want that stuff as quickly as possible.’
Chaidez rushed off and Alvares lingered by the fax machine. He took up the pile of documents Chaidez had left behind and fed them into the device one page at a time. When he was done he took the paperwork to the desk where Gonzalo Soler used to work and laid them there.
‘I’m not finished with you, Inspector,’ Alvares said to no one. ‘I’ll figure you out.’
EIGHT
GONZALO DROVE WITH THE WINDOWS down and Jack sweated freely as they cruised the block, looking for something Gonzalo had not shared, but which was important enough for them to circle the same streets again and again.
Finally Jack asked, ‘What are we doing?’
‘We were being followed,’ Gonzalo said.
Jack looked behind them reflexively, but he saw nothing except another car and a truck laden with a pile of broken furniture tied down with rope. ‘Followed?’ he said.
Gonzalo nodded. The reflection from the rear-view mirror painted a band of silver across his face. ‘For
a little while. After I doubled back a few times they got tired of trailing us. Probably thugs looking to make an easy score. We get carjackings through here all the time. Sometimes there’s violence.’
‘Shit,’ Jack said.
They reached a familiar intersection, but this time Gonzalo did not turn and they continued on. After a few minutes he slowed the car and slotted it in along a broken curb in front of a string of dusty shops, half of which were shuttered and empty. Gonzalo didn’t bother to put up the windows. The car would bake in the sun anyway, but at least it wouldn’t turn into a furnace. He tossed a towel over the steering wheel. ‘There’s a bar up here,’ Gonzalo said. ‘We’ll go and have a beer and if the right person is there, we’ll talk.’
They passed along the shabby storefronts and past the open doors of a laundromat. A couple of dried-up-looking women lurked in the partially lit lavandería and as Jack walked by they watched him with hard eyes. He tried to ignore them.
The bar was fronted with black-painted wood and had the words bebidas, vino and cerveza stenciled by the door. If the place had a name, it wasn’t printed anywhere Jack could see.
Inside there was the smell of stale beer and cigarettes. The bar had a pool table and a darkened jukebox and a scattering of tables to go with a pair of booths. It was practically deserted, with just the bartender and two other customers in sight. A big yellow-neon Corona sign crested the bartender’s head like a halo.
‘Hey, hombre,’ Gonzalo said to the bartender. ‘¿Qué pasa?’
‘Not much,’ the bartender said. He looked past Gonzalo to Jack and Jack could almost see his face closing up. Suddenly he wished he wasn’t here and had let Gonzalo go alone.
‘A beer for me and my friend,’ Gonzalo said.
‘The cooler’s broken. It’s gonna be warm.’
‘Warm beer is okay with me. Come on, Jack, sit down.’
Jack took a stool beside Gonzalo at the bar while the bartender filled pint glasses. The man put the fresh beers in front of them and there was no pleasant wetness on the glass, no rings on the bar. When Jack sipped, it was like drinking blood.
‘I’m looking for Aarón,’ Gonzalo said.
‘You see everyone who’s here,’ the bartender replied.
‘Don’t bullshit me,’ Gonzalo said. ‘Where is he?’
‘Who is this one?’ the bartender asked, and he jerked a thumb at Jack.
‘A friend. Now do you know where Aarón is, or not?’
The bartender pushed back from the bar and regarded both of them for a long moment, and then he said, ‘He’s in back.’
‘Let me pay you,’ Gonzalo said, and he reached for his wallet.
‘No need. Nobody should have to pay for warm beer.’
Gonzalo left his stool. He waved Jack on. ‘Follow me,’ he said.
Jack let Gonzalo lead him to a short hallway in the back of the bar where the restrooms were and then to another door marked Sólo los Empleados Autorizados—employees only. The door was not locked and they entered a surprisingly large room lined on every side with metal shelves of beer and wine in bottles. A row of kegs lined up along one wall.
Three men sat playing cards at a folding table using metal kegs for seats. They were all painfully thin and one of them had scrawny arms scrawled with tattoos. All three looked around when Gonzalo entered. One of them took off his hat and placed it over his cards and the small scattering of bills and coins in front of him.
The man with the tattoos smiled and Jack saw he had no front teeth. ‘Gonzalo!’ he called out. ‘Come to play a hand?’
Jack expected Gonzalo to show his ID or something to establish himself, but he merely approached the table and stood over the men. ‘No games today, Aarón. I wanted to talk to you.’
‘I’m kind of busy right now.’
‘It’ll only take a minute.’
Aarón looked at Gonzalo and then looked at Jack and then to Gonzalo again. He put down his cards. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he told the other men. ‘Don’t play without me.’
‘Let’s talk outside,’ Gonzalo said.
A battered metal door opened out into an alley behind the building. Deep ruts marked where vehicles passed through and there was a gray dumpster covered in looping graffiti that obscured the name of the garbage company. Lots of cardboard boxes marked with the names of beer brands and logos for hard liquor were heaped up in the dumpster, as if it had been a long time since anyone had come to empty it. Drained kegs were scattered around like tombstones, some tied together with red string. At least it was shaded here and the sun was not so terrible.
‘I’m sorry I interrupted you,’ Gonzalo told Aarón.
‘I’m going to make a killing off those two,’ Aarón said. ‘I’m just letting them win a little first.’
‘Eliseo Guadalupe,’ Gonzalo said.
‘Guadalupe?’ Aarón shifted his weight from foot to foot. Up close Jack could see that his tattoos were not professional.
‘You know him?’
Aarón eyed Jack now. ‘I don’t think I should say with him around.’
‘What difference does it make? He’s just somebody.’
‘Somebody,’ Aarón repeated.
‘Yeah. Now do you know Guadalupe or not?’
A smile. A wide, toothless smile that did not reach Aarón’s eyes. ‘Of course I know him. He patrols through here a lot. Stops for a drink sometimes, him and his partner. Once in a while he sits in on a game.’
The uneasy way Aarón kept moving his body side to side on the balls of his feet made Jack nervous. He was sweating, but not from the heat, and the sour taste of the warm beer was in his mouth. The man did not seem dangerous, but looked as if he were about to break into flight at any moment and they would have to chase him down the long, cratered alleyway.
‘I need to know about him. Where he goes. Who he sees,’ Gonzalo said.
Aarón shook his head. ‘I’m not the person to ask.’
‘Who is?’
‘Ramiro.’
‘Ramiro who?’
‘Ramiro Veloz.’
Jack could not keep quiet. ‘Do you know him?’ he asked Gonzalo.
‘I’ve heard his name,’ Gonzalo replied, and his voice was flat. ‘We’ve never met.’
‘Ramiro’s your man,’ Aarón said. ‘I don’t know nothing.’
‘Where is this guy?’ Jack asked.
Aarón’s eyes flicked to Gonzalo. ‘I don’t want to talk to him.’
‘Where is he?’ Gonzalo pressed.
‘Goyo’s. He’s there every night.’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Gonzalo asked.
‘Why would I lie to you? You can’t do nothing to me anyway. The army cut your balls off.’
‘I’m not going to be a civilian forever,’ Gonzalo said.
‘We’ll see.’
Aarón went back to his game and Gonzalo escorted Jack out the front door of the bar onto the bright, crumbling street. Gonzalo found a spot in the shade. ‘That was good,’ he told Jack.
‘It was?’
‘Yes, very good. Aarón is nobody, a small-timer, but he knows people. This place is right in the heart of Guadalupe’s patrol area. He was bound to stop here sooner or later. I would be more surprised if he did not.’
‘Who is Guadalupe?’ Jack asked.
Jack could see Gonzalo hesitate and for a moment Jack thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he said, ‘I think he may be the last person to have seen your stepdaughter.’
‘What? Why didn’t you tell me this?’
‘Because I couldn’t be sure! There were three sets of prints taken from your stepdaughter’s car. One set belonged to Patricia Sigala. The other was likely Marina’s. The third set was Eliseo Guadalupe’s. I had it checked twice.’
Jack’s heart was thumping. ‘What does this mean?’
‘It means that sometime on the night your stepdaughter disappeared, Eliseo Guadalupe had contact with her vehicle. But he claims he never saw her or the car. Why would
he lie unless it was to cover up something else? All I can say for certain is that we have to learn more about Guadalupe. He’s the key. I know it.’
‘Why don’t we just go to Guadalupe now and get the truth from him?’
‘Little steps, Jack. First we need evidence, and then we can confront him with it. This is how a policeman works. If we move too quickly, we lose everything. Are you going to be all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Jack said.
‘We don’t have to go out until tonight. I can do this alone.’
‘No, I want to.’
‘We’ll find her. I promise you we’ll find her. Just give me time to work.’
Jack nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said.
NINE
THEY WERE IN THE CAR TOGETHER when traffic began to slow. Brake lights flashed in the road before them and then they were stopped completely. Gonzalo craned his neck out the window to look ahead.
‘What is it?’ Jack asked.
‘Roadblock,’ Gonzalo said.
‘Can we go around?’
Gonzalo glanced in the rear-view mirror. Cars were already beginning to stack up behind him, clogging the one-way street all the way back to the corner. ‘No,’ he said simply.
The line crept up slowly and Gonzalo’s engine idled unevenly during the long periods of stillness, threatening to stall. He had almost 200,000 miles on the car and it was expensive to service frequently. What he could do he did for himself and the rest waited until he had scraped together enough savings to pay the bill. Gonzalo touched the dashboard gently as if to reassure the car that its suffering was not unnoticed.
Jack shifted uncomfortably in his seat and Gonzalo saw he was sweating. ‘I’m sorry I have no air conditioning for you, Jack,’ Gonzalo said.
‘I’m fine. What do they do at these roadblocks, anyway?’
‘Check papers and vehicles, look for suspicious persons.’
‘They search all the vehicles?’
Gonzalo looked over at Jack. The man was sweating harder now. ‘No, not unless they have good reason. What’s the matter with you?’