Playing for the Devil's Fire

by Phillippe Diederich

  I guess that’s what I always liked about these movies. They weren’t about heroes with supernatural powers. They were about real people. They gave me the feeling that I too could be like Santo. I guess deep down I was hoping that one day my father would reveal some kind of secret identity he could pass on to me, giving me the responsibility of fighting crime. Maybe I would find myself in a situation where I had to save Ximena from the bad guys, from Zopilote or whoever. Then she would fall in love with me, just like the women always fall in love with Santo.

  6.

  At recess, I met Mosca in the schoolyard by the swings. He was surrounded by a group of boys who wanted to see the devil’s fire. Word had spread about the diablito rojo. For now, Mosca was the king of the marble world.

  Mosca held up a fist. Then he turned it and slowly opened his hand. There, in the center of his palm, was the little red sphere: el diablito rojo. It was bright red and iridescent with a soft swirl of yellow at the center. It was beautiful. It didn’t even look like a real marble. It glowed like a jewel, like fire.

  “You see it, cabrones?” Mosca said as if daring anyone to cross him and deny that he had won the legendary marble.

  Then someone said. “Let’s play for it.”

  Mosca closed his hand into a fist and shoved the marble back in his pocket. “You wish.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You chicken?”

  Mosca laughed. “I’m not afraid of any of you amateurs. I’m going to keep it until I find a worthy adversary. Besides, what’s the point of playing for your common marbles? What do I get if I win?”

  “Ya, Mosca, don’t be so dramatic.”

  “That’s not it, Chato. If you win, you get the devil’s fire, but if I win, all I get is your common agüita and perico marbles. I have thousands of those.”

  “Money.” Pepino pushed through the crowd and came face to face with Mosca. “How much is it worth?”

  Mosca grinned. “Plenty. I don’t think you can afford it.”

  “A hundred pesos.”

  Some of the boys sighed. Mosca didn’t flinch. “Maybe.”

  “You think about it, enano, because I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here whenever you’re ready to lose the little red rock.”

  Pepino nodded at Chato and Kiko. They were like the three stooges—Chato with his flat face and crossed eyes and Kiko, who looked just like Kiko from El Chavo del ocho with his buckteeth and fat cheeks. And Pepino. Those three were inseparable.

  “I’ll let you know,” Mosca said.

  Pepino turned as if he was someone important and marched away with his friends.

  Mosca and I sat in the shade.

  “You gonna do it?” I asked.

  “For a hundred, I don’t think so. But I’ll bet you anything he comes back with another offer. Pepino hates to lose.”

  “And if you lose?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll be the guy who played a marble against a couple of hundred pesos, no?”

  “Pinche Mosca, you’re smarter than I thought.”

  “It’s all about reputation. I mean in the end, the devil’s fire is just a stupid marble, no?”

  Across the yard Ximena was leaning against the chain link fence, talking to some guy I didn’t recognize. He was older, tall, and wore a clean white cowboy hat with a green, white and red band.

  Mosca nudged me. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” I didn’t want him to know I had a thing for Ximena. I would never hear the end of it. I kicked at the dirt. “My parent’s aren’t back from Toluca. I have to go to the panadería after school.”

  “Ah, don’t worry, we’ll shine shoes on the weekend.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just that they should have been home by now. Or at least called.”

  “Take it easy.” He nudged me with his elbow. “You know how it is in Toluca. They’re probably having a good time.”

  “But they could call, no? They always call.”

  “Boli, you worry too much. Let them do their thing. Enjoy your freedom.”

  Now Ximena had her hand up on the fence, and the guy on the other side had his hand in the same place, their fingers touching. It looked as if they were kissing.

  7.

  My parents were still not home. Gaby was flushed, pacing back and forth in the living room with her arms crossed. “It’s not right,” she said. “Something must have happened.”

  “Something like what?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice was quiet. She chewed her thumbnail. “I’ve tried Papá’s cell phone over and over, but it goes directly to voicemail.”

  Jesusa walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “Is it possible they had car trouble?”

  “And? What does that have to do with his cell phone?”

  Jesusa smiled, but it was a strange smile, as if she was trying to convince herself. We all knew there was nothing wrong with the car. Besides, Gaby had called my parent’s friends in Toluca. No one had heard from them.

  I could see the fear in Gaby’s eyes. I tried calling the number myself, but all I got was my father’s deep baritone: “This is Alfonso Flores, please leave a message after the tone and I’ll call you back. Gracias.” Those were his last words, because when we tried to call him later, the voicemail didn’t even come on.

  That night and the following day, I was in a daze. The anxiety was like a puzzle I couldn’t solve, like something had broken and I was the one who was supposed to fix it. It didn’t make any sense. Why hadn’t they called?

  After school, I met Gaby at the panadería. We closed early and went to see Captain Pineda. The municipal building was across the street from the plaza, perpendicular from the church. It was a two-story old stone and concrete building with a long arcade in the front with big arches where food vendors sometimes set up. On the second floor it had big windows with balconies. Everything around the plaza was like that: old stone buildings with red-tile roofs and wrought-iron bars on the windows. Like the church. It dated back to the 1600s. But the municipal building was rundown. The paint had faded and the political posters from the last election were peeling off the walls.

  Pineda’s office was upstairs. The only person in the room was a secretary—a heavy-set woman—sitting behind an electric typewriter. Her hair was made up in a large bun just like some of the women in the old Santo movies.

  When Gaby told her we wanted to see Captain Pineda, she slowly raised her eyes, spread her fingers in front of her, and studied her nails. “He’s busy.”

  “It’s important.”

  The woman glanced back to a door with a small plaque: CAPITÁN EFRAÍN PINEDA DEL VALLE. “He’s in a meeting.”

  Gaby took a place near the open window and sat with her back straight, chin up. “We’ll wait.”

  The thing was, it was Gaby’s fear that kept fueling my own. Whenever her voice cracked or her eyes widened, I shivered. It reminded me that something was wrong. I guess I was trying to convince myself that this was normal, that they would turn up at any moment with a perfectly logical explanation. Then Gaby would sigh and it would all come back to me: they’re gone. What if they don’t come back? And then, what if instead of el profe’s head it was my father’s—and instead of Rocío’s naked body, it was my mother’s.

  The same picture of Benito Juárez that was in the civics textbook we used in el profe Quintanilla’s class hung on the wall of the office. Next to it was a color photograph of the President. And, at the end of the wall near the door to Pineda’s office was the same calendar with Tania Rincón in a bathing suit that Lucio had hanging in the back of the bakery.

  The smell of fresh tortillas came and went with the soft breeze that blew in through the open windows. It caused the papers on the empty desks to flutter. The man who sharpened knives and scissors around town whistled the tune that announced his arrival in the plaza. Someone kept revving the engine of a Volkswagen Beetle. A woman yelled an obscenity and a radio played a ranchera. It w
as strange how the sounds of the plaza were different than the sounds from school or those at the panadería or at home. It was the same town but different sounds. At home it was mostly dogs and roosters, sometimes a television. In the panadería, it was people and cars and the squeak of the machine in the tortillería across the street.

  I walked to the window and stepped out on the balcony. The treetops blocked my view of the plaza, but I could see Father Gregorio in the side yard of the church talking with Chucho, the mayordomo who took care of the grounds. The church looked like a sculpture with its ornate empty bell towers and the big central cupola. During the revolution, the people of the town had to melt the church bells to make ammunition. A hundred years had past and they still hadn’t replaced them. Father Gregorio joked that Izayoc was the only town in Mexico where mass was not announced with tolling bells. But my father and the men of the town saw it as a source of pride. They said everyone needed to remember the sacrifice the town had made. They were proud that in all its history Izayoc had never been occupied by an army, federal or revolutionary.

  At the other end of the plaza, a worker swept the sidewalk in front of Los Pinos restaurant with a reed broom. The man

  who sold fruits and vegetables and chicharrón had parked his cart by a bench where he lay asleep in the shade. A boy and a girl sat on the planter where we had found el profe’s head. No one was shining shoes.

  Father Gregorio crossed the churchyard and met a well-dressed man in a black western hat at the entrance of the church. They shook hands. Father Gregorio opened the door to the church, allowing the man to pass. Then he followed him inside.

  Behind the buildings across from the plaza, the mountain rose tall and steep like a brown monster. My eyes followed a narrow road which climbed up the side of the cliff to the neighborhood of Santacruz, but I couldn’t make out Mosca’s house from here. Above the neighborhood of unpainted concrete houses I could see the giant cross, white against the gray sky. It looked like rain.

  I went back to my seat and waited. Gaby had her hands folded on her lap, her fingers moving one over the other like she was counting minutes.

  Every now and then we heard voices coming from Captain Pineda’s office. Someone laughed. They seemed to be talking about food somewhere, perhaps Los Pinos, and about a car, and something about the importance of a civic association that would allow and support progress. It made me think of my father. He always talked of progress for Izayoc. I tried not to think about him and my mother, that they had had an accident on the highway. That they might be dead.

  Suddenly Gaby stood and marched past the woman’s desk and into Pineda’s office. I was right behind her.

  Captain Pineda sat to one side of his desk, smoking a cigarette. Behind the desk was a man I’d never seen before. He was young, tall, light-skinned and wore big reflective sunglasses pulled up on his head. He was leaning back on the chair, his legs stretched out, boots resting on Pineda’s desk, a white cowboy hat on his knee.

  Pineda plucked the cigarette out of his mouth. “What is this?”

  A man standing by an open window, a hand lost inside his black leather jacket, glanced at an older man on the other side of the room and moved toward us, but the man behind Pineda’s desk raised his hand and stopped him. He stepped back to the window and peeked out at the street.

  Then the secretary from the front room stomped in. “Perdón, Capitán. I told them you were busy.”

  Gaby lowered her head and glanced at the floor. “It’s just that we were waiting for two hours.” Her voice was a tiny squeak. I could tell she was doing everything she could to keep the pieces from falling. “I thought you were finished.”

  “So? This is a private office,” Pineda barked. “You don’t just barge in like that. Do you understand me?”

  “It’s about my parents.” Gaby’s lower lip trembled. It gripped my chest, squeezed so hard I couldn’t breathe.

  “I don’t care if it’s about the President of the Republic,” Pineda said. “There’s a protocol.”

  Gaby touched her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Your business will have to wait until I’m finished with these gentlemen.”

  “No, no, Efraín.” The man with the reflective sunglasses gestured toward Gaby. “Come in, please. Tell us what’s going on, señorita.”

  Pineda waved at the secretary, who gave us an ugly look and walked out. The man behind the desk eyed Gaby up and down like he was appraising an animal he was about to buy.

  “My parents went to Toluca three days ago and we haven’t heard from them,” Gaby said softly.

  “Poor creature,” the man behind the desk said. “And you miss them, no?”

  “It’s not that. They should have come home by now. Or at least called. And with everything that’s been going on, ¿usted sabe?”

  Pineda waved. “Three days is nothing.”

  The man behind the desk leaned to the side and eyed Gaby’s legs. Then he smiled to the man by the window. “How do you see it, Pedrito?”

  “Like for the races.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. A jet-plane, no?”

  “Simón.” The man by the window laughed.

  My stomach burned. At that moment I hated Pineda and all the men in the room. I wanted to grab Gaby’s hand and pull her out. Run away. Go home. Find my parents.

  The man behind the desk ran his index finger back and forth across his chin. “What’s your name, linda?”

  Gaby looked away, then at me and back at the man. “Gabriela Flores.”

  The men looked at each other.

  “Flores, Flores.” The one behind the desk nodded. “Perhaps your father kept company with the wrong people, mi amor.”

  “No,” Gaby said. “He’s nothing like that. He’s a family man, a hard worker.”

  “People respect him,” I said.

  The man behind the desk chuckled.

  “Rumor had it, your Papi liked to play around,” Pineda said.

  “That’s a lie,” Gaby cried. “And what do you mean, liked? What happened to him?”

  The man behind the desk waved. “Don’t mind him. He’s just upset because he’s not getting his way. Isn’t that right, gordo?”

  Pineda turned away. Gaby clenched her hands and pressed them against her chest. “Please, did something happen?”

  The man behind the desk shook his head real slow. “I know nothing of them, linda. But I do know that no man in this world is completely innocent.”

  “Maybe we can call someone in Toluca,” I said.

  Pineda laughed. “Like who?”

  “I don’t know, the authorities,” I said.

  Gaby took my hand and pulled me close to her side. “Maybe there was an accident.”

  “Maybe they just wanted to get away from you two brats.” Pineda took a long drag from his cigarette. Everyone except the man behind the desk laughed.

  “Por favor,” Gaby pleaded. “Help us.”

  “No, no,” the man behind the desk said. “Don’t worry, Gabriela Flores. I’ll look into it for you. I’ll make sure Pineda here gets off his fat ass and makes some inquiries on your behalf. We’ll find your parents.” Then he turned to Pineda, “Right, gordo?”

  Captain Pineda shoved the cigarette back in his mouth and turned away.

  “I said, right, gordo?”

  Pineda grinned. “Sure, efectivamente.”

  The man behind the desk smiled at Gaby. “Joaquín Carrillo, at your service.”

  Gaby nodded. “Mucho gusto.”

  “If I need you,” Joaquín said. “Where can I find you, Gabriela Flores?”

  “At the Panadería La Esperanza.”

  The man by the window leaned out and signaled someone in the street. He nodded and turned back to the room. “Señor Joaquín. They’re ready.”

  “Very well, linda.” Joaquín grabbed his hat from his knee and pulled his feet off the desk. “You can leave now. And don’t worry. I’ll come looking for you. I promise.”

 
; Gaby and I walked out. Half a dozen peasants from the adjacent pueblos crowded the room. The secretary who had been painting her nails was typing something. No one spoke.

  On the first floor, people had gathered outside the tax office.

  One of the beggars who always hung around the plaza made his way past us. Outside, a gentle rain fell. The sharp smell of dry earth seemed to rise from the ground. The vendors slowly moved about covering their carts with blue tarps, others pushed them under cover of the municipal building’s arcade. At the end of the block, a brand new gray double cab Chevy pickup pulled out and turned down on Calle Virtudes.

  “Maybe we should go to Toluca and look for them,” I said.

  “That’s a stupid idea.” Gaby crossed her arms and looked at the darkening sky. “Who would help us?”

  I didn’t know. I was just as lost as she was, but I guess I wanted her to tell me something I could latch onto, something that would make sense. “What do you think he meant?” I asked. “About Papá?”

  “Nothing,” she said angrily. “Men. They’re all the same.”

  “Yeah, but do you think—”

  “Stop it, okay? Just shut up.” Her face was flushed, her eyes red. We crossed the plaza and headed home in the rain.

  8.

  My parent’s absence was everywhere: the empty places at the dinner table, no one telling me to turn off the television and do my homework, the afternoon silence that had replaced my mother’s voice as she sang her favorite Luis Miguel songs.

  I didn’t get it. Sickness, death, suffering, they happened to other people. We were healthy, law-abiding people. We believed in God. We went to mass on Sundays. We were good, He took care of us. My parents never did anything to hurt anyone. They didn’t deserve this. None of us did. It wasn’t fair.

  Deep down, I had this feeling that I would come back from school and find them at home, joking and laughing as if nothing had happened. Like it was all a bad dream. But every time I felt sure of it, Gaby broke the trance and reminded me that something horrible was happening to us.