City Without Stars

by Tim Baker

  ‘So what about your old man?’

  Gomez stares at Fuentes, trying to decide if he’s just riding him or not. ‘My old man? I found him downstairs, asleep on the sofa, right next to a cushion that was burning.’

  ‘And he was dead?’

  ‘Why do you say a thing like that?’

  ‘You said: like this sorry drunk at the hotel and like my old man.’

  ‘Well, what I meant was one burnt himself to death, and one – my old man – died of lung cancer.’

  ‘That’s not the same as what you said.’

  Gomez turns to Pilar. ‘Come on, please, just for once help me out here. Tell him that’s not what I meant.’

  Pilar looks at him. ‘I wasn’t listening.’

  Fuentes smiles. ‘She’s got sense.’

  ‘And you don’t – is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘I don’t have a choice, is what I’m saying: you’re my partner.’ The car pulls over on a busy street. Fuentes turns in his seat, gesturing extravagantly to the crowds. ‘Plenty of witnesses. You should be safe.’ Pilar goes to open the door, but Fuentes taps the lock down. ‘One more thing …’

  Fuentes turns and motions with his chin for Gomez to get out of the car. Gomez is surprised but obeys, shooting Pilar a resentful look. Fuentes shifts in his seat, staring at Pilar. She meets his gaze at first, but then looks away. Fuentes reaches into his jacket and pulls out the money he took from López. He holds it out to her. ‘Your pay. I made him hand it over.’

  ‘After making him fire me …?’ Pilar stares at the money, not touching it. Her voice breaks with anger. ‘He’d give it to you, but not to me? The person who earned it? That motherfucker!’

  Fuentes waves the notes in front of her. ‘Hey? My arm’s getting tired.’

  Pilar hesitates a moment longer, then snatches the money. ‘Don’t expect me to thank you.’

  ‘It never crossed my mind.’

  Pilar leafs through the bank notes. ‘It’s way too much.’

  ‘Must be your birthday.’

  ‘Claro.’ Pilar goes to pop open the lock but Fuentes puts his hand over it. ‘I used to work in Tijuana.’ Something ripples across Pilar’s face, then is gone. ‘You’re good, you know that? Real good.’ She glares at him defiantly, trying to brazen it out. ‘You heard what I said: I was in Tijuana.’

  ‘What did you do there, line up girls for gringos?’

  Fuentes doesn’t react to the insult, his eyes studying her face. ‘I arrested you. For organizing an illegal strike.’

  ‘You’re mistaken.’ Pilar’s voice wavers. ‘I’ve never been to Tijuana.’

  Fuentes shakes his head, pulling up the shirt cuff of the hand over the lock, revealing the back of his wrist. There is an unmistakable scar: a set of tooth marks. ‘You left a calling card.’

  Pilar looks from the scar up to Fuentes’ face. She is remembering him. He smiles when he sees the recognition in her eyes. ‘That’s right …’ He pops the lock and Pilar gets out fast.

  Fuentes follows her, catching her by the arm. ‘I want you to know. I’m not here for labor disputes.’

  ‘What else would you be here for?’

  He lifts his head, indicating the building he parked in front of. Pilar glances up at the sign. City Morgue. ‘What can you tell me about the girl they found this morning?’

  ‘Her first name was Isabel. She was paid less than five pesos an hour. And nobody came when she called for help.’ Without another word, she turns, walking quickly away.

  Gomez comes up behind Fuentes, staring after Pilar. ‘Boss, you’re so desperate you’d fuck a maquiladora girl?’

  Fuentes rubs his scarred wrist. ‘She’s no maquiladora girl. She’s a CTON union organizer. One of the best.’ He looks up, watching her disappearing. ‘She’s a goddamn stick of dynamite.’

  Gomez smiles, staring down the street with renewed interest, but Pilar is already lost in the street crowd. He turns back to

  Fuentes and motions to his chest. ‘Really nice tits.’ Fuentes pushes past his partner, going up the steps into the morgue. Gomez smiles. He knows he’s scored. He lights a cigarette, watching a pretty young woman passing by, feeling pleased with himself for the first time that morning.

  7

  Ventura

  Ventura drives the Mercedes 280 SL through the old town, heads turning as she passes. It’s the third car Carlos has bought since they moved up here from Mexico City fifteen months ago. He got it on a whim but kept it mainly in the garage, preferring his Hummer for country trips and the Bimmer for the city. The convertible has become Ventura’s by default. She loves the way it makes her work when she drives it, paying her back with reliability and a throaty purr.

  The rhythmic hum of tires ribbing the cobblestones begins to cede to the fast smear of blacktop and the roar of eighteen-wheelers as Ventura leaves the colonial center for the new airport; stone, stucco and hand-painted tiles giving way to plywood, cardboard and cinder block.

  Much of what Ventura drives through just didn’t exist when she was born here in 1973. She spent her childhood amongst the churches and patula pines of the old town, with weekend excursions to the tennis and pony clubs out at Las Altas, a chic colony built for the new breed of businessmen arriving with MBAs, maids and Mercs. The clubs’ manicured lawns with their outdoor piped music were her only memory of the outskirts of Ciudad Real before her family left for Mexico City at the height of the ’82 crisis; certainly not these shantytowns she’s passing – blue plastic sheeting and rusted corrugated tin fashioning a tattered patchwork of poverty across a sheet of hard yellow desert.

  A shadow rushes over the road and she peers up at Carlos’ plane coming in to land, dust trailing behind it, plastic bags ballooning fast into the air.

  Carlos is on the phone when he comes out of the terminal, but still manages to kiss her – on the cheek. They’ve been together for almost three years: sufficient time for the first passion to have faded, but not long enough to stop believing it might return.

  Ventura pulls away from the curb, the windsocks pointing her back to the city, Carlos alternately cajoling then pleading with someone on the phone. Neither seems to work because they hang up on him. He curses with a savage laugh. She waits in the hot silence for what seems like an eternity. ‘Hello,’ she says.

  He actually looks at her for the first time since he arrived. ‘Sorry.’ He leans across and kisses her on the cheek again. ‘New York is having a shitty day. Don’t slow,’ he says, leaning over and tapping the horn, the street vendors moving out of the way. ‘A really shitty day. I should have known. The Hang Seng and Tokyo were both down five percent last night.’

  ‘How was Culiacán?’

  ‘Rough. Try explaining even basic fund management to morons like them. They were all shitting in my milk just because the Nasdaq is down. Big deal. Tomorrow it’ll be up again, but no, they’ve got to panic. Did they want to pull their money last year? They were begging me to take it. They couldn’t hand it to me fast enough. But now …’ His phone rings. He glances at the number. ‘Like this one, harassing me morning, noon and night.’ He folds the phone. ‘They’re like fucking animals.’

  ‘I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure lately.’ His laugh’s a bite. ‘Maybe you should think about scaling back.’

  ‘You sound like one of my clients. Now is exactly not the time to scale back. I thought you of all people would understand.’

  ‘I’m just saying—’

  ‘Don’t interrupt. This is unique; a once-in-a-century chance. Millions are being made right now. And if you’re not making them, you’re losing them, because this opportunity is never coming back. Never. Take the next left.’ Ventura follows the sign pointing to the border, then looks at him, not understanding. ‘I have to drop by the bank.’

  ‘Don’t you want to go home first?’

  ‘It can’t wait.’

  Ventura stares at the border crossing coming into view, long lines of cars stretching way beyond t
he bridge. She looks at her watch with exasperation. ‘Well, I can’t drive you across, I have an appointment in an hour.’

  ‘Cancel it.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s with Felipe Mayor.’

  His phone rings. He glances at the screen. ‘Who the hell is this?’

  ‘Don’t answer. We’re talking.’

  He hesitates, then takes the call. ‘Bueno?’ He grimaces like he’s been kicked in the shin. ‘Señor Santiago? How are you?’ A furious voice shouts across the electromagnetic spectrum, filling the car with its substantial anger. ‘I’m only just boarding now …’ Ventura glances away from the lie. ‘I know, but a passenger was sick. Today? It’s going to be difficult with this delay. How about tomorr—’ Ventura turns, shocked at the violence emanating from the phone. Carlos looks faint from its force. ‘Thirty percent? Are you sure?’ Carlos swears weakly, defeated by the response. ‘I understand your concerns but it’s really nothing to worry about. These movements are normal. It’s just part of a minor correction … I know I promised, but—’

  The caller hangs up, the relief of silence flooding the car.

  ‘Who the hell was that pendejo?’

  ‘The person I’ve been trying to avoid.’ Carlos curses. ‘That’s what I was getting in Culia-fucking-cán. They trust you enough to make them money, but they never trust you enough not to lose it.’ His phone rings.

  ‘Don’t answer it.’

  Carlos sees the number. ‘I’ve got to take this one. Sí …?’ There’s a long, painful pause. Then he hangs up.

  ‘Carlos, what’s going on?’

  ‘The same shit, baby, always the same old shit.’

  Ventura pulls up a block before the footbridge. ‘Have you got your papers?’ Carlos nods. ‘Leave your luggage in the car. It will only slow you down.’

  Carlos gets out. ‘Look …’ His phone rings. He answers it and, without so much as a wave, heads off towards the crossing.

  She fossicks irritably for a pack of cigarettes hiding somewhere deep inside her camera bag … Looking up suddenly as footsteps hurry towards her; her smile already fading as he covers his phone with his hand. ‘Mayor’s loaded. Try and set up a meeting with me, okay.’

  She watches him trotting back towards the border, the phone against his ear, then she pulls out into the traffic, accelerating away from the wail of horns.

  8

  Fuentes

  Fuentes hurries through the keening odors of bleach and vinegar that saturate the public section of the morgue, as though death were just another microbe that could be scoured away. He stops a passing intern in a soiled smock just outside the autopsy area. ‘Do you have the results from the homicide this morning?’

  ‘Which one?’

  It’s always hard to hear that question. ‘The female they found outside the maquiladora.’

  The kid starts to glance down a clipboard but then he remembers. ‘They haven’t done her yet.’ Fuentes looks at his watch, the only outward sign of how irritated he is. But it’s enough for the intern to pick up on. He steps back defensively. ‘It’s not our fault. The first priest we brought in wouldn’t perform Last Rites. He said she was a whore.’

  Fuentes lets out a barely audible curse. Partly, it was the tendency to allow sentimentality to get in the way of forensic science. But mainly it was the Church itself that fed the fear and the superstition; that grew strong and rich on ignorance. The Church was supposed to be there to help its faithful, but too often all it did was torment its own believers. Most priests seemed to prefer playing devil to angel.

  Millions of Mexicans were already being denied the other sacramental blessings – the communions and the confessions and the marriages and the baptisms – simply because they were using contraception or were divorced or gay, or sympathetic towards the Zapatistas. And now they were even punishing the dead. The PRI should never have allowed the Church to reacquire its power and influence. It was like a cunning henhouse thief: once bitten on the heel, he starts to wear boots – not just to protect his ankles but to better kick the guard dog next time. ‘Luckily Padre Márcio came by.’

  Fuentes stares at him. ‘The Padre Márcio? I thought he was in Juárez now.’

  ‘He visits all the time.’ Fuentes turns. It’s Gomez. ‘He has an orphanage on the other side of town. If it weren’t for him, half the girls would never have received final blessing.’

  It takes a moment for Fuentes to realize that Gomez is not being sarcastic. He follows Gomez through the doors to the autopsy room. The body of the victim lies naked on a stainless-steel mortuary slab, a yellow label hanging from her left ankle, marked NN with the day’s date. A man in a black suit stands over her, his back to Fuentes, the clerical collar just visible.

  The priest turns when he hears them. He is a tall man in his early sixties. Arctic gray eyes are framed by the snowy abundance of a thick beard and flowing hair that is part messiah, part Manson. He is the legendary general of the Army of Jesus.

  Gomez steps forwards and kisses the ring on the priest’s finger. Padre Márcio bows, more with embarrassment than approval. Fuentes goes to shake hands, but the priest only offers the tips of his fingers. The palms of both of his hands are covered by mottled fingerless lace gloves. ‘Your Grace,’ Fuentes says deliberately.

  ‘I am a mere priest.’ I know, Fuentes thinks, so why did you let Gomez kiss your fucking ring? ‘But I try to do what I can.’

  ‘Father, I need to examine the body …’ Márcio glances back at the corpse, not stepping aside. ‘I’m sorry, Father, but I have to ask you to leave.’

  Ignoring Fuentes, Márcio makes the sign of the cross over the body, whispers something, and then bows down and kisses the foot of the dead woman. Gomez crosses himself, as surprised as Fuentes by what the priest has just done.

  Márcio turns away from the corpse, tears warming his cold eyes as he stares at Fuentes. ‘Find the man who did this.’

  ‘We will do our best, Father.’

  Padre Márcio turns to Gomez, his voice brittle with disdain. ‘God does not require one’s best efforts, God requires one’s total, sincere devotion. Faith must be absolute or it is not faith.’ Gomez bows his head, chastened. Who would have thought? The fucking kid has a soul if not a conscience. ‘You must have faith in yourself; in your ability to find this monster. You must believe. Otherwise, you leave the door open.’

  ‘Open to what, Father?’ Márcio turns back to Fuentes, and his look sends a chill down the detective’s spine. It’s not the look of a saint. It’s the look of a killer. Perhaps that’s what a good priest is: a stone-cold killer of sin.

  ‘The devil himself,’ the priest says.

  They both watch him leave. Gomez shivers. He must have felt it too. The power inside the man. All that pissed-off, godly wrath. ‘You see those hands? He’s a fucking saint. You can tell. The way he kissed her foot. Like Mary goddamn Magdalene.’

  ‘Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. And that’s what the first priest called Isabel. But she’s no Mary Magdalene. Isabel was a hard-working young woman.’ She was so much more than that. She was innocent. She was exploited because she was poor. And then she was raped and butchered and thrown out with the trash.

  Fuentes stands over Isabel’s body. ‘It’s just like the man said …’

  ‘Padre Márcio?’

  ‘The boss in the maquiladora this morning: There are thousands like her, just waiting to take her place.’

  The doors burst open, making Gomez jump, and a forensic pathologist and the young intern enter.

  Fuentes turns to Gomez. ‘You can go if you want.’ Fuentes puts on latex gloves, watching Gomez walking away on the other side of the glass panes in the door until the sound of an electric saw brings him back to reality.

  9

  Pilar

  Pilar waits in a plaza crowded with buses disgorging the women coming back from the maquiladoras, the next shift already pushing impatiently past them, desperate to board. There are fewer buses in the afternoon, and th
at means many of the workers will have to stand all the way out to the factories.

  Some of the women getting off the buses recognize Pilar, moving quickly out of her way lest she contaminate them with her latest condition: unemployment.

  Pilar spots Maria and Lupita in the crowd and shoves her way towards them. They all embrace. ‘Did they talk to you?’

  Maria shakes her head. ‘We’re both safe.’

  Pilar wants to burst into tears of frustration but she’s stronger than that. She smiles. ‘That still leaves two of us!’

  ‘It’s not enough,’ Lupita says, too quickly to be anything but the truth.

  The three women cross the square, past the boys selling cartons of illegal cigarettes and boxes of paper tissues and little bags of pumpkin seeds, and turn a corner, entering an apartment building constructed in the 1960s, when the whole town was optimistic about the future; when everyone still believed in the Mexican Miracle.

  In those days, the people of Ciudad Real considered themselves fortunate. They lived on a border with the most powerful and attractive nation on earth. There were plenty of jobs on the other side too; jobs that the gringos would never dream of doing themselves.

  Back then there was easy credit, low inflation and full employment. US politicians were focused on oil subsidies, military contracts and the Cold War, not on illegal immigration, collapsing manufacturing and the War on Drugs. That 1960s Yanqui optimism spread south.

  Times were good.

  Before the killings.

  Before the narcos.