The Hidden Light of Mexico City

by Carmen Amato

  “What?” Luz shrilled.

  “Shut up, Diego!” Valderama Castro barked at the same time. He shook his head at Luz. “They made it look like a carjacking attempt. But it was de la Madrid Acosta. You have a right to know.”

  “The Minister of Public Security?” Why did the young cop call Eddo el jefe? Was Eddo some kind of cartel chief? Luz could hardly breathe, let alone think.

  “Look, Luz.” Valderama Castro flicked his eyes around the room and the other men melted away. He turned back to her. “When the government wanted an anticorruption pitbull, de la Madrid Acosta got just what he asked for.”

  “Anticorruption pitbull?” Luz echoed faintly.

  “Yeah, well, no doubt Eddo described his job in the ministry to you a little differently. Federal attorney? Prosecutor? Director of the ministry’s Office of Special Investigations? Right?”

  Luz nodded vaguely. Of course Eddo had said those things.

  “You know that big PEMEX thing was Eddo.”

  “Oh.” PEMEX was the state-owned petroleum company. Two years ago the government had recovered 300 million pesos and jailed senior PEMEX officials for embezzlement. It had been one of the Betancourt government’s few major successes.

  “But de la Madrid Acosta apparently never thought that Eddo would find his dirty laundry.”

  “Dios mio,” Luz moaned softly, catching on immediately.

  “Yeah,” Valderama Castro said. “Looks like a little deal with the El Toro cartel.”

  He paused, waiting for Luz to say something but she couldn’t. Her mind was reeling.

  “But Los Hierros is going to put an end to this, Luz de Maria,” Valderama Castro said firmly. “We’re not going to lose el jefe.”

  Luz dropped her jaw.

  “Hey, Tomás.” Another young cop leaned over the kitchen bar with a bottle in his hand. “Do we have time to toast el jefe’s lady? We found some Cuervo Especial.”

  “Thanks, Miguel. I think she could use it.” Valderama Castro pulled Luz to her feet. “Are you all right?”

  “No. Yes.” Luz was overwhelmed, hit by too much unexpected information in too short a time. Eddo was a federal attorney and el jefe of Los Hierros. And she’d slept with him. “Thank you for trusting me,” she managed.

  “He said he was going to tell you.”

  Luz blinked and opened her mouth to ask how he knew that, when a metallic screeching sound made them both flinch.

  “Give us a hand, Tomás.” Two of the cops tried to pull the big stainless steel refrigerator away from the wall. Others packed dishes and glasses into boxes.

  Luz sat on one of the stools in front of the bar as the cop named Miguel poured the expensive tequila into tall shot glasses. With Valderama Castro’s help the refrigerator gradually slid forward. The lieutenant unplugged it, picked up two grimy pieces of paper from the floor that had been caught underneath and handed them to Luz. “This must have been for you,” he said.

  Luz matched the pieces together along the tear line.

  Dear Luz −

  I have an unavoidable early morning meeting. Make yourself some decent coffee, and when you want to go home take a sitio taxi from the stand around the corner. Taxi fare is on the dresser.

  Leave your number before you go. My cell is 55 5406 6200, the house is 5257 1490.

  Can I take you to dinner on Wednesday? And to the store of your choice. I owe you a blouse--a debt I’m happy to pay.

  Eddo

  '

  Tomás ushered Luz into an old house in a part of Mexico City she’d rarely visited. Two of the young men from Eddo’s apartment, Miguel and Diego, came with them.

  The entrance was warmly decorated in shades of terracotta and brown, with heavy wood trim, antique Spanish furniture, and a muted tapestry on the wall. A handsome man in glasses a few years older than Luz closed the door behind them.

  “Luz de Maria, this is Vasco,” Tomás said and put down the suitcase they’d brought with them.

  Vasco shook her hand and smiled. “A pleasure, despite the circumstances,” he said.

  “So how’s he doing?” Tomás asked.

  “All right, I guess.” Vasco nodded at a flight of stairs carpeted with a patterned runner. “Still hasn’t eaten much. Won’t take what the doctor gave him for the pain, either.”

  Luz followed Tomás up the stairs, torn between fear at the strange situation and elation that she would see Eddo again. A door at the top was halfway open. They walked into a large bedroom decorated in the same comfortable style as the hallway downstairs.

  Eddo was stretched out on top of the bed. He had on gray sweatpants. His upper body was bare but a thick bandage wound around his left shoulder and the upper part of his chest. A sling kept his left arm close to his side. Purple bruises seeped out from under the white gauze of the bandages and spread across his pectoral muscle.

  The left side of his face was swollen and discolored from hairline to cheekbone. Much of his hair on that side had been shaved off and a row of butterfly bandages closed a gash that extended at least three inches around the side of his head. A cold pack like the kind a coach had once given Juan Pablo was on the bed, along with a copy of Reforma and a remote control. Opposite the bed, a television was broadcasting a fútbol game with the sound off.

  “Hey, Eddo,” Tomás called softly. “Somebody here to see you.”

  Eddo slowly rolled his head in the direction of Tomás’s voice. His eyes opened in a puffy squint.

  “How’s it going?” Tomás asked.

  “The food’s like shit and the nurses are ugly,” Eddo said. His voice was hoarse.

  “This ought to cheer you up. Look who I’ve brought.”

  Luz stepped out from behind Tomás, her heart hammering.

  Eddo’s mouth fell open.

  “She packed your stuff,” Tomás said, resting the suitcase against an old dresser.

  “How’d she get here?” Eddo’s expression changed from shock to tension.

  “Came by your place while we were packing,” Tomás said slowly, watching both Eddo and Luz. “We talked.”

  “Give us a minute,” Eddo said.

  “I’ll be downstairs with the guys.” Tomás shot Luz a glance she couldn’t fathom, then walked out and shut the door.

  Luz was left alone near the foot of the bed. The awkwardness was palpable.

  “If I’d known you were coming,” Eddo said tightly. “I would have dressed for the occasion.” He plucked at the sling with his right hand and Luz realized how much he must hate being like this. Dependent. Not in control.

  “I packed some of your things.” Luz made a tiny motion toward the suitcase. She’d found the Hermés scarf and the tiny gold buttons from her blouse in his sock drawer. “Clothes. Your toothbrush. The clock. El Cid.”

  She trailed off.

  He blinked at her.

  The room got deathly quiet.

  “You’re married,” Eddo said.

  “What?”

  “You’re married,” he repeated, struggling into a sitting position against the pillows. “Your husband was away or you had an argument with him and amused yourself with me for a day.”

  “No,” Luz exclaimed.

  “No?” Eddo bit off the word, the pain in his eyes terrible to see. “I thought there was something there, Luz, and then you just disappeared. You didn’t leave your number. You didn’t call. No explanation. Nothing. Of course you’re married.”

  “You left 200 pesos on the dresser,” Luz blurted. “I thought you left me money because you thought I was a puta.”

  “Are you joking?” Eddo’s face went gray with pain as he started to swing his legs off the bed. Luz moved to his side and eased him back against the pillows. He grabbed her wrist. “Why would you say that? I swear to the Holy Mother I never thought that.”

  “I just saw the money and that’s what I thought,” Luz said wretchedly.

  “I left you taxi fare.”

  “I didn’t see your note until today,” Luz
said. She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush of words. “Two hundred pesos is a whole day’s salary to me. I’m a muchacha. A muchacha planta.”

  “A planta?” Eddo let go of her wrist.

  “Yes.” She’d done the penance and it felt awful.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why such a fucking bullshit story,” Eddo shouted, making her jump. “If you never wanted to see me again, all you had to do was keep staying away. Why bother to come here with some maldita bullshit story about being a muchacha? Do you really think I’m so stupid?”

  “No, no.” Luz felt herself falling apart as she sank onto the edge of the bed, totally unprepared for his disbelief. “It’s true. I work for the Vega family in Lomas Virreyes.”

  “You’re an art teacher,” Eddo insisted.

  “No, I’m a muchacha. I shouldn’t have even talked to someone like you. I’m so sorry. I knew better.”

  “What the hell . . .” Eddo’s right hand moved restlessly across his bandaged chest and then he pointed at her. “You know English. French. Taught me about art. We talked politics.”

  “I talked to you like I talk to no one else.” Luz wanted to die. “But I’m just a muchacha.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Eddo said roughly.

  “That doesn’t change anything,” Luz said, suddenly angry at what she had lost and was losing all over again in some strange house. “My father was dead and there was no money and I was the oldest. I left school and cried for a year but it’s what girls like me do to feed our families.”

  There was silence.

  “How old were you?” Eddo asked at length.

  “Sixteen.”

  Eddo looked away, as if he’d finally understood. Silence filled the room again. Luz watched the television, too drained to move.

  “Why did you go over to the apartment?” Eddo asked. “Why now?”

  Luz shrugged, unable to meet his eyes. “Father Santiago said for my penance I had to tell you who I really was.”

  “You went to confession?”

  “Well, I’d slept with you, you know,” Luz said uncomfortably.

  “Madre de Dios,” Eddo said. He started to laugh but a spasm of pain contorted his face. “Shit. I can’t even laugh.”

  Luz picked up the cold pack, glad for the distraction. “What hurts the most?”

  “My head. It feels like it’s in a vise.”

  “Lie still,” Luz clucked at him. She gently pressed the cold pack against the butterfly bandages on the left side of his head.

  Eddo closed his eyes.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were an attorney?” Luz asked.

  “Didn’t I?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Luz adjusted the cold pack and inspected the butterfly bandages. “You must have a head like concrete. Tomás told me you jumped through the windshield.”

  “What else did Tomás tell you?”

  “Los Hierros,” Luz said. “I’m very proud of you, for what it’s worth.”

  “I was going to tell you.”

  Luz moved the cold pack again. “I’ll keep the secret.”

  “Thank you,” Eddo said, eyes still closed. He exhaled. “I’m sorry I left that morning the way I did. I had a breakfast meeting at Los Pinos. I should have woken you up, got your number. Made sure I knew where things stood between us.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Luz said. “You go to Los Pinos and I scrub toilets.”

  Eddo was still as Luz held the cold pack. “Do you regret being with me?” he asked. “Is that really why you went to confession?”

  “I committed the sin of falsehood.” Luz’s throat was tight. “I pretended to be someone else.”

  “I don’t think so,” Eddo said. “Aren’t you the person who drew me pictures and showed me lunatic Russian artists? Trashed Lorena and ate apples in my bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re the same woman.” The hazel eyes opened and bored into her. “The day we shared was the best day of my life.”

  Even bruised and broken he was a taut and powerful presence. Luz was drawn to him so strongly she couldn’t stand it.

  Eddo reached up and pulled at her hand. Luz dropped the cold pack. He laced his fingers with hers and pressed their hands to his chest. “I’ve got an investigation I can’t let go,” Eddo said. “It’ll probably get worse before it gets better but one way or another I’m going to nail Hugo and be done. Say you’ll celebrate with me when it’s over.”

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Luz rubbed the bandages on his chest with her fingertips.

  “Another few weeks to run things down and then we’ll put it all on the president’s desk. Force him to do something.”

  “President Betancourt?” It was almost too much for Luz to absorb.

  “Yes. Say you’ll wait, Luz. It won’t be forever.”

  The look on his face said he truly didn’t care who she was because he knew the real Luz and wanted to be with her. He would fight and he would win and she’d be there for him when he did. Rodrigo and Jimena. There was a low, familiar humming in Luz’s head.

  “Tell me you’ll take what the doctor gave you and I will,” Luz said.

  “I’ll take it.”

  They smiled at each other and Luz’s heart danced in her chest.

  She shook out a pill from the little bottle on the bedside table. Eddo swallowed it with some water, then made room for Luz beside him on the bed. She pressed her cheek against his unhurt shoulder and tucked her arm around his waist. Despite the sling, his body was achingly familiar.

  “I thought about you a lot,” he murmured. “Took me a long time to realize you weren’t coming back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luz said against his skin.

  “Me, too. I never should have left without waking you up.”

  Luz closed her eyes. For a few wonderful minutes the room felt like heaven.

  “Until this is over, you don’t know me, haven’t seen me, nothing,” Eddo said, breaking their silence. “You’ve never been to this house. Anything you know about Eduardo Cortez Castillo is just what you read in the paper.”

  “Oh.” Luz really got it then; the danger and the risk of what he was doing.

  The door creaked open. Both were instantly alert. But it was only Tomás and Miguel.

  “Probably should be getting Luz de Maria out of here, Eddo,” Tomás said apologetically.

  “I know,” Eddo said. “Luz, give Tomás your cell phone.”

  Blushing, Luz sat up and found her phone. The lieutenant keyed in his number, adding it to the phone’s short list of contacts. He showed her how she could speed dial him just by pressing the number 4. Luz wrote her cell number and the Vega’s address on a pad on the bedside table.

  “Luz,” Eddo said. “Keep your phone with you all the time. If anything worries you, call Tomás immediately.”

  “Okay.” Luz bent and kissed his unbruised cheek, wanting to do something for him but there wasn’t anything to do. She picked up the Prada tote and Tomás opened the door for her.

  “Mi corazón,” Eddo called. “Promise me something.”

  Luz turned around in the doorway. “What?”

  “Take your pictures to Jardin del Arte some Sunday. They’re better than anything there.”

  “All right.” Luz nodded, surprised. “I’ll tell you how I made out.”

  “Luz. I meant what I said. The best day.”

  It was as if an invisible thread connected them, shining and tuning with emotion. It would stretch as far as it needed to, and when he was ready, Eddo would wind it all the way back to her.

  “I know,” Luz said. “It was the best day ever.”

  '

  It was a dirty dry la sopa night. The city had never seemed so grimy, the buildings so drab, the people so sullen. Luz gave Tomás the Vega’s address then sat quietly in the car, her thoughts trying to catch up to her emotions. In the back, Diego and Miguel were silent, as if her bodyguards.

&
nbsp; “You okay?” Tomás asked after 15 minutes of silence.

  “He should be in the hospital,” Luz said.

  “He is,” Tomás replied evenly. “Just like it said in the newspaper.”

  “He . . . oh.” Luz realized what he was saying.

  “He’ll come through this, Luz.” Tomás talked as he drove, telling her about how he and Eddo had joined Highway Patrol at the same time. They were the only two college boys, and naturally gravitated toward each other, often having to prove with their fists that they were tough enough for the job. Together with Vasco they’d organized Los Hierros, but Eddo was the driving force. Los Hierros only existed because of Eddo’s personality and Marca Cortez money. They would keep it secret as long as they could.

  “Marca Cortez?” Luz asked.

  “Talavera,” Tomás said. “The Cortez family owns Marca Cortez, half of Puebla, and the land the new Volkswagen factory is on. Eddo is still the family’s legal advisor and sits on the board of directors. Don’t know how he finds the time. It helps that he never sleeps.”

  Eddo is rich. Richer than the Vegas, even richer than the Portillos. “Puebla,” Luz said. “The city or the state?”

  “Both.”

  Phenomenally rich.

  The car pulled up next to the Vega’s gate. “Nice place,” Tomás said.

  Luz unfastened her seat belt then turned to him. “Did he say I was an art teacher?”

  “Yes. Said you took him to a museum. That must have been something.”

  “I’m not a teacher,” Luz said. “I’m a muchacha.”

  Tomás raised his eyebrows. “You making a joke?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t look like a muchacha.”