by Carmen Amato
“We had a mix-up but he knows now.” Luz swallowed hard. “Is that going to be a problem for you?”
The muscular man stared over the steering wheel, his face immobile. A street light illuminated the other side of Fray Payo de Rivera, causing the concertina wire topping the neighbor’s wall to look like spun candy.
“I only care that you’re not a bitch to him,” Tomás said finally. “He’s my best friend and he’s going through a rough time.”
“Thank you.” Luz impulsively kissed him on the cheek. “For taking care of him.”
Tomas’s expression didn’t change but Luz knew he was blushing. “Call if you need anything,” he said gruffly. “Number 4 on your phone.”
Luz said goodbye to Diego and Miguel, who both acted as if they hadn’t heard the exchange, then went inside. She was in bed listening to Rosa snore before Luz recalled that Eddo had called her mi corazón.
My heart.
Chapter 34
On Wednesday Luz had her first free afternoon since being grounded by Señora Vega. She hustled down Fray Payo de Rivera to the intersection with Virreyes, crossed the wide boulevard divided by a grassy median, and then walked up Monte Athos to the fancy shopping area on the northern end of that street. She spent 68 pesos from her emergency fund at the Batiz art store on two small canvases and some oil paints.
Luz was heading back, passing La Sumesa, the gourmet grocery store, when her cell phone rang. She fumbled it out of her backpack. The display read Valderama.
“What happened?” she gasped in lieu of a greeting.
“Luz de Maria?” There were traffic sounds in the background.
“Yes. What happened?”
“Nothing. He’s fine. Up and walking around. Irritating people.”
Luz sagged against the side of the La Sumesa store, right beside the bulletin board with notices advertising English lessons and jobs for chauffeurs with excellent references. “That’s good,” she gulped.
“I’m heading toward your neighborhood. I want to talk to you.”
They agreed to meet at the cafe around the corner from the art store. Luz window shopped for 15 minutes, not daring to go into any of the upscale shops in just her old jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. Tomás showed up just when he’d said he would, dressed in a beautiful double-breasted gray suit and red silk paisley tie.
“Luz de Maria,” he said politely, keeping whatever thoughts he had about her appearance under wraps. He ushered her into the café and they sat down at a small table. The waitress gave Luz a hard stare and Luz automatically pulled on her stupid face. Tomás said “Coffee?” to Luz. She nodded and he ordered two. The waitress stalked off.
“You keeping your cell phone with you all the time?” Tomás asked, fiddling with the empty ashtray.
“Yes.”
They sat in silence until the waitress delivered the coffee and went back behind the counter.
“Eddo had some stuff in his office at the ministry that we need to get out.” Tomás poured three sugar packets into his cup and stirred. His voice was low.
“What sort of stuff?” Luz asked, matching his tone.
“Some of the evidence about what de la Madrid Acosta has been up to.”
“Oh.”
“I had an idea that you could help us out.”
“Go on,” Luz said cautiously.
“We’ve been watching the building since the accident, trying to get someone inside but they’ve never been able to get near Eddo’s office. The one person with access can’t afford to get burned.”
Luz nodded her understanding.
“At night the building is empty,” Tomás went on. “Except for a cleaning crew that comes in at 11:00 pm. Two male supervisors. Everyone else is female.”
The coffee in Luz’s mouth suddenly turned to bile.
“You could pretend to be one of the cleaning crew,” Tomás said, watching her face. “Get into the building. Get the stuff out of his office.”
Luz didn’t say anything, her thoughts swinging between humiliation and the desire to help.
“Time is not on our side, Luz de Maria. We have to do it before the weekend. There aren’t any cleaners then and the office will probably be searched. The evidence will be gone.”
Luz pressed her hands between her knees. Friday morning Rosa would leave for Cholula or Manuel’s car. Marisol left weekdays after la comida. There were no parties planned at the Vega house for the coming weekend.
“I could do it Friday night,” she said.
Chapter 35
Max walked through the bar of the Hotel Arias. The place was full, the dark paneling and heavy draperies obscured by wealthy young people in suits and ties or elegant dresses, having a drink at the famed Hotel Arias after work and before a late dinner or theater date. Jazz played just loud enough to soften the edges of the conversations and the clink of glasses. There was no one there Max knew; Lazaro was working late and would meet him in a few hours.
There were two other bartenders behind the mahogany counter with Alvaro, helping to deal with the Friday evening crowd. Max squeezed between an Armani suit and a Chanel purse and picked up his glass of ruby port. He nodded thanks to Alvaro, eased his way out of the crush and went into his father’s office.
The heavy door blocked out the chatter and music from the bar. He didn’t turn on the light, just dropped his planner and cell phone on the desk and took his drink to the window. There was a filigreed iron security grid on the other side of the glass but he could see the manicured garden and the low wall that separated the hotel property from the street. The security guard was there, along with the parking valets in their green vests and black pants.
Max wanted out of all of it. Lorena wasn’t a candidate; she was a money-sucking machine, buying baubles, flyers, radio air time and full color ads in fashion magazines with money she thought was coming from Hugo’s media empire. Romero wasn’t doing any of that but was still ahead in the polls. The only thing Lorena’s campaign could do to even the odds was pay the party faithful before the nominating convention.
Max held his breath every time Lorena met someone new and wanted a lunch date. She was becoming less and less discreet and at some point either Hugo or the president were going to find out. Max would be blamed, he knew it, and Hugo would throw him to the wolves on the other side of the postings page.
But it was Max’s role in getting rid of Eduardo Cortez Castillo, who apparently was more than a talavera salesman, that had him waking up in a cold sweat. Four men had shown up at the hotel the day that CH5299xyz9 had said they would. They’d been crude cartel thugs from Chihuahua and walked into the bar like they owned it, which had nearly given Alvaro a stroke. Max had shown them a picture of Cortez and a few notes from Hugo on the man’s schedule. When they took their worn cowboy boots and greasy shirts out of the hotel Max had logged in as 1612colcol to say that the team could not return.
The men from Chihuahua had been successful and Cortez Castillo was now a vegetable. Lorena and Hugo had celebrated in the bar with a champagne lunch and then a romp in their favorite room.
Max finished the port. He should have brought the bottle. On the other side of the window, a big SUV pulled up to the valet stand and one of the valets ran around to the driver’s side. Max envied those valets the simplicity of their lives.
He pulled himself away from the window and turned on his father’s computer. The screen glowed blue across the keyboard.
The door opened, throwing a wedge of light into the room. A man in a suit walked in, shut the door behind him, and stood with his back pressed against it.
“This is a private office,” Max snapped.
“You’re Max Arias, aren’t you?” the man asked.
Max took his hands off the keyboard. “If you’re looking for the manager he’s in the restaurant right now.”
The man stepped away from the door. Max couldn’t see his face in the dim room. “You’re running a company called Hermanos Hospitality out of this hot
el,” the man said. The voice was younger than Max’s and touched with nervousness.
Max’s tie was too tight as the blood rushed to his head. “Never heard of it,” he managed.
“Money is being sent to Hermanos Hospitality from accounts in a bank associated with the El Toro cartel,” the man continued. “The accounts are in the name of the Minister of Public Security Hugo de la Madrid Acosta and his son.”
Max couldn’t have reacted even if he’d wanted.
The man put a sheet of paper on the desk. It was a printout of micropostings including some by 1612colcol. “A man named Eduardo Cortez Castillo has figured out the whole thing. Money comes out of some operation the El Toro cartel has near Anahuac, filters through a front company in Panama, moves around the minister’s bank accounts, and is finally sent by money order to Hermanos Hospitality.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Max said without breathing.
The man made a gesture taking in the office and the hotel beyond. “Maybe Cortez will ask Lazaro Zuno what he knows. He’s the software engineer who set up that page where all the attachments are the same.”
The blood left Max’s head as fast as it had come.
The man went on. “Took a long time, making all the connections. Zuno is a systems consultant. Does some work for the Canadian conglomerate that owns the site. Sits in this hotel bar at least three nights a week waiting for you. But you’re busy with Lorena’s campaign. Which is the only Mexican entity on the postings site. You see how things connect?”
“Cortez is in a coma,” Max said.
“Eduardo Cortez Castillo isn’t in a private hospital in Puebla. That was all a fake. Unless somebody stops him he’s going to blow your whole operation wide open.”
“Who are you?” Max asked when he was sure he wasn’t going to pass out.
“Call me Juan.”
“Presumably there’s something you want?”
“Cortez is always in charge.” The man leaned over the desk and for the first time Max had a clear view of his face. The eyes behind the glasses were glazed with anger and self-loathing. “Everybody loves him. They’ll go to the ends of the earth for him. But I do all the work. I do it.”
“You want his job.” Max said.
“You could say that.” The man grinned, flashing white teeth. He was definitely younger than Max, and hungry to make his mark.
Something inside Max relaxed. He’d been in service to politicians for nearly 20 years and had met this kind before. Ambitious, with information to sell to the highest bidder.
They never lasted.
Chapter 36
The tall building faced Reforma. The service door was at the rear of the building, in an alley parallel to the big boulevard. A straggly line of cleaning women, dressed in old clothes just like Luz, waited to get in for the 11:00 pm shift. Luz put on her stupid face, both to blend in and to keep from betraying her nervousness.
Luz wore jeans and a sweatshirt and held her old backpack. She had Eddo’s keys and had memorized the safe combination. Tomás and two others were positioned around the office building and she knew the plan: in quick, out quick. The rendezvous point was a newsstand a block away.
As Luz followed the line down the stairs, the plan was immediately in trouble. Uniformed security personnel inspected the bags of anyone entering or exiting.
She did what the other women did and walked through an archway by the guards’ table. A beeping started and the guard barked at her to empty her pockets. Luz showed the keys, saying they were her house keys. Her backpack was given a cursory check and shoved back across the table. Luz followed the group into the service elevator. A few of the people seemed to know each other and muttered greetings. Luz pressed the button for the twelfth floor.
Workers got off at other floors. No one got off with Luz. The elevator doors swished behind her and she was left in a darkened hallway with a gray linoleum floor. The only light peeped from around a partially opened door.
“Hey, nobody’s going to pay you to pose for pictures.” The door smacked open all the way and a man walked out. “Usual girl is sick. You the sub?”
Luz nodded, her knees shaking.
“Put your stuff in here,” the man barked, gesturing to where he’d just come from. It was a janitorial closet about the size of a bathroom. Cleaning supplies were piled against brooms and a large upright vacuum cleaner. An upholstered office chair was pulled up in front of a rickety folding table with a small television on it.
Luz put her backpack on the floor. The man pointed to a bucket containing trash bags, rags, and bottles of bleach and furniture polish. She picked it up. The man locked the closet door, crossed the hall, and unlocked a door. He relocked it after they’d passed through and Luz found herself standing in a wide carpeted hallway.
“Ashtrays first, then dust, water the plants, empty trash cans. When you’re done come back for the vacuum cleaner.” The man strode down the hall, unlocking doors with a passkey dangling from a long thin chain attached to his belt. He was short and round, with breath like sour beer. He wore brown pants and a grease-stained gray shirt. Luz wondered what he did while the cleaning people worked.
“Break at 2:00 am,” he went on. “No vacuuming, no break. Done by 5:00 am.”
Luz transferred the bucket to her other hand as she followed him down the hall. She counted 14 doors before they reached the reception area with damask sofas and brass tables that Tomás had described. The door opposite the reception area had a plaque reading “Director, Eduardo Cortez Castillo.”
They moved on. The hallway on the other side of the reception area had 16 offices.
“Start here and work your way back,” the man said after unlocking the last door. He turned and walked back the way they’d come. When he disappeared around the corner Luz put down the bucket and padded noiselessly after him on the thick carpet. She didn’t see him again but she heard the unmistakable sound of the service door being unlocked and opened, then closed and relocked. Luz ran into Eddo’s office.
It was the domain of a powerful man. An enormous L-shaped desk faced the door to the hall. There was a credenza against the wall; 12 feet of gleaming dark wood. Upholstered wing chairs in front of the desk were for important visitors. A big conference table and chairs took up a quarter of the room and books lined the far wall.
The cabinet was behind the desk just as Tomás had said it would be. Luz knelt, sheltered by the desk, and unlocked it. Inside was a two drawer combination safe. Luz spun the dial, remembering the instructions, and the drawer slid open.
Heart thumping, Luz found the paper with the list and the CD in a glassine envelope.
She hurriedly searched Eddo’s desk. The deep drawers on the left side contained an assortment of food and bottled water, including a dozen chocolate protein bars, the kind that Señora Velasquez sometimes sold in the abarrotes shop for the staggering price of 30 pesos each. The drawers on the right under the computer held expensive dress shirts still folded and wrapped in paper from the dry cleaners. Finally in the center drawer she found a scissors.
She cut the printing from the paper into slips, folded each one into a little square and slipped them into her sneakers. Then she stuffed the CD into her panties.
Luz shut the safe, relocked the cabinet, ran to the service door and banged on it.
“What do you want?” The manager’s voice was slurred.
“I’m not feeling well,” Luz called through the door.
“If you puke you clean it up,” he shouted back.
Luz’s mind raced, trying to think of another way out that didn’t involve abandoning her backpack and her precious cell phone. But she could think of nothing.
She picked up the bucket of cleaning supplies and went into the first office.
'
By the time she had done all the offices on the first half of the hallway and was back to Eddo’s, Luz was shaky with fatigue and hunger and residual adrenaline.
She sat on the
floor behind the desk again, as if it was her private hiding place, and took a chocolate protein bar and a bottle of water from the desk drawer. The bar was thick and moist and crunchy with nuts, almost like a dense chocolate pastel. It was so good she ate another, thinking that she’d have to pay Eddo at least 60 pesos but she didn’t care.
After a few minutes she had the strength to head back to work. And stopped dead.
The two sketches she’d given Eddo in October were framed and hanging to the immediate right of the door, directly opposite the desk so he could see them when he was sitting. The framing was beautiful--wide white mats and narrow black frames carved to look like rope. Displayed like that, her unimportant sketches looked professional and expensive. Like real art.
As she looked at the pictures, the back of her neck prickled just there and she whirled around, sure that he had touched her, but of course he hadn’t; there was no one else there.
The feeling was at once both steadying and unsettling, as if he’d shaken the thread connecting them and she’d felt the reverberation.
'
Luz surrendered her backpack to the security guard in the basement and he gave it a cursory check. She took it back wordlessly, climbed the stairs to the exit and left the building with the other workers. Saturday was just dawning, the gray-white sky giving way to a soft blue that might last until mid-morning. A car pulled up next to her and she saw to her relief that it was Tomás.
“Where have you been?” he practically shouted as she fell into the passenger seat.
“I had to clean the entire floor.” The car pulled away from the curb and Luz closed her eyes. “They lock the workers in. Don’t let them out until the shift is over. I cleaned 30 offices. And bathrooms.”
“Ah, fuck.”
Luz groaned in reply and unzipped her jeans.
“Hey, hey, wait a minute,” Tomás said. Luz felt the car swerve.
If she hadn’t been so tired she would have laughed but instead she pulled down her panties and took out the maldita CD. She had dozens of tiny cuts all over her abdomen from the corners of the envelope. Tomás drove without speaking as she emptied her shoes.