Call Him Mine

by Tim MacGabhann

  Then the helicopter yawed south above Avenida Universidad, left me on the maple floor under a blue sky ribbed with cirrus-clouds.

  Maya’s bathroom door opened and she came out wearing a white bathrobe.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ I pointed back over my shoulder with my thumb.

  ‘Hear what?’ said Maya, towelling her hair. The air smelled warmly of Elvive. She handed me a fresh towel. ‘Jesus. Are those your feet?’

  ‘Think so.’ I wiggled my toes. ‘Why?’

  ‘They’ve got beards. Even your toes have beards. Irish people are weird.’

  ‘Hobbit blood.’ I caught ash in the palm of my hand. ‘Every one of us is part-hobbit. Matter of fact, hobbits invented Ireland.’ I righted the blanket and lay down on the couch.

  ‘You’re full of shit.’ Maya took a brick-pack of Lavazza from the freezer.

  ‘It’s not the volume of shit that should worry you,’ I said. ‘It’s the fluency.’

  Her electric kettle came to the boil. Maya unzipped the little doughnut-shaped wallet where she’d kept her Citalopram ever since her move.

  ‘And you definitely didn’t hear that helicopter? Definitely definitely?’

  ‘No.’ Maya poured water into the loaded cafetière, then shaved a sticky cone of piloncillo sugar in on top. ‘But it’s normal. They like to frighten men in their underwear.’

  ‘Oh.’ I put my jacket on. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen worse. I think.’ She handed me a cup of coffee. ‘Here – you need this.’

  She wasn’t wrong. My reflection in the window was the pouchy, ashen Before face on a sleeping-tablets advert: hair rat-tailed across my forehead, scratchy beard, blood-rimmed irises.

  On my laptop, the news from Poza Rica was grim. A Guardia Civil officer’s head had been rolled onto a football pitch on the edge of the city. In retaliation, a state police officer had been shot in the head and dumped by a highway, dressed in a clown suit. The underside of my sternum itched.

  ‘Shit. I need to get down there.’ The towel slid from my shoulder to the ground. The photo showed head-blood matting rainbow curls, a cratered-in face, a mouth stretched in a yawn that wasn’t a yawn. ‘It’s all kicking off – some kind of split, I think. Police are killing each other – look.’ I turned the laptop towards her.

  ‘So what?’ Maya clawed away a web of smoke. ‘It’s kicking off everywhere. Finish your coffee.’ She flung the towel at me. ‘And close that. It’s too early.’

  After showering, I came out to find Maya plugged into her headphones, writing a transcript. Her laptop showed news photos of the approach road to the university, clotted with broken glass and rainwater. A roadblock of halved tyres smoked beside a trashed administrative building, with sheets caught in the branches of a fir tree.

  ‘What has the students all riled?’ I asked when she took off her headphones.

  Maya scoffed and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. ‘That kid you found, he’s an icon now.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Julián Gallardo?’

  She nodded. ‘Students’ union called a strike. Solidarity thing.’

  ‘Huh.’ I poured myself more coffee. ‘What are they saying about our boy Julián, then?’

  ‘Pretty much what you and Carlos saw,’ said Maya. ‘Police collected his body from an alley – but then that body never showed up.’ She held out her mug for a refill. ‘Weird, though. Why would a Guardia Civil unit be cleaning up a body dumped by Zetas?’

  In my head I saw the shot policeman in his bloodied clown-suit.

  ‘Because they might be Zetas too,’ I said.

  ‘Eesh.’ Maya made a face. ‘But yeah,’ she said, putting her headphones back on. ‘That sounds about right.’

  While she typed up her transcript, I read through some of the articles by Francisco Escárcega. One was accompanied by aerial photos of Ajenjo wells, circled and numbered, with graphs showing oil extraction figures diving from early peaks to near-zero flatlines, while the text talked about a major U.S. oil giant selling a horizontal drill, a monitoring booth, and trucks for injecting water and chemicals, in a deal close to eight billion dollars.

  ‘Hey,’ I said to Maya, waving my hands.

  She took off her headphones.

  ‘Here,’ I said, turning the laptop, and zooming in the screen on the photo. ‘What’s all that look like to you?’

  She frowned. ‘Is that one of those fracking sites? Where is that, Texas?’

  I shook my head. ‘Poza Rica.’

  Her eyes went wide. ‘Neta?’ she said. ‘Chinga, güey.’

  ‘We’re on to something here,’ I said.

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean “we”?’

  ‘Well, you’re coming too, no?’ I opened LinkedIn and went looking for people who’d worked for Ajenjo.

  Maya laughed. ‘You’re joking, right? Like, OK, so it’s more dangerous for Mexican journalists, blah, blah, but you’re trying to poke around in some really dank shit, man.’ She shook her head. ‘Puta, güey, I’d be dead if I even thought some of the shit you’re trying to dig up. Like, you’re the sober one, yeah? And so you’re kind of meant to be good at this, like, self-analysis shit? And you can’t see what you’re getting into.’ She blew on her coffee. ‘Like, at all.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ I turned the laptop around for her to see some LinkedIn search results of people who’d worked for Ajenjo. ‘Who would you interview first?’

  Maya shoved the laptop aside, but stopped short of pushing it to the floor. ‘Andrew, are you even listening?’

  ‘Well, no, like. I’ve shit to do.’ I pulled the laptop back, clicking open a profile I liked the look of: a local-born driller for Ajenjo. ‘This barista guy. You like the look of him?’

  ‘What, physically?’ Maya sipped her coffee.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘as in, like, is he too far out of the game? He quit in 2014. Became a barista here in Mexico City. Started a Motocross team – that’s pretty cool.’

  She gave a one-shoulder shrug. ‘Sure. Whatever. Why’re you rushing, anyway? It’s Saturday, man. Chill.’

  ‘Already got one of us killed,’ I said, copy-pasting the address of the guy’s café into an email to myself. ‘Better get this done before they come back.’

  Maya’s eyes were still on me. ‘That’s fucked up.’

  ‘What? It’s the truth, like.’

  ‘That is such shit.’ She practically slammed down her coffee cup. ‘He was his own man. A grown-up.’ She huffed a laugh through her nose, flicking up her fringe. ‘Kind of.’

  Carlos on the bike, his middle finger upraised. The white chop-marks on his glass table. I didn’t say anything.

  Maya turned her coffee cup on its saucer. ‘OK, so this might be rough, yeah? But you’re going to have to do your own thing sometime, you know?’ She plucked the sleeve of his – my – jacket. ‘He’s still got such a hold on you.’

  ‘His ashes are barely fucking cold, Maya.’

  She gave me a long, hard stare, put her headphones on and started tapping away at her keyboard again, like nothing had happened. There wasn’t a single reply that I could think of that wouldn’t sound petty and wrong, so I tried to soldier on with my reading, but I was so pissed off that it was like I had indigestion, and every noise from outside – the gas man’s yawp, the knife sharpener’s whistle, and one of those awful brass bands made up of off-duty football hooligans that clump around honking into people’s intercoms in return for change – made the corner of my eye twitch.

  When a camote-vendor’s cart rocked up outside the apartment and let its steam shriek out, I slammed shut my laptop and leaned back in my chair, the heels of my hands kneading my eyes, uttering a low groan. When I’d finished, Maya was looking at me, her arms folded, her headphones around her neck.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Did I interrupt you?’ I folded my arms. ‘I’m not sorry, before you ask. It’s your fault I can’t concentrate.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Maya, r
ecoiling a little. ‘I was just going to ask if you wanted a break. But –’ she turned around in the chair, already lifting the headphones ‘– someone still hasn’t cooled down.’

  ‘No, no.’ I sighed. ‘Fuck it, you’re right.’ I pocketed my wallet. ‘Break time. I’ll get us some snacks or whatever. You go pick something to watch.’

  When I got back with some tamales, we nearly fought again, this time because Maya wanted to put on a gossipy documentary about the British Royal Family.

  ‘What?’ she said, plugging the SCART lead into her TV. ‘Harry’s cute.’

  ‘Ah, Jesus.’ I palmed my forehead. ‘Honestly, anything, literally anything but them. Please?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, killing the screen light on her MacBook. ‘Gilmore Girls again. But just two episodes, yeah?’

  The day was bright, but frigid, so we brought our tamales over to the couch and drew Maya’s blanket over both our laps.

  ‘Very Queen Mother, no?’ she said, tucking the edge of the blanket under her thigh and balancing the styrofoam tray that held her tamal on her knees.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said, a forkful of tamal halfway to my mouth, but I was just glad she was making jokes again.

  With my eyes shut and Maya’s cheek resting on the top of my head, it was almost like nestling in against Carlos. Sometime around the middle of the second episode, the weight of the tamal in my belly started to make me nod off. Next thing I remember was Maya tapping me awake.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You were beginning to drool.’

  ‘Shite,’ I said through a groan, rubbing my eyes. ‘I don’t get it. I’m so knackered all the time.’ I sat up and let myself fall against the corner of the couch so I could stretch my back.

  ‘It is tiring,’ Maya said, pictures on the screen catching on her eyes in four pixelated dots that kept changing colour. ‘The whole thing. Just having to think about it all the time, or else trying not to. Gives you a headache.’ She got up to disconnect the laptop. ‘And it’s like you only ever think you’re distracting yourself, you know?’

  ‘Hundred per cent.’ I leaned my chin on the heel of my hand. ‘Probably I should crack on with work, I reckon.’

  ‘Here, or?’

  ‘Ah, no, my place,’ I said, untucking the blanket. ‘I’ll just end up acting the prick again. I’m ratty as hell.’

  Maya just stood there with her mouth open, mock-aghast, and darted her eyes back and forth. She had leaned forward a little.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to agree,’ she said.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘That bad, was I?’

  She pinched her index finger close to her thumb. ‘Tantitito,’ she said.

  ‘C’mere.’ I crossed the room and put my arms around her. ‘I’m sorry. We’re knee deep in the same shite and here I am acting like it’s all about me.’

  ‘S’OK,’ said Maya, her voice muffled against my shoulder. She patted me on the back. ‘Goes with the territory, doesn’t it? All you stoical men.’

  ‘Ugh. Sadly, yes.’

  Maya walked me downstairs. It was already getting dark outside; across the road from her building, steam frayed up in crisp silver lines from an esquites cart. A father stooped over his kid’s pram, blowing on a spoonful of corn kernels before feeding it to his toddler.

  ‘Ay, que pinche frío güey,’ she said, rubbing her upper arms and stamping her feet as I climbed into the car. She shooed me with her fingers. ‘Vete ya. I’m dying here.’

  ‘You go back inside,’ I said. ‘Get your Queen Mother blanket back on.’

  She raised her hand as if to slap me with the back of it. ‘And you stay out of the deep end with that story, yeah?’ she said.

  ‘I’m only going back to do edits,’ I said. ‘Honest.’

  Maya looked at me sidelong. ‘You’re really crap at lying, you know that?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ I scratched the back of my neck. ‘Just don’t want you getting dragged into anything, or whatever.’

  ‘That’s appreciated.’ She leaned through the door, wagging a finger. ‘But don’t pretend that I don’t know what you’re up to, yeah?’ She gave me a kiss on the cheek. ‘Conozco a mi gente. Just be careful.’

  ‘Always am.’ I doused my cigarette in a quarter-empty coffee cup that stood in the driver door. ‘Kind of.’

  On the other side of the road, the father dabbed his son’s chin with a napkin. The toddler laughed and kicked in the pram as his father loaded up another spoonful.

  ‘I’ll call you when it’s over, OK?’ I said. ‘Promise.’

  ‘When’s that going to be?’ asked Maya.

  ‘Oh, pretty soon,’ I said. ‘Dominic likes a nice, fast turnaround time.’

  Maya laughed. ‘On top of everything else,’ she said, ‘you have to work to a deadline. Sucks to be you.’

  ‘Could be worse. Take care, all right?’

  ‘Yeah, you, too.’ Maya shut the car door, crossed to her building, gave me a wave from the doorway of her apartment, and left me sitting alone under the concourse lights. The father feeding his kid on the road had been gone a long time by the time the rain tapping my windscreen reminded me that I should get home.

  15

  Back home, when I flicked on the light, Motita’s eyes gleamed cobalt blue from under the cowhide-draped chair.

  ‘Well, make yourself at home, anyway,’ I said.

  The noticeboard was busy now: Carlos’ picture of Julián Gallardo, the tattered remains of the Díaz Ordáz acid blotter, a copy of Proceso with Carlos on the cover. The candles were veined with melted wax. The cigarette offerings I’d lit on the night Carlos had died lay snug in their ash.

  My plants tinted the light a mellow green, and blue smoke uncoiled from my gold-filtered Sobranie, and I sat there in the forty-watt glow, house music low and pulsing against the beat of rain outside, the caffeine and sugar hitting my blood in rapid jags, and all of it was almost cosy, almost like before, to the point where I wondered if I shouldn’t forget the article, forget the silver-toothed cop and his Salvadoran boss, if I shouldn’t just get back to furniture and flower-markets and all the stuff that had filled my weekends since I’d gotten sober, but then my phone buzzed, my editor’s number on the screen.

  ‘Andrew,’ he said, ‘my sympathies.’

  In the background I could hear the chatter of printers, the shrill chirp of phones. It wasn’t hard to picture him at the late-shift desk, looking more lecturer than editor in his pilled slacks and trainers, his half-rimmed glasses, his cordless corduroy jacket, his faded Kraftwerk T-shirt.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t make the funeral,’ he said through a static-edged sigh. ‘Wedded to the desk.’ Talked more lecturer than editor, too, his arch diction rippled by a Dumfries burr. ‘His mother’s eulogy was tremendous. That “mistakes of history” line, Reforma used that as their headline. Splashed with her photo.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, enough of that. How’re you faring?’

  The fish in my tanks jerked back and forth, settling nowhere.

  ‘Ah, you know,’ I said, dusting sugar from my fingers. ‘Keeping busy.’

  ‘Hell of a land, what happened,’ he went on gravely. A sheaf of papers rustled on his end of the call. ‘But we’ve got your story, and Carlos’ photos, and we should be able to run them day after tomorrow. How does that sound?’

  My breath went in, hard, and stayed in. If he’d asked me that question a week before all this happened, I’d have run a victory lap of my apartment.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ I said. ‘Great. I mean, you know. Huge honour. First byline with the big guys.’ The chuckle in my voice, even I could tell it was fake.

  ‘First of many,’ said Dominic. ‘Trust me. Apart from a couple of minor edits, this is first-rate reporting. And Carlos’ photos fit perfectly.’ He went quiet for a moment. ‘The news really hit us all hard. Can’t get my head around it.’

  Elvers of lit rain teemed down the glass. Motita nipped at dust-motes same as s
he used to jump at Carlos’ dangling fingers when he’d sit where I sat now. When I didn’t play along, she coughed out an amused non-miaow.

  ‘Ah, cheers.’ The doughnut chunk soured in my throat. ‘Glad you called. I was thinking –’ I pushed back my hair, eyes shut ‘– maybe hold the story?’

  Dominic went quiet for a longer moment.

  ‘See, thing is, I think I found something,’ I said. ‘Sort of big stuff, like.’

  In the background, the printers went on whinging, the phones shrilling.

  ‘What have you got?’ said Dominic.

  Motita clawed my dangling hand and missed. She looked at me, shocked. When I gave her the finger, she rolled onto her back, unimpressed.

  ‘Ties in with Carlos’ death,’ I told Dominic. ‘With organised crime. With multinational oil companies.’

  ‘And you have testimonies?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ I said, my fingers crossed behind my back. ‘Many, in fact.’

  Another phone went off, nearer to Dominic this time. ‘I have to take this, hold on.’ His voice went small while he asked the caller on the other line to wait, and I used the time to look up the café where the driller-turned-barista worked. They didn’t close for another twenty minutes. My knee started bouncing.

  ‘Andrew, let’s do breakfast. There’s a spot near mine – I’ll text the address. If I get out of here at nine tomorrow morning we can shoot for ten. Can you?’

  ‘Hundred per cent,’ I said, already out the door, a doughnut clamped in my teeth, zipping up Carlos’ jacket against the rain.

  My jeep’s tyres rasped against the tarmac. Up ahead, all around, brake lights shimmied and vied through the streaming dark. From the market above Metro Tacubaya rose the chug and boom of bootleg cumbia CDs, soundtracking labourers in wool-padded plaid jackets and baseball caps started on the long commute home, the pesero boys chivvying passengers onto the green and white buses, the mothers and grandmothers toting loads and babies through the rain and yellow lights, their shoulders catching the charger-cables that dangled like vines from the stalls.

  The insomnia twitch at the corner of my eye was strong now. The coffee cup I drank from could have been that morning’s, could have been last week’s, whatever, it was all fuel. The bloody lights of hotsheet motels and petrol stations spilled down the bonnet. Above the Metro Juanacatlán sign someone had sprayed a stencil of Emiliano Zapata above the words SEE YOU IN 2017.