by Carmen Amato
Eventually Emilia closed her notebook and went upstairs to change. There were other things she could be doing with her day.
☼
Her badge got her through the turnstile at the CICI water park, but Erick Aguilar Valle, the burly manager, looked harried and unimpressed. His office was a humid cell containing a desk, some cabinets, and a jumble of older computer equipment liberally strewn with paperwork, most of which appeared to be unpaid invoices. The place smelled like a recently opened can of tuna.
“What kind of name is Pedro Lata?” Aguilar asked dismissively. He wore a blue polo with a gray dolphin emblem on the chest. The shirt was tight enough to show that he didn’t work out. “Are you making a joke?”
Emilia took out the photo strip and put it on the desk in front of Aguilar.
The manager picked it up and grinned. “That’s Pedro Montealegre.” He handed it back to Emilia. “What’s the lata joke about?”
Lila said Montealegre, maybe. Or Castillo.
“I’m sorry.” Emilia smiled broadly as she put the picture back in her bag. “It’s a family joke. I forget sometimes.”
“You’re family?” Aguilar asked. “You just said you were a cop.”
“I’m his stepsister,” Emilia lied. “His grandmother isn’t doing well and I hadn’t seen him in a while. I didn’t know if he was still working here…” She trailed off and looked tearful. Their grandmother was very, very sick.
“Sure,” Aguilar said uncomfortably as Emilia sniffed. “Pedro’s one of our best handlers.” He glanced at a clock on the cement wall. The paint glistened with damp. “He’s probably got a few minutes between shows. You’ll find him in the big tank.”
Emilia followed Aguilar’s directions through the employee corridor and found herself in the park’s dolphin tank. The huge indoor pool was surrounded by an undulating concrete deck. Wide shallow stairs led into the clear depths, where two dolphins glided side by side just under the surface. They might have been reading each other’s minds as they dove and twisted as one.
Halfway between the water’s edge and a tier of wooden benches for spectators, two young men in short-sleeved wetsuits posed with three little boys as the parents took pictures. Clad in swim trunks and life vests, the boys were clearly in awe of the experience they’d just had swimming with the sea creatures.
When the picture-taking wrapped up and the family was led to a changing room by a waiting attendant in a CICI polo shirt, Emilia approached the two CICI swimmers.
“Pedro Montealegre?” she asked.
The younger man lifted his chin and she recognized the face from the photo strip with Lila Jimenez Lata. He had the same pronounced cheekbones and sultry good looks as his sister and was the right age, if Berta’s story had been correct. “How can I help you, señorita?” he asked with the smile of a man used to having women approach him.
His diction was clearly upper class, and if the picture hadn’t been such an accurate likeness, Emilia would have thought she had the wrong person. Pedro Montealegre was fit, handsome and polished, hardly the product of a brief union between a tramp and a stranger.
“A family issue,” Emilia said. “If I could have a minute of your time?”
Pedro Montealegre’s smile didn’t fade, just became more brittle. But there was curiosity in his eyes, too. “Give us 10 minutes, José?” he asked the other man. “Then I’ll help you get ready for the next show.”
The man called José nodded at Pedro Montealegre and walked past Emilia. He passed through a door, leaving Emilia and the younger man alone by the big pool with the dolphins.
Pedro picked up a towel from a bench at the bottom of the tier of bleachers and rubbed his wet hair. “My name is Pedro Montealegre,” he said. “I dropped out of UNAM halfway through my degree in economics due to a dispute with my father. My family’s in Monterrey and I haven’t seen them since. I doubt you know them, señorita.”
He delivered the words with that flawless diction, his smile still pasted on. It was a speech he’d given dozens of times, and it was very convincing.
Emilia took the photo strip out of her shoulder bag and held it out to him. “Your real name is Pedro Lata,” she said. “Your sister is Lila Jimenez Lata. Her father was Enrique Jimenez. He wasn’t your father, but you and Lila share the same mother, Yolanda Lata.”
Pedro’s smile faded and his eyes narrowed. “Where did you get those pictures, señorita?”
“I found them under Lila’s bed.” Emilia watched his expression tighten as she continued. “Lila’s been missing for several weeks and her grandmother Berta asked me to help find her. I’m a police detective. Emilia Cruz Encinos.”
“Lila’s missing?” Pedro balled up the towel as fear etched across his handsome features. “Did somebody snatch her? Does Berta need ransom money?”
Emilia shook her head and sat down on the bench. For no reason at all, she’d half believed that he would say that Lila was with him. That his sister had run away from Berta and he’d given her a place to stay.
Instead, his face told Emilia everything she’d feared. Lila hadn’t run away to her brother. He didn’t know where she was.
She told him what Itzel had said, about Lila wanting to find her mother despite Berta’s claims that Yolanda was dead. How Lila had planned to go “downtown” but never returned home. Halfway through, he slumped onto the bench next to her and buried his head in his hands.
“Your mother was arrested for prostitution four years ago,” Emilia wound up. It was warm in the enclosed pool area and she could feel sweat trickle between her breasts. Her bra felt damp, and no doubt her ponytail looked like limp string. “Do you know who paid her out?”
Pedro sat up and wiped his face with the towel. “The last time I saw my mother was in a porn magazine.”
Emilia took the magazine out of her shoulder bag. “This one? I found it under Lila’s bed along with the photos of the two of you.”
“I gave that to her,” Pedro said. His voice cracked but he didn’t lose his precise manner of speech. Emilia guessed he’d practiced long and hard to make himself into Pedro Montealegre from Monterrey. “So she could see who her mother really was. Page 19.”
Emilia found the right page. He tapped the bottom photo as the magazine lay open on her knees.
“That’s Yolanda,” he said and got to his feet. He walked to the edge of the pool and slapped his hand against the surface of the water. The dolphins’ sleek shapes broke the surface. They glided up onto the shallow step and he petted their heads as if they were puppies.
Emilia pulled her eyes back to the smut on her lap. She tried to imagine having a picture like this of Sophia and failed. In the grainy magazine image, Yolanda was naked and engaged in sex astride a man whose face was cropped out of the picture. The camera had captured Yolanda with her chin lifted, her mouth open, and her face turned partway toward the photographer, enough for Emilia to see the same sultry eyes and high cheekbones, the same exotic Asian cast to her features that the woman had passed to her children. It was hard to tell her age, given the angle and poor quality of the picture, but her body was still in fairly good shape.
“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” Pedro said from the side of the pool, the perfect pronunciation tinged with disgust. “To have that be the only picture of your mother that you have?”
“The magazine is two years old,” Emilia pointed out. “Have you been in touch with Yolanda since then? Maybe gave Lila an address for her?”
“I ran across the picture by accident,” Pedro said. He walked over to a box built into the wall, took out a pail of fish, and fed a snack to both dolphins. Each animal bumped its head under his hand afterward, as if thanking him for the fish. The humid air filled with the scent of sardine. As Pedro stood up, one of the dolphins did that peculiar backwards dance while chattering at him. Emilia laughed. Pedro gave a little bow before stowing the fish bucket and washing his hands in the pool.
He came back to the bench and Emilia was struck again by his exotic good l
ooks and the way his body looked strong and fit in the wetsuit. “Wherever she is,” he said as he sat down again, “the woman is still an addict and still a hooker. Making money on the side with pictures like these. She dumped me on the side of the road when I was 15 because I wouldn’t pimp for her. Best thing that ever happened to me.”
“How much does Lila know?” Emilia asked. She wanted to ask what he’d done in those intervening 11 years, how he’d come to be working at the CICI water park as a dolphin handler, but she sensed he didn’t want to share his story. He was only a few years younger than she was, and while his looks were youthful, his demeanor was much older, as if his experiences had drained away too much of his soul too soon. She closed the magazine. “Besides this?”
“Lila knows she’s a hooker,” Pedro said. “Maybe once a year I get a money order. Just cash. No message, no address. I see Lila every six months or so, when she can sneak out, and I give the money to her.”
“Does Berta know about the money?” Emilia asked.
“No. I told Lila to save it. Finish school and go to college. Grab the opportunity for a decent education that Berta is giving her.” He gazed at the silently gliding dolphins. “Lila hates Berta, you know. Lots of rules. Catholic school. Has to keep her mouth shut when Berta says Yolanda is dead. The truth is that Berta always hated Yolanda, knew she was an addict the whole time she was married to her sainted Enrique. Happiest day of Berta’s life was when Yolanda walked out of that house.”
“I didn’t know any of this, you know,” Emilia said. “A priest asked me to help Berta and I found all this out by accident.”
He nodded. “Thanks for coming and telling me.”
There wasn’t much else to say. Emilia stood up and held out a card with her name and cell number on it. “If Lila gets in touch, will you call me?”
He took the card. “I’ll text you with my number,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do, tell me.”
“It was nice meeting you, Pedro Montealegre from Monterrey.” Emilia shook his hand. “The manager thinks I’m your step-sister, just passing through to tell you about your grandmother, who isn’t well. She’d like you to patch things up with your father. But he’s a hardcase and I doubt he’ll understand you’re doing something you love.”
Relief crossed the young man’s face.
Emilia pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder before realizing she’d forgotten one last question. “How much money have you given Lila from those money orders?” she asked.
“All together? About 5000 pesos.”
Emilia took a deep breath of damp, fishy air. “Lila can keep searching for a long time with 5000 pesos in her pocket.”
She watched the carefully cultivated Pedro Montealegre façade crumble. For a moment, just a moment, the young man was just some kid who was scared and lonely and lost on an unknown road. And then he squared his shoulders and became himself again.
Chapter 18
Emilia spent the rest of Monday afternoon and more than 200 pesos at an Internet café, trying to find some reference to the publisher of the porn magazine with Yolanda Lata’s picture. All she got for her time and money was a sick appreciation of homemade porn sites and some lecherous looks from the café proprietor, who obviously monitored his patron’s searches.
She eventually gave up and checked a news site, only to find a new video from Los Matas Ejercito on the front page. As before, the masked men sat in a row, with the tallest in the middle. He was the only one to speak. There was nothing on the table, no way to identify them, nothing distinctive except the bottles of water. The speaker blamed the latest fire on the army and vowed revenge. Emilia played it through twice, but there was nothing to suggest who was behind the self-proclaimed vigilante group or what they planned to do.
A few more clicks brought her to other top news stories. The area in front of the alcaldía was now a flower-heaped shrine to the dead from both fires. Acapulco uniformed police were there in large numbers to ensure calm. Demonstrators had occupied land near campo militar in Atoyac. Military police there were on alert but so far the protest was orderly.
As dusk settled, Emilia logged off, found a food stand on a street corner, and loaded up. If Lila Jimenez Lata had been looking for a hooker, Emilia had a few ideas about what “downtown” could mean.
☼
Emilia parked the Suburban in the Hotel Parador’s parking garage, crossed the lobby, and let herself out of the hotel through a side door. A dozen steps and she was in the warren of back streets behind the big downtown area hotels. As the sun set, the evening turned cool. She was glad she’d pulled on a sweatshirt from her gym bag before setting out. In the baggy garment, jeans, and sneakers, she was nothing special and unlikely to attract attention.
The waterfront area known to tourists as Hotel Row was a polished white wall hiding the best places to find a girl for 15 minutes or an hour. Or all night if you were a high roller. Sometimes young boys were on offer as well, but Acapulco was generally an old-fashioned city, clinging to its faded reputation as a 1950’s Hollywood playground, and most men still came to find girls.
It was easiest to get a girl in the hotels where the fixers worked. They’d mark out a man who looked lonely and work out a deal. Some money would change hands, the fixer would go get a girl who’d been waiting for his call, and bring her up to the buyer’s room.
There were other places besides the backstreets of Hotel Row to look for a girl who was trying to make her way on her back, like the gentlemen’s clubs and escort services that provided “models.” The better gentlemen’s clubs advertised in Que Paso Acapulco, the monthly about-town glossy magazine that also carried bold advertisements for restaurants, tours, parasailing, helicopter rides, and shopping day trips.
For the less discriminating sex hunter, Acapulco also offered haciendas de confianza where men could have a quick afternoon sex fix and total anonymity. There, on a busy day, a girl might have to service 10 or 15 customers.
Emilia shifted her shoulder bag as she turned east. It wasn’t yet fully dark, but the nightlife was already getting under way. Music spilled out of bars as she passed. Girls and their fixers eyed her from the front seats of cars parked parallel to the curb, or from the service entrances of the smaller hotels.
“Carla.” Emilia walked up to a thin woman leaning against a wall set a few feet back from the curb. “Having a good night?”
The woman was Emilia’s own age, with frizzy shoulder-length hair. She wore a denim miniskirt, a blue tube top that hugged small breasts, and leopard print booties designed to help her break an ankle on the uneven sidewalk.
Carla took a moment to place Emilia but broke into a smile when recognition dawned. “Hey, Emilia.” Her voice had the rasp of a heavy smoker. “Been awhile.”
“Yeah.” Emilia embraced the other woman, catching a ripe perfume of bad teeth and nicotine. “Did you eat tonight?”
Carla shook her head. “Not yet.”
Emilia pulled a foil-wrapped cylinder from the food stand out of her bag and held it out to the other woman. “Here.”
“Thanks, Emilia.” Carla peeled back the foil from the burrito filled with beans, rice, and cheese and took a huge mouthful. “Did your mother make it?” she asked as she chewed.
“Straight from Mama’s kitchen.” Emilia watched Carla wolf down the street vendor’s food. They’d gone to school together, both struggling to pay the school fees and buy the required books and uniforms. Emilia had fought to the last peso to get through and graduate near the top of her class, but Carla had given up the fight long before completing secondary school, which wasn’t mandatory, after all. She’d worked in a shop for a while and gotten pregnant. When the father took off she parked the baby with her mother and drifted to the streets. The baby was 12 now, still living with Carla’s mother, while Carla lived with a man she called her husband. Emilia knew he was a fixer at one of the low-end hotels, working arrangements through one of the kitchen staff. Carla looked closer to 50
than 30.
Emilia pulled out the picture of Lila Jimenez Lata. “Have you seen this girl?” She angled the photo to catch the street light’s glow.
Carla kept chewing, both hands locked possessively around the foil-wrapped burrito. “She’s a looker.”
“So you’d remember her, right?”
“Couple of weeks ago, I think.” Carla shrugged and took another bite.
“Really?” Emilia couldn’t believe her luck. “When? Recently?”
“Emilia.” Carla rolled her eyes at all the quick questions. She took another bite. “Does somebody want her specifically?”
“Carla.” Emilia nearly laughed. “I’m not pimping. I’m trying to find this girl for her family.”
“Oh.” Carla regarded the picture with a little more interest. Sauce from the burrito dripped down her hand and she absently sucked it off. “Okay, yeah, I’ve seen her. Couple weeks, maybe. She was lost.”
“Where was she trying to go?”
Carla frowned. “Madre de Dios, Emilia. This was weeks ago. I don’t know. I can hardly remember how to fuck these days.” She laughed at her own joke and took another bite.
Emilia managed a smile. “Okay, well, tell me where you were when you saw her.”
Carla looked around. “I guess I was down there.” She pointed the last bit of the burrito at the next street corner.
“Great.” Emilia took Carla’s elbow and gently steered her in that direction. “So you were down there. Did she pass by? How did you know she was lost?”
“She walked right past like I was invisible.” Carla sniffed and gulped down the remainder of the burrito, folded the foil wrapping, and stuffed it into her bag. “I can use that, you know.”
“Sure,” Emilia agreed. For all she knew, Carla would use the piece of foil as a blanket. Or a condom. “What about the girl?”
“Yeah, I remember her good now. She had this my shit don’t stink look as she went by.”
They were at the corner now. “You were here or across the street?” Emilia asked.