by Carmen Amato
“Alfredo is El Rey Demonio,” Julieta said proudly. “Sergio is Puro Sangre and Pepe is El Hijo de Satán.”
The Demon King, Pure Blood and the Son of Satan. “Let me guess,” Emilia said. “They wear red masks and tights.”
“El Rey Demonio is the greatest luchador of them all.” Now that she was free from Emilia’s grasp and her hair was in place, Julieta’s fight was coming back. “He’s going to beat your ass for what you did to me, puta.”
Emilia resisted an urge to punch Julieta until the chemicals in her face oozed out. “You’d better come up with something else about this Sergio, or Dr. Ramirez isn’t coming back,” she snapped. “Who else knows him? He didn’t just come out of nothing. Does he have family in Acapulco? Does he have a job?”
“He’s Alfredo’s friend and he pays in cash when he takes a girl.” Julieta shrugged. “You want to talk to him so bad, go to Tinoco’s gym. Or the fights on Saturday night. At the Coliseo Acapulco.”
“Okay.” Emilia suddenly couldn’t deal with Julieta any more. She moved to the door, intending to call Dr. Ramirez, but turned back. “What do you know about a vice cop named Castro? Does he collect protection money from Mami’s?”
Julieta cocked her head and regarded Emilia. Her left eye was beginning to close. “He’s a prick. How do you think Olga got to look like that?”
“Who collects for him?” Emilia asked. “Do they have a schedule?”
Julieta stepped to the small mirror hanging over the sink. “You think you can move in on him?”
“Maybe I just want to do Olga a favor,” Emilia replied.
“Olga and Castro deserve each other. Nobody takes on Castro. Nobody.”
“Not even Alfredo?” Emilia asked.
Julieta turned around. “That’s who you are, puta. Nobody.”
Emilia was done. She let Doctor Ramirez come in and smiled grimly at his reaction when he saw the rapidly swelling bruises on Julieta’s face. He glared at Emilia, as if she’d defiled his most prized painting.
Chapter 30
For once, the cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad wasn’t full of tourists gawking at the soaring blue vaults. Even so, Emilia was sure she was the only person there wearing a gun. She fastened the middle button of her tan linen jacket as she slid into one of the hard wooden pews at the back.
With only the occasional rustle as someone walked up the main aisle, the big church was cool and quiet. It was a better place to think than the squadroom, or home where Sophia and Ernesto were always moving about. Besides her tiny bedroom, there was no privacy anywhere in her life. Nowhere to breath deep and let thoughts fall into place.
She hadn’t been in the cathedral in a long time and it looked a bit more worn than she remembered. The arched altar with its inlaid cobalt blue mosaic background anchored the vast space, looking more Byzantine than Mexican. The theme was echoed in the wide curved niches on either side that were roofed with mosaics of golden rays of sunshine against more of the church’s vibrant blue. Mimicking the religious motifs, the late afternoon sun streamed in, illuminating a smaller blue niche holding the cathedral’s prized statue of the Virgin.
Emilia closed her eyes and fragments of prayers floated through her head. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name . . . Nuestra Señora, tell me that Torrez didn’t suffer. Please help Lt. Rufino. Ease his pain. Help Berta, too, because she doesn’t understand who Lila was . . . is. Find me a partner who isn’t Silvio. Please don’t let my mother get pregnant.
She’d made too many mistakes. The whole Carlota assassination thing had sidetracked the arson investigation; they should have pressed Serverio and found out about Guetta and the army tax scheme immediately after the El Tigre fire. Torrez would still be alive and keeping his workers safe.
Lt. Rufino wouldn’t be crumbling under the pressure and the El Pharaoh case would have dealt a big blow to money laundering in Acapulco. But it was probably gone. Months of work turned over, as if Rico’s death meant nothing.
Silvio’s remark about living with Rico’s ghost had stung, mostly because he was right. Rico had been her partner, but also her friend and mentor. Without him, Emilia had to fly solo. Silvio would never take his place; the senior detective was neither mentor nor protector. In an odd way, Silvio demanded that she be an equal more than Rico had ever done.
A couple of tourists in shorts and nylon jackets came in, their flip flops slapping against the tile floor. The sound made Emilia jump, and she glared at them as they talked loudly, but all they saw was some local girl with a surly expression. They drifted up the center aisle with cameras, not genuflecting or otherwise behaving properly in a place of worship. She hoped they’d put something in the donations box in the back of the church.
At least she had a thread to follow for Lila. Emilia wondered about the night Julieta had led Sergio the luchador to the room where Lila waited in a white dress. Julieta probably hadn’t been entirely truthful when she said Lila had agreed. There had been pressure at Mami’s, Emilia was sure, because a girl like Lila could command a hefty price from an eager man like Sergio. No doubt most of what he’d paid had ended up in Julieta’s pocket. Had Lila been too immature, too used to being popular to resist the pressure of a glamorous-looking and wily woman like Julieta Rubia? Was Lila still at Mami’s being tricked out by Olga? Emilia dreaded telling the girl’s grandmother what she’d found out so far.
She thought briefly of asking Pedro Montealegre to go over to Mami’s. But if he did, so soon after Emilia had been there asking about the girl named Lila, Olga would surely link Pedro with the girl cop and Castro from Vice would find out. Not only would he come to teach Emilia another lesson but he’d go after Pedro, as well. Pedro might be Lila’s half-brother but he didn’t deserve to die for it.
When the tourists left, Emilia went over to the side chapel where a tiered iron rack of candles flickered below the statue of the Virgin. Emilia stuffed 100 pesos into the donation slot and lit four candles using a long sliver of wood kept in a pot of sand.
One candle for Rico. One for Torrez, one for Lt. Rufino’s family, and the last for those who’d died in the arson attacks. Emilia felt all of their souls reaching out to her, silently asking for peace. For a sleep she could not give them.
The afternoon sun hit her like a spotlight as she left the cathedral, its two blue mosaic domes glittering like giant blue suns against the clear sky. Her phone rang as she crossed the plaza in front of the church. She pulled it out of her shoulder bag and checked the display. The caller was Javier Salinas Arroliza, her contact on the El Pharaoh case at the state attorney general’s office. She sat on a section of the low wall that surrounded the round pavilion in the middle of the plaza.
“Bueno?”
“Detective Cruz?”
“Hello, Licenciado.” His degree entitled him to the honorific.
“Detective, I received some files from your office yesterday, and they appear incomplete.” Salinas sounded fatigued and harried. “I was expecting data that would corroborate all the preliminary material. But what came in, frankly, is all but useless.”
Emilia rubbed her forehead. On the one hand, she wanted to point fingers and cry out her suspicions. On the other hand, it was an unspoken code within the police department not to report corruption or incompetence to outsiders; one never knew the allegiance of those outside the circle or what they’d do with the information that would make it rebound negatively to the source. And the penalty for being that source could be very, very high.
“It was disappointing,” she said cautiously.
“That’s not what you told me right after the raid.” Salinas had gone from tired to angry. “I don’t like being fooled, Detective.”
The tourist group from the church passed by in their annoying flip-flops, and Emilia watched as one of the women hopped awkwardly as she reached down to brush grit off her foot. “I’m not on the case anymore,” Emilia said. “Why aren’t you calling Lt. Rufino? He briefed your office, h
e should be your point of contact.”
There was a long pause. Salinas knew the code, too. He wasn’t about to badmouth Lt. Rufino.
“Just listen for a moment,” Salinas said, his voice more persuasive. “Those evidence boxes were full of basic business records. You told me about handwritten ledgers, multiple bank account records. Counterfeit cash.”
“I’m not on the case anymore,” Emilia said again. “I don’t know what was in the boxes when they got to you.”
“There’s no point in holding back unless you’re working the wrong side of this with the El Pharaoh people,” Salinas said. “My office issued the closure order because we thought the police would deliver. Now I find that didn’t happen. What do you think my next step is going to be?”
For a moment, Emilia was speechless. Was he really accusing her of complicity with the casino owners and their money laundering operations?
She stood and walked to the far side of the plaza, where she could see the full sweep of the bay.
“Detective?”
“I’m here,” Emilia said. “Just finding a more private place to talk.”
Silvio had looked at the bay and said that everything wasn’t shit, but the shit was always there, spoiling the drama of sky and boats and ocean.
Emilia was sick of it. Sick of the shit and the endless minefields, always having to protect herself from other cops who sought to use each other for power or money, the same way Julieta had used Lila. The way Castro’s brother from Vice used the women at Mami’s.
“Detective?” Salinas asked again.
“We had a break in the chain of evidence,” Emilia admitted. “Material got lifted out of the evidence boxes. It happened after Franco Silvio and I got reassigned to the arson investigation.”
“That’s pretty thin, Detective,” Salinas scoffed. “Either you or Silvio could have lifted it.”
“If Silvio or I wanted to get something out of this case, we could have gone directly to the El Pharaoh,” Emilia countered. “Taken a payoff for whitewashing the preliminary investigation. Never bothered with trying to close them down in the first place. That would have been a lot easier and less dangerous than trying to make evidence disappear after we’d gotten your office involved.”
“All right,” Salinas said after a pause. “But based on what’s in these boxes, there’s no case to support money laundering. Some counterfeit, but they can say they didn’t know it was fake. We can drag it out, but there’s nothing here that won’t have them back in business in a week.”
“There were euros,” Emilia said. “A lot of cash. Probably real. You know, not all flat and new. It looked like the casino took them in from tourists but didn’t have time to do anything with them before the raid. Whoever took the euros will exchange them.”
“A lot of people exchange euros for pesos every day in Acapulco, Detective.”
“Tourists do. How many private Mexican citizens come in to exchange them?” Emilia realized she was standing hunched over with her free hand clenched into a fist so tight she was hurting herself. “What if you circulated names and asked to be alerted if they attempted to cash euros?”
“You’re talking hundreds of cash exchange places.”
“It would be a lot of euros. They’d only have to be on the lookout for a big amount.”
“Anybody trying to exchange stolen euros would know to do it in only small amounts.”
“They’re not that smart,” Emilia said.
There was silence on the other end of the connection as Salinas apparently digested what Emilia had suggested.
“Putting out an alert is a lot of work,” Salinas finally said. “And what’s the payoff? We snag somebody with euros. Will that let us put the El Pharaoh case back together? No one is keeping the missing evidence under their pillow. We both know how things work.”
Emilia thought of Castro and Gomez in the squadroom; playing cards, fooling with their chairs, sneaking stuff out of the evidence boxes and trying to doctor the spreadsheets.
“Maybe whoever took the evidence is dumb enough to think they can keep asking El Pharaoh for money as long as they’ve got the ledgers.” She stood where she could see the bay, feet apart, as tourists and vendors and locals out for a late afternoon stroll in the warm sun swirled by her. She was a fixed point on the map, stuck, immobile, something for others to trip over or push aside, but this time she was going to stand her ground and salvage something. She owed Rico that much.
“You sound like you know the way they think.”
“I do.”
“Care to give me any names, Detective?”
“Will you put out an alert?”
“Names, Detective.”
Emilia looked around. Far out on the water, boats rode gentle swells. The tall white towers of the hotels ringing the shoreline were like sentinels. Or guards. Beacons.
Just a few meters from her, a family was getting ice cream from a vendor wearing a white shirt with an Helado logo on it. He grinned as he presented each of the kids with something swirly on a stick. The parents laughed. A couple passed holding hands; they were dressed as if they’d just gotten out of work. Maybe they were going out to dinner. Two weeks ago, that could have been her and Kurt.
It wasn’t shit.
“There are two,” she said. “Rubén Castro Altaverde and Luis Gomez Pellas.”
☼
It was too late and Emilia was too wrung out to go back to the station, so she simply went home. Ernesto waved to her from his seat by the grinding wheel in the courtyard as she got out of the Suburban. She lifted a hand in reply and went inside.
Sophia was in the kitchen in her usual floral dress and an apron. Emilia gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, mumbled a greeting, and went upstairs to shower and change. The sun was just starting to dip by the time she came back to the kitchen in a tee and shorts and sat at the kitchen table with a beer.
“How nice that you’re home early,” Sophia said. “You can help me. I went to the fish market this morning. I’m going to make albondigas de camarónes.”
Her mother’s recipe for shrimp meatballs in a spicy tomato broth was one of Emilia’s favorites, but she could only summon a weak smile as she looked at what Sophia had set out on the counter. Boiled shrimp in their shells were heaped in a bowl of ice, and an array of chilies and spices waited for the chopping board.
“That’s nice, Mama.” Emilia slumped at the table and wrapped her hand around the cool beer bottle. She was out of energy. The situation with Kurt, the fires, Lila, the El Pharaoh disaster, Lt. Rufino, Torrez.
Her problem was trust. She kept trusting people. Like Mercedes and her late husband, Emilia would dance with a partner, thinking it was going to last forever. And then the other person would give her a savage twirl with a pitch about caring for her or wanting to do the right thing or that they owed her a favor—calling in a marker—and Emilia could spin and crash.
Belatedly, she realized she’d done it again with the conversation with Salinas. Now that he had names, would he try to make a deal with Castro and Gomez for a cut of the euros? Would Salinas give her up as the person who’d squealed?
Maybe she was simply too stupid, too naive to be a detective.
Emilia drank some beer, and only when she got a mouthful of foam did she realize that her hand was shaking.
“Come here and stir the tomatoes,” Sophia said.
Emilia managed to pull in some real beer before going to the stove. The chopped tomatoes and onions sizzling in an iron frying pan would become the base of the caldillo broth for the meatballs. The smell was rich, and as Emilia stirred the mixture she felt a sense of normalcy that had been missing since the night at the El Tigre.
Sophia kissed her daughter’s cheek as she tied an apron behind Emilia’s back. “You never cook with me, Emilia,” Sophia said. “This is nice.”
Emilia poked at the mixture in the pan with a wooden spoon as Sophia poured hot water from a saucepan into a bowl of dried ancho chilies. F
ragrant steam rose as the chilies absorbed the moisture. “Mama,” Emilia said. “What if I had a boyfriend?”
Sophia put the saucepan of hot water back on the stove. “Of course you have a boyfriend, Emilia.” She smiled broadly. “All those nights you go out all dressed up and so happy. I know you’ll tell me about him when you’re ready.”
“He’s a gringo, Mama,” Emilia said. The sound of the grinding wheel and Ernesto’s whistling filtered through the window.
Sophia selected several stalks of cilantro from the small pot by the windowsill. “Did you meet him at school?”
“I work now, Mama. You know that,” Emilia snapped. She retrieved her beer from the table, wincing at her tone. Sophia often slid between today and yesterday, and just as often cried when Emilia got angry at her inability to tell the two apart. Emilia softened her voice. “He manages a hotel. He won’t be around much longer, but I just wanted to know what you thought about the idea.”
Sophia started mincing the cilantro. “Is that why you’re not happy today?”
“I’m happy, Mama,” Emilia said automatically.
“Not like me and your father.” Sophia put down the knife and tapped Emilia’s arm. “Don’t let the tomatoes burn.”
Emilia shoved the spoon around the tomato mixture again. “Speaking of Ernesto,” she said. “Does he use a condom?”
“Emilia!” Sophia clapped a hand to her mouth. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s in your room more and more, Mama.” Emilia stopped stirring to look at her mother. “I want to know if he’s using a condom.”
Sophia dropped her hand and carefully scraped the minced cilantro into a bowl. “I can’t get pregnant,” she murmured. “After you, the doctor said I couldn’t ever have any more babies.”
Emilia turned off the stove, surprised at her mother’s clarity. “You never told me that, Mama.”
“It’s not something to talk about.”