“Oh, man. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Margarito said and shrugged his shoulders.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say hello.”
Ten years ago, Panda had been one of his most trusted officers: he was always ready to mix it up and never lost a fight. He was the shortest of Margarito’s men, but his stocky five-foot-four-inch frame commanded plenty of respect. Panda González, El Flaco, El Dorado, and La Tonina were his right-hand men, but Panda couldn’t handle the pressure. He quit a few weeks after he was forced to discharge his weapon during a bank robbery, accidentally killing a woman and her husband. The papers published the couple’s story in a multipart series: a model husband and wife who ran a charity and donated generously to the local hospital, which was always in danger of closing. They were in the wrong place at the worst possible time, and the arrogance and incompetence of the local police did the rest. He was a good cop, thought the chief. One of my most seasoned, and a good man. Come to think of it, that’s why he left.
“What are you up to these days, my dear Panda?”
His former associate held out a card that read:
Lightning Bolt Surveillance
Security personnel * Bodyguards * Cameras * Alarms
We’re with you 24/7
Then he gave an address at the outskirts of the city.
“You’re working for Mr. Chuy?”
“Hey, yeah. That’s right. We’re with you, whatever you need.”
“And how’s it going?”
The Panda cleared his throat.
“Good, you know. Relaxed. I’m on residential security detail. You know the Garza Blanca condominiums? The ones you can see from the highway? I work there, at the gate.”
Margarito knew the place and could picture the inconsequential guard station at the entrance to the luxury condominium. Sizing up visitors through a little window, asking for identification, lifting that needle of a barricade a hundred times a day for every car that came or went. He pictured a small, smelly bathroom; a cheap blanket; nights spent on a cot, catching a few winks here and there—always at the beck and call of the residents and their stuck-up kids, afraid some burglar might take advantage if he nodded off—that zombie state where you can’t think clearly, which steals one day after another until the end. He pictured a little television switched on around the clock until it breaks.
Under different circumstances, he would have said, Stop by the office, I’m sure we’ve got something for you. But this was his last day on the job, and soon he wasn’t going to be in a position to help anyone, not even himself.
“I’ll come visit you there.”
“I’d like that, Chief. But I don’t want to distract you. Here they come.”
It was true: people were starting to make their way through the frosted glass doors: Carrizo and his bodyguard, followed by a rancher who burst out of the building like a charging bull after seeing the policemen gathered inside; a young man whose sweatshirt bore the name of a prestigious foreign university and who hugged his parents and sisters in turn; a slender woman in her forties with pearly skin, blood-red lips, and hair the color of a raven’s wing. She wore an expensive suit, and no one had come to pick her up. Then came two clean-shaven businessmen who smelled like lotion: a young woman greeted one of them with a peck on the cheek, and the other, probably her husband, with a passionate kiss. Behind them, people in the crowd waited to pluck their luggage from the conveyor belt.
He recognized him right away, even though the young man had his back to him. Certain bonds of blood and hatred simply can’t be broken. They say people in this line of work always know when an enemy is near. As if he could sense Margarito’s presence, the newcomer looked up and scanned the crowd. He knows he’s going to need all the help he can get, thought the chief. Given the state of things here. Just then, the man saw him and shook his head disapprovingly. It won’t be easy to get him to listen, he went on. But I have to try.
The newcomer grabbed a medium-size bag and headed for the exit. He stood out from the crowd, not only because he was tall, but also because he was obviously in excellent physical condition.
“Now,” he said to El Flaco and waved the journalist over. “Hey, Juan, over here.”
La Tonina, El Flaco, and El Dorado stepped in to cut the new arrival off from everyone but Juan de Dios. The head of public relations for the mayor’s office and the rest of the journalists clamored to get closer, but who could get around those three? With one smack, La Tonina dropped the only guy who refused to back off.
Thrown by the fact that no one from the mayor’s office had come to meet him at the airport and above all at seeing Margarito waiting there for him, the young man who was going to be inducted as the new chief of police later that morning stopped dead in his tracks and quietly greeted the current police chief of La Eternidad.
“Hello, Dad.”
A few paces behind them, Juan de Dios Cuevas, better known as Fearless Juan, thought, Only in this line of work …
Sensing that destiny was about to step in and ruin everything, he took the last photo in which the two men would appear together.
Conversation in the dark
“Did you hear?”
“About the new guy?”
“Yeah. He starts today. Margarito’s finally retiring.”
“About time. He’s been at that job forever, and lately he’s been totally useless. Nothing like how he was twenty years ago. He was a pain in the ass, but reasonable. You could work with him.”
“They say there’s going to be some big changes.”
“Like what?”
“Looks like they’re rolling out the red carpet for the new guy: weapons, cars, intelligence advisers, trained agents. They say the mayor is getting funds from Washington and that the money is about to start pouring in. He promised to put an end to the shootings.”
“And I promise you, that’s not going to happen. It’s always the same thing. Talk is cheap.”
“Who knows? We’ve already had a few surprises this year.”
“What’s he going to do? Get out there and walk the beat? His patrol cars are heaps of junk and he may have guns, but without ammo, they’re just decoration. A kid could beat most of his men in a race, and I’ve seen slingshots more dangerous than his rifles.”
“We’ll see.”
“I don’t know. If he really wanted to change things, do you think they would’ve let him get this far?”
“Sometimes they get there, but they’re not allowed to stay. Remember what happened in La Nopalera? How long did that new police chief last?”
“An hour and a quarter.”
“He got an hour and a quarter to show for it and five pounds of lead. We’ll see.”
“Yeah, we’ll see. Place your bets.”
3
“Ricardo. Welcome,” Chief Margarito stepped forward and patted his young replacement on the back. It’s not every day you get to see your child appointed to such a prestigious job, even if that job is rightfully yours. “I’ll take you to your meeting.”
His son nodded but didn’t say a word or make any attempt to hide his disdain. Luckily for him, he looked more like his mother. You could say he got her bone structure, the color of her eyes, her eyebrows, her athletic build and height, her thirst for knowledge, and her drive, whereas all he got from Margarito was the Y chromosome. There was even a rumor going around that the chief wasn’t his real father. How could someone who had tortured and killed so many people, maybe the worst cop on the Gulf, have such a kind and upstanding son? There’s that law about kids wanting to grow up to be the opposite of their parents, but Ricardo always focused on pleasing his mother: good behavior, good grades, mastery of English and Italian, graduating with honors, a nice honest job abroad. They knew the young man was ashamed of his father, that he wanted to sever all ties with him, which is why they chose him as the chief’s replacement. To add insult to injury. But instead of taking offense, Margarito saw the choice as an idea
l solution. He preferred they name his son to the post rather than anyone else—that son of a bitch Bracamontes, for example—because at least his son might think twice before sending him to jail.
He’d been calculating every move since the newly elected mayor had sent his personal assistant to pay him a visit, a month before he even took office.
“We want a seamless transition. I want us to see eye to eye on this: what do I have to do to get you to retire?”
But there was no way they were going to see eye to eye. They wanted him to leave and offered him nothing in return. That wasn’t going to work. No one would’ve taken that deal. They spent four weeks negotiating his exit, and Margarito had insisted the only way he’d step down gracefully was if they announced his flesh and blood as his successor.
Now, there was his son, staring deep into his soul, trying to figure out just how many of the terrible rumors that had spread all over the country were true or if maybe there was some good in there, somewhere. For his part, Margarito wondered what had happened to the sweet, affectionate boy with a permanent smile on his face. It was as if the resentment fermenting inside him had turned him into a different person. The chief was just about to ask if he’d kept up with his karate in Canada when Dr. Antonelli burst through the wall of police officers.
“Ricardo!”
The young man hugged his mother as if they spoke often or had even seen one another recently and accepted a kiss on the cheek. Margarito didn’t like the situation one bit: the last time he saw his ex-wife had been more than a year ago, and the encounter hadn’t ended well. Watching her embrace their son, he was surprised at what good shape she was in, how muscular her arms and legs were. He could picture the evening salads, the intense regimen of diet and exercise. The mortification of the flesh in the pursuit of lasting health. He, on the other hand, kept needing to buy bigger clothes. If he ever actually made it into an operating room, the doctor would find a heart wrapped in layers of cholesterol.
“Hello, Márgaro.”
The chief was uneasy. If he let himself get distracted by his wife, he’d lose the chance to speak with his son in private. But he said, “I’m taking him to his meeting. Come with us.”
His ex-wife jumped back as if he’d tried to touch her. “Absolutely not,” she replied. Then she added, “I’m sure you gentlemen have important matters to discuss. I’ll see you at city hall, Ricardo, and then at home for dinner, as we planned.”
Margarito was surprised by her relative friendliness: after their breakup twenty years earlier—or to be more exact, after she’d asked him to move out—Antonelli had harbored a complete and absolute hatred of the chief. She didn’t take his calls, she refused to see him when he tried to speak with her in person, and she hired a fancy lawyer who managed to win her the house he was still paying off. At first, she bombarded him with phone calls and yelled at him for hours on end. To get her feelings out, she said. For his part, he refused to sign the divorce papers until eight years had gone by and it wasn’t even legally necessary anymore. She’d almost killed him back when he’d invited their son to join the police force and didn’t speak to him again until Ricardo quit. So he couldn’t figure out her change in attitude. Did she turn Buddhist, or what?
The chief watched her hug their son.
“I’m so proud of you. Be careful out there,” she said and gave him another kiss. Then she turned and left without saying good-bye to Margarito.
“Well, well, well. Look at little Ricardo …” El Flaco was the first to shake his hand, which made things easier.
A smile flitted across the son’s lips when he saw his father’s men. He’d always had a good relationship with them, except for El Dorado, whose height and bushy mustache frightened him as a child.
“Pinche Flaco, I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“How are you, Richie?”
The young man didn’t answer. Behind him, La Tonina and El Dorado held their rifles and smiled. They remembered watching him play down at the station when he was just a brat; it was going to be strange to take orders from him now. Margarito stepped in to break up the tender moment. A bunch of sentimental crap—like we have time for this. He walked over to his son and pointed to the exit.
“We have to talk.”
Not seeming to care whether the reporters heard him, his son replied, “You and I shouldn’t be talking at all.” The chief’s face darkened as Ricardo went on. “I’ll tell you right now. I’m not sure I can do anything for you. The mayor hired me to bring peace to the area and told me to make an example of my own family, if necessary.”
Margarito tried to stay calm, just like he’d practiced.
“Listen, Ricardo. In any business, whenever there’s a changing of the guard, the old boss offers words of advice to the new boss, who listens, if only out of curiosity and so he can avoid surprises. I only need a few minutes of your time. These are sensitive matters. After that, you can do what you want.”
“I imagine the mayor’s office sent a car and someone to pick me up.”
“They didn’t. You’re the new police chief: you can’t go around without a security detail.”
The young man hesitated for a moment, then sighed and nodded. They crossed the airport lobby behind La Tonina and El Dorado and stepped into the morning heat, which was like walking into a lit oven. They got into the Suburban, which had seen better days but still got the job done. The two bodyguards sat up front, their boss and his son in the back. Looking out the window, the chief checked to make sure one of the new patrol vehicles was clearing a path for them and saw El Flaco climbing into his old bucket of bolts.
The last time he’d spoken with his son on the phone was six months earlier. When the young man moved to Canada, Margarito had started calling him once a month, much to the discomfort of his son and the daughter-in-law, who had always hated him. The chief had gone to impossible lengths, not all of them legal, to get his number. Annoyed at first, Ricardo chose to let his father do the talking. “Listen, son. There’s a great job opportunity here in the capital. I heard it straight from the governor. Why don’t you come back?” Or: “They say it’s fucking cold up there where you are. Is it really thirty below? Aren’t you freezing your balls off?” The calls usually came during the week from police headquarters or else in the evening, in which case the chief would sometimes hang up when he realized that he’d had a bit more to drink than he thought, his jokes were falling flat, and the alcohol was making his voice sound awful. They were all caught up on each other’s news, so there was no need to waste time on niceties.
“What was it you wanted to talk about?” the new arrival asked.
His son had been using that formal tone with him for years, so the chief cut right to the chase. He’d been planning this conversation for over a week.
“I want to ask you to look past our problems. The situation here is delicate. There are people you should meet, introductions I should make. I’ll need at least a week to bring you up to speed on who’s who.”
“I prefer to start from scratch. And let’s get one thing straight: if I find proof that you’re involved in any of this, be advised that I will proceed according to the letter of the law.”
“You be advised: the law is just an excuse to throw people in the can, especially in this part of the world.”
“I disagree.”
“That’s how it’s always been, whether we like it or not.” Margarito felt his patience thinning and tried to regain control. “Look. Dealing with these people hasn’t been easy. Have I gotten close to criminals? Fucking A. It’s my job. You put up with some of them, sit down with others: it’s the only way to keep the peace in this city. And if someone snaps a picture of me with some capo, I’m there because I’m doing my job. Maybe I was the one who suggested the photo op. Though I’m not surprised the new blood in the opposition party wants to use it against me,” he said, referring to a picture of him at one of Obregón’s weekly banquets, which Fearless Juan had published in a newspa
per in Monterrey.
“Look. You and I haven’t seen each other since you moved to Canada, but keep this in mind: somebody has to do this job. No one else could. So they called me. The problem is now these assholes are lining up to screw me.”
“Like who?”
“Your boss, for one. He talks about developing drug rehab programs, but whenever he throws a party he brings in mountains of blow. He talks about ending violence against women, but he has girls wandering around those same parties who were probably trafficked from Europe. What more could you expect from the douche bag who calls himself an environmentalist and publicly advocates for the death penalty? Anyway”—he took his time with this—“some people say he’s on the way out. That he’s only the mayor because they parked him here. By now he should be in congress or doing something on a national level, but it seems he rubbed someone the wrong way and the only job he could get was back here, where he started out.”
Rather than answer, his son stared intently out the window. As the highway brought them closer to the city, all kinds of businesses started to appear and the young man greedily took them in: a taco stand and a pharmacy, a nightclub called Brisas and the Seven Seas motel, a restaurant called the White Whale, repair shops, car washes. Then there was the Sagrado Refugio de los Pescadores and the Carmelite convent.
They said nothing as the convoy entered the city. After making sure there were no suspicious vehicles at the off-ramp or behind the trees, the first truck honked its horn and turned onto the main avenue. Margarito’s son turned to him.
“What else did you want to say to me?”
“That it’s worse than ever here. A new organization is throwing everything it has at the older generation.”
Murder wasn’t a crime of passion anymore: it was a matter of business that claimed dozens of lives with every attack. It was that way in most border towns. Once or twice a month, the bosses behind the biggest operations looked over their returns and said, No, no, this is no good. Then they decided they’d make more money if they did away with the competition. They’d kill ten or twenty at a time, but their competitors would hire replacements the same week. The last mayor’s strategy had been to tread water for his entire final year in office. He just stood there, arms crossed, with no intention of doing anything. He and Margarito had seen the violence coming long before it began, but they never thought the conflict would escalate the way it did. The working-class neighborhoods emptied out and people started arriving from who knows where to fill them back up, but they didn’t last long there either.
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