Don't Send Flowers

by Martin Solares

  11

  LOS NUEVOS

  Two black pickups parked in front of the cathedral at quarter to eight in the evening. At the sight of them, a line of little old ladies wrapped in shawls and overcoats on their way to evening Mass did their best to hurry along. Once five armed men had checked the area for unusual activity, a man in a black hat stepped out of the second truck and into the cathedral, escorted by three of his associates. He practically came alone, thought an old man sitting on a bench, feeding the pigeons. He tossed the rest of the corn at the birds, picked up the trash bag at his feet, and headed toward the cathedral.

  The two guys guarding the door scoped out everyone who walked down that street. They thought they’d been doing their job well, but like many who thrive in La Eternidad, they’d been dense and too conservative, and their day was about to get a lot worse.

  They didn’t see him until it was too late. He placed the bag on the ground and put his hands in the air. The two watchmen were slow to react.

  “What the hell was that? Quit sleeping on the job. I’m here to see the bald man, and I’m packing, at the waist.”

  The one with the bigger mustache and a serpent’s smile lifted the man’s checked shirt and removed his weapon. Before letting him pass, the guard rummaged around the plastic bag with it.

  “The piece stays here. Go on in.”

  Just as the man was about to enter the church, the guy with the mustache hit him in the back with the butt of the gun. The chief fell to his knees, and before he could defend himself, the same guy gave him a kick in the gut. A few moments later, while he was still getting his breath back, the two watchmen lifted him up by the arms.

  “That was so you don’t get any ideas in there.”

  Margarito picked up the bag and made his way inside as best he could. The one with the serpent’s smile followed him into the church and made sure he limped over to one of the middle rows, where the man in the black hat was conferring with his escorts in a low voice. The chief knew the tallest of them, a former Kaibil with two cauliflower ears, who was in charge of teaching new recruits all there is to know about terror. The Colonel sneered, revealing his canine teeth.

  “Get a load of this punk.”

  The three hit men stood and didn’t take their eyes off the chief the whole time he sat beside the fifty-year-old Colonel. Margarito scanned the cathedral and counted a total of twenty people scattered around: a few young couples, but mostly old or sickly women. When they saw the chief approaching, the three women nearest them stood and headed for the exit. The chief knew that when they got to the men standing guard at the door, they’d be told to go back where they came from. The church is closed, no one goes in or out. The priest, who was performing the introductory rites of the Mass with his back to the congregation, was unaware of the situation. El Coronel de los Muertos stared into Margarito as if he was giving him an X-ray.

  “You kept me waiting a whole day,” he accused the chief in his raspy voice. “Our meeting was yesterday.”

  The chief noticed that the bodyguard with the swollen ears was staring him down and had angled his torso toward him. There was another guy to the left of the Colonel, and two more standing behind Margarito, including the one with the smile.

  “Your son stuck his nose where it didn’t belong,” the Colonel continued, then waited to see Margarito’s reaction. “But it wasn’t us. And you’ve got a lot of balls coming here to ask.”

  The policeman gave the man a look that made it clear he couldn’t care less about what he said or did.

  “I knew that already. I didn’t come here to ask questions.”

  For the first time in a long while, the Colonel felt his authority being challenged. His men felt it, too, and even the giant with the cauliflower ears shifted his weight. The Colonel leaned in until he was face-to-face with the policeman and said, not caring whether the little old ladies sitting nearby could hear him: “I’m the one who raises the dead. I’m the one who chooses. One snap of my fingers and you’d end up worse off than your little friend Elijah. If I had wanted it, you’d have been taken apart already with machetes in the middle of the street. I don’t need to waste time with a man who’s already been sentenced to death.”

  “I didn’t come here to waste time.”

  The priest, who had caught part of the conversation, swallowed hard. The little old ladies prayed with particular fervor.

  “You already know the Guatemalan’s specialty,” said the Colonel, referring to the former Kaibil with two cauliflower ears, who was looking at Margarito as if he was trying to figure out which part of his body to start with when the time came to break him.

  The chief rested a hand on the pew in front of him.

  “I’m here to offer you a deal.”

  He opened the plastic bag and pulled out twenty-five thousand dollars from amid the trash.

  The Colonel looked at the money, unfazed.

  “I can get you more,” Margarito said, carefully setting the bag between them. “They’re offering fifty. It’s yours if I’m left alone long enough to catch a guy.”

  The Colonel stared at him for an eternity.

  “The people who killed your son aren’t with us. Someone outside our organization decided his fate, but we would have done the same thing if push came to shove. That’s all I’m going to say.”

  “I appreciate your candor,” Margarito said, tossing him the bag. “But I already knew that. If you want the other half, tell your people not to follow me or give me any trouble while I close this case.”

  “Impossible. There’s too many of us, and not everyone’s in the barracks. We’ve got some gate-crashers, too, who do business on their own and give us a cut of every deal. Them, I can’t control.”

  “I’m sure you can manage. I don’t want any hunting parties getting in my way—or my team’s—until this case is closed.”

  “I can’t hold them off forever.”

  “I just need time for two more meetings. Let’s say I’m asking for your help until dawn.”

  The Colonel looked at him.

  “Now, you tell me: do you know how to find a guy named Carlos Treviño? Used to be a cop …”

  “Wish I did,” said Margarito, rolling his eyes toward heaven. “Swear to God.”

  “I need him alive. This guy sneaked in somewhere he shouldn’t have and found some sensitive information. I think he’s working for the DEA or the marines. We want him alive and conscious. No one’s ever made it that far and gotten out alive.”

  “All right.”

  “And if someone’s helping him lie low, I’ll kill him myself.”

  Margarito flashed him a big smile.

  “You think the Cartel del Puerto sent him?”

  “Why? What have you heard?”

  “Let’s call it a hunch.”

  “We took out twenty of their men this week. These stunts of theirs are getting to be a real pain in my ass. Anyway. What are you going to do?”

  Keeping his eyes on the front of the church, where the priest was holding up a Communion wafer, Margarito answered: “I’m going to enforce the law. Even if that law is the Ley de Fugas.”

  The Colonel didn’t move or say a word for a moment. Then he asked, “How did you know it wasn’t me who gave the order?”

  “Because you’d be killing the goose that lays golden eggs—or one of a few. When you arrived, I’d saved up enough to grow old peacefully. Now I have nothing. First you asked me to stop selling stolen cars, which I did, as a gesture of goodwill. Then you asked me to help with the bars. Then you wanted me to pay you more and more, until you’d emptied my bank accounts. I never complained. All I’ve ever done is go along with you. You know I still have money coming in from my friends in the cartel and from other deals, and that interests you. You need the scratch to finance your little war.”

  The Colonel stared Margarito down with a look intense enough to melt a candle.

  “How do you plan to catch these guys, when you can’t even mo
ve? Not to mention that as far as I know you don’t have anyone around you that you can trust.”

  “I’m not crippled. I just need to be able to move around without running into problems until nine in the morning, and there’s more in it for you if I can. Twenty-five thousand more.”

  The bald man stroked his mustache.

  “The last time I checked, your accounts were empty, which either means you’ve got it well hidden or it’s in an international back account. If it’s far away, I’m not interested.”

  “It’s close, and you’ll have it in cash.”

  “All right. But I want it in my hand, and this stays between me and you. Tomorrow at nine. Where?”

  “In the bar where I saw you last time.”

  “Don’t even think about standing me up, you hear me? And I’m not going to lift a finger for you after that. Stay sharp, because at nine o’clock you’re worth fifty grand again.”

  “I’d better get going. My godson sends his regards.”

  The Colonel hit him with a radioactive glare.

  “That kid’s only alive because we want it that way.”

  Margarito smiled.

  “Well, he’s been going around saying you haven’t been able to get anywhere near him, and I get the impression that his neighborhood is a goddamn fortress. You haven’t seen the banners inviting you to take a tour of the place? They’re pretty funny.”

  “All he’s managed has been to shoot a couple of fairies who thought they were tough. They weren’t trained by me.”

  “I went by there yesterday and they’ve got an impressive army going. The place is impermeable.”

  The bald man pointed a finger at his face.

  “There’s only one army in this country, and it’s made of real men.”

  “If you say so,” said Margarito, looking at his watch. “I’d better get going, I’m running out of time.”

  He stood to go, but he must have gotten dizzy, because he careened sideways, toward where the bodyguards stood. The one with the thick mustache smirked as Margarito nearly collapsed, then barely moved when he tried to steady himself on him. That was his mistake. By the time the bodyguard realized what was going on, the chief had locked his good hand onto the man’s shoulder, straightened up a bit, and brought his knee up hard. The man with the thick mustache dropped to the ground. Seeing his other bodyguard reach for his weapon, the Colonel shouted, “Stand down!”

  The man with the mustache got to his feet with difficulty, coming first to one knee, then the other. “Stand down, I said,” the Colonel repeated as the man with the mustache gasped for breath, his face so red it was almost purple.

  “Don’t go looking for trouble, Margarito.”

  “The cash I just handed you covers a little payback,” said Margarito before putting his hands in the air and smoothing his clothes. “My weapon, please.”

  The man with the mustache reached into his waistband and handed Margarito the thirty-eight. From the pulpit, the priest yelled to them.

  “Settle down back there. This is a church, not a boxing ring.”

  Margarito said his good-byes with a gesture of his good hand.

  He looked up as he left the church: the clouds had parted and a full red moon looked down over La Eternidad.

  THE FEMME FATALE

  Completely worn out and dressed from head to toe in black, Dr. Antonelli turned her key in the lock. After closing the front door of her house, she flicked on all the lights in the living and dining rooms so each of her movements could be seen from outside, then went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. She lit the stove and put water on to boil. Then she retraced her steps, turned off all the lights, and left the front door ajar. Deep in the shadows, Margarito took a moment to react.

  He’d been out there a while sniffing the breeze for danger, but the only suspicious movement was coming from the fig tree, so he dashed from his hiding place to the house in just a few strides. She didn’t even turn around.

  “What do you want?”

  The first time he saw her, he’d felt the kind of rush that comes only in the presence of a new love. When you realize something good is about to start between you and the other person.

  She had been wearing a colorful skirt, slit to the middle of her thigh. He figured she had to be a foreigner, because no one wore skirts like that in La Eternidad. He couldn’t take his eyes off her: her full, athletic thighs had a sun-kissed glow that would have made a peach jealous. He watched her climb a flight of stairs as if she were stepping onto a stage, her hair in a ponytail that fanned out to completely cover her back. She never could tame that thick head of hair. Her shoulders, made to be rubbed; a long, swan-like neck that instantly sparked his desire; the triangular shape of her back and wide hips that swayed so gracefully; those long, long legs. But three things, above all: feminine hands that never stopped moving—it was an incredible sight, the way they accompanied every shift, every comment, as if they were a shortcut to the essence of her thoughts—those round breasts that would fit so well in his hands, and that unique face of hers: sharp chin, high cheekbones, ample forehead, almond eyes. The first time he saw her, he thought, You’d need two artists to paint those lips, three sculptors to get the face right, a team of painters to reproduce the color of her skin, the light glinting off each strand of hair. Margarito didn’t know how to act around respectable women, and he felt a butterfly make its way from his knees to his throat. Just then, she stopped, straightened up as if an electric current had run through her, and turned to see who was staring at her so intently. Margarito swallowed hard and opened his mouth. She smiled and kept going, perhaps a little slower than before. He couldn’t follow her, though. He had to work. That evening he left early and went into tourist territory—the malecón, the beach, the bars, even La Eternidad’s most expensive restaurants—hoping to find her again, without any luck. He hated the false levity of the binge drinkers, the fake laughter of their friends, all the women who weren’t her that he saw in the street. He went to sleep upset.

  He thought about her every day for eight days. He compared her with every actress he saw on the screen and concluded, That woman was more beautiful. Based on her clothing and the color of her hair, he’d guessed she was foreign. Maybe he’d seen her on her last day in the port and she was already back in her country. He changed his routine and started eating, drinking, and dancing at different hours. After two weeks, he gave up and went on an epic bender. It took two bottles of tequila and several ladies in heavy makeup to blur the memory of that mysterious woman. Of course, when he went out the next day in search of something to ease his hangover, he ran into her at a seafood stand in the market. She was with a group of friends. He was alone and in bad shape, looking disheveled and operating at half his typical lucidity. But the fog seemed to lift when he saw her. He smiled and went over to say hello as if they were old friends.

  “May I join you, miss?” He’d never called anyone miss before.

  She blushed and, to his surprise, nodded.

  “I’m Italian,” she explained. “I came here to see your country.”

  Margarito, a police officer who worked for the worst types of folk in the port, was a full-time roughneck. As he sat across from her, though, it seemed like it had all been arranged ahead of time. Everything went smoothly: she responded well to his questions and observations. She kept smiling at him, gazing at him softly from behind her glasses. Where did this girl come from? Why did it take her so long to find me? I know there’s going to be something big between us.

  “What do you do?” asked the Italian.

  “I’m a cop,” Margarito confessed.

  She blew a perfectly vertical column of smoke into the air, as perfectly vertical as she was, and blurted out, “I thought you were a criminal.”

  He shrugged.

  “It happens. People get us mixed up all the time.”

  She said good-bye to her friends and they went for a walk along the malecón. The sea rose and fell like a pound
ing heart.

  A huge smile spread across her face when he took her hand and kissed her. Then she pulled him toward her and kissed him again. They leaned against a palm tree and before Margarito could ask, she said, “I just finished school and want to move to Mexico. I’m still deciding which city.”

  Margarito was so happy he thought his chest might explode. Until she asked him what he thought of Monterrey. He was about to curse the capital of Nuevo León, but managed to contain himself.

  “They say the people are nice and you can live well there. That there are plenty of universities and job opportunities for foreigners like me.”

  “That’s what they say,” Margarito had replied, kicking a can.

  “What’s it like to live near the sea?” The woman stretched out her arms to feel the breeze on her fingertips.

  “Do you want me to tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  But Margarito’s hand was already running along her hot neck, the little beads of sweat forming under her thick blond hair, and she smiled. Margarito had thought to himself that a woman like this was what had been missing from his life. Just then, out of nowhere, she’d confessed: “I adore making love.”

  Over the next six months, she’d convinced him to take the exams to graduate from middle and high school: Margarito bought the answers from one of the faculty beforehand. One day she seemed withdrawn. They’d recently had a fight. She locked herself in the bathroom for a long time and when she came out, she said, “I’m pregnant.”

  Those who know say that Margarito never pulled a more perfectly idiotic face than he did that day. Unfortunately, it didn’t take the two of them long to go from I love you to If you were honest, you wouldn’t be a cop. From the fifth year on, they stayed together only for their son, but when even the kid doesn’t keep you from fighting, it’s time for the relationship to end. At first, the major differences between them had seemed unimportant, because love conquered all: She was a voracious reader; he only wanted to watch television. She was thinking of pursuing a doctoral degree; he barely had a handle on Spanish grammar. She would indulge in the occasional glass of red wine; he drank beer like water and could polish off a bottle of tequila on his own if the occasion called for it. She hated Mexican cigarettes; he loved his Raleighs. She watched what she ate and exercised every day; he claimed to have cut a deal with his arteries. She was incapable of touching someone else’s property; he, well, he was Margarito. That’s where the attacks began. Corrupt son of a bitch, thief, conceited animal, and his favorite: stronzo. His car became the stronzomobile. People would say, “There goes the chief’s wife. Only a naive foreigner could marry a guy like Margarito. But one day she’ll realize what a mistake she made and it’ll be: ‘Ciao, Margarito, hit the road.’” And so it was. One day he came home to find her in the front hall with divorce papers in hand.