by Sam Hawken
“This is a waste of time.”
Enrique moved to rise. Sevilla stopped him with a hand. “I didn’t say it was a waste of time. I only want to know why you care. Why you came to me.”
The tension fled from Enrique and he slumped back into the ruined couch. He put his hand over his eyes and breathed deeply and for a moment Sevilla thought that now he cried, but when the hand came away the young cop’s eyes were dry.
“Why did you come to me?” Sevilla asked again.
“I thought… I don’t know. I thought you would understand.”
“About Garcia.”
“About all of it. I didn’t join the police force to beat confessions out of innocent people. Because I don’t believe they did it. The American and Salazar. I don’t believe it.”
Sevilla nodded slowly. “And you think you and I, we can find out the truth when everyone else can’t?”
“I don’t know. Do you think so?”
Sevilla spread his hands. “You aren’t the only one without answers.”
“The way Garcia talks about you, I know he is jealous of you. He says they let you do your work without interfering. He says we could do so much more if the higher-ups simply got out of our way.”
“And let you get on with torturing people?”
Enrique looked at his shoes. “Yes.”
“Nobody with a conscience should be forced to work with La Bestia. You should count yourself lucky you still have one. He could have torn it out of you and ground it up. Then you wouldn’t have come to me, except maybe as a tool. A spy.”
“I’m not a spy.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“I’ve already told you enough that there could be charges against Garcia. People turn a blind eye, but that’s only because no one speaks up. I could say something. Like you said, I was there.”
“Do you think anyone would believe you?”
“I wouldn’t know until I tried.”
“The mere fact that you would even think to put yourself through that says you’re either a fool or a romantic. Why should I burden myself with either?”
“You’ll need help.”
“What sort of help?” Sevilla asked.
“You are on the outside. I’m on the inside. You want a spy? I can be that for you.”
“To what benefit to yourself? There’s no glory here.”
“There’s no glory in beating a man’s head in, either.”
“It’s possible no one will even care,” Sevilla said. “You know how it is on the streets of Juárez these days. People are dying everywhere. Even the police aren’t safe. One more woman dies, this is nothing new.”
“What are you saying?”
“That is a very good question.”
“This is right,” Enrique said. “I want to do what’s right.”
“Now I know you’re a romantic. You might be useful, after all.”
FIVE
“KELLY KEPT A NOTEBOOK, A spiral cuaderno with a red cover. I’ve seen it here before, by the telephone,” Sevilla told Enrique. “It must have been collected. We’ll want to have a look at it.”
Enrique nosed around the shattered kitchenette, poking into cabinets with broken doors and occasionally lifting some ruined dinnerware with his toe to peer beneath. Sevilla felt the tension radiating from the young man, saw it in the way his shoulders hunched even when he played at being nonchalant. Enrique would have made a terrible boxer; he allowed too much of his mind to show in his body.
“You’ll need to get it,” Sevilla said.
“What’s in it?” Enrique asked.
“Kelly kept his life in that notebook: his accounts, his telephone numbers, his appointments. I have some things copied, but nothing so recent as could help us now. I want to see what he wrote during the time when Paloma died.”
For a moment Enrique disappeared into the bedroom. When he reemerged, he shook his head. “I’ve never heard of a drug addict who kept records before. No records that make sense, anyway.”
Sevilla rose from the couch. He felt his expression sour despite himself and he turned his face from Enrique. He did not want to show his mind, too. “If you think Kelly is just some American junkie, then why bother with him at all? Let them say he did it with Estéban and it all goes away. What’s one more dead woman on the pile? It’s not like there’s not a hundred other things to worry about.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Understand this, then: I know Kelly. I spent a long time watching him, grooming him. The people who put this in motion against him, they saw him as a foreigner, a stranger. Foreigners have no one who knows them for who they are. These people, they didn’t expect someone like me. They thought Kelly was easy to make look guilty.”
“He was.”
Sevilla shook his head. “For some.”
“Even you,” Enrique insisted.
“At first,” Sevilla said, “but that was because I only listened with my head, and not my heart. What kind of men are we if we forget our hearts?”
SIX
SEVILLA WAITED TEN MINUTES AFTER Enrique was gone before leaving Kelly’s apartment. He went to his car and fished under the seat until his hand settled on the paper-wrapped neck of another bottle of Johnnie Walker. The temptation for a drink, even this early in the day, was strong, but Sevilla knew one swallow would lead to another and another until he was too spent even to drive.
The bottle went back where it came from. Two bottles in two days would be too much to excuse. Many men his age lived inside a glass of alcohol, their wits dulling as they aged into dust. Sevilla had never wanted to be such a man, not now and not before, and so the whisky would stay where it was for at least another day. Perhaps he’d forget about it and it would be a week before his thirst reminded him of what would make it all better.
He drove and while he drove he thought about Enrique Palencia.
Mostly Sevilla knew Enrique from Captain Garcia’s shadow. When state police worked with city police on drug-related matters there were often bodies involved. The narcos of the south honed their bloody-mindedness in Mexico City, the narcos of the west in Tijuana. Murder, not only drugs, was their major export. This they sold to their countrymen as eagerly as they dispensed to the Americans. Garcia was the sort of policeman Ciudad Juárez valued today: one whose expertise lay not in teasing apart layers of an investigation but in rendering them up in pieces.
Enrique lacked the hardness and flatness of Garcia, but these things would come in time. Juárez was a hard wind off the desert. Heat and sand and sheer force cut stone and sliced away the soft parts of a man until there was nothing left but sharp edges and an underlying brittleness that an unexpected blow could shatter. Garcia was expert with such blows.
Sevilla stopped at a light and watched a cluster of school-age girls dash across the walk from one curb to the next. A woman, maybe a teacher, followed them. Some carried boxes for lunch and the sight of these made Sevilla hungry. Eating was better than drinking himself into a stupor in the front seat of his car.
He drove a while longer, tracing a path that was half familiar from his time with Kelly and from the years before. In the early days when he was still getting to know Kelly, Sevilla walked the pavement well behind the man, observing but never from too close. Kelly had a wandering spirit and he was not afraid to go where the other Americans never went. At first this was because he was still in the grip of an addiction, but eventually because he had a taste for the city and its people. Sevilla thought Kelly might have made a good cop if things were very different.
Storefronts Sevilla recognized began to populate the streets. He knew a restaurant that served a hearty lunch for very little, a workingman’s place, and he navigated there without having to watch the street signs. Unconsciously he put his hand on the seat beside him, half-expecting to feel human warmth, but there was no one with him. This was not their drive anymore, but his drive.
He ate chicken and rice and tortillas in the shade of
a faded orange awning. People passed his table close enough to touch and conversation bubbled up from the seats around him. From time to time Sevilla’s attention wandered to the offices across the street, the little dentist’s and the open door on the second floor.
Enrique would be back at the central station by now. It might take an hour or more for him to find Kelly’s notebook even if the rest went smoothly. Likely they wouldn’t meet again until tonight, and even then they would have to be careful who saw them and what they were doing. Much as Sevilla would have to be careful when he finished his meal and crossed the street.
He left coins on the table for the young woman who cleaned up, wiped his mouth on his handkerchief and went back out into the sun. The weather took no holiday and offered no respite. Sevilla wilted in his suit. The temptation was always there to switch to something lighter, breezier, but the suit was important to him.
A suit was Sevilla’s armor. Like his badge and identification, it was also a shield. When people saw a man in a suit, they reacted differently, behaved differently and sometimes told more than they wanted to tell by virtue of their discomfiture. Even when the temperature climbed to over a hundred, Sevilla wore a suit because after all this time he couldn’t do his work without it.
Crossing the street, Sevilla reached the switchbacked steps and climbed them one at a time. The sun felt like a weight across his shoulders. This place had a familiar smell about it that prompted unwelcome memories. He shoved them aside, and by the time he reached the door of Mujeres Sin Voces he was composed fully.
The sound of hunt-and-peck typing came from inside. Sevilla rapped on the door frame and then peered through. A slight breeze followed him through the doorway and stirred the flyers on the walls. The woman at the desk stopped her work. For a moment Sevilla saw Paloma Salazar’s face. This was where they first met.
“Police,” Sevilla said, and showed the woman his identification. “Sevilla. What is your name?”
“Adela de la Garza,” the woman replied. “I’m sorry… is something the matter?”
“Something is always the matter,” Sevilla said, and he made a gesture that vaguely encompassed the wall of flyers, all the faces and the cries for justicia. “I’m here because of Paloma.”
Adela crossed herself and then put her hands in her lap. She nodded. “We heard the news.”
“It couldn’t have happened to a finer woman,” said Sevilla.
“Are you the investigator? The one in charge?”
“No, I’m not. Paloma’s case is with the city police. But I consult with them.”
“They say it was her lover, that American. He came here, you know.”
Sevilla took a small pad from his jacket pocket and flipped back the cover. He wrote left-handed with a pencil. “Did he? This is Kelly Courter? The American who boxed?”
“Sí, that’s the one. He came here after she was gone.” Adela’s expression curdled and she made a spitting gesture. “He pretended to know nothing! But now we know the truth about him.”
“You asked him about her?” Sevilla inquired.
“No. He asked me about Paloma. Where she went, how long it had been. What kind of a man doesn’t know these things? Is it true he was a drogadicto? It makes sense to me. And Paloma’s brother…”
Sevilla held up a hand for quiet. “I can’t tell you very much about the case. It’s not allowed. Where did you get all of this information?”
“From the policeman who came yesterday.”
“A policeman came here?”
Adela nodded. “That is why I was confused. He only came yesterday. How could anything have changed so soon? He told me about what happened.”
“What was this policeman’s name?”
The woman thought for a moment. Sevilla tried to remember whether he’d seen her before, even once in all the time he had come here with his wife, but Adela’s face didn’t come to him. “Jiménez,” she told Sevilla at last. “Yes, I think that’s it.”
“Jiménez?”
“Yes.”
“What was his first name?”
“Cornelio, I think.”
“Did he show you identification?”
“Yes.”
“Was it city or state police?”
“I can’t tell the difference. I do clerical work here; I don’t speak to police. Not like Paloma did. Or Ella.”
Sevilla thought to ask Adela more questions, but there was no point. Paloma he knew and Ella Arellano, as well. There were two or three others he could recall by their faces if not their names. Marina? He wasn’t sure. “What did he want to know?”
“He wanted to ask about the American. He was lucky I was the one here; I remembered everything the American asked. And to think I sent him after Ella! I even gave him directions! What did he want to do to her, I wonder?”
Sevilla scribbled as quickly as he could. “He? You mean Kelly wanted to see Señorita Arellano?”
“I told you: he pretended he didn’t know where Paloma was. I sent him to Ella. I felt so stupid when the policeman told me everything.”
“You had no way to know,” Sevilla said automatically. His thoughts were turning.
“I should have known. Anyone who could do such a thing… you can tell from their eyes.”
“If only that were true. Señora, what else did you tell this policeman? Did he ask to see Ella, too?”
“Yes. I gave him the same directions.”
Sevilla flipped his notepad to a new page. Tension crawled in his back, made the muscles around his spine ache. He wished for another little breeze to flush the heat out of the office; it was as hot in here as it was in the full sun. “Can you give them to me?” he asked finally. “In case I can’t get a hold of this Jiménez. It would be a great favor.”
“Of course,” Adela said. She talked and Sevilla wrote and in the end Sevilla left his card with the woman and stepped out of the stifling little space with relief. The streets had grown still in the after-lunch quietude. When he reached the sidewalk he saw a CLOSED sign in the dentist’s window.
Normally he would also sleep in a still, shaded place where the troubles of the day so far could be shed, but Sevilla went to his car quickly. He rolled the windows down and invisible clouds of intense heat flowed out of the cabin. He sweated afresh beneath the layers of suit and shirt. The engine idled until the air conditioner was strong enough to take over. With the windows up and cool air circulating, Sevilla pored over his notes.
Cornelio Jiménez left no card. If it had been Garcia or even Enrique on the doorstep of Mujeres Sin Voces then Sevilla would have no reason to doubt the man or his appearance. The tension in his back climbed higher and settled between his shoulder blades to clench the nerves there.
He dialed Adriana Quintero’s number and got her voice mail instead of her assistant.
“Señora,” Sevilla said, “this is Rafael Sevilla. I wanted to ask you about one of your investigators, Cornelio Jiménez. Could you give me his number? I wanted to ask him a few questions. It would be a favor to me. Gracias. Goodbye.”
Almost no one walked the streets. The city was drained of bodies at this hour. Only the maquiladoras worked around the clock without pause. There were no quiet and shaded spots there.
He wanted to call Enrique, but it was too soon. His thoughts turned still further and pushed toward the colonias and Ella Arellano. There the people would be sleeping, as well.
“Damn it.”
Sevilla smacked the steering wheel with his palm. He put the car in gear and drove away.
SEVEN
ONCE ENRIQUE’S POLICE STATION had seemed just another government building in a simple collection of such buildings near the office of the Procuraduría. White brick and windows tinted against the sun and barred entryways saying NO ENTRANCE and a glass-and-metal box the size of a phone booth where a single policeman stood on duty, checking identification and manually operating the electric lock.
When the Sinaloa cartel came to the city, the landsca
pe changed. At both ends of the block heavy, x-shaped sculptures made of steel crossbeams blocked traffic into a single lane. Barbed wire obstructed the sidewalks. Instead of a lone cop, a handful of armed federal police controlled the flow of people back and forth through the barricades. Still more guarded Enrique’s building, two of them from a parked jeep mounted with a heavy machine gun.
Already there was word of still more men and equipment headed to the city, more guns and more vehicles. Two days before, Enrique saw an armored personnel carrier patrolling the area around the Procuraduría. Government buildings were secured against assault within and without; uniformed officers with automatic rifles walked the halls, chatted with the local police, made themselves comfortable as if they would be there for a hundred years.
Enrique parked in a lot ringed by chain-link fencing and barbed wire a block away. Three others waited for the white van that shuttled them to and from the main building. An armored federale occupied the passenger seat, the window down though the air conditioning was on, the barrel of his rifle pointed out through the open frame and into the sky.
He didn’t recognize the men with him and they didn’t speak. Enrique knew they tensed as he did each time the van passed another vehicle moving slowly. The Sinaloa cartel and their enemies, Los Zetas, used drive-by tactics and overwhelming firepower. The van was not armored; bullets could pass through the metal skin as easily as through a sheet of corrugated aluminum. In May two years before, the Sinaloa gunned down the chief of police.
The van made a too-sharp stop in front of the building. All four got out and went in different directions. Enrique paused a moment with the sun directly overhead. A federal policeman sat in the metal-and-glass booth. The butt of his rifle rested by his boot. He nodded at Enrique and made a motion toward the door.
“Yes,” Enrique said. The lock buzzed and he went inside.