by Hector Camín
“I want you to stop running my life by remote control.”
“Whatsa matta, no speek inglish. What are you talking about?” Rojano said.
“I’m telling you to stop pestering me about Pizarro. And if you have something to tell me about him, why do you have to say it through Anabela?”
“Whatsa matta, who’s Pizarro? No speek inglish,” Rojano insisted. Before I could answer he hastened to add: “I really don’t know how to thank you, brother. Anabela told me all about Mexico City.”
He sounded ambiguous, and he paused for what to me felt like an eternity. Then he added, “I’m really grateful for the way you looked after her. You know how I have Anabela shut in looking after kids and keeping house all day. Thanks for taking her to the opera. And she loved the Museum of Modern Art.”
It was my turn to be caught short. Finally I managed to say, “She liked the paintings, but that’s not what I called you about. I already told you why I called.”
“You didn’t beat around the bush, brother. Say no more.”
“I’m going to look into the way land is distributed in Chicontepec.”
“Perfect,” Rojano replied.
“And if it’s not the way you say it is, I’ll make you pay for it in the column. Agreed?”
“Signed, sealed and delivered, brother. You can’t imagine what you’re going to find.”
It was nine in the morning, and the apartment reeked of stale drinks from a party the night before. There were cigarette butts in the ashtrays and glasses on the table. The unopened curtains that kept the heavy odor of tobacco from dissipating now evoked the aura of Anabela and the tale she told Rojano about our revolutionary evening.
The government was on the verge of change. Pundits and soothsayers gossiped obsessively about who would get what cabinet post when the new administration took over on December 1st. Among their incantations: “The political class is through,” “Echeverría’s the new strongman,” and “López Portillo’s a puppy on the technocracy’s leash.” In the midst of all the dire predictions and murky conjecture, I began to look more favorably on the Pizarro matter. It gave me an excuse to see my contact in the Government Security Ministry and avoid getting off on false leads.
This, like so many others, was a contact I made through René Arteaga, the reporter for Excelsior. When I met René Arteaga in 1969, the wounds of the Tlatelolco massacre were still fresh, and I was even fresher at the outset of my career as a police reporter. I was 23 and Arteaga almost 40. He was drinking watery Cuba libres (so-called mahogany Cuba libres due to their color, which bore a curious resemblance to dark rum) at the La Mundial Bar. He let me sit next to him at the bar.
“So you run copy?” he said before draining half his first drink of the day in a single swallow.
Running copy was the entry-level job in the newspaper business. You shuttled stories between the reporters’ typewriters and the copy desk and from the copy desk to the press room.
“No, sir,” I replied with the pride that came from having insinuated myself into such distinguished company. “I’m a police reporter.”
“Then you’re the remains of a copy boy,” Arteaga said. “You’ve been blooded.”
He drained the second half of his drink with his second swallow. “It’s how we all begin. In the morgue. And it’s the best way to start. After that nothing scares you. But I’ll tell you the rule. The morgue is a training ground, a stage. Don’t get caught there for more than three years. Don’t pay too much attention to anyone who’s spent a lot of years around blood and corpses if you’re serious about becoming a reporter. Keep your distance. If you stay down there too long, you get jaded. Good reporters can’t be too sensitive, but they have to numb their nerves and control them, not kill them.”
He added a small splash of Coca Cola to his next Cuba libre.
“So it’s a great beat. It’s spawned lots of great reporters, and the public loves it, but there’s one thing you always have to keep in mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir, damn it. I’m not your boss. I’m your colleague even though I’m older than you and have probably forgotten things about the job that you haven’t learned yet.” In two swallows he drained a quarter of his watery drink. “Do you know the Jesuit definition of education?”
“No, sir.”
“Then Sir is going to tell you. Education is what’s left over after you’ve forgotten everything else. Don’t you agree?”
I wrote it down.
“Don’t take notes,” Arteaga said. “You can find that in any collection of quotable quotes from The Readers’ Digest. What you need to take down in your head, not your notebook, is what I’m going to tell you about cops. First, they’re all the same. Second, there never has been or ever will be a human society that doesn’t need them. Third, history is full of revolutions the police have outlived. They wind up as the underpinnings of the new regime. Fourth, it follows that if you want to know what makes a society tick, what stays the same no matter what, then you have to do time on the police beat. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I told you I’m not your boss. My name is Rene, and quit acting as if I were your boss.”
The bartender served him two more watery Cubas. Arteaga ordered them in twos, two very tall drink glasses filled to the rim with ice and with dark rum trickling down to within two fingers’ width of the top of each glass.
“I’m about to quit drinking,” he said. “I’m going to get so damn wasted that for the next month if anyone so much as mentions the word alcohol in my presence, I’ll curse his mother. Do you get what I told you about cops?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then just imagine what the political police must be like. You haven’t a clue about them yet. What are you drinking?”
About eight months later, on a day when I’d finished writing, I stopped by the bar at Les Ambassadeurs Restaurant to see who was there. I wound up at the bar with Miguel Reyes Razo, who was just beginning to show signs of the brilliant reporter he’d later become. We talked and chatted. A half hour later the waiter approached with an air of deference that would have done justice to General Obregón inviting nuns to the Sonora-Sinaloa casino.
“Sir, I’ve been asked…,” he said, speaking to me, “… would you be so kind as to step into Mr. René Arteaga’s private dining room? He’d like to offer you a cognac.”
Arteaga was holding forth in one of the Ambassadeur’s private dining rooms with a group of Excelsior reporters. Seated to his left was a man with a slight wave in his graying, neatly groomed hair and an impeccable trace of mustache above lips so thin they were barely visible. He was the director of federal security in the Internal Affairs Ministry, the chief of Mexico’s political police.
“You’re both from Veracruz, you’re paisanos,” Arteaga said by way of introduction. “And painful as it may be, you always will be.”
The after-dinner drinks continued to flow for nearly half an hour. The guest got up to leave around seven.
“Come see me, paisano,” he said affably. “I’m at your service in our offices on Bucareli.”
“Be sure you look him up.” Arteaga sat between us as we talked. “Some day you’ll show that bastard there’s no such thing as an insignificant friend.”
“Thanks, René,” my paisano said with a smile. “You people always teach me something.”
A week later at Arteaga’s instigation, I went to see him, and we chatted briefly. He asked if there was anything I needed, if I was earning enough, if there was anything he could do for me. All I asked was what Arteaga told me to ask: that he answer the phone when I called. Nothing more.
Our relations remained distant but cordial, punctuated by meals and phone calls that grew notably more frequent in 1974 upon the launch of my column, “Public Life.” From then on I had in my fellow Veracruzan an unbeatable source. The information he provided was slanted and never complete, and it always served the interests, ho
wever obscure, of his superiors. Our cautiously professional relationship existed in the strange limbo of mutual usefulness well known to journalists and Mexican politicians.
(In the words of my paisano, “Newspapers are the government’s seismograph, and columnists are the seismographers.”)
I can now admit that through him I learned the details of stories and political developments that appeared first in “Public Life:” the column about the CIA and its Mexican agents in February 1975; Mexico’s involvement with the Chilean fascist group Patria y Libertad in July of the same year; the Chipinque conspiracy, named for the park where senior Monterrey business leaders plotted to overthrow the government, a scheme that was later unmasked in a speech by then presidential chief of staff Ignacio Ovalle.
Throughout the presidential campaign of José López Portillo, from September 1975 to May 1976, I received an uninterrupted flow of information about grassroots groups, interests, deals and maneuvers thanks to my Veracruz contact on Bucareli Street. The information arrived with a regularity surpassed only by the cinematic discretion of its provider. It came in the form of calls from his observers, subordinates, friends and agents. Anything I could use from his network I took, and, one way or another, I compared it to what I got from other sources. Almost without exception, the information turned out to be first class. Though very rarely inaccurate or padded, it invariably served the interests of the sitting president rather than the candidate soon to replace him. I compensated for any bias by seeking information on my own and following my own leads while always keeping an open channel to Bucareli. He never complained about what I left out of my column or what I included, even when it conflicted with the interests he served. He came out ahead simply by being where he was and playing the game fairly, cleanly, and with unflagging consistency. Each month I tallied the results of our long distance game as if it were a chess match played through the mail. I struggled for balance and considered my sources. I asked all the questions and dug for all the details that elementary prudence demanded. But, invariably, he succeeded in imposing his line on about half my columns.
I recount all this to explain why, in late November 1976, amidst all the political speculation brought on by a change of administration, my guide on the campaign trail seemed to be the one light that might show me the way to a reasonably accurate assessment of Pizarro and the charges made against him by Rojano.
He listened to my account of the Pizarro case without interruption, holding a pencil in front of his face and rolling it over and over between his fingers. When I finished, he rang a bell beneath his desk. “What did you say the man’s name is, paisano?”
“Lázaro Pizarro.”
“I mean your informant.”
I hesitated before giving his name, then remembered I’d mentioned it already.
“Francisco Rojano Gutiérrez,” I replied.
“Rojano. It sounds familiar.”
He kept a long silence. “Wasn’t he with the CNOP?”
“That’s right.”
“And the Rural Cooperative Bank before that?”
“Yes.”
“He got involved in a scandal of some sort, didn’t he? Corruption. Or a shootout somewhere or other. I vaguely remember.”
“Both,” I said. His memory astonished me. He hid it behind the small eyes of a 40s’ movie idol. They were guileless and bright as if eternally searching for a woman who would understand him. He rang the bell again, this time with a touch of impatience. The man who stumbled in was huge and wore a brown jacket and yellow tie over his enormous paunch.
“Bring me whatever you can find about this guy,” he said, holding out a card he had written on. “Do it yesterday.”
“Yes, chief.”
“I have nothing on Pizarro,” he told me. “That is, nothing regarding the issue you raise. But he has a reputation to be reckoned with. Pizarro Tejeda, known as Lacho. He’s the leader of the oil workers’ in the area around Potrero del Llano, a mid-level union boss. He’s been mayor of a town in the district, very much a populist and advocate of so-called ‘petroleum Maoism’. As well as every other form of extremism you might think of.”
In contrast to his usual fluency, he was speaking slowly, measuring every word.
“He’s a man much loved by the workers he leads,” he went on. “He has lots of followers and lots of appeal. He’s founded regional union orchards in the area he controls, and the fruits and vegetables they raise sell for half-price in union stores. A hundred per cent cheaper than in regular markets. Rumor has it he’s a descendant of Adalberto Tejeda, the left-wing governor in the twenties. Don’t underestimate Pizarro, my friend. You ought to meet him.”
“The photos I have show a different side of him. They’re quite impressive.”
“Blood is always impressive.”
“And shots to finish off the victims execution style?”
“Don’t make a movie of it, my friend. Shots to the head in any case.”
The subordinate returned with two sets of cards that he placed on the desk before his boss. He studied them closely one by one, beginning with Rojano’s.
“Here’s where you come in,” he said, handing me a card.
It documented my meeting with Rojano during the campaign stop in Veracruz the day he began showing me Pizarro’s miracles.
“I have trouble understanding your friend,” my paisano said upon completing his review. “He has political ambitions in Pizarro’s sphere of influence, and he’s attacking him. Or he’s beginning to attack him. He also owns land around Chicontepec, where the victims are from.”
“A 100 hectares between him and his wife.”
“Rather more, my friend.”
“How much more?”
“Twice that and then some.”
“400 hectares?”
“About that. Don’t you think your friend wants more?”
He began going through the other set of cards, the ones about Lázaro Pizarro. Also one by one and in detail. He furrowed his brow and was lost in concentration, his eyes ablaze with the intensity of his scrutiny. Then he looked out the window, distracted as if he’d forgotten I was there.
“What more would you like?” he said.
“Whatever you have on Pizarro.”
“There’s nothing on Pizarro.”
“Nothing on the cards?”
“They’re routine. None of the bodies you’re talking about. Anything else?”
“A hint.”
“Nothing.”
He stood up to indicate the interview was over. “What I can do is find a way for you to meet Lacho. Are you interested?”
“I am.”
“It can be done,” he said, escorting me to the door. “I’ll let you know.”
On my way past his aide’s desk in the hall, I heard his bell’s insistent ring. It sounded almost hysterical coming from the desk of my acquaintance from Veracruz.
Chapter 3
PIZARRO’S WORID
We got a new president, and his economic stabilization program had unexpected teeth. It featured salary caps and the first public disclosure that Mexico’s finances were in thrall to the dictates of the International Monetary Fund. We played the chess game that comes with each new administration as the press and the government sound each other out.
In late February 1977, I received a hand delivered envelope marked confidential with a message advising me of the possibility of an interview with Lázaro Pizarro during the first week of March. On the back of the card I wrote: “With the sole condition that I may write about whatever I see and hear.” The following day the same messenger returned with another card: “March 6 in Poza Rica. The interested party should be at the Hotel Robert Prince.”
I wrote a detailed report on the whole affair (protocols, sources, contacts, conditions for conducting the interview). I sent the original to the editor of my newspaper along with the files from Rojano. I also made sure my friend on Bucareli Street got a copy. Then I planned my trip. Doña Li
la was on a month-long vacation to her home in Tuxpan, a few kilometers from Poza Rica. I phoned and asked her to reserve me a hotel room. On the morning of March 1, I took the seven o’clock flight to Tampico, rented a car at the airport, and completed the two-hour drive along the road that follows the sparkling Tuxpan River as it winds its way to the sea. Shipyards lined the right bank, and on the left stood the eponymous Tuxpan de Rodríguez Cano, so named in honor of the politician regarded as the city’s most illustrious native son. From Tuxpan it was less than an hour’s drive to my final destination in Poza Rica.
Doña Lila was waiting in the lobby of the Hotel del Parque, immediately in front of the park itself, eating a guava.
“You came alone in all this heat?”
From the window in my room you could see the sandbar at the mouth of the river and in the distance-at once vast, dirty, and brilliant-the iron gray of the Gulf.
“Do me a favor, Doña Lila.”
“You name it.”
“Find out where Lázaro Pizarro has his office in Poza Rica.”
“And what have you got to do with Lázaro Pizarro?” Doña Lila said. For a moment she ceased gnawing her guava. “Do you know who that man is?”
“You know him?”
“Around here everybody either knows or knows of Lacho Pizarro.”
“Can you find out where his office is?”
“I don’t have to find out. His office is in the Quinta Bermúdez in Poza. Anyone in Poza Rica can take you there. Why are you going to see Lacho, if I may ask?”
“I’m going to interview him.”
The following day, March 2, I left Tuxpan very early. Four hours before the appointed time I was on my way to the Quinta Bermúdez. Just as Doña Lila said, everybody in Poza Rica knew where it was. It was the hulk of an old mill dating from the time of Porfirio Díaz. It had a high mansard roof perfectly painted cinnamon brown. A white stripe along the upper slope led the eye around the building as a whole. Rather than a mill, it was now a huge warehouse bursting with perishable produce such as citrus, vegetables, and fruits as well as grain and bales of hay. Half the structure was taken up by docks for unloading the produce. When I arrived at seven in the morning, the day’s activities were already on the wane, but trucks continued to pull in, rolling over the moist green droppings from prior deliveries and crushing them. Behind the loading docks and storage facilities were the mill’s living quarters. The large, rough-hewn wooden door in the front was held shut by thick bolts and wrought iron hinges. A detail of armed guards kept watch over the entry, walkie-talkies in hand.