Death in Veracruz

by Hector Camín

  “What does that mean?”

  “Just what I said. I don’t know what your reasons were for telling me. What did you expect from me?”

  “I expected your complicity,” Anabela crossed her arms. “Your support.”

  She sat down on the sofa next to me. She lowered her head and hunched her shoulders as if trying to ward off the cold.

  “That’s exactly what you’re getting,” I told her.

  “What are you talking about? You’re making me nervous. My hands are freezing. Feel them.”

  She lay a cold hand on my neck, reminding me that I’d been through this scene before and was in no mood for a rerun.

  “You’re going to be protected while the emissary does his job.” I said.

  “Don’t talk to me like that.” She got up from the sofa. Her arms remained crossed as if she sought shelter in the safety of her own embrace. “Don’t lie to me. I haven’t done anything.”

  “Then give me the name of the emissary.”

  “No way.”

  “With his priors it would be easy to get.”

  “Only if you tell them what I told you. Are you going to tell Internal Security?” She sat back down on the sofa.

  “Did you plan on Internal Security’s finding out?”

  “What plan, Negro?” she said, leaning back.

  “The plan you set in motion on the assumption that I’d get you protection while your emissary did his job,” I repeated. “And if the emissary fails, we at least have the beginnings of a defense in place. If he succeeds, then everything’s taken care of.”

  “You’re crazy. What are you talking about? Don’t lie to me.” She leaned over me and made a very convincing show of embracing me.

  “The question is, do I tell them about the emissary or not?” I said.

  “Don’t tell them,” Anabela said, holding onto me now, adjusting the rhythm of her breathing to mine.

  “If I tell them, he could be stopped.”

  “The emissary could be,” Anabela said. She nuzzled my neck, and her nose was also cold. “But who’s going to stop Pizarro?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “That is the point, my love,” Anabela said. “The point has always been, who’s going to stop Pizarro?”

  At 2:00 the following afternoon my contact arrived at Sep’s Restaurant on Insurgentes Centro. We were a block and a half from my apartment and three blocks from where the Federal Security Directorate had its offices on the Plaza de la República in front of the Monument to the Revolution. In those days Sep’s had tables overlooking the street, but I sought an inside corner protected from the sun. My contact entered behind me as if he’d been awaiting my arrival from somewhere nearby.

  “I can’t eat with you,” he said. He took his seat and removed his glasses. They were slightly tinted to protect his light-sensitive eyes, and they served as an apt symbol for the shadowy nature of his work. “But I didn’t want to let your call go unanswered either. I was very worried when you phoned me yesterday because I assumed everything had been taken care of. Tell me what happened.”

  He’d come to Sep’s with no clear idea of what I was going to tell him. Driven by a sense of obligation, he seemed more than certain about how to proceed. When it was my turn to speak, I listened to myself as if I were listening to another person.

  “We got two phone calls threatening Anabela.”

  “Meaning the widow of the mayor of Chicontepec?” My contact avoided the familiarity that the use of her first name would have implied.

  “The widow, yes.”

  “What did the calls say?”

  “They were death threats to her and her children. Both said what happened to the mayor would happen to them, that they hadn’t been forgotten.”

  “When were the calls?”

  “November 2nd and November 3rd,” I heard myself say.

  “Today’s November 19th,” my contact replied. “You let two weeks go by without telling me. Why was it so urgent yesterday?”

  “Because the widow didn’t tell me until yesterday. She had a panic attack.”

  “She’s not the kind of woman who has panic attacks. She must be very worried.”

  “She wasn’t. We even went on vacation,” I said, knowing he could easily find out. “But yesterday there was an incident with her son in Cuernavaca.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “He disappeared for three hours. He went to a friend’s house without letting anybody know and came back three hours later. It was all quite normal, but that’s not what the widow thought.”

  “What did she think?”

  “That the threats were for real. We were just back from our trip and were here in the city,” I said, continuing to elaborate. “When she heard from Cuernavaca that her son hadn’t come home, she told me about the threats. That’s why I didn’t call you until yesterday.”

  “Is there anything to indicate the calls came from our friend in Poza Rica?” my contact said.

  “The phone call repeated Pizarro’s motto.”

  “What motto?”

  “Destroy to create. Whoever can add can divide.”

  “Anyone who’s read your column knows those mottoes,” my contact said.

  “Before you try convincing me there’s no problem,” I said, “let me remind you how this all started and how it ended.”

  “I remember perfectly well.” He took a cigarette from his case and lit it with his habitual fastidiousness. I watched his small eyes through the smoke. Irritated from lack of sleep or from the smoke itself, they were fixed on me in a suspicious stare. “What can we do to avoid risks?”

  “Leave the surveillance up for a while,” I requested.

  “Agreed, but that’s a temporary solution.”

  “It’ll suffice for the time-being. The widow’s planning to get out of Mexico. She’s probably going to live in Los Angeles.”

  “When is she thinking of leaving?”

  “In two or three months.”

  “That’s too long in a situation like this, paisano.” Smoke from his cigarette curled about my contact as his inner calculator went to work. “We also need to negotiate with Pizarro.”

  “We already negotiated with Pizarro.”

  “Then we’ll do it again,” he said with mild irritation. “I’m surprised that he’d continue this fight on his own.”

  “I’m talking about facts,” I said, raising my voice. “You can believe them or not, but don’t forget how this began and how it’s played out.”

  “Do I have your permission to sound out Pizarro?” my contact asked, ignoring my flareup.

  “He’ll deny everything,” I predicted, discrediting once and for all what Pizarro would say by way of discrediting me.

  “I know. But do I have your permission?”

  Since he was going to do it anyway, I simply repeated that it didn’t make sense and agreed.

  “Tell the widow she’ll have all the protection she needs while she makes her travel plans.” By his tone of voice my contact brought the interview to a close. “Here or in Cuernavaca as she likes. In Cuernavaca it would be even easier. And I’ll find out if what you and she are thinking has any basis in fact.”

  He put out his cigarette without crushing it, simply scraping away the burning tip.

  “I have to go.” Once again he gave me a hard look. “Do you have anything else to tell me?”

  I said no.

  “Then we’ll be in touch. And don’t worry about the security.”

  “Let me know what you find out,” I said.

  “And you be sure to tell me all you know,” he said meaningfully. “I wouldn’t want to be operating on false premises.”

  Nothing happened on Artes in the days that followed except for the stowing of the cots and the children’s boredom. We spent our impossible anniversary, the 20th of November, disgruntled and immobilized, avoiding discussion, leafing through newspapers and magazines, and watching television. Comandante Cuevas
checked regularly to see that all was well, and it became apparent to the children that an odd silence went along with their confinement. Mercedes passed the days making a Christmas manger out of papier maché attended by cows, mules and goats in unheard-of numbers. Tonchis memorized every photo in the collection of National Geographies in my office. Anabela acted as if she’d been shut in against her will, and slept with the children the whole time.

  In early December 1979, I took part in a one-day presidential tour of the port of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca. The place showed signs of developing into the major deep-water industrial port that would mark the beginning of a new era for Mexico as a 21st century power in the Pacific Basin. We toured the naval base, visited a model warship, and dined in the warehouses on a meal served by the dockworkers. From there, I went looking for an aide in the press center that had been set up in the customs office some 800 meters from the dinner. I had an urgent call from Anabela, but by the time I got to a phone, it had been cut off. I called my number on Artes and got an immediate answer. (When reporters were with the president, whether in Salina Cruz or Moscow, they always had an open line that could reach any phone in Mexico City, simply by dialing a few extra numbers.) She asked if I’d seen the inside pages of La Prensa. I hadn’t. She asked me to look at them and call her back.

  I found a set of daily papers in the press center, and recovered a copy of La Prensa from the sailors on guard at the entrance to the wharf. It was the most widely read paper in Mexico City, a tabloid that leaned heavily to police stories, natural disasters, major accidents, and especially brutal crimes with banner headlines on the outside and lots of details inside. I redialed my phone on Artes.

  “It’s on the back page,” Anabela said. “Have you read it?”

  On the back page I read that a pearl-colored LTD sedan had crashed and exploded on the road between Tulancingo and Poza Rica. Its four occupants—two of whom were ex-members of the secret police—had burned to death.

  “I already read it,” I told Anabela. “What about it?”

  “I’ll tell you what about it,” Anabela said. “The second name on the list was the emissary.”

  I found the rest of the story on the inner pages. The second name on the list was: Edilberto Chanes Corona, age 45, former member of the secret police, a smalltime crook all his life who fancied himself a contract killer. His obituary followed.

  “It could have been an accident,” I said.

  “He had no business being in Tulancingo,” Anabela replied. “He said he was taking the plane to Veracruz.”

  “He could have been returning overland via Tulancingo.”

  “No,” Anabela said. “If that were so, we’d have gotten other news as well. When are you coming back?”

  “Tonight. Possibly tomorrow.”

  “I’m asking one thing of you.” Anabela’s voice on the phone sounded crestfallen, not angry but exhausted. “I don’t want you doing anything. Don’t ask any questions, don’t go looking for anybody. Don’t do anything until we talk.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m very unhappy, Negro.”

  We returned that same night very late. It was almost dawn by the time I got to the apartment on Artes. Anabela was awake and sitting on the sofa, her eyes bloodshot from prolonged crying. She was pouring vodka straight from the bottle into her glass. She seethed with frustration and rage that flared out of her like flames from a window at night. Her eyes were red. The tendons in her neck and the veins of her arms were bulging. Her cheeks were puffed, and her lips were swollen. I tried to get near her, but she wouldn’t let me. She gulped the vodka and threw the glass down on the sofa.

  “It can’t be. I’d have to see Pizarro alive to believe it.” Her voice was hoarse and broken, as misshapen as her face.

  “It was an insane idea,” I said.

  “All right,” she continued, paying no attention to what I said. “Suppose he’s alive. I’ll only believe it if I see him, but suppose he’s alive. Then the question is what to do, where to look. That was my only card, but there have to be more. Where are they?” She paced back and forth across the sala. “In what cave should I look? Because there has to be one. Somewhere in the cellars, in the slime there has to be someone able to make Pizarro another notch on his gun. Where is he? The imbecile screwed up, it says so in La Prensa. So all right. Suppose for a moment that Pizarro’s alive.”

  “Pizarro is alive,” I said irritatedly.

  “No, Negro,” Anabela contradicted me, and her fury grew a degree hotter. “He appears to be alive. But he’s been dead for quite a while.” She rubbed her arms and started to tremble. “He’s very, very dead though he may not know it and you may not know it. Perfectly dead ever since that night in Chicontepec.”

  “He beat you again,” I said drily. “You have to get out of the country.”

  “I’m not leaving. I’m not going to run.”

  “You’re not in this alone. Tonchis and Mercedes are also involved.”

  She spun around and glared at me again, out of control. She lunged towards me, turning into a scrawny, suddenly strange being, a woman I didn’t know. Her hair had gone dank and curly, her hands were wrinkled, her neck was a knot of bulging veins and taut tendons.

  “I have no fear, Negro. I had none before, and I don’t have any now. This fight has nothing to do with Tonchis and Mercedes. But they’re in thrall to the fight. And so is Little Darling and anyone else who happens to care for Pizarro. They became orphans in this fight, and I may very well lose them in this fight. But that’s the way it is, and God help anyone who thinks they can get away. You listen to me, whoever gives in is doubly fucked. They can kill my children, they can tear me to pieces, but they’ll never make me the least bit afraid of anything. Because the minute they think I’m horrified by what could happen to my children, they’ll tear them apart on the spot. Do you understand? This isn’t about Tonchis or Mercedes, Negro. It’s about where there’s a man up to killing Pizarro. That’s the only question. Because Pizarro’s dead. Good and dead ever since that night in Chicontepec.”

  She poured herself another shot of vodka and drank it in a single gulp. She went to my desk and sat down behind it with her hands in her hair and her elbows on my typewriter. She sobbed convulsively and groaned with rage. “Imbecile. Imbecile. Imbecile.”

  She slept in the room with the children, and I slept alone in my own room. Early the following morning, I was awakened by the commotion echoing through the apartment. I heard Anabela’s voice issuing orders to Tonchis and the babble of Mercedes coming and going in the hallway. As I looked out, Anabela scurried past with a suitcase on her way to the sala. She had on what looked like tailored overalls and had tied her hair in a bandanna. She came and went, kissed me on the cheek, and left a perfumed fragrance in her wake. I caught up with her in the room where she was tying a bundle and got her into my room.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’re going back to Cuernavaca,” she said with a smile as fresh as her perfume.

  “You can’t go back to Cuernavaca,” I said.

  “Yes, I can.”

  “You’ve got Pizarro on your tail,” I reminded her.

  “When you get right down to it, the only one who’s ever been on my tail is you,” she joked.

  “I mean what I say.”

  “And your breath smells awful.”

  “You can’t go back to Cuernavaca. Staying in Mexico City is bad enough.”

  “I’m going to Cuernavaca with my children and without your goons. I have nothing to fear, and I fear nothing. How do you think it looks for me to be cooped up in your apartment surrounded by your goons?”

  “It’s not a question of appearances. Pizarro is not an appearance.”

  “I have no memory of Pizarro. Have you forgotten that I’m the merry widow?”

  “Last night you were just a widow, period.”

  “I wasn’t myself last night. Erase last night from your memory.”

  “You can’t go, Ana.�
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  “I’m going, Negro. It’s for the best, it’s safer. Do you really think those three idiots outside with their walkie-talkies can stop Pizarro?”

  “They can make it difficult for him.”

  “It’s not a matter of difficulty. Is he out to get us or not? That’s the question. Once his mind is made up, you can put every officer in the Federal Security Directorate outside, and he won’t care. He’ll find a way.”

  “The difference is making him have to find it.”

  “The difference is I’m not afraid. That’s all you have to understand. And love me.”

  She got to her feet, took my face in her cold hands, and looked at me for a long time. Her eyes were clear and unclouded without a trace of last night’s fever and devastation. “And love me,” she repeated.

  I couldn’t stop her. I asked Comandante Cuevas to guard her in Cuernavaca, and two hours later, around ten in the morning, I went to the offices of my contact in Plaza de la República.

  “I want to apologize for what I’m about to tell you,” I said.

  I proceeded to recite in every detail the saga of the emissary. He wasn’t annoyed. He slowly took a white card and his gold pen from his jacket pocket. He wrote a few lines on the card and rang the bell hidden beneath his desk drawer. His gigantic aide appeared with the aplomb of a ballerina.

  “For Raul,” my contact said as he handed him the card. “Have him dispatch a detail today.”

  He took out another card and wrote on it. “Whatever there is in the files on this.” He passed the card to the aide. “And get me the office in Veracruz right away.”

  He swiveled his chair so he was sideways to me and stared out the windows that looked down on the Plaza de la República.

  “I don’t like hearing about things after the fact,” he said, twirling his pen between his fingers. “I don’t like your attitude or how far this has gone. What do you want from us?”

  “Friendship and understanding, paisano.”

  It was the first time I’d appealed to our shared origins in Veracruz since the days when I was doing favors for Rojano. My contact took it in with a grimace that bordered on a smile.

  “I hope you understand the seriousness of the situation,” he said. “Tools are like magnets, paisano. They attract users. This being the case, we can assume that the response from Poza Rica is on its way.”