6
EL MAGO TELEPHONED and gave Elvis fifteen minutes to be ready. Elvis had already finished his daily exercises, so he rushed into the shower and dressed in what he called his work uniform: jeans, leather jacket, blue-and-tan shirt. El Mago arrived on the dot, as he always did, and Elvis jumped in the car. They drove to Konditori.
El Mago ordered a coffee, black. Elvis liked his coffee with milk, sweet, but he had taken to imitating El Mago and also asked for a black coffee. He did ask for a slice of black forest cake to go with it.
“You should not be having so much sugar. It is a disgrace, the way you eat.”
“Come on. It’s a waste to come to a place like this and sit around with a black coffee and not even one pastry,” Elvis replied. “Can’t be carrot juice and eggs all the time.”
“It keeps you fit.”
El Mago was all about keeping them fit and sharp. Sit-ups, push-ups, squats. Get your blood pumping early and fast, that’s what El Mago told them. Elvis had never been much into routines until he joined the Hawks, and though he didn’t mind making his bed or jumping rope, he did miss scarfing garnachas at odd hours of the day. But El Mago was strict about that too. This gave credence to the Antelope’s theory that he was a military man, but Elvis wasn’t too sure, and he’d never been able to figure El Mago out.
If he’d been military, he didn’t mention it. Maybe it had been a while back. Besides, when El Mago wore his round, black-rimmed glasses, he looked like a retired professor. The way he spoke made Elvis suspect he was closer to a scholar than a soldier. But then, there was no way of knowing. El Mago was “El Mago,” no last names and no title, just like El Gazpacho, El Güero, and the Antelope didn’t have any proper names.
“Sure, it keeps you fit, but who’s gonna pass on fucking cake?”
“Language and diction, Elvis,” El Mago said. “What have I told you about language and diction? Are you even trying?”
“I try, sir.” He did. Not just with the word of the day but by reading the papers and listening to the announcers on the radio.
“You are not a verdulero at the market, at least not when you are with me,” the man said. “In any case, restraint is learned.”
“I guess.”
“You do not guess. You should know it,” he said firmly, and Elvis sat very straight, like a student before a favorite teacher.
El Mago took off his glasses and placed them on the table. He looked a bit haggard that morning. Nothing terrible and no one else would have probably noticed, what with the nice suit he wore and the nice tie and his gray hair perfectly parted, but Elvis knew El Mago well enough to spot the dark circles under his eyes. Something or someone was bothering El Mago. But these days Elvis supposed everyone was being bothered.
“So, may I ask if anything has changed?” Elvis asked, trying to mind his words. “Is El Gazpacho feeling better? Are we getting back in action?”
He was praying the answer was yes. Back in action meant there would still be Hawks. He’d been having an awful feeling lately, and the Antelope didn’t help, all nervous and talking about how they were going to be dissolved, and then what would they do? The Antelope was ex-military. He’d been a fucking cadet, summarily expelled. Some shit like that. There was no going back for him.
For none of them.
“There is an assignment,” El Mago said, opening his briefcase and taking out a folder.
The file was thin. Elvis looked at the picture of a young and pretty woman clipped to the notes. Only one picture. It showed her with her hair pulled back, looking at the camera, her lips parted. Leonora Trejo. El Mago had written a few notes about her in his clean, neat handwriting. It was odd. This was all normally typed. There was usually a lot more.
“Who’s she?”
“She is your assignment. Art student, in university. The girl has gone missing, along with a camera with important photos. I want her found and the photos too. And no harming her. It is strictly find-and-retrieve, you understand?”
“Sure. But if she’s missing, where you want me to start looking?”
“Give her apartment a sweep. If you are lucky, the photos are there and half of your work is over.”
“And if I don’t find it there?”
“Then things are getting started for you, are they not?”
A waitress came back with their coffees and Elvis’s slice of cake. She asked if they wanted anything else, but El Mago waved her away. Once the waitress was gone El Mago took out another file and handed it to Elvis. This one was substantially thicker.
Elvis flipped through it, staring at the photos of a man with glasses. A man in a black habit with a white collar. He’d never seen that before.
“It’s a priest,” Elvis said, glancing up at El Mago in surprise.
“A commie,” he clarified.
“A commie priest?”
“A Jesuit. A member of Obra Cultural Universitaria. They are from Monterrey. They were supposed to keep students in check. Instead, some of them are preaching liberation theology and making trouble. Christ, the first communist, they say.” El Mago smiled his pleasant smile. But there was something sour in it. As usual, the smile hid the fangs.
“What’s he doing here if they’re from Monterrey?” Elvis asked, taking a bite of his cake.
“There is a lot of nastiness going on, Elvis. These reds, they have been talking guerillas and weapons, and do not doubt it, these crazy Jesuits like this Father Villareal, they are eager to see blood spilled. They have been waiting for a spark to light the bomb, for something to make everything go off.”
“Wouldn’t us beating those students have made it worse, then? That would make us the crazy ones, not them. Unless someone above wanted it to go off.”
El Mago had opened his lighter and was about to light his cigarette but he stopped, staring at Elvis.
“You are too damn clever sometimes, Elvis,” he said.
Elvis rubbed the back of his neck. El Mago finished lighting his cigarette, took a drag, then tapped a finger against his cup of coffee, frowning. “You are correct, that mess did not help one bit. If I had been in charge of the whole operation…but there are plenty of fools who do not know how to handle problems without bullets and liters of blood. That is why I am telling you right now: this operation here, my operation, it needs to be clean and quiet. These are dangerous times to be standing out.”
“Yeah, I get it. But what’s the priest got to do with the girl? She also with Obra Cultural?”
“No. This priest, he came here to make friends with all the rabble who are starting up commie associations and groups. All that garbage. The girl is part of a subversive art collective. He met her through that. Before all of this, she was a good Catholic girl. Now he is her confessor.”