Maite put the jar of sunflower seeds away and walked into the spare room that she whimsically liked to call her “atelier” when she had company. Not that she had much company. She hadn’t dated anyone in ages, though she had fantasized more than once about dressing nicely, going to a bar, and bringing a stranger home with her. On one occasion she had put on a good pair of heels and her best coat and done precisely that, but the bar in question was half empty and no man approached her. Why would they? She was nothing to look at.
Maite grabbed an album at random and placed it on the turntable. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” began playing. Music and comic books. Why couldn’t that be life! Why was life so dull, so gray, so bereft of any surprises?
She sat on her large chair and paged through Secret Romance, not really reading any of the speech bubbles, merely staring at the images, admiring Pablo’s chiseled jaw and Beatriz’s large, tender eyes. With Jorge Luis in his coma, far in the jungle, Pablo was making a play for Beatriz. In the last panel he held her close to him as she looked rapturously at the young man.
They were beautiful, each and every one of the drawings was of an aching perfection. And the jungle was lush and exquisite. The reason she’d bought the parakeet had been this comic book. She had wanted something from the jungle, but a parrot would have been more expensive and larger. Of course, her original idea had been to visit Cuba.
For a month or so Maite had toyed with the idea of touring the Caribbean. The island in her comic book wasn’t Cuba, it was imaginary, but it was the closest analogue she could come up with. And it wouldn’t be too expensive. They advertised trips to Cuba at a travel agency a few blocks from her workplace. She went as far as buying several guidebooks about the island and a pink bathing suit.
It all came to nothing in the end, like all of Maite’s plans. Sure, she told herself she could save enough money if she was thrifty. But there was an unexpected expense, one thing that led to another, which eventually led to nothing.
And now Cuba was as distant as Mars, what with her outstanding mechanic’s bill. Maite wished she could get a break just once.
She tried to imagine the jungle and in the sky a yellow moon hanging from the heavens. But then a car honked its horn outside and the parakeet screeched, and the colors of the jungle bled from her feverish mind.
8
ELVIS DECIDED TO tackle the girl’s apartment first, in the company of the Antelope. El Güero wasn’t too pleased to be left behind in the car, waiting for them, but someone had to stay outside and be ready in case they needed to leave in a hurry. Besides, El Güero was too tall and burly and noticeable to sneak with him into the building. And he was sloppier. Elvis needed to get in and get out.
Normally, Elvis would have staked out the apartment building over several days, taking time to learn what the flow of people was like. Since they didn’t have that luxury, he decided to attempt to open the building’s lock as quickly as possible. Luckily, a woman in the company of several children was coming out when Elvis and the Antelope approached the building. Elvis held the door open for her. The woman shot him a tired smile, and both Elvis and the Antelope made it in.
When they reached the door of the girl’s apartment, the Antelope stood to the side, pretending to light a cigarette and blocking people’s view of Elvis from the staircase in case someone walked by. Elvis pried the door open with deft fingers.
Elvis told the Antelope to take the kitchen and the living room, while he surveyed the bathroom and the bedroom. They had an hour for this search mission. More than that might be asking for trouble. It would also be unnecessary, since Elvis held little hope that the camera they needed was inside the apartment. If the girl they were looking for really had disappeared, then she probably had disappeared with the photos El Mago wanted. But there was no harm in being thorough.
Elvis searched under the mattress, in the big dresser and behind it, in the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet, looked inside the water tank, and quickly rummaged through the girl’s clothes. He peered under the sink, making sure she hadn’t taped the camera or film canister to the furniture, like junkies did when they were hiding drugs. He even checked the hem of the curtains. But there were nothing but dust bunnies and a cat hiding under the bed. In the kitchen, the Antelope had gone through the refrigerator and was pulling cans and jars from the cabinets. Elvis noticed someone had been feeding the cat. There was a freshly opened tin set on the floor in the kitchen, by the stove.
“Find anything?” Elvis asked.
“She eats a lot of lentils,” the Antelope said, tossing a bag of them on the floor and popping a stick of bubble gum in his mouth. The Antelope chewed too much bubble gum, and he had the disgusting habit of sticking it under the arms of chairs. At least it was better than El Güero’s habit of leaving his toenail clippings in the sink.
“Nothing in the bedroom either.”
“Fucking boring assignment. You’d think they’d throw us something exciting once in a while.”
“Like what?”
“Something where we got to use guns. I’m fucking good with guns. Hey, did you know Sam Giancana is hiding here?”
“What?”
“Giancana! You know, the fucking mobster. He was in bed with the CIA. He’s hiding in Mexico and I know where. Right smack in the middle of Coyoacán; he works as a taquero. They should have us take him to the Americans. El Mago is real cozy with the Americans, you know? CIA this and CIA that.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“He is so cozy! I’m not lying.”
“I mean you’re bullshitting me about Giancana. You’re always talking shit. You never check anything out, flapping your mouth about whatever those potheads whisper to you,” Elvis said. He wasn’t wrong. A lot of the Antelope’s work consisted of hanging around full-on junkies and hippies who talked about weed all day long, trying to catch whatever rumors he could. Sometimes there was some truth to the rumors, and sometimes it was stories about mobsters who were making tacos de suadero.
The Antelope shrugged. “But if it were true it would be better than this tagging shit we’re doing. I’m damn good at target practice and never get to shoot anyone. Instead, there’s this fucking busywork, which, frankly, should be for bitches. We’re supposed to be elite.”
“It ain’t busywork. And who you gonna shoot?”
“I dunno. Giancana.”
“Giancana, Giancana, like you ever shot anyone.”
“I killed someone.”
“Yeah, like who?”
“Some fucker,” the Antelope muttered. “Problem is when you shoot the wrong fucker you end up like me.”