He knocked twice and had an excuse at the ready. But nobody answered. He let himself inside. A parakeet, in its cage by the window, stared at him across the dining room. It was only then, looking at the bird, that he felt a bit of apprehension.
He shouldn’t have done this. El Mago had told him he needed to work together with El Güero and the Antelope, but he had headed here on his own, intent on doing the exact opposite, like a stubborn child, his gut burning with humiliation and a quiet rage.
“Fuck it,” he whispered.
Elvis began looking around the apartment, glancing at the pictures on the walls. There was a diploma from a secretarial school showing a young girl in an oval picture. Hair parted in the middle, dark eyes, wide forehead. Nothing much to her.
He’d have to steal a picture of the woman. The others would need a form of visual identification. Maybe there was a photo album somewhere. Photos, photos…He also needed to see if this woman had Leonora’s camera. He found nothing in the bedroom, only a cheap pink vanity with the usual makeup and random items you’d expect atop it, including a little statue of San Judas Tadeo. In the closet there were three suits, two in navy blue and one in gray, the sort of attire a secretary would wear, along with blouses and dresses.
Maite Jaramillo lived alone, and it was a modest living, by the looks of it. One toothbrush in the bathroom, a pair of nylons hanging from the shower rod, a pink bathrobe with a frayed hem dangling from a hook. It was all very ordinary.
The surprise was the room with all the books and the records. It quite impressed him, to be honest, all those shelves filled top to bottom with things to read and listen to. A lot of her music was in English, imported vinyl that cost more than the refritos by local bands. She was a collector.
On the turntable there was a record. Though he knew he shouldn’t, Elvis let the needle drop onto the vinyl. “Blue Velvet” began to play. She had good taste in music, he’d give her that.
He found a stash of comic books, neatly tucked in boxes. He didn’t read comic books and was a bit confused by the titles. Romance stories, that’s what they were. He didn’t even realize anyone printed those. What about her books? Lots of classics with nice bindings, all of them sensible purchases. An encyclopedia, which for some reason was missing the letter H. She also had an Illustrated Larousse. It was even the same edition he owned. He smiled, looking at the familiar cover, and then, remembering El Mago’s taunt about the word of the day, felt like hurling it out the window.
He didn’t dare. Gently, he returned the thick dictionary to the shelf.
Then he saw it, at eye level, the album. “Family Memories” was emblazoned in big, bold letters on the spine. He opened it and flipped through the pictures. It was like looking at those sped-up movies of flowers opening: a baby, a girl, a teenager, and then finally a woman. Maite Jaramillo, this was what she looked like now, with her hair still parted in the middle. Elvis grabbed one of the more recent photos and stuffed it in his pocket.
The cover of “Blue Velvet” the woman owned was really quite nice, and he played it again; he wanted to smoke a cigarette while he listened to it. But she might notice the scent of it. He wondered if the woman ever smoked and if she spent a lot of time in this room. It was dark, a burrow, even if the blinds were open.
He looked at the kitchen and the dining room. He was quick, though it was as pointless as the search inside Leonora’s apartment had been. No camera, no film, and nothing that resembled communist literature in the least. If this woman was a pinko, she hid it well. But he doubted it. As far as he could tell, this was a nobody. He would have been tempted to think El Mago had asked him to look into her as a joke, but El Mago didn’t joke with this shit.
Well, then he’d have to put a tail on her. The Antelope and El Güero would have to manage that, since he needed to see about La Habana.
As soon as he reached the street, Elvis lit another cigarette. He thought about what El Mago had said, pictured roosters with silver spurs.
11
SHE GOT UP for work earlier than usual and phoned Emilio Lomelí as soon as she reached her office. Instead of speaking to a secretary, she was connected to an answering service. This threw Maite off. She had been ready for a slightly different scenario, but managed to blurt out her message and left both her home phone number and her office number, explaining at what times she might be reached at each location.
As morning turned to noon, she found herself trapped behind her desk. She didn’t want to go to lunch for fear the phone would ring and she wouldn’t be there to answer it. Diana asked if she wanted to get a torta, but Maite shook her head no, and soon all the secretaries had streamed out of the building, eager for the chance to grab a bite or smoke a cigarette in peace.
Maite was hungry and thirsty. It was too warm inside—the tall windows regularly turned the office into a greenhouse—and they weren’t allowed to open the windows because of the rumble of traffic. What she wouldn’t give for an office with air conditioning. The lawyers had ceiling fans, but the secretaries were not awarded such a luxury. Maybe it would rain later and that would cool down the city and chill the building.
She pictured the ride back home, the crushing pressure of bodies against her own and the simmering heat of those bodies pressed together; the suffocating stench of the passengers. She wanted her car back, but she couldn’t even think of showing her face at the mechanic. He’d start phoning soon, she thought. He’d start asking what the hell was taking so long with her bill this time around.
She didn’t want to think about that. Better to think about Emilio Lomelí, about the possibility of a meeting with him.
Maite brushed a strand of hair back into place and took out a compact from her purse, examining herself in the mirror. There were lines under her eyes, but then they’d been there for a long time. Worry lines, sadness lines. She touched her neck; at least it was still smooth. She hated the wrinkled necks of old women: they looked like turkeys. She pictured herself ten, twenty years older. The thought depressed her.
“Excuse me, you’re Maite Jaramillo, aren’t you?”
She looked up at the man. She hadn’t noticed him approaching her desk, and he caught her by surprise. “How do you know?”
“It says so right there on your desk.”
Maite glanced at the little plaque with her name. She sighed and snapped her compact shut.
The man standing before her desk wasn’t dressed like a lawyer or bureaucrat. You could always tell which one was which, the bureaucrats with their ugly ties and cheap-smelling colognes that boasted scents such as “English Leather,” the more well-to-do lawyers recognizable by their imported cigarettes. This guy had a gray jacket and a striped dress shirt. He looked older than her by some ten years, though maybe it was the mustache that aged him.