“Whatever you say, gorgeous,” Rosita grinned, and simpered to Felix, “He’s my man. We’re crazy about each other. That’s why I can understand how you feel. The woman they killed led you down the dark alley of grief, didn’t she?”
Emiliano pinched Rosita’s exposed thigh.
“Owww!”
“And pick the shells out of your stockings; it’ll be like getting in bed with a cactus. There’s always something caught in your bloody stockings.”
“Then why do you ask me to leave them on when we go to bed?” mooed Rosita.
Felix was insistent. “What did you start to tell me?”
“The doorman swears no one suspicious went in or came out, only registered guests.”
“Can you trust him?”
“He’s been a doorman all his life. He’s not too bright, but he’s worked there nine years and no complaints.”
“Years at his job, and old, he can be bought. Look into it.”
“Right. He told me no one asked for Señorita Klein and no one sent her any messages or packages. Nothing.”
“What was going on outside?”
“What’s always going on in the Zona Rosa? Some kids in a convertible, pretty stoned, stopped in front of the hotel with some mariachis. A serenade, they said, for some lady tourist who didn’t want to leave Mexico without being serenaded. The cops moved them right along. And a nun who asked the doorman if he’d donate something to some charity. That’s the only thing out of the ordinary, a nun out alone at midnight. He didn’t give her anything, and she left.”
“How did he know she was a nun?”
“You know, the hair pulled back in a bun, zero makeup, all in black down to her ankles, a rosary in her hands. The usual bit.”
“Were the serenaders and the nun there at the same time?”
“Umm, that I don’t know.”
“Find out, and report to the captain.”
“Okay, Batman.”
“Are you sure that Bernstein didn’t enter the hotel sometime, or wasn’t registered in advance?”
“The maestro? No way. He’s been in the hospital with a gunshot wound in the shoulder. That night he was in the English Hospital, and never budged from there.”
“Where is he now?”
“That we do know. In Coatzacoalcos, Hotel Tropicana.”
“Why did he go there?”
“What I was just saying, to recover from the shot.”
“Why didn’t it come out?”
“What, man?”
“Anything about Bernstein’s wound.”
“Why would anything come out, and where?”
“In the newspapers. He was shot at the Palace.”
“No, no. It was an accident, in his home. No reason for it to be in the newspapers. He said he shot himself accidentally, cleaning a pistol. That’s what the hospital admission record shows, too.”
“And not at the Palace the morning they awarded the National Prizes? Wasn’t there an attempt on the President’s life?”
Emiliano and Rosita stared at each other, and the boy reached for Felix’s beer and drained it at a gulp. He stared at Felix, baffled. “Sorry, man. Hit me with that again. What attempt?”
“I thought someone tried to kill the President in the Palace,” Felix explained patiently, “and that Bernstein was shot by mistake…”
“Jeez, are you stoned or something?” said Rosita.
“Shut up,” said Emiliano. “No, not true. What made you think that?”
“Because I thought I’d fired the shot.” A cold chill settled in the nape of Felix’s neck.
“We didn’t hear anything about that,” said Emiliano, a flicker of fear in his eyes. “And nothing was in the papers, and the captain didn’t know about it.”
Felix clasped the boy’s hand, and squeezed it.
“What did happen in the Palace, I was there…”
“Cool, brother, keep your cool, those’re the instructions … You were there and you don’t remember what happened?”
“No. Tell the captain what I’ve told you. It’s important for him to know. Tell him that one side knows and tells things the other side doesn’t know, and vice versa.”
“Everyone in this whole affair’s been lying. Cap knows that.”
“All right,” Felix said, more calmly. “Tell him to find out two things for me. I can’t make it if I don’t find out.”
“Don’t get excited. That’s what we’re here for.”
“First. Who was jailed under my name in Military Camp Number One on August 10 and shot that same night while trying to escape? Second. Who’s buried in my name in the Jardín Cemetery? Oh, and the license number of the serenades’ convertible.”
“Okay. The cap says don’t leave any tracks, and keep it cool, and he says most of all that he understands but you shouldn’t let your personal feelings get in the way. That’s what he said.”
“And you remind him he gave me carte blanche to do whatever I think best.”
“I’ll tell him, man, fancy words and all.”
“Tell him not to mistake anything I do for any motives of personal revenge.”
Emiliano smiled, satisfied. “Cap says all roads lead to Rome. You get cultivated, being around him.”
“See you later.”
“Alligator.”
“Take care,” said Rosita, making sheep’s eyes. “Maybe you’ll invite us for another taxi ride. I liked sitting on your lap.”
“I liked fooling around with the nurse,” countered Emiliano.
“How can you be so mean, Emiliano?” whined Rosita.
“I wasn’t being mean, fatass, just reminding you that two can dance that tango.”
“Whew, aren’t we rough tonight?” laughed Rosita, and hummed the first bars of the bolero “Perfidia.”
They didn’t even turn to look at Felix, and as he left the imitation pub, they were still arguing and making barbed jokes, as anonymous as any run-of-the-mill sweethearts. Felix told himself that brave Timon had gathered about him some very strange aides.
He stopped at the Red Cross Clinic on the Avenida Chapultepec to have them take a look at his face. They told him it was healing fine—“Who cut you up like that?”—and that all he needed was some ointment; rub it in and continue the treatment for several days.
He bought the ointment at a pharmacy and returned to the room on Génova. It was almost eleven and the young and oily desk clerks had gone off duty. The doorman opened the door, a somnambulist-faced, ancient Indian in a navy-blue suit shiny from wear.
The windows of the room were opened wide, and the bed was turned down, with a wrapped little chocolate on the pillow. He opened his suitcase. The package containing the ashes was still there, but the record with Satchmo on the jacket had disappeared.
25
FELIX LANDED at the airport of Coatzacoalcos at four in the afternoon. From the air, he had seen the expanse of the Petróleos Mexicanos refineries in Minatitlán, the stormy Gulf in the background, the industrial citadel inland, a modern fortress of towers and tubing and cupolas glinting like tinfoil toys beneath a storm-sated sun, the busy port with its railroad tracks extending onto the docks, and long, black, sleek-decked tankers.
As he descended from the plane, he breathed the hot humid air laden with the scent of laurel and vanilla. He removed his jacket and hailed a broken-down taxi. Swift glimpses of coconut-palm forests, zebu cattle grazing on brick-colored plains, and the Gulf of Mexico whipping up its early-evening thundershower yielded to a view of a port city with low, ugly buildings, their windows blasted out by hurricanes, and dirty neon signs, unlighted at this hour, a whole consumer society installed in the tropics, supermarkets, television-sale and — repair shops, and in the foreground the everlasting Mexican world of tacos, pigs, flies, and naked children in mute contemplation.