An hour and eight minutes later Finnegan came from the tavern and once again held open the door for the priest. Hood wondered if the priest knew the little man as Mike Finnegan of L.A. or Father Joe Leftwich of Dublin, Ireland, or Mike Fix, mysterious tourist. Or all or none. Maybe this priest was a fake also, he thought. The two men short and tall walked east down Zaragoza and the unacknowledged novitiates fell in behind them. Hood paid and overtipped and eased off his chair and into the foot traffic on the sidewalk.
The entourage headed east along Zaragoza. Hood could see Mike up ahead on the other side of the street, dodging oncoming walkers, sometimes with one foot on the sidewalk and the other off the curb, his short legs working to keep up with the taller man. He kept looking up at the priest. Talking, talking, talking. The young people plodded along behind, scarcely looking around themselves, as if wearing blinders. Just past a small circle they all bore north on Victimas del 25 de Junio. Hood jaywalked through the thick traffic and fell in fifty feet behind them, with a knot of pedestrians, his hat and shades for cover. He felt the sweaty weight and scrape of his holster and.45 at the small of his back, an uncomfortable comfort.
Finnegan went east again on 16 de septiembre then north on M. Doblado. The street was narrow and the buildings were all two stories high, many of them residences, some of them crumbling away. On the upper floors Hood saw window openings with the glass long gone and tropical trees growing through from the inside. The street palms were skinny and their white insecticidal coats were dirty and thin. The streetlights were layered with flyers. Pigeons lined the paneless window frames, fretting and bobbing and fluttering up and back down.
They turned west at the next corner. Hood took his time approaching, saw no street sign. When he stepped into the old cobblestoned alley he saw Finnegan, a hundred feet away already, holding open an ornate wrought-iron gate. A fandango came through an upstairs window opposite the alley. He smelled baking bread. The priest and the novitiates waited. Hood turned away and set his hands on his hips like a puzzled tourist.
A moment later he crossed the alley. There was a panaderia with big windows and he stood looking in for a while at the loaves and rolls and the marked-down pastries from the day. He turned casually and glanced across the alley: all four people had gone through. The gate was black wrought iron, round at the top to fit the archway. No number. The small courtyard was overgrown with ficus and hibiscus with small yellow blooms. Through the foliage Hood saw the crooked graying limestone steps leading up to a wooden front door. The door was closed.
He walked the alley back the direction he’d come, past M. Doblado. He came to a small cafe called El Canario. It was painted a pale lime green and there were larger-than-life canaries rendered upon the wall in bright yellow. They sat on branches with their beaks raised as if in song. Hood took a sidewalk seat where he could see the gate. He drank an horchata and waited and drank another. The waitress was pretty and smiled at him.
An hour later, just before eight, a black SUV pulled up near the gate. It was new and gleaming and the windows were blacked out and the header growled softly as the engine idled. Hood saw the novitiates step into the alley, followed by the gaunt priest. The girl got in, then the boy, the priest, and Mike. Hood watched the short leg and shiny little shoe pull inside, then the door clunk shut.
Hood ordered a beer and a shrimp cocktail. An hour and a half later he walked back toward his hotel.
For the next two days this pattern repeated: Finnegan and his guests arrived at Taberna Roja in the early evening. They left a little over one hour later and walked back to the alley off of M. Doblado. On the first of these two days Owens Finnegan was with them. She wore loose, unflattering clothes and she stayed close to Mike, holding his arm in a familial way, ignoring the priest and novitiates as if they offended her. On the second day she was gone.
Hood varied his surveillance as best he could and only once did Finnegan appear to look at him at all. This was on Tuesday, the second evening, on Victimas del 25 de Junio. The look was brief and from some distance, and Hood had his hat down low and his sunglasses on. A few minutes later Finnegan and the others went through the gate and Hood sat at El Canario and talked to Josie for one hour, looking past her down the alley with a rudeness he could not avoid. The black SUV arrived at its usual time and Mike and his friends boarded. When it grumbled away down the alley Hood changed from horchata to beer and asked for another shrimp cocktail.
— Josie, do you know a good locksmith?
— I know one who is fast and cheap. I used him a year ago.
The next day when Finnegan and priest entered the Taberna Roja, Hood called Roberto Acuna, the locksmith, and explained that he’d somehow lost his keys and was now locked out of his own home. He said that Josie at El Canario had recommended him highly and he wondered if Roberto was available immediately, because he had an event to attend at the Naval Museum. Hood said he was already a little late. He described the alley off of M. Doblado, which Roberto was familiar with.
Twenty minutes later Roberto opened the gate with a universal key. They stepped into the courtyard and walked past the blooming hibiscus and the ficus and palms and climbed the rock steps. The big battered wooden door to the apartment proved more difficult but after a minute of patient exploration and repetition the door swung open.
Hood stepped inside and saw the hat rack in the foyer and he set his Panama on it with the others. The foyer light was on.
— Thank you. How much?
— Two hundred pesos.
— Here. And a few extra for you.
— Thank you. Do you want a receipt?
— No. I don’t need one.
— Where did you lose the keys?
— If I knew they wouldn’t be lost.
— This is very true! I can cut you new keys in just a few minutes. In case you don’t find the old ones. And if you don’t, perhaps it would be wise to have new locks.
— I have spare keys here at home. And I’m in quite a hurry. The event at the Naval Museum.
Roberto looked past Hood into the apartment. He picked up his toolbox and Hood shook his hand and shut the door and checked his watch: half an hour.
36
He stepped into the main room. The floor tiles were worn and the area rugs were old and the tall windows stood open. Iron grates protected the windows from entry and the heavy faded drapes shifted slightly in the breeze. The ceiling was highand a fan moved slowly. On the walls were paintings, dark and important looking, of naval battles between sailing ships. There was a painting of the Taberna Roja. They were unsigned. An easel stood before one of the windows, a vertical canvas balanced upright. It was an unfinished view of Veracruz through that same window and its grate, with a broad thin swatch of the Gulf of Mexico in the background, and it made Hood feel imprisoned. Double louvered doors opened on a balcony and through the slats he saw the air-conditioning unit and the rain-stained stanchions of the parapet and the wrought-iron spikes arranged in a sunburst pattern to keep intruders out. The room smelled of standing saltwater and rock.
The kitchen was small and neat and sparsely equipped. In the small refrigerator he saw tortillas and fruit juices, eggs and paper-wrapped wares from a carniceria, and an open pack of peanut-butter creme cookies. On the counter was a somewhat dated cordless phone, no answering machine.
The hardwood flooring of the hallway creaked. He looked into a bedroom on the left. It was simply furnished with a twin bed and chest of drawers, a wash basin with a mirror. A world map was tacked to one wall but that was the only decoration. The bed was unmade, with two pillows and the sheets thrown back. A tripod stood in the middle of the room, legs fully extended. There was nothing attached to it. He checked his watch.