This fortuitous development has given Guillermo more time to decide what he wants to do. The greater the time between the murder and the start of the investigation, the better for him to develop his new identity. He may be the only person to know that the dead man is Boris Santiago, the ringleader of the Zeta gang in Guatemala and owner of the pink McMansion at the top of the hill. Guillermo wonders why Boris’s family has not stepped forward to claim the body, but then deduces that he probably shipped them to Miami Beach long ago, or they’re hiding out in a hacienda in Zacatecas, Mexico. Whatever the reason, the longer it takes to identify the body, the better.
Guillermo puts the paper down on his lap and lets his mind wander. Clearly there’s no rush within the cartel to file a missing-person’s report given that knowledge of Boris’s death will probably start a civil war among his lieutenants. The narco capo has to have a full staff working in his house, a chauffeur or two, half a dozen bodyguards, but maybe they have been instructed by Capo Number Two to remain silent if he were to ever go missing. Or perhaps Number Two himself is responsible for the assassination.
In any case, criminals like to clean up their own messes with their own brand of justice. Or maybe a fake Boris was killed and the real Boris Santiago is on a secret helicopter mission, care of the Guatemalan military, to the Petén, where he can oversee another shipment of cocaine through Guatemala to the United States. It’s plausible that someone masquerading as Boris has had his face shot off while going for a bike ride. These bullet heads are always conniving and scheming, and they don’t want weak-kneed staff filing a missing-person’s report every time the head honcho disappears to Miami to arrange another shipment or to cavort privately with his dozen whores.
So the reporter can only conclude that a poor fucker going out for a Sunday bike ride has been killed: a typically vicious crime in Guatebalas that will produce no guilty party for now and forever more.
* * *
On Tuesday morning Guillermo buys La Prensa Gráfica again and sits down on another park bench, this time across from the cathedral. The front-page headline shows the same picture from Monday, but it’s half the size as the day before. The caption reads, “Sospechado narco-traficante mexicano asesinado en frente de su casa”(“Suspected Mexican Drug Dealer Murdered in Front of His House”).Below the headline, the boldfaced type declares that the dead cyclist is, in fact, Boris Santiago, the alleged leader of the Guatemalan Zetas cartel. He was shot from less than twenty feet with five or six bullets from a Beretta 92, blowing the features off his face. The article speculates that Santiago has been killed by a rival gang rather than by unhappy members of his own mob. The reporter goes on to posit that Santiago may have been killed by a secret paramilitary force within the Guatemalan army fed up with the Mexican domination of the drug trade.
There’s a second, shorter article on the bottom of the front page. It states that the Guatemalan military has been tasked by the president with carrying out the investigation and reporting its findings to him and the Congress. An anonymous congressman claims that an elite squad within the army might be behind the assassination — Israeli Mossad style — but wouldn’t claim credit for the killing in a hundred years. “Everyone is free to speculate,” says the congressman, who refuses to give his name, knowing that Boris’s killer will never face justice and he himself could be killed for his speculation. “We may never know what happened. After all, 97 percent of the murders in Guatemala go unsolved.”
Guillermo sits back against the park bench. He’s surprised that his planned suicide has brought about such unexpected results. There’s no mention of him anywhere in the newspaper, certainly nothing about the release of the DVD. He realizes that Miguel will not release the recording now that Boris has been murdered and Guillermo has gone missing. For all he knows, Miguel might be thinking he has been kidnapped by the same assassin who killed the drug dealer, or that he had a bout of nerves and simply decided not to go through with it. Unless he resurfaces or is discovered, Miguel will most likely say nothing publicly, and will put all his resources into finding him.
Guillermo has to lay low to escape detection. For the first time in weeks, he feels true relief — the sensation that he is not required to do anything for anyone. He’s not despondent, he is not angry, he’s no longer consumed by the deaths of Ibrahim and Maryam. The rage has turned into a loss that is quiet, private, and constant — one that is part of him and colors his changing view of the world. He feels fortunate to have been given the opportunity to vanish into thin air. The only regret he feels is over his children and what they might think when they fail to hear from him, and eventually get the news that he cannot be found, or is presumed dead.
* * *
For the next three mornings Guillermo follows the same ritual of eating breakfast in the pensión at eight thirty and then going down to a park bench to read La Prensa Gráfica. He turns the pages each day expecting some new revelation about Boris Santiago’s murder. Each succeeding edition of the newspaper has an article about the murder, shorter than the last, full of conjectures about who might have wanted the drug kingpin dead. And then on Friday there appears a larger “weekend” article claiming that an autopsy has shown the dealer was killed by the second shot to the face, and that fingerprints and dental records have certified the victim’s identity beyond a doubt. As he is about to close the paper, he finds on the next-to-last page, in a section of Central American news briefs, a headline that mentions his name. His hands start shaking as he reads, “Guillermo Rosensweig, Guatemalan Lawyer, Missing.”
Guillermo reads on. Braulio Perdomo, his bodyguard and chauffeur, has reported him “disappeared” going on the third day, when in fact he has been gone now for five. This report is confirmed by his secretary Luisa Ortega, though Guillermo had furloughed her two weeks ago. The article says that his ex-wife Rosa Esther has no comment about his disappearance, but is concerned for his safety. The unnamed reporter claims there’s no evidence of foul play because no ransom note has appeared. Perdomo testified that his boss was not depressed, so the police won’t presume that he disappeared on his own. Miguel Paredes, a friend, contradicts the chauffeur — Miguel’s own employee — by claiming that Rosensweig was still despondent over the brutal deaths of his client Ibrahim Khalil and his daughter Maryam Mounier outside Khalil’s factory near Calzada Roosevelt the month before. The reporter mentions that the lawyer’s valid passport was in his top drawer, implying he hasn’t run away. The article ends with a police request that if anyone has any information regarding Guillermo Rosensweig’s whereabouts, to please contact them immediately.
Guillermo stares out across the square to the cathedral. The morning sun is hot, making his face sweat. He is surprised by these developments, the fact that no one wants to presume anything. It’s odd that no one has noticed that the missing lawyer and dead drug dealer live in the same community, blocks apart. The fact that both disappearances happened at about the same time has not been mentioned. He wonders if he should call Rosa Esther and tell her that he’s alive to calm the children, but he immediately nixes the idea: the less she knows, the better for him. Her telephone might be tapped. He also cannot rely on her silence, and he needs time to plan his next move, whatever it might be.
He’s surprised, however, by the lack of curiosity of both the police and the press. It seems to him that they accept everything as it is, at face value. Why not investigate further? There might be a connection between the murder and the disappearance, he conjectures, as if he were a detective assigned to the case. Why did it take Perdomo and Paredes so many days to report his disappearance, and why did they contradict one another?