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Chapter 50
The sun was still out and shining brightly as I walked back to the hotel. The bad weather seemed to be over, at least for today.
Nobody out on the streets wearing a gun either, I thought to myself, reflecting on the apparent inappropriateness of my question. Perhaps the pistoleros weren't quite as visible as Bernardino had suggested, but I did wonder how Jaime could be so completely unaware of their existence. Perhaps he didn't want to know. For all his sophistication, there was a certain naïveté about Jaime, and I guessed that being a scion of a wealthy family, he probably lived in a sheltered world where he was out of touch with the day-to-day violence around him.
I thought of all the things I wanted to tell Chayo. For three weeks I'd been trying to phone her, and although I'd occasionally gotten through to her cousin and her aunt, I still hadn't talked with Chayo herself. Maybe this time would be different. This was an incredible day on which everything seemed to be going my way.
Our hotel was only a few blocks from the restaurant. The desk clerk let me use the phone. I rang the number, and, seconds later, I was talking with Chayo.
"¡Olaf! ¿Cómo estás?"
"¡Chayo!"
"Sí, soy yo," she laughed, sounding happy to hear my voice. She told me she'd gotten my messages, letters and postcards.
It was an incredible feeling to be talking to her again.
"Is that Cuauhtémoc I hear?" she asked. The bird was clucking excitedly, apparently having recognized Chayo's voice on the phone.
"It is," I said. "He misses you."
"Hello, Cuauhtémoc," she said, and the bird responded with even more fervent clucking.
"So, where are you calling from?" she asked, with a sudden change in her voice. When I told her, there was a brief silence. Then she asked if everything were okay.
"Things couldn't be better," I said, and started to tell her about our being in the paper, but before I'd hardly said two words, she cut in. There was an urgency in her tone.
"Olaf! Listen! I'm going down to Apatzingán to meet you."
"You are?" I was delighted.
"I'll be there in about two hours." Her voice sounded serious. "Now this is important. Don't leave the hotel. Stay where you are. I'll----"
"Yes? Hello? Hello?"
The receiver had gone dead. I tried phoning again, but no results. I turned to the desk clerk for assistance.
"No sirve," the clerk said, and explained that the phone lines had been damaged during the storm and were still functioning intermittently.
It didn't really matter, I decided. Chayo would be here soon. But there seemed to have been something of extraordinary concern in her voice, and I wondered what it might be. Well, I'd find out soon enough. She'd tell me when she arrived. I just hoped she'd get here before I had to leave for the meeting with Jaime and his father. But if she didn't, I'd just have to leave a message for her. Despite what she'd said about not leaving the hotel, she obviously wouldn't want me to miss something as important as that meeting.
MacClayne was in our room. "Guess what!" I said to him as I walked in the door. "I finally got through to Chayo!"
"You did?"
"And she's coming down here to meet us. She'll be here in a couple hours. And I may have a job, looking at a mine! I also went to the newspaper office." I had so much to tell that I wasn't sure what to say first.
I took a deep breath and began at the beginning, with what I'd learned in the newspaper office, summing it up as briefly as I could. MacClayne listened attentively, raising his eyebrows now and then as I ran through my account.
"You've been doing some good detective work," he said after I'd come to a stopping place.
"I guess I have, haven't I. The reporter had most of the information, and I added a couple of key elements."
"Do you think there's much chance of bringing that guy to justice?"
"That could be difficult," I said. "But I sure would like to find a way."
"I'm sure that someday you will," he said in an encouraging tone of voice that made me feel good. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you," he added. "There was someone here looking for you--I have his name written down here somewhere." He reached for a slip of paper.
"Jaime Salinas? Yes, I met him. And you know what?" I could hardly contain my excitement as I told him about the mine.
MacClayne sat there beaming as he listened. There were times like this when he seemed to fully share the enjoyment of my good fortune, and I silently forgave him for all the bad moments he'd given me.
I was trying to think of something eloquent and appropriate to sum up the events of this day, but just then MacClayne moved his leg, and I saw it--a bottle of tequila, sitting on the floor. No wonder he was so mellow right now! I quickly averted my gaze, pretending I hadn't seen it.
Then it suddenly struck me--would he be drunk when Chayo got here? This was going to be awful!
"MacClayne, this is really important. Chayo's coming, and ..."
"I'll put it away," he said and picked up the bottle, twisted the cap tightly as though to fully assure me that it was going to stay closed. Then he set the bottle on a shelf, in plain view but clearly out of the picture.
"Thank you," I said, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
"So she'll be here in a couple hours?"
"Something like that," I said. "And here's another thing. She probably won't get here before I leave for the meeting with Jaime and his father. I'm going to try to be back fairly soon."
"I'll tell her where you went."
There was still plenty of time, so I sat down to write a message for Chayo. Though I'd only intended it to be a line or two, I soon found myself writing of my fortuitous meeting with Jaime Salinas, and of my visit to the newspaper office. I got carried away and even told of my discovery of the identity of her father's killer, Julio Pérez, and that he reportedly hung out at the Verde Rosal.
I sat there for a moment debating over whether I should be mentioning Julio Pérez. Would she really want to hear about him? I shouldn't have written that. Moreover, it seemed kind of silly to be writing a three page letter to a person I was going to be seeing this same day. Maybe I should just tear it up? Finally, despite my misgivings, I decided to just leave it the way it was.
MacClayne was writing something too, probably a poem. I was glad he'd hidden the bottle, and that I'd noticed it in the first place. I didn't want her to think our expedition had been a three-week binge.
"Here's my note for Chayo," I said to him and put it on the table.
"I'll give it to her," he said and went on with his writing.
It was still only about four o'clock. I took my journal and began recording the events of the day. There was a lot to write about, and I was still at it an hour later when the desk clerk knocked on the door and told me I had a visitor.
Taking the bird on my arm, I went to the office, hoping it would be Chayo, that she'd gotten here ahead of the driver sent by Jaime. If it was her, I'd ask her to go with. After all, this was to be a rather informal meeting; even my bird was invited.
It was Jaime's driver, a fellow about my age. I would have guessed that he was a ranch hand, except that he wore a rather expensive-looking jacket. There was a mean look in his eye, and the desk clerk seemed tense and uncomfortable in his presence.
"¿Olaf?" the driver asked.
"Sí. ¿Y Usted?"
"Vámonos," he said without responding to my question, and motioned with his hand for me to follow.
I just stood where I was, and repeated my question, "¿Usted quién es?"
"Tu chofer," he replied curtly. "They're waiting."
The guy had no manners at all, and I couldn't imagine Jaime sending such a driver. But maybe it was beyond Jaime's control; employers are always grumbling that they can't get good help anymore. Not knowing what else to do, I followed the driver to the pickup which was parked in front.
We got in and the driver jammed his foot on the pedal, scattering gravel right and left. Cuauhtémoc sat on my lap, glaring angrily at our chauffeur. Well, I was feeling uncomfortable myself, and I wasn't sure it was a good idea to be bringing the bird with. But I'd promised Jaime; moreover, it didn't seem wise to leave two alcoholics together in the same hotel room with a bottle of booze.
Apatzingán wasn't large, and suddenly we were out in the open fields. It was only a few minutes before we arrived at our destination.
The driver motioned for me to go inside. Though I understood well enough what he meant, I was irritated by his coarse manners. I just looked at him, shook my head and said, "No entiendo."
"Allí adentro," he snapped impatiently and told me they were waiting for me inside.
At least he'd properly addressed me as usted. "Gracias," I said with deliberate brusqueness, and got out of the pickup. If I took the job I'd make sure that this guy wasn't going to be my driver. The bird sat on my arm and glared at him as he drove off.
Presumably this was a restaurant, but the corrugated metal roof hardly gave it a look of great elegance. It was, in all, an ugly concrete building.
Inside were several tables. The chairs were metal and covered with torn plastic. Along one side of the room was a bar where a woman was dusting shelves and bottles. She was the only other person in the room. She wasn't bad looking, but there was something repulsive about her, I thought, appropriate to the place.
"Buenas tardes," I said. She just looked at me with a blank stare. I asked her if Jaime Salinas were here.
"Orita viene," she replied, and went back to dusting shelves.
The rose-colored walls around the room were plastered with a dozen or more old calendars, movie posters and prints. Some were of popular singers, others advertised beer, and among them was a print of the ubiquitous Virgin of Guadalupe. Like most of the others, it was faded, dusty, and torn.
At one end was an faded mural, a garden scene. The principal color in the painting was an unpleasant shade of green, in different intensities. The bushes were green and everything else in the painting was the same awful green, except for the flowers--they were a garish red, not faded at all. The flowers must've been repainted rather recently, by a hand even less professional than the one that had done the rest of the scene.
A strange place to bring somebody for a meeting, I thought. Moreover, it didn't seem at all like Jaime's style. None of this did. There had to be some mistake. The barmaid had just told me he'd be here soon, but she might've just said that without even knowing who Jaime was.
I went back to the bar to verify that Jaime Salinas was definitely coming.
"You're Olaf, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes."
"Jaime left a message for you, saying that he might be late, but he'll be here to meet you."
Since she knew my name, the message certainly seemed to be for me and this must be the place. But I wondered how this could be. "Does Jaime Salinas normally meet people here?" I asked.
"¿Quien sabe?" She shrugged her shoulders.
That was a strange reply, I thought, but I clearly wasn't going to get much information out of this woman.
There was man sitting by a table at the far end of the otherwise empty room. I hadn't noticed him till now. He wore battledress with officer's insignia, and in one hand was his ever-present swagger cane. He was gazing at me with that same melancholy expression as on our last encounter.
'Major Benson!' I gasped silently, under my breath. Why did I keep seeing this man who'd been dead for thirty years? Why?
Cuauhtémoc was also looking towards the major. Did my bird see him too?
I blinked my eyes to recover my senses and turned to glance around the room again--the empty chairs and tables, the poster-covered walls, and the glasses lined up on shelves behind the bar. My eye returned to the faded green mural with the garish red flowers. It was a garden of rosebushes. Rosebushes. I hadn't noticed that before. For a moment I stood there gazing at the mural, and as I did so, a phrase came to mind--el verde rosal.
Could that be the name of this bar? Impossible! How ridiculous, I told myself, and, at the same time, verses of the ballad sang through my head:
Llegaron a la cantina
pero él no sabía
que lo iban a traicionar
le dieron tres puñaladas
al pie de un verde rosal.
They came to the cantina--a trap. They stabbed him three times at the foot of a green rose bush.
I swung around, turning back to the table where Major Benson had been sitting only a moment before. He was gone. An eerie calm of impending disaster took hold of me, and I knew that something awful was about to happen if we didn't get out of here right this very minute. The bird must have sensed it too; he bounced up from my arm and onto my shoulder to have a better command of the situation. In that instant the door banged open and three men entered.
The first man through the door was heavyset, balding on top with wispy black hair on the sides and a three-day beard. He had a fearsome look, and peered at me with the cold, competent eyes of a professional killer. Slightly behind him was the guy I'd met near Huahua, the one who'd wanted my bird.
Then I saw the last of the trio, and I recognized him as none other than Juan Diosdado, who shouted in an exultant voice:
"¡You asked for Julio Pérez! ¡ Say hello to him!" Diosdado laughed, in that peculiar laugh of his that sounded like a demented cackle. Recovering from his hilarity, he announced, "Olaf, my associates are going to beat the shit out of you. But first, you can watch while we wring the neck of your rooster." Another spurt of Diosdado's laughter followed. His pistolero companions gave him a contemptuous glance.
Julio Pérez? The Julio Pérez? I gasped. His appearance was so totally unexpected that I had no time to become afraid. I was at the same moment amazed that Juan Diosdado could be so obsessed with his vendetta against Cuauhtémoc. Was this why Jaime had asked me to bring my bird? Diosdado had obviously put some thought into setting this up.
"Grab the rooster," Diosdado commanded, but the one called Pérez snarled back at him, "We're doing this. You shut the fuck up."
The pistoleros were between me and the door, blocking any escape. They took their time moving towards me, apparently relishing the experience. I stood there transfixed, but Cuauhtémoc fluffed out his warrior plumage and raised his hackles, as though to say, 'We'll take these guys on!' My poor little bird, but his courage was inspiring, and I felt a slight reprieve from the sinking sensation that had engulfed me a moment before.
"Listen up!"--a phantom voice with a heavy Norse accent rang through my head. It was my Uncle Rolf --"See the pistol that one wears in his belt. No! Don't look at it. Just see it. The pistol."
In Julio Pérez's belt holster was a U.S. Army Colt .45--a Model 1911, just like the one my uncle had taught me to use. Pérez wore it crosswise, on his left side with the handle facing me.
"Don't look at it. Just see it." My uncle's voice was cool and easy, just as it always had been, and I felt as if he were standing here with me. The thickset, baldheaded monster before me no longer appeared quite so invincible.
Julio Pérez took a step towards me and narrowed his eyes. "You've been asking about me," he said. "What do you want to know?"
Words failed me, and so did my voice. The pistolero smirked and took another couple of steps closer, bringing him within arm's length of me. "I asked you what you wanted to know about me," he said.
I somehow croaked out the words. "Do you remember don Pánfilo?"
"The rancher from Uruapan? About ten years back?" A broad grin spread over the thug's face. "I killed him," he said, and began chuckling.
At that instant, Cuauhtémoc bounded from my shoulder onto the man's bald head, where he sank in with claws, spurs and beak. Pérez reacted with horrified surprise, and, taking advantage of his confusion, I grabbed for his pistol. My hand was on it, grasping it, but it wouldn't come out of the holster. A leather strap held it in. I kept pulling.
Pérez was cursing and reaching for the bird, but Cuauhtémoc had already flown out of his reach. As I tugged at the gun, I glimpsed Cuauhtémoc engaging the other pistolero, jabbing him in the leg.
Suddenly I had it! The pistol was in my hand, free and clear of the holster! With my thumb I flicked off the safety and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I needed to chamber another round, but Pérez was gripping my left arm. I struggled to get my left hand free so I could work the slide.
Shots rang out--the other gunman was firing at Cuauhtémoc, who dove between Diosdado's legs, followed by a hail of bullets that ricocheted off the floor and walls and whizzed around the room. The din echoed and reechoed. Glassware shattered. Diosdado was howling that he'd been shot in the foot.
A stunning punch from Julio Pérez sent me reeling. I staggered backwards, knocking over a table, but I still had the pistol in my right hand and now my left was also free again. I pulled the slide back to chamber a round, pointed at Pérez and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud report and a sharp recoil. I pointed again and fired, and again and again. Pérez was too big and too close to miss. The bullets tore into his body, and he crumpled to the floor like a curtain.
Now I was face to face with the other pistolero. We both fired. I saw the flash of his muzzle, but my own shot must've missed. I fired again, and this time blood erupted from my adversary's neck.
The room had not been recently painted, but with the blood of this bad guy, the wall got a fresh coat.
Diosdado was dragging himself towards the door, and I pointed my pistol at him, but held my fire for fear of hitting Cuauhtémoc, who was slashing him with beak and spurs. Scratched, bloodied and shot in the foot--the same foot he'd once slammed into the wall--Juan Diosdado took his leave, outdone once again by the bird.
Suddenly it was all over, and, except for the ringing in my ears, stillness reigned once more. Only the acrid smoke remained. The silence seemed to reverberate throughout the room as though following in the wake of a huge bell that had ceased to toll.
Then I realized that I wasn't standing any more. I seemed to be hovering up near the ceiling, looking down on the scene. There were three bodies on the floor below me, lying in pools of blood. I recognized Julio Pérez. Also his nameless companion, the one who'd tried to take my bird from me at Huahua. But the third body? At first I couldn't make out who it might be, or perhaps I didn't want to. Then I knew it was me. The pistol was still in my hand.
There remained one thing for me to do. I looked down upon the body of Julio Pérez. A loose cord circled his neck. An amulet was attached to it. I reached down a long, ghostly arm and grabbed the amulet, slipping it free from the restraining cord.
Cuauhtémoc strutted slowly across the room, inspecting the bullet-riddled remains of the two bad guys. The bird looked at each in turn, and gave each a sharp victorious jab.
A moment later the bird was clutching the arm of my body on the floor. I could almost hear him say, "Come on, Olaf, get up!" But I seemed unable to return to my body.
From above I looked down and saw this. "I'm up here!" I wanted to say to him. But I seemed to have lost my voice. Then the bird raised his head and looked up at where I was. Our eyes met.
"Triumfamos, tu y yo," I said voicelessly, and the bird fluttered his feathers in response.
But before I could say more, I had somehow passed through the ceiling and was floating above the street outside.
continued in Chapter 51
Nobody out on the streets wearing a gun either, I thought to myself, reflecting on the apparent inappropriateness of my question. Perhaps the pistoleros weren't quite as visible as Bernardino had suggested, but I did wonder how Jaime could be so completely unaware of their existence. Perhaps he didn't want to know. For all his sophistication, there was a certain naïveté about Jaime, and I guessed that being a scion of a wealthy family, he probably lived in a sheltered world where he was out of touch with the day-to-day violence around him.
I thought of all the things I wanted to tell Chayo. For three weeks I'd been trying to phone her, and although I'd occasionally gotten through to her cousin and her aunt, I still hadn't talked with Chayo herself. Maybe this time would be different. This was an incredible day on which everything seemed to be going my way.
Our hotel was only a few blocks from the restaurant. The desk clerk let me use the phone. I rang the number, and, seconds later, I was talking with Chayo.
"¡Olaf! ¿Cómo estás?"
"¡Chayo!"
"Sí, soy yo," she laughed, sounding happy to hear my voice. She told me she'd gotten my messages, letters and postcards.
It was an incredible feeling to be talking to her again.
"Is that Cuauhtémoc I hear?" she asked. The bird was clucking excitedly, apparently having recognized Chayo's voice on the phone.
"It is," I said. "He misses you."
"Hello, Cuauhtémoc," she said, and the bird responded with even more fervent clucking.
"So, where are you calling from?" she asked, with a sudden change in her voice. When I told her, there was a brief silence. Then she asked if everything were okay.
"Things couldn't be better," I said, and started to tell her about our being in the paper, but before I'd hardly said two words, she cut in. There was an urgency in her tone.
"Olaf! Listen! I'm going down to Apatzingán to meet you."
"You are?" I was delighted.
"I'll be there in about two hours." Her voice sounded serious. "Now this is important. Don't leave the hotel. Stay where you are. I'll----"
"Yes? Hello? Hello?"
The receiver had gone dead. I tried phoning again, but no results. I turned to the desk clerk for assistance.
"No sirve," the clerk said, and explained that the phone lines had been damaged during the storm and were still functioning intermittently.
It didn't really matter, I decided. Chayo would be here soon. But there seemed to have been something of extraordinary concern in her voice, and I wondered what it might be. Well, I'd find out soon enough. She'd tell me when she arrived. I just hoped she'd get here before I had to leave for the meeting with Jaime and his father. But if she didn't, I'd just have to leave a message for her. Despite what she'd said about not leaving the hotel, she obviously wouldn't want me to miss something as important as that meeting.
MacClayne was in our room. "Guess what!" I said to him as I walked in the door. "I finally got through to Chayo!"
"You did?"
"And she's coming down here to meet us. She'll be here in a couple hours. And I may have a job, looking at a mine! I also went to the newspaper office." I had so much to tell that I wasn't sure what to say first.
I took a deep breath and began at the beginning, with what I'd learned in the newspaper office, summing it up as briefly as I could. MacClayne listened attentively, raising his eyebrows now and then as I ran through my account.
"You've been doing some good detective work," he said after I'd come to a stopping place.
"I guess I have, haven't I. The reporter had most of the information, and I added a couple of key elements."
"Do you think there's much chance of bringing that guy to justice?"
"That could be difficult," I said. "But I sure would like to find a way."
"I'm sure that someday you will," he said in an encouraging tone of voice that made me feel good. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you," he added. "There was someone here looking for you--I have his name written down here somewhere." He reached for a slip of paper.
"Jaime Salinas? Yes, I met him. And you know what?" I could hardly contain my excitement as I told him about the mine.
MacClayne sat there beaming as he listened. There were times like this when he seemed to fully share the enjoyment of my good fortune, and I silently forgave him for all the bad moments he'd given me.
I was trying to think of something eloquent and appropriate to sum up the events of this day, but just then MacClayne moved his leg, and I saw it--a bottle of tequila, sitting on the floor. No wonder he was so mellow right now! I quickly averted my gaze, pretending I hadn't seen it.
Then it suddenly struck me--would he be drunk when Chayo got here? This was going to be awful!
"MacClayne, this is really important. Chayo's coming, and ..."
"I'll put it away," he said and picked up the bottle, twisted the cap tightly as though to fully assure me that it was going to stay closed. Then he set the bottle on a shelf, in plain view but clearly out of the picture.
"Thank you," I said, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
"So she'll be here in a couple hours?"
"Something like that," I said. "And here's another thing. She probably won't get here before I leave for the meeting with Jaime and his father. I'm going to try to be back fairly soon."
"I'll tell her where you went."
There was still plenty of time, so I sat down to write a message for Chayo. Though I'd only intended it to be a line or two, I soon found myself writing of my fortuitous meeting with Jaime Salinas, and of my visit to the newspaper office. I got carried away and even told of my discovery of the identity of her father's killer, Julio Pérez, and that he reportedly hung out at the Verde Rosal.
I sat there for a moment debating over whether I should be mentioning Julio Pérez. Would she really want to hear about him? I shouldn't have written that. Moreover, it seemed kind of silly to be writing a three page letter to a person I was going to be seeing this same day. Maybe I should just tear it up? Finally, despite my misgivings, I decided to just leave it the way it was.
MacClayne was writing something too, probably a poem. I was glad he'd hidden the bottle, and that I'd noticed it in the first place. I didn't want her to think our expedition had been a three-week binge.
"Here's my note for Chayo," I said to him and put it on the table.
"I'll give it to her," he said and went on with his writing.
It was still only about four o'clock. I took my journal and began recording the events of the day. There was a lot to write about, and I was still at it an hour later when the desk clerk knocked on the door and told me I had a visitor.
Taking the bird on my arm, I went to the office, hoping it would be Chayo, that she'd gotten here ahead of the driver sent by Jaime. If it was her, I'd ask her to go with. After all, this was to be a rather informal meeting; even my bird was invited.
It was Jaime's driver, a fellow about my age. I would have guessed that he was a ranch hand, except that he wore a rather expensive-looking jacket. There was a mean look in his eye, and the desk clerk seemed tense and uncomfortable in his presence.
"¿Olaf?" the driver asked.
"Sí. ¿Y Usted?"
"Vámonos," he said without responding to my question, and motioned with his hand for me to follow.
I just stood where I was, and repeated my question, "¿Usted quién es?"
"Tu chofer," he replied curtly. "They're waiting."
The guy had no manners at all, and I couldn't imagine Jaime sending such a driver. But maybe it was beyond Jaime's control; employers are always grumbling that they can't get good help anymore. Not knowing what else to do, I followed the driver to the pickup which was parked in front.
We got in and the driver jammed his foot on the pedal, scattering gravel right and left. Cuauhtémoc sat on my lap, glaring angrily at our chauffeur. Well, I was feeling uncomfortable myself, and I wasn't sure it was a good idea to be bringing the bird with. But I'd promised Jaime; moreover, it didn't seem wise to leave two alcoholics together in the same hotel room with a bottle of booze.
Apatzingán wasn't large, and suddenly we were out in the open fields. It was only a few minutes before we arrived at our destination.
The driver motioned for me to go inside. Though I understood well enough what he meant, I was irritated by his coarse manners. I just looked at him, shook my head and said, "No entiendo."
"Allí adentro," he snapped impatiently and told me they were waiting for me inside.
At least he'd properly addressed me as usted. "Gracias," I said with deliberate brusqueness, and got out of the pickup. If I took the job I'd make sure that this guy wasn't going to be my driver. The bird sat on my arm and glared at him as he drove off.
Presumably this was a restaurant, but the corrugated metal roof hardly gave it a look of great elegance. It was, in all, an ugly concrete building.
Inside were several tables. The chairs were metal and covered with torn plastic. Along one side of the room was a bar where a woman was dusting shelves and bottles. She was the only other person in the room. She wasn't bad looking, but there was something repulsive about her, I thought, appropriate to the place.
"Buenas tardes," I said. She just looked at me with a blank stare. I asked her if Jaime Salinas were here.
"Orita viene," she replied, and went back to dusting shelves.
The rose-colored walls around the room were plastered with a dozen or more old calendars, movie posters and prints. Some were of popular singers, others advertised beer, and among them was a print of the ubiquitous Virgin of Guadalupe. Like most of the others, it was faded, dusty, and torn.
At one end was an faded mural, a garden scene. The principal color in the painting was an unpleasant shade of green, in different intensities. The bushes were green and everything else in the painting was the same awful green, except for the flowers--they were a garish red, not faded at all. The flowers must've been repainted rather recently, by a hand even less professional than the one that had done the rest of the scene.
A strange place to bring somebody for a meeting, I thought. Moreover, it didn't seem at all like Jaime's style. None of this did. There had to be some mistake. The barmaid had just told me he'd be here soon, but she might've just said that without even knowing who Jaime was.
I went back to the bar to verify that Jaime Salinas was definitely coming.
"You're Olaf, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes."
"Jaime left a message for you, saying that he might be late, but he'll be here to meet you."
Since she knew my name, the message certainly seemed to be for me and this must be the place. But I wondered how this could be. "Does Jaime Salinas normally meet people here?" I asked.
"¿Quien sabe?" She shrugged her shoulders.
That was a strange reply, I thought, but I clearly wasn't going to get much information out of this woman.
There was man sitting by a table at the far end of the otherwise empty room. I hadn't noticed him till now. He wore battledress with officer's insignia, and in one hand was his ever-present swagger cane. He was gazing at me with that same melancholy expression as on our last encounter.
'Major Benson!' I gasped silently, under my breath. Why did I keep seeing this man who'd been dead for thirty years? Why?
Cuauhtémoc was also looking towards the major. Did my bird see him too?
I blinked my eyes to recover my senses and turned to glance around the room again--the empty chairs and tables, the poster-covered walls, and the glasses lined up on shelves behind the bar. My eye returned to the faded green mural with the garish red flowers. It was a garden of rosebushes. Rosebushes. I hadn't noticed that before. For a moment I stood there gazing at the mural, and as I did so, a phrase came to mind--el verde rosal.
Could that be the name of this bar? Impossible! How ridiculous, I told myself, and, at the same time, verses of the ballad sang through my head:
Llegaron a la cantina
pero él no sabía
que lo iban a traicionar
le dieron tres puñaladas
al pie de un verde rosal.
They came to the cantina--a trap. They stabbed him three times at the foot of a green rose bush.
I swung around, turning back to the table where Major Benson had been sitting only a moment before. He was gone. An eerie calm of impending disaster took hold of me, and I knew that something awful was about to happen if we didn't get out of here right this very minute. The bird must have sensed it too; he bounced up from my arm and onto my shoulder to have a better command of the situation. In that instant the door banged open and three men entered.
The first man through the door was heavyset, balding on top with wispy black hair on the sides and a three-day beard. He had a fearsome look, and peered at me with the cold, competent eyes of a professional killer. Slightly behind him was the guy I'd met near Huahua, the one who'd wanted my bird.
Then I saw the last of the trio, and I recognized him as none other than Juan Diosdado, who shouted in an exultant voice:
"¡You asked for Julio Pérez! ¡ Say hello to him!" Diosdado laughed, in that peculiar laugh of his that sounded like a demented cackle. Recovering from his hilarity, he announced, "Olaf, my associates are going to beat the shit out of you. But first, you can watch while we wring the neck of your rooster." Another spurt of Diosdado's laughter followed. His pistolero companions gave him a contemptuous glance.
Julio Pérez? The Julio Pérez? I gasped. His appearance was so totally unexpected that I had no time to become afraid. I was at the same moment amazed that Juan Diosdado could be so obsessed with his vendetta against Cuauhtémoc. Was this why Jaime had asked me to bring my bird? Diosdado had obviously put some thought into setting this up.
"Grab the rooster," Diosdado commanded, but the one called Pérez snarled back at him, "We're doing this. You shut the fuck up."
The pistoleros were between me and the door, blocking any escape. They took their time moving towards me, apparently relishing the experience. I stood there transfixed, but Cuauhtémoc fluffed out his warrior plumage and raised his hackles, as though to say, 'We'll take these guys on!' My poor little bird, but his courage was inspiring, and I felt a slight reprieve from the sinking sensation that had engulfed me a moment before.
"Listen up!"--a phantom voice with a heavy Norse accent rang through my head. It was my Uncle Rolf --"See the pistol that one wears in his belt. No! Don't look at it. Just see it. The pistol."
In Julio Pérez's belt holster was a U.S. Army Colt .45--a Model 1911, just like the one my uncle had taught me to use. Pérez wore it crosswise, on his left side with the handle facing me.
"Don't look at it. Just see it." My uncle's voice was cool and easy, just as it always had been, and I felt as if he were standing here with me. The thickset, baldheaded monster before me no longer appeared quite so invincible.
Julio Pérez took a step towards me and narrowed his eyes. "You've been asking about me," he said. "What do you want to know?"
Words failed me, and so did my voice. The pistolero smirked and took another couple of steps closer, bringing him within arm's length of me. "I asked you what you wanted to know about me," he said.
I somehow croaked out the words. "Do you remember don Pánfilo?"
"The rancher from Uruapan? About ten years back?" A broad grin spread over the thug's face. "I killed him," he said, and began chuckling.
At that instant, Cuauhtémoc bounded from my shoulder onto the man's bald head, where he sank in with claws, spurs and beak. Pérez reacted with horrified surprise, and, taking advantage of his confusion, I grabbed for his pistol. My hand was on it, grasping it, but it wouldn't come out of the holster. A leather strap held it in. I kept pulling.
Pérez was cursing and reaching for the bird, but Cuauhtémoc had already flown out of his reach. As I tugged at the gun, I glimpsed Cuauhtémoc engaging the other pistolero, jabbing him in the leg.
Suddenly I had it! The pistol was in my hand, free and clear of the holster! With my thumb I flicked off the safety and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I needed to chamber another round, but Pérez was gripping my left arm. I struggled to get my left hand free so I could work the slide.
Shots rang out--the other gunman was firing at Cuauhtémoc, who dove between Diosdado's legs, followed by a hail of bullets that ricocheted off the floor and walls and whizzed around the room. The din echoed and reechoed. Glassware shattered. Diosdado was howling that he'd been shot in the foot.
A stunning punch from Julio Pérez sent me reeling. I staggered backwards, knocking over a table, but I still had the pistol in my right hand and now my left was also free again. I pulled the slide back to chamber a round, pointed at Pérez and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud report and a sharp recoil. I pointed again and fired, and again and again. Pérez was too big and too close to miss. The bullets tore into his body, and he crumpled to the floor like a curtain.
Now I was face to face with the other pistolero. We both fired. I saw the flash of his muzzle, but my own shot must've missed. I fired again, and this time blood erupted from my adversary's neck.
The room had not been recently painted, but with the blood of this bad guy, the wall got a fresh coat.
Diosdado was dragging himself towards the door, and I pointed my pistol at him, but held my fire for fear of hitting Cuauhtémoc, who was slashing him with beak and spurs. Scratched, bloodied and shot in the foot--the same foot he'd once slammed into the wall--Juan Diosdado took his leave, outdone once again by the bird.
Suddenly it was all over, and, except for the ringing in my ears, stillness reigned once more. Only the acrid smoke remained. The silence seemed to reverberate throughout the room as though following in the wake of a huge bell that had ceased to toll.
Then I realized that I wasn't standing any more. I seemed to be hovering up near the ceiling, looking down on the scene. There were three bodies on the floor below me, lying in pools of blood. I recognized Julio Pérez. Also his nameless companion, the one who'd tried to take my bird from me at Huahua. But the third body? At first I couldn't make out who it might be, or perhaps I didn't want to. Then I knew it was me. The pistol was still in my hand.
There remained one thing for me to do. I looked down upon the body of Julio Pérez. A loose cord circled his neck. An amulet was attached to it. I reached down a long, ghostly arm and grabbed the amulet, slipping it free from the restraining cord.
Cuauhtémoc strutted slowly across the room, inspecting the bullet-riddled remains of the two bad guys. The bird looked at each in turn, and gave each a sharp victorious jab.
A moment later the bird was clutching the arm of my body on the floor. I could almost hear him say, "Come on, Olaf, get up!" But I seemed unable to return to my body.
From above I looked down and saw this. "I'm up here!" I wanted to say to him. But I seemed to have lost my voice. Then the bird raised his head and looked up at where I was. Our eyes met.
"Triumfamos, tu y yo," I said voicelessly, and the bird fluttered his feathers in response.
But before I could say more, I had somehow passed through the ceiling and was floating above the street outside.
continued in Chapter 51
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