Maite reached for the sugar basin, which had a crack clearly showing where it had been clumsily glued back together, and measured a spoonful of sugar. “No. Did you go to that place? The Asterisk?”
“She hasn’t been there. I’m worried. I talked to Jacqueline, who sort of runs Asterisk, and she said she talked on the phone with Leonora, and Leonora told her she had information on the Hawks.”
“Who exactly are the Hawks?”
“Don’t you read the paper?” Rubén said, looking scandalized by her lack of knowledge.
Maite picked up her coffee cup daintily and took a sip. “Excuse me, I work all day long.”
“So do I. I still find the time to glance at a paper, especially these days when we’ve got the government engaged in vicious repressive activities.”
“I bet you’re one of these people Leonora likes to bail out,” she said, trying to guess how many mug shots they’d taken of him.
Rather than appearing abashed, the young man looked proud, raising his hairy chin. “Yeah, she’s helped me out,” Rubén said. “So what? I print leaflets with political cartoons on them. The government? They’ve got roving gangs of thugs beating students up. Who do you think attacked us when we were demonstrating?”
“I thought those were your anarchist buddies.”
“Very funny. So you don’t read the papers but you still spout the government’s line? It figures. How are you even hanging out with Leonora, anyway?”
Rubén gave her a suspicious look, as though he thought maybe they were in one of those James Bond films and Maite was a spy.
“We’re not best friends, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Maite said. “We know each other from the building.”
“Then why are you so interested in finding her?”
“Because I’m watching her cat. What? Do you think I’m one of your Hawks?”
“You never know,” Rubén said. “But no. They’re all men, and they’re all thugs. They were under the command of Alfonso Martínez Domínguez, our recently ousted regent—in case you were toobusyworking to know that name. They like to sic them at us when they think we’re getting out of line.”
“Yes, I know what you mean now,” she said, her spoon rattling against the cup as she added more sugar. The coffee was sweet enough, but she was trying to do something with her hands. This man was terribly irritating. She felt like slapping him. “But the Hawks are not supposed to be real.”
“Who told you that?”
“It’s what they say around my office.”
“The Hawks are the ones who attacked the people outside the Cine Cosmos.Someonedecided to massacre students. It wasn’t ghosts,” he said, sounding petulant.
“I didn’t say it was ghosts, just that they’re not supposed to be real. Anyway, Leonora had information on the Hawks. What kind of information?”
“We don’t know. It was photos.”
“Her ex-boyfriend was looking for her camera,” Maite muttered, the memory of Emilio Lomelí burning bright in her mind. Now that was a real man, not this print shop employee moonlighting as an activist.
“Emilio?” Rubén asked. He looked pretty shocked by her words.
“He stopped by to see her, and I let him into her apartment because he wanted her camera, but he couldn’t find it so he left. But it doesn’t really mean anything.”
“You think it’s a coincidence? Leonora goes missing after she tells us she has some photos and Emilio is asking about her camera? What do you think are the odds?”
Well, when he put it like that, it didn’t sound very likely, but she detested the tone he was using. As if Maite was an idiot because he bought a paper now and then.
“I don’t know. He seemed like a decent guy. He left me his card, in case Leonora stopped by. If he had anything to do with her disappearance, he wouldn’t have left his card.”
“I bet he knows something. And it’s a place to start digging. Maybe you should give him a call.”
“Me?” Maite asked, the spoon slipping from her fingers. She gripped the sugar basin instead.
“You just said he gave you his card.”
