“Yes. But—”
“People don’t go vanishing off the face of the Earth for no reason. Leonora must be in some kind of trouble, and we need to help her. Now this guy, maybe he knows something.”
“Fine, let’s say he does, and then let’s say it’s our business—”
“Of course it’s our business.”
“But if it’s a missing person case, then the police—”
“The Hawks work for the government. The police and the army, they let the Hawks shoot at us. There were police cars all lined up nicely down the avenue with their megaphones, but they weren’t there to stop them. They were there to ensure they could kill with impunity.”
“But they ousted the regent over that business, didn’t they? You said he was ousted.”
“The president kicked him out, yeah, but it was so he could blame all this on someone. Fuck, maybe he even wanted the beatings to get out of hand precisely so he could oust Martínez Domínguez. Or maybe Martínez Domínguez fucked up, but you can bet that the president was aware of what the Hawks were going to do and he told the cops to stand down. Anyway, it’s a repeat of Tlatelolco, and those pigs can’t be trusted.”
In the papers, columnists accused communist foreigners of corrupting Mexico’s youth and attempting to destroy the nation. The cops were innocent, lawful citizens doing their jobs. Perhaps it wasn’t true, but it made Maite’s skin prickle with dread, because no one wanted a repeat of ’68. That had been a bloody mess. People whispered snipers hired by the government had opened fire. Student riots had threatened the Olympics, and the government had quelled them by force. People whispered, and Maite tried not to listen. But still she heard things here and there. She couldn’t drown out reality.
“I’m not sure I—”
“Aren’t you worried about Leonora?” Rubén asked.
“The cops—”
“The cops can fuck themselves!”
“Will you let me finish a sentence?” Maite asked, shoving the sugar basin away.
They stared at each other for a minute. He looked like a child who’d had his knuckles rapped, and this gave Maite some satisfaction.
“I’m not going to contact the cops . God knows I don’t want to be talking to any policeman! What I was trying to say is her family might get hold of the cops, and then it wouldn’t look too good if we’re nosing around. Besides, even if this is our business, why am I supposed to phone Mr. Lomelí? Why not you? You seem to know the guy.”
“He’d hang up on me,” Rubén said. “We don’t like each other. I broke his nose.”
“Why?”
“He put the moves on Leonora back when she was my girlfriend. She ended up dumping me.”
Maite couldn’t blame the girl for improving her love life, but it still made her uncomfortable to picture Emilio Lomelí as the kind of man who went around sweeping other men’s girlfriends off their feet. It didn’t square with her image of him. She had cast him in the role of the romantic hero, not the lothario, though lotharios could be fun. Take Pablo fromSecret Romance.True, before meeting Beatriz he had been slipping in and out of the beds of countless beauties, but only because Magdalena Ibarra had perished in that dreadful scuba diving accident. Perhaps it was the same for Emilio.
“I’m sorry about that,” Maite said.
Rubén shrugged. “It was a while back.”
“You two study together?”
“We used to. We weren’t in the same faculty, but we were both at the UNAM. I left a year ago.”
“You obviously still care about her.”
“We’re friends now.”
Maite didn’t get that. People being friends after a breakup, especially a bad one like this one must have been. She could have never been friends with Cristóbalito after what happened between them. One time, two years ago, while walking down Bucareli, she’d thought she’d seen him coming in her direction, and she had been possessed by an irresistible desire to run. She dashed into an alley and promptly vomited up her guts there, on top of a pile of wet cardboard.
She had been terrified of him laying eyes on her, of seeing the disappointment in his face, her paltry charms having grown paltrier in the years since they’d been lovers. That night, at home, she pinched the flabby skin of her belly and thought about cutting it with a pair of scissors. Then she wept over an issue ofSecret Romance.
She supposed such encounters didn’t rattle men. Besides, Rubén was young. He was in his early twenties. He still had possibilities.
“Something bad has happened to Leonora. If Emilio has any idea where she is or what happened to her, then I want to know. And I think you want to know too, no?” Rubén asked.
