“Man, I’m not trying to be rude. I’m trying to figure stuff here. And I mean…you’re friends with El Gazpacho, no? I’m friends with him too. He is…was my unit leader.”
“Yeah, I’m friends with him. Why else do you think I’d talk to you?”
“Good. Because I was hoping you can find him. He’s left the unit and I don’t know where he’s gone. It’s not like El Mago’s gonna tell me, and I want to make sure he’s all right. Plus, all his stuff is back at the apartment.”
“You want to mail him his nail clipper and shoes? And you think I know where he lives or something?”
“Well, I sure don’t know. But you being DGIPS and all, and being El Gazpacho’s friend and everything…”
Elvis took out a few bills and stuffed them inside Justo’s notebook. “I’d be more interested in knowing what your boss wants with Asterisk than your cash,” Justo said.
“I ain’t telling.”
“And after I’m being nice to you, you little shit.”
Elvis took out two more bills and stuffed them in the notebook. “Nice my ass. You’re trying to jack up the price. Take the money or I’ll look for another crooked asshole who’ll find out.”
Justo seemed amused. “Kid, you have an attitude. But you’re lucky: I’m in need of petty cash. Come back in a couple of days,” Justo said as a goodbye.
Elvis nodded and stepped out, feeling cheery. It didn’t last.
He ate at a random tortería and stared at the calendar taped behind the counter featuring a corny Hawaiian dancer, paper flowers strewn around. The dancer’s eyes reminded him of Cristina. Elvis didn’t believe in losing his head over a girl, but that was now. A few years back, he’d gone and joined a fucking cult for one, hadn’t he?
Yeah, he had, like the ass he’d been. In his defense, Cristina had been real pretty and she’d also seemed interested in him. Not like Elvis had been interested—he’d been neck-deep—but he also hadn’t imagined the whole thing. The problem was she’d gone hot and cold and then hot again. Sometimes she wanted to leave Tlaquepaque, sometimes she wanted to stay forever.
She fucked Elvis, sometimes, yeah. But it always felt like a favor, and he didn’t like it when he saw her with their leader or some of the other men around the complex. Complex! A rickety building with a few sad chickens and goats. Elvis working under the searing sun, Elvis feeding the damn chickens or trying to fix a piece of furniture. The others were lazy and assigned most chores to him. Every time he thought about quitting, though, she’d soothe him with a couple of kisses.
He liked that and he also didn’t like it. It reminded him of the older American woman who’d kept him as her lover. In her eyes he read a definite indifference. He knew he was replaceable.
When Elvis left, it was because he couldn’t stomach any more of that merry-go-round of emotions. In the months after, he’d thought of writing to Cristina, and then he’d figure it was pointless. But sometimes he still got the urge to go back. To see what she was up to.
He didn’t want to live like a hippie, much less with that idiotic cult. But the money could be enough to rent an apartment, and they could install themselves somewhere nice and cozy.
Though God knew if Cristina was still in Tlaquepaque. And he hadn’t spoken to her in years. It was stupid. He didn’t even know why he was thinking of her. He supposed it was because Justo was making him nervous, talking about that man Anaya.
Elvis tried to force himself to imagine a different life from the one he led, maybe a life with Cristina. Or maybe he’d try to be an agent, like Justo had suggested. It couldn’t be that hard. Maybe they’d throw him in cells with activists so he could pose as a fellow revolutionary and inform on them. Sometimes they used former real activists for this. People who had been hauled to Lecumberri and decided to become collaborators and squeal. Áyax Segura Garrido had squealed, and that’s how the courts had found him innocent. He was now in the pocket of the DFS.
But none of that was what he really wanted. It was all a bit seedy. None of it resembled El Mago’s life. He wanted El Mago’s place, with his bookshelves and his car and his suits. It wasn’t the things El Mago owned. It wasn’t the silver cufflinks on his shirts or the fine cigarettes. It was the way El Mago spoke, the way he looked.
He worried that he’d never have that now. Not only that, but El Mago would disappear from his life. Just like El Gazpacho had disappeared. It was crazy to think people could be gone with a snap of the fingers.
God damn Gazpacho. Where’d he headed?
Elvis finished eating, gave the Hawaiian girl one last, longing look, and went back to the apartment. It was empty. El Güero was supposed to be completing his first shift. He supposed the Antelope had gone to relieve him.
Elvis opened the door to El Gazpacho’s room and stood in the doorway, looking at the bed, the closet, the little desk in the corner. El Gazpacho kept his room neat and tidy, with a minimum of things. In a corner he had a poster ofYojimbo, a movie that Elvis had never seen but El Gazpacho had described in detail. Elvis stood in front of the narrow closet and looked at the shirts and trousers and what El Gazpacho jokingly called his “civilian” jacket: an avocado-green jacket with yellow patches.
It’s what El Gazpacho wore to the movies. Elvis didn’t know why he liked that ridiculous outfit, but he did. Then again, El Gazpacho didn’t complain when Elvis put on his sunglasses at night or tried to comb his hair like James Dean or Presley, and when Elvis didn’t know how to say a word in the dictionary El Gazpacho never laughed.
Although he didn’t like either El Güero or the Antelope, he suddenly felt very lonely and wished they were in the apartment with him.
Elvis went into his room and rummaged among his records. He found his copy of “Blue Velvet” and held the record up to the light, looking at the grooves. Elvis had the version by Bennett. He put the record on and sat down on his bed.
He thought about the woman who owned the Prysock cover, Maite Jaramillo, and as the record began to spin he felt a little less alone. She was probably playing the same song now. And if she was, if they were both repeating the same motion in two different places, somehow it felt like they were doing it together. Which meant he wasn’t really alone.
He pictured two dust motes spinning in concentric circles. Maybe it was like that everywhere, for everyone. There was always someone doing the exact same thing. Like a shadow or a mirror image, like the doppelgängers El Mago talked about. People simply didn’t know it. Could be you were cutting vegetables with your left hand while it rained in Japan and a woman in Puebla was doing the same thing, and you both looked up at the sky at the same time and saw a bird fly by.
Elvis lay back on the bed, stretching up his arms until he got hold of the headboard, and he hummed to the music. He didn’t know what the words meant, but he knew what they sounded like: it was the sound of sadness.
