Death in Veracruz (7 page)

(In the words of my
paisano,
“Newspapers are the government's seismograph, and columnists are the seismographers.”)

I can now admit that through him I learned the details of stories and political developments that appeared first in “Public Life:” the column about the CIA and its Mexican agents in February 1975; Mexico's involvement with the Chilean fascist group
Patria y Libertad
in July of the same year; the Chipinque conspiracy, named for the park where senior Monterrey business leaders plotted to overthrow the government, a scheme that was later unmasked in a speech by then presidential chief of staff Ignacio Ovalle.

Throughout the presidential campaign of José López Portillo, from September 1975 to May 1976, I received an uninterrupted flow of information about grassroots groups, interests, deals and maneuvers thanks to my Veracruz contact on Bucareli Street. The information arrived with a regularity surpassed only by the cinematic discretion of its provider. It came in the form of calls from his observers, subordinates, friends and agents. Anything I could use from his network I took, and, one way or another, I compared it to what I got from other sources. Almost without exception, the information turned out to be first class. Though very rarely inaccurate or padded, it invariably served the interests of the sitting president rather than the candidate soon to replace him. I compensated for any bias by seeking information on
my own and following my own leads while always keeping an open channel to Bucareli. He never complained about what I left out of my column or what I included, even when it conflicted with the interests he served. He came out ahead simply by being where he was and playing the game fairly, cleanly, and with unflagging consistency. Each month I tallied the results of our long distance game as if it were a chess match played through the mail. I struggled for balance and considered my sources. I asked all the questions and dug for all the details that elementary prudence demanded. But, invariably, he succeeded in imposing his line on about half my columns.

I recount all this to explain why, in late November 1976, amidst all the political speculation brought on by a change of administration, my guide on the campaign trail seemed to be the one light that might show me the way to a reasonably accurate assessment of Pizarro and the charges made against him by Rojano.

He listened to my account of the Pizarro case without interruption, holding a pencil in front of his face and rolling it over and over between his fingers. When I finished, he rang a bell beneath his desk. “What did you say the man's name is,
paisano?”

“Lázaro Pizarro.”

“I mean your informant.”

I hesitated before giving his name, then remembered I'd mentioned it already.

“Francisco Rojano Gutiérrez,” I replied.

“Rojano. It sounds familiar.”

He kept a long silence. “Wasn't he with the CNOP?”

“That's right.”

“And the Rural Cooperative Bank before that?”

“Yes.”

“He got involved in a scandal of some sort, didn't he?
Corruption. Or a shootout somewhere or other. I vaguely remember.”

“Both,” I said. His memory astonished me. He hid it behind the small eyes of a 40s' movie idol. They were guileless and bright as if eternally searching for a woman who would understand him. He rang the bell again, this time with a touch of impatience. The man who stumbled in was huge and wore a brown jacket and yellow tie over his enormous paunch.

“Bring me whatever you can find about this guy,” he said, holding out a card he had written on. “Do it yesterday.”

“Yes, chief.”

“I have nothing on Pizarro,” he told me. “That is, nothing regarding the issue you raise. But he has a reputation to be reckoned with. Pizarro Tejeda, known as
Lacho.
He's the leader of the oil workers' in the area around Potrero del Llano, a mid-level union boss. He's been mayor of a town in the district, very much a populist and advocate of so-called ‘petroleum Maoism'. As well as every other form of extremism you might think of.”

In contrast to his usual fluency, he was speaking slowly, measuring every word.

“He's a man much loved by the workers he leads,” he went on. “He has lots of followers and lots of appeal. He's founded regional
union orchards
in the area he controls, and the fruits and vegetables they raise sell for half-price in union stores. A hundred per cent cheaper than in regular markets. Rumor has it he's a descendant of Adalberto Tejeda, the left-wing governor in the twenties. Don't underestimate Pizarro, my friend. You ought to meet him.”

“The photos I have show a different side of him. They're quite impressive.”

“Blood is always impressive.”

“And shots to finish off the victims execution style?”

“Don't make a movie of it, my friend. Shots to the head in any case.”

The subordinate returned with two sets of cards that he placed on the desk before his boss. He studied them closely one by one, beginning with Rojano's.

“Here's where you come in,” he said, handing me a card.

It documented my meeting with Rojano during the campaign stop in Veracruz the day he began showing me Pizarro's miracles.

“I have trouble understanding your friend,” my
paisano
said upon completing his review. “He has political ambitions in Pizarro's sphere of influence, and he's attacking him. Or he's beginning to attack him. He also owns land around Chicontepec, where the victims are from.”

“A 100 hectares between him and his wife.”

“Rather more, my friend.”

“How much more?”

“Twice that and then some.”

“400 hectares?”

“About that. Don't you think your friend wants more?”

He began going through the other set of cards, the ones about Lázaro Pizarro. Also one by one and in detail. He furrowed his brow and was lost in concentration, his eyes ablaze with the intensity of his scrutiny. Then he looked out the window, distracted as if he'd forgotten I was there.

“What more would you like?” he said.

“Whatever you have on Pizarro.”

“There's nothing on Pizarro.”

“Nothing on the cards?”

“They're routine. None of the bodies you're talking about. Anything else?”

“A hint.”

“Nothing.”

He stood up to indicate the interview was over. “What
I can do is find a way for you to meet
Lacho.
Are you interested?”

“I am.”

“It can be done,” he said, escorting me to the door. “I'll let you know.”

On my way past his aide's desk in the hall, I heard his bell's insistent ring. It sounded almost hysterical coming from the desk of my acquaintance from Veracruz.

W
e got a new president, and his economic stabilization program had unexpected teeth. It featured salary caps and the first
public
disclosure that Mexico's finances were in thrall to the dictates of the International Monetary Fund. We played the chess game that comes with each new administration as the press and the government sound each other out.

In late February 1977, I received a hand delivered envelope marked confidential with a message advising me of the possibility of an interview with Lázaro Pizarro during the first week of March. On the back of the card I wrote: “With the sole condition that I may write about whatever I see and hear.” The following day the same messenger returned with another card: “March 6 in Poza Rica. The interested party should be at the Hotel Robert Prince.”

I wrote a detailed report on the whole affair (protocols, sources, contacts, conditions for conducting the interview). I sent the original to the editor of my newspaper along with the files from Rojano. I also made sure my friend on Bucareli Street got a copy. Then I planned my trip. Doña Lila was on a month-long vacation to her home in Tuxpan, a few kilometers from Poza Rica. I phoned and asked her to reserve me a hotel room. On the morning of March 1, I took the seven o'clock flight to Tampico, rented a car at the airport, and completed the two-hour drive along the road that follows the sparkling Tuxpan River as it winds its way to the sea. Shipyards lined the right bank, and on the left stood the eponymous Tuxpan de Rodríguez Cano, so named in honor of the politician regarded as the city's most illustrious
native son. From Tuxpan it was less than an hour's drive to my final destination in Poza Rica.

Doña Lila was waiting in the lobby of the Hotel del Parque, immediately in front of the park itself, eating a guava.

“You came alone in all this heat?”

From the window in my room you could see the sandbar at the mouth of the river and in the distance-at once vast, dirty, and brilliant-the iron gray of the Gulf.

“Do me a favor, Doña Lila.”

“You name it.”

“Find out where Lázaro Pizarro has his office in Poza Rica.”

“And what have you got to do with Lázaro Pizarro?” Doña Lila said. For a moment she ceased gnawing her guava. “Do you know who that man is?”

“You know him?”

“Around here everybody either knows or knows of Lacho Pizarro.”

“Can you find out where his office is?”

“I don't have to find out. His office is in the Quinta Bermúdez in Poza. Anyone in Poza Rica can take you there. Why are you going to see Lacho, if I may ask?”

“I'm going to interview him.”

The following day, March 2, I left Tuxpan very early. Four hours before the appointed time I was on my way to the Quinta Bermúdez. Just as Doña Lila said, everybody in Poza Rica knew where it was. It was the hulk of an old mill dating from the time of Porfirio Díaz. It had a high mansard roof perfectly painted cinnamon brown. A white stripe along the upper slope led the eye around the building as a whole. Rather than a mill, it was now a huge warehouse bursting with perishable produce such as citrus, vegetables, and fruits
as well as grain and bales of hay. Half the structure was taken up by docks for unloading the produce. When I arrived at seven in the morning, the day's activities were already on the wane, but trucks continued to pull in, rolling over the moist green droppings from prior deliveries and crushing them. Behind the loading docks and storage facilities were the mill's living quarters. The large, rough-hewn wooden door in the front was held shut by thick bolts and wrought iron hinges. A detail of armed guards kept watch over the entry, walkie-talkies in hand.

As previously agreed, I showed them the business card of my
paisano
on Bucareli Street. That got me admitted to what at first glance looked like a garden where another guard detail stood watch. A second look made it out to be rather more than a garden. A dense grove of India laurel trees filled much of the space. Their shiny roots snaked in and out of the ground like the tentacles of an octopus, and their fronds kept the fierce sun of Veracruz at bay. There were also clumps of bamboo and oleander bushes spilling torrents of red down the walls. A system of paths led over a reinforced cement bridge. In one corner of the garden was a small kiosk with wooden grillwork and the pinkest honeysuckle imaginable wherever it managed to take hold. One of the guards went to request instructions. I waited with the others, hypnotized by the honeysuckle.

A quarter hour later I was let into another small patio, an enclosed orchard flanked by the rooms that made up the house's interior. We followed the corridors-all painted cinnamon brown with white striping-that led past the rooms to an even smaller patio that in times past must have been the stable. A handful of people waited there. Next to the wash tubs an enormous oleander bush arched over one wall so lush and red that I at first failed to notice the small doorway
through which I was led by the guard.

I entered the penumbra of a large room with an opening at the back leading to a kitchen and another brightly lit patio. In the room was a small parlor set plus a dining area with two glass china cabinets. The room was separated from the two rooms to its right solely by a pair of curtains that revealed, as they waved in the breeze, an old box-spring bed with a brass headboard and a studio with wicker rocking chairs and a large desk where two men were conversing.

What was most distinctive and in a way most disconcerting about the place was the lack of decoration. The dining table expressed even greater austerity than the whitewashed walls. All the chairs had been pushed back against the walls except for the one at the head of the table where there was a plate, on top of which was a lone jar of yogurt or whey. A spoon, a salt shaker, and a sugar bowl were deployed around the plate along with a slender water glass and a honeysuckle bloom from the kiosk.

A man emerged hurriedly from the studio, his pace so rapid he seemed to float. He was wearing a tee shirt and sandals, and his hair was wet from recent bathing. He looked about fifty, his skin leathery from long exposure to the sun. He was short and very dark, his posture decidedly erect. He glanced at me as if I were a piece of furniture and proceeded to the lone chair at the table.

“Have a seat,” he said without looking at me. He took the place at the head of the table.

It was Lázaro Pizarro. Three men followed him into the room. One pulled up a chair for me; one gripped my arm, directing me to sit; and the third took his place behind the seat of the man in the tee shirt. I seated myself as I'd been told and began to observe him. He had a low forehead, and his hair had gone white at the temples. The narrowness of the space between his slightly hooded eyes added to the intensity
of his stare which was magnified through his bifocal glasses.

“Have you had breakfast?” He sounded stern and still refused to look at me. He stared into his jar of yogurt, or perhaps whey.

“No.”

“Give him some breakfast.”

One of the men went to the kitchen. Pizarro reached for the sugar bowl and made a precision task of carefully removing the lid. As I watched him jiggle the spoon in his right hand, I saw that half his little finger and a phalange of his index finger were missing. It was an extraordinarily strong hand, a strange instrument of calluses and hard curved nails. There was a malarial whiteness to the skin of its palm, and its sun-cured back was lined with nerves, wrinkles and tendons. His arms and neck matched the hand as did his collarbone and face, especially the forehead. He had the look of someone long acquainted with effort and adversity. They had left their mark on a body that seemed both dignified and mutilated by much hard work.