Death in Veracruz (9 page)

“If there were any justice in the world,” Pizarro said very slowly in his thin precise voice, “you'd have been castrated before you ever had a daughter,
Negro.
But there is no justice in this world, so there you sit, sorry for what you did and humbly begging for help. You make it hard to remember that you're a brother of ours.”

“I want you to help me get Antonia back,”
el Negro
Acosta said. “I want my kids back. What am I going to do without Antonia and my kids, Lacho?” Once again he was overcome with sobbing, his suffering so intense it couldn't be ignored.

“I'm going to ask your wife to go back,” Pizarro said after several twists of his rubber band, shaping it into one form after another between his fingers. “I'll have a talk with her and the children.”

“Yes, Lacho.”

“And they're going to go back.”

“Thank you, Lacho.”
El Negro
got to his feet and stepped towards Pizarro to shake his hand. Roibal stopped him with a single move that ended in a knuckle jab to the sternum.

“I'm going to tell them they can go back because you're never going to take another drink,” Pizarro continued as if Roibal hadn't lifted a finger, his gaze fixed on the rubber band stretched between his hands.

“I won't have another drink the rest of my life, Lacho. I promise you. I swear by my children.”

“That's right, Negro. But this time you're quitting for real,” Pizarro said. “And you know why? Because the last time I lied to your wife for you was the last time you got drunk.”

“Yes, Lacho.”

“This time I'm telling her the truth. You're never going to have another drink as long as you live because we're going to make sure that you don't. Because nobody in Poza Rica is ever going to serve you another drink, and if anyone anywhere ever does, somebody's going to be right there to keep you from drinking it. And every time we hear about you ordering a drink that we keep you from drinking, you're going to get beat up at least as badly as you beat up Antonia in each of your last four drunks. And if you do manage to get a drink down before we can stop you, just one drink, it will be your last one because we'll make sure it is.”

El Negro
Acosta was still on his feet, staring down in horror and exhaustion at the little man in the guayabera who never raised his voice. His eyes remained fixed on the rubber band he wove between his fingers as with no further ado he sentenced the man standing over him to sobriety or death.

“Lacho,”
el Negro
blubbered. “You're like a brother to me, aren't you?”

“Like a brother, Negro,” Pizarro said. “And we're going
to cure our brother who's been terribly sick. We're going to drag him out of the hell where he's been living and where he's left his wife and kids. And the hell he's put us through, too. Because we suffer with him and with his wife and children. We're going to cure you.”

“Yes, Lacho.”

“There's nothing for you to worry about because you're in our hands now,” Pizarro said. “Any time you're thinking about having a beer, just think about what you heard here where we love you. And don't give it another thought. Just make sure you behave yourself. We're going to get you out of the hell you're in now.”

As if hypnotized,
el Negro
nodded. Pizarro continued:

“Go home and wait. I'll go by the hospital to see your wife today. And to your in-laws' house to see about the kids.”

“Yes, Lacho.”

“Take a bath, shave, and put on some clean clothes. Get someone to clean the house for you, and be sure there are flowers in the diningroom. Your family will be home this evening or tomorrow at the latest.”

“Yes, Lacho.”

“So get going.”

Demolished,
El Negro
staggered off. Pizarro turned to Roibal, who promptly approached him.

“Go tell Antonia we had a talk with
el Negro.
Tell her to go home, that this is the last time I'll ask her. And if she won't go today, then tomorrow. Pay the hospital, and keep an eye on
el Negro
all afternoon. He's going to get nervous waiting, and he's going to want a drink. If he tries to get one, work him over. Work him over so he won't be able to get out of bed tomorrow or the day after. And then put the word out on the street that
el Negro
Acosta doesn't get a drop to drink in Poza Rica. And if he leaves town, I want to know about it.
And I want to know where he's headed.”

“Yes, Lacho.”

“And for every month that he's sober send him thirty thousand pesos from me, a thousand for every day he stays dry.”

Roibal made an entry in his notebook.

“Who's next?”

“Your friend Echeguren and your godchild, his oldest son. They've been waiting for more than an hour.”

“Send them in.”

“Echeguren wants to come in by himself first, to explain.”

Echeguren, Pizarro's friend and the father of his godson, entered in a redolent cloud of lavender water. He had a large bracelet on his right wrist and a gold watch on the left. There were large rings on his fingers. His chest and forearms bristled with hair, and more hair sprouted from his ears and nostrils. He wasted no time extending his hand to Pizarro, who shook it without getting up.

“What can I do for you, my friend?” Pizarro said.

“It's my bonehead kid, brother.” Echeguren spoke without sitting down. He stood gesticulating in the middle of the room, then began pacing from one side to the other, visibly discomfited by my presence. “He's thinking with his prick, Lacho, and I can't control him. He's been out of his mind for two or three months. He wants to marry his girlfriend, and he wants to do it by law, in church, and with the blessings of both families.”

“What's wrong with that?” Pizarro said.

“The punk is barely sixteen years old,” Echeguren said with all the emphasis he could muster, “and the girlfriend's fifteen. They're nothing but a pair of brats who don't even have full crops of pubic hair.”

“They have to start sometime.”

“I know that, friend, but they can't live on illusions.”
Echeguren looked me slowly up and down. “He's a great kid, you know that, but he hasn't even finished high school. He wants to drop out, find a job, and get married. I keep telling him, screw your little darling on the sly so you can both feel what it's like and then take it easy. Take the time to grow up. I'll tell you how to do it without getting her pregnant and so her parents won't find out. I tried to tell him one day, and he chewed my ass out. He's thinking with his prick, and he's out of his mind, but he's so damn pious and self-righteous, the little punk. You know what I mean.”

Once again Echeguren turned to look at me, disturbed by my presence and his own vehemence.

“And what do you want me to do?” Pizarro said.

“I want you to convince him I'm right.”

“And are you right?” said Pizarro.

“Suppose I'm not,” Echeguren said, looking back at me. “Suppose the little prick's right. Fine, I'm asking you as a friend to do me the favor of convincing him he's wrong. I've already tried everything. All it's done is make him more determined to be stupid. The reason we're here now is because, according to him, you're the only one who can get him a job. As far as he's concerned, we came to ask you to get him a job. So tell me I'm not screwed.”

“So what do you want me to tell your kid? I'm not a marriage counselor. I'm not his confidant.”

“You're Lacho Pizarro,” Echeguran said, hands flailing. “Tell him whatever crosses your mind, whatever sounds good to you. Otherwise, he can go to hell. But you're my last resort.”

Pizarro smiled. “Tell your kid to come in. I'll have a talk with him, but you stay outside.”

“I'll stay wherever you tell me to, but you tell it like it is to that little creep,” said the father of Pizarro's godson. He gave me one more look and fled from the room. Young
Echeguren came in, a strapping adolescent in a tight red shirt without an ounce of fat underneath it. He had blue eyes and the kind of youthful shyness that made it hard for him to do such simple things as walk without stumbling or shake hands or say good morning.

“Sit down,” Pizarro said while getting to his feet and beginning to pace about the room. He made a point of moving in and out of the boy's line of vision.

“I want to congratulate you,” he said from behind Echeguren's back. “According to your father, you're a person who knows what he wants.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don't thank me. I mean what I say. Some assholes spend their whole lives screwing around without ever deciding what they want. People in their eighties, seventies and forties who go through life like a piece of seaweed floating with the waves wherever the tide takes them. You're just sixteen, and your father tells me you've made up your mind. You know what you want.”

Praise made the youngster blush. Pizarro continued. “The world is full of small-minded people who never own up to what they want because trying to get it would be risky and they refuse to take risks.”

Young Echeguren buried his chin in his chest and stared at the floor.

“Above all,” Pizarro went on in the same tone of voice, moving placidly about the room as if strolling though a large garden, “you've convinced your father you want to marry and in order to marry you want to work and in order to work you have to drop out of school. What's your girlfriend's name?”

“Raquel,” young Echeguren said in a hollow, dry-throated voice.

“Raquel,” Roibal hastened to add by way of reinforcement.

“Who's her father?” Pizarro said.

“Raquel Mandujano,” young Echeguren said upon getting his voice back.

“Chito Mandujano's girl?”

“Yes,” said the boy.

“You've got good taste,” Pizarro said. “And so does the girl.”

“Thanks.” The boy's voice rang hollow once again.

“It just so happens that your father talked me into doing things your way, and that's what's going to happen. You're going to get a job, and then you're going to marry Raquel Mandujano. What do you want to do?”

“Nothing,” the boy said. “I want to get on with PEMEX and begin at the bottom. Be a grunt, whatever. Just to get started.”

“That's what I thought,” Pizarro said. “That's how it has to be and how it's going to be. But there's one thing I need to tell you first. Can I tell you?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said.

Pizarro stopped pacing. He stepped towards the desk and set himself directly in front of the youngster.

“If you're going to work for PEMEX and start from the bottom, there's one thing you ought to know,” he said, fixing him with his stare. “You don't need to live the lesson in order to learn it, and plenty of others learned it before you. It's as true as the earth is round. Even though experience tells us it's flat as a witch's ass.”

The kid gave a nervous, involuntary laugh. Pizarro sized up the laughter before sharing in it.

“And for flat asses, cocks at the upright,” he went on, evoking from the kid another nervous laugh. “It'll have to be like a drill to get where you want to put it.” Pizarro persisted, sensing he'd found a weakness. “Do you know about Japanese cunts?” Young Echeguren squirmed and let
out another laugh. “Do you or don't you?”

The kid shook his head, still staring at the floor.

“Well, they're sideways,” Pizarro said with a comic flourish and a horizontal slash of his hand.

Echeguran held his head up for the first time. He had a beautifully radiant smile and perfectly straight white teeth.

“What are they like?” Pizarro said in a commanding voice but without turning to Roibal, looking straight at the kid.

“They're sideways,” said Roibal.

“And if you stare at them sideways, you know what happens?”

“No.” Echeguren scratched at one of his nipples.

“They wink.” Pizarro made a wink-like gesture with his fingers.

Young Echeguren relaxed in his chair and burst into open uninhibited laughter. Pizarro stepped closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder as if to congratulate him while also setting him up for some serious advice.

“You're a good wholesome kid,” he said with a pat. “You're the new blood that will wash us all away one day. It's the world's best cleanser. But there's something else I was going to tell you about the job. Are you ready to listen?”

“Yes, sir,” young Echeguren replied.

“Here's the deal,” said Pizarro. He stood with a hand on the boy's shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Around here work is hell. It's dirty, it's sweaty, and people get hurt. They burn out. They lose their energy, and then they lose hands and legs. They squander their lives in the muck. They have accidents, and they're underpaid. In the Second World War, it's said that a leader offered the English blood, sweat and tears. Here it's like that on the job. Except this is a war without great speeches. It's an everyday war of workers against their work, against gears, shafts and grease. The
daily grind. You're still getting over one day when the next day comes and you've got to get up and do it all over again whether you want to or not. Even though you're bored and don't have enough to eat, you go back for another shift that lasts all day and sometimes into the night. You just keep going. So there you are working like a fool, drenched in sweat and dreaming of a clean shirt or a Japanese girl with a sideways snatch. And suddenly, wham!” Pizarro took his hand off the kid's shoulder and waved his mutilated fingers in the boy's face. “Wham! The drill shaft got you. Wham! It went right through your leg. Wham! You get blown into the air, and when you land, you bust your ass on a rusted pile of castoff machinery.”