The Shadow of the Shadow (35 page)

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Major Martinez here would like to have a few words with
you. It's fine with me if it's all right with you, Manterola," said
Vito Alessio.

Martinez, the ex-hod carrier, sat in a leather armchair in the
director's office. Next to him stood a capable-looking man in
civilian clothes, wearing an earring, and with a noticeable bulge
under his black jacket.

"Now remember, Manterola, the decision is up to you. If you
want to go ahead with this, I intend to keep my word, come what
may. I didn't become director of Mexico's finest newspaper just to
sell out my reporters."

"I appreciate that, sir."

Vito Alessio smiled at Manterola and left the office, closing
the door softly behind him.

"I believe you haven't met my friend The Gypsy, have you,
Manterola?"

"No, Major, although I've heard about him."

The Gypsy greeted Manterola with a nod. Manterola walked
over to his boss's desk and sat down in his chair. The desk was
covered with papers and there was a photo of the three Alessio
brothers, the director of El Demdcrata, the president's secretary,
and an officer who had died mysteriously in a car riddled with
bullets.

"Okay, Major, let's have the bad news."

"I want the document and your pledge of silence, Manterola."

"On whose authority, Major?"

"In the name of the Government of the Republic." Coming
from the major, the words "Government" and "Republic" evoked
days of blood and glory.

"Is the government familiar with the contents of the document
and the considerable sum agreed to by Colonel Gomez and his
cronies?"

"Certainly, sir. A copy of the document was given to the governor of Tamaulipas in Tampico by the Aguila Petroleum
Company yesterday."

"In other words, the government doesn't want it made public
that the North American oil companies planned to finance a
revolution to split off the oil-producing regions from the rest of
the country?"

"No, sir, it does not. At least not for the time being. I assume
you understand why that is."

"Well, then the government's screwed, isn't it? If the director
of this newspaper keeps his word, then the Plan of Mata Redonda
will be out in tomorrow's edition."

"I don't think so, Manterola."

"What are you going to do, kill me?"

"Of course not. I want you to know I have a great deal of
respect for you."

"Well then, Major?"

"I'm going to trade you the plan for something that's more
valuable to you. Two hours ago, several agents of the secret police
under my command arrested a Chinaman and a Spaniard who
attempted to murder Colonel Gomez at the Peredo barracks."

"Did they kill him?" asked the journalist, rising up from his
seat.

"No, I'm sorry to say. It would have been most convenient for
everyone involved. However, Gomez managed to escape with only
a broken arm and a few bruises. They shot him as he was going
down the stairs, and he took a rather bad tumble. Also, it seems as
though he'll lose the sight in his left eye. It was all an unfortunate
accident, according to the last official report I heard.

"And Tomas and Sebastian?"

"A little the worse for wear, but still in one piece. My men
saved them from Gomez' men when they were about to have them
shot... Now I've got them, and I'm willing to trade them to you for
the document, Manterola... I don't think you really need any more
convincing, but you may also like to know that I have my men surrounding a certain garage in Candelaria, and they're prepared
to go in shooting in search of Colonel Martinez Fierro's killers."

"All I can say is that your men had better be prepared to eat as
much lead as they dish out if they try and go in there, Major."

"I don't doubt that, reporter, but if need be, I'll have a machine
gun placed in front of the door. That ought to take care of them.
Do you understand, Manterola? I've got two cavalry regiments
and artillery at my disposal. Enough of this fooling around. All
I ask is for the plan and your silence in exchange for the freedom
and safety of yourself and your friends."

"What about Gomez?"

"I assume you're referring to Colonel Jesus Gomez Reyna, the
new military attache assigned to the Mexican embassy in Spain.
Due to set out this very evening on a steamer from Veracruz. The
sea air ought to help him recover from his unfortunate accident,
wouldn't you say?"

"Well, damn it all to hell and your mother, too," said the
reporter. "On top of the third desk to the left of the doorway,
there's a manila envelope with the letterhead of a local theater
company. Inside you'll find what you're looking for, Major."

"Thank you, Manterola. I assume I have your pledge of
silence."

"Someday someone will tell all this."

"Well, I only hope that neither you nor I are alive to see the
day, Manterola."

Manterola didn't see them leave the office. His eyes were fixed
on the papers covering the director's desk. He felt old and tired. He
would have liked to have been able to make this decision together
with his three friends, together around a game of dominoes. He
would have liked to have seen the headlines in big black letters
and the story of Zevada, Martinez Fierro, and Gomez in eight
columns in the second section.. .or better yet on the front page.
And Gomez? All he had was a vague memory and a voice over the
telephone talking about honor. It wasn't enough to hate, it made his hatred too rational. How many others were there like Gomez
who had traded their homeland for a stack of bills? How many
others like Gomez had made their fortune off the Revolution,
wallowing in a pool of blood and money? But now Gomez
belonged to him-to him, and to the poet, to Verdugo, and to the
Chinaman. There was even a piece of the colonel that belonged to
San Vicente. Now we really are the shadow of the shadow, he told
himself, staring at the closed door.

IN THE BAR OF THE MAJESTIC HOTEL, a cuckoo clock
sang out one in the morning. Eustaquio the bartender looked
contentedly at the domino game, the four men seated around the
marble table. Everything is as it should be, he thought, as he went
around turning out the rest of the lights, leaving that one solitary
table illuminated in the center of the room, wrapped in the ring of
light escaping from under the black shade, unreal, phantasmagoric
in the otherwise deserted bar. The sound of ivory on marble rose
up from the circle of light. Out in the street the hum of a car
engine mixed with the neighing of a horse and the echo of hoofs
on pavement.

"Too bad your buddy San Vicente doesn't like dominoes.
Otherwise, he strikes me just fine," said the lawyer Verdugo. The
dominoes lined up in front of him remained sunk in the shadow
from the brim of his pearl gray Stetson.

"He's out thele somewhele in the darkness dying to get his
newspapel stalted. He told me to give you all a big hug fol him,"
said Tomas Wong, placing the three/two on top of the table. "He
doesn't understand the affinity between analchism and dominoes.
Not like I do."

"What about you, poet? Did you get a good look at the letter
of thanks we got from the president? It's in my jacket pocket, on
the coat rack there."

"Manterola, it's not my style to be so prosaic but, if the
Honorable President of the Republic still had all his appendages,
he could whack me off with two hands at once, the one-armed
bastard. For all I care."

"It's a helluva country, gentlemen," said Manterola, scratching
the scar behind his ear and cautiously playing the double-threes.

IN THE COURSE OF WRITING THIS STORY, the fictional characters have mingled with historical personalities and events. For the sake of the reader's curiosity:

The four central characters belong entirely to the world of fiction.

Sebastian San Vicente was deported a second time in 1923, following his participation in the heroic streetcar strike. I compiled his brief Mexican biography in Memoria Roja, and again, in novelized form, in De Paso (just Passing Through)*.
It appears that he died years later fighting in the anarchist ranks against the fascists in Spain.

In 1926, El Democrata died a pauper's death, run under by debts after being sold by its original owners. General Alvarado's newspaper, El Heraldo de Mexico, had disappeared two years before. With the demise of the two best newspapers Mexico has ever known, the once-fine art of crime reporting began its tragic decline, only to be restored somewhat in 1930 by La Prensa, although without the grace, elegance, and shine of earlier days. The journalist who inspired the character of Pioquinto Manterola died of tuberculosis a year before his newspaper.

Dolores Street changed with time, and the triads were eventually forced to abandon it (or at least that's what one would suppose) following an intense campaign spearheaded by the magazine Sucesos in the 1930s.

The anarcho-syndicalists based in the south of Mexico City won the strike described in this book-and many more, until 1926 when they started to feel the effects of the repression unleashed by the government of President Calles.

The rebellion of a Mexican officer under orders from the foreign oil barons is a historical fact. The actual revolt was headed
up by General Martinez Herrera one year after the fictional
rebellion described in the novel. The oil barons never let up in
their pressures on the Mexican government, although in 1923
the first agreements were reached on the payment of drilling and
export rights. The end of this turbulent relationship is well known,
and came about when President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the
country's oil industry in 1938.

The wave of advertisements for patent medicines, so in vogue
in the years following the Revolution, eventually died out as the
number of doctors increased. By 1930, the number of ads in a
single edition of the newspaper had dropped from a high of 110
to fewer than 5.

The Arana Cantina, the Cafe Paris, the Black Circus, and other
cafes and dives described here disappeared only to be replaced by
others of equal or greater notoriety.

In spite of the students' aggression, Fermin Revueltas' mural
was finished on schedule and it can still be seen today on the walls
of the San Ildefonso building in the center of Mexico City.

The criminal underworld abandoned its marginality and
exoticism, learned to coexist with the law, and finally became
institutionalized as an integral part of the Mexican police force.

Military bands stopped giving free concerts in the parks, the
rent strike was defeated, the gendarmerie disappeared and was
replaced by the granaderos, or "riot police." They no longer make
bulletproof Packards, elegant steamers no longer dock at the ports
of Veracruz and Tampico, the Krone Circus hasn't returned to
Mexico since 1928, and the villages of Tlalpan and San Angel
were long ago swallowed up by the city.

Times pass and things change. The authoritarianism of the
Obregon regime at the start of Mexico's stolen revolution gradually
turned itself into the shamelessness and corrupt arrogance of
the PRI, the political party that controls the country to this day
(1990).