Carlos Fuentes - Hydra Head

At the corner of Hamburgo, he stopped to wait. He had five minutes. He preferred to be exactly on time. He was the most punctual official in the entire Mexican bureaucracy, even though his appointment wasn’t with a more or less friendly Under-Secretary but with a more or less savage criminal.

At a quarter to six, the taxi stopped before the Cronopios Boutique on Niza and honked insistently. Young Sergio emerged, laughing and waving goodbye to the employees. He opened the rear door of the taxi and got in. Felix followed closely behind him. He pulled out the.44 and pressed it against the ribs of the small and elegant youth. Memo looked around with alarm.

“Don’t worry,” Felix said to the driver. “I have bullets for both of you. It depends on which of you wants to die first. Now, let’s take our young gentleman to the place you take him every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at this hour. One false move and Lichita will be a widow.”

Greasy sweat broke out on Memo’s furrowed brow. He didn’t say a word. The taxi crawled at a snail’s pace through the congested traffic on Niza toward the Avenida Chapultepec. Felix kept an eye on Memo’s neck, but pressed the.44 to Sergio’s ribs.

“How’s your papa?” he asked the boy.

“Screwing your mother,” said Sergio. His pupils were dilated, and he licked his lips.

“No,” smiled Felix. “He’d have to be very influential to do that. And millionaires’ sons like you don’t work as clerks in swank boutiques. They just manage to dress like sons of millionaires. It isn’t the same thing.”

“Don’t go to the usual place, Memo, this guy’s full of bullshit. I know him…”

Felix smashed the butt of the pistol against Sergio’s mouth. The boy screamed and sank down in his seat, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand. The taxi turned right on Chapultepec and accelerated slightly.

“The only reason I didn’t destroy that big mouth is because I want you to use it to talk.”

“Then I’m as good as dead, shitass,” spit Sergio.

“You think your chief will protect you? What does he do for you, besides lend you a Mustang to cover his tracks when you act as his messenger boy?”

“I have protection.” Sergio smiled crookedly.

“I knew a little pretty-boy like you. He thought he had protection. He ended up full of holes, stacked like a side of beef at a taxi driver’s door.”

“I just follow orders,” muttered Memo. “I go where they tell me.”

They moved slowly along the colonial aqueduct that parallels the avenue.

“I know that,” said Felix. “I’m grateful that you were so diligent in keeping a record of your calls. Isn’t it interesting? Three times a week at a quarter to six you pick up a certain Sergio de la Vega, a supposedly wealthy young man who serenades lady tourists.”

“Don’t be so thickheaded. I explained that. It was a prank.”

“Two pranks. A nun comes to ask for a contribution to her charity and a bunch of boys with mariachis comes to serenade. These two pranks serve to create a distraction in the street while the third prank is taking place inside the hotel.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, friend.”

“I’m talking about your chief’s prank. The murder of Sara Klein.”

“The name doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

“Maybe a bullet in the kidney will mean something.”

“You scare me. I’ll piss like a sieve.”

Felix pressed the muzzle of the.44 against the driver’s neck. “Your friend’s close-mouthed, Memo.”

“I don’t know anything, chief.” Raimu’s double trembled. “They pay me to pick them up and bring them back.”

“Memo, the rich can buy protection, but a poor bastard like you would get life as accomplice to a murder.”

“Don’t tell him anything,” said Sergio. “The head man’s more powerful than this bastard. He doesn’t know anything. He’s bluffing. Ignore him. Don’t go the usual route, I tell you.”

“I know the route,” Felix said tranquilly. “Memo put down the address. I know where we’re going. And I know who we’ll see.”

“It won’t do you any good. The chief’s a super big shot.”

“Like your father?”

“Screw your fucking mother.”

“I’ll say it again, little boy. We’ll see whether you believe he’s a big shot after the judge sentences you.”

“Don’t make me laugh. For what? For serenading? For using someone else’s plates? Where’ve you been, dummy?”

“No. For driving a stolen car.”

“The chief registered it in my name.”

“It’s parked in front of your house. By now, the police have located it and are waiting for you.”

For the first time, Sergio was sweating like Memo.

“What are you worried about, Sergito? You can prove your big man gave you the car. No sweat. What will they find inside the car? Is that what’s worrying you? Is that why your chief put the car in your name, so you’d have to take the rap? Is that the protection you were bragging about?”

At the corner of Melchor Ocampo, the taxi turned onto the main highway around the city, following the sign toward Querétaro. Sergio tried to open the door of the taxi. His head snapped back as Felix grabbed him around the neck; he choked, gagged, and fell heavily to the floor. Felix pulled him up by the collar like a rag doll. Between coughs, in a hoarse, pained voice, Sergio gasped, “She didn’t have time, I know she didn’t have time.”

“We’ll see whether she’s waiting at Cuatro Caminos,” Memo said nervously.

“Don’t stop for her,” Sergio croaked.

Again, Felix pressed the muzzle of the pistol to Memo’s neck. In his fit of coughing, Sergio resembled a tubercular cupid.

No one spoke again until they reached the Cuatro Caminos bullring. A rebozo-wrapped fat woman with a basket over her arm was standing on one corner, waving her free hand at the taxi. She seemed the mother of Indian gods, a stone Coatlicue, imperturbable beneath the rain.

“Don’t stop!”

Memo stopped the taxi. The fat woman opened the front door and peered in. When she saw Felix, she paused, but her impassive expression didn’t change. Not even when she saw the gun pointed straight at her broad, dark face.

“Get in, señora.”

The fat woman sat down beside Memo. She smelled of damp clothing and re-fried beans.

“What do you have in the basket?” asked Felix. “More chicks? Give it to me.”

The fat woman turned to hand some keys to Sergio. “Here. I couldn’t get to the trunk. The law were all around the car.”

Felix took the keys to the Mustang. “The basket.”

The fat woman raised the basket to show him the contents; it was filled with lettuce. She hurled it in Felix’s face. The woman leaped out with unexpected agility. Sergio tried to follow her, but was stopped by the gun in his ribs.

Memo drove on. Felix and Sergio struggled for an instant, but the boy soon gave up. Behind them, Felix could see the motionless figure of the ancient Aztec goddess fading into rain as gray as the earth she stood on, enveloped in a mist that seemed to emanate from her body.

Felix picked up the basket. Under the lettuce, he found the waterproof packets whose contents weren’t what they seemed, not flour, not sugar.

THE TAXI DRIVER slowed before the Ciudad Satélite Supermarket. Through sheets of rain, the slim, triangular columns designed by Goeritz resembled the coral sails of a sunken galleon. Felix ordered Memo to stop where he parked every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He drove past the main entrance of the huge empty establishment, surrounded at this hour by empty parking places, turned, and parked by the delivery entrance, away from the highway.