Silver Bullets

by Élmer Mendoza, Élmer Mendoza, Mark Fried

Genres: International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

It's just another day at the office for Detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta: abandoned by the woman he loves, demoralized by his city's (nad his nation's) ubiquitous corruption, and in dire need of some psychotherapy. Against this backdrop, he catches the case of Bruno Canizales, a high-powered lawyer with a double life, who was killed by a single silver bullet. Throwing himself into his work, Mendieta begins to piece together the details of Canizales' life. The son of a former government minister, and the lover of a drug lord's daughter, Canizales it seems had a penchant for cross-dressing and edgy sex. In the sweltering city of Culiacán, Mexico's capital of narco-crime, Mendieta scrambles to follow several leads. His dogged pursuit of the killer takes him from glitzy mansions to drug dens, from down-at-the-heels reporters to glamorous transsexuals. When a second, apparently related murder surfaces, Mendieta discovers that his desire to unearth the truth has become as overpowering as any drug.

Release date: January 5, 2016

Publisher: MacLehose Press

Print pages: 272

Sample

Waiting room. You can tell how modern a city is, the detective thought, by the weapons you hear going off in its streets, surprised by his own unexpected conclusion, what did he know about modernism, or postmodernism for that matter, or intangible cultural heritage? Nothing. I’m just a little deer that lives in the woods. Seeing the therapist always made him nervous, so he killed time thinking about everything except the one thing he should be trying to figure out. How do they kill people in Paris, Berlin, Fiji? A door, sloppily painted ochre-yellow, swung open and a young woman emerged, her hair a mess and her face a mask of powdered eggshell. Without a glance his way, she headed straight for the stairs.

In he went. The office stank of tobacco, so much so it made you want to quit. After checking his little notebook, the therapist went right to the nub: I’m floored by the way you suppressed your instinct for self-preservation, how is it possible you didn’t even kick and scream? Well, could you have said no? not me; I was a child, I couldn’t run away or yell, I just couldn’t; do you really believe a nine-year-old snot-nose is capable of defending himself when he’s scared stiff? not me; I lost my courage, I was paralysed, I was a puppet; you can insist all you like, but I can’t cope with having been abused; it goes round and round in my head and no, I am not going to just accept it as if I’d been given a pat on the back.

It was the breaking point and for nearly two years he kept running up against it, even though he prattled on about the smells, the sounds, the half-light. I hate Pedro Infante’s music. That you hadn’t told me, Dr Parra lit another cigarette, did he like it? He didn’t listen to anything else and he went to his movies too; he talked about them like they were the last beer left in the stadium; a couple of times, before it happened, he took me to the movies; I had a good time, now that memory hurts. Did he buy you popcorn? No, or in any case I forget, do I have to remember that too? is it part of the degenerative contract you told me about that other time? Not necessarily, popcorn forms part of our permanent memory, it’s usually innocuous; however, in this case, given its origins, it could be an active element in your bag of poison, that toxic space where we keep all the things that alienate us as individuals from our personal history.

The detective rested his eyes on the bookcase to his right. Do you remember why I became a policeman? More or less. Well, every day I’m less sure. Then refresh my memory. When I was a little kid I wanted to be a priest, he made a long pause, Parra wrote in his notebook, Enrique wanted to be a fireman, a pilot, a frogman, all those things boys like; not me, my dream was to be a missionary in Africa or something like that, pause, and look where I ended up. You’re not doing so badly. Not so well either and I don’t believe, as you say, that I joined the police to protect the weak and help justice to triumph; I wanted to make easy money and get out of here as fast as I could. Yet you stayed. People get used to anything. And you made enemies of the people who could have made you rich quick. So what do you want, life’s a lottery.

Office downtown. Parra in his worn-out easy chair, Edgar Mendieta in the straight-backed one he preferred to the mysterious nudity of the couch. It was a gloomy place that smelled of cheap detergent. On one of his visits he mentioned as much, but it made no difference to the doctor, who just commented that this was the cheerless part of a dissolute city. Parra looked at his watch. Edgar, you have to leave all that behind, you aren’t seriously damaged and the years have brought you a lot of good, grab hold of those things; I know you think happiness is a sign of stupidity, but even if you don’t believe it letting this go is one of the very few things you can still do to find some relief; and stop drinking, when you mix that with the tranquillisers the least that’ll happen is you’ll fall asleep in your soup; you’re a success, enjoy it, and pick up your love life, you know how that puts a smile on your face, do you remember when you were going with that girl? do something, I want to see that sparkle in your eyes, that feeling that the world is your oyster; come on, look at your future another way and, oh, time’s up. Parra wore a beard and he looked dirty and tired. You’ve never talked so much, doctor. It’s because I see that you’re better, a little on edge, but on balance pretty well. And because you need to get home early. Well, sure, what do you want, as a family man I try to be there for the ten o’clock news; let’s leave the next appointment open, maybe you won’t need it. I wish.

He went out. Distracted, he gazed up at the cloudy sky. A Lobo pickup and two black Hummers roared by pushing the other drivers aside. Their stereos were blasting out corridos and from one of them an arm tossed a beer bottle that shattered at the detective’s feet. The great achievement of powerful countries is order, he muttered. Here we’re worth shit. He got into his Jetta, the radio came on. “It’s time for the second edition of ‘Eyes on the Night’, ” an announcer said, “the top radio show in town.” He switched it off, nosed out into the traffic on Obregón Avenue, heavy for the hour, and drove home in silence.

He ate no supper so he would not have nightmares.

It was drizzling. Was she afraid? No. Did this March rain mean anything? I do not think so. It might have brought that Brazilian song to mind or some faraway, uncaring city, but she was not up to it. Paola Rodríguez went through the gate and walked slowly towards the house: white, one storey, wooden door. When she parked across the street, she had failed to notice the S.U.V. with tinted windows a few yards in front of her, whose rain-soaked windshield hid the driver completely. Indecisive? Not a chance. Though she felt the scars of certain kisses, she moved with a determination that matched her beauty. She was glad she was getting wet, especially now that she only had Edvard Munch in her head (“The Scream”) and Frida Kahlo (“The Two Fridas”). Diego was a bastard, forget him. Her mind was throbbing and she had no interest in reining it in, her red hair was mussed from the humidity and the hour. Flowers in the garden: a few roses, fewer calendulas, a bougainvillea, all barely visible in the inky darkness. A yellowish sedan in the open garage reflected the light of a bare bulb hanging from the wall. She opened the blue door with her key. American-style house with two toilets, the neighbourhood was middle class. In the street somebody’s pickup headed off slowly, another neighbour started his. The squeak of the door closing should have reminded her of something, but it did not. From her bag she pulled out a black semi-automatic. It was about six in the morning and soon Bruno Canizales would get up to run, that despicable turncoat, that “I couldn’t care less, I don’t give a fuck about anything, sweet fuck all, less than sweet fuck all, whatever”. Whew, she breathed out. She wanted him to hear her, to see her come in, to get all startled, she wanted his eyes to grow wide when he saw her Beretta dark and threatening: Paola, my love, my queen, put that down, you look terrific, but better put that away, it’s so early and . . . You swine, you know perfectly well what I’m here for. She had warned him: If you leave me I’ll kill you. It especially hurt that he had dumped her for that sinister dancing guy, damn the day that she introduced them. Here, meet a great friend of mine and the best dancer in the world, a true artist. Pao, don’t exaggerate, please, look at how I’m blushing. All those girls frolicking around you never mattered, they’re women and I understand them, even that she-devil we ran into once. He’s different, and that hurts. She did not notice the living room or the kitchen, both impeccably clean. She ignored the potted plants she had brought him and the paintings that on several occasions were the subject of animated discussions.

You said you’re one of those who will never marry, and me pretending to be very modern, I answered: Me too, we smiled and then it all happened.

She paused to chamber a round, then continued down the hall. Skylight. The open door of the study did not attract her attention. Nor the closed door of the guest room. At the back, the bedroom of Attorney Bruno Canizales, the love of her life, the only man a decent woman has the right to kill without remorse. She approached the door with its blessed Easter palm leaf. Silence. She opened it carefully. Your time is up, asshole. Darkness. Aggressive fragrance. She felt suddenly apprehensive, she did not like the posture of the body on the untidy bed, on top of the sheets, crosswise. You damn liar, are you sleeping off a night of wild sex? Training the pistol on him, she went up to the lamp, but did not switch it on. No need. She could see Bruno was dead.

She sat on the floor with the pistol between her legs and began to cry. I would have married you just so we could be together; angelface, I would have promised to love you and respect you until death do us part, in sickness and in health, in . . . and in adversity. I decided not to be a dummy and listen to me now. God, you can fake anything in the world except love. Beside her, his shoes. She scratched her itchy left hand with the barrel of the Beretta. Money must be coming my way, she murmured, then she put on the safety, dropped the weapon into her bag, and stood up. She contemplated the cadaver in street clothes lying on top of the unmade sheets, the pale clean-shaven face. On the chest of drawers she saw a book of hers and a card: “Pick up Dr Ripalda, 7.15. Aeroméxico.” Paola Rodríguez looked at her watch: 6.08. Bruno dear, someone hated you more than I did. She left without giving a thought to the body.

Beautiful: impossible to describe her.

It was drizzling.

Edgar “Lefty” Mendieta took his pistol out of the glove compartment, got out of the Jetta, stuck the gun in his belt, and left the door open. He had been listening to Herman’s Hermits “There’s a Kind of a Hush” on a C.D. of oldies and he could not get the tune out of his head. I hope it’s one of those impossible cases, they’re the ones we’re best at, he thought, we never solve them and nobody cares or asks questions at three in the morning. He was wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans and a thin windbreaker the same colour. Beside an abandoned truck on the outskirts of the city, in a big lot for truckers in a place known as Piggyback, lay the body of a man not yet identified. For comfort, he put the Beretta in the pocket of his jacket while he dealt with Daniel Quiroz, crime beat reporter for “Eyes on the Night,” who thanks to his connections was the first to arrive at the scene.

Lefty, do you know anything I don’t know? Well, by the blue of his eyes I’d say he was Steve McQueen, an American, motorcyclist by trade. But you haven’t seen him. I’m psychic, don’t you remember? My man Lefty, I am whatever I may be, but I am not ungrateful, and never would I be disloyal to a buddy like you who has done me so many favours. Boss. Calling to him was Zelda Toledo, his partner, who until recently was a traffic cop and now since Sánchez retired was always at his side. Oh baby, Quiroz sighed, do you ever look good, you don’t have your irons in that fire, do you Lefty? God help me, I would never get involved with a woman whose feet stink. Oh, I would, and I’d get off sucking on her little pinkies.

The technicians had sealed the area with yellow tape and two assistants of Dr Montaño, the forensic, were doing their thing without much enthusiasm. A dust devil in the distance made plain that if February is wild, March is wilder still.

The blanket was brown and blood-soaked, emblazoned with a stag between two peaks, on it lay the body of a man, forty-five or fifty years old, the detective calculated, a metre eighty, Versace shirt, barefoot, castrated, and with a bullet in his heart. One of the officers scouring the place returned with an ostrich-leather cowboy boot, Mendieta made a face. Let’s hand the case over to Narcotics, he ordered his partner, several cell phones rang out, we don’t need his name to know his line of work. Not only did they castrate him, Zelda said, they also cut out his tongue, we haven’t found the casings, which makes you think they killed him someplace else and brought him here. It makes no difference, any case that involves the narcos has already been solved, call Pineda so he can get in touch with Ortega, who’ll be here before long anyway, and we’ll see each other at the office. What should I tell the district attorney’s people? she pointed at a young woman who was taking in the scene, her eyes out of orbit. Whatever you can dream up, he walked over to the white Jetta parked beyond a row of big trucks. Several drivers were nosing about, drinking coffee and eating shredded-beef tacos and beans. Two of them had seen a black Lobo dump the blanket-wrapped body, but they were not crazy enough to say so. With the Mexican police, the further away the better, same story with the killers.

*

Seventh Cavalry song. Mendieta, the detective muttered, answering a call from Briseño, his boss. Where are you? Looking at a tomato field and an army of Oaxacans picking red and green peppers, and since you called let me report that Narcotics turned up and wants rights over the gangsta-wrap, let’s hand it over so we don’t have problems, you know how touchy they can be. Who was it? Pineda, Señor Jealous-of-his-Turf. Let them have it and take charge of a case in Guadalupe, half an hour ago a body was reported, name Bruno Canizales, a lawyer, nominee for professional of the year, and a member of the U.S.B. The what? The Universal Small Brotherhood. Sounds like the Undercover Surveillance Bureau. Not at all, they preach meditation and vegetarianism, the call came from a Dr Francisco Ripalda, who’s here from Mexico City and was going to stay with the deceased; write down the address and get going.

*

He knew the neighbourhood of Guadalupe fairly well. Split down the middle by Obregón Avenue, it lay below La Lomita church and to one side of the Col Pop, where he had lived for his entire life.

In the living room sat Dr Ripalda, plus a thin man and two women, one of whom looked particularly shaken. They were drinking lemonade. Mendieta and Zelda observed the scene for a moment, then sat down with them. An impossible case? I hope so, the detective took out his PalmPilot and straightened his legs, when there is a body to contend with the living are more important than the dead. On the wall hung landscapes, a few diplomas from the U.S.B., a painting by María Romero depicting a woman’s genitals, and another by Kijano. Who found him? While Ripalda raised his hand, Mendieta observed the others. Three potted plants gave the room a comfy feel.

We are members of the Universal Small Brotherhood, which Attorney Canizales also belonged to; I live in Mexico City, but I’m giving a course on transcendental meditation and I’ve been coming here weekends for the past month, the attorney always picks me up at the airport and I stay here; this morning when he did not meet me and didn’t answer his telephone I took a taxi; the door was open and I found him on his bed, aren’t you going to look at the body? because besides the door I haven’t touched a thing. Did you call these people? I called Señor Figueroa, he indicated the thin man, who is our leader here. And what did you do? I telephoned Laura and Dania so they would keep me company, I’m rather sensitive and I didn’t dare come by myself, I still haven’t the courage to look at him, he gestured towards the bedroom at the back. And you? Laura Frías wiped away a tear. We went in to see him. Besides being in the U.S.B. together, is there anything else? We were like brothers and sisters, he always stood by us. Dania Estrada had a lovely voice. Laura simply nodded. By the way, we called his family in Navolato and they’ll be here soon. What time was it when you found him? About 8.20. Did he live alone? Yes, sir. Did you visit him often? Not really, Figueroa said, we’d see him at our centre, which is on Riva Palacio Street. We girls saw him last week, we had tea at the Verdi and we talked. About what? About his plans, about the news that he’d been nominated for professional of the year, he wanted to go back to the Safety Council to put an end to the violence. Really? the detective smiled, did he work? At Social Security, he was a legal adviser. The car in the garage, is that his? They nodded. Do you have any idea who killed him? They shook their heads. O.K., give your addresses, telephones, and cell phone numbers to Agent Toledo in case we need you for any clarifications, he made a quick note on his Palm; the technical people will be here soon, they’ll take your fingerprints just in case you touched anything else.

*

He opened the door with a handkerchief. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Aromas assaulted his senses and were on the point of evoking a memory: what is that dry, spicy fragrance?

He observed the body on the twisted sheets, the bloodstain. Black pants, white shirt, dark socks. The bullet hole was in the left temple. The detective took in the tidiness of the room, no mess on the floor or on the furniture. Thursday’s newspapers lay on a leather easy chair. On the chest of drawers, the novel News from the Empire by Fernando del Paso. He took photographs with his cell phone. Using a Kleenex he picked up the remote and turned the television on: Channel 22, the favourite of the culture-loving middle class. “Every Wednesday at 8.30 p.m. ‘Caught in Fiction,’ interviews with the authors of the latest in Mexican literature”, an advertising voice intoned. He turned it off. Under the bed he saw black shoes, a pair of. . .