Mexico City Noir by Paco Ignacio Taibo II Read Free Book Online Page B

already cleared me of any wrongdoing in Myriam’s death,” he groused. He said her name as if he’d stepped in dog shit. Through his dark glasses, he could see from the expression on my face that I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Myriam Roberts, an American model. She killed herself at the Alfer Hotel a couple of years ago. She left a suicide note for me.”
    Cantinflas took a piece of paper from his jacket and handed it to me. It was a simple note written in a fine feminine script. It could have been a love letter or a grocery list.
Dear Mario,
    Please forget me. You could never love me and I could never understand this place. Be good to yourself. You have been good to me but you could never love me, yet I really loved you. I know you’ll be good to our son.
    When I finished reading the letter, I gave it back to him. He folded it carefully and put it back in his jacket pocket, the one over his heart.
    “Are you going to tell me the whole story or just the condensed Reader’s Digest version?”
    The comedian shrugged his shoulders. “The police questioned me. I’d known her for many years. The boy’s name is Carlos. I adopted him, he’s my son now. I don’t want her to continue threatening my family. Find Rojas, pay her off, and make sure she never bothers me again.”
    At the door, a secretary appeared, more stacked than the pyramids at Teotihuacán. Her miniskirt barely contained her, and her beehive practically hit the ceiling. She gave me a bundle of dollars and a letter, assuring my silence.
    “Even if you don’t take the job, you’ll have to sign the confidentiality agreement. I don’t want you to sell the story about my cosmetic surgery to Mike Oliver for three tequilas, and I don’t want this house surrounded by bloodsucking photographers.”
    “I accept. Don’t worry. Carmandy is right, I’m a lot cuter when I’m quiet.” I pocketed the dollars and signed the agreement. We Mexicans are proud. We don’t like to air our dirty laundry. We don’t like it when the rest of the world finds out we have bad breath.
    In the mid-’60s, Mexico City was dressed up and made to look like a fashionable urban center. President López Mateos built a Los Angeles—style highway, to which he gave the flirty name, El Periferico. The city delighted in the contrasts between modern buildings, colonial constructions, and rustic homes. It was sprinkled with cabarets, from the finest like the Source and the Casino Terrace, to the Fifth Patio and the Empire. My love of cocktails had free rein at all of them.
    I left the comedian’s house with the bundle of bills and an address to make the delivery. I hid the cash in the secret compartment where I usually stashed the Colt. Such an absence of humor had made me thirsty. My mouth was begging for a drink even though it wasn’t yet noon. I drove my Ford Woody through streets with names lifted from a Walt Whitman poem: Rock, Water, Fountains, Rain, Breeze, Clouds. I was mentally composing my own poem when I noticed that an enormous cobalt-blue Lincoln Continental was following me. It was as imposing as a pirate ship. The car cut me off, forcing me to stop, and out stepped a huge brown dude who looked like a miniature King Kong.
    “Who the fuck do you think you are to stick your nose in our business, pendejo?” He spit on my windshield. King Kong Jr. wore an absurdly wide pink tie that carried evidence of his breakfast. The suit was actually a couple of sizes too small. But what I disliked most was that he stunk of garlic.
    “It’s been a long time since I thought I was much of anybody, bud,” I calmly answered. But it was a mistake. I knew it when I saw his fist come through the window like a medieval battering ram. The impact practically knocked me out of the car. I would have trouble breathing through my nose that night.
    The friendly gorilla hit me two more times. Once I was out of the car and on the ground, he gave me two kicks, which I can still feel.