Blood Lake (19 page)

“So you're Pancho La Pulga,” says Suzie, admiringly. He eyes both of us like an ace reliever deciding what we're most likely to swing at, and whether to pitch this down the middle or straight at our heads. “My brothers listen to you all the time. It's nice to meet you.”

It's nice to meet us, too.

“Why do they call you Pancho La Pulga?” I say.

“They call me a flea because I make
el presidente
Pajizo and his lapdogs itch where they can't scratch,” he brags. “And to a bunch of dogs, anything they can't scratch is a flea.”

I make the effort to chuckle. “You must get a lot of surprise visits.”

“All the time. Some of them not as friendly as this. Excuse me—”

The phone is ringing. He answers. I hear the faint tinkle of a woman's voice.

“You got it, sister. And keep shaking your butt to Radio Lamar,” says Pancho, pulling the disc. Back to us. “You were saying?”

“You take requests?”

He opens his arms to the shelves around us.

“Can you play ‘
A veces me siento así
'?”

“Oh, that. I play that one all the time.”

“Did you play it two nights ago?”

“Sure, a couple of times. Everybody wants dance music on Saturday night.”

“What time did you play it?”

That gets a raised eyebrow.

“I'm trying to establish a time of death,” I say flatly. “What time did you play it?”

“Oh, it was more than an hour into my show. I'd say eleven-thirty or so.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“'Course I am.”

“Do you keep a log?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then how can you be so sure?”

“Same way a tailor who's been in business for twenty years knows you're a thirty-eight C the minute you walk into his shop,
mi dulcita
,” he says, measuring Suzie's ample playing field with an experienced eye. She almost blushes.

“And the second time?” I ask.

“Second time what?”

“When did you play the song for the second time?”

“Oh. Near the end of the show, maybe a quarter to two.”

“And when did you get the news?”

“Look, what the fuck is this?” he demands.

“A friend of mine said you were the first radio station in the province to report Padre Campos's murder, and I want to know how you found out about it.
That's
what the fuck this is.”

He takes a moment to stare at me, then he crosses his arms and lets me know that's all I'm going to get out of him for now. Okay. Time for Suzie to work her half of the court.

“
Oye
, Panchito, this is very important to my cousin Filomena. Never mind about how you found out, okay? We don't care.”

“Now that's what I'm talking about,” he says, unable to keep his incisors from showing as she turns on her wondrous charms.

“Just tell us
when
you got the news about the bastards who killed the Padre.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose that's okay to tell you. We got the news about a quarter to one. I announced it maybe half an hour later. I remember because I stopped everything.”

“Why'd you wait half an hour?” I break in.

“Hey—we like to verify stories like that.”

“Good point. How'd you verify it?”

“Hey, who are you, anyway?”

“I already told you, she's my cousin Filomena,” says Suzie.

“And I'd like to know if you have any idea why someone would want Samuel Campos dead.”

“Sure. He was a fag,” says Pancho, making a hand gesture that would be recognized in any boys' locker room in the Western hemisphere.

“Somebody killed him because he was gay? There'd be a lot more murders in this town if
that
were the case. Try again.”

A lot of people in Ecuador haven't accepted the idea of homosexuality yet. But then, a lot of people in Ecuador haven't accepted the idea of the
lightbulb
yet.

“It was a crime of passion,” says Pancho. “He must have heard some fag's confession, then threatened to expose the guy if he didn't come up to his room and—”

Pancho chooses this moment to display another gesture requiring the use of both hands.

“Get serious,” I tell him. “If a priest is forcing you to have gay sex, you expose him, you don't kill him.”

“Yeah, but not everyone thinks the way you do, honey,” advises Pancho. “Maybe they went down to the kitchen to have some fun, or maybe it just got a little too rough and—” Pancho slowly draws his thumb across his throat from ear to ear, pressing deep enough to leave a pale white line before the blood rushes back in. “Fags are pretty unpredictable.”

I let that pass. One battle at a time.

“So you think maybe they were playing around at a little culino-erotic stimulation and it got out of hand? That's some turn-on,” I say.

“Hey, it takes all kinds.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a political murder
in retribution for the report they wrote condemning the government's human rights abuses,” I suggest.

“Listen, stop acting like he was such a fucking saint,” says Pancho. “Pajizo
gave
Campos that land when he was still mayor of Guayaquil.”

“In which case the report would be seen as a double-cross, the penalty for which is—”

“He fucking
blessed
Canino at that asshole's victory Mass! That didn't make him too popular with some people, you know.”

“Padre Campos gave Segundo Canino's victory Mass?” I ask, astounded. How come I didn't know this?

“Sure as shit,
muñeca
. Next time count all the freaking beans first, okay? Now, I'd love to keep arguing, but I have a show to do.”

The price of freedom is $1.25 a pound.

—Thomas Jefferson (no relation)

THE PALM TREES
are painted white.

Everything is painted white. Walls, benches, the first six feet up the tree trunks, all white.

The sidewalks are swept. There's almost no filth. It's remarkably hot.

And it's even hotter inside.

Open-shirted reporters set pocket tape recorders on the table, photographers ready their lenses, video crews double check their connections while the TV reporters fix their hair and have their makeup retouched.

Pale blue-and-white flags, the patriotic colors of Guayaquil, are displayed on posters and T-shirts and plastic ribbons draped around the room like bunting. Otherwise, the walls are bare. It's only been Hector Gatillo's campaign headquarters for about an hour, but it's already swarming with clouds of rapacious press corps drones, humming and eager to begin nipping at his heels, the gluttonous prelude to several months of scrounging for every scrap of cartilage and gristle that rolls off the table.

I'm stepping carefully through the buzzing colony, searching for a reporter from
El Despacho
, when suddenly I
have to cough. My lungs are still irritated from all that smoke last night.

There's a surge of activity near the side door. Bodies bearing network logos compress around me, and the TV lights flare up. Hector Gatillo bursts through the door encircled by cheering fans like a boxer on his way to the ring, his arms up in the air as if already embracing victory.

The three biggest national TV news crews are here. Suddenly they have to take this guy seriously.

They get the first question.

It's a lame one:

“
Señor
Gatillo, what is your campaign about?” says the reporter from Ecuavisa.

Gatillo nods towards the cameras and says, “It's about teaching the people that
they
have the power to make things better. That a man can be a man without stepping on his neighbor. It's about learning to have confidence in yourselves, and to stop believing that your oppressors are all-powerful, because they're not.”

Voices cry out:

“
Señor
Gatillo—”

“What about the education budget—?”

“The rice shortage—?”

“Pesticides in the shrimp—”

“The military—”

“What specific programs—?”

Gatillo's assistant points to another TV reporter: “The
señorita
from TeleAmazonas.”

This one's even lamer: “
Señor
Gatillo, what is your campaign slogan going to be?”

Gatillo's crew look around, at each other; they haven't thought of that yet. Then Gatillo does something I'm not sure I've ever seen a politician do before: he tells the truth.

“We have no slogan,” he admits. “Perhaps, during the campaign, the people will come up with one. Yes, I will let the people answer that.”

“
Señor
Gatillo—!”

“Inflation—”

“The external debt—”

“Threat of terrorist—”

“Oil—”

“Guerrilla activity in the jungle—”

“Exchange rate with the dollar—?”

One of Gatillo's bookends picks a white-haired man with a bit of a potbelly: “The gentleman from
El Despacho
.”

I'm straining to get a better look.

“
Licenciado
Gatillo,” he begins, using the schoolteacher's formal title. It takes me about five words to place his accent as Argentinian. “What about the accusations that there is a pact between your party and President Pajizo's Centrist Coalition?”

Loud, angry murmurs from his followers, but Gatillo silences them.

“To do what? Draw votes away from his chosen successor, Segundo Canino?” Some snickers. “The people know I stand for change.
Real
change. These rumors are meant to scare the poor uninformed voters away from me. Do you realize how ridiculous this is? The government party is so unpopular that they are trying to weaken my candidacy by suggesting that I am aligned with them!”

Laughter and applause from his followers.

“The
señorita
from Channel Three News.”

“
Señor candidato
, how would you describe yourself to our viewers?”

“Short, fat, and ugly.”

Damn, he's honest.

“What about the narco-dollars that are supporting the rebel movement in the
oriente
?”

“The rebel movement isn't the only thing that's funded by narco-dollars, people. The right-wing paramilitary hit squads supply themselves the same way. Frankly, I'm much more worried about the government's recent decision to allow the United States to use the Manta Air Force Base to launch attacks against Colombian rebels operating in the border
region, which I believe is a greater threat to regional stability than our tiny and increasingly irrelevant rebel movement.”

There's another burst of shouting from the reporters elbowing each other and pressing forward to get in the next question. I'm pushing against the crowd to get to the Argentine newsman before I lose sight of him.

Then a sudden surge of pressure to my left squeezes me into a pocket of air, close enough to look directly into the elderly reporter's heavy-lidded eyes. They're gray and watery. The press credentials dangling around his neck read:

Ruben Zimmerman

Senior Reporter

El Parecer
, Buenos Aires

Special Assignment to
El Despacho

“You ask tough questions,
señor
Zimmerman. How closely is the Argentine press following the campaign?”

“They couldn't give a
cola de rata
about the campaign. I am following it independently.”

“Three thousand miles from home? That's pretty damn independently.”

He looks at me suspiciously. “Are you a reporter?”

“No, but I feel a desperate need to talk to one.”

My joke falls flat. He stops taking notes and looks at me sharply, making no effort to mask his irritation, sighs at the futility, and snaps his notebook shut.

“There are twenty-four hours in a day, you know. The least you people could do is quit bugging me when I'm in the middle of an assignment. All right, so what is it this time?”

“Sorry. I seem to be getting off on the wrong foot here. Could we talk outside?”

“Yeah, sure, fine, whatever.”

We push through the bodies past a spotlit woman telling a TV camera, “—direction remains to be seen, but
señor
Gatillo declared today that the people will answer that question for him. In the
ciudadela
Aguilera, this is Julia Ramírez, TeleAmazonas.” Just like up North.

The sun presses down on me like a steamroller on hot tar.

“At least you're prettier than the last one they sent,” he says. “Come on, let's get this over with.”

My God, someone more paranoid than me.

“Look, I'm not what you think I am. I guess you must be getting harassed by the police a lot,” I try to reassure him, without success. “Or is it immigration?” I ask.

He stops in his tracks and glowers at me. “
Señora
, I have been hounded and targeted by the secret armies of six different countries—the National Intelligence Service, the First Army Corps, the CIA, ACHA, DINA, DIPC, SID—”

“Sounds like everyone but the meter maids are after you. Come on, let's go get some coffee and catch up on old times.”

I take him across the street to a café with a low-hanging forest of white ceiling fans whirring away. He closes one of his shirt buttons.

“You cold?” I ask.

“At my age? Always. So who on earth are you?” he asks, settling noisily into a cane chair.

“Sometimes I ask myself the same question. I guess you could say that I'm also a South-American-in-exile, only in my case banishment led to the United States.” I hand him my passport as proof, but it's not terribly convincing.

“It
looks
real,” he says, “especially the holographic strip, but what does that mean these days?”