The Mongolian Conspiracy Read online

  “You didn’t come last night, Cap’n. We needed one more for dominoes.”

  “No. I didn’t come.”

  “Work or pleasure?”

  “To your health, Professor.”

  “A fellow came around looking for you.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Said he was a friend. He stood me two drinks, there, at the bar.”

  “Really!”

  “I didn’t know him, Cap’n, but he didn’t fool me. I told him you always drank tequila and he said, yeah, that you were quite the tequila drinker.”

  The professor emptied his glass. García ordered him another. Those guys came all the way here looking for me?

  “What time was that?”

  “Around nine.”

  They brought the tequila and the tacos de ubre.

  “You don’t want any?”

  “No thanks, Cap’n. I eat lunch later . . . when I eat at all. Cheers.”

  He emptied his glass. Or maybe the professor is telling me tales so he can mooch more tequilas. Fucking professor!

  “So, then what happened?”

  “Look, Cap’n, when someone comes in here asking for a man like you and says he’s a friend, a bosom buddy, and he doesn’t even know that you never drink tequila, there’s something fishy going on. Could it be the cops?”

  “Anybody’s guess.”

  “When he left, I followed him a little, but then I lost him on Donceles. That is, I ran into Ibarrita and he bought me a tequila . . .”

  “Was he Mexican?”

  “Yeah. Dressed like a pocho, but definitely Mexican. About my height, more Indian looking. And he was carrying a gun under his armpit.”

  “Sure you don’t want some tacos, Professor?”

  “Rather have another tequila.”

  García ordered him another tequila. Based on his description, that was Roque Villegas. There’s me figuring he’d been following me since Dolores, and it turns out he came here looking for me. And now he’s not looking for me anywhere. Fucking stiff! And the other, Luciano Manrique, he knew I hung out on Dolores with the Chinamen. This is getting very complicated.

  “Listen, Professor, want to do me a favor and earn a few bucks?”

  “Do I have to kill anybody?”

  “No, just defend a widow.”

  “A do-it-yourself widow or you lent a hand?”

  “Not exactly a widow. They weren’t married.”

  “A mistress.”

  “Yeah, they killed her lover.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. And the man was carrying fifteen-hundred dollars in his pocket, in fifty-dollar bills.”

  “And you left them where they were, Cap’n?”

  “The police have them. I want you to pay a visit to the woman; she still doesn’t know he’s dead . . .”

  “What? You think she has more of the same?”

  “I don’t know. Tell her you’ll represent her, that you’ll help her get back that money that is rightfully hers.”

  “That’s true. The law protects . . .”

  “She’s a gringa.”

  “Even more reason. A woman alone, in a foreign land, her husband deceased . . .”

  “Save the demagoguery for her, Professor. What I want is

  for you to go and tell her you can get her the money, for a commission . . .”

  “Fifty percent?”

  “Ten . . .”

  “That’s low.”

  “Anyway, you’re not going to get the money. That’s why I’m paying you . . .”

  “But she can, legally, claim that money . . .”

  “I don’t give a shit about that, Professor. What I want to know is where the money came from, who gave it to Villegas . . .”

  “Villegas, Cap’n? Would that be Roque Villegas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was in the afternoon paper . . .”

  “You’ll tell the woman that you have to show where the money came from in order to get it back. In other words, that she has to prove that it really belonged to Villegas . . .”

  “Understood.”

  “I’ll arrive while you’re with her. Pretend you don’t know me, but play along. By the time I get there, I want her to know everything and be real eager to get that money back.”

  “What do I get out of it, Cap’n?”

  “Two hundred pesos.”

  “Three hundred. I have to pay my room . . .”

  “Two hundred.”

  “Okay. Where does she live?”

  “At 208 Guerrero, apartment 9.”

  “I’ll go tomorrow.”

  “You’ll go now. I’ll arrive at four.”

  “But . . .”

  “Now.”

  “Give me something for the cab.”

  He gave him ten pesos. The professor took the money, which vanished in his hands as if by magic.

  “Okay, I’m going.”

  “Those ten are on account.”

  “Don’t be so hard on me, Cap’n. A man’s gotta live . . .”

  The professor left the cantina. Thirty of the ten thousand bills have shown up. I’d like to find myself a bundle. Could be that my friend Ivan Mikhailovich saw what a chump I am. Like Marta. And it’ll turn out there’s no ten thousand fifty-dollar bills and there’s no Marta. Fucking Marta! For all I know Liu knocked her up. And me playing the soap opera. Fucking Palmolive! If only Ramona from Chiapas could’ve seen me: “Fili darling, you’d hump a pole if it had an ass.” That’s what that bitch would say. And all because I broke in the servant at the whorehouse. Somebody had to start her off. And that other one, in Veracruz: “For you, love is jumping on top of a woman. I think for you a woman is just a hole with legs.” So, what else is a bitch for? Straight to business. Just like with the dead. Why beat around the bush? The dead in the ground and the man in the bitch. Why the prologue? Slam, bam. With bitches and with the dead. It’s the same shit. All the rest is decoration, for perverts. And now here I am with my, “You can sleep in the bedroom, dear Marta.” Maybe I can’t get it up anymore and that’s why I’m acting so paternal. Fucking Marta! Mother fucker! I’m going to talk to the gringo, then go straight home. And that’ll be the end of the soap opera, and on to the only thing that matters. You, Marta, get in bed, and me with you. But she’s not that type. Then what good is she? Maybe I’ll bring her flowers. There I go, back to the soaps! And then there was that day I brought flowers, in Parral. I wasn’t going to sleep with Jacinta Ricarte. The flowers were for her grave. I was dead drunk and Sergeant Garrido nabbed me. I didn’t have orders to kill Jacinta Ricarte. Fucking flowers! And here that gringo is about to tell me he knows everything, just like the Russian.

  Graves entered the cantina flourishing his smile in style. He was carrying a black leather briefcase under his arm. When he saw García, his smile shined even more brightly. That gringo acts like he wants to sell me something real bad. For all I know he’s a faggot and he’s taken a shine to me.

  “My good friend García.”

  “What’s up?”

  Graves sat down across from him.

  “You’ve eaten?

  “Yes, of course. We eat lunch at noon; it gives us a long afternoon to work.”

  “Want some coffee?”

  “Would they have American coffee?”

  “Maybe.”

  They brought him a big cup with some coffee and hot water. Graves tasted it, then didn’t touch it again.

  “That’s what happens to me in Sanborns when I order coffee,” García said.

  Graves smiled.

  “Doesn’t matter. I ordered it to keep you company.”

  “Want a cognac?”

  “No, thank you. Not when I’m working. García, I know Laski has men tailing me.”

  “And you’ve got men tailing him.”

  “That’s routine. But there are others, I don’t think they’re Laski’s. Are they yours?”

  “And there are others tailing me, too. Laski’s, yours,
and others. We’re a proper procession.”

  “You don’t know who those others might belong to?”

  “Mr. Mao?”

  “You sure?”

  “No. You?”

  “If they’re tailing us, we must be onto something.”

  “Look, Graves, how about we cut the crap? If you and Laski would use your people for something more useful, we might be able to find out who those others are.”

  Graves laughed.

  “Right you are, García, my friend. But we’d have to make a deal with Laski, who is a very dangerous man. Though sometimes I think we carry our distrust a little too far.”

  “Like I said.”

  “For example, you didn’t mention a word about your activities last night, and if it hadn’t been because I took the precaution of putting surveillance on you from the start, I wouldn’t have known anything. That is not okay, García. We agreed to cooperate.”

  “Are you sure what happened last night has something to do with our investigation?”

  Graves was busy lighting a cigarette. The next time I pick up a Chinese gal, I’ll just take her to the Olympic Stadium, there’d be fewer people there. If I’d known, I would’ve sold tickets.

  “The incident,” Graves said, “started in Café Canton, which you asked me to investigate.”

  “So?”

  “A Pontiac began to follow you from there, the same Pontiac in which, this morning, two dead bodies were found.”

  “Are you sure they’re involved?”

  “It adds up, unless you asked me to investigate Wang from Café Canton for some other reason?”

  Graves’s voice was hard. In spite of his smile, you could tell he was not amused.

  “We are dealing here with a very serious matter. The life of the president of the United States of America, and maybe even world peace, hangs in the balance. And we have very little time . . .”

  “So, stop wasting it telling me off and tell me what you found out from Wang.”

  Graves smiled. He placed his briefcase on the table but didn’t open it. Now he’ll pull out a stack of papers. A thousand-page investigation. Give ’em to your fucking mother to read.

  “Wang imports merchandise from Communist China through Hong Kong. Mostly canned Chinese food. He brings in a significant amount of merchandise. The last shipment was worth eighty thousand pesos. I think the Mexican police should search the café and his warehouses in Nonoalco.”

  “Looking for what? Canned lard and fish sauce? My government doesn’t prohibit trade with China.”

  “This is a special case.”

  “Anyway, I found out that there are half a million dollars in fifty-dollar bills, out there, floating around, as we say, somewhere.”

  “How do you know, García?”

  “The money comes from Hong Kong. With half a million dollars you can get a pope assassinated, never mind a president.”

  “How did you find out about that money?”

  “Maybe your people, who like to investigate so much, would have news of an operation of that magnitude. The money, in cash, comes from Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, in Hong Kong.”

  “Yesterday Wang exchanged, at Banco Nacional, a hundred fifty-dollar bills. He changed them for pesos.”

  “Graves, you think you can get the numbers of the bills from the Hong Kong bank?”

  “I can try, through London, but we don’t have much time.”

  “Do it, even if you have to go through Outer Mongolia. And we’ve got a date, at seven, at Café Canton, with Laski.”

  “Okay. What was that you said about Outer Mongolia?”

  “Nothing. It was a joke. See you at seven.”

  García stood up. Graves stayed seated:

  “I’d like to know where you get your information, García. About the money.”

  “You would?”

  “It’s important.”

  “One of the dead men in the Pontiac was carrying thirty fifty-dollar bills. A lot of dough for a guy like that.”

  “Half a million dollars is too much money for something like this, García.”

  “You don’t think your president’s life is worth that much?”

  “These kinds of attacks are usually carried out by fanatics, people who don’t need to get paid much. Half a million is a lot of money.”

  “See you at seven.”

  García went out and stopped at a public telephone.

  “García here, Colonel.”

  “Kill anybody else?”

  “Have you got those bills they found on Villegas?”

  “Yes. And they’re staying right here.”

  “I just want the numbers.”

  The colonel told him the numbers and García jotted them down on an old envelope.

  “Thanks, Colonel.”

  “The person we talked to last night called me. He wants a report.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ve got nothing more to say?”

  “Could you also get the numbers of some fifty-dollar bills that Wang, from Café Canton, changed at the Banco Nacional? There were a hundred of them.”

  “Yeah, that’s easy. The bank has no reason to conceal that information. You can ask them yourself.”

  “I don’t have time. The president of the United States arrives tomorrow.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  The colonel hung up. Fucking colonel and his jokes! Have I killed anybody else. What does he care, as long as I don’t kill his clients? They’ve all gotten so high and mighty. Like that del Valle. Who said anything about killing anybody? And me still in the same old shit — but now it’s even worse. There used to be respect. I was Filiberto García, the man who killed Teódulo Reina in Irapuato. When that fucking little colonel was a nobody, a punk kid. But it’s not like that now, now the Revolution wears white gloves. And that gringo asks too many questions. Same as the Russian. All this shit about investigating, about being a team. Fucking team! These things are done by one man, alone. Filiberto García, who killed Teódulo Reina in Irapuato. Alone. Man to man. No investigation needed. Fucking colonel!

  He tried to catch a taxi, but couldn’t, and ended up taking a bus. Guerrero Street, number 208, was an ugly apartment building, the kind of ugly reserved for this street. Apartment 9 was on the second floor, at the end of a filthy hallway with paint peeling off walls where several generations of renters had scrawled their ideas about politics, life, death, and, above all, sex. García stopped and rang the bell. It didn’t seem to be working, so he knocked. A few moments later the door opened. A blond woman dressed in a dirty bathrobe, her hair mussed and her face smeared with traces of yesterday’s makeup, spoke to him in English, then sprinkled it with Spanish:

  “What the hell . . . ?”

  “Police.”

  He showed her a badge. The woman brought her hand to her mouth, as if to stifle a shout, and let him in. He entered a room filled with a motley collection of old, cheap furniture. Disorder reigned. The dining table was strewn with dirty dishes and the floor with newspapers, cigarettes butts, and items of clothing. On a couch in the middle of that mess sat the professor, a cup in his hand and a bottle of rum on the coffee table in front of him. The professor stood up.

  “Police,” García said to him.

  “I am a lawyer and I represent this woman.”

  The woman stood absolutely still next to the open door, her hand over her mouth, still struggling to stifle that shout. García turned to her:

  “Are you the wife of Roque Villegas Vargas?”

  “Yes, I am. And the money he was carrying is mine . . . mine. The dirty bum, the lowdown dirty bastard . . . That money is mine . . .”

  The professor walked across the room and closed the door. The woman kept talking:

  “That money is mine . . . it’s all mine and don’t think for a minute I’m going to let you cops steal it from me.”

  “Mr. Policeman,” the professor interrupted, “this woman has just now found out about the death of
Mr. Villegas Vargas . . .”

  “The dirty bum, the no-good motherfucking bastard —”

  “. . . and naturally she is quite upset by the news.”

  “I want that money, all of it —”

  “On the other hand, I have recommended she take a bit of a stimulant, a sip of rum, to perhaps calm her frayed nerves —”

  “The no-good sonofabitch. One thousand five hundred bucks, Mr. Policeman, and they’re mine . . . all mine.”

  García stood there staring at her. The woman closed her mouth, which she had readied for further expressions of her sorrow, and took a step back.

  “Do you have any documents that prove you are Villegas Vargas’s legal spouse?”

  The professor intervened:

  “Look, Mr. Policeman —”

  The woman gestured to him to shut up:

  “That money is mine. It’s the only damn thing I’m going to get out of this whole fucking mess, five months living with that motherfucking bastard . . . The only —”

  “Do you have any documents?”

  The professor again intervened:

  “She has her passport, and everything is in order. She is in Mexico legally . . .”

  “She is, eh?”

  “Now, sir, one minor — let us say — legal requirement does seem to be missing — the marriage license. But, as you know, our laws are compassionate and protect mistresses in good standing. It can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that this woman has lived with Mr. Villegas Vargas as his wife and, hence, has full rights to the estate left by the deceased —”

  “You tell him, Mr. Lawyer! Damn right I have my rights . . . That money is mine, and if you steal it from me, I’ll go straight to my consulate. No goddamned greaser is going to take it away from me. A thousand five hundred dollars. Holy Jesus!”

  “It is true, Mr. Policeman. She is under the protection not only of our humanitarian laws but also the government of the United States of America.”

  “Identification, please,” García demanded from the woman.

  She ran into the other room and returned almost instantaneously with an enormous, flaming-red handbag. She opened it, dug around inside, and pulled out an American passport. She held it out to García triumphantly and with absolute confidence. Just seeing her passport infused her with renewed strength, as if it placed her in a different human category.

  “Look, American Citizen. See. Anabella Ninziffer, from Wichita Falls, theater artist. And look at my tourist card. Everything’s in order. Everything —”