The Intrigue

1

1943

He was going to make a choice, either the widow from Monclova or the spinster from that town in Veracruz. Puerco Ahogado, that was the name of it. A little place on the slopes of a mountain; picturesque, he supposed. Dull. He much preferred large cities.

But he was running low on cash. The guesthouse where he lodged did not have the best of clienteles, which meant that despite its central location it remained something of a steal. Yet between his weekly room and board, his lunches and dinners—the lodging house provided a meager breakfast—the dry-cleaning bill, and the like, he was down to his last few pesos.

His father would have known what to do. Even when all the old man had in his pocket was scraps of paper, he understood how to pull a con. He always got them out of trouble, got them a warm meal and a new place.

He had his father’s seductive eyes, but he’d been spared his wit. This flaw, this lack of a certain spark, a certain criminal talent, had not struck him as tragic until he’d had to battle the world on his own. But after three years now without his father, he was rudderless, hardly able to remain afloat.

He knotted his tie and smoothed it, peering in the mirror. He inspected his face with care, attuned to the most minimal flaw that might mar his appearance. When he was twenty, his hair had started to gray prematurely, and at twenty-nine, his temples were now streaked a lush silver. Otherwise, time was being kind to him: the silver served to enhance his features. Yet how long would that last? He looked at his hairline, at his gleaming eyes, and remembered the jaundiced skin of his father during his last, painful days.

He wasn’t old. Not yet. Not for a long time.

Quickly he finished getting dressed. There was no need for pomp and ceremony that afternoon. He was meeting with Moisés. Nevertheless, he was in the habit of dressing well, of good grooming, of fine colognes and shirts cut to fit his frame. It had been inculcated in him by his old man. It was a costume he donned to play his part.

He went down the narrow stairs and crossed the interior patio of the house with quick, determined steps. He was trying to avoid encountering Don Pánfilo, the owner of the rat-infested lodging house. But, as usual, the bastard was hiding behind his door and strolled into the courtyard carrying a battered watering can at the exact moment he was about to reach the front entrance.

“You have more letters, Mr. Linares,” the man grumbled. He wore a shirt that had been white at some point in time but was now a pale yellow. His teeth matched the shirt: they were the yellow of dirty urinals. “They arrived a few minutes ago.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” he said, tipping his hat in greeting.

“I got them right here,” the man said, slipping a hand into his back pocket and producing the envelopes. “More news from Veracruz, eh? Three days ago you got that other letter. Might be something important, no?”

“I suppose so,” he replied irritably. Don Pánfilo liked to gossip and know everyone’s business. Ulises was sure he sometimes even opened the mail of the residents.

To conceal his identity Ulises created aliases. Although he was fond of Ulises Linares as a name and employed it frequently in Mexico City, in other towns he was other people.

Don Pánfilo held the letters up but didn’t hand them to him. “The rent was due yesterday,” he said. “You’re late again.”

“You must forgive me, I’m scatterbrained these days. Tomorrow. I’ll have the rent tomorrow.”
Don Pánfilo frowned, but he handed Ulises his correspondence. Soon, Ulises was strolling down Paseo de la Reforma, which was bursting with cars, buses, and taxis. His old man had loved this avenue. It looked like Paris, his father said. Like les Champs-Élysées, which was one of the great wonders of the modern world. His father, now dead and buried, pointing at pictures of exotic locales in magazines and books.

He bought a paper and a box of Luckies. At a cross street, he palmed the letters into his pocket. Rather than taking a cab, he walked to the Lady Baltimore, for he was dreadfully troubled when it came to money and couldn’t spare the fare.

A grubby beggar stretched out a hand as he turned a corner, surprising him. For a few seconds he stared into a pair of eyes still crusty from sleep, into a strained face lined with deep wrinkles that were caked with dirt. He did not have a coin, and he sped up his steps, trying to avoid the sight of misery.

When he reached the coffee shop, he grimaced. The place was packed, filled with its usual mixture of wealthy Mexicans and silly American tourists. Boy, there were a lot of American tourists these days,

and everyone was fascinated by them. There was gringo fever in the air, and all because of the war. Young women were wide-eyed at the thought of the GIs fighting in Europe, and young men were proudly talking about how Mexicans must join the fray, knock out the teeth of a few Nazis. This enthusiasm even had fashionable youths tying red-white-and-blue flags to their vehicles to show how much they cared for their northern neighbors.

Yet not long ago, the Germans had held the hearts of some of these dazzled men and women. More than one socialite had flown swastikas together with the Mexican flag on the antennas of their cars, and the esteemed scholar José Vasconcelos wrote in Timón about the virtues of Hitler.

Ulises couldn’t understand what they’d seen in that rotten bastard. Perhaps the thought of lucrative German contracts had muddled their senses. Who knew? What a miserable, unnecessary war this was; even from afar its violence spooked him.

War and war efforts and him without a proper con to pull, having to order coffee and cake at the loud, overpriced Lady Baltimore. He would have never picked this spot for a meeting. He liked more anonymous places, a Turkish restaurant down Correo Mayor or a discreet tea parlor tucked away in La Roma.

He was able to navigate the narrow maze of tables, walking past women who dyed their cigarettes red with their lipstick as they smoked and paused to take sips of their coffee, past a small group of high school students giggling in their blue-and-green uniforms, past the blond heads of foreigners in shorts and sandals who looked like they had wandered in from a beach rather than the streets of Mexico City.

At last, he found an empty table and sat down with a sigh of relief, ordered a coffee, and unfolded the newspaper he’d been carrying under his arm. He ignored the front page with its headlines about war—he’d woken up late and had not had a bite yet; he could not read awful news on an empty stomach. There were plenty of soirées at the Churubusco Country Club, “Ladies’ Teas” with delicious canapés, “Folkloric Fiestas” where the elites dressed in indigenous costumes, famous jai alai players who visited exclusive nightclubs, to fill the society pages of the newspaper.

How he loved to look at the pictures of beautiful debutantes and glamorous middle-aged women in their designer gowns, the men matching their refinement with their black “smokings” and bow ties. Only after he’d feasted upon the dazzling photos and the inconsequential headlines that spoke of the charming wives of the members of the Rotary Club and their gardening activities did he unfold one of the letters and begin reading.

He knew Moisés would be late, which was why he’d brought his work with him. One letter from the woman from Monclova, the other from the one in Veracruz. When he was done reading them, he twirled his pen between his fingers, still unsure. He’d been unsure for days now.

The woman from Veracruz was fortyish, never married. She owned a guesthouse but was vague about her full financial position and had mentioned a niece who lived with her. He’d been equally vague about his finances, assured her he was a gentleman, and told her he was thirty-eight. He regularly aged himself up or down, depending on what circumstances necessitated, depending on his target. He painted his hair black and shaved clean when he wanted to look younger. For now, he’d let the silver return to his temples and sported a mustache, thinking he might need to pretend to be older.

In his defense, women also fibbed about their age, and the woman from Veracruz had initially written that she was forty only to later admit she was in fact turning forty-three.

The woman from Monclova was thirty. His peer. To her he hadn’t fibbed about his age, though he had made up a pack of lies about wanting and loving children because the widow had three of them, ages eight,

six, and four. He thought she offered more solid possibilities than the woman from Veracruz, but he was struck with a superstitious fear about bilking a widow again.

After all, Cornelia Aguirre had been a widow, and look where that had got him. He’d had to run out of Jalisco with barely a suitcase clutched between his sweaty palms. And she’d been a fine mark too! Wealthy! Gullible! If it hadn’t been for her sons, he would have secured a small fortune.