Hot Sur (51 page)

A few hours later, I say good-bye to María Paz, my father, and the three dogs. I go to the garage to get a shovel, but I pass by the kitchen for a second to grab a Gatorade and I notice Empera putting out the food for the dogs. She has her iPod headphones on with the music so loud she doesn’t even realize I am standing there, so I pause for a second just to watch her. I have always suspected that she is not much of a dog person. She does not have much interaction with them or much less pet them. On the other hand, she prepares their food bowls with care, adding the appropriate vitamins and supplements to each plate. She doesn’t feel any affection toward the animals, but she also doesn’t mistreat them or neglect them, that’s what I was curious about, and I am pleased with what I see.

“Hi, Empera,” I say to her back, and she almost has a heart attack she is so startled. “It’s a good thing to see you don’t nail dogs to the wall.”

“God Almighty, child, the things you say. Why would I do such an awful thing? Dogs stink to heaven, but they are God’s creatures also.”

“Okay, so tell me what you think about this, Empera, you who know so much about life . . . What’s going on inside the head of a man who nails a dog to the wall?”

“Nails a dog to the wall?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s an atrocity. The only thing a person like that has in his head is madness, and the best thing is to lock him up in an insane asylum. Nail a dog to the wall like they nailed Christ to the cross, that’s heresy. How can you nail such a dirty beast as if it were Lord Jesus? To die nailed is a privilege of the Almighty. That’s heresy, no doubt. As far as I see it, such a person does not believe in God.”

“Thank you, Empera! That’s exactly the kind of thing I was talking about,” I say, and I go back upstairs. “I need to see one thing.”

Suddenly, I have the urge to check this one book, and it has to be now, not when I get back, it has to be right now, even if my mother kills me for being late.

“So,” María Paz asks—she’s by the window, waiting for Hero’s funeral to begin—“not yet?”

“That’s next,” I say kissing her. “I have to jot down something first.”

I know exactly the location of all the books on my shelves, I could pick one out with my eyes closed, and especially if it is Borges, who I am always reading and rereading. But shit, it’s not where it is supposed to be, and immediately one party becomes suspect. I ask María Paz, and she pulls out the book from under the bed. It’s the second volume of the complete works of Borges, and it’s not difficult to find the passage I am looking for, all underlined as it is with my notes on the margin. Page 265. It’s Borges’s commentary on John Donne’s
Biathanatos
. I read the note I scribbled on the margin a few years ago: “
Biathanatos
, one of those improbable and cursed books that every so often cast its shadow over humanity, like the Apocalypse of the false John the Evangelist, or the
Necronomicon
that Lovecraft conceived but never wrote.”

According to Borges, the purpose of
Biathanatos
is to expose that the death of Christ was in fact a suicide. Therefore, the entire history of humanity, from Christ and to Christ, is nothing else but the staging of a spectacular and self-induced deicide, accepted by the Son and promoted by the Father, who created the earth and the seas as a setting for the torment of the cross on a stunning cosmic gallows. And if it’s true that Christ died a voluntary death, according to what Borges claims Donne says, and here is Borges’s quote: “This means that the elements and the worlds and the generations of men, and Egypt and Rome and Babylon and Judah were formed from the void to be destroyed. Maybe the iron was specifically created for the nails, the thorns for the crown, and the blood and water for the wound.” There it is; Old Man Borges gets it just right, as always, and before Borges, Donne. And this leads to the corollary, the cherry pie.

After this passage, all I have to do is turn the corner to get to Sleepy Joe. The result is surprising. More than surprising, dazzling. If Borges is right, and if John Donne was right before him, each one of those ritual crimes or imitations of crimes must mean a step toward the greater ritual for Sleepy Joe, the definitive one, the one that expresses the culmination of all his anxiety, the apotheosis liturgy he has been so insistently pursuing, his own immolation. His own homicide—that must be what he is ultimately searching for. “How nicely you throw people off, you bastard,” I would tell him, “how expertly you disguise yourself, a small barrio thug, aficionado of indoor tanning who goes around showing off your six-pack, but who is shaken by sublime tempests inside, you fuck. I’ve figured you out, you damned punk, now I know that your minicrimes are reaching for perfection. What you did with the broomstick to Corina, the postmortem cuts on your brother’s body, the martyrdom of little Hero, and who knows what other perversions I don’t know about. . . Go ahead, you asshole, keep on climbing that ladder, giddyap, many steps to go, move ahead, man, go for your highest level yet, put your soul into it, no stopping until you have made it, put more heart into it, almost there. Your last victim will be you.”

9

Interview with Ian Rose

“In the woods near the house, Buttons dug up a box with a medal and ash remains,” Rose tells me.

“Whose ashes were they?”

“Not a human’s but an animal’s: Hero, María Paz’s dog. Who knows why it had been awarded the medal, some heroic deeds in Alaska, apparently.”

Rose learned from Buttons who had killed that dog and how, and the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place in Rose’s head. It was becoming evident he was involved in a horror story unleashed by a lunatic. Cleve had been murdered, and it had not been an isolated deed. Rose had to accept this. He couldn’t let the pain cloud his judgment. He had to do something, and do it on his own. “It’s too personal a matter,” he tells me, “not the police’s, not Pro Bono’s, not anyone’s but mine, my issue, because Cleve was my son and I owe him at least that.” Buttons had offered to help, but it just didn’t seem right to Rose, and he began to shake him off. When it came down to it, he didn’t know who any of these people really were—Pro Bono, his assistant—or what they really wanted. He trusted no one and saw ulterior motives everywhere.

The unearthed medal made one thing very clear: María Paz had been in the house at least once without Rose having known about it. It had been at some point between the death of the dog and Cleve’s death. She may still have been there, for all he knew. Rose began to look for her everywhere on his property. He became obsessed with her presence, which he sensed here and there as if she were a ghost. He checked the same places again and again, although it was evident that the trail had gone cold. But she had to have been there, God knows how long, and with Cleve’s blessing. Of course, it was too late to give him the third degree, and the dogs kept whatever they knew to themselves. María Paz needed another accomplice, someone who surely must have known she was there, because that someone had her antennae tuned to every nook and cranny of the house.

“Emperatriz, the cleaning lady,” I say to Rose.

“I knew Empera must have met María Paz. When I saw that medal, I became convinced that there was some connection there. It would have been impossible for María Paz to have been there, stayed there, and eaten there, without Empera knowing. It was different with me. I never wanted to meddle into Cleve’s affairs; the attic was liberated territory and I never went up there. Empera, however, has always been a little bit nosy. And I don’t have to tell you how things are among you Latinos; not to be offensive, but when you live in a foreign country you behave like a big clan, everyone is treated as part of the same group, you hug, kiss, and are instant blood relations the first time you meet. You establish a solidarity pact with anyone from the homeland, even if the homeland extends from the Rio Grande to Patagonia, correct me if I’m wrong. Empera must have known something about María Paz’s stay with us. Maybe a little bit, maybe a lot, and whatever she knew I had to coax it out of her. I had to be tactful, like I said, because I had no idea who was involved in the death of my son, directly or as an accomplice. It could have been anyone from María Paz to Empera. It was also possible that I was on the hit list, and not just me but my dogs as well. Remember this maniac killed people and dogs, so I couldn’t decide whether to leave the house for their safety or to remain in the house to deal with things head-on. Finally, I decided to stay. I felt as if I could handle anything except letting someone who had hurt my boy so badly escape.”

For years, Rose had not given much thought to Empera’s presence in his house, having hardly any substantial interaction with her or noticing her much as she went about her business. He heard her going in and out of rooms accompanied by the slapping of her plastic sandals and jingle-jangle of her ostentatious earrings. He had no idea what Empera thought about life, whether she was forty or sixty, married or single, or how many children she had. The only thing that concerned him about her was that she was responsible, did her job, and fed Otto, Dix, and Skunko when he was away. He was impressed by how detailed she was when it came to cleaning. Empera spotted grime everywhere, even in places where no one would think to look, and she did not rest until she eradicated the last particle of dirt. She made this challenge a personal one, as if she did not want to be defeated by the dirtiness of the world, and was always asking Rose for money for more cleaning supplies. She knew the commercials on television by heart, put a blind faith in them, and if Rose was not careful she would recite them to him word for word to convince him that she just had to run out and buy them—this liquid to wash, that bleach for the whites, Mr. Clean, Tide, Cottonelle toilet paper. One time, she had shown up with a product that was specifically for removing blackberry stains, because one of Rose’s white shirts had blackberry stains.

“Empera,” Rose had said, “I must have been twenty-five years old the last time I ate blackberries.”

“Well, then that’s how long those stains have been on your shirt.”

Rose tells me that the enforced distance between him and his employee had to do with her nagging about the dogs. She complained all day long about how they made a mess and shed hair everywhere, let out toxic farts, ruined the furniture with their drooling, and, to top it all off, carried parasites in their stomachs that made humans go blind.

“Even if I go blind, I won’t get rid of them,” Rose warned her without even looking at her.

Empera had likely read whatever letters she found in her boss’s storage boxes, and she kept track of his expenses and debts. She must have also known every morning how much bourbon he had drank the night before by keeping track of the level in the bottle. By the stains on his bed, she knew he was up-to-date on his nocturnal privacies, and she was informed about his medical conditions by the prescriptions in the cabinet. It would not be surprising to him if she knew his e-mail password. Neither his mother nor Edith, and sometimes not even Rose himself knew more about him than Empera did. But who was she really? Could he trust her?

“I remember that Empera tried to warn me of the presence of someone strange in the house, or had come to me with some story that Cleve had a girlfriend up in the attic,” Rose tells me. “And I remember also that at the time I told her to mind her business, which exonerated her somewhat, but I remained suspicious and didn’t want to take one false step.” There was only one person beyond all suspicion, who moreover was attached to the family in an emotional way, and whom Rose could consult: Ming, the editor.

“Don’t tangle yourself up in too many theories, Mr. Rose,” Ming said when Rose paid a visit to the editor’s apartment in Chelsea for the second time since Cleve’s death, this time to give the editor an idea of the anguished and somewhat confusing framework of his speculations. “This is a simple but revolting story, with a clear-cut murderer named Sleepy Joe. Cleve and I agreed on this point.”

“You talked with him about this?” Rose asked.

“Yes, I did indeed. He had Sleepy Joe in his sights.”

“Alright,” Rose said, “Sleepy Joe. But who are his accomplices?”

“If I may suggest something, it’s better to assume that others are innocent until proven otherwise. Proceed slowly; don’t let yourself become overwhelmed by the whole unmanageable package. The first thing you have to do is find María Paz. Do you want me to help you, Mr. Rose? I could arrange things here, find someone to feed my bettas, and . . .”

“No, Ming, this is something I need to take care of on my own. Thank you, it’s good to know I can count on you.”

“Promise me you’ll get in touch if things get ugly.”

“I think I’m going to need a gun. I don’t plan on killing anyone,” Rose said, more or less lying. “It’s just a precaution.”

“I have a few. But they are basically collector’s items,” Ming said, as he pulled out a small pistol from a cabinet, giving to Rose and identifying it as a Remington Model 95.

“It looks like a toy,” Rose said, making sure it fit in his pocket. “Does it work?”

“I doubt it,” Ming responded, pointing to the name engraved on the barrel, Claro Hurtado, one of Pancho Villa’s bodyguards. “It clearly didn’t work so well for Claro that July 23, 1923, when they gunned him down in Parral, Chihuahua, along with his big boss. I also have this,” he said, pulling out a katana that according to him was the Hattori Hanzo sword used by Beatrix Kiddo in
Kill Bill
.

“Is it real or a prop?” Rose asked.

“The edge has been shaved down, and it was manufactured to be ultralight so that Uma Thurman could wield it.”

“It feels like it’s made of fiberglass.”

“No more useful than a rat’s tail,” Ming said, as he placed other collector’s items on the table.

Rose noticed a solid, black piece, free of ornamentations or other frills, which inspired some confidence in him.

“And whose was this?” he asked.

“It doesn’t have much of a history, or it does, but a personal one, because I inherited it from my father, and my father in turn from his father, and so on into the mists of time. It’s a Glock 17 9 mm. A solid and serious gadget. With a hard trigger, but on the other hand you can load seventeen cartridges into it, and it fires quickly. I have ammunition for this one, half a box, and I can show you how to load it.”

Rose stored the Glock and the box of ammunition in the glove compartment of his Ford Fiesta and returned to his home in the mountains resolved to put Empera through an Inquisition-style round of questioning. He sat her in front of him and bombarded her with questions. As expected, Empera proved a tough nut to crack, and the more he pressed her, the dodgier she became. She had no idea what he was talking about and rolled her eyes every time he mentioned María Paz, responding in a haughty tone that she didn’t know anything about anything, and that, moreover, it was none of her business. Rose couldn’t get her to shift from that position, although he swore on his son’s grave that he was not trying to harm María Paz or turn her in to the authorities. On the contrary, in fact. It was only when he explained in detail to Empera the situation with the clamp in María Paz’s uterus that she seemed to soften and said she would do what she could.

“But I’m not promising anything,” she warned him, “and by the way, I should remind you that it has been sixteen months since my last raise.”

“We’ll fix that. Don’t worry about the raise. But can I count on you?”

“No guarantees, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Rose tells me that it became imperative to find María Paz, because of the clamp, sure, but above all because he was sure that sooner or later she would lead him to Sleepy Joe. And because something very strange and powerful began to grow inside him, something that was not so much the pain from the loss anymore, but instead, in a weird way, a substitute for the pain, a kind of consolation, perhaps the only one possible.

“I don’t know if I’ve told you that I’ve never been attracted to the idea of vengeance,” he says. “It has always seemed a distractive fallacy to me, one of the most pervasive misconceptions, a hateful and absurd national sport. Thousands of movies and television shows, heaps of novels, weapons sales and propaganda, a whole multibillion-dollar industry that feeds off the lust for vengeance that haunts Americans. But not me. It had never interested me before. Nevertheless, something inside me began to savor it the moment I put a face to the thug who had killed and tortured my son. It was then that I began to dream of making him pay for all his actions, one by one. I wanted to see him turned into a pile of shit, to kill him with my own two hands, watch him bleed and scream in agony, and beg forgiveness. I wanted to spit on him, shit on him, waste him.”

Night and day, it was always there: a shifting mass of lava that sketched and erased the incandescent image of his son, Cleve. Cleve bristling with thorns, like the Nazarene or like a porcupine. Cleve, the target in some macabre plot. Cleve, the sacrificial scapegoat in some disgusting ritual. His murderer had to be somewhere, this lunatic possessed by a terrible sense of the liturgy, this asshole with a mania for sacrifice that was one of the many manifestations of his mental illness. Wherever he was hiding, Rose would find him.

“You have to understand,” he tells me, “this is about one of those changes that strikes you as if a blow to the head. Cleve’s death had become a nameless torment that was eating me alive, a permanent guilt with no logic. But all of a sudden, it had a name, one name, and one name only: Sleepy Joe. Finally, there was something besides me to blame, someone aside from myself on which to take out the rage.

“Bringing Cleve back was not possible, but I could blow the fuck out of that Sleepy Joe. One thing followed the other. It was something as irrational as a physiological need, as pressing as eating or sleeping. At that moment I didn’t see it as such, but today I realize that past a certain point, no one would have stopped me from doing what I set out to do even if they had given me incontrovertible proof that Sleepy Joe had nothing to do with Cleve’s death. Do you understand? These facts would have been irrelevant to me. When the mechanism of revenge is triggered, nothing can stop it. Vengeance doesn’t have to be sure about what it does; it just needs a target, any target it can properly aim at. You’ve received a mortal blow, and to remain alive you need to deliver a similar blow. You’ve chosen your bull’s-eye and you go after it. Vengeance is not reflective or flexible; it’s implacable and blind. It has nothing to do with justice. Whoever believes that he is enforcing justice through vengeance is just lying to himself. It is about something much more primal, more bestial. You’ve become an enraged bull, and they’ve just waved a red cloth in front of you. In Colombia, there was a saying that once caught my attention: ‘kill and eat the dead.’ ‘He could kill and eat the dead,’ that’s how they described someone in a rage, just a popular saying, a hyperbole like any other. And at the same time, maybe not. That phrase gave me the chills because it seemed to contain some ancient wisdom from ancestral times in which cannibalistic vengeance was the supreme form of vengeance. I didn’t even remember the saying or think about it until I discovered someone had murdered Cleve in such a horrendous manner. From the moment I identified the perpetrator, that saying began to resonate in my memory: to kill and eat the dead, to kill and eat the dead.”