The Cartel (57 page)

“If you’re lucky,” Jimena adds. “If not, they blindfold you, throw you in a truck, and take you to the base in Práxedis. There are eight young men from Valverde there now, and we can’t even find out about their status.”

“You’ve gone before a judge?” Ana asks.

“Of course,” Marisol answers, “but normal law doesn’t apply in a state of emergency. The valley is under martial law, so the army can do pretty much what it wants.”

Talk about getting caught in a three-way firefight, Pablo thinks. The people in the Juárez Valley are trapped in a murderous triangle—the Juárez cartel demands their loyalty, the Sinaloa cartel demands that they change sides, and the army is a force of its own. So if the locals aren’t
literally
caught in a crossfire—mowed down between narcos trying to kill each other—they’re being squeezed from three sides.

Jimena takes issue with this analysis.

“There aren’t three sides,” she says, “there are two. The army and the Sinaloans are the same.”

“That’s a serious allegation,” Ana says, scribbling notes.

“Here’s how it works,” Jimena answers. “The army raids a house on the pretext that it has drugs or weapons. They smash things up, maybe arrest people, but usually not. But that night, or the next, the New People come and kill everyone in the house.”

“So you’re saying that the soldiers are the Sinaloa cartel’s bird dogs,” Pablo says. “They sniff out the Juárez people, then the narcos come in and shoot.”

“Sometimes the killers are wearing black masks, like the
federales
and the army do,” Marisol says.

“The army is hunting down the Juárez people,” Jimena says, “Los Escajedos, the Aztecas, what’s left of La Línea. They’re exterminating them. I don’t see them hunting down Los Sinaloanos.”

“It appears to be one-sided,” Marisol adds.

They take a walk around the town.

The streets, even at midday, are mostly empty. A few old people and kids sit in the shade of a gazebo, a handful of soldiers peer out from a sandbag barrier. Pablo has the eerie feeling that people are peeping at him behind closed window shades. Some of the buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes, or chipped from grenade blasts.

Pablo sees a surprising number of empty houses. Some are empty shells, others still have all the furniture inside, as if the people are away on vacation.

“They’re not coming back,” Jimena says. “They’ve been threatened by one or the other cartel, or more likely by the army.”

“Why would the army threaten them?” Ana asks.

“So they can steal their houses,” Jimena says, “steal their land.”

She sees Pablo’s dubious look.

“Come on,” she says.

—

They drive east to Práxedis.

Jimena joins them—Marisol stayed in Valverde for her clinic’s office hours. It’s a beautiful day, the sky an almost impossible blue, set off by pure white cumulus clouds.

Nevertheless, the drive is tense as they go farther into the desert, farther into bandit country. They pass through another army checkpoint (another ten-dollar bill, but at least no guns raised this time) before getting into the little town, even smaller than Valverde.

The look is similar, though—soldiers on the street, shot-up buildings, some of them abandoned.

“The narcos gunned someone down in there,” Jimena says. “The owner got frightened and closed the store.”

“Where do people go for groceries?” Ana asks.

“Valverde.”

The army base is set up in what used to be a gymnasium. Now the building is surrounded by coils of barbed wire, sandbags, and a metal gate with a security shack in front.

“Don’t pull up too close,” Jimena warns.

They park a block away and walk to the guard shack.

“I’m here to see Colonel Alvarado,” Jimena says.

The guard knows her. She comes most days making the same demands. “He’s busy.”

“We’ll wait,” Jimena says. “Tell him I’m with three reporters from a Juárez newspaper. No,
m’ijo,
seriously—he’ll be mad at you if you don’t tell him.”

The guard gets on the phone.

A few minutes later a sergeant comes out and leads them into a makeshift office with a desk and a few folding chairs. Alvarado sets his cigarette in an ashtray, looks up from his paperwork, and gestures for them to sit. “Señora Abarca, what can I do for you today?”

He’s a slick piece of work, Pablo thinks. Immaculately groomed and tailored, sandy hair brushed straight back, pale blue eyes that look right through you, the sort of person that Pablo has loathed—and, okay, yes,
feared
—his entire life.

“You still have eight young men from my town in custody here,” Jimena says. She starts to run off the names—Velázquez, Ahumada, Blanco…

“I have told you and told you and told you that this is army business and you have no standing whatsoever to—”

Ana identifies herself and asks, “Have these men been charged with anything, and, if so, what?”

Alvarado looks at Giorgio’s cameras. “Tell him not to take my picture.”

“Don’t take his picture,” Ana says. “Have these men been charged with anything, and if so, what?”

“These men are still being interviewed,” Alvarado says.

“Interviewed or interrogated?” Pablo asks.

“And who are you?”

“Pablo Mora. Same paper.”

“It takes three of you?”

“Safety in numbers,” Pablo says. “We have reports that people are being tortured in this facility.”

“There is no truth to that,” Alvarado says. “That is merely propaganda that the traffickers put out and some journalists are foolish enough to repeat.”

“Then you won’t mind,” Ana says, “if we talk to these men?”

“Did I say ‘foolish’?” Alvarado asks. “Perhaps I should have added ‘corrupt.’ ”

“What does that mean?”

“That some journalists are on the cartels’ payrolls,” Alvarado says.

Pablo feels a deep flush come over his face and hopes that the others don’t see it or chalk it up to the heat.

Jimena says, “The doctor in Valverde —”

“Dr. Cisneros?”

“Yes—has asked fifteen times to be allowed to examine these men,” Jimena says, “and has received no response.”

“We have perfectly qualified medical personnel here.”

“She is their physician.”

“Dr. Cisneros is a woman?” Alvarado asks.

“You’ve met her at least ten times,” Jimena says.

“Can we see the prisoners from Valverde, yes or no?” Pablo asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Alvarado says, “Something that they say and that you report might compromise an ongoing investigation.”

“Don’t
police
usually do criminal investigations?” Ana asks.

“These are different times.”

“Are you concerned,” Pablo asks, “that the local police are on the cartels’ payroll, as well? And if so, which cartel?”

Alvarado doesn’t answer.

“Suppose,” Ana says, “we just see the prisoners but don’t interview them?”

“Then what would you have to report?” Alvarado asks.

“That they haven’t been tortured,” Ana says.

Alvarado answers, “But you have my word. Isn’t that good enough?”

“No,” Ana says.

Alvarado glares at her with the hatred that a macho man feels toward an uppity woman.

So Pablo gathers up his courage and chimes in with rapid-fire questions—Do you intend to charge these men? If so, with what? When? If not, when do you intend to release them? Why won’t you produce them? What, if any, evidence do you have against them? Why haven’t they been allowed access to lawyers? Who are you? What’s your background? Where did you serve prior to the 11th Military Zone?

Alvarado holds his hand up. “I don’t intend to be interrogated.”

“Is it torture for you?” Pablo asks.

“I have no comment for your paper.”

“So we can print that you refused to answer,” Ana says.

“Print what you like.” Alvarado stands up. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have real work to do.”

“I’ve contacted the Red Cross and Amnesty International,” Jimena says.

“It’s a free country.”

“Is it?” Jimena asks.

“Yes, unless you’re a criminal,” Alvarado says. “You’re not a criminal, are you, Señora Abarca?”

The threat is clear.

He scribbles out a pass and hands it to Ana. “This will get you back to Juárez with no difficulties. May I suggest that you stay there? These roads can be very dangerous these days.”

“Really?” Ana asks. “But we passed so many army patrols on the way.”

—

“Those are two brave women,” Ana says in the car on the way back to Juárez.

“Indeed,” Pablo says.

“And you have a hard-on for the lady doctor,” she adds.

“Who wouldn’t?” Giorgio asks from the backseat.

“Me,” Ana says.

“You would if your gate was hinged that way,” Giorgio says. “It’s not, right? You’re not double-hinged, are you?”

“I wouldn’t want to ruin your adolescent fantasies with a denial,” Ana replies.

“They take my mind off things,” Giorgio says.

“What things?”

“All of it,” Giorgio answers. “The killing, the corruption, the oppression—the enervating
sameness
of it all. The fact that we’ve fought how many revolutions and end up with the same old shit. But here, check this out.”

He leans forward and shows them the screen of his camera.

A beautiful close-up of Colonel Alvarado.

“How did you do that?” Pablo asks.

“While you were firing at him, so was I.”

“Will Óscar print it?”

“With what?” Ana asks. “What story do we have? ‘Colonel Denies Torturing Prisoners’? That’s not news, that’s the
opposite
of news.
News
would be ‘Colonel
Admits
Torturing Prisoners.’ ”

“Yes, but there’s a bigger story here,” Pablo says. “If you accept Abarca’s and Cisneros’s version of events, the army is allied with the Sinaloa cartel to wipe out the Juárez cartel, and not only that, to move normal citizens out of the Juárez Valley.”

If true, the Sinaloa cartel and the army are the same beast.

—

That night, Ana comes out on her back step, sits down next to Pablo, and lights a cigarette.

“When did you start again?” Pablo asks.

“I think it was when I started going to the morgues again,” Ana says.

Pablo knows what she means—the cigarettes help get the smell out of your nose. Not entirely, nothing can do that, but it helps.

“What do you think about today?” Pablo asks.

“It’s a hell of a story.”

“Will Óscar print it?”

“Not the speculations,” Ana says. “He’ll run the fact that the army is holding prisoners in Práxedis without regard to legal rights.”

They sit in silence for a while, enjoying the soft night and the faint sound of
norteño
music coming from someone’s radio down the street. Then Ana asks, “Pablo, can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course.”

“It’s very awkward,” Ana says, “and you can’t say anything to Giorgio or Óscar about it.”

“
Dios mío,
are you pregnant?”

“No,” she snorts. “
No
…It’s just that…while you were gone…a man came up to me outside the office and handed me an envelope.”

Pablo feels his stomach flip. “An envelope?”

“He called it
la sobre.
”

“A bribe?” Pablo asks, choking on his own duplicity. “What did you do?”

“Well, I didn’t know who he was,” Ana says. “A cop, some politico’s stooge, a narco…”

“So what did you do?”

“What else?” Ana says. “I shoved it back at him and told him that I wasn’t interested.”

Pablo tries to tell her, but shame stops him. Ana was always, he thinks, better than me. Every Monday, as promised (“threatened” is more like it), the man appears outside the office and gives (“forces on”?) Pablo the
sobre.
Pablo doesn’t know what to do with the money, so he keeps it in an ever-growing manila envelope in his backpack.

You could just give it to charity, he told himself. Give it to the poor, give it to the homeless. (Shit, he thinks, you
are
the homeless.) Give it to the church if you can’t think of anything better.

Then why don’t you?

Because you could really use the money, is the answer. For trips, legal fees, court costs.

He hasn’t so far, but still it sits there, a growing fund.

And the odd thing is that they haven’t asked him for anything yet. They haven’t demanded that he write a story, or kill another one, or give them a source, or anything. They just come every Monday, as inevitable as the post-Mateo hangover, and hand him the envelope.

He still doesn’t know who they are. Juárez cartel? Sinaloa cartel? Somebody else?

Pablo was even tempted to talk to Óscar, but he feared what the reaction would be—contempt and disdain, maybe an immediate sacking—and he can’t afford to lose this job.

So he kept his mouth shut.

And the money stacked up.

Betrayals start that way, with lies hidden in the shadows of silence.

“Are you on my sofa tonight?” Ana asks.

“If that’s okay.”

“Giorgio’s probably driving back out to Valverde to bag that doctor.”

“He’s not her type.”

“Oh,” Ana says, both amused and annoyed at the easy assertion, thinking, I hate to tell you, bud, but Giorgio is about every woman’s type. She gets up, tosses down the last of her beer, and crushes her cigarette out on the step. “See you in the morning.”

Pablo sits for a while, enjoying the silence. Then he crashes on the sofa and indulges in a brief, consciously futile fantasy about Marisol…excuse me,
Dr.
Marisol Cisneros. Christ, he thinks, even my imagination knows that she’s out of my league.

He and Ana go into the office in the morning and pitch the story to Óscar. He listens carefully, then tells them to cowrite a descriptive piece about the valley—what it looks like, how it sounds, the army patrols, the checkpoints, the bullet-riddled buildings.

Óscar says, “Ana, do the piece about the men being held in Práxedis. Quote the colonel’s no-comment, call officials in these other towns and see if they have any people being held.”