The Hidden Light of Mexico City by Amato Carmen

Author:Amato, Carmen [Amato, Carmen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2012-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 36

The tall building faced Reforma. The service door was at the rear of the building, in an alley parallel to the big boulevard. A straggly line of cleaning women, dressed in old clothes just like Luz, waited to get in for the 11:00 pm shift. Luz put on her stupid face, both to blend in and to keep from betraying her nervousness.

Luz wore jeans and a sweatshirt and held her old backpack. She had Eddo’s keys and had memorized the safe combination. Tomás and two others were positioned around the office building and she knew the plan: in quick, out quick. The rendezvous point was a newsstand a block away.

As Luz followed the line down the stairs, the plan was immediately in trouble. Uniformed security personnel inspected the bags of anyone entering or exiting.

She did what the other women did and walked through an archway by the guards’ table. A beeping started and the guard barked at her to empty her pockets. Luz showed the keys, saying they were her house keys. Her backpack was given a cursory check and shoved back across the table. Luz followed the group into the service elevator. A few of the people seemed to know each other and muttered greetings. Luz pressed the button for the twelfth floor.

Workers got off at other floors. No one got off with Luz. The elevator doors swished behind her and she was left in a darkened hallway with a gray linoleum floor. The only light peeped from around a partially opened door.

“Hey, nobody’s going to pay you to pose for pictures.” The door smacked open all the way and a man walked out. “Usual girl is sick. You the sub?”

Luz nodded, her knees shaking.

“Put your stuff in here,” the man barked, gesturing to where he’d just come from. It was a janitorial closet about the size of a bathroom. Cleaning supplies were piled against brooms and a large upright vacuum cleaner. An upholstered office chair was pulled up in front of a rickety folding table with a small television on it.

Luz put her backpack on the floor. The man pointed to a bucket containing trash bags, rags, and bottles of bleach and furniture polish. She picked it up. The man locked the closet door, crossed the hall, and unlocked a door. He relocked it after they’d passed through and Luz found herself standing in a wide carpeted hallway.

“Ashtrays first, then dust, water the plants, empty trash cans. When you’re done come back for the vacuum cleaner.” The man strode down the hall, unlocking doors with a passkey dangling from a long thin chain attached to his belt. He was short and round, with breath like sour beer. He wore brown pants and a grease-stained gray shirt. Luz wondered what he did while the cleaning people worked.

“Break at 2:00 am,” he went on. “No vacuuming, no break. Done by 5:00 am.”

Luz transferred the bucket to her other hand as she followed him down the hall. She counted 14

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.