Return to the Same City by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

Author:Paco Ignacio Taibo II [Taibo, Paco Ignacio II]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9781590581360
Amazon: 1590581369
Goodreads: 59556
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 1996-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

We now know that locking yourself in serves for nothing, any disaster takes death to the safest refuge.

José Emilio Pacheco

When he woke up he was lying on the rug and the gringo reporter was staring at him; a bottle of gin (a new one?) affectionately rocking in his arms.

“You have nightmares,” Dick informed him.

“I suppose I do, I never remember them,” Héctor said, standing up and walking with difficulty to the bathroom.

“What’s your favorite song?”

“‘La Bamba,’ the new version by Los Lobos, it’s much better than the original version by Trini Lopez; although the truth is, I feel affection for that one…”

The detective stuck his face under the gush of water in the sink, not daring to look at it first. The water was cold. What the hell was he doing in Acapulco with a drunk gringo reporter for a roommate and pursuing a Cuban gusano who was a CIA agent? There were ten other equally exciting and idiotic possibilities. Start a bakery in the middle of Puebla, work as a peon in the new archaeological excavations of Teotihuacán, become a groupie of the Symphonic Orchestra of the State of Mexico and follow them to all their concerts. How wonderful! One day in Ocampo, another in Lerma, finally Toluca.

Dick started talking, staring into space.

“The heat drives me crazy. Not suddenly, slowly. I swear that when I got to Acapulco I had the most serious intention of lending you a hand with this story,” he said, moving his head from one side to another, as if saying no. “But I don’t know, it’s something superior to my strength. Strange stories start coming into my head. I remember a cousin of mine who takes care of dolphins at Sea World and I get jealous…”

“What are we doing here?” Héctor asked.

“Following my Gary Betancourt, the famous Sid Valdés-Vasco, in other words, your Luke Estrella,” the gringo said to the detective, flopping onto the bed and taking a good swig of gin. Neither his bed or Héctor’s was unmade; the detective had slept on the rug, the reporter had either spent the night standing up on the terrace or had gone out there before Héctor got back.

“That’s what I thought,” the detective said, putting on a Coca-Cola T-shirt.

“You wear imperialist T-shirts?” Dick asked.

“It’s Coca-Cola Mexico, made by honest Mexican workers in bottling factories in cities as healthy, Mexican, and productive as Iguala or Jalapa, or in rancid suburbs like Tlanepantla,” Héctor responded, thinking that insanity might be contagious.

“That bastard with the dolphins, he knows what life is,” Dick said before falling asleep, the bottle of gin miraculously safe in his clutch.

Héctor approached him and took it away, then went out on the balcony. Estrella was on his hotel terrace. Héctor went back into the room and got his binoculars. Was he looking toward his room? Impossible. He was over a hundred yards away. Damned Cuban, son of a fucking bitch, with those dark glasses you could never know what he was watching.

Maybe Dick was right, the dolphin guy lived a life straight out of the movies.

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