Chapter 14 #2
It was, for a second, a painfully erotic moment, his mind muddled with thoughts of sequined dancers, his ears ringing with loud laughter.
And she was suddenly there, as if all his nebulous desires had coalesced into flesh, while at the same time she remained unapproachable and he yearned for the pleasant, yielding embrace of phantom women rather than her hard eyes.
“What man?” he grumbled. The day felt agonizingly hot, and the heat seemed to slip through the walls and the curtains and coil itself around one’s body, rendering a man senseless. If it rained that evening, it would feel even worse. It would feel like he was sitting in a sauna.
That was the trouble with this mountain town, it was moist and sticky and warm, and then all of a sudden the heavens opened and it rained buckets. It was fine if you grew orchids, he supposed, but he wasn’t a flower.
Inés huffed and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead.
“I told you, a fellow who wears a green tie. I was at the bakery and my friend said a stranger had been there, wanting to know if any men had moved to Puerco Ahogado in the past few months and asking if she knew a Mr. Linares or a Mr. Lagos. He sounded like a cop.”
Those words woke him up entirely. He shoved the bedsheets away and sat up.
“What did your friend tell him?”
“She said yes, Mr. Linares had moved to town recently and married Perla Inclán.”
“What else did she say?”
“That’s it. As soon as I heard that, I ran back here, figuring he was on his way to see you. Are you in trouble with the police?”
“Where’s your aunt?”
“At Sarita’s house, looking at magazines. Hey, are you in trouble—”
“No,” he said, and hurried to the washbasin, splashing water on his face.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not…they wouldn’t have gotten the cops involved.”
“Involved with what?”
He saw her approaching him in the mirror, arms crossed. He grabbed a towel and wiped his face. He felt like he was Scheherazade, not her, having to spin a story each night to keep his head.
“I tried to con a woman. The widow Aguirre. It didn’t work out. All I got out of it was a paltry amount of money. Her sons were furious, and they said I’d pay for it, but they would have been too ashamed to go to the cops.”
“What’s a paltry amount of money? How much did you take?”
“Not enough, or I wouldn’t be here,” he said, and chuckled. “It was about their mother’s dear honor for them, not the money. She didn’t take it well when she learned the truth about me. Had a nervous breakdown. But I can’t be blamed for that!”
He wrung the towel between his hands, imagining the man in the green tie knocking at the door and asking Perla about her husband, then Ulises being forced to march into a room to answer pointed questions that would quickly establish he was a fraud.
“Did you use the name Ulises Linares with that widow?”
“No. Something else. There was a photograph of mine, a gift I gave her when I was courting her, but I destroyed that before I left town.”
How had they found him? He hadn’t been able to recover a couple of letters that tied him to Iztapalapa, and with that address he could have been tracked to the place where he’d lodged, but that would have required a dedicated detective.
Perhaps they’d found one. From there he supposed the detective could have bribed the owner of the guesthouse for information.
Not that he’d told Pánfilo where he was headed, but Pánfilo was always snooping on everyone; the old man had likely noted the postmarks on his letters.
He might not remember the exact address on the envelopes, but he must have remembered the name of the town.
That old bastard. And after Ulises had actually paid him the rent he owed him! Well, almost all of it. A decent amount, in any case. He should have run out of the guesthouse without handing him one sorry peso.
“If he comes here there will be trouble,” Inés said. “He could arrest you. Maybe you could stay away for a couple of days.”
“That would seem suspicious. No, I’ll meet him. When he comes, make sure he talks to me, no one else. Don’t let him talk to any of the servants. Try to be near the door. If we’re lucky you can invite him inside and fetch me fast, before anyone knows we have a visitor.”
“And if he should come later, when my aunt is here?”
“Same thing. But I hope he comes soon.”
She nodded. He turned back to the mirror and looked at himself.
He parted his hair down the middle rather than his usual side parting and shaved his mustache.
Perla might remark on the mustache, but he could tell her he’d grown bored of it.
He had a pair of glasses that had belonged to his father, a memento that he kept by the mirror, along with a tin can with black shoe polish and a rag.
He quickly went through his shirts and trousers and discarded them all, finally picking a sleeveless white undershirt that clung tightly to his body and a pair of rumpled trousers.
Ulises applied shoe polish to the sides of his head, blackening his gray hairs. Without the mustache, with his hair blackened, he looked younger, and the clothes gave him a disheveled air. He added the glasses as the final touch.
She returned a few minutes later. “He did come. He’s in the sitting room.”
Inés looked at him with interest, likely noticing his glasses and the hair.
They hurried down the stairs, but then he paused before entering and strolled into the sitting room as if nothing was amiss.
The man waiting for him resembled a bulldog.
He was wide of shoulder, short, with a great big jowl and a bald head.
“Good day,” Ulises said. “I’m told you need to speak to me? If it’s about selling us an encyclopedia, I’m afraid we’re not in the market for it.”
“It’s not about an encyclopedia,” the man said. “My name is Jaime Contreras, and I’m a private investigator.”
“Like in the movies?” he asked, adding a touch of na?veté and foolishness to his voice. If this was a fairy tale, he would play the role of the court jester.
“Not quite.”
“I’m not sure what a private investigator would want in my house.”
“I’ve been hired to find a man, and I have reason to think he might be hiding in this town.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Maybe nothing, maybe something. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I suppose that would be fine,” Ulises said, and turned to Inés, who was hovering by the door. “Won’t you get me a coffee? Detective Contreras, would you like a cup of coffee?”
“I would not. Thank you,” the man said, his face serious, even sour.
Inés stepped out. They sat down and the detective opened a notebook without taking his eyes off Ulises. Ulises imagined he was remembering the description he’d been given of the swindler he was after and comparing it to the man in front of him.
“You said you had a few questions for me?”
“I’m told you moved here recently from Mexico City, Mr. Linares.”
He pretended he hadn’t heard the detective and asked him to repeat the question. “I did,” he said. “Fine place it is! I always wanted to live in a mountain town. All this fresh air, and none of the traffic of the big city.”
“Have you ever been to Jalisco?”
“Once when I was a child.”
“Not recently?”
“When I was a child.” Ulises scratched his chin and spoke to the detective with that same slightly foolish tone.
Inés walked into the room and placed his cup on the coffee table. Then she put her hands behind her back.
“Do you need anything else?” she asked in a demure, soft voice.
“One moment, please,” Ulises told her, and turned to the detective, sounding more curious than irritated, a tremulous, bland smile spreading across his face. “Sir, can I ask what this is about?”
“It’s about a nasty fellow who tried to scam a widow. He ran out of town with her money and made a fool out of her. In his hotel room, he left a few things, including these,” the detective said, and he reached into his jacket pocket and produced the two postcards. “Do you recognize the address?”
Ulises held a postcard with both hands, the bland smile remaining in place. “Yes, it’s mine. Where did you find it? Someone stole these and a wristwatch from the guesthouse where I used to live.”
“When was this?”
“Gee, I don’t know. A while back. I lived in a rooming house in Iztapalapa, back in Mexico City, that must have been…oh, four years. Did you find the watch? It was a nice watch, with a brown leather strap.”
The detective frowned. No doubt he was still making a mental tally in his mind, trying to figure out if the well-dressed man from Jalisco with a mustache could be this young fellow in rumpled trousers.
He has no photo, Ulises thought. He has no photo and a different name, and I have a plausible explanation.
“We don’t have the watch. Tell me, have you ever met someone called Leonardo Lagos?”
“It doesn’t ring a bell. Is that the man you’re looking for?
The guesthouse where I lived was awfully large, and it was full of bachelors moving in and out.
You know how the city is, it’s busy, busy.
I like it much better here. For one, you don’t have to worry about pickpockets and folks going into your room to steal your belongings.
My lord, I can’t believe someone stole these,” he said, shaking his head.
He looked up at the investigator. “You’ll allow me to keep them, won’t you? ”
“Maybe. I’ve been asking around town about you, Mr. Linares. You haven’t lived long in Puerco Ahogado, they say. You’re a bit of a stranger around these parts, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so,” he said, and although he felt an awful, cold dread in the pit of his stomach, he kept his face bland and his tone neutral.
He looked, he hoped, like an insignificant boy who couldn’t carry a conversation to save his life, and who would be scammed rather than ever be able to scam anyone.