One night at the end of such a sojourn he stopped to buy cigarettes at a tiny store, a niche no wider than a doorway on a nearly deserted stretch of Calle Doctor Vertis. When he emerged from the store, two men seized him by the elbows, pressed a pistol into his side, and forced him into a van, where he was made to lie on the floor with his face pushed into a moldy carpet. Terrified, Hugo assumed this to be an express kidnapping and that the men would bring him to a cash machine and have him make a withdrawal. They did not wear masks and were so nonchalant in their demeanor, chatting about a woman of their acquaintance, he thought they must be unconcerned about revealing their identities because they planned to kill him. Yet if that were so, would they not head toward a spot where they could complete their business undisturbed? He could tell by the buildings, whose upper floors were visible through the windows (stone facades with balconies and crumbling colonial ornaments), and by the increased noise (cumbia and rock playing in the hotly lit stores, somebody shouting over a bullhorn, shrieks and laughter, horns braying, engines being gunned) that they were passing along Calle Morelos very near the Zocalo. Screwing up his courage, expecting a blow in return, he asked where he was being taken.
The man in back with Hugo, heavily muscled, his neck so thickly covered in tattoos that in the shadowy interior of the van he appeared to be wearing a turtleneck, glanced at him incuriously and said, “The Skinny Girl wants to meet you.”
A certain amount of ambiguity was attached to this statement—La Flacita (“the Skinny Girl”) was a diminutive for Santa Muerte, an affectionate name used by her devotees. The man might be threatening him with death … or he might be referring to someone who had adopted the name. Hugo sought clarification, but the driver snapped at him, telling him to keep quiet. The men began talking about the woman again, not in the way such men usually talk about women, neither lustfully nor derisively, but reverently and with the sort of respect they would normally reserve for a man. Hugo suspected this woman to be a criminal type who relied on a quasi-mystical pose to keep the troops in line. He told himself that he was going to be all right—he’d inform her of his police connections and she would come to her senses and release him.
That the official and the criminal are inextricably aligned should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the workings of their government, but nowhere is this juxtaposition so literal and apparent as in Mexico City. Located fifteen minutes’ walk from the Zocalo, the seat of the government and home to the immense, grim cathedral that is its spiritual analogue, lies the seat of outlawry, Barrio Tepito. Within its borders, fully two-thirds of the world’s child pornography is produced; assault rifles and missile launchers are sold via illustrated catalogs; and there are dozens of warehouses filled with drugs and stolen goods. You can find anything in Tepito, it’s said: pirated software, endangered species, a Rolex, a Guarneri cello, a slave, a cruel master … anything. The majority of Tepito’s business is done on the streets, but much of it is accomplished in
The first door admitted Hugo to a large, poorly lit room smelling of marijuana, in which people visible as half shadows sat about on sofas and easy chairs (those he could see were swaybacked and patched with tape), their conversations barely audible over a music of whiny reeds and clattering drums that had a Middle Eastern flair. It reminded him of his university days: smiling young men passing hand-rolled cigarettes to giggling girls; long-haired guys engaged in impassioned arguments. He asked a busty, fresh-faced girl who stood along the wall where he could find the Skinny Girl.
Hugo exited the room and, at the urging of the men standing by the stairs, continued along the corridor. From behind a second door came a racket that reminded him of an old-fashioned printing press. He turned the knob but found it locked. Putting his ear to the next door, he heard noises reminiscent of a dog worrying a chew toy and decided not to enter. The fourth door opened into a considerable space with bright ceiling lights and a banquet table at which some two dozen prosperous-looking men and women were seated, all clad as mourners, most with their heads bent, murmuring as in prayer. Three mestizo boys in white coats were serving them, two holding a steaming tureen and one ladling a thick black soup. The dominant feature of the room was a mural occupying the whitewashed wall at the diners’ backs, depicting a pale, asthenic girl clad in black jeans, a wide belt with a gold buckle, and a sleeveless black top. Of the countless representations of the Skinny Girl that Hugo had seen, this was the first to strike him as having the specificity of an image rendered from life. She stood inhaling a cigarette, an act that accentuated the hollowness of her cheeks, and gazed into an unguessable distance, her physical attitude projecting a palpable disaffection. An immense ghostly skull looming behind her formed the backdrop of the mural, along with some sketchy vegetation and small indefinite figures that might have been cacti or soldiers with spears. She wore on her left arm a simple silver bracelet, and on a chain about her neck was an oddly shaped gold amulet holding a flat magenta stone. Her hair was jet black, and her long, narrow face, with its high cheekbones, full carmine lips, and prominent nose, had a severe, almost mannish cast; yet despite this, despite the coldness of her expression and the fact that she had virtually no hips or breasts, she seemed to incarnate every principle of feminine beauty, albeit in their most forbidding and reductive form.
At the end of the banquet table nearest Hugo sat a matronly woman with a kindly face who had not yet been served. She wore widow’s garb, but her crepe dress and lace mantilla were of much finer quality than those of the black-clad women Hugo saw each day on the streets of the city, grimly clutching their little bundles. He approached her and inquired as to whether she knew the woman who had posed for the mural.
“Why that’s Aida, of course,” she said with a faltering tone, as if bewildered by the question. “Don’t you recognize her? It’s an excellent likeness.”
The old man on her left made a pleased noise as the server filled his bowl.
“I haven’t yet met the lady,” Hugo said. “Could you tell me where I might find her?”
“Oh!” The woman put a hand to her cheek. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave. You’re not permitted to partake of communion until you’ve…”
The serving boys moved behind her, and the tallest, a beetle-browed twelve-year-old with a yellowish-brown complexion, ladled soup into her bowl—it smelled of nutmeg, yet there was an unpleasant undertone, a scent that Hugo could not identify. The woman closed her eyes and inhaled the steam rapturously. She took up her spoon and stirred the soup, which had the consistency of partially set custard.
“Until what?” Hugo asked.
“Until you’ve met her.” The woman bowed her head and began to pray. “Glorious Death, I beseech you,” she said in a fervent tone—the rest of her words were lost in a muttering consensus. Only the serving boys abstained from prayer. They glared at Hugo, their black eyes agleam like chitin under the lights, their faces glum. If he had seen them on the streets of Tepito, he wouldn’t have given them a second thought, but the context lent them a sinister aspect and he retreated from the room.
The corridor veered to the right and, after inspecting a room used to store stacks of high-end electronics gear still in their cartons, he leaned against the wall, seeking to order his thoughts. Nothing that had occurred since the kidnapping made sense, and the more forcefully he sought to impose logic on events, the less comprehensible they became. It was evident that he had not been kidnapped for ransom alone, that whoever was behind his abduction was playing games with him; but he could think of no reason for such treatment.
Several people passed him by as he pondered, and he asked each of them if they knew Aida’s whereabouts. They were uniformly civil, suggesting that if he kept going, sooner or later he would run across her; but each time he raised a question that required a more detailed response, they excused themselves and hurried off. Unable to
