Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy

resolve any of his questions, he took their advice and continued along the corridor.

At length he reached a door that stood partially open. The room beyond was furnished with a sofa and easy chairs upholstered in earth tones, end tables, and a gray rug with a blue diamond pattern typical of Zapotec work. It had a faintly shabby air redolent of an old hotel that was being kept up but had seen better days. Pottery occupied niches in the tiled walls (ocher with geometric designs of red and green), and on the wall opposite, next to a doorway hung with a beaded curtain, directly above the light switch, was a crucifix—the exposed wiring of the switch ran up behind the cross, giving the impression that the electricity powering the jaundiced glow from the ceiling lamp was at least partly responsible for Christ’s tormented posture. Hugo slipped inside, closing the door after him, and tiptoed to the doorway across the room, pushing aside the beaded curtain.

On his left, a staircase led downward; to his right, a bedroom … a woman’s bedroom, judging by the underwear strewn across the floor.

A noise from without drew his attention and he peered through the beaded curtain. A woman stood in the corridor, only her hand visible resting on the doorknob, a silver bracelet about her wrist. “All right. I’ll talk to you later,” she said to someone, and entered the room. She was identical to the woman in the mural in every respect. The same jewelry and clothing, even the same severe makeup. This reinforced his idea that she was a charlatan who affected the guise of Santa Muerte for some devious purpose—such an act would play well in Tepito. He was certain she had seen him through the curtain and in reflex he took a backward step. Without acknowledging him, she lit a cigarette and tipped back her head to exhale a plume of smoke. After a silence she said reflectively, “Hugo Lis.” Her voice had a husky sonority that made it seem a larger presence was speaking through her; yet when she spoke again, her words had a normal timbre. “My name is Aida Chavez. You are welcome in my house.”

“Since you know me…” he said, pushing aside the curtain and stepping forward as though unafraid. “You must also know that I have influential friends.”

“Truly? Perhaps your friends know my friends.” She had another hit of her cigarette. “Don’t worry. No harm will come to you here.”

“I don’t believe you understand. My niece’s godfather is…”

“Mauricio Ebrard. I know. I know a great deal about you. Your friends, where you like to drink … I know you took your last vacation in Biarritz. You spent quite a sum of money on a woman named Cinnamon.” A smile nicked her wide, straight mouth. “No doubt a relative.”

She sat down on the sofa and crossed her legs. “Still, there are things I don’t understand about you. Why, for instance, do you continue to photograph the dead? It can’t be an issue of money—your celebrity has brought you a nice income. Nor is it because you have a dearth of other options.”

Irritated, Hugo said, “Perhaps I just like driving around and taking pictures. I’m no psychologist. Why does anyone do anything? Why do you pretend to be Santa Muerte?”

“Is that what I do?” She kicked out her right leg and considered the tip of a stylish boot. “Are you afraid, Hugo? I should think anyone in your situation would be.”

“Of course I am. I’m afraid you won’t use good judgment.”

“If you’re really afraid, if you fear for your life, you may leave.”

He searched her face for a hint of deception, reminding himself that she was a poseur, an actress—he would be unlikely to detect anything that she had not put there by design.

She swung her legs onto the sofa and leaned back against the armrest. “Yet you’ve spent so many years at the entrance to my house, it would be a pity if you left without exploring it a little.”

He was aware that she had spoken metaphorically, referring both to his photographs of the dead and her affectation as the embodiment of Santa Muerte, but he chose to respond as though the comment had been literal. “You’re mistaken,” he said. “I’ve never been here before.”

Her face settled into a haughty, disinterested expression that reminded him of his niece, a student at the university, the look she adopted when she asked him for money and he would question the reason for which she needed it.

“Do as you wish,” she said, giving a languid gesture. “Leave … or stay. It’s of no consequence.”

She stared at the ceiling, smoke curling between her lips, holding her cigarette aloft as if using it to gauge perspective. He had the idea that he had disappointed her and felt an irrational dismay at having come up short of her expectations. He picked through his thoughts, examining this one and that one, thinking that she might be a witch and had placed them in his head—he did not actually believe in witchcraft, but his upbringing in San Luis Potosi, where peyote was sold by brujas in the market, compelled him to accept that magic was part of the world’s potential. While taking this mental inventory, he became aware that he was no longer quite so afraid. Although he remained unsettled by her diffident manner and general inexpressiveness (smiles and frowns scarcely registered on her face), she had demanded no ransom and he began to believe that she meant him no harm. Whatever her intentions, he told himself, they must have something to do with the cult of Santa Muerte, with her position in it, and perhaps there was a story here that could be exploited. The bulk of his equipment was in his car, but he had a digital camera in his jacket pocket.

“May I take your picture?” he asked.

* * *

Partway through Hugo’s photographic session with her, Aida Chavez started to remove her clothes. She did this of her own volition and with the nonchalance of a wife preparing for bed while chatting with her husband. Hugo was initially taken aback, but the hollows of her buttocks, the articulation of her ribs, collarbone, and pelvis, and the thrust of her hip bones contrived an eerily erotic terrain that aroused him in no small measure, and he snapped picture after picture. Desire grew furious and sharp in him, like the flame from a gas jet turned high. He wanted to touch her and might have done so, using the pretense of helping her to achieve a pose, but an insistent knocking at the door broke the mood.

Aida slipped on her panties and top, and poked her head out into the corridor, and carried on a brief, half- whispered exchange, after which she shut the door and struggled into her jeans.

Irritated, Hugo waved at the door and said, “Who are all these people? What are they doing here?”

Aida lit another cigarette and exhaled with a despondent sigh. “I hoped you would recognize me, but since you do not—”

“How could I recognize you? I’ve never laid eyes on you before!”

“No? How odd!” She reclined on the sofa once again. “I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I hoped you could ‘identify’ me. But since you cannot, I’ll tell you a little about myself. Perhaps that will assist your judgment.”

He sat in one of the easy chairs, and once he was comfortable she said, “I was a foundling left on the steps of the Nueva Vida Orphanage when I was barely a few hours old. I was grossly underweight and the doctors doubted that I would live; yet somehow I managed to survive my infancy. As I grew older the nuns tried to fatten me up, thinking that if I were closer to normal weight, I stood a better chance of being adopted. Though they forced me to stuff myself, often using the threat of physical punishment, I remained abnormally thin. The other children were cruel to me. I wasn’t strong enough to fight them off, so I developed a kind of passive resistance. No matter how painful the beatings, I refused to cry. I would glare at them until at last they stopped. Eventually they left me more or less alone and satisfied their need to demean me with the occasional prank. They took to calling me the Skinny Girl. Sometimes I wonder if their cruelty wasn’t a form of recognition, a denial of their fear.

“My stoic manner made me even less appealing to potential adoptive parents. They wanted bubbly, bouncy children and not a gaunt, solemn girl who sat without speaking. After nine years in the orphanage it seemed clear that I would never be adopted, and so it was decided I would enter the convent when I reached the proper age. I raised no objection to this plan. A nun’s life seemed as good as any and better than most in that it offered a guarantee of food and shelter. Then just prior to my tenth birthday, DeMario Chavez came to the orphanage. He had heard about the Skinny Girl dwelling there and asked to see me.”

“The founder of the Zetas?” Hugo asked. “That DeMario Chavez?”

Aida nodded. “During our interview I gave minimal responses to his questions and did not expect to see him again. But several days later he came to collect me. I assume a sum of money changed hands—that would explain why a drug dealer, a murderer, was allowed to adopt me. Then, too, the nuns were likely glad to wash their hands of me. They were a superstitious bunch, and I suspect they half believed me to be the Skinny Girl. DeMario took me to his house, this house, and installed me in an apartment and let it be known that the incarnation of Santa Muerte was dwelling under his roof, living as his ward. Occasionally he would bring other men to see me—men like him,