Chapter One

published on 12 June, 2026

An unexpected visitor

     The prisoners in the Zone 22 police station were short timers, which is to say that the worst offenders were soon transferred to a more miserable existence downtown. The rest were merely questionable characters who got into brawls or petty theft and were doing a little time off the street. Captain Javier Ixtlan knew most of them well. He pretended to look down on his charges and intimidated them easily because he was a big man; but the truth was that he only loathed himself. He was a naturally warmhearted person and sympathized with most people, traits he considered a terrible weakness in his line of work. Yet there it was and against his better judgment he was playing chess with Hugo Rodriguez, a guest in the middle cell, one Friday evening under the yellowish light from the overhead bulb. The captain, who was sitting in the corridor on a red chair brought down from his bedroom, saw a goblin grin on Hugo’s face as the prisoner squeezed his hand through the bars and pushed a pawn forward two squares. The captain was quite fond of his opponent and studied his face carefully to see if there was any calculation in the move or whether it came out of the recklessness of a habitual drunk.

     “Sir!” interrupted Lieutenant Castano from the other end of the corridor. He looked on the game with mild disapproval and sniffed as he straightened his shoulders. “There’s a woman here to see you.”

     “A woman? What woman?”

     “I don’t know. She asked for the person in charge,” replied the lieutenant noncommittally.

     “Oh—all right. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” the captain told Hugo gruffly as he rose from his chair.

     “I won’t make any aggressive moves while you’re away, sir!” offered the prisoner, who snickered when the captain glared back at him.

     “What’s going on?” asked the captain sharply as they turned the corner.  

     “I don’t know. The woman walked in very upset; I think she wants to report something. I was sitting at my desk; that boy Herrera sent was sitting at yours—don’t ask me why. But she did not feel comfortable imparting the information to us. Sir.” The lieutenant touched the captain’s shoulder to get his particular attention. At the same time he put his left hand behind his back, a habit of his whenever he broached something delicate. “She is attractive, and there is a bruise on her left cheek.” 

     The lieutenant looked down uncomfortably and noticed dirt on the seat of the captain’s pants. The captain nodded stonily. He did not understand attacks on women, to him that was like attacking his own mother; and he had few enough memories of her. He let the lieutenant precede him into the front office.

      A young woman was sitting on a wooden chair beside the lieutenant’s desk. Next to her the open front door let in the smells from the Chinese restaurant across the street, footsteps on the sidewalk, sounds of traffic and the distant crackling of firecrackers. But none of that concerned her: even the young officer leering at her from the captain’s desk did not concern her; she was gazing beyond him at a framed picture of the Virgin Mary, who was clothed in raiments of the sky. The wall around the picture was painted a light green; and while that was unusual for a police station, the captain liked bright colors.

     “Can I help you, Señorita?” asked the captain, pulling himself up to full height.

     “Señora,” she corrected him mildly. Her brown eyes, now that she looked at him, were full of pleading, yet she held her head with pride, exposing a beautiful neck. Her black hair was restrained tightly into a bun, and the captain took in the vivid bruise on her cheek, which she made no effort to hide. Her light blue dress was long, simple, and elegant.

     A high-tempered woman, thought the captain with admiration. “Señora,” he replied kindly. “How can I be of service to you?”

     “You can put me away. Please! You must,” she commanded softly.

     “Mm.” The captain thought for a moment. “Stefano,” he said to the officer with the slicked-back hair sitting at his desk. “Go to the back please and watch the prisoners. Don’t touch the board.” 

     Stephano Zucchero stood up reluctantly and made a point of nodding to the woman officiously before stalking out of the room. Captain Ixtlan, well aware of the impression his size made, kept his shoulders straight as he sat down with his back to the Virgin. The lieutenant returned to his own desk with much less of a wake and opened a notebook. Behind the lieutenant was a calendar of Britney Spears with her skin tanned Latina-style. Her belly button stared at the Virgin like a third eye. “First of all: your name, please,” asked the captain pleasantly.

     “Gabriella Rocio Guzman. I live four blocks from here at 4-17 Tenth Calle, about a block from the ravine.”

     “Ah, near the pirate video store. I go there all the time,” said the captain, trying to picture her house. “And you are married?”

     “That is one way to put it.”

     “Your husband’s name?”

     “Julio Roberto Guzman. He is a journalist. He works for La Prensa,” stated the woman flatly, glancing at the lieutenant’s notes. “I also work at La Prensa. I am his editor. That is how we met.”

     “I see,” said the captain, who was a little confused. “Now, I’m not sure I understand what you asked me earlier—Señora Guzman.” 

     “I’m asking you—please—to put me away. If you have any decency,” added the woman, pulling her handbag to her stomach.

     “But why?”

     “Because I am a murderer.” 

     “Oh.” The captain looked down at his fingers and drummed them softly on the desk. “And who have you killed?” he asked coolly.

     “My husband. I will kill him, if you don’t put me away. I want to kill him and I will. See what he’s done!” She lifted her cheek boldly into the light from the overhead lamp, making the bruise even more obscene.

      “Yes, I see. I am very sorry, Señora.”

     “Sorry!” she parried bitterly. “He is always sorry, too. That doesn’t change what he is. It doesn’t change what he’s done to me.”

     “What else has he done to you?”

     “What else? Besides hitting me?” asked Gabriella incredulously. “Besides humiliating me? Besides changing what I am?”

     “Changing you?”

     “You are a Catholic?” asked the woman suddenly, glancing at the portrait of the Virgin.

     “Yes. I am a Catholic.” The captain spoke with conviction, though he wondered where this was going.

     “I am changed,” repeated Gabriella, putting a fist to her heart. “I don’t want to become what I am. Put me away. Please. I can’t live with myself! He will set me off and I will do it. I have a knife.”

     “Where?” The captain glanced at her handbag.

     “In the kitchen.” 

     “Oh.”

     “I think about it all the time. Even when he is kind to me, I know he will turn. I don’t even think about protecting myself anymore. I think about hurting him. I am ready: I almost killed him tonight, just now, for this.” She put her hand to her cheek. “But he left the house before I got to the drawer. He probably forgot about hitting me while walking to the bar—he’s not far from here. I kept the knife out, waiting for him. And then I couldn’t live with myself and put it away and came here. Help me!” She bent her face over the handbag.

     “Certainly I will help you,” said the captain without thinking. He wanted to look at her eyes again. He was trying not to sympathize with the woman too much. He didn’t pretend to understand secular women, having grown up with nuns, and tended to idealize them. His particular weakness was to project his mother and the Virgin—over the years they had merged in his mind—into the lives of women around him. For a moment he saw his mother living in the chair in front of him, hunched over the handbag, full of her old burdens and the added torment of a thoughtless, violent husband.  

     “Certainly I will help you,” he repeated, disregarding the questioning look from Lieutenant Castano. “Only I cannot lock you away. I cannot lock you away for having a thought, even an intention. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

     “As if people are not killed in this country for having a thought!” she replied, flashing her passionate eyes, which is exactly what the captain wanted to see.

     “That shouldn’t be happening anymore,” he said.

     “You know that it is. I’m not asking much.”

     “Do you love your husband, Señora?” asked the captain.

     “Love him? Oh—so I’m supposed to forgive him and accept what he does to me and forget I’m a human being—because I love him? Why do you ask this question? Do I love him, do I hate him? Do I know? Put me away!”

     The phone rang. “Yes, two on duty, and the captain’s here as well. No, everything’s fine,” said the lieutenant. “Until later.” He hung up. “Downtown,” he explained to the captain. “Checking up.”

     Gabriella Guzman looked startled by the casualness of Lieutenant Castano’s remarks and Captain Ixtlan felt embarrassed for her. 

     “I simply wondered if you have any alternatives,” he explained. “If you cannot live with your husband, do you have any relatives or friends you can stay with? Until this is resolved.”

     “It’s my house, too.”

     “Well of course. But you seem willing enough to give it up for a spell in jail,” replied the captain sardonically.

     “I have a sister in Huehuetenango,” admitted Gabriella sullenly. “We were very similar once, but we’ve grown apart. She’s married and living in Huehuetenango. That’s far away. She has another life.”

     “Can you stay with her?”

     “It’s very far away. I would have to give up my job. I would have to give up my life: No.”

     “Anyone in Guatemala City?”

     “No,” replied the woman.

     “Any friends, your mother, your father?”

     But Gabriella Guzman just stared back at him, hugging her handbag. Her eyes glistened with pride, and while she was on the verge of tears, she was too stubborn to break down. 

     “You don’t want anyone to know about this,” suggested the captain. “I see. Have you considered a priest or a counselor of some kind?”

     “No. They would try to work things out—and I am weak enough to go along. I am weak enough to forgive him and look on his noble qualities—he has many admirable qualities; he is a good reporter, for instance; and he can be kind and charming. Don’t you know I’ve forgiven him before? And to go to work, looking like this, in my position! But now I’m afraid of what I’ll do.”

     You do love him, thought the captain. The idea filled him with sudden and unexpected jealousy. He was jealous because no one since his mother had shown strong feelings for him. He was an orphan raised in institutions; even now wearing the uniform of another institution. The dark blue uniform could not completely hide his skin, moreover, and he noticed Gabriella’s dark eyes going over his features, for there was something odd about the way he looked. He was thirty-two years old. The captain did not seem Spanish or ladino; he had the long forehead and hooked nose of a pure Mayan, and his hair was jet black. Yet his skin was unexpectedly light and he had honey-colored eyes that were always slightly startled, as if he was surprised every morning to wake up a foreigner in his own body. “I will talk to him,” said the captain decisively.

     “To my husband? What will that do?”

     “It will teach him a lesson,” replied the captain. “It will teach him there are consequences for disrespecting his wife. It is not purely a domestic matter,” he said evenly.

     “It isn’t?” asked the lieutenant, who scanned over his notes.

     “Not when there is violence. We will talk to him,” said the captain to Señora Guzman. “He does not believe there are consequences for what he’s done. We will show him there are consequences. As a matter of fact we can lock him up tonight: I will be glad to do so.” He was thinking in particular of putting him in with Hugo, who was half-mad, but essentially harmless. The lieutenant shook his head silently, but the captain brushed him off again. “You say your husband is close-by, in a bar?”

     “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” replied Gabriella Guzman. “I don’t know.”

     “Captain,” interrupted the lieutenant.

     “You would rather kill him yourself?”

     “No. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. I was being impulsive,” said Gabriella, shaking her head.

     “So you will not kill him.”

     But the woman’s hard eyes did not flicker; instead her face fell. She seemed ashamed and the captain did not want to humiliate her. The dignity and anguish in her features moved him deeply, yet he sensed a worm of malice in her that she cowered to protect. He felt it in her, and the idea settled uneasily in his mind. He did not want to believe it and something cleaved in him. He wanted to help the woman, he also desired to impress her; and didn’t trust himself entirely as he stood up again, filling the room.

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Chapter Two

published on 19 June, 2026

The reporter in the Red Rooster

     “Please wait here, Señora, until we get back.”

     “It will just make him angrier,” she protested. “I know that. And then—”  

     “He needs to be confronted,” replied the captain. “You know that too. Otherwise we forget you came here at all, everything goes back to the way it was and you might actually use that knife. Then your life will certainly be ruined. I can’t put you away, I can’t force you to leave Mr. Guzman; I can only reason with him or put him away. We will reason with him first. Where is he?”

     “Around the corner, a couple of blocks away,” she replied vaguely.

     “Stefano!” shouted the captain. He walked over to the corridor and peered to the end, where the young officer was leaning sullenly against the file cabinet with his arms crossed. Stefano straightened up immediately, glanced at Hugo Rodriguez, who was still sitting close to the bars, and walked toward the captain so quickly his left knee hit the chessboard. The captain flushed with anger as his beautifully symmetrical attack fell over the floor.

     “Hee! Hee! Haw!”

     “Shut up, Hugo. You sound like a donkey. You can clean it up later, Stefano,” sighed the captain. He glanced at the near cell occupied by the Puentes brothers, Pincho and Tito, caught stealing hubcaps from the mechanic Iglesias. The prisoners shook their heads, a habitual denial of guilt.

      “All right. Please come this way, Stefano.” The young officer, chagrined, stepped around the mess and came up to the captain with his shoulders hunched and something sneaky in his eyes. The captain took another look at the cells, put a hand on Stefano’s shoulder and led him back into the office. “All right. I’m going to leave you in charge for a while.”

     “Yes, sir,” said the officer stiffly. Then his eyes sought out Gabriela Guzman. 

     “Sit at my desk,” commanded the captain cautiously. “Just stay there. The lieutenant and I will be away for a few minutes. I’ll call you on the cellular. Which bar?” he asked Gabriella.

     “He’s playing pool with some friends. That bar by the little factory a couple blocks west of here,” she said without looking up.

     “The Red Rooster. Lieutenant?”

     “I’m ready,” he replied, standing up. But he kept his hands on the desk as if he needed to support himself. Then he closed the notebook suddenly, straightened his shoulders, and moved away briskly to the captain. He checked his gun. “Ready,” he repeated. The lieutenant glanced again at the dust on the captain’s pants. He was a fastidious man and wondered where the dirt came from. It was perpetual mystery to him. Two or three times a week the captain came back from patrol with dirt on his pants.

     “And last,” asked the captain. “What does your husband look like?”

     “Nothing good will come of this.”

     “Please.”

     “He’s tall—almost as tall as you, almost two meters. He’s wearing a white shirt. His face is thin, he has a sharp nose, and his hair is brown and short. When he smiles, he always looks like he won something. And he answers to his name: Julio Guzman,” she replied bitterly. “If you care to ask.”

     “We’ll be back shortly, Señora,” said the captain. He knew she resented him now—women were so hard to understand! —and that anything he did or did not do was bound to upset her. He put his left hand on her shoulder and patted it to reassure her, but she only quivered and pulled the bag closer to her chest. The captain felt troubled and proceeded outside down the cement steps of the police station. Lieutenant Castano followed behind him after glancing quizzically at Señora Guzman. Since the captain was making all the decisions and paid no attention to him, he was determined not to get very involved in the situation; for he knew domestic problems were a hive of thorns. Still he looked longingly at the police car parked in front of them.

     “You know, captain,” he suggested. “If you really wanted to make an impression on this guy, this journalist, it would be a whole lot more powerful if we showed up in the Lada. Then we could stick him the car, and he wouldn’t know what the hell was happening. As opposed to showing up on foot. It doesn’t seem as official.”

     “What? Is it running?” The captain put his hand on the cool hood of the car and nodded at the waiter from the Yuan Chow, who was smoking by the front door of the restaurant.

     “Well, no, that’s the thing. We need a distributor. But Iglesias says he found one in the junkyard; we only need to pay a hundred quetzals for it.”

     “That’s not bad.”

     “And a hundred for labor.”

     “Hmm.” 

     “But then we have a car for a while.”

     “For how long?” asked the captain.

     “Well, it’s the distributor this time, but it’s a Russian car and basically a piece of shit. So you never know. Eventually they’ll get us something Japanese, but this zone is out of the way. If Herrera weren’t your friend, I’d say they’d sooner forget about us. But a car is a car.”

     “Herrera isn’t my friend, exactly,” replied the captain thoughtfully. He crossed west to the corner the restaurant was on and waved goodnight to the waiter.

     “I guess so, captain.” The lieutenant knew that Ixtlan and the police chief of Guatemala City went back many years, but Ixtlan never spoke about the nature of their relationship. Lieutenant Castano wondered what benefit the captain got from such a powerful connection; and why, with such influence behind him, he was assigned to such an unimportant post. “May I ask you something, Captain?” asked the lieutenant mildly.

     “Certainly.”

     “Who is that little fucker that Herrera sent to our station?”

     “Stefano? I don’t know. His family is well connected in the Interior Ministry. His father runs the Investigative Unit, he’s powerful. Probably Herrera is doing his father a favor: I don’t know. Herrera does many people favors for reasons of his own. We’ll have to put up with him awhile.”

     “Sir: is Herrera doing someone a favor or is he keeping an eye on you? Stefano makes a lot of calls downtown. I would feel more generous toward him if he didn’t have such a mouth.”

     “I don’t know, Chepe. I’ve thought of that too. I haven’t figured it out,” admitted the captain. Both men looked down at the sidewalk, but their thoughts diverged as they walked away from the greasy smells of the Chinese restaurant wafting down the alley. Castano fantasized about riding around in the Lada and using it for dates, while the captain thought of Stefano watching Gabriella Guzman. He did not trust the young man and did not entirely trust Herrera either, though he owed his very life to him. But that was all politics and the captain was used to the petty maneuvering of other men. 

     What he did not understand was the smell of Gabriella’s perfume. He noticed it when touching her shoulder, and the soft, exhilarating scent stayed with him, filling his mind with questions. Why did she put in on tonight, and why was she wearing such a long, elegant dress? What was the nature of the argument with her husband? The captain realized he had asked none of these questions; he was stepping into a personal quarrel blindly. And as he imagined the scent of Gabriella’s neck in the night air her nature became more mysterious to him and even threatening. Oh, he was being a fool! He brought himself to earth and hardened his heart against the husband, who was only two blocks away. 

     “I didn’t mean to dismiss you back there at the station, Chepe,” said the captain in a friendly voice, now that he was thinking more carefully about the past half hour. They waited for a bus to pass in front of the post office, then held their breath until the diesel fumes began to dissipate. “I get carried away by prejudice sometimes. I guess I stopped thinking.”

     “I have a mother and sister, Captain,” replied the lieutenant crisply, without looking at him. “I understand these things.”

     When they arrived at the Red Rooster the captain stiffened himself. The Rooster was one of his favorite haunts, second only to La Esmerelda, the neighborhood bordello, and his heart lifted whenever he came to the sign of the parading cock hanging above the entrance. Now the bright red doors he was so accustomed to led to a quandary. 

     He nodded to the bouncer, who was standing outside wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, and spoke to the lieutenant in a low voice before crossing the threshold. “Just follow my lead in there, Chepe. I don’t want to break up the party; I just want to teach the bastard a lesson. And one other thing,” he added, now that he smelled beer and cigarette smoke wafting from the bar. “I don’t care what they say about those foreign beers, I like Gallo the most. I just do.”

     “Whatever, Captain,” said Lieutenant Castano with a smile. “Shall we?”   

     Immediately they were inside a jovial, round-faced woman waved at them from behind the bar, but the captain forced himself not to smile back. “Not tonight, Cecilia,” he said stiffly. “Business.”

     “Oh. What’s going on?”

     “Another time, Cecilia, another time,” said the captain as they approached the counter. Then he put on a grave expression—he could feel the weight of it himself—and scanned the room. The lieutenant stood next to him silently and looked about as well. It didn’t take long for the captain to recognize a man fitting the description of Julio Guzman playing pool at the far end of the room. There was something likable about him, however: he was tall and gangly, with a thin face taken to the edge of fragility, and bright friendly eyes. He was waiting his turn, bantering with a group of acquaintances in a yellow haze of smoke. Like his wife he was dressed a little too well, with a brilliant white shirt and elegant black pants. As the reporter chalked his cue stick the captain noted that his pleasant confidence was just a little smug. But as he bent over the table to aim his expression froze, something flickered over his concentration and he looked up to see two policemen in dark blue uniforms studying him. The captain’s light eyes did not let go. Guzman looked troubled at the attention; then broke into an easy smile, nodded at the captain and made his shot. 

     “O! Instant humiliation,” he exclaimed as the balls scattered to no effect. “My own fault. Do me wrong, my friend, do me wrong,” he said to a much shorter man who was eyeing the table beadily. Then: “Can I help you?” For the captain was watching him now from the other side of the table. “Did you want to play?”

     “You are Julio Guzman?”

     “Yes, I am.”

     “We need to ask you some questions.”

     “What’s this about?” asked the reporter politely. To the captain’s surprise Guzman did not seem particularly concerned. Neither did he look automatically to his friends for support. Instead he looked back inquiringly at the captain with honest eyes. 

     “Please come outside, Señor.”

     “I would like to know the reason,” replied the journalist with more of an edge. Guzman began chalking his cue stick again and still did not look to anyone else.

     “We are investigating an attack,” explained the captain. “We expect your cooperation.”

     “Everything I know about it is in the newspaper already,” replied Guzman cautiously. “Published yesterday. I can’t help you with anything else. You will have to contact the paper.”

     “What? No: this is something else,” insisted the captain. “Please come outside.”

     “It is a different matter entirely,” added the lieutenant as he put his right hand on his holster. 

     “I see,” said Guzman as he glanced at the gun. “Very well. Give me a moment.” He took a business card out of his wallet and gave it to the short man next to him. “‘Mano, do me a favor. Call my wife at home—the bottom number. She should be there, although—she wanted to go to a party: another story. If she’s left, please leave a message with her office at La Prensa—the top number. Thanks, ‘mano.”

     “Si, ‘mano,” replied the short man after nodding politely to the captain. 

     “Your wife?” asked the captain. He and the lieutenant glanced at each other.

     “Yes, I’m married. My wife will be concerned if something happens to me,” said the reporter as he checked around behind him. He seemed puzzled and then remembered something. “Do I know you?” asked Guzman suddenly of the captain. 

     “We’ve never met, Señor.”

     “You look familiar,” he insisted to the captain’s stony face. Then he said goodnight to his companions and allowed himself to be escorted away.

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Chapter Three

published on 26 June, 2026

The List

      Once on the street the reporter nodded grimly to the bouncer and looked from side to side. “Where’s the car?” he asked.

     “There is no car,” replied the captain. He took out his cellular, pushed a button and announced, “We have the suspect in custody.”

     “Suspect?” asked Officer Stephano Zucchero from the station. The captain quickly hung up.

     “Suspect?” asked the reporter, who was trying not to betray any nervousness. He put his hands in his pockets and glanced quickly at the captain and lieutenant. Now that they were away from the smoke it was obvious Guzman was wearing cologne, a little too much of it, and his breath stank of beer. 

     “We’re going to the station,” ordered Ixtlan roughly, pushing on the reporter’s shoulder.

     “Stay between us,” added the lieutenant.

     “Yes: all right,” acknowledged the reporter sullenly. He was thinking hard, with drooped shoulders and intense worried eyes. It was obvious he had no idea why he was being taken away; and if he had no clue, thought the captain, he probably had no shame about beating his wife either. How did men get this way? How could such an intelligent man, so easy with people, not understand what he had done? The captain kept his face rigid and made sure the reporter paid for every step by pushing repeatedly at his shoulder, hemming him in with the lieutenant, telling him nothing.  They paraded the prisoner past the bread shop, past the people gossiping outside the Tienda Marcella, and the captain watched the reporter flush with humiliation. Yet every so often he glanced inquisitively at the captain.

     “I know you,” he announced softly once they smelled the Chinese restaurant again.

     “You know nothing.” 

     “Aren’t you the orphan Herrera brought into the academy?”

     “Shall I shoot him, Captain?” asked Castano.

     “Let’s bring him to the alley,” replied Ixtlan, while avoiding the reporter’s eyes.

     “I don’t understand this,” said Guzman.

     “No, you don’t,” said the captain, as he led the reporter behind the restaurant. The lieutenant smiled slyly and kept his right hand on his gun. The reporter looked stunned and the captain felt ashamed of himself, forcing the man’s humiliation. Still he continued the farce to the end. Guzman seemed convinced he was going to die. He did not expect his end to come so quickly, and took in everything around him with eager eyes, from the trash in the alley to the windows—hoping for a witness—and finally the graffiti spray painted on the walls. The words ranged from the obscene to the political: “Sanson is the son of a whore;” “The dead will not be forgotten.” Next to that last line was one that that got the reporter’s particular attention: “Altrio for President.”

     “I see,” said the reporter.

     “You see what?”

     “I told you I published everything I know already—I didn’t think Herrera was involved in this. I didn’t think you were, either—Captain Ixtlan,” said the reporter regretfully. He stepped away from the policemen and brushed himself off everywhere they had touched him. “I always thought Herrera was fairly clean.”  

     “This isn’t about Herrera.”

     “Of course not,” said Guzman dryly. “I guess you want the list—but I don’t have it. I left it in a safe place. So even the old man is worried about it. But it’s safe.”

     “Herrera?” asked the captain, without giving up his rigid expression.

     “No, Altrio,” said the reporter, nodding toward the graffiti. “I told you I don’t understand Herrera’s angle. But you’ll do what you’ll do. Okay?” Guzman crossed his arms, jutting out his thin face defiantly; and unintentionally emphasizing how fragile he appeared. He glanced at the lieutenant’s gun. “I just ask one thing of you.”

     “What?”

     “I did a terrible thing, tonight,” he said. His face fell and his veneer of light arrogance fell away with it. “I hurt my wife. I hit her. We had an argument about going to a party. I lost my temper because I’m a weak man. Please tell her I’m sorry. Ask her to forgive me. That’s all.” He straightened up again, resigned to a bullet, and glanced behind him where his heel touched the curb. 

     “I’m very glad you said that!” exclaimed the captain. He stepped up to the reporter to break the spell, but Guzman backed away instinctively and tripped. His head hit the pavement with a crack.

     “Oh, shit!” muttered Ixtlan.

     “I don’t think he hears you, Captain,” said the lieutenant after a while.

     “You don’t?”

     “No, he’s out,” replied Castano. The lieutenant kneeled over the body, patted the reporter’s cheeks, then grabbed his jaw and moved his head from side to side. “Shit! There’s blood behind his head.”

     “Mother of God!” said the captain, as the alley door of the restaurant opened. The proprietor, Señor Lee, came out with a bag of trash; glanced at the two policemen and the body, placed the bag in a beat-up can, and rushed back inside. “Is he dead?” In the yellow light from the street lamp at the foot of the alley the reporter looked waxy and unnatural.

     “Maybe.” The lieutenant patted his cheeks again. “Wait a minute.” He lifted one of Guzman’s fine hands and felt the pulse. “No, he’s alright. Just a concussion, probably.”

     “Thank God!” If the captain had been alone, he would have fallen to his knees; and the image of the Virgin came into his mind. He looked up at the clear stars. “Thank God,” he whispered to himself. “I react too strongly to things sometimes, Chepe,” admitted the captain with chagrin. “I shouldn’t have gotten involved in this, probably. On the other hand—what else could we do? I don’t know. Let’s wake him up.” He knelt down next to the lieutenant and began patting the journalist on his cheeks, not too gently. Guzman began to moan.

     “Well, you meant to teach him a lesson,” observed Castano as he looked down on the reporter. “I wasn’t sure when we started out what that lesson was going to be, but I guess this is it.”

     “I meant something,” said the captain.

     “Uuuhh!” 

     “Here he comes!” said the captain. “Do you want a doctor?”

     “Oh!” The reporter opened his eyes. “I thought I was dead. Jesus!” He tried supporting himself on his elbows until the policemen sat him up.

     “How’s your head, now?” asked the lieutenant.

     “It hurts. The back of it!”

     “Well there you go,” intoned the captain. “You hit your wife. She has a bruise the size of your white fist. You should be ashamed of yourself. You don’t even know what you have.”

     “I guess not,” replied Guzman darkly. “ I don’t get this. What about—?”

     “She’s waiting for you at the station.”

      The reporter heard the words but let them settle for a while. “My wife?”

     “Your wife.”

     “What is my wife doing at the station? Are you questioning her as well?”

     “She came of her own accord,” replied the captain flatly.

     “Oh,” said Guzman. “I see.” He looked perplexed, and the captain wasn’t sure what to say. As the reporter became more alert, he seemed less sure of himself. Then he muttered, “She betrayed me.”

     “Listen, my friend,” said the captain, grabbing the reporter’s collar. “Anymore of that, and you’ll get it worse. Touch your wife again—and you’ll see us. Understand?”

     “Yes, yes. All right.”

     The captain helped him to his feet.

     “I deserved it,” admitted the reporter in a swoon, “only—this is private.”

     “It stopped being private the moment you raised your fist,” replied Ixtlan. “I don’t want to hear about why.”

     The reporter nodded, and to the captain’s surprise did not make an argument. He turned around and looked at the graffiti. “I thought you guys were going to kill me,” he murmured, his agreeable self again. “Damn.” He became lost in thought. The captain suspected his thoughts had little to do with his wife. “You don’t know what you have,” he urged one more time.

     “No, no, of course not,” replied Guzman, rubbing the back of his head. “Are you taking me to her, now?”

     “Yes.” 

     “All right then. You are my escorts. And we will try to make up,” he said lightly. “Only you are wrong about one thing: I do appreciate her, only—I have my faults. They are my faults, not hers. May I ask you something, Captain?”

     “What?”

     “Where are you from?” The reporter glanced at the captain’s light skin, and Ixtlan felt himself flush as he noticed the lieutenant watching him respond.

     “How would I know?” he replied. “I’m an orphan, as you said.”  

     “All right,” said Guzman politely. “You know, I heard about the water pipe you had the contractor build to the ravine.”

     “Is that a threat?”

     “Not at all.” They reached the corner of the Chinese restaurant and the captain looked at the steps to the station across the street where Gabriella was waiting inside. “Anyway,” continued the reporter lightly, “Herrera warned me to lay off that himself. Yes, I spoke to him about it. It’s my job to poke into things. When Gabriella and I moved here—right after we married—I heard talk of you. One of the kids on our street called you the Mayor of Zone 22. I asked him why; and he led me to the water pipe at the edge of the ravine. Newly built, and not by the city. Don’t worry, Captain,” he said, patting him genially, and a bit arrogantly, on the side of his arm. “I won’t go anywhere with that. You can believe me or not. And now I must face my wife.” He turned toward the police station and swallowed.

     “What’s that list you were talking about?” asked Ixtlan, but Guzman only shook his head. 

     When they came into the office Stephano was whispering into the phone, cowering under the gaze of the woman he was meant to watch. It was apparent something had passed between them because Stephano looked sheepish behind the captain’s desk, and Gabriella was studying him from her chair with her legs crossed delicately under her light blue dress and her arms crossed over her bag. But all she said was, “Your boy over there thinks highly of himself.  So you have brought my husband.” She looked at the captain accusingly, then stood up and placed the handbag on the lieutenant’s desk, keeping her eyes down. The captain marveled at her poise: even the way she clasped her hands as she faced her husband was fascinating to watch. Perhaps Guzman was intimidated by her elegance and felt a need to break something too perfect. At least the reporter looked chagrined at the terrible bruise on his wife’s face. But it was Gabriella who apologized first. “I’m sorry they brought you here, Julio,” she said shyly. “What I intended was something very different.”                                                        

     “You have nothing to be ashamed of,” interjected the captain.

     “These gentlemen treated me very politely,” replied the reporter with the gentlest irony. “I don’t fault them for anything.”

     “But you fault me.” She looked at him, and boldly, with a questioning stare; but his eyes were darker and more resentful. “Let’s just go home,” he said. “I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry.” He took her hands, rubbing them between his, and glanced darkly at the captain.

     “All right then,” said Gabriella, but she looked down again and took her hands back. “I’m sorry for troubling you, Señores.”

     “You don’t have to go back,” said Captain Ixtlan.

     “I don’t have to go anywhere, I’m sure, I don’t want,” replied Gabriella Guzman. “But I want what’s in my future.” Then Gabriella took her husband’s hand possessively and pulled him toward the steps. Once they were on street, their clothing shimmering blue and white in the half-light, Gabriella stopped and looked back at the captain. He could not see her face and wondered what she was thinking. He couldn’t help watching them leave, and when he turned back inside noticed she had left her handbag on the lieutenant’s desk.

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Chapter Four

published on 3 July, 2026

The handbag

     The next morning, as he had hoped, she came back for it.

     She arrived as the captain was reading the newspaper at his desk just after breakfast. It was a beautiful morning with toasty light and the smell of eggs and beans and coffee lingering in the station. The paperboy had traveled two blocks on his bike since leaving the news and his cries still carried urgently through the streets: “La Prensa! El Grafico! All the important news! Sports! Movies! The lottery! La Prensa!” It didn’t take long for the captain to find Julio Guzman’s byline. His story was on the fifth page after some standard photo-ops of President Portillo, international news about the Iraq war and celebrity gossip. Guzman’s piece was an unusual article about a spontaneous riot on Friday in Zone 10 instigated by supporters of the former President Altrio.  The point of the article was that the gathering wasn’t spontaneous at all: Guzman counted twenty buses at the event, all chartered. That much wasn’t surprising. The question was why the rampage occurred in the middle of the business district instead of the Supreme Court. And why were so many Ministry of the Interior vehicles cordoning off the area and lending support? Ixtlan was troubled by the information and wondered where his mentor Herrera stood on it politically. He rarely knew where Herrera stood on anything, the man was friendly with everybody. Then the captain felt something tickling the front of his mind.

     Gabriella Guzman was standing on the sidewalk peering up the stairs. The captain, seeing her through the open door, felt happy and smiled; but she only squinted back in the sun. She had let her hair down and it fell well below her shoulders in dark waves. Her dress was violet and loosely tailored, and she wore a purple silk scarf so feathery most of its weight was in the color. Her sandals were brown and apparently as easy and comfortable as the rest of her outfit. “Please come in!” said the captain before she hesitated any longer. “Take a seat!” But when she came up the stairs, she seemed reluctant and kept her face down. “I left my bag here last night,” she explained. 

     “Yes, you did. Would you like some coffee? Philomena! Coffee, please, up front—two cups! Please sit down,” said the captain politely, and more directly. He stood up and nodded with a presence so large Gabriella retreated to the chair with a bemused smile. Some cups rattled in the kitchen, and Gabriella put her right elbow on the lieutenant’s desk. Then she looked troubled.

     “That’s okay—he’s off today,” said the captain. “Stephano too.”

     “I was not expecting to be offered coffee,” she replied demurely. “And I wouldn’t normally accept—for no reason except that I didn’t want to be any more of a burden to you. But since coffee is coming anyway, I will gladly take it. I could use some coffee.”

     “Are you alright?” asked the captain.

     “I am fine,” returned Gabriella unconvincingly. She flicked away the hair on the right side of her face as the housekeeper stepped in with the tray. The hair covering her other cheek she left alone, but the captain noticed anyway that her bruise was turning brown at the edges. In the back of his mind he wondered if something perverse in Gabriella made her choose an outfit that complemented the mark on her jaw.

     “Sugar, Señorita?” asked Philomena with an insinuating smile. She had a wide friendly face and was glad to see the captain with a prospect.

     “Señora,” the captain corrected her.

     “Oh.”

     “No sugar, thank you, or anything else,” replied Gabriella. “Just that cup.”

     “Very well. And for you, Captain,” said the housekeeper in a more resigned voice, “there is sugar and plenty of milk. Your usual indulgences.” She left the tray on his desk.

     “I am glad to see you don’t look worse,” said the captain. “What I mean is that I worried about what I’d done. There’s no excuse for it. I thought your husband might take it out on you.” 

     “He didn’t touch me, actually, when we got home,” said Gabriella. She took a sip of coffee and closed her eyes, savoring its bitterness. “It’s a personal matter, when you come down to it. I shouldn’t have come to you at all, I’m sorry I did that.”

     “Why?”

     She smiled. “Because I put you in an impossible situation to save myself—from an impossible situation. And I humiliated my husband. I didn’t mean to do that, angry as I was.” She glanced at the picture of the Virgin behind the captain, but without the reverence of the night before. Her expression was critical and even resentful. She finished her coffee and sat up straight, trying to be businesslike as she said: “Here we are apologizing to each other, it’s quite silly. You’re very kind, though. I just came to pick up my bag. I don’t want to trouble you any further.”

     The captain was taken with the way her eyes avoided him and with her apparent embarrassment. Even the shadows under her eyes made her more beautiful and hinted at her integrity. He thought: This is the kind of woman I will never have. In the back of his mind he thought he did not deserve her anyway, or anyone else, since he had abandoned his mother. The captain reached into the bottom drawer of his desk reluctantly and pulled out the handbag. It was brown, made of wool, and did not go at all with her dress; nor with the dress she had the night before. There was had something flat and hard-edged inside. “A book?” he asked.

     “Yes, a book,” she replied, watching the bag anxiously as he handed it to her. Then she pulled it to her stomach as she had the night before. “I like to read things other than the news when I can. Because the news is so much a part of my work as an editor: just information, and much of it very depressing. And dry, when you come down to it.”

     “I’ve been reading your husband’s article here. It’s good, I have to admit, although I don’t like him.”

     “Yes, it’s very good, although I don’t like him either right now, or myself. He is always getting into trouble like a good journalist, and I am always sending him back for more facts. Of course he resents me for that.”

     “What happened when you got home last night?” asked the captain impetuously. 

     “What happened? Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing.” Then she pulled the bag even closer and studied the captain squarely. “We had words. I told him what I thought, and he told me what he thought, and it was very tiring and brutal. Just words. Somewhere along the way I left my soul behind.” 

     “You don’t mean that!” exclaimed the captain.

     “I do, I’m afraid,” she said, dropping the words carelessly. She stood up, gave him a brittle, bitter smile, gripped the bag with her left hand, and offered to shake his hand. The captain stood up and accepted immediately. Then she threw back her hair again and looked at the door. 

     “Please come back again if I can help you,” said the captain earnestly.

     “Yes, yes, I appreciate that,” she replied quickly. She apprised him, then swiveled around and hurried down the steps. Once on the street she hesitated and looked to the right and the Avenida Conquistador; but changed her mind and walked south toward her home instead. The captain wondered later why she returned to the house, for by then her husband was dead and she knew it.

     At four o’clock the next afternoon the Catholic church bells two blocks to the west of the police station tangled with the bells of the Evangelical church one block to the east, vying for souls. Most Evangelical churches called out to their neighbors with loudspeakers rather than bells, but in Zone 22, much to the captain’s annoyance, the Protestants were unusually aggressive and used both. In the midst of the cacophony a group of boys playing soccer on Tenth Calle hit the front door of the Guzman residence accidentally with their ball. It swung open, releasing flies and stench. Once they reported their discovery the captain called Herrera to get a forensics crew from downtown and then waited with the lieutenant outside the house. It was a two-story stuccoed white home with black grates over the windows, showing a pleasant if uninteresting exterior and no hint of the horror inside. The captain and lieutenant kept spectators away until a white and blue car rolled up with two detectives. The sun was going down, and an older detective peered with thick glasses at the red sky as he opened his door. Ixtlan recognized him: He was Señor Menza, an old hand who taught at the academy and was very thorough. The young man who got out on the other side turned around to close his door and seemed to be in a hurry. 

     “Crime of passion?” inquired Menza absently.

     “We don’t know that yet,” replied the captain.

     “No, of course not,” replied Menza with a smile. “We don’t know anything yet. We don’t know anything until we look.” He patted the captain gently at the elbow. “Well the Chief told me to do anything you ask. You were my student.”

     “I was.”

     “You I don’t know,” Menza observed genially to the lieutenant; and after introducing himself, the detective began studying the door.

     “It was unlocked,” said the captain. “I suspect the lock is broken; see the scratches there?”

     “Mm. They’re minor, could be anything,” said the old man, kneeling down. “Still: Fernandez, get some prints from the door,” he ordered his subordinate. “And photograph the lock.”

     “You’re kidding!” But the old man ignored him, and Fernandez reluctantly went to the car, returning with a large brown briefcase after giving the children who formed a perimeter around the scene a look of disgust.

     “Go home please!” the captain called out to the youngsters, most of them ragged, who smiled back at him. 

     “What happened, Mayor?”

     “I’m not your mayor. Go home, now. There’s been an accident.”

     “Accident?” called out a tiny boy.

     “Please don’t interfere. Go,” said the captain, shooing the children away. The few closest to the scene stepped back about thirty feet, and those with parents went away entirely. The little boys from the ravine who discovered the body were already keeping a distance, watching the proceedings intently from across the street. They had a claim on the excitement and did not drift away until after dark.

     Perhaps they were waiting for their red ball. It was still sitting on the floor of the living room where it fell, and the captain saw immediately there was something wrong with the boys’ story. The ball couldn’t have rolled all the way in after hitting the door; someone had carried it, impelled by terrible curiosity into an extraordinary scene and then dropped it. In front of the ball was a gray couch where Julio Guzman lay in his fine Friday clothes. His body tolerated a host of sticky flies, and something about the position of the corpse implied that the tortures inflicted on the reporter had occurred without protest.  

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Chapter Five

published on 10 July, 2026

Gabriella’s disturbed passion

      The captain surmised that there was no single wound that killed him: there were pricks all over his skin, and his blood had seeped from the wounds and dried. His eyes were black holes. The captain shuddered when he saw them. He remembered how soft Gabriella’s hand was. The rest of the room was in disarray and it was apparent someone had been searching through the house. Books were lined up on many shelves with photographs on the side of public people, and a big TV and stereo faced the couch. The place spoke of ambitious, cultured lives. Yet to the captain’s eye there wasn’t enough color around the house. The smell was overpowering and the captain gratefully accepted a towel from the lieutenant and covered his nose.

     “He’s not tied up,” observed Menza quizzically. He coughed, then quickly took out a handkerchief and breathed through it slowly. “Mm. Note that, Fernandez. Photograph the body.”

     A couple of flashes went off, making the reporter cold and unreal, then Menza put on some gloves. No one touched the ball. Menza stepped around it and knelt by the body, breathing into the handkerchief before putting it in his breast pocket and shooing away some flies. Fernandez stood behind him. The lieutenant stayed in the background, avoiding the captain’s eyes, and wandered into the kitchen with hands clasped behind his back. Ixtlan looked around hopelessly at the disorder everywhere else. He said, “Someone went through the drawers.”

     “Yes, someone panicked I think,” replied Menza dryly. He coughed into the handkerchief.

     “Why don’t you dust the furniture,” the captain said tersely to Menza’s assistant.

     “For prints?” asked Fernandez.

     “For prints—for or everything that’s been touched recently: the furniture, the walls around the light switches, everything fresh. And flick the light on, please, with your glove. There may be a print on it.”

     Fernandez stared at him. “I didn’t know it was that kind of case,” he said.

     “Do what he says, my friend,” commanded Menza nonchalantly. He glanced at Fernandez, amused by his truculence, and then dug gently at the captain as he returned his attention to the body. “You say the couple had an argument Friday night?”

     “Yes. Gabriella Guzman came to the station to report she’d been hit on the jaw, left side. She was badly bruised.”

     “And then she went home with him, uncoerced?” asked Menza airily. 

     “She went back freely,” said the captain, wondering if the lieutenant was listening.

     “Horrible smell! I hate flies!” exclaimed the old man. Then he regained his composure, lifted the back of the reporter’s head, felt it through his glove, grunted, let it down and thought for a while. “It’s your case, of course, Captain, and I respect any arrangements you have with the chief, but if I may make some observations.”

     “Go ahead.”

     “The gentleman was tortured to death.”

     “That seems obvious,” replied the captain.

     “A few other things are not,” insisted Menza. “For instance: he was not tied up. That could mean he submitted—unlikely—or that he was held down. But by whom? On the other hand the back of his head is swollen and he may have been knocked out—more likely. And who poked him so carefully and coldly as he lay down? Very coldly,” said the old man with a touch of awe. “I should not have suggested this was a crime of passion. Except for the kisses all over his face.”

     “I want everything looked at,” repeated the captain, scowling at Fernandez. He wondered why the lieutenant was still in the kitchen. 

     “And where is Señora Guzman?” asked Menza.

     “She fled.”

     “Ah.”

     “Yesterday morning. She came back to the station for her purse. Then I saw her walk in this direction,” admitted the captain.

     “I guess she had to pack her things,” observed Fernandez, as he dusted yet another open drawer.

     “Any reports from the neighbors?” asked the old man. “Any other visitors?”

     “Nothing,” said the captain. He had a heavy heart and walked over to the front window. He opened it. He felt responsible; he had ruined two lives and wasn’t sure where he had gone wrong. How could he have prevented this? He let the cool breeze play over his face. It was dark now, an obscure evening with low clouds, and the street was almost deserted except for the two policemen from downtown keeping watch by the car, a few passersby, and a sulky stray sniffing the gutter. Once his eyes adjusted, however, the captain saw that an old woman was watching him from across the street. She was spying through the window with the light off; and once discovered drew away quickly and closed the glass. 

     “And Señora Guzman told you she was going to kill her husband?” added Menza to the tally.

     “Yes, she did. Lieutenant Castano heard her as well, and took notes,” replied the captain fatalistically. He observed the silhouette of the old woman moving around in her room and made a mental note to talk to her later. As he turned around the lieutenant stepped back in living room.  

     “The knife’s in the kitchen,” he announced to nobody in particular.

     “You touch it?” asked Menza.

     “Of course not. The blood’s not even wiped off. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting a match. There’s also a bowl of dog food in the kitchen,” added Castano as an afterthought. “But no dog.” He walked over to the couch casually and looked over the cuts all over the corpse, apparently comparing them to the knife blade. Then he stared at the face with horror. Even the captain couldn’t decide whether the reporter’s eyes were more frightening or the kisses all over his cheeks and forehead. But the lieutenant, as usual, said something to deflect what he was feeling. “Where is the dog?” he asked.

     “Fernandez?” asked Menza mildly.

     “Yes?”

     “Will you photograph the knife please? Then bag it and we will check it for prints and blood.”

     “That’s reasonable.”

     “Why would someone just leave the weapon here?” mused the old man owlishly. “Either desperation or exhibitionism going on; you never know.” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Fernandez was in the kitchen, and asked the captain quietly, “Are you going to ask my colleague to take prints in the other rooms?”

     “I am.”

     “Very well. You have your reasons. But I must tell you what I will put in my report personally. The couple had an argument Friday night—as noted in your report. The husband struck his wife and left the house. She reported the incident to the police. The husband may not have been pleased she came forward. In any case I believe they quarreled as they walked home. Señora Guzman must have gotten to the house first and locked her husband out. That is how it appears. He broke in and she struck him from behind. After he was knocked out, she laid him on the sofa—probably the closest spot. She then killed him, methodically and cruelly, with the point of the knife—little more than the point; but she knew where the jugulars were. He must have been in a coma the whole time because the swelling behind his head is pretty bad. Then—she repented: she kissed him just as methodically all over his face, tasting his blood. Like a vampire! Why?”

     Because she loved him, thought the captain. He was not inclined to judge whether the reporter deserved that love any more than he deserved his death; they were two sides of Gabriella’s disturbed passion. Her passion fascinated him deeply and he felt sorry for the man and even more pity for her. She was probably far away. The captain mused on how desperately the woman tried to confine herself Friday night to preclude the murder. Yet now that he had reason to put her away, she chose her freedom and chose it cunningly. It did not surprise him at all.  

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Chapter Six

published on 17 July 2026

A flying dream

     Two nights later the captain had an unusual dream. It was a flying dream, and he found himself above the orphanage where he grew up. He was free: his old anxiety about being alone and punished by priests was gone. He looked down on the red tile roof of his old prison with tenderness, and the courtyard in the middle of the school had never looked so green and full of flowers. He swooped down playfully to the roof, remembering in detail how each tile was placed on tile and how deliciously water slid over them during the rainy season while the boys watched the torrent eagerly from the classroom. Then he swooped into the courtyard, touching the grass with his stomach, and deliberately brushed through the leaves of his favorite tree in the middle of the garden as he flew back up, shocking all the monks. He laughed and veered over the town outside the walls.

     Everything in Chimaltenango looked familiar as well, as he flew over the tiendas and houses and dusty streets of his childhood. He loved everything he saw and was touched by how important every stone and blade of grass seemed to be. A block away he spied two boys playing soccer in the park and decided to hover above them. “Is what you’re doing legal, Mayor?” asked the smaller one with the red ball as he squinted up.

     “I don’t know!” replied the captain. “I don’t care!” Then he called down, “I’m not you’re mayor!”

     By then he was in the clouds. They were fresh and wispy, and the town was far below. His joy lifted him and he wanted to rise further into the blue. Such a clear blue! He imagined the Mother Mary deep in the sky and let his heart open up to meet her…

     But his ambition woke him instead. At first, he was startled to be in his room and clung to his fading exhilaration. Then he accepted where he was and listened to the sounds of the morning: cocks crowing a block away from a hutch in a courtyard, the newspaper boy crying “La Prensa!” in his absurdly deep voice, the garbage man approaching the station in his cart. Philomena was frying something downstairs. The captain’s bedroom, as he looked around, was as pleasant as he could make it. The walls were a light yellow, the chair at his desk red, and the desk itself was blue—not quite the heavenly blue of the sky, but close enough that he stared at it, trying to recall his happiness.  The room had the natural cheerfulness of a nursery, and Captain Ixtlan depended on the charm of so many primary hues to relieve the anxiety he felt whenever he opened his eyes. Waking was like drowning. He stared at the desk and collected himself.

     The walls were decorated with weavings from various towns chosen for color more than style, and bold purple, green, and blue threads were translucent in the sunlight. Above the desk were a calendar of Mary and the baby Jesus and a simple drawing of a young Indian woman he bought in the market that reminded him of his mother. There were few details in the picture, and the captain filled in what he remembered, or needed, depending on his mood. The room was directly above the little kitchen in the police station and was meant for a bunk so that the station was always manned. But the captain made it his home. When Herrera found out he scolded the captain in a fatherly way, reminding him that he had to live; but Ixtlan, cocooned in the orphanage and then at the Academy, made a new prison for himself instead.

     He sat up, running his fingers through his hair, trying to make sense of the dream. It was beautiful and he felt instinctively that it was a gift, and like all visions laden with intimations. He was free in it and in life never felt free; and he had seen the orphanage through different eyes. Why did he look so lovingly on a place he dreaded, the place Herrera sent him after he lost his mother? Now that he thought of it, he hardly remembered the town at all: the boys were forbidden to leave school without supervision. The captain remembered the few times he snuck out with his friend Alvaro to steal candy. He wished his childhood away; yet the thread of the dream was golden with detail and memory. I haven’t been paying attention, the captain reminded himself, I haven’t appreciated the path God gave me. I haven’t paid attention to details. He realized thatthe two little boys in the dream were the ones who discovered Julio Guzman’s body.

      Details, he thought, as he got dressed. There were some strange details about the case of Gabriella Guzman. He knew where the bruise behind the victim’s head came from and hadn’t said anything; and that cast doubt on the case and even himself. The reporter was certainly held down as he was stabbed: but by whom? He doubted it was Gabriella, though her fingerprints were all over the knife. Then she had kissed her husband repeatedly! How was he kept down as his life drained away?

     And what is that list he was talking about? Wondered the captain. He glanced into a little mirror by his door and patted his hair down before walking down the stairs and past the prisoners. 

     Chepe looked up from the newspaper and smiled as the captain came into the office. “Good morning,” said the lieutenant. “The world is still here. El Grafico has plenty of news about it.”

     “Then I guess we’re still here,” replied the captain. “I wonder sometimes when I wake up.” He yawned.

     “Coffee, Captain?” asked Philomena. She appeared moments after hearing him from the kitchen. She kept one hand flat on the apron over her stomach as she waited for a reply. The captain stared back to see if she had changed; but only his idea of women had changed since the weekend. “Yes, yes,” he said gratefully. “Please.”

     “Eggs, beans?”

     “Yes, yes.”

     “The usual,” said the housekeeper kindly and peremptorily. “Your guests are getting the same.”

     “They won’t complain,” he observed as she turned away. Before sitting at his desk he nodded penitently at the portrait of Mary, and for the first time thought her appearance doll-like and a bit frightening. Once he was in his chair he had to look at Britney’s smile above the lieutenant’s head, and that was equally disturbing. “It’s been a terrible couple of days, Chepe,” he sighed. “I don’t know what to think.”

     “You think Señora Guzman is innocent?”

     “For her sake I wish I did. But no. I think she killed him: I also think there’s more going on. I don’t trust what I did Friday night, and I don’t trust anything else about the case either.”

     “Well, the ‘case’ is rapidly disappearing,” replied the lieutenant. “It’s on page nine today—strange, considering the victim is an employee of the rival paper, and the suspect is another. And Herrera sent a reply to your request. A messenger came a few minutes ago.” He handed the captain a beige envelope with an official seal. “Also I heard the rumor that Nicolas, Herrera’s son, is away suddenly in Hueheutenango.”

     “He’s not minding Zone 10? Strange.”  The captain opened the envelope as his breakfast arrived, and nodded absently to the housekeeper as he pulled out a carefully folded paper that read:

September 23, 2003

Re: Case M2003.1286

Captain Javier Ixtlan: 

This is to inform you that your unusual request to pursue suspect Gabriella Guzman to the city of Huehuetenango must be denied. Despite the brutality of the case I do not feel the expense of sending you for an extended stay in another department is justified, and that your absence from your assigned post will have a deleterious effect on the city zone you are responsible for. I believe the homicide section in Huehuetenango is fully capable of following up on your leads and that Sra. Guzman poses no immediate threat wherever she is hiding.

Dr. Menza briefed me on the thoroughness of your initial investigation and I intend to keep you fully informed of any further progress in the case.  As you suspected, Sra. Guzman fled Guatemala City on the morning of Saturday, September 20 and was seen at the Rebuli bus terminal in Zone 4 at 11:30 am. She disembarked at the terminal in Huehuetenango, Department of San Marcos, seven hours later. She was said to be carrying one piece of luggage and a handbag. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

Initial analysis of the fingerprints reveals the following:

Prints on the handle and blade of the knife used to kill the victim belong to Sra. Guzman and match prints taken from her office and the armrest of the chair at your station. The prints come from fingers on both hands, right on the handle and left on the blade.

Prints found on the ball in the living room belong to children, most likely the boys who found the body.

There were additional prints taken throughout the residence and the front door that cannot be identified. They belong to no known criminals in our database and their relationship to the case is inconclusive. They appear to belong to four individuals.

Thank you for your excellent initial investigation and let me know if you have any additional questions.

Sincerely, 

Jose Antonio Herrera

Police Chief

Guatemala City

     Attached to the official form was a personal note on a scrap of paper:

Javier—

What are you thinking? Do you know something about this that I don’t? Remember: you chose Zone 22. Feel free to make an appointment with me.

Herrera

     “It’s out of our hands, Chepe,” remarked the captain as he returned the document to its envelope. The smaller note he hid away in his shirt pocket. “In a way it’s a relief, to tell you the truth. It’s a horrible case, not least because I feel partly responsible. But still.”

     “Still you would like to rescue her,” observed Lieutenant Castano.

     “You see through me,” sighed the captain. “Yes, that idea occurred to me. We didn’t exactly rescue her Friday night.”

      The lieutenant looked down at the newspaper thoughtfully. “I’m sure it’s occurred to you, Captain,” he offered, “that there’s another dimension to this case. Perhaps Señora Guzman is being pursued for something other than murder—in which case the people chasing her are the ones to watch.”

     “You think Herrera is protecting me, then?”

     “Perhaps.” 

     “I don’t intend to go through life as a coward,” the captain admonished him. “On the other hand, you may be right.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “You may be right, my friend,” he conceded with a nod to the lieutenant. Then he grunted, dismissing the subject, and began eating his breakfast.

     What did Herrera know? It unnerved the captain that the most influential person in his life was someone he couldn’t read. A more political person he had never met, nor a man less revealing. Everything Herrera did was calculated, especially his kindnesses. Why has he watched over me? Wondered the captain. What does he want?

      And why, he thought, as Officer Zucchero drove up precisely at nine o’clock, did he send me that idiot? Stephano always arrived at nine, priding himself on his punctuality as well as his new red Honda, which made the Lada marooned in front of the station look even more pathetic. True, he only came Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; but for those three days the captain had to figure out how to keep him occupied and out of the way. As the young man got out of his car, he clicked a remote to lock the doors and turn on the alarm with an obnoxious “Dweep-dweep!” Then he ran the palm of his right hand over his slick hair, marching officiously up the stairs. 

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Chapter Seven

published on 24 July, 2026

The imps of circumstance

       “Any new leads, Captain?” asked Stephano, bowing his head slightly. He acknowledged the lieutenant with a little swipe of his right hand, which was meant to be a wave. Lieutenant Castano leaned back in his chair.

     “Leads?” replied the captain casually. “Actually the case has been taken out of our jurisdiction. The homicide division in Huehuetenango is in charge. That’s where she is, supposedly.”

     “Huehuetenango? But the murder happened here.”

     “Mm. Yes,” remarked the captain.

      “I find this unusual,” said Stephano with an air of importance.

     “Do you?”

     “Yes, Sir.  I understand you are an associate of Police Chief Herrera. You may want to ask him if something political is going on—within the department of course.”

     “I hardly know him, really,” murmured the captain.

     “Oh.” Stephano tried not to look surprised, but his eyes moved up and began scanning the light green wall as if he were reading a ticker tape. “I don’t know if you are aware of this, sir, but my father has a position at the Interior Ministry, quite high up—and I am a kind of liaison there two days a week.”

     “So that’s what you do Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

     “Yes. I would be glad to—ask some questions if you like.”

     “If you feel like it,” said the captain with no apparent concern. He moved his plate to the side of his desk and brushed away a few crumbs. “I’m sure the other departments will keep us informed.”

     “I wouldn’t count on it, Sir,” replied Stephano with pity in his voice.

     The captain wanted to smile, but kept on an aloof, guileless mask. “Oh—will you do me a favor, please, Officer Zucchero, and watch over the prisoners? Philomena is about to feed them, and I don’t want any trouble—you know. Hugo keeps talking about liberation for alcoholics. And I’m going to be out for a while on the first patrol.”

     Stephano looked confused, nodded, and went to the back reluctantly, barking “Good morning!” to the guests, as the captain got up and closed the door to the hallway. He listened to the muffled sounds of Philomena bringing breakfast as Stephano paced around her. The captain allowed himself to chuckle. “That young man thinks we’re fools, and it’s fine with me,” he confided in a low voice to the Lieutenant. “Safer that way. And if he happens to bring back useful information—unsolicited by us—that’s fine, too.” 

     “What could we possibly do with it?” asked the lieutenant.

     “I don’t know, I’m still thinking,” replied the captain carelessly. But Lieutenant Castano wasn’t convinced.

     “You want to save her,” he concluded sadly.

     “Oh, Chepe, I need to clear my head,” admitted the captain with exasperation. “And avoid some paperwork. I’ll take the first patrol, as I said.” He patted the lieutenant on the shoulder. “I’m going to try talking to that old lady across the street as well. I believe she saw something. And by the way: pay anything you need to fix the Lada. I don’t want to have to borrow that brat’s car if there’s an emergency.”

     “Thank you, Captain.”

     “Is that mechanic Iglesias still tormented by his wife?”

     “Well,” replied the lieutenant dryly, “she’s still a prostitute and she still entertains clients in his bed. I wouldn’t take his place.”

     “Maybe he accepts it, I don’t know,” sighed the captain. “Strange to have a prostitute working alone when La Esmerelda is only blocks away.” He shrugged and climbed down the steps into the sunlight. He said good morning to Señor Lee, the owner of the Yuan Chow, who was washing his car; but Lee was more polite than friendly, and the captain realized he was still wondering about the body in the alley. The captain frowned. He couldn’t get Gabriella Guzman out of his mind. Her fate shadowed him as he sought refuge in the sights and sounds of the neighborhood, and he felt helpless as he paraded by the post office and beauty salon of the Avenida Conquistador. He saw something of her in every woman and girl that he passed, thinking, you have murder in your heart. Yet he saw innocence too, and it troubled him that his idea of women, always tempered by the memory of his mother, was becoming darker.

     “Good morning, Captain!” The owner of the Tienda Marcella was sweeping her front step. She put a hand on her hip and smiled. “You look preoccupied.”

     “Do I, Becca?” he asked, pulling himself up to full height. “I wasn’t aware of it.”

     “That’s because you’re preoccupied. You were looking at your feet.”

     “Then I’m not doing my job,” replied the captain pleasantly. “I should keep my eyes open for dangerous people around here like you.”

     “Ha, ha, ha!” The woman leaned on her broom. “I’m sorry, Captain. I know you’ve had a lot to think about the last few days. To think the murder happened among professional people!”

     “Nothing for you to worry about, Becca,” the captain assured her. But he thought sadly: Even you could pick up a knife. He said goodbye after more pleasantries, continued west along the Avenida, making a sudden left at Fourteenth Calle, where the Red Rooster was. He headed south. He wanted to cut the patrol short and hide somewhere. Two blocks down he dawdled in front of the Farmacia Luz, but only out of a sense of duty. Yesterday there had been a black Mercedes parked in front, and luxury cars in Zone 22 made him suspect tainted money; but nobody unusual was there now. Did it belong to Altrio’s men? he wondered. 

     He did not want to think about Altrio or politics or the massacres of the early eighties: or why his mother fled Santiago and brought him to the edge of the city. She left everything behind to save him, and now, he thought, nobody remembers her but me. Nobody remembers her and she died in a strange place. That strange place he now called his home, and he felt the connection to his mother grow stronger as he walked by the last three intersections to Sixth Avenida, past cement block houses painted as randomly and brightly as toy blocks. But their yellow, blue, pink, green, and white walls were battered by years of sunlight and had faded like memory. 

      Sixth Avenida ran parallel to the ravine, and the captain quickly walked east along it till he came to the path between two of the newer houses that led into the ravine. He looked around to make sure he wasn’t watched and knelt into the tall grass to observe a pipe jutting out of the ground. Checking on it was a ritual for him and a source of great pride and worry. He knew that building the pipe was the best thing he had ever done and gave real benefit to a few families. On the other hand it was corrupt thing to do. It was a kickback for the exorbitant price he allowed a contractor on Twelfth Calle to charge to replace the plumbing at the station. Unlike cash it was easily discovered and could ruin the captain. On top of that he was now stealing every day, for the pipe tapped into city water for people who paid no taxes at all. In the legitimate world they didn’t even exist. 

     He brushed the blades of grass back over the pipe, then took the path downhill with the warm sun on his back. The path was smooth and dusty from generations of feet, and he made his way cautiously through the brush until he came to a large boulder. Here the path turned to the left and the brush made way suddenly for corn thriving on the steep grade. Squeezed in among the stalks all the way down to the fault line at the Rio La Barranca were shacks with tin roofs. The captain lived here as a boy at the bottom of the ravine. Only Herrera knew this about him, though Chepe suspected something at times. Somewhere under the fault line his mother was buried. The captain felt that part of his soul was buried there as well, pulled violently under the earth, and that he had been torn inside ever since. He walked down another thirty feet to where the pipe rose from the ground and ended at a spigot over a concrete pad. The pad was damp so the captain sat next to it in the dirt among the cornstalks. He came at least once a week to pay homage to his mother, and the Indians who lived in the shacks among the corn did not know what to make of him. They did not know why he brought them water or why he often sat silently in the dirt. They kept a polite and respectful distance and let him be. But the visits of “The Mayor” were whispered about, and to the children especially he was a mysterious figure.

     Captain Ixtlan spent a long time watching the sky. Clouds drifted languorously over the light clear blue and as he remembered his dream that morning, he felt close to his mother. He clung to memories of her in her brilliant costume from Santiago, cooking for him and telling legends of her native gods: spirits of the corn and the earth and the sky, imps of circumstance. He remembered vaguely that someone had ruined her beautiful clothes, cutting holes into them. Why? A light breeze rustled through the stalks, whispering through the years. He knew that circumstance took his mother, but why had he abandoned her? 

     Who am I? He asked the Lady in the sky. Yet he couldn’t picture Her clearly anymore. All he saw was the figure of Gabriella Guzman, now tender, now dangerous. He felt the worm of malice everywhere. At the edge of his vision he saw vultures wheeling above the fault line. There was something dead near his mother’s skeleton. 

     “Good morning, Mayor,” said the taller of the two little boys who had appeared in his dream. The captain turned to them with startled eyes. They were watching him from the cement pad under the faucet. The smaller child, who was barefoot and showed a belly button through his torn shirt, stood with his forefinger touching his lip.

     “I’m not the mayor,” replied the captain uselessly. “How are you? I’m sorry you discovered the body. No one should have to see that! Did you get your ball?”

     “We came to tell you something. Our mother told us not to, just to bury him, but he was their dog. There’s a dead dog, down there!” explained the taller boy, pointing with a stick.

     “Our mother wants to bury it,” added his little brother. His eyes were dark pools of wonder. “He stinks really bad. There are flies around it. He was a good dog.”

     “Maybe you should bury it then. I see the birds have discovered it.”

     “Do you want to see it, Mayor?”

     “No, why should I?” replied the captain. He ran his fingers through his hair. He did not like to get too close to the fault line.

     “Because it was the reporter’s dog,” the boy reminded him. “Señor Julio Guzman. Somebody shot the dog and he died.”

     “How do you know this?” asked the captain sharply.

     “We used to play with him,” explained the tallest boy. “The Señora, the pretty lady, let us throw balls to him on the street. Then he crawled to our house a couple days ago and we fed him and he died.” The boy looked proud and justified; like his little brother his clothes were tattered, but age and honor afforded him a pair old sneakers.

     “What are your names again?” he asked.

     “My name is Renato. My brother’s name is Nino,” replied the older boy. 

     “Please show me the dog,” said the captain respectfully as he stood up. He forgot to brush off his pants.

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Chapter Eight

published on 31 July, 2026

The bullet near the fault line

      Renato immediately turned down the path, pulling his brother along. But Nino was still fascinated by the policeman and continued staring back until a whim caught him, he let go of his brother’s hand and ran ahead boisterously, heedless of the dust. The older boy stayed just ahead of the captain, aware of each stone and curve in the path. The captain followed with heavier legs. His shoes weren’t made for the terrain and slipped awkwardly as they got closer to his mother’s grave. He felt sad. Everything around him had changed. All the old huts were destroyed in the quake, and he surmised that most of his old neighbors were gone too. The ravine accepted and disposed of anyone, yet it was hard to imagine the danger of the fault line under the peaceable sky: especially since the fault was traced by nothing more than a dirty little stream. He and the boys stepped over it.

     At the bottom there was a haze from cooking fires and dust and the huts were closer together. Only women and children were about; the men were away working or trying to find work. The captain passed a woman and her daughter in typical clothes, both carrying pink bowls to collect the precious water from the pipe up the slope. The woman stopped and bowed her head; and as the captain responded he tried to figure which village they were from by the pattern of purple and blue in their skirts. He was certain they were from the lake region as he was.

     “It’s not far, Mayor, not far!” said boy finally. “Three more huts!”  

     Where is my mother buried?  Wondered the captain. Where had he stepped back from the edge? He saw nothing to connect with a memory. 

     “Over here!” Renato caught up with his mother, and his little brother was clutching her skirt, pointing at the captain. She also wore a typical dress, and it was all the more brilliant now in front of the dusty brown stalks of her home. She looked wary and the captain smiled at her. 

     “Buenos Dias, Señora,” he said unassumingly. “Your sons were kind enough to tell me about the dog.”

     “Buenos Dias, Señor. “The dog is over there.” She nodded to a pile of stalks and rubbish in the midst of a swarm of flies. The flies were persistent, but only the leading edge of a vortex. Directly above them in the clear sky carrion birds were swirling patiently. The captain walked officiously toward the smell under the trash. In his heart the vortex was above his mother’s grave.

     The captain knelt down and swatted at the flies. Then he inhaled through his sleeve to avoid the stench and held his breath as he put aside the stalks. He moved automatically, without thinking of Gabriella Guzman or the murder, but the sight of the dog focused his mind again. The German shepherd was stiff and lying on his side. He had been decaying a couple of days and looked so pathetic with his jaw slightly ajar that the captain felt a wave of pity pass over him though he had never been taught to feel sympathy for animals.  The dog had been shot once in the upper right hind leg. There was dried blood around the wound that the flies were particularly attracted to, and he swatted at them again. Then he fished in his pocket for a knife and opened it. Mastering his disgust, he cut into the wound, and four inches deep, just inside the abdomen, he found a .38 bullet, fished it out, and put it in his shirt pocket next to the note from Herrera.

     “Can we bury him now?” asked the older boy.

     “Of course,” replied the captain. “Tell me: why didn’t you come to the station and inform me of this before?”

     “Because we knew you would come to the water faucet and sit,” replied Renato. “You always go there.” 

     “Mm. Yes,” mumbled the captain.

     “Do you know who shot him, Mayor? Was it the men in the black car?”

     “Which black car?”

     “The one the men with sunglasses drive.”

     Phantoms, thought the captain. “I don’t know,” he replied carelessly.  “Let’s find a place for this poor animal.” 

     Half an hour later there was a mound in the middle of the grass. The captain was filthy with dust all over his uniform. His hands smelled of death. The children, however, looked no dirtier than before and watched him eagerly. Captain Ixtlan brushed off his knees and upper thighs and then gave up. “Listen,” he told the boys, “You did a good thing telling me about the dog. It may be useful.”

     “Si?” asked Renato.

     “Si. Now I’m going to give you something.” He took out his wallet, removed a bill for fifty quetzals, and handed it to the boy. Renato, however, did not put it away; he held it stretched with both hands before his eyes.

     “So much money!”

     “Give it to your mother.”

     “Oh.” 

     “She might allow you to buy some firecrackers with it.”

     “Okay!”

     “And if you hear anything about the men in the black car, let me know. But don’t come to the station. Wait like you did just now until—” He hesitated. “Wait until I come and sit by the water faucet again.”  

     “All right.”

     As the captain climbed the path uphill, he felt the pressure of the bullet in his pocket. When he got to the water faucet he stepped onto the cement pad and turned the tap to rinse his hands in the cool water. They still smelled bad. He wiped them on his pants and looked down on the path to the fault. Birds were still hovering above the ravine. He felt very alone. As he climbed the last few feet uphill, he remembered running this way after the quake and meeting Herrera at the top. Herrera was a young policeman then, just arrived on the scene of the disaster, and for some reason took special pity on the boy. But there was no one to guide the captain through his new predicament. Herrera was powerful now, had tentacles everywhere, and the captain worried that the bullet in his pocket was going to lead to the police chief of Guatemala City. Once on the Avenida he looked up again at the cool, generous sky. Guide me, is all I ask, he prayed.

      He walked east to talk to the old woman across from scene of the murder, and once on Tenth Calle, waved to the girl at the counter of the pirate video and stayed on her side of the street. When he arrived at the old woman’s door he glanced over at the Guzman house and saw a young woman, bent over the broken knob of the door, her long brown hair glistening in the sun. He couldn’t believe it! The captain almost ran across the street to warn Gabriella away and was confused by how happy he was. Then she stood up and turned around. 

     Immediately he knew it was someone else. This woman’s movements were more direct than Gabriella’s, and her hair was lighter. She stared at the captain abruptly and put her hands on her hips. Like Señora Guzman the woman was taller than average, her hair was naturally wild, and she was pretty, with an oval face arrested by impatience. She wore a simple white blouse with blue jeans and sandals. It was obvious the woman expected something from the captain, but he was still fascinated by the similarities between the woman he saw and the woman he remembered. “I’m at a disadvantage,” he thought ruefully.

     “What did you say?” asked the woman.

     “I haven’t said anything,” replied the captain.

     “I thought I heard—oh, never mind. Listen—do you know anything about this case?”

     “I know something. Why are you studying the door?”

     “Because the knob was tampered with—can you see that? There are scratches all around it. The lock was broken.”

     “I am aware of that,” replied the captain irritably. It occurred to him that it was silly calling out to the woman from across the street; on the other hand he realized he was filthy and he did not want to encourage further questions from her.

     “Well, it wasn’t in the papers!” she protested.

     “I am not a reporter, Señorita,” explained the captain with affected dignity. “I can’t answer to that.”

     The young woman immediately crossed the street with burning eyes, and the captain’s heart fell. “You assumed that,” she said peremptorily. Her sandals flapped as she climbed on the sidewalk and studied him challengingly from three feet away. Now that she was out of the sun her hair seemed less wild and a slight smile curled on the edge of her lips.

     “I assumed what?”

     “That I was a señorita.”

     “Oh, I’m sorry—Señora,” said the captain, remembering his mistake with Gabriella Guzman. 

     “I didn’t say I was a señora.”

     “Then what are you?”

     “I am a señorita.”

     “Well, then,” growled the captain.

     “I was only pointing out that you assumed. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

     “You’re taking advantage of my politeness,” observed the captain.

     The woman looked chagrined, and after glancing directly at the captain’s eyes deflected her attention back to the door. “I am a journalist,” she explained. “I should have told you that. I was a colleague of Julio Guzman—and his wife. My name is Maria Yarhi. I work for La Prensa.” She offered her hand but the captain did not respond.

     “Well, then!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms.

     “My hands are dirty—see? I was helping some boys bury an animal. I am Captain Ixtlan.”

     Maria Yarhi looked at his hands and nodded; then she looked at the captain’s eyes again. He had the distinct feeling she was wondering why his irises were so light and the boldness of her eyes made him uncomfortable. “The Guzman’s had a dog—did you know that?” she asked.

     “Really?”

     “Yes, a German shepherd. I haven’t seen any reports of Gabriella traveling with a dog, and I can’t believe she would abandon him, regardless of the circumstances. It’s just a detail to you, I imagine,” she said, “but it bothers me, like many other things about this story. That’s why I was so impolite to you a moment ago about presuming things.”

     “I see. Do you know Gabriella Guzman well?” asked the captain. He kicked at the sidewalk lightly with the toe of his right shoe. When he was a boy, the priests always discovered lies when he kicked the ground nervously in the middle of an interrogation.

     “Well enough. I worked with her—and with her husband, of course. More with her husband and his stories.”

     “Do you know where she is?”

     “I do not,” replied Maria forcefully. “Anymore than you do. Can you tell me anything about this investigation?”

     “The investigation has been taken over by the Police Department of Huehuetenango, where Señora Guzman was seen most recently. I am currently out of the loop,” replied the captain with a sigh. “I can’t help you much.”

     Maria gave him another of her straightforward questioning looks. She was obviously intelligent; yet her very boldness told him she was a bit naïve as well. “Do you know anything about the men in the black cars?” she asked. 

     The question was so surprising the captain had to restrain himself from kicking the ground. At the same time he heard a window opening above him, and Maria heard it as well. As they glanced up at the old woman eavesdropping on their conversation, the woman quickly drew her face inside. The effect of the intrusion was the same on both, for they each saw a window into the past. Captain Ixtlan remembered the old woman watching him closely the day he saw the body; and he knew what Maria Yarhi was thinking. Neither mentioned the witness and their standoff became much more polite.

     “I am aware of the black cars you mention,” replied the captain carefully, “but don’t know much about them directly, as you might imagine. This zone is on the fringe of the city, and I am on the fringe of most other things as well.”

     “I see.” Maria Yarhi looked at him with understanding. “May I give you my card? In case you encounter anything relevant. I am looking into the story, as I said, partly because I know both people involved, and I think there is more going on than we are led to believe.” 

     “Yes, yes, of course.” The captain unconsciously put the card in his pocket next to the note from Herrera and the bullet. He realized looking at Maria that she wasn’t really like Gabriella Guzman at all. Her face was softer and less perfect; and her eyes were alive without the bitterness that seemed to lend Gabriella depth. For some reason the captain regretted the lack of bitterness. But she was pursuing something very dark after all, and the captain felt obligated to warn her.  “Those men you asked about,” he offered as an afterthought.

     “Yes, what about them?” 

     “If you ask too many questions they will hear about it. You don’t want them thinking about you.”

     “Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?”     

     “Wouldn’t think of it,” replied the captain dryly. 

     “I hope you aren’t advising me to give up this investigation then.” Maria Yarhi gave him a cold smile. “Anyway you seem to know something about the men in the black cars.” 

     “I know enough, Señorita, not to confront them unless I know what I’m dealing with. I don’t believe you know what you’re dealing with.”

     “And did Julio Guzman know what he was dealing with?” asked the reporter archly.

     “I would hope so. He married the woman,” replied the captain. He kicked the ground softly with the toe of his right shoe.

     “That’s not what I meant.”

     “I see. Well you might go about it better, Señorita, if you asked things more indirectly. I’m only going by my own experience, of course,” added the captain.

     “Oh—thank you very much.” Maria Yarhi crossed her arms, sniffed, and glanced up at the window where the old woman was.

     “On the other hand,” said the captain, who was trying to distract her, “I may have a lead for you.”

     “Really.”

     “Yes. A man named Fernandez. He collected forensics evidence at the scene. I don’t remember his first name, but if you call the department downtown someone will find him.”

     “Well, that works!” The reporter looked at him with surprise.

     “I wonder if he’s being sent to Huehuetenango,” mumbled the captain.

     “What do you mean?”

     “Well, as I said, the investigation is following the suspect. He may still be in town, but I don’t know. Do you have a cell phone?”

     “In my car.”

     The captain looked at his watch. “Then you might catch him.” He began brushing himself off. “I’m sorry I’m not more presentable.” 

     The reporter stepped back. “That’s alright. You had to bury that—animal.” She looked him over carefully, seemed on the verge of asking something, but apparently remembered her phone call. “Well, thank you,” she said, slightly suspiciously.

     The captain pulled himself up to full height, blocking the door to the old woman’s house. “You’re welcome, Señorita.”

     Maria Yarhi walked across the street to an ancient white Toyota Corrolla from the late eighties, unlocked the door, and halfway inside she called back to the captain. “You have my card, remember!”

     “Yes, I do.”

     She rolled down the window, started the engine, glanced at the captain alertly, and he nodded to her as she drove off. I won’t be able to fool her a second time, he thought. 

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Chapter Nine

published on 7 August, 2026

It is dangerous to recognize some things

     He waited until the car turned the corner and pressed the bell behind him. It rang with a single high chime and echoed in the hallway beyond the distorted glass in the door. The captain had been there before on Monday and rang, and later sent Chepe, to no response. Now he knew better how to deal with the silence.

     “Señora Miranda,” he called up to the second floor. “I know you’re by the window. Please come down. I have some questions to ask you.”  Then he knocked on the door loudly, rattling the glass. 

     Finally he heard hesitant steps like someone with a limp coming down the stairs. He saw the outline of a figure in brown grow larger in the glass and the door opened wide enough for a thin, wizened face to peer through. “Yes?” Señora Miranda’s hair was a rough gray with streaks of black but was pulled up into an intricate braided crown that was marvelous to look at.

     “Señora, I am Captain Ixtlan. I run the nearby police station. There was a murder across the street a couple of nights ago. You have heard about it?”

     “The young couple across the street, always fighting. Yes,” replied the old woman with a complete lack of interest.

     “May I ask you some questions?” 

     “I don’t know anything about it. I don’t have any interest in politics, anyway,” she continued carelessly.

     Ah, thought the captain. “May I come inside?” he insinuated.

     “You’re filthy,” she observed.

     “Yes, I am. I’m sorry. I was outside—working. I didn’t have time to change,” smiled the captain.

     “Well, all right then,” said the old lady. “But don’t touch anything.” She led him in, turning to make sure he closed the door, and as he suspected, one of her feet dragged a little. She was frail but dressed surprisingly well, and the captain was abashed at how composed she was. Señora Miranda turned right into her living room, and said, “Don’t sit down.”

     “Why not?”

     “Wait a minute.” The room she left him standing in was spare but comfortable with a couch and two chairs. The only decorations were photographs of the woman’s family and an image of Jesus looking up to God. There was no sign of Mother Mary, and the captain was frankly disappointed. He wondered if this woman was an evangelist. “Here you go,” she said, handing him a towel. “Put it in on the couch.” She sat in a high-backed chair by the front window.

     The window was slightly ajar, and the chair was at an angle away from the other furniture so that the woman could easily peer outside. This is where I saw her Sunday night, thought the captain. He suspected she had a similar set up in her bedroom. “You live alone, Señora?”

     “Yes. What does that have to do with anything?”

     “I’m looking for any witnesses to what may have happened last weekend, to put it simply. If you were alone then you are the only potential witness in this house. Your children live away from here?”

     “They all live in Los Angeles. I hear from them often.”

     “And your husband?”

     “Dead twenty years,” she said with a wave.

     “In Altrio’s time,” remarked the captain casually. Señora Miranda looked him fully in face and then turned to the window.

     “I have no interest in politics,” she repeated.

     “As you said before.” The captain smoothed out the towel he was sitting on. Señora Miranda was evidently much concerned with order; the room was spotless; and there was a sweet freshness in the air from the open window that she spied from. The captain tried to balance her reserve against the warm feeling he got from the pictures of her family. “But I’m not asking about politics. I was wondering about Friday night. You said the couple fought a lot.”

     “Yes, I could hear them.” 

     “And were they fighting on Friday night?”

     “Oh, yes—early in the evening! Even the dog was barking.”

     “And then?”

     “Señor Guzman left the house—about eight o’clock. I know because my telenovela was coming on.”

     “The señora stayed behind?” asked the captain.

     “She followed a few minutes later,” admitted the old woman.

     And came to me. “Did you notice when they got home?” asked the captain.

     “Why would I?”

     “Just a question. Did you hear them fighting later that night?”

     “I was watching my telenovelas.”

     The captain rubbed the palm of his hands along his thighs. “Do you close your windows when you go to sleep?” he asked.     

     Señora Miranda looked outside again. “Why?”

     “I was wondering if you heard anything later on,” continued the captain. “Anything at all. Or whether,” he added more pointedly, “the terrible things across the street happened in complete silence.” 

     The old woman continued gazing out the window, apparently without watching anything, and the captain wondered whether she had heard him. Then she replied. “A car drove up later.”

     “What time?”

     “Much later—after midnight. I heard car doors closing. Four doors.”

     “And then?”

     “Knocks at the house.”

     “Did they answer it?”

     “No, I don’t think so. I heard shouting, then banging. Then the door crashed open, and the dog barked.”

     “And then?”

     “A gunshot. Then I closed my window; I saw what kind of car it was, and I take no interest in politics.”

     The captain rubbed his thighs again and did not look at her. “What kind of car was it, Señora?”

     “It was a black Mercedes. If you were around twenty years ago, young man, you would know what a big black car like that meant.”

     “You saw one twenty years ago?” asked the captain.

     “I saw one take my husband away. It was also at night, and he did not come back,” replied Señora Miranda succinctly. She looked at Captain Ixtlan directly in the eyes. He marveled again at the intricacy of her braids and the care with which she made them into a crown. 

     “In Altrio’s time,” repeated the captain.

     “Yes. And some say his time has come again. Certainly he intends to run, if he has his way with the court; and he has his ways. I saw what happened across the street.”

     “Let us hope not!” declared the captain.

     “What has hope got to do with it?” asked the old woman. 

     “Would you recognize any of the men from that car again, if you saw them?”

     “I saw their backs. I saw four men in dark suits at the door. So, no. I might recognize the suits. But then I might not,” she replied. “It is dangerous to recognize some things.”

     “Very well.” The captain frowned and let his eyes wander around the room at the bright walls, the almost frightening cleanliness, and finally on the photographs of a thin man with a mustache and two children. “You have a son and daughter. When did they leave for the States?”

     “Shortly after the incident. They knew they had no future here, and that their father was never coming back. So they left; now they have green cards and they have their own families. They send me videos of their children,” she explained with a forced smile.

     “And why did you stay here, Señora, after your husband was taken?”

     “Because,” she replied, looking at the captain squarely with her dark, hard eyes. Then she pursed her lips and turned her face toward the cool air. “Because I was hoping,” she admitted simply.

     As the captain walked back to the police station, he felt the bullet in his pocket grow heavier. Every so often he brought his left hand to his chest and touched it, feeling Herrera’s note crinkle.  The bullet had a recoil into the past. The captain was tempted to throw it away and make his life simple again. He looked up into the glare of the late morning once he smelled the greasy cooking of the Yuan Chow and saw that the red Honda was gone. He read the sign painted onto the wall outside his home.

Municipal Police
Zone 22

     That’s me, he thought. Here I am. “Where’s Stephano?” he asked the lieutenant after climbing the stairs. 

     “You’re filthy, Captain,” observed Castano as he looked up from a report.

     “I was in the ravine.”

     The lieutenant nodded, pretending not to be curious. “Stephano asked for permission, shortly after you left, to make a visit to his father at the Interior Ministry. I think he intends to make inquiries.”

     “I hope you didn’t encourage him!” said the captain.

     “I told him it was his business. Anyway the prisoners are safe enough without him and he’s out of our hair for a few hours.” 

     “Good. I don’t want Interior to think we’re on to anything. The Interior is not an animal I want to tussle with—not right now. I went into the ravine, Chepe—for my own reasons—and some children led me to a dead dog. Yes,” he interjected, as he watched the lieutenant react. “It was the Guzman’s dog. I buried it. You were right to note that the dog was missing, not that they cared about that downtown. Your intuition is usually right, my friend. And I got the old woman across the street to open the door, finally.”

     “You had a busy morning, Captain!”

     “She saw four men get out of a car Friday night and break open the door.”

     Lieutenant Castano nodded and did not look surprised. He picked up his pen and moved it nervously. The captain looked over at his own desk and up at the portrait of Mary, who looked familiar again. “There was a reporter at the Guzman’s looking over the door, also,” he added.

     “Really?”

     “Yes—a woman. From La Prensa. She knew the couple; I think she’s acting on her own. I was able to throw her off, but she’ll be back. Also she’s—”

     “She’s what, Captain?”

     “I was going to say she’s pretty, I don’t know why. Actually I mistook her for Gabriella Guzman at first.”

     The lieutenant was too polite to respond, but the captain realized he had said too much and that his friend was thinking hard. He trumped the tension by pulling the bullet out of his pocket and placing it on the lieutenant’s papers. “I cut it out of the dog. You know what it means, Chepe. You can stay out of this if you want. I’m afraid of where the bullet is going to take me.”

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Chapter Ten

published on 14 August, 2026

Quetzaltenango 1981

      The monk showed the boy scouts through the old ruins of the monastery, where the isolation cells built into the walls had the power of overwhelming loneliness. No one had to endure that anymore, he assured them. The rooms seemed to make him sad. The father observed his charges thoughtfully at dinner, then led them to a chamber on the second floor with rough stone walls. The boys had sleeping bags to rest on, nothing more. He handed out two piss pots to the boys and explained that he was going to lock the door. “For your safety,” he said. He seemed reluctant to leave and looked up at the ceiling before closing the door. Then he turned the key, and Javier listened to his sandals padding away.

     Nicolas put his bag next to Javier, and sat up, alert, watching the other boys shoot spitballs into the piss pots, then at each other. The candles were out. Bright stars showed through the two windows. Javier turned face down into his bag, his heart against the stone. He wondered why they were prisoners.

     Eventually the boys fell asleep. Javier woke up hours later. He had lived through an earthquake and remembered the groaning deep in the earth before the shock. This time the sounds were further away. He sat up. Nicolas was huddled in dreams. The other boys were like mounds, breathing in their bags. They were living. The whispers he heard were not living. They needed an audience. They got louder as they gained traction.

     Help me!

     Mercy—Mercy!

     Hear me, save me!

     When Javier saw the ghosts, he cried out. The other boys woke up. They began screaming: Nicolas was as loud as any, and gripped Javier for protection.

     Javier was terrified: yes. But he did not scream. He remembered praying, all night it seemed, and he realized the lost souls were praying as well. Sometimes they looked like wisps of consciousness, other times like flesh and blood under gravity. They were still in the isolation chambers, surrounded by walls, with no glimpse of Heaven.

     In the morning milky light came through the windows. The piss pots were empty. Most of the sleeping bags were wet. The monk unlocked the chamber, looked down at the floor, and nodded to himself. “I’ve told them they shouldn’t send children here,” he said. “Some ruins shouldn’t be seen. No one believes me. It’s worse in other parts of the monastery: things get thrown around. They probably didn’t even notice you.” He helped a couple of the boys roll up their soiled bags and directed them to the laundry.

     On the bus back to the city, the boys were quiet, and Nicolas, who was usually Javier’s protector, seemed frightened without him. “What were you whispering about last night, Javier?”

     “I don’t remember.”

     “You kept asking about the red bird. You prayed for the red bird. What does that mean?”

---

     On Thursday morning the captain arrived at the dead reporter’s funeral. He put on an uncomfortable brown suit, walked over to the Virgen Sagrada, and purposefully kept to the back of the church, the better to observe who was attending and not be noticed himself. When he arrived, ten minutes before the service, the pews were almost two-thirds full. There was a wealth of flowers in the front by the closed casket, and with them, a light sweet smell. Yet the captain perceived something obligatory in the attendance. It was a political funeral: most of the people attending were from the newspapers, there to show support for a murdered colleague. Guzman’s parents and sister sat in the front, but there was space around them. Despite Guzman’s charm he did not seem to have close friends. The captain did not even see Guzman’s acquaintances from the Red Rooster in the church, which he found strange. The reporter’s wife was the prime suspect in his murder. He recognized, by demeanor, mostly, observers from intelligence scoping out anyone associated with the gathering. It was a lonely funeral despite the crowd.

     The captain’s faint hope that he would recognize Gabriella Guzman somewhere in the pews faded quickly: there was no one like her there at all, nor would she be so stupid as to expose herself. Instead, five minutes after he arrived, he was distracted by a woman in indigenous clothes from Santiago. She moved quickly down the aisle and toward the confession booth. He immediately thought of his mother, another refugee from the lake of birds and volcanoes, when she used to visit the church in his early memories. The woman picked up a broom and left. The he felt his heart tremble involuntarily because of another distraction entirely. Maria Yarhi, dressed in black, came next down the aisle, her long hair combed silkily. She chose a spot close to Guzman’s parents. She did not have a man with her, or any other companion; and it was she, undoubtedly, who felt closest to the murdered man and his wife. What did she know?   

     The captain looked at his watch. It was just before nine, and the bells in the steeple were about to toll. Perhaps Father Castillo himself had to pull the ropes before he began the service. Ixtlan decided to leave. He had business downtown and was without a car. As he looked up, he noticed someone watching him. It was short man in a light gray suit, with close-cropped curly hair. Without smiling, the man seemed to smile. He met the captain’s eyes directly, as if to say: we are here for the same reasons. Then he turned his ironic glint onto the crowd, scanning it carefully. The captain knew immediately the man was a phantom and worked for Altrio. The skeins of the murder were very long.

---

     Captain Ixtlan did not meet the Chief of Police lightly, and as he sat in the Number 2 bus on the last leg downtown, he remembered riding into the city as a little boy to visit his mentor. Before Christmas and Easter, a package of clothes arrived at the orphanage with a note from the man who pulled him from the ravine. The clothes were clean but rarely new, and Javier suspected they were hand-me-downs from Herrera’s son Nicolas. The letters that came with the package were altogether more exciting. They were to the point, advising him which bus he was taking to the capital and when he was coming back. Much as Javier read them over there was little to glean beyond the dates on the paper and a few formalities. Often, he stared at Herrera’s signature, wondering if there was anything warm or kindly implied in his tight, upright lines; but they seemed as rigid as the man himself. Why, of all the boys in the orphanage, was he sent on a bus to Guatemala City for the holidays? Where was the feeling behind the kindness? The question troubled him as he changed out of his school uniform, said goodbye to his companions, and old Padre Montoya walked him from the walls of the orphanage to the bus stop, squeezing his hand.

     His doubts increased as the priest escorted him through the pleasant chaos outside the gates to the main road. There they waited by the candy, fruit, and soda vendors until the yellow and green Rebuli bus arrived from Lake Atitlan laden with Indians, chickens, and occasionally a piglet. It screeched to a halt as the ticket boy swung out, calling: “Guate! Guate!”

     Once, for no apparent reason, Padre Montoya put a candy in his palm, and that little kindness affected Javier immediately as he walked up the creaky steps of the Rebuli. The much greater generosity of the policeman who changed his life, on the other hand, was mysterious.  There was something diligent in Herrera’s gifts, something thoughtful, but rarely warmth. And as Javier sat scrunched in the bus, smelling the cool air and exhaust as he descended into the great city, he often felt exhilarated and afraid. Black-robed agents of God didn’t surround him anymore; the real world had bright colors and smells, and the Indians spoke in dialect. Once he saw a cut out of Jesus swinging behind the windshield in front of the driver, and as the boy watched it he felt a friendly eye guiding him along his path. It was his destiny twice a year to ride this bus to the last terminal and walk down the steps alone with his little bag. Then he looked across the street until he recognized Herrera waiting for him at a table with a cup of coffee and a puckered face.

     Even when he was young and thin, there was something intent about the policeman and he seemed invulnerable: he always wore his uniform. He crossed over and lightened up just enough to pat Javier on the back and say, “It’s nice of you to visit us, my friend.” Then he smiled, a sly smile full of irony. Yet Herrera took his hand more naturally than the priest and seemed pleased escorting the boy to his battered Datsun. Along the way he asked the boy questions. How were his studies, did he have many friends, how did the priests treat him? “Are you lonely?” he inquired finally once they were sitting in the car.

     Lonely? Of course he was lonely! “No, Señor Herrera,” replied Javier politely.

     The policeman switched on the ignition, then watched the boy with stony eyes. “Do you miss your mother?” he asked.

     “Yes, Señor, I do.”

     “You should,” sighed Herrera pedantically. “She brought you into the world after all.” With those words Javier felt Herrera’s sympathy for him, as well as a profound respect for his mother, for all mothers, perhaps. He was convinced of Herrera’s decency, though his faith was tested many times. For one thing Herrera’s manner changed once he brought the orphan to the house. He became more distant, abandoning him to the care of his wife and children. Señora Herrera always hugged him when he came to the door; then let go with obvious distaste. Herrera’s daughter Lucia, a year younger than Javier, was polite to the boy, never particularly friendly, but curious about him as a specimen. Once when he was eleven, they were sitting alone in the living room when she observed, “You’re funny-looking for an Indian. But not bad looking, really.”      Only Nicolas, whose clothes Javier inherited, seemed eager to see him. Nicolas played with him, confided in him and shared his room. Javier couldn’t help feeling there was something smug about the older boy, and he felt like a favored pet following Nicolas’ advancement. The truth was that he did follow the older boy, even into the Academy and the police. Now Nicolas was in charge of Zone 10, the jewel of the city, while the orphan chose to serve near his mother. 

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Chapter Eleven

published on 21 August, 2026

The Police Chief of Guatemala City

     When Javier was twelve years old a letter came with his new clothes telling him not to take the bus. Instead a car with a driver picked him up and took him to a new house in Vista Hermosa in the hills. There was a guard at the gate, but after the wall of security a garden greeted him with regiments of flowers coaxed into bloom. Javier had his own room when he came to visit, and Nicolas was as friendly as ever; yet Señora Herrera and Lucia seemed more embarrassed by him now. Herrera himself was more intimidating. His driver picked him up every morning for his new job and brought him home; and at night he received many calls. Where did the money come from to pay for this house and the servants and the ease?

     From Altrio, remembered the captain many years later. He felt the bullet’s weight in his breast pocket as the bus bounced downtown, and every so often outlined its shape with his fingers.  Herrera was in Altrio’s palm when he rescued Javier from the ravine, and when he became president Altrio promoted him quickly. Now that Altrio was rising again would Herrera feel obliged to help him? The captain didn’t know, and depended on a sentimental glimpse into Herrera’s heart: Do you miss your mother?

     Why do I cling to that memory? wondered the captain. Still: I need more evidence before I see him, he thought, and Ixtlan got off in front of the National Library, with its modernist Maya relief, about six blocks from headquarters. Beneath it was an inscription he always puzzled over: “We desire nothing: only to live.” He checked his watch: it was ten-thirty; he had an hour and a half until his appointment. The library was on the south side of the Plaza Central; to the left of the square was the huge Presidential Palace built out of green limestone, and on the north was the Metropolitan Cathedral, with its beautiful dome, peeling walls, and a swarm of pigeons begging for food. Around the square itself was a ring of buses, all white, with the words Church of Redemption on their side. Evangelists, thought the captain darkly. He wondered what their demonstration was about and had his suspicions. For now they were setting up a stage in front of the fountain, and the audience was milling around close to the buses, leaning on placards. The captain looked at the sky.

     There was no chance of rain, which disappointed him at first. The sky was a magnificent clear blue and the few clouds scattered by the sun looked immaterial and incredibly pure. The captain felt humbled, thought about what he had to do, and walked up the steps of the library. Only then he saw the front page of La Prensa at a stand: Four Men Tied to Journalist’s Death.

     “Shit,” he muttered. How did Maria Yarhi find out? That young, curious, skeptical woman troubled him, and he tried to put her out of his thoughts.

     Once inside the captain went to the periodicals section on the right, a room he was familiar with from his earliest days at headquarters. It was more run down than a few years ago; the Portillo administration was squeezing money everywhere. Some of the fluorescent lights high above the crowed reading table were out, and the natural sunshine was filtered through dirty windows close to the ceiling. Fragments of yellow paper, fallen off old publications perused by the students at the table, lay scattered on the floor.

     “A particular request, sir?” said an old man at the counter, peering at him through thick, black-rimmed glasses. The librarian was hairless except for strands of gray behind his temples, the rest apparently burned away by years of thought.

     “Good morning. Yes: thank you. I would like to look at past issues of La Prensa Libre. The last month to start—the end of August, and September up to now.”

     The old man studied him quizzically and gave him a card with a number nine on it. Ixtlan glanced over his shoulder and saw eight students scrunched at the table. The librarian shuffled off and returned a few minutes later with one pile of tabloids, then another. “It’s too early for anything on microfiche,” he explained. “Someone else was looking through these last week, also an official. I hope everything is there; I don’t know, the copy machine is broken. You’re welcome to stand here at the counter.”

     The captain looked back at the mess at the reading table and stayed where he was. He started an issue at the end of August and opened to the table of contents and the staff credits. Close to the top he found Gabriella Guzman, Assistant Managing Editor. He thought of her sitting in front of him with her blue dress and burning eyes. Her husband he found listed more innocuously among the reporters. He turned to page five, National Affairs, and immediately saw that part of a page was torn out. The story remaining was about Altrio, entitled, General Answers a Call to Serve.  It was written by another reporter and repeated, without irony, the old general’s contention that he did not want to return to the presidency after twenty years. He was already leader of Congress and that was enough. But his supporters bid him to save the country and he would try. Only the Supreme Court stood in his way. Blah, blah, blah, thought the captain. Surely this article was a sidebar to balance another article, possibly a critical one, but that was missing.

     He leafed through the next few days. It was strange: Julio Guzman was listed on the staff, but nothing by him remained in the paper—only gaps where something was torn out. The captain skipped another two weeks and opened the paper for Wednesday, September 17^th—two days before Gabriella appeared at the station. There he found a by line and an intact page: it must have been after the other “official” came to the library. The story began:

Killings in Zone 3, Zone 10 Linked

By Julio Guzman

The recent murder of three men outside a pharmacy in Zone 3 may be connected to the slaying of a man and a woman outside the discotheque La Ruta Maya in Zone 10. While both are assumed to be drug related, investigators now report that a similar vehicle was identified in both locations. An officer on duty in Zone 10 issued a parking violation to a driver waiting in the vehicle at the time the killings by the discotheque occurred. The police department will not confirm indications that the vehicle is registered to a government agency.

     On a hunch the captain picked up the paper from last Friday, the night of the murder, and found a follow-up on page 4:

Policeman Killed in Zone 7

By Julio Guzman

The policeman who identified the vehicle associated with a recent double slaying outside La Ruta Maya in Zone 10 was found dead yesterday in his home in Zone 7. He was shot execution style with a single bullet to his forehead. No witnesses have come forward to identify anyone entering or leaving the house.

     Were these Altrio’s men? Wondered the captain. What do they want? And what was Nicolas doing in Huehuetenango? He wondered whether Herrera had sent his son after Gabriela. Ixtlan was troubled and considered canceling his appointment with the police chief, but his intuition was to trust him one more time. He thanked the librarian and handed back the tabloids.

     The day was still new outside and joining the well-dressed crowd from the buses were more modest vendors, Indians and shoeshine boys attracted by spectacle. The poorer people brought color with them and a variety of native clothes enlivened the outer edge of the demonstration with purple, red and yellow hues. The core, however, was made up of hard looking young men in blue, gray and brown suits who stood at attention. Captain Ixtlan watched to see if they were armed. They were listening to a stocky man in black addressing the crowd through huge speakers on either side of the stage:

     “Why must we respect these laws of men? Do we allow the Supreme Court—a court!—the right to deny Alejandro Altrio his destiny to serve us? And why? Because he had the courage to sweep away an ineffective government twenty years ago and fight the guerrillas?” asked the figure on the stage. “Is that against the law? They say it is,” he answered himself contemptuously. “They say it is against the law to save your country from communism. Well that is what Alejandro Altrio did for us twenty years ago. And I say it is time for him to save us again! From crime, from kidnapping, from unemployment! But the court says he broke the law. Whose law? I repeat: the LAWS OF MEN! Misguided men! Where is the will of God in this election? The will of GOD!”

     After a span of breaths the center of the crowd erupted, raising their placards with the cheer: “Altrio returns!!”

     The captain looked around for coordinators in the audience and noticed TV cameras set up on the West side of the square in front of the Presidential Palace. The white paint on the buses glared in the sunlight, hurting his eyes. He frowned: he knew the phrase “Laws of men” was code for the Catholic faith and Catholic rule. He looked at his watch and walked around the edge of the park, keeping an eye on the gathering, and waving off shoeshine boys pointing at his feet.

     The route to headquarters took him east along Seventh Avenida, through sidewalks crowded with stalls selling pirate movies, sunglasses, CDs, jeans, watches and underwear. Because of the foot traffic and parked cars there was only room for one lane of vehicles to crawl through, and the captain walked alongside the cars to avoid the crush on the sidewalk. Usually he was entertained by the variety of junk available, but today he felt disconnected from all the energy and eye candy and there was a cloud in his mind. He wondered how he got to this point. As he turned north at the corner of Thirteenth Calle, his mind returned to an old detail he never resolved from the day of the earthquake. Why was Herrera standing at the rim of the ravine before anyone else? He wasn’t assigned to that part of the city. What was he looking for that night, down in the darkness?

     The police headquarters was a magnificent old building of Moorish design that was painted gray to give it an official look; and the gray succeeded in instilling dread to anyone standing outside. There was less energy on Thirteenth Calle because most vendors were afraid of the police; but a few scrappy parasites kept vigil there, apparently immune to the smell of urine rising from the sidewalk.

     “Dollars, dollars,” muttered a thin man in a sports jacket who came up to the captain just outside the front entrance.

     The captain pulled his shoulders straight and looked into the man’s reckless eyes. “I don’t have any dollars,” he explained.

     “Oh—well I offer good rates: 8.13 Quetzals, better than any bank.”

     “I told you I don’t have dollars,” repeated the captain.

     “I see.” The man’s head bobbed slightly to the right and left as he looked at the captain from different angles. “I could go as high as 8.20.”

     “You could also go to jail,” observed the captain with a smile.

     “Ha ha! All right,” agreed the man nervously. He stepped back and glanced at the corner Ixtlan had come from.

     “What made you think I was trading in dollars?” pursued Ixtlan.

     “Nothing, nothing. I’m just plying my business, Officer.”

     “In front of the police headquarters? You are either very stupid or have a low opinion of my fellow officers. Perhaps you would like to come inside and meet them formally. They could put you in touch with some very interesting people. There are people more interesting than you in the cells downstairs. What do you think?”

     “No, no, excuse me, Officer! Please! I was just going away! I did not mean to offend you, sir. I am going away!”

     “Go far away, then. I don’t want to see you again,” ordered the captain.

     The man nodded quickly, turned and scooted to the north corner of the block. Then he hesitated and looked back at the captain.

     He’ll return quickly enough, thought Captain Ixtlan.  He climbed the front steps to an archway like the entrance to a castle.  Built into the arch was a wall of thick brown glass and the words “Municipal Police Headquarters” in gold letters above double doors. The young woman behind the desk inside looked him up and down. “You are here to see the Chief?” she asked.

     “How do you know?”

     “He left word. Anyway I know what you look like,” she returned. She hid a smile on her red lips by leaning her face forward. “Please sign in, Captain.”

     “I’m early.”

     “No matter. Everyone knows you’re special.”

     “Oh, come on!”

     “Come on, yourself. Here’s a pen. Tell him I need a raise, will you?”

      A gauntlet of eyes followed him as he passed the girl into the lobby. It was remarkably uninviting even for a police station, with rows of thin cubicles confining the junior officers, and dirty walls distilled from the first stages of depression. Barred doors on the right led to the holding cells. A couple of officers closest to the front desk noticed the captain first, waved, and word went down the row. The captain heard snickering and an unseen genius call out: “Hail Blessed One! Say hello to God for me!”      “Don’t worry! We all meet Him one day!” replied the captain amiably. But he felt pinched inside and hurried to the elevator without seeming to be in a hurry. 

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Chapter Twelve

published on 28 August, 2026

A straightforward murder

On the sixth floor the building suddenly became grand. The elevator opened to an atrium with Moorish arches and a tropical garden fed by skylights. From the pleasant moisture in the air the captain knew the plants were just watered, and he savored the smell of the leaves and the white nun orchids thriving in the humidity. The banana tree in the middle of the courtyard was beginning to bear fruit. There was an older, taller tree in its place that fascinated him when he was a boy; but it died a long time ago.

     “I’m early, Carmen,” explained the captain after he made his way around the courtyard past the Internal Affairs offices to the Southwest corner. Herrera’s secretary sat in a reception area with its own window and a view of the cathedral’s dome, which was distracting her this morning. She had known the captain since he played by the old banana tree twice a year and looked up at him with old affection. She was still pretty and had her hair teased into flirtatious curls that glimmered in the light from outside. For some reason she never married, and the captain long suspected that she was in love with Herrera and waited outside his office for twenty years. But the door behind her was closed. Her perfume was barely noticeable, and the captain couldn’t help comparing it, somewhat unfavorably, with the scent of Gabriella almost a week before.

     “Javier! You’ve come for lunch!”

     “Not really. Well: I may eat,” he corrected himself. “But I’ve come to discuss something with the Chief.”

      “Something’s on his mind,” murmured Carmen with a nod to the door behind her. “It may be beautiful outside but there’s a cloud in that room. He hasn’t spoken to me all morning.”

     “Not a word?”

     “He may have grunted about an appointment with you as he came in,” she admitted. “Otherwise he’s just taken a few calls. Who knows what it is. And from noon to one no calls at all. His orders.”

     Who knows? Wondered the captain as he sat in a lounge chair beside the window. Any number of things could be troubling the chief of police. The Maras gangs were rising in the city, and the drug lords in Zone 3 were getting powerful. How else to explain the murders in La Zona Viva, Nicolas’ domain? The Portillo administration was squeezing budgets everywhere, and there weren’t enough police. Probably, thought the captain, the president himself was stealing the money, and there was nothing Herrera could do about it. Probably it was no coincidence either that kidnappings began as soon as Portillo took office, drugs coursed through the city, and the army got its privileges back. Once again, the captain thought of Altrio and his quest to return to power. The problem was that Altrio was patron to both Portillo and the chief of police.

     A note pealed from the Metropolitan Cathedral, and that strike, answering to the blue sky, opened the way for church bells across the city. Dong! Dong! Went the bell, with notes that were light and dark, like the furls of a brilliant cloud, and the answering chorus of smaller bells downtown marked the hour. How often had he listened to the bells at the orphanage, waiting for the end of class? And how often had he wondered whether the reverberation reached his mother? Notes of joy and sadness floated everywhere and then faded into the sounds of traffic outside. It was noon.

     “I thought I would find you here,” observed Herrera pleasantly from the door to his office. “You are always on time, Captain.”

     The Chief of Police, stockier than he was twenty years ago, stood in his usual blue suit with a bland gray tie and a white shirt.  Vanity was not one of his weaknesses. He looked down at the captain with a slight smile, perhaps wondering how the tiny boy he had discovered became such a large, awkward man. But the smile faded as Ixtlan stood up. The captain was almost a head taller than the chief, and Herrera’s face returned to its usual expression of taut vigilance as he watched the young man approach. Herrera’s eyes made the captain nervous and he wondered, as he had many times before, whether he had disappointed the chief in some way. Herrera did not offer his hand to the captain, and instead looked over to his secretary with a casual aside: “Carmen, would you mind running up to Patsy’s and bringing us some lunch? Something for yourself as well, of course.”

     “I thought we’d all be going out,” she replied with disappointment.

     “Not today. The captain and I have, uh, business to discuss. I’ll have a roast beef sandwich with onions, and the captain—“

     “The same,” said Ixtlan.

     “And I will have a coke and a cup of coffee,” added the chief.

     “Lemonade and coffee,” said the captain guiltily. “Thank you.”

     Carmen frowned. “Pastries? They are known for their pastries.”

     “No, thank you.”

    The secretary got up with a scowl, slung her purse over her shoulder, and protested, “You are two of my favorite men! I was hoping we’d have a good time today.” She left quickly without saying goodbye, but the captain heard her steps lessen to a more measured pace as she circled around the garden to the elevator. “It’s practically a sin to send her away like that,” he observed to Herrera.

     “Yes, but necessary,” replied the chief. “We need time without a pair of ears on the other side of the door. Anything she hears can be a danger to her. Sometimes I believe she can hear me think. I figure it’s six blocks to Patsy’s, and with jeans vendors and sunglass vendors and pirate DVD vendors and all kinds enticing magazines taking up the sidewalks, it’ll take her at least twenty minutes to get there. On top of that she’s wearing heels.”

     “She’s wearing them for you,” said the captain.

     “I can’t afford to think about that. Anyway we have almost an hour. She’ll buy herself a pastry and eat it there so we won’t know about it and then will avoid real food because she’s watching her weight. So almost an hour.”

     “That’s a cruel thing to say,” said Ixtlan. “She’s been kind to me since I was a boy.”

     “True,” replied Herrera without resentment. “Close the outer door, Javier, and see if anyone is in the hallway. Then let’s go in my office.”

      The door to the courtyard was remarkably heavy and had an inlaid relief of a kneeling Maya king in full headgear. The labor that went into carving it was more of a testament to Herrera’s influence that the simple suit he wore to the office. The thickness of the mahogany was also a sound barrier, and the chattering down the hall in Internal Affairs drowned out completely as the captain pushed it shut. “Come inside and sit down,” said the Chief. He stood next to the inner door, waited for the captain to pass, and locked it. He looked down on the captain dubiously as Ixtlan settled into a massive, soft leather chair. It was the only thing luxurious in the office besides the huge windows affording a southwest view of the cathedral, the Presidential Palace and the park. To complement the view there were photographs on the walls of Herrera with every president of the last twenty years, from Altrio to Portillo. A recent photograph of the chief with his old patron in his new role as leader of Congress startled the captain, and he studied it for Herrera’s expression. But Herrera was unreadable in the photograph, as he was now: there was nothing friendly or personal in the Chief’s manner, and the captain remembered how Herrera had kept him on edge since he was a child. The chief strode over to his desk and sat down without seeming to relax. Instead he continued evaluating the captain critically and finally suggested, “You have something to tell me?”

     “’Dollars, dollars,’” muttered the captain impudently.

     “Meaning what?”

     “Meaning there’s scum outside this building buying dirty money.”

     “Outside the building,” replied Herrera mockingly.

     “Where there’s flies, there’s shit,” insisted the captain. “Your house isn’t clean, and you know it. Bribes are paid in dollars. Where are the dollars coming from?”

     Herrera continued studying him with no change of expression. His right hand, however, lying flat on desk, curled suddenly into a fist. Then Herrera chuckled. When he laughed, however, only his head moved. The habit of discipline or readiness kept the rest of his body still and taut. “Are you telling me something I don’t know, Javier? I can safely assume you had no money to give him yourself.”

     “Of course not! I sent him on his way.”

     “Not very far, probably,” observed Herrera. “But that is another problem. Every year the current administration—if I can call it that—cuts our budget back five percent. Where is the money going? We can only guess.”

      You know quite well, thought the captain.

      “And I am left with less money to pay my officers every year. Many leave and I can’t replace them; and the rest—how can I expect them to stay clean? And crime and kidnappings are getting worse, not coincidentally. But that is another story. You have come to discuss something else. Only I wonder what took you so long to come to me.”

     “Guzman died a few days ago,” explained the captain with surprise.

     “A few days is a long time in the life of some cases,” replied Herrera in a fatherly way. He clasped both hands in front of him. “Also you were invited by my wife to a family dinner three weekends ago and you did not make it.”

     “Oh, yes,” said the captain guiltily. He looked down. “I couldn’t find anyone to cover for me.”

     “Whatever. All I’m saying is that you are considered part of our family even if you do not consider yourself so. I can’t read your mind, Javier, but I think you are determined to be free of charity. You are not charity to me—or us, whatever you think. You are a member of the family. Also you are the closest thing to a brother Nicolas has, and he thinks of you as his brother.”

     “I’m sorry, Chief.”

     “I’m just saying. Now: there was an incident in your neighborhood last week. A straightforward murder, according to Menza, with some unusual details; according to you there may be a—conspiracy.” The last word he pronounced with irony; it was not a serious word.

     “It’s the first murder in the zone since I took over two years ago.”

     “Imagine that. There’s always a first time,” replied Herrera. “That doesn’t make it unusual. I read Menza’s summary, and yours, and then I received your request to follow the suspect to Huehuetenango. That was unusual.”

     “I believe that Gabriella Guzman is in danger.”

     “Of being arrested?” asked Herrera.

     “Don’t mock me, Chief; it’s a waste of time. No, I think she’s in danger of being ‘disappeared.’”

     “She has already ‘disappeared,’” observed Herrera.

     “You know what I mean.”

     “All right. Since we’re being blunt, let me bring in another factor. From all accounts Señora Guzman is a beautiful woman.”

     “I did not describe her as such in my report, neither did Menza.”

     “Come on, Javier.” Herrera leaned forward sympathetically. The captain immediately wondered whether Stephano had spoken to the chief. He even wondered about Chepe. “She is a very attractive woman,” added Herrera. “That is a material fact of the case; whatever else you may think is involved. A domestic dispute is what preceded the murder, and the heat of many domestic disputes is sexual.”

     “True,” admitted the captain.

     “And I submit,” continued the chief, “that whatever your other motives, there is a sexual element in your concern for Gabriella Guzman.”

     “True,” said the captain. He thought of the way her hand felt. “But you know I’m not pursuing this because she’s pretty.” He sunk in the chair, suspecting it was soft precisely to give Herrera an advantage over any visitor. Through the windows, above the din of traffic, he heard the loudspeakers at the demonstration in the park blaring out: “Altrio! Altrio!” He gazed at the photograph of Herrera with his old mentor, but the chief seemed not to notice.

     “Personally I have no doubts about your motives whatsoever,” observed the chief crisply. “Of anyone I know, Javier. But there are times when more innocent people—I do not say naïve, mind you—are at a disadvantage. This may be one of them—assuming your suspicions are correct. Of course I don’t know what they are, exactly, you’ve been rather coy with me. You must be very clear about what you are getting into and why, however.”

     “I am not innocent,” said the captain, sitting up.

     “No you’re not,” agreed the chief. “An unfortunate choice of words. But you are not corrupt either, and that may be a disadvantage, my friend. How do you know, for instance, that Gabriella Guzman, a very intelligent woman, well aware of how this city works—at all levels—did not set you up? It seems strange that she came to you in the first place to report her husband and then returned the next morning after the murder had taken place. You’d think she’d try to leave sooner. How much about you did she know?”

     “What do you mean?” asked the captain.

     “I mean that I was acquainted with her husband, and with her by reputation. Julio Guzman came to me with the story about your little plumbing project. It was certainly enough to ruin your career. He knew you were an orphan; he even knew which orphanage you came from.  Did he know where you were born and where I found you? Did he know about your mother?” asked Herrera softly.

     Not for the first time the captain wondered if Herrera was actually his father. But the captain’s appearance was evidence against it. His skin was lighter than Herrera’s and far lighter than his mother’s. And he was born in Santiago, far away from the city; the circumstance of his birth was as mysterious as the reason his mother fled the town alone. But he remembered Herrera searching in the chaos of the ravine.

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Chapter Thirteen

published on 4 September, 2026

Every barrel has a signature

     “I know why you built the pipe and who you are trying to help. I think it was a fine thing to do, evidence of your character, and obviously illegal. I’m happy to overlook it and made sure Guzman was happy to overlook it as well: but that doesn’t mean he didn’t share information with his wife. Having said that, I have suspicions about this case as well. I don’t want to have these suspicions; I’d rather they went away.”

     “Is that why you sent Nicolas to Huehuetenango instead of me?” asked the captain. He noticed that Herrera did not react. His face remained stolid and unreadable. But there was stillness in his expression that was barely perceptible, a loss of energy that implied he was thinking carefully without giving up his mask.

     “The reasons for that I cannot discuss with you at this point,” he said flatly, but with a note of regret. “Now tell me what you know. Carmen is probably getting her dessert right now. That gives us another thirty minutes.” For the first time since the captain arrived Herrera let his shoulders relax and leaned back in his chair, as a yellow light began flashing on his phone. He ignored it, turning his eyes on his protégé.

     “First of all, the journalist, Guzman, did not know why we were picking him up last Friday.”

     “That’s not surprising,” countered Herrera. “It was a domestic case after all.”

     “I meant something else,” said the captain. “He thought he was being picked up for political reasons. He mentioned Altrio, as a matter of fact.  Your old boss, if I may be direct enough to say that. I see that you are still acquainted with him,” observed the captain, with a glance toward the photograph so prominently on display.

     Herrera grunted. “In my position I am in contact with many powerful people. Altrio happens to be the leader of Congress right now, and also the chairman of Portillo’s party. I could hardly avoid dealing with him. And yes, I was formerly on his staff. He helped me get you into the orphanage as a matter of fact—an unusual kindness, considering he is a devout Protestant and the orphanage is Catholic.” He let the information sink in and added, “You better have more than that.” He glanced at the flashing phone.

     “Guzman was following Alrio’s people before he died,” continued the captain. “In fact that riot last week in Zone 10 was the last thing he wrote about. More to the point, Guzman covered a set of murders.”

     “Go on.”

     “We have a double murder outside La Ruta Maya a couple of weeks ago. In La Zona Viva, of all places!”

     “The maras are terrible,” observed Herrera coolly.

     “But who controls them?” asked the captain. “I checked up on a few articles by Guzman. There was a government vehicle identified at the scene, and a similar vehicle at the scene of a murder in Zone 3. I’m sure you know that.”

     Herrera remained expressionless.

     “The policeman who issued a ticket to the vehicle parked outside La Maya was later executed in Zone 7. That was one of Nicolas’ men,” added Ixtlan.

     The chief frowned. “That is the second time you have mentioned my son. But the only connection I see in all is that Guzman wrote about—all this.” He waved his hand contemptuously.

     “What do you know about a list?” asked the captain suddenly.                 

     “A list? What list?” asked Herrera, trying not to look alarmed.

     “A list. Of what I don’t know. A list. That’s what the journalist thought we were after. He knew that Altrio was looking for it and said it was safe. That’s also when he mentioned you.”

     Herrera said nothing, and the phone’s yellow light flashed on his eyes.

     “I can’t help going over everything that happened last Friday,” confessed the captain. “I wonder what I could have done differently. I wonder why the woman came to me in the first place. Why did she ask to be locked up? I thought she was acting emotionally, but now I’m not so sure.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “I mean,” admitted the captain wryly. “That I may have been innocent. That I was played. Why did Gabriella Guzman want to be put away? To protect herself? Not likely. To protect her husband? Perhaps. Perhaps to protect something else. She had a handbag with her. I don’t know a lot about women, but I should have known the last thing a woman leaves behind is her purse. A purse is something intimate. And when she went home with her husband, she left the purse behind on Chepe’s desk. Almost provocatively, in retrospect. Inside her purse was a book.”

     “A book?”

     “And I put it away in my desk, waiting for her to come back. Later that night four men came to their house. I spoke to the lady yesterday who watched them arrive: four men in a black Mercedes. There was a shot, and after they did their work, they left. In the morning Gabriella Guzman came back for the bag at the station, and then she disappeared as surely as the agents in the car. We’re talking about phantoms, Chief. I haven’t known of activity like this since I was a boy.”

     “Phantoms,” repeated Herrera slowly, and ironically. “You mean phantoms from the old days. Phantoms on the edge of our well-being. Nicolas spoke to me of the same thing; he also is worried. There are reports of black cars appearing at the scene of many incidents—not just the ones you’ve mentioned.” The chief flashed a sharp look at the captain’s eyes and smiled. “But I perceive you do not trust Nicolas entirely, and perhaps not me as well. Anyway. Did you look inside that purse? Did you see the book?”

     “I did not.”

     “Well then,” said the chief, drumming his fingers on the desk. “It is a pity—it is a pity you respected that woman’s privacy, though I understand your reasons.” He stood up and walked over to the window. “I guess you know,” he said, gazing at the dome of the cathedral, “that Gabriella Guzman decided in advance to leave the book with you. If she died, she had reason to believe you would do something with it. But now that is out of our hands. There is only your suspicion that the murders in Zone 10 and 3 and 7—and now 22—are linked. But it is only a suspicion.” He turned to the captain, and for once did not appear intimidating, merely thoughtful. “Most witnesses to these events are already dead or disappeared, and ‘suspicion’ I already had. Look at this morning’s edition of La Prensa, for instance.”

     “Do you know where she got the information?” asked Ixtlan.

     “‘She?’” mused the chief. “From what I remember there’s no byline on this story, for good reason. I guess she did not get the information from you, though you seem to know who she is. The question is who else she is speaking to, isn’t it? And whether that person is in Huehuetenango.”

     “What is the list?” asked Captain Ixtlan.

     “What list?” replied Herrera airily.

     “I have another piece of evidence,” said the captain. “The neighbor across from the Guzman’s heard a shot. A bullet didn’t kill Julio Guzman, but the couple had a dog. He was not in the house when we examined the body. Some kids led me to the dog in the ravine yesterday.”

     “In the ravine?”      “Near my mother. I took the bullet out of the dog.” Captain Ixtlan took the plastic bag with the bullet out of his breast pocket, stood up and placed it on the desk. “I will bet you one thing. I will bet you the same gun was used in all those murders. Every barrel has a signature. Examine the bullet and tell me I’m wrong. But you know I’m right,” added the captain. He returned to the easy chair, keeping his back straight this time as he stared imperiously at his master and sank in the cushion. Herrera didn’t seem to mind the harangue and turned his attention out the window again as he listed to shouts of “Altrio! Altrio!” drifting from the park through the busy streets to the pane of his clear window. “You’d think another riot was brewing,” he said thoughtfully. “But they won’t try that in front of the palace.” He walked back to his desk and sat down. The phone was still flashing and he continued to ignore it. His eyes lit upon the bullet casually and he picked up the bag it was in with his thumb and a forefinger and examined it without bringing it close to his face. “All right,” he said. He put it gently on his desk. “I’ll have Menza look at it. I can’t trust anyone else.”

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Chapter Fourteen

published on 11 September, 2026

Phantoms

“Those fingerprints all over Guzman’s house,” said the captain. “They were everywhere because they were looking for something. You need to find out who they belong to.”

     “’No known criminals,’” parried Herrera instinctively. “Not on our database.”

     “No known criminals,” countered Ixtlan. “You haven’t tried prints of the men in the Investigative Branch.”

     Herrera breathed in deeply, but the captain didn’t hear him exhale. “I have enough enemies,” he replied with distaste. “But all right. I have some friends in the Interior Ministry as well, among them Stephano’s father. We have to be invisible making a trace like that. But one thing, Javier: if the Investigative Branch has been taken over, if we’re truly dealing with phantoms, don’t make any moves. Talk to me; talk to me first.”

     “What is the list?” insisted the captain.

     Herrera frowned and scrunched his right hand into a fist again. Then two things happened: they heard the outer door open as Carmen returned with the food, and the dim rat-tat-tat of machine guns away to the south. The yellow light on the phone, flashing so insistently, turned red seconds later. Herrera picked it up immediately. “Yes?” He listened and said, “I’ll be down. Under no circumstances keep your eye off the park. Send two units to the shooting.”

     “You’ll want to come with me,” he explained to Ixtlan. “We have an interesting situation on our hands.” As Herrera stood from the chair, he picked up the bullet, quickly put it in his top left drawer and locked it away. Then he nodded at the captain without quite looking at him, perhaps because the captain was standing again at full size. The chief took his cellular from his breast pocket and turned it on before unlocking the door to the outer office and going out. Herrera still moved fluidly despite how stocky he’d become, and only politeness kept him from rushing to the elevator.

     “I’m sorry, Carmen. We’re going to have to take that with us. Someone shot up La Prensa,” he said, glancing back at the captain.

     “No!” exclaimed the secretary. She placed the two bags on her desk. As Herrera predicted, there was no third bag for her, and the captain considered leaving behind his lunch by accident; but she pushed the bags away. “You’d better go,” she said generously.

     “Smells good, Carmen: thank you,” said Ixtlan. He picked up both bags.

     “It’s in response to the article this morning,” replied the secretary. “I could have predicted it, only I didn’t.”

     “Send any communications to my cellular,” ordered the chief. “And if anyone suggests bringing in the army I want to know. Immediately.”

     “You got it.”

     Herrera glanced at Internal Affairs with an irritated expression on his way down the courtyard, but once inside the elevator he slumped against the wall and merely looked worried. He picked up the end of his tie and gazed at it, perhaps wondering if he had chosen the right color. “I posted cars around the perimeter of the Central Plaza in case things got out of hand like they did last week in Zone 10,” he remarked. “Frankly I think Nicolas was too lax there; especially after those murders: but that’s between you and me. Sometimes I think you’re too lax in Zone 22 as well: it may be out of the way but there are bad elements everywhere. And you play chess with the prisoners!”

     “Is that why you sent Stephano there?”

     “I have my reasons.” He sighed. “Maybe we’re all too lax. I’m worried about the army. I’m worried they’ll look for an excuse to intervene. But I can’t put more than three cars at La Prensa; I can’t pull any more from the plaza.”

     In the lobby Herrera nodded curtly at the officers he passed, and the captain did the same; noting that there were no sarcasm greeting him this time. Herrera’s car was waiting out front with the engine running, and an old squad car was behind with flashing lights. Herrera took the door by the curb, sat down, and watched the captain make his way through the door on the street side. The captain said hello to Miguel, the driver. He saw Miguel glance at him through the rear-view mirror with cool brown eyes.

     “Gringo,” muttered the chief to himself.

     “What?”

     “Let’s go, Miguel,” said the chief to the driver. He tapped the front seat. “I was thinking your father must have been American because you’re so white. And for other reasons,” he replied, staring ahead. “I’ve thought so for a long time.”

     “Who?” asked Ixtlan.

     “How would I know?” replied the chief dismissively. He waved the escort car ahead, its siren wailing as it quickly cut across traffic, led them north one block, then right on Eighth Avenida to Fourteenth Calle and south. It was a one-way street and the traffic ahead made way for the two cars with jerks to the left or right curbs, and many curses; but the captain and Herrera were oblivious to the pandemonium. The siren and the escort speeding ahead created its own bubble of reality. Herrera looked worried while the captain sat next to him angrily. He thought: You treat me like a bastard. Then I am a bastard, a bastard from the ravine. He suddenly hated Herrera for rescuing him after the earthquake and giving him pretensions. In the end he was an outcast from Zone 22 and nothing else. His father, whoever he was, had abandoned him. He even decided that God abandoned him on the night his mother fell into the earth. But the idea was too shocking and he looked up at the blue lights of the escort car as it made a sudden right on Ninth Avenida. They stopped with a jerk, the sirens died, and the captain got out of the car without thinking or even glancing at the chief. He quickly looked over the chaos in front of him, but he was not connected to it, and his bitterness gave him an appearance of exceptional authority.

     The first floor of the La Prensa building had been raked with machine gun fire, shattering the mirrored doors, which were in an alcove away from the street, and leaving white craters in the yellow stucco walls along the sidewalk. The upper floors received a cursory splattering of fire but it was enough to send shards of glass below, glittering dangerously on the concrete. The body of a security guard lay twisted on the ground next to a young woman in a red dress whose face, when she died, was turned modestly away from the street toward the building. An ambulance arrived, parking at an angle among the squad cars, but the crew stepped around the bodies and rushed inside. Where is Maria Yarhi? wondered the captain. Is she all right?

     He lifted his eyes toward an old locust tree to the right of the building with roots thrusting out of the sidewalk, its leaves flashing in the breeze. He watched it sadly. It was the last tree left on the block, and neutral to the disaster; he had to be human. He immediately went to the nearest officer and ordered the area closed off.

     “No one touches the bullets until Menza arrives,” he said.

     “Yes, sir.”

     “Did anyone see the vehicle the shots came from?”

     “Black—it was a black car.”

     “What kind?”

     “Black,” repeated the officer.

     “The shooter?”

     “Suit and sunglasses,” replied the officer. He looked at the bodies and grimaced.

     Phantoms, thought the captain. “Anyone see where the car went?”

     The officer shrugged, then waved vaguely to the southwest. “Down Avenida Conquistador probably, toward the boondocks,” he said. “Toward Zone 22.”

     “Anyone following them?”

     “Who? We don’t have anybody. The chief won’t allow us to take surveillance off the plaza. They’re gone; gone.”

     “Okay, then. Call for another ambulance or two. This one can only handle a couple of people. Anyone close to the windows is going to be shot or cut by glass. And only Menza handles the bullets, okay? I want all of them recovered. And bring blankets for these bodies.”

     The officer nodded and began barking at the other policemen. Captain Ixtlan called the station on his cell phone. “Lieutenant?”

     “How are things going, Captain? How was your meeting with the chief?”

     “Where’s Stephano?”

     “He’s ‘guarding’ the prisoners. Hugo just explained to him that the meek shall inherit the Earth. Hugo is one of the meek. But he has not inherited the Earth. Instead he is in jail. He finds it very ironic.”

     “Listen,” interrupted the captain. “Did Stephano bring that red Honda with him?”

     “Of course.”

     “Tell him to get in the car, keep the engine running, and go to the intersection of Conquistador. He’s to look for a black car going west very fast. You can bet it’s a luxury black car. He is not to stop it; I just want a description and the tags, especially the tags. Hurry!”

     The captain decided to go inside to find Maria Yarhi. He tried to make eye contact with Herrera, but the chief stood away from everyone, thinking. He wasn’t giving orders or asking questions. He stood a few feet from the car scanning the building, observing the bodies and crossing his arms. After a while the captain realized Herrera wasn’t watching anything. He might as well have been at the edge of the ravine where he first saw him over twenty years ago, looking deeply into chaos, and into himself.

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Chapter Fifteen

published on 18 September, 2026

La Esmerelda—1975

     Señora Rosa—she let on that she was married, though there was no evidence of a husband in her life or any need for male protection—laughed heartily at the young policeman at the bar late Friday night. The Madame glanced over at the cleaning woman, who was wiping off a table in the back of the parlor and avoiding Herrera’s eyes. “No, Julieta’s not one of us,” she advised firmly, over the flamenco music playing from an old record. “Off-limits. I’ve hired her to clean up and serve drinks and nothing else. She has a little boy, besides. She’s no plaything for you.”

     “She’s prettier than all the others,” insisted Captain Herrera.

     “Shh! Not so loud. The other girls will hear. You’ll hurt their feelings.” The four women she was referring to sat on a long couch beneath a painting of romantic beach twilight, discussing something in low voices. They were giving the policeman time to make up his mind. One woman wore a slip, having recently come back from a session; the others wore dinner dresses that were so elegant they seemed out of place in such an establishment. It was a slow night, and Herrera was the last customer.

     “I’m sorry,” agreed the policeman stonily. He gazed into his beer with a puckered face. “You must have a low opinion of your fellow human beings,” he observed.

     “Why do you say that, my dear?”

     “Because we’re all hypocrites. I certainly am.”

     “I try not to look down on anyone—except bad people,” replied the Senora. “And I see that you’ve kept your ring on. At least you’re honest about that.” She stroked the back of Herrera’s neck with long fingers. “Are you happily married?” 

     “My wife just frosted her hair. She cut it and then frosted her hair.”

     “Now why did she do that?”

     “It’s unnatural and stiff,” complained Herrera sullenly. “I’d like to think she did it for me, but all of her girlfriends did it also at the same time. Cut their hair and curled it and frosted it. And I’m sure they sit around and admire how pretty they look and complain that their husbands don’t appreciate them. Which they don’t,” he added with a sly smile.

     “Surely you love her,” insinuated Señora Rosa. She ran her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp. He did not object. The madam, about ten years older than the other women, was very attractive.

     “She’s given me two children, Nico and Luci, but I did not marry her for pure reasons,” confessed the captain. He did not say more. He was an ambitious man, and his wife was the daughter of a colonel. His mind, blurred by the beer, fell into a mood equally balanced between self-pity and self-disgust. He looked behind him again at the Indian woman and fixed on her sad dark eyes.

     “So you have no romance in your life,” observed Rosa sympathetically. There was, however, an edge to her voice. She waved Julieta out of the room and decided she would have to distract the captain herself tonight. “Your life seems dry, Captain?”

     His hands curled around the cold mug. “It’s unusual what a nice place you have here,” he said out of nowhere.

     “What a nice compliment!”

     “I mean it’s strange. I come out all this way, frankly, so no one will know what I’m doing.”

     “Like many people. Where do you live?”

     “Zone Two,” replied the captain with circumspection. “Downtown. And yet here, in the newest zone, in the middle of nowhere, is this wonderful ‘place’.”

     “It’s a bordello, my dear, I’m not ashamed of what I do. I cater to what people really need.”

     “Yet the girls, frankly, are as pretty as the best downtown, and the furniture is first rate, everything is first rate. How can you afford it, especially when you’re closed two days a week!”

     “Everyone must rest,” replied the Señora calmly. The captain noticed even through his haze, however, that Rosa looked tense. His curiosity got the better of him.

     “But you are closed on Thursdays even, why Thursdays?”

     “Yes, we are closed Thursdays,” repeated the Señora firmly, without answering his question. The captain looked behind him, but the lovely Indian woman from the lake was gone, and the other girls had drifted to their rooms. Captain Herrera was perplexed and felt abandoned. Then he noticed that Rosa’s face had softened again, and she kissed him lightly on the cheek with her red lips.

     When Herrera was done with Señora Rosa he stepped outside, leaned against his squad car, and lit a cigarette. He thought about what to tell his wife. A lifetime of selfishness had made him hard and unsatisfied and the cigarette felt bitter in his throat. He listened to the clink of dishes being washed in a pila nearby, windows latched, late night buses following their lonely routes. Everything reminded him of labor and the yoke around every living being. Rosa was right: he had no romance in his life. He exhaled and crossed his arms, trying to delay the lies he had to tell at home. He saw the lights in the bordello go out one by one, heard chairs pushed under tables, then a couple of gentle thuds—the cabinets in the bar being closed for the night. Finally even the lamp outside, illuminating the painted words “La Esmeralda” above the door, flicked off, and the bordello acquired a sleeping face. The entrance creaked open unexpectedly.

     Herrera wondered what Rosa had to tell him, but someone else came through the shadows in the doorway. Julieta, the new cleaning woman, was leaving for the night. She checked the knob as she stepped down and turned around immediately to close the door behind her. She was carrying a basket covered with cloths in her left hand. She adjusted the cloths, looked up to the south, and noticed the policeman watching her from across the street. Herrera saw her go stiff suddenly. But she conquered her fear and looked at him boldly. Then she balanced the basket atop her head, her left hand keeping her burden level, and strode home with the erect posture common to so many Indians.

     Even under the streetlamp her clothes were alive with the patterns of her village: a red skirt with intricate lines of black, and a purple blouse embroidered with the birds of the lake. Herrera wondered what she was doing alone in the city, with a little boy, no less, and reduced to cleaning for the Madame. He smarted from the look she gave him but was intrigued as well: he took great pleasure in winning people over and then dominating them. As she crossed Fifth Avenida away from the light she became a shadow, gaining her color again under the lamp at the next corner. Then something unusual happened. The Virgen Sagrada church two blocks away—there was only a Catholic church in the neighborhood then—began marking eleven o’clock. At the first toll Julieta Ixtlan came to a stop. She stood listening to each strike of the bell as it carried through the dark streets and turned her face in the direction of the church.

     Herrera was a practical man, used to following rituals out of politeness and he pretended to have no imagination. Yet as he watched the young woman transfixed at the next corner the night felt softer and more alive. What memory or feeling caused her to stop? Was she recalling a church in her own village, in the life she had abandoned? Herrera would not admit he was in a spell, yet when the ringing ceased and its echoes dissipated in the gloom, he followed her.

     He kept half a block away and tried to match his steps with hers, but after he crossed Fifth Avenida, she heard the chalky strike of his heels on the sidewalk behind her and paused. This time she did not turn around. Her neck was stiff and alert, but she ignored him and continued walking home. Herrera smelled beans and eggs and onions wafting from the basket and surmised she was bringing food for her child. At Sixth Avenida Julieta made a right into the darkness and he almost lost sight of her. When his eyes adjusted at the next corner he saw her heading west as a shadow. The few houses along the edge of the ravine were under construction, and in the starlight they looked like ruins. There was no moon. Ordinarily Herrera didn’t care about such details, but it impressed him that the young woman walked fearlessly along such a sad, abandoned road. Then she turned to the left into the tall grass, looked back at him, and was gone.

     Herrera caught up to the edge of the ravine and gazed down through the corn at the path down the slope. But there was no trace of the woman, only the dim yellow glow of candles from countless huts among the stalks, their tin roofs barely gleaming under the stars. A pleasant smell from the remnants of cooking fires wafted up, and in the distance below, too deep to be seen, he heard dogs yapping. He wondered where Julieta Ixtlan fit in this makeshift world. Then he sighed, ambled back to his car, and thought about the lies he had to tell.

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Chapter Sixteen

published on 25 September, 2026

The lies he has to tell

     The next day at noon, as Herrera read the paper in the living room, and the church bells tolled brightly downtown, he suddenly felt far away. He remembered Julieta Ixtlan standing at a dim corner the night before and wondered what called her: even in the mid-day bells he felt undertones and longing. He wanted to see her again. Herrera rubbed his eyes to dispel the mood, sniffed, and blinked a few times. When called to lunch at one o’clock he looked keenly around the table at his wife Aminta and the two young children as if to remind them of their place, but really to remind himself. “Well, are we all hungry then?” he insinuated bearishly. “It’s Saturday, let’s enjoy!” For a while he lost himself in the meal of roast chicken and potatoes, salad and peas; and looked fondly on the children.  Aminta, meanwhile, was observing him closely.

     After she cleared the dishes into the kitchen, he heard the click of her heels following him into the bedroom, where he was changing into his dark blue uniform. Aminta closed the door behind her, and he stiffened, preparing for the confrontation.

     “You are somewhere else,” she observed, without moving any further into the room. Instead she began rubbing her right elbow with her left hand. She did this whenever she was nervous, and Herrera saw that he had the advantage.

     “What? I am here, you are here,” he replied gruffly. “Your mother and I are talking!” he shouted at the door, where Nicolas was timidly knocking. “Later!”

     “Not in spirit,” replied Aminta once the boy’s steps retreated. “I don’t feel that you are here; I feel that I am losing you, frankly. And I don’t know where the fault is. I don’t know whether I spend too much time with the children, or you spend too much time at work, or whether I’m not pretty enough. But you do not engage me in conversation. You say: ‘I am doing this,’ or ‘I am doing that,’—just statements, really—and then you ask something about the kids, or about the house, or about my hair.” She patted the odd, unnatural frosted curls, and glared at him. “And then, having done your duty communicating, or whatever you call it, you retreat somewhere either to your job or to another room. But there is no connection between us anymore. Am I wrong?”

     “Of course you’re wrong!” said Herrera without thinking.  Immediately he realized he had made a mistake, because Aminta crossed her arms. Of course he could bluff his way out by scoffing at her and leaving in his uniform. Work was sacrosanct even with her, and no doubt she would be contrite whenever he came back. That was the usual pattern. But two things held him back. One was pity for his wife, pity more than compassion; the other was his relationship with her father. Aminta’s father was an ambitious colonel, and Herrera owed his position to him. So it was politic to be kind, and Herrera relaxed his face and smiled. “Come on Aminta. Sit down with me a moment.”  He pulled at the end of his gray tie until it just constricted his throat, then sat at the foot of the bed and patted the spot next to him. “Please, Aminta.” When he was trying to be kind Herrera exuded goodwill easily; and though Aminta was put off by the command to sit next to him, she suddenly found him inviting. She reluctantly took her place next to him, smoothing out her red dress, which Herrera recognized as a new purchase, worn specially for him.  It was a pretty dress, yet there was something awkward about it like most things chosen by his wife. The collar and sleeves were frilly and looked out of date; without them the dress would be most attractive, and his wife’s figure as well. As it was, she looked like an endearing and rather desperate little sister. Herrera put his arm around her and drew her close. She was thin and birdlike and melted into him. To his surprise he enjoyed holding her and let his hand feel her ribs. Then he looked into her brown eyes and felt startled. Her eyes were playful and alive, not resentful: he was not used to observing his wife closely, and seeing layers of expression, full of possibilities and questions. But he did not allow himself to be drawn in. “Do you think I enjoy leaving you on a Saturday? Of course not,” he murmured soothingly. “I only do it because I have to. With your father’s help—with his help—I have the post running the station in Zone 7. But if I don’t improve things there, I could lose that any time. You know how political things are. I have to prove myself. So I go in every Saturday to inspect the place. Frankly I can’t trust all of my men; I wish I could. But some of the men make deals on the side. The money is too tempting; I have to find ways to keep them clean. Otherwise what good am I? And I will disappoint Colonel Hessler,” he added pointedly.

     “I didn’t realize your job was to police the police,” observed Aminta dryly. “I thought it was to protect innocent people. Perhaps you are helping the army keep an eye on the police as well, no?”

     “Well, your father is in the army, my dear.”

     “You’re not my father’s creature,” she replied with a touch of jealousy. “At least you don’t have to be. He’s just somebody else’s creature, that horrible Altrio! Don’t follow him!”

     “I just do my job, Aminta,” explained Herrera calmly. “I try to do it well, so that I will have a better job in the future. That will benefit all of us—won’t it? I want our children to have a real education.” He lowered his arm around her and reached for her hand. That touch had more effect than words, for Aminta was already weighing his explanation suspiciously.

     “I’m not a status whore, you know,” she blurted unexpectedly. “I grew up with one—my father, the ‘Colonel.’ I am hoping you will love me more than him in the long run. Anyway what’s the worse that can happen if you disappoint him? A lesser post? Like what? Are you worried they’ll send you to Zone 22?”

     Herrera pretended not to be surprised. “Zone 22? What makes you think of that—place?”

     “Because it’s so far away,” replied Aminta. “Nothing ever happens there. There’s nothing to do.”

     “No, nothing ever does,” replied Herrera abstractly.

     “People live there, though,” said his wife thoughtfully. Herrera began playing with her fingers, the better to distract her from any thoughts of his playground, and something unusual happened. He pretended his wife’s fingers were Julieta’s, with their warm dark skin, and that she responded to him, timidly at first, then with increasing tenderness. He urged her on, letting his imagination grow wild at the subtle thrill of touching fingertip to fingertip, and gently lacing his fingers between hers. He pulled his wife closer; but her face became twisted and she turned away. “I have to tell you something about my father,” she moaned softly.

     “What? It can wait. I can lock the door,” said Herrera.

     “No, it can’t. I have to take Lucia to a birthday party. And Nicolas would love to go to the station with you, if you can take him,” she added doubtfully. “He wants to be a policeman. Anyway if I wait, I won’t have the courage to tell you.”

     “What is it?”

     “My father is involved in some bad things. You—you’re just a cover for him, appointed to ‘clean things up.’ My God, what you don’t see! Anyhow he’s planning something big, something with General Altrio. He’s Altrio’s poodle, you know.”

     “You said something like that,” observed Herrera sourly.

     “The army has its hands in many things, one of which is the war against the communists. What a joke! It has its hands in other things too, even more lucrative. And illegal,” added Aminta.

     “The war is not a joke,” said Herrera defensively. “People are getting killed every day!”

     “More people will die when my father and Altrio get in. It will get worse. And they will take over the government soon: they just need a few more allies. They are having meetings in secret. Be careful of my father, Jose.”

     “Coups happen all the time,” replied Herrera dismissively. “But why didn’t I know about it? I thought he trusted me!”

     “Because my father is playing you.” Aminta gazed at her open palms, which were abandoned on her lap. “He found someone ambitious to take his unwanted daughter, who was grateful to be taken. He gave you a career, so his own could be more secret. And you played his daughter to be a big man yourself.  No one is entirely innocent. But I beg of you, Jose, please”—she took his hands again—“be careful of my father. Keep your distance. Be your own person. If it means anything to you.” Her dark eyes sought him out, and Herrera responded in the only way he could. He felt too weak to lie, and took her hands instead, kissing them again and again as he thought of his next move.

     Once he extricated himself with some tender words and promises—largely sincere at the time—Herrera drove directly to the station. He made up a lame excuse that it was unprofessional for a chief to bring his son along to an inspection and so got free of Nicolas as well. He was confused and shaken, and as he meandered through the traffic in Zone 1 and then zipped along the cemetery in Zone 3, his mind flitted from shock to shock. His wife’s perception was unnerving, and he did not want to believe she understood politics better than he did. But he had to accept that and had to accept that Colonel Hessler was using him as well. The trajectory of his life did not seem certain anymore, and his ambition roiled with feelings of humiliation. He was determined to be independent. That one promise to his wife was sincere then and later, but not in the way she understood. He was determined to be free of her as well, in all but formal ties. She was superior to him in many ways, and he could not bear that. She was attractive to him again, and that gave him less control over her. He thought of Julieta Ixtlan and imagined touching her fingers.

     He made the inspection of the station in Zone 7 brief and terrifying to his subordinates; then left on his real mission and made a big mistake. He took his own Datsun and forgot the police cruiser he normally used to cover his tracks. Only when on the other side of Zone 3 did he remember his wife might check the odometer; and almost simultaneously the oil light came on. “Damn!” he muttered. He knew about the oil leak, why hadn’t he checked it? He pulled over on Avenida Elena across from a bread shop called El Cisne and felt his heart beating. He was desperate and almost turned back, but there were five quarts of oil in the trunk, and once he poured three in the engine and still had a reserve, he felt safer. But as he drove further west the city seemed unreal and jumbled.

      There were more and more rundown businesses on each side of the road, with tin roofs and large, colorful signs: Pinchazo shops for tire repair, where the proprietors were filthy and hemmed in by piles of discarded rubber; tiendas with yellow and blue walls, or violet, or glaring green: anything to attract the eye. And there were restaurants with more muted walls, or perhaps simply more dirt, with patrons eating beans, eggs, and fried chicken; and cantinas with swinging doors blaring laughter and thought-drowning melodies. It all seemed desperate, with people running from distraction to distraction to distraction. In Herrera’s mood even the new churches which popped up every other block in day-glow colors, advertising various sects, appealed to a different kind of lost soul. It was all commerce.

     Before the city petered out completely, he arrived at a new, halfhearted development, and this was Zone 22, the last section along the west of the ravine and fault line that define the southern edge of Guatemala City. It felt like a colony, having roots elsewhere, was cleaner and newer than most of the city, and much less interesting and colorful. For now it was lower middle-class. It was not the sort of place the rich ever chose to live, and the extreme poverty in the shanties along the slope was still a different world. Herrera felt more comfortable once he turned off the Avenida Conquistador and parked on Tenth Calle a block south of La Esmerelda. Perhaps there was less corruption in this zone, or less corruption that affected him; then Herrera realized with a smile that he was going to a bordello after all.  In any case there was only a Catholic church in this district a couple of blocks away, giving the neighborhood one predominant religion and one predominant sin. When he thought of Julieta, however, he didn’t think of sin at all, and that was strange, considering his motives. He thought of her long black hair, so smooth it could have been oiled, how stubbornly she clung to her native costume, her lovely oval face, her sad eyes, and what she had seen with them.

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Chapter Seventeen

published on 2 October, 2026

The ravine

     “She’s not here,” explained Flora the barmaid, once he ordered his beer. Herrera was not foolish enough to ask after the Indian woman, who was nowhere to be seen, but he was surprised Rosa was absent. “Gone to the doctor,” the woman added lightly as she put away some glasses.

     “Something’s wrong with Rosa?” asked Herrera with alarm.

     “Oh, no. With the maid’s son. With Julieta’s boy. He’s had a terrible cough for days, and you know how Julieta guards him, but she was more than willing when Rosa offered to help. So they took a taxi downtown.”

     “How old is he?”

     “The boy? I don’t know. Five or six, probably. He’s small.”

     Herrera almost asked if the boy went to school but did not want to appear too interested. He calculated how old Julieta was when she got pregnant—probably a late teenager—wondered where the father was and what drove her from the lake. There were plenty of killings there in the war. He had no idea how long she had been in the city, or how she chanced upon Rosa. The pieces of her life didn’t hold together in his mind.

     “Want anything else?” asked Flora, with a teasing glance toward the young ladies behind him.

     “Ah, no—no thank you,” said Herrera pleasantly before he drained his glass. “I was just thirsty. I’m working today,” he added unnecessarily.

     “It’s never good to work too much,” replied the woman slyly. “You’re always welcome here, Captain.”

     He regretted leaving once he was outside and felt at a loss. Without thinking he got in his car, drove to end of Tenth Calle, and stopped on Sixth Avenida. He wanted to see the edge of the ravine in daylight, and the parting in the tall grass where Julieta stepped down the slope. The unfinished houses on the block weren’t scary during the day, just dusty and promising. Herrera got out of the car. A thin breeze was passing through, almost too weak to carry the clouds, yet they drifted above him in the current, steady, and magnificent.  The grass rustled, glinting green and gold in the sun, tickling his legs as he came up to the path. The ravine was mostly a deep green, with yellow ripening corn among the other vegetation, and the frond roofs of the shacks peeping through the stalks. He heard a few voices chattering below and decided to follow them. Maybe Julieta was back already; he would see where she lived, and then—he had no plan. With his flat shoes he slipped at the first curve and fell on his butt; then brushed off the seat of his pants and looked around to make sure no one saw him. He tasted the dust in his mouth. But his uniform protected him. When he finally came upon a man and woman tearing ears of corn, they studied him warily. “Can you tell me where Julieta Ixtlan lives?” he asked them. “She lives nearby, I understand.”

     “Yes, sir,” replied the man. “She lives at the bottom, on the other side of the stream. There are three houses there; she has the middle house.”

     The stream described in the directions was shallow and putrid, with waste carried from the slums downtown, and Herrera wondered where on earth the people nearby got their water. His eyes strained around for a tap or another feeding stream, but there was nothing. In front of him, as the man said, were three little shacks. The ones on either side were occupied, and an old woman on the left was stirring a pot over a fire. She knew better than to ask a policeman what he was doing but looked up from her cooking cautiously as he approached the neighboring hut.

     The house was empty, obviously empty, but Herrera knocked anyway when he came up to the door made of thin planks. His light tapping shook the house, and he observed carefully how the walls were made of stalks tied together, and how flimsy the roof was, of old banana leaves layered and tied together. Any storm could take it away! He felt incredible tenderness and excitement as circled the house, thinking of the utensils and possessions, clues to Julieta’s life, hidden away in such a fragile place. He didn’t wait for her, as he didn’t want to frighten her, so he made his way back to his car.

      Herrera watched the sky through the windshield and the possibilities of his life seemed to open up. He knew where she lived, he wanted to know more; he would be back. He moved his hand to turn on the ignition and go home when he heard a vehicle turn the bend behind him and saw a brown taxi in his rear-view mirror. It stopped a few paces from the grass, and Rosa left the front passenger seat, then turned around to pay the driver. Julieta stepped out of the back door in her Saturday best: the black and red skirt of Santiago and the blouse with embroidered birds.  She helped her little boy out of the cab, and he looked over curiously at Herrera’s miserable Datsun. His face was white, unusually white; and as he clung to his mother’s hand, his eyes studied the policeman’s car intently. Herrera thought: the father was a foreigner. That was another clue to Julieta’s history, and maybe why she left the village. Beyond his skin the boy had Mayan features like his mother, a long nose, straight black hair, and looked small and thin. His brown trousers had a hole in one knee, and he wore a T-shirt with red and white stripes. Almost immediately he began coughing. Julieta bent over him, moved him away from the cab, and cooed, “Mijo! Mijo! God bless you!” He couldn’t hear what the boy murmured in reply. The taxi drove away as Herrera stared fixedly in the mirror. He would have gotten out if Rosa wasn’t there but didn’t think it wise to mess with the Madame.

     Rosa looked over at the car as if she caught a hint of the policeman’s thoughts. She couldn’t make Herrera out with his face turned away and the glare of the window, but she obviously wondered what the Datsun was doing on an abandoned street. She gestured toward the path, and the little boy put out his hand to shake hers. She took it daintily and bent down quickly to hug him and send her charges away. Julieta glanced quickly at the car without seeming to take it in, then put her boy before her and walked downhill. Her luxuriant hair was streaming down her back, and that was the last Herrera saw of her. Without watching them long, Rosa turned away briskly and strode home, the model of an attractive and conservative businesswoman.

     The sight of two women conspiring to protect a little boy made Herrera ashamed of his own nature. He wanted Julieta and meant to redeem himself. First, he had to make his wife happy, and he bought her roses on his way home, as bright as her red dress. When he made love to Aminta that night, he made love to two women, one light and one dark, his intensity reserved for the one in his mind.

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     Thursday the bordello was closed. That once inconvenient fact gave Herrera the opportunity to see the Indian woman alone; so he planned to make it happen. He worked his usual irregular schedule the days before, staying late at the station Monday night, and coming home early the next to please Aminta, so that he would be free late in the week and not arouse suspicion. On Wednesday evening Colonel and Señora Hessler condescended to have dinner at the tiny Herrera residence in Zone 2. The Colonel came dressed in the full glory of his uniform and kept a driver waiting outside; Herrera presented himself in the lesser garb of his captain’s uniform and tolerated his father-in-law’s acidic politeness.

     Thursday morning Herrera left his Datsun at the shop to care of the oil leak, and at five o’clock, as the church bells around the city clanged, he took his squad car and headed downtown. Halfway home, after crossing the crack in the earth that divided the city, he turned west on the Avenida Cemeterio along the grounds where generations of former citizens were buried and honored and eventually forgotten. The road followed the rim of the ravine for miles as its name changed to Conquistador and ran through many changing circumstances in human lives.

      But today everything seemed hopeful to the policeman: the struggle and poverty along the road had purpose, as he had purpose; and the discordant colorful houses were a statement against despair. The lowering sun in the windshield was warm, brushing everything in pink light. He remembered Julieta standing and listening to the bell. Surely, she believed in God; then surely there was a God.

     He parked across from the path down the ravine as the sky was graying at six o’clock. Then he parted the cool grass and climbed down. He was going to introduce himself. She could reject him if she wished, for he would simply try again: he feared nothing as he approached the turgid stream. But when he crossed it the smell of waste lingered longer than he expected, and the hut in front of him was dark. For the second time it was empty, and this time he felt lost. On a clothesline stretching from the roof to a low tree were Julieta’s blouse and skirt, beautiful even in the low light. Herrera touched the intricate fabrics, smelled how fresh they were, and looked up, embarrassed, to see the neighbor watching him from a stool as she poked a new fire.

     “Julieta is not home?” he asked her.

     “She is working,” replied the woman shortly.

     “La Esmerelda is closed on Thursdays,” exclaimed Herrera with surprise.

     The woman studied him blankly and went back to poking her stick. “She is working.”

     “Where is the boy?”

     The woman did not bother to look at him again. “Someone is watching him,” she said to the fire.

     Herrera turned back and jumped over the insidious stream. A third of the way up the slope he glanced behind him at the hut and saw Julieta’s little boy carrying a bucket of water on his head to the woman at the fire. He wore the same shabby clothes as before and Herrera felt a twinge of jealousy at the boy’s white father.

     He left the squad car on Sixth Avenida and wandered toward the bordello. Was it open or closed?  What kind of ‘work’ could Julieta be doing? The questions roiled in his mind until he was a block away and had an answer. Lights were on throughout the house, there was music, and a number of cars were parked in front. So Rosa had lied to him after all. Yet even in his disappointment he saw something out of kilter in the scene. The cars were black Lincoln’s with tinted windows, chauffeurs, and even guards. Men with sunglasses and submachine guns stood casually beside cars parked strategically at either end of the block; and the policeman, with an equally casual air, made a right and walked away from them toward Eleventh Calle. He decided to try the back entrance.

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Chapter Eighteen

published on 9 October, 2026

A private party

     The men in the cars were phantoms: Herrera knew he was being mad. Yet he did not want to give up his pursuit of Julieta and strolled down Eleventh, looking for any spies. As he suspected, the door to the courtyard was unguarded.  More to his surprise it wasn’t locked: whoever put out the garbage was careless with the latch and provided his opportunity. He pushed the black metal gently, and heard the hinges squeal. But with the all the music inside no one heard him and he and moved into a shadow on his right cast by a banana tree along the wall. A pink halo glowed over the roof of the house and he felt invisible in the cool, silky light.

     The rear windows of the bordello were shuttered save for the view of the back stairway, and Herrera tried to imagine the party inside from the crass melody and gnarled laughter. Then he saw Julieta, in regular city clothes, descending the staircase with a tray of empty glasses. Her face looked somber and he read loneliness in her faraway eyes. He did not know why his life depended on this sudden chance and decided to intercept her in the kitchen. He stepped lightly across the courtyard and listened at the door until he heard something set on the counter; then he pulled the latch and walked in.

     But the woman whose back he saw wasn’t Julieta. It was Flora, the barmaid, wearing an elegant yellow dress. A tall young man in a blue suit was squeezing her bottom with his left hand. He looked over her shoulder with wide eyebrows raised in alarm. In his right hand was a .38 pointing at Herrera’s face.

     “Shall I shoot you now?” he demanded.

     “I’m unarmed,” replied Herrera as calmly as he could. He raised both hands warily.

     “Captain!” exclaimed the young woman with a sidelong glance. “What are you doing here?”

     “Visiting,” he replied glumly.

     “We’re closed on Thursdays!”

     “So I’m told. I guess this is a private party.”

     “You don’t know what you’re doing!” she said helplessly.

     Without moving his gun the phantom released his hold on the woman and motioned her aside. “So you know him?” he asked her.

     “He’s a regular customer, yes.”

     The phantom considered Flora carefully and seemed to be wondering whether she had slept with the intruder; then he returned to a more immediate question. “Who do you work for?” he asked Herrera.

     “No one—I’m a policeman.”

     “Yes—I see your wonderful blue uniform, Captain. I also know you’re all in somebody’s pocket. So again: Who is your master?”

     “I’m here on private business only,” persisted Herrera.

     The phantom studied the policeman even more keenly; then his face relaxed with a smile of chagrin. “Then you will have to speak to the Boss,” he explained. He patted Herrera to make sure he was unarmed. “Flora, stay here: you don’t want to see what happens next. But have some rags ready. Go through the next door, Captain, and move slowly to the salon. You must know where it is. If you do anything unexpected, I will shoot you.”

     Herrera moved carefully and kept his hands high. He sensed the gun’s nuzzle behind his head and felt a tingle where he thought the bullet would go. The private dining room next to the kitchen had a fresh clean smell and was empty. He also realized that the music was coming from upstairs only, and that there were voices in the front. Where was Julieta, he wondered? Why had he acted so boldly and stupidly?

     “Go on,” said the phantom calmly.

     Herrera stepped into the bar where he’d been sitting so morosely only nights before. To his left, in the salon, a number of men in business suits sat on the couches where the whores displayed themselves for customers under the romantic paintings of the beach. He could tell immediately, however, that they were not businessmen and that they were not visiting the bordello for pleasure. It was an L-shaped room, and the most relaxed of the men sat in an easy chair under a lamp in the corner where both couches met. He had a notebook on his lap and seemed to be concentrating on it. The other men leaned toward him deferentially. The man in the corner looked up, and Herrera recognized General Altrio from his wide mustache and the superior, benign expression that came across so well in photographs. The general saw the henchman behind Herrera, and the gun, but continued his conversation.

     “A dot by Yarhi’s name? Is he really a communist?”

     “He has always been a leftist, sir,” said the nearest man-out-of-uniform who was on the couch to his right. “He serves the guerillas in fact, if not on purpose, and he has decided to write about you. His position is that democracy is not possible with such a strong army. His father was a leader of the bus driver’s union. Eliminated in 1963. The son holds a grudge.”

     “That’s unfortunate,” agreed Altrio. “So you propose cropping another generation,” observed the general philosophically.

      “Well, sir, if Yarhi digs deeply enough—and from his past efforts I assume he will—than President Laugarud will be on to us. We may never be able to form a government. Laugarud must always consider you his friend,” insisted the subordinate harshly.

     “I am his friend,” replied Altrio with amusement. “In any case, the journalist Yarhi: since La Prensa publishes everything he writes, unfortunately he must go.” Altrio pressed down on the pad with his pen and twisted it. “May God rest his soul,” he sighed.

     “He may not be a real Christian,” added the subordinate.

     “All the more reason for the Lord to have pity on him, Major. Now: what has the cat brought in? Come here,” he motioned to Herrera.

     “A spy,” said the phantom. “He snuck in through the kitchen. He is apparently a regular customer here.”

     “I was wondering about the back entrance,” mused Altrio. “I’m glad you were alert, Miguel. Some people get distracted by amusements—my deputy, for instance, who is upstairs neglecting his responsibilities. Who do you work for, my son? Your name?” the general asked Herrera impatiently.

     “For no one, sir. I came here on a private matter, sir. I am Captain Jose Antonio Herrera. I run the police station in Zone 7,” replied Herrera.

     “Well, most people come to a whorehouse for private reasons,” observed the general. “But the coincidence of your sneaking in the back after seeing the guards posted in the front is a bit much for my taste.” He snapped his fingers. “Call Rosa here,” he ordered suddenly. “She’ll be able to identify him. Or not.”

     The officer sitting furthest away got up and went to the room next to the kitchen, where Herrera realized Julieta must be. Altrio leaned back comfortably in his chair. He looked over the prisoner with only the mildest irritation. “You can let the gun down, Miguel,” said the general with a modest wave. “Your arm will get tired. Captain Herrera will not move, will he?”

     “No, sir, I won’t.”

     “Good. Because if you do you will certainly die, whether you are innocent or not. Do you know why I let you listen to our conversation, my son?”

     “No, sir.”

     “Because I don’t fear you,” replied the general magnanimously. “If you are actually a spy, as seems likely, you will be dead in a few minutes and your knowledge will die with you. And if you are telling the truth, you are at least an intrepid person and may be of use to me.” He closed the notebook on his lap delicately and put it aside in a briefcase. He smiled as Señora Rosa shuffled in hurriedly with a light clap-clap of her sandals. She was wiping her hands with a towel, and though dressed casually, with a simple white blouse tucked into her skirt, she wore lipstick and looked as attractive as ever.

      “Is everything all right, General? Would you like some more drinks? Isn’t Flora here to serve you?” She looked around for the girl, and seeing Herrera instead, dropped the towel.

     “I told Flora to stay in the kitchen,” explained the phantom Miguel matter-of-factly. “What happens is not for her to watch.”

     “I see.” Señora Rosa hid her eyes by looking at the floor and balled up her fists. Then she extended her fingers with their painted red nails, placed both hands flat in front of each thigh, and bowed her head in supplication. “I know this man, General,” she said.

     “Is he really the captain of Zone 7?” asked Altrio mildly.

     “Yes, General. He is a regular customer here.”

     “Is he trustworthy?” asked the general more pointedly.

     Rosa looked up at the general and cast her eyes over to Herrera. They were black with disgust. “He is as trustworthy as any man, I suppose,” replied the madam. “He is unsatisfied by his wife and comes here to fill in the corners. Most men are unsatisfied by their women, and most women disappointed by their men. But I don’t believe he is any threat to you.”

     “Do you know why he came here today?” asked the general.

     “I have my suspicions, yes,” replied Rosa, speaking to the floor. “I have a maid who has a child. She is not employed to sleep with the men, only to clean. The captain does not understand, perhaps, that some women have dignity.”

      The men on the whores’ couches chuckled heartily, but Altrio silenced them with a stare. “Who is your master?” he asked Herrera suddenly.

     “I am a policeman,” replied the captain. Altrio studied him without expression and nodded to the phantom. Herrera felt the nuzzle tickling the back of his head.

      “Everyone has a master,” explained the general calmly. “And don’t tell me it’s Jesus-Christ-Our-Lord because you obviously don’t fear him. Now speak.”

     “Colonel Hessler, my father-in-law. He is my master,” blurted out the captain. “I didn’t want to embarrass him, I’m sorry. Please understand.” Dropping that powerful name did not alleviate the tension in the room at all, and everyone looked at him strangely. For the first time Altrio seemed worried and kept still with effort. Herrera knew the slightest sign would set off the trigger.

     “Two of you,” ordered the general. “Go upstairs and draw your guns. You, Major Martinez, will go as well,” he told the nearest subordinate. “Get my deputy and bring him downstairs. Interrupt his ‘rights as a man,’ if that is actually what he is engaging in, but bring him downstairs. Then we will see.”

     The three officers stood up with ludicrous synchronicity, took pistols out of their inside breast pockets, walked past the bewildered captain with clicks of their heavily polished shoes, and marched upstairs, the major taking the lead.

     “I wish they were quieter,” sighed Altrio to no one in particular. He looked to Rosa for sympathy, but she was too frightened to do anything but clasp her hands in front of her. “None of your girls will be hurt,” he added to her kindly as the trio upstairs broke open a door. After a scuffle and some shouts a collection of heavy steps began descending the wide stairs.

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Chapter Nineteen

published on 16 October, 2026

“You may be of use.”

     At the front of the men was Colonel Hessler, tucking a t-shirt angrily into his pants, which were still unbuckled. Three guns followed him, and the men holding the guns, all in freshly pressed suits, looked uncomfortable and officious. “This is ridiculous!” exclaimed Hessler at the landing. He stopped to buckle his pants and tighten his belt, then came down the rest of the stairs with a more arrogant stride. He was a tall, thin, and vain man, who went to the gym regularly, and took as a matter of course that all women, and especially the ones he paid, enjoyed his company immensely. He had slicked-back gray hair and a trim mustache that he loved to touch when no one was looking. Before he had a chance to collect his usual dignity, however, he saw his son-in-law standing stock-still a dozen feet from the general with a .38 to his head. Only the night before he had endured another dinner with the young man, all for the sake of his daughter.

     “What is this idiot doing here?” he cried in amazement. “Why am I under arrest?” He brushed past Herrera contemptuously and went straight for his boss. “What the hell is going on, General?”

     “Good questions, my friend,” replied the general. “Please sit down. Keep your guns on him,” added Altrio gently to the men behind. He waited as Hessler took the closest seat available on the general’s right, smoothed his hair, and glared incredulously at his son-in-law. “Do you have an answer for me, Colonel?” asked the general.

     “Of course not! If I had an answer for you, I’d know why this idiot is embarrassing me! He doesn’t even know about this place!”

     “He knew it well enough to sneak in through the back. If Miguel hadn’t been squeezing Flora in the kitchen, I might be dead by now,” replied Altrio calmly. “He is supposed to be a ‘regular’ customer, is he not, Rosa?”

     “Yes, General,” said the madam, nodding solemnly.

     “A ‘regular customer,’” repeated Colonel Hessler. He leaned to the left to get a better look at his son-in-law and tried waving away the men standing in his view. They refused to budge, however, and kept their pistols pointed at his heart. The colonel gave up with a snort. “This is beyond everything!” he said indignantly. “You’re humiliating my daughter—and me!”

      “The question, my friend,” observed the general, who was quite unmoved by the display, “is whether you told him to come here today, at this particular time, while you were safely hiding upstairs.”

     “What?”

     “Let me explain. If we succeed in our plans to save the country, I will become its president, and you will be my second. If, however, I am eliminated along the way, you are the person best placed to pick up the pieces, no? It seems simple enough to me.”

     “My General! I would never do such a thing! My loyalty is to you!”

     The general considered his deputy coldly. “Very well,” he said, waving away the three officers. The major was the last to lower his gun but made a point of taking the spot next to Hessler and patting his thigh affectionately as he sat down.

     “Thank you, my General, thank you,” said Hessler nervously. He nodded to the major and took a deep breath. Then he glared at his son-in-law.

     “You can put the gun away, Miguel,” said Altrio to the phantom. “Captain Herrera, tell me, because I want to make everything clear, and tell your father-in-law: Why did you come here today?”

     “I came on private business,” mumbled the captain. He was too ashamed to look at Hessler, and certainly not at Rosa, and put his hands in his pockets. Immediately he realized that was a stupid thing to do, and he brought them out again, splaying his fingers to show his hands were empty.

     “I know you’re unarmed, Captain,” said Altrio. “Please be more straightforward. I’m trying to understand the coincidence of your arrival on the very day this place is closed and we happen to be here. Who did you come to see?”

     “The maid, as Señora Rosa thought,” admitted Herrera sheepishly. “I knew the Esmerelda was closed today, I did not intend to come here, but when I visited Julieta’s house, it was empty. I had followed her at night a few days ago, so I knew where it was,” he explained. “Her neighbor told me she was at work, so I decided to see her, I can’t make more sense of it.”

     “You took a chance despite the guards out front?”

     “Yes, General.”

     “Why?”

     “It was the moment. Because I love her.”

     “Oh—ho, ho! Ha!” chuckled the major next to Hessler, patting his neighbor unconsciously again. Hessler turned to him with a face of ice. General Altrio looked Herrera over sternly, but without judgment, and Rosa crossed her arms.

     “Julieta is off-limits. She’s no plaything for any man, especially a hypocrite like you,” she said blisteringly. “Your behavior is pathetic! She has a little boy!”

     “I’ll shoot him now,” offered Hessler.

     “Don’t be so dramatic. Bring out the girl,” ordered Altrio.

     “I will not,” replied Rosa.

     “You will. I own this establishment, and I own you. Don’t make me say more.”

     Rosa faltered and uncrossed her arms. Then she walked meekly to the back room, and Herrera heard her whispering. “Me, Señora?” he heard in response. The voice was both husky and soft, and he found himself trying to recapture its notes. After a muffled “Yes” Julieta appeared at the doorway.

     Her city skirt was brown and faded, and even her white blouse had lost intensity after many washings. They looked like an ineffectual attempt at disguise. She glanced quickly at the powerful men ahead of her, then looked down as she approached to protect herself from their scrutiny. Even so the air seemed to change into something voluptuous. Her face had an oval shape and simple lines etched with softness. Her nose was sharper than otherwise, but never came to a point, and was restrained, like everything else about her. The restraint was intoxicating because it hinted at something else. Her hair was pure, shiny black, pulled back into a single braid. Her eyes were intense and wary, attuned to the effect of her beauty. She looked over the men in front of her carefully, and with surprise recognized the captain. Then she focused on the general and came closer to him almost silently, as if barefoot. Señora Rosa followed her protectively and kept an eye on the leering officers. Julieta stopped halfway into the V where the couches met at the easy chair and bowed her head to Altrio. She stood next to Herrera and pretended he wasn’t there. “You called for me, General,” she said.

     “You are Julieta?”

     “Julieta Ixtlán, General.”

     He took in the sound of her voice. “You are the cause of much trouble,” observed the general dryly.

     “How can that be?” she asked mildly.

     “The young policeman there, the captain, is in love with you, so he says. He went through the trouble of breaking in here today to see you, and I mistook him for an assassin. He came close to being killed. You are almost a deadly beauty, my dear. You may be deadly yet. Do you love her, captain?”

     “Yes. I admitted it already,” confessed Herrera sulkily. He got up the courage to look into Julieta’s eyes, but her attention remained fixed on the general.

     “It is not possible,” murmured the Indian woman in her troubling voice.

     “What’s not possible, my dear?”

     “He can’t love me. He doesn’t know me, at all!”

     “I’ve seen stranger things. Anyway his feelings are pure, at the moment. Do you love your wife, Captain Herrera?”

     “Is there a point to this, my General?” asked Rosa humbly. “He’s proven he’s innocent of a capital crime; his other crimes are not against you.”

     “For clarity, my dear Rosa,” replied the general indulgently. “I want my subordinates to know who they are and what they are. Otherwise I can’t trust them.”

     “I do not love my wife,” replied Herrera stonily. He sympathized with the hatred in his father-in-law’s face and felt hollow. He looked over at Julieta, standing like a statue, and wondered how she endured the eyes of the officers crawling all over her. Was he any better?

     “That’s fine,” interjected Altrio. “Hessler, this is for your benefit, you understand.”

     “How can that be, General? My daughter is humiliated. I am humiliated.” He ran a palm over his slick hair.

     “For your daughter—sincerely—I have sympathy, just as I have sympathy for your wife. As for you, you have the son-in-law you deserve: a political creature, with passions on the side. Did you yourself marry General Montenegro’s daughter purely out of love?”

     “I won’t say anything to dishonor my wife.”

     “Well put,” agreed the general with a smile. “Young lady, you may go,” he said in a fatherly way. He nodded distantly as Julieta bowed to him and turned away. She did not deign to look at the captain but lifted her face at Rosa as she tread to the safety of the back room.

     “She is off-limits,” the madam repeated to all the officers. She crossed her arms and jabbed the captain with her eyes.

     “Understood, Rosa,” replied Altrio. “Understood, no?” he urged his men. There were reluctant murmurs of assent. “Very well: and Rosa, please have Flora bring me another Coca-Cola; she can leave the kitchen now. And turn on the rest of the lights. The darkness is depressing.”

     After the madam left the salon Altrio focused on Herrera again, but merely watched him curiously, well aware that he made the young man uncomfortable. Hessler whispered something in the general’s ear. Then he cocked an eye at his son-in-law and leaned back into the couch. This time he patted the leg of the major next to him without glancing in his direction, implying that all was forgiven and that the other officer was still not his equal.

     If Herrera felt hollow before he began to feel more like a trapped insect. He had not moved for a long time and did not dare to move. He was amazed at his own stupidity and wondered if Julieta would ever understand he had lost his freedom on a whim, for her sake.

     “You may be of use,” decided Altrio after a while. It was only moments since the general had ordered his drink, yet in that time the sun deserted the planet completely and took the captain’s old life away. Flora burst into the salon with a happy face, carrying the general’s coke.

     “Thank you, Flora. A round for everybody else.” He did not order anything for Herrera and told him to come closer. “Sit down, here.”  He motioned to his left. As the captain took the spot on the couch closest to the general, he noticed that the phantom was not behind him anymore. “My best men are trained at Ft. Bragg,” Altrio advised him with modest pride. “The Americans are very good at certain things. Sometimes it’s necessary to be invisible. But sometimes I need a friend who is more in the world, so to speak. And does things invisibly when necessary.” Altrio nodded at the other officers on the couch, who got up and milled over to the bar. “Let them have their alcohol,” he whispered. “The girls will entertain them. We have business to discuss. Colonel,” he suggested to the captain’s father-in-law, “do you want to get the rest of your clothes?”

     “As you wish,” replied Hessler without resentment. He glanced smugly at Herrera, which did not give the policeman any comfort. Then he stood up, made his shoulders erect and strode manfully to the stairs. Señora Rosa came out to serve at the bar, saw that the general was taking a private audience with Herrera, and whispered to Flora. General Altrio leaned back regally in his chair and took a long drink from his coke. His gray eyes took in the captain from much further away, however, and Herrera did not make himself comfortable.

     “I am going to give you an assignment,” said the general as he put down his drink. “When you have completed it I will know you are of service to the Guatemalan army, and to me.”

     “Yes, my General,” said Herrera uneasily.

     “You have only heard one piece of my business. That is the piece you will be involved in. I want you to kill the journalist Anselmo Yarhi.”

     “General, that is not an assignment for me! I am not a killer,” Herrera protested.

     “You will be by midnight this Sunday,” replied the general evenly. “In any case he will be eliminated before Monday. You have until midnight on the holy day. If you succeed, things will go well for you and your family, and the people you care for.” The general glanced over at the door where Julieta had gone. “If you do not succeed, then you know too much, and things will not go well. Miguel will keep an eye on you. If you do not follow through, he will complete your assignment, and then one other. But maybe you are stronger than you think.” Altrio gave him a smile of benediction, patting him amiably on the knee, then got up, took his briefcase, and ambled to the bar.

     After that Herrera did not exist, either to himself, or anyone else in the establishment. He sat for a minute, stunned at what had transpired, and looked around. His father-in-law had joined Altrio at the bar and was dressed fully in a brown business suit like the other officers. He and the general were chuckling about something and had martinis. No one paid Herrera any attention. The captain stood up, straightened the creases in his uniform nervously, then walked toward the bar himself. But none of the men acknowledged him or offered him a seat, and Rosa and Flora let their eyes pass over him. Herrera walked numbly to the front door. He turned the knob, looked back, and saw his father-in-law observing him coldly. Then he went into the darkness outside and pulled the door shut.

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Chapter Twenty

published on 23 October, 2026

Yarhi’s file

     The guards by the Lincoln’s watched him lazily and let him wander south toward the ravine, keeping their triggers ready. A sliver of a moon lorded over the stars, but the milky light over the low houses was no solace, and Herrera felt like a ghost with nowhere to go. His life had changed. He turned to the right at Sixth Avenida and was finally out of sight of the gunmen. Only then he realized his heart was beating furiously, pump-pump-pump, washing adrenaline through his blood. He sought out his Datsun across from the path to Julieta’s shack and rested his palms on the cool hood. He tried to anchor himself in what he remembered and was normal. Herrera unlocked the car and sat in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t sure how many minutes had passed when the bells from Virgen Sagrada began to toll. What time was it—seven o’clock? Eight o’clock? He tried to count the strikes, but the pace of his heart distracted him. There was too much poison in his system.

     The captain remembered the Indian woman listening to the bells nights before and tried to conjure the intensity of what had held her. But he did not believe in anything, and that wisp of purity was ephemeral. He sat there listening to his heart. When Julieta turned the corner carrying a basket, he was not expecting her or in wait. She saw the car, turned her face away, and stayed close to the rim of slope, making her exit into the tall grass downhill. Captain Herrera did not follow her. Someone else did, however.

     A tall man in a suit, who must have been waiting in the shadows by the car, walked almost silently across the street to the edge of the ravine. He looked down after Julieta, and then playfully took his gun from his breast pocket and trained it on her. Once satisfied with his aim he quickly returned the gun to his pocket and straightened his jacket. He continued studying his target, tilting his head to the left like a dog trying to make sense of a command. Herrera watched with amazement and opened the door of the car as Miguel turned around. He walked up to the policeman jauntily. “She your girl?” he asked.

     “Don’t make fun of me,” growled Herrera as he stood up.    

     “Not me—I wouldn’t do that,” protested the phantom. “Listen, mano, you’re in a situation.” He frowned, and his wide eyebrows almost met in consternation. Herrera was surprised by the sympathy on the killer’s face. “I’m told you have a job to do,” he said. “Here—take this.” Miguel pulled a folded manila envelope from his right breast pocket and slapped it gently into Herrera’s palm. Standing so close Herrera got a whiff of the killer’s particular smell. It was clean. There was almost no trace of cigarettes and alcohol from the bordello, not even of cologne. Instead there was a subtle scent of soap. “We’ve been watching this guy,” explained Miguel. “Get to know him quickly. And let me be clear: if you don’t do this thing, your girlfriend will die, and her boy will die, and you will die. Those are the orders of the boss. Your wife and children will be spared, as they are part of Hessler’s family. By midnight Sunday. You need a gun?”

     “I’m a policeman—of course I have a gun,” protested Herrera.

     “No, no, I mean one that can’t be traced. Use this one.” He took a small silver .38 out of his side pocket like a spare piece of change. “One shot to the heart or the head, that’s enough. Just make sure he’s dead. It’s nothing personal. Then throw this away somewhere. Never get sentimental about a gun,” he added needlessly.

     “I’m sure you’ll be watching me,” observed Herrera.

     The phantom nodded with chagrin, then patted the policeman on his shoulder to brace him and said goodnight. Miguel put his hands in his pockets and walked into the shadows.

     An hour later Herrera came home with a look on his face so terrible that his wife let him escape early to his desk after an almost silent meal. He barely acknowledged the children, and once he was alone in his study his isolation was complete. He put on a sweater to ward off the chill, but the shiver was really in his bones.

     He put Miguel’s spare pistol in his top right-hand drawer, then smoothed over the crease in the envelope and opened it.  At first the document looked like any case file, giving Anselmo Yarhi’s name, address in Zone 2, occupation as a journalist, and numerous leftist connections. He was thirty-five years old. Under case status, “300” was written innocuously. That was his death sentence, and Herrera stared at it, studying the ink, and the simple, casual numbers. There followed a few pages describing Yarhi’s activities, his car, usual routes, and details about his wife and daughter. But Herrera’s eyes kept returning to the number. He had heard of “300” files and the bureaucracy behind them was something he never wanted to touch.

     “Three hundred,” he whispered to himself. It seemed to mean nothing.

     There were four large black and white photographs, slightly grainy and with a vertical crease in the middle, of Yarhi in different places. The first showed the journalist getting into a Chevy with his wife and daughter on a bright day. The girl was very small, four years maybe, and Señora Yarhi looked about thirty. It was hard to tell if she was pretty, but Herrera was inclined to assume a woman was attractive until proven otherwise—it made the field of play larger. They were all well dressed and must have been on the way to a function or to church. Herrera realized the woman was soon to be a widow and the child almost an orphan, but the idea was abstract and it was hard to feel sorry for them. He did feel pity for Anselmo Yarhi and even more for himself.

     The second photograph showed Yarhi at his desk in the newsroom of La Prensa reading copy. Herrera wondered whom the spy was inside the paper that took the picture. Then he looked more closely: another familiar figure was in the background of the image. It was Miguel the phantom, in casual shirtsleeves, talking to another reporter by a window. The next photograph showed Yarhi walking along Seventh Avenida in Zone 1. He was a slight man, unassuming in appearance, with a serious, preoccupied expression. Yarhi appeared to be wearing the same ruffled suit in each photograph. A few paces behind the reporter Herrera recognized Miguel again, following the subject. Herrera went back to the first photograph: there, at the end of the block and almost indistinct, he recognized Miguel watching the family get in the car. Herrera threw down the photographs on his desk.

     What game was this? An inside joke? Did the photographer always wait until Miguel was in the frame? To what point—to prove Miguel was working? Or to show that Yarhi was always shadowed by death? I am his death now, thought Herrera.

     The last photograph was taken out in the country and was the only one that did not have Miguel within the edge of the frame. The image showed Yarhi leaning against his car watching through binoculars as a plane landed in a field nearby. Written boldly in black ink over the sky was the number “300” underlined. It was where the reporter condemned himself.

     How could Yarhi be so foolish? Herrera did not understand why he pursued the story, especially since it involved drugs, and that meant certain retaliation. Didn’t he care about his family? The policeman stared at the last photo resentfully: he blamed Yarhi for getting him into the mess and forcing him to be a killer. He tried to picture the man as a target. As an intellectual leap that was much more difficult. He felt something strange in his stomach, and tried to swallow back a queasy, acid reflux: then he rushed to the children’s bathroom down the corridor, stuck his head in the toilet, and threw up. His dinner came up and something more; and still he retched, wanting to let out everything.

     “You’re choking! You woke up the children!” exclaimed Aminta. She was kneeling next to him in a bathrobe, rubbing his back, but he didn’t want to leave the security of the toilet.

     “Uughh! Aarghh!” he retched.

     “There’s nothing left, there’s nothing left!” his wife assured him, but Herrera kept staring at the vivid colors of his half-digested food. The smell was horrible. He breathed heavily. “Come on, get up, rinse out your mouth,” she urged him.  She pulled on his shoulder, and Herrera sat back on the floor. “There’s still more,” he protested. “I ate something bad.”

     “There can’t be anything. Can you stand up?”

     Herrera rubbed his forehead, then looked around the bathroom, and lifted himself up using the rim of the toilet. He staggered over to the sink and put both hands on it to support himself. “I ate something bad,” he repeated numbly. He turned on the cold water, splashed his face, and then rinsed his mouth repeatedly, spitting out everything. The acid taste wouldn’t leave and his throat burned. He was afraid to swallow.

     Aminta flushed the toilet. “What did you eat today?” she asked. “Where did you go?”

     “Nothing special, nothing different,” replied Herrera. “I don’t know. You aren’t sick? The children?”

     “No, we’re listening to you being sick. Why don’t you come to bed? I’ll clean up in here.”

     Herrera nodded, stepped out to the hallway and saw Nicolas and Lucia watching him from the doorways to their rooms. He lifted his right hand to acknowledge them, and to wave them off. “I’m okay,” he mumbled. “Sleep well—bad food.” 

     In the study he quickly put Yarhi’s file in the drawer with Miguel’s gun, and locked both away. Then he stared at the desk and listened to Aminta scrub out the toilet. The whiff of Ajax wafted in, but it couldn’t overpower the smell of vomit that followed him. When he finally went to bed, he smelled vomit in his pillow and his throat burned. He shivered himself into a ball, and Aminta put extra blankets over him as he fell asleep.

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Chapter Twenty-One

published on 30 October, 2026

When am I supposed to shoot him?

     When he awoke Friday morning, he realized he was a coward. He had lived his whole life as a coward, lying to get his way. Now he had to kill or die. He was still in a fetal position, felt the weight of the blankets, and threw them off resentfully: he was too dependent on his wife. He sat up on the bed. It was almost 7:00 am—he couldn’t be late. Even when he stood on his legs there was an odd angle to the room, and his throat was parched and sore. He felt wobbly. The thought of doing nothing, doing no more harm, was very tempting. He was less puzzled now by the kindness on Miguel’s face by the car.

     “You shouldn’t go to work today,” announced Aminta after he put on a bathrobe and ambled into the dining room. She eyed him sternly over a cup of tea. A family decision had been made in his absence, because the two children readily agreed. “You should stay home and eat fruits and watch television,” added Lucia.

     To their surprise he didn’t argue, and the children, usually so afraid of their father, fussed over him as he bent his face over a hot tea with lemon juice. He drank it slowly, letting it soothe his throat, but refused any food. Then he demurred slyly from his family’s commands. “I’m going to see the doctor first thing—and then an errand or two—and then more rest. Aminta, will you call the station please? Explain why I won’t be in.” He felt too weak to carry that particular lie.

     “I’ll drive you to the doctor.”

     “No, no—see the children off to school. I want to go there now, to the doctor’s, right away, to be his first appointment. I’ll be all right.” Herrera squeezed his wife’s hand and returned to the bedroom without a word to the children. Only after he closed the door behind him did he realize how thoughtless he had been. Yes, he thought, I am a coward, even avoiding my children’s eyes. He felt awkward in civilian clothes and chose a tan sports jacket he hadn’t worn in several years over black pants—anything but police blue. It felt stiff and had a stale smell of old sweat and deodorant.  Then he brushed his teeth but couldn’t lose the lingering scent of vomit. The smells followed him after he put on his watch and hurried to his study. There he unlocked the desk drawer, folded the envelope with the file, stuck it in a side pocket, and put Miguel’s gun in his inside breast pocket. It was 7:45.

     As he backed out of his garage, he saw a black Ford in his rear-view mirror parked across the street. Miguel was reading the newspaper inside and did not look back at him. He folded the newspaper carefully, started the car, and drove ahead of Herrera, making a right at the next corner. Obviously, Miguel was observing the policeman, but he had no intention of being his shadow—or was he? The Ford was out of sight when Herrera caught up to the intersection, and to the next one, yet he felt something around him. He looked in all his mirrors, and to the right and left—nothing. The taxi behind him honked impatiently, and he moved on to the address he had memorized: 4-23 Eleventh Calle, Zone 2. Yarhi did not live far away. 

     Herrera parked two doors south of the house he recognized from the file. It had a light blue wall facing the street, two barred windows and a yellow metal door with two locks. Since all the homes on the block were connected they seemed to share the same wall, and the only thing that distinguished one property from the next was the color of the paint and the type of door. Yarhi’s neighbor to the left had a red wall and a wooden door, which was more expensive than metal, and probably less secure. The neighbor on the right had a green house, and the effect of the three colors on the eye was jarring. The photograph of the place was more muted and unreal. Herrera looked at his watch. It was 7:55. Yarhi’s old gray Chevrolet was still parked in front, and the policeman waited. There was no sign of Miguel anywhere. Oddly enough, Herrera felt abandoned. As he sat waiting for his target he thought of how ill-prepared he was to be an assassin. He had never fired a gun except on a practice range. He had never been much of an investigator. He had received his position through guile and marriage and a close study of other people’s weaknesses. Now he felt his own inadequacies and the weight of Miguel’s gun rubbed against his heart.

     Twenty minutes passed.  The yellow door opened with a clang, swung into the house, and Yarhi stepped out hurriedly. He was carrying a briefcase that had been dropped a few times, and his gray suit, while presentable, was almost as worn. “Ansi!” It must have been his wife calling, and Herrera tried to picture her from the photo. Yarhi leaned back into the door.

     “Yes—what?”

     “Milk, bread, and tomatoes—don’t forget, okay?”

     “Got it, got it.”

     “French bread, too—Maria doesn’t like the other.”

     “French bread, okay. I’ve got to go.”

     He backed out again, and Herrera got a glimpse of the wife’s thin, pretty face before she closed the door. Yarhi felt for his keys, then looked troubled by something, and snapped the fingers of his left hand nervously. Whatever it was, he seemed to remember suddenly, because the cloud left his face, he unlocked the car and threw in the briefcase. The reporter glanced casually across the street at Herrera before getting in the car.

     The Chevrolet gave off a cloud of blue smoke before peeling away. Herrera kept his distance from the fumes, holding back from his target at least a block as the reporter turned into the traffic downtown. But Yarhi passed the block where La Prensa was and headed east on Sixth Avenida toward the tower in Zone 4. It was a metal structure, a modest imitation of the Eiffel tower built by the Americans during the First World War. Herrera suddenly thought: When am I supposed to shoot him? Should I have shot him in front of the house? He thought of the wife and daughter inside. No: but where? The cars were stuck in traffic. Bright morning light beat in through the windshield, the air was filthy with exhaust, and Herrera began sweating. Even with the bad air he smelled his stale sports jacket, and the taste of vomit was always in his throat. Eight cars ahead he saw Yarhi’s left arm hanging out the window, his hand tapping the side of the door.

     When the traffic finally eased the reporter continued mysteriously into Zone 12, leaving a trail of blue smoke. Herrera, who was trying to avoid any interest in his target, anything personal at all, became curious about what drew Yarhi into the southern section of the city, where his car stood out with its horrible exhaust. The Chevrolet turned into a tree-lined avenue and followed it to a newer development. There was only one possible destination.

     The campus of San Carlos University was at the end of the road, and Herrera slowed down to gain more distance. He let Yarhi completely out of sight, then sped up until he saw blue smoke dissipating around the next turn. After he passed through the gates of the school, he saw the reporter parking at the far end of the visitor’s lot. Yarhi got out of his car, slammed the door shut with his briefcase, and checked his watch. He walked quickly past the administration building, a beautiful, airy design with diagonal beams of concrete that made the structure look like a squat diamond. Herrera parked quickly and would have lost the reporter completely except for the sound of a door slamming the next building over, which he took to be an effect of the reporter’s haste. The policeman brushed through a throng of students in a courtyard and came to a pair of glass doors. They led upstairs to a cafeteria.

     Yarhi had his back to the rest of the room as he sat at one of the round tables by the corner window. In Herrera’s mind it was a sign that Yarhi had no idea he was being followed, for he did not look behind him at all. He was sitting with none other than the major who had been advising Altrio the night before. Today the major was in shirtsleeves and looked completely comfortable in the university setting. The two were discussing something in low voices; then the major leaned back and motioned to another person a couple of tables away. The third man was a functionary who looked ill at ease. He was thin and wore a suit only slightly less rumpled than the reporter’s, but carried an immaculate black briefcase, which he brought to the corner table after the major’s command. The functionary sat down.

     Immediately the major got up and walked away without a word. As he passed Herrera, who was trying to be inconspicuous at a table by the exit, he arched a disapproving eyebrow and left the cafeteria as if he never meant to be there. Herrera wondered nervously who was being played, himself or Yarhi—probably both. Reporter and functionary opened their briefcases. The official, after consulting some documents, began briefing Yarhi, and the reporter took notes. After a while, however, Yarhi’s demeanor seemed to change. He wrote less and less, leaned back abstractly, and then appeared to ask some questions. The official looked flustered.

     Herrera looked around the room at the students and professors eating and discussing things at their tables. If he knew anything, they were all being watched. But he couldn’t figure out who the spy was, and the reek of his jacket made him self-conscious. He took out the only papers he had, the file on Yarhi, so that he would blend in reading something, and looked over the text until the number “300” began echoing in his skull. He wanted to go outside.

     After a few more questions the official nodded at the reporter, and with a pinched face collected his papers. He closed the briefcase, got up, and left the cafeteria as efficiently as someone with stolen money. Yarhi looked after him skeptically and lit a cigarette. As he smoked, he gazed out the window but did not go over his notes. Then he twisted halfway in his chair and looked carefully around the room. The policeman quickly glanced down at the file and began putting it away. Most of the people in the cafeteria were shuffling out for classes at ten o’clock. Yarhi placed his notes in his relic of a briefcase and joined the exodus.

     The reporter walked with a lope, and since Herrera kept his eyes down, he saw that Yarhi was pigeon-toed. The defect didn’t hinder his movements, but it made him look, oddly enough, like a hipster. When he snapped the fingers of his free hand, as he was doing now out of nervousness, it looked like he was listening to jazz. Moving to the unheard music Yarhi followed everyone else to the courtyard and Herrera waited patiently until the cafeteria was almost empty before pursuing him.

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