Elvis waited a few minutes before testing his bonds. It was a good thing the men who had tied him up were nitwits because Elvis had never learned the finer points of undoing knots. He relied on stretching the rope and wriggling out of it in a rather clumsy manner, but it worked. He managed to untie himself.
Quickly Elvis put on his jacket and stuffed his possessions in his pocket. Then, curious, he looked into one of the many cardboard boxes around the room. It was filled with black-and-white flyers. The flyer said “UNITE!” in big letters. “Wake up to the struggle!”
The door to the storage room was garbage, and he jimmied his way out using his screwdriver; he didn’t even have to actually pick the lock. A couple of quick, efficient strokes and the door opened.
The Russian was gone, but outside the storage room was one of the men who had tied him to the chair. He looked quite startled by the sight of Elvis. Elvis paid him back by slamming him against the wall and kneeing him in the balls, then punching him once he was groaning and doubling over.
Elvis would have liked to pluck out the asshole’s fucking eyeballs, he would have liked to have found the damn Russian and slammed his screwdriver into his ear, but there was no time to waste. The storage room was on the ground floor, behind the stairs, and he sprinted his way to freedom.
Once outside, he kept running and didn’t stop until he was out of breath. His lungs were on fire, sweat dripped down his brow, and his hands were trembling. He didn’t know what to do. His training had taught him how to beat people and how to spy on them, but not much of this stupid game he was caught in.
El Güero was going to make fun of him, he knew it. He was going to say, you sad little fucker, getting beat up. And the Antelope wouldn’t be much better. El Gazpacho would have known what to do now, would know how to piece together all the info and deliver a report, cool and composed, but Elvis had no idea what was what.
Fuck, he’d been tortured by a damn KGB agent.
He found a public telephone in front of a tlapalería. He wiped his mouth with the back of his jacket’s sleeve. Copper. His mouth tasted of copper.
He grabbed the receiver, tossed a coin, and dialed El Mago’s number.
“Yes?” El Mago asked.
“Something happened, I need to come in,” he said. El Mago didn’t normally have any of them at his place—it was a rare treat—but he figured this was a special occasion.
There was silence.
“See you in half an hour,” El Mago said. “Bell number twelve, ring four times.”
Elvis hung up. Two streets from the tlapalería he hailed a cab. His face ached, and he rubbed his jaw.
He had almost forgotten El Mago’s address, and for a moment he panicked, thinking he wouldn’t be able to find it. But in the end he managed fine and rang the bell El Mago had indicated, four times. El Mago buzzed him in without a word.
Elvis climbed the stairs rather than using the old elevator. He didn’t need to knock. El Mago opened the door and let him in. El Mago took one look at Elvis and turned away from him.
“You need ice,” he said. “Come to the kitchen.”
The kitchen was as fabulous as the rest of the apartment, and despite the pain in his jaw he let himself admire it. The counters and cabinets were done in a dark wood, very classy, with silver knobs, and there were blue-and-white tiles on the walls. Nothing to do with the dirty linoleum and rickety furniture of Elvis’s childhood.
El Mago took out a few ice cubes and wrapped them in a kitchen rag. “What happened to you?” he asked, handing him the rag.
Elvis pressed it against his face. “I followed that woman, Maite, to Asterisk. I figured I’d go in there and do some talking with those artists, see what I could find, maybe even chat with her myself. Well, that shit priest we talked to the other day was also there. He recognized me and raised hell. There was a motherfucking Russian with him. He beat me up.”
“A Russian. Really?”
“No joke. And what’s worse, I still don’t know where this chick is. It’s like she’s vanished. Oh, and DFS? They’re on the same path as us.”
“How do you know that?”
“We’re not the only ones watching that woman’s building. There were other folks there. I can’t say who they were, but the name Anaya ring a bell? Justo said he might be into this whole thing.”
“Anaya.” El Mago shook his head. “Yes, I know Anaya. He is a nosy bastard who wants to climb up the ranks using my bones to lift himself up. Dirty thief.”
“Thief?”
“He has a side business smuggling stolen American cars into the country. It came out a little while ago, and it’s gotten him in a bit of trouble. That wouldn’t have been tolerated in my day, but now!” El Mago made a fist. “He believes if he can make me look bad, he can make himself look good. If he gets those pictures before I do, it’s all over. It is over for me and it is over foryou. You understand?”
Elvis nodded. “I told the Russian I worked for Anaya. Figured it was better than saying I worked for you. And maybe he’ll go and stab that fucker instead of us, if he feels like it.”
Elvis switched the rag with the ice from one cheek to the other. El Mago crossed his arms, deep in thought, then began walking toward the living room. Elvis followed him. He glanced at the pictures above El Mago’s upright piano. There were two little girls in several photos. A younger El Mago with other family members.
