Minutes, hours, the entire afternoon goes by, and Bustillo still hasn’t called.
In that time, Rita has finished her article, and gone into Matías’s office brandishing her three pages, victorious. This time that bald-headed fool will have to congratulate her. She’s eaten her salad while chatting with Villalta, who’s feeling incredibly restless from the long wait. Now she’s working on the in-depth report, making use of some of the comments Bustillo made on the phone (even though they’ll print the entire transcript separately) to question the theories that the crimes are part of a conspiracy to destabilize the government, or are acts of retaliation by drug traffickers.
She’s received several calls from colleagues who have been following the story, from girlfriends looking for gossip about the “vipers,” and one from Roger. She told him that the arrest of the lunatic with the snakes is largely dependent on her, much to the disgust of Villalta.
And just as Handal predicted in the afternoon, Jacinto Bustillo waits until dark to call her back, when Rita’s nerves are completely shot from waiting.
She gets the call at seven-oh-three. She’s barely halfway through her article.
The murmurs start at the switchboard and grow like an enormous, threatening wave.
When her phone rings, everyone at the newspaper is shaking.
Villalta immediately contacts headquarters.
A loaded, airless silence falls over the editorial office.
Many reporters who already finished their assignments have stayed behind just for this moment.
After the fifth ring, she lifts the receiver.
Matías and Villalta are watching her tensely, as if they’re afraid he’ll hang up the phone at the first sign that something’s up.
“Hello,” she says, trying to control the tremor in her voice. The urge to pee and to bite her nails has gone.
“It’s me again,” says the voice, calm and mellow.
Her phone is programmed to record and it’s on speaker so the entire staff can listen in.
“Don Jacinto, I’d like you to help me, I don’t want to print anything that isn’t true. Please, let me ask you a few questions.” She’s talking quickly, vehemently, not giving him a chance to cut in. “What’s your real motive for these attacks? What do you mean when you say you’re trying to complete your mutation? Could you clarify what you said about it being an act of sheer will that changed you into what you are today? Do you feel any remorse for what’s happened and for the people who have died?”
He doesn’t answer. It’s as though Rita’s barrage of questions has stunned him.
“Don Jacinto, I’d also like to know about your relationship to the snakes,” she adds, staring at the paper she scrawled notes on while she was eating and Villalta was explaining how to keep a suspect on the line.
“Where and how did you get them? How many are there? What kind are they? Do they follow your commands or do they act on their own? Why didn’t they bite your wife?”
“I told you not to ask me any questions,” Bustillo mumbles distractedly. “I called you because I was surprised that your newspaper devoted so much space to the ladies’ work. This is the first time you’ve talked about me, and you haven’t even met me. But something tells me you aren’t being honest with me.”
He slams the phone down. The newspaper office erupts into chaos.
Villalta radios headquarters to see if they were able to trace the call. El Zompopo, Jonás and Rita will ride with him to cover the arrest; it’s part of the deal the Deputy Commissioner made with the news editor.
Handal orders him to hurry to the southwest end of the city. All units are headed there, near San Mateo, where the Bustillos lived. A helicopter squad and a Special Forces unit armed with flamethrowers are also on their way.
Rita doesn’t even turn off her computer; she nearly slips as she runs down the stairs. She gets in the Nissan just as Villalta is pulling out. She knows she’ll have the full story now, but Jacinto Bustillo’s final words to her play over and over in her head: “Something tells me you aren’t being honest with me.”
FOUR
I slept soundly, until noon, when heat, hunger and thirst woke me. I was sore from the beating I’d taken the night before, tired of all the commotion, and hungover. My body was just getting used to its new condition. The ladies weren’t in the car; perhaps they’d used the broken windshield to get out and lie in the sun. They too were tired, and unafraid of being discovered in the middle of the scrapyard. I was surprised no employee had come by to ask about the yellow Chevrolet. We were lucky we hadn’t been noticed. The caretaker at the gate was probably an illiterate who didn’t follow the news. It was noon on a Saturday and the place was completely deserted. It was just for us, as we deserved.
I got out of the car to stretch. A harsh sun beat down on the empty grounds. I drank some water and found one of the bottles of rum I’d taken from Raúl Pineda’s house. I laid out some of the leftover upholstery next to the Chevrolet and lit a small fire, poured some water into one of Don Jacinto’s empty tin cans, tossed in the pieces of Valentina’s flesh and got ready to make a soup that would energize me. While I waited for the water to boil, I picked up the bottle of rum, took a long swig and started to limp around the scrapyard, curious to see whether I could find any escape routes. And then I saw the ladies: the three of them, looking like those schoolgirls you see lying together at the beach enjoying the sun and the stares of onlookers. They didn’t notice me. I kept walking. I inspected the fence that surrounded the yard. The part that faced the street was made of grey brick, but the areas next to the empty lots on either side of the scrapyard were made of chain link and had several holes in them. The far side ended abruptly at a ravine with a stream at the bottom. The yard was the size of a city block. Dozens of cars were piled up haphazardly. On my way back to the Chevrolet I found a faucet. I turned it on and a small but steady stream of water came out. The soup still hadn’t boiled. I walked back over to the ladies. I sat down on the ground, in a thin shadow cast by a stack of three car frames. I took another sip of rum.
“This is my last cigarette,” I said.
I crumpled the pack into a ball and threw it as far as I could.
They were in another world, in a state of such total relaxation and enjoyment that neither I nor anyone else could reach them; so peaceful they seemed almost harmless. They were all so different; each had her own character, her own style, her own look. And yet they were so supportive of one another, so committed in their affection. I missed Valentina, the most beautiful and sensuous, the warmest of them. I started to feel the nostalgia and sadness of someone who remembers a loved one.
“I’m making a soup with Valentina’s remains,” I mumbled.
They continued to ignore me.
I took another sip of rum, went back to the car and took out Valentina’s skin so it could dry in the sun. The soup was boiling now, but I wanted to wait for the meat to be ready. It had to be tender and delicious, worthy of a girl like her. And since I didn’t have any seasoning, I looked for the bags of marijuana I’d taken from Raúl Pineda’s table and emptied them into the soup.
Moving all that junk around, I found a small radio in a corner of the car, behind the empty cans. It worked perfectly, as if it had new batteries. I tuned in to a news update on the state of emergency that had been declared by the Presidential Palace because of an imminent snake attack. In the end, it turned out to be a false alarm caused by a yellow Ford whose driver had nothing to do with the perpetrator of the attacks destroying the city. The announcer said Rita Mena, a journalist with Ocho Columnas, was at the scene at the Presidential Palace covering an emergency cabinet meeting, and reported that stress and tension were prevailing even at the highest levels of government. Other sources claimed it was the reporter herself who had raised the alarm when she saw the yellow car as she entered the Presidential Palace.