“It’s never happened to you, compadre?” Felícito asked. “You never had one of those letters, demanding money?”
He was surprised to see that Colorado Vignolo had a strange expression on his face; he seemed to be in a daze and for a moment didn’t know how to answer. There was a guilty gleam in his hooded eyes; he blinked incessantly and avoided looking at his friend.
“Compadre, don’t tell me you…” Felícito stammered, squeezing his friend’s arm.
“I’m no hero and don’t want to be one,” Colorado Vignolo replied in a quiet voice. “So yes, I am telling you. I pay them a small amount every month. And though I can’t prove it, I can tell you that all or almost all the transport companies in Piura make those payments too. It’s what you should have done instead of being reckless and confronting them. We all thought you were paying too, Felícito. What a foolish thing you’ve done. I can’t understand it and none of our colleagues can either. Have you lost your mind? My friend, you don’t get into fights you can’t win.”
“It’s hard to believe you’d bend over for those sons of bitches,” Felícito said sadly. “I swear I can’t wrap my mind around it. You always seemed like such a tough guy.”
“It’s not much, a small sum that’s included in general expenses.” Colorado shrugged, embarrassed, not knowing what to do with his hands, moving them as if they were in the way. “It’s not worth risking your life over something so minor, Felícito. That five hundred they asked for would’ve been cut in half if you’d just been willing to negotiate with them, I can tell you that. Don’t you see what they’ve done to your business? And on top of that, you put that notice in El Tiempo. You’re risking your life and your family’s life. And even poor Mabel’s, don’t you realize that? You won’t ever be able to stand up to them, as sure as my name’s Vignolo. The earth is round, not square. Accept it and don’t try to straighten out the crooked world we live in. The gang’s very powerful, it’s infiltrated everywhere, beginning with the government and the judges. You’re really naïve to trust the police. It wouldn’t surprise me if the cops were in on it. Don’t you know what country we’re living in, compadre?”
Felícito Yanaqué barely listened to him. It was true, it was hard for him to believe what he’d heard: Colorado Vignolo making monthly payments to those crooks. He’d known him for twenty years and always thought he was an upstanding guy. Fuck, what a world this was.
“Are you sure all the transport companies are making payments?” he repeated, trying to look into his friend’s eyes. “Aren’t you exaggerating?”
“If you don’t believe me, ask them. As true as my name’s Vignolo, if not all, then most. This isn’t the time to play the hero, Felícito my friend. The important thing is to be able to work and have your business run smoothly. If the only way is to make payments, you make them and that’s the end of it. Do what I do and don’t stick your neck out, compadre. You might be sorry. Don’t risk what you’ve built up with so much sacrifice. I wouldn’t like to attend your funeral Mass.”
After that conversation, Felícito couldn’t shake his depression. He felt sorrow, pity, irritation, astonishment. Not even in the nighttime solitude of his living room, when he played the songs of Cecilia Barraza, could he think about anything else. How could his colleagues let themselves be squeezed this way? Didn’t they realize that by giving in they were tying their own hands and feet and compromising their own futures? The extortionists would demand more and more money until the businessmen were bankrupt. It seemed that all of Piura was out to get him, that even the people who stopped him on the street to embrace and congratulate him were hypocrites involved in the plot to take what he’d achieved after so many years of hard work. “Whatever happens, don’t you worry, Father. Your son won’t let those cowards — or anybody else — walk all over him.”
The fame the little notice in El Tiempo brought him didn’t change Felícito Yanaqué’s orderly, diligent life, though he never got used to being recognized on the street. He felt embarrassed and didn’t know how to respond to the praise and expressions of solidarity from passersby. He always got up very early, did qigong exercises, and arrived at Narihualá Transport before eight o’clock. He was concerned that the number of passengers had gone down but understood it; after the fire at his business, it was to be expected that some clients would be frightened, afraid the crooks would seek reprisals against the vehicles and attack and burn them on the road. The buses to Ayabaca, which had to climb more than two hundred kilometers on a narrow, zigzagging route along the edges of deep Andean precipices, lost something like half their customers. Until the problem with the insurance company was resolved, he couldn’t rebuild the offices. But Felícito didn’t care that he had to work on a board and barrels in a corner of the depot. He spent hours on end with Señora Josefita, going over the surviving account books, bills, contracts, receipts, and correspondence. Fortunately, they hadn’t lost too many important papers. The one who couldn’t be consoled was his secretary. Josefita tried to hide it, but Felícito saw how tense and unhappy she was at having to work in the open, in plain view of the drivers and mechanics, the passengers who arrived and departed, the people who lined up to send packages. She confessed as much, her somnolent face pouting like a little girl’s.
“Having to work in front of everybody makes me feel, I don’t know, like I’m doing a striptease. You don’t feel like that, Don Felícito?”
“A lot of those guys would be happy if you did strip for them, Josefita. You’ve heard all the compliments Captain Silva pays you whenever he sees you.”
“I don’t like that cop’s comments at all.” Josefita blushed, delighted. “And even less the way he looks at me you know where, Don Felícito. Do you think he’s a pervert? That’s what I hear. That the captain only looks at that on women, as if we didn’t have anything else on our body, hey waddya think.”
On the day the notice came out in El Tiempo, Miguel and Tiburcio asked to see him. Both of his sons worked as drivers and inspectors on the company’s buses, trucks, and jitneys. Felícito took them to the restaurant in the Hotel Oro Verde in El Chipe for shellfish ceviche and a Piuran dried-beef stew. A radio was playing and the music forced them to speak in loud voices. From the table they could see a family swimming in the pool under the palm trees. Felícito ordered soft drinks instead of beers. From his sons’ faces he suspected what was on their minds. Miguel, the older one, spoke first. Strong, athletic, white-skinned, with light eyes and hair, he always dressed with some care, unlike Tiburcio, who rarely changed out of jeans, polo shirts, and basketball sneakers. At the moment Miguel wore loafers, corduroy trousers, and a light blue shirt with a racing-car print. A hopeless flirt, he had the vocation and manners of a snob. When Felícito had forced him to do his military service, he thought that in the army Miguel would lose his rich-kid affectations, but he didn’t — he came out of the barracks just as he’d gone in. As he had more than once in his lifetime, the trucker thought: “Can he be my son?”
The boy wore a watch with a leather band that he kept stroking as he said, “We’ve thought about something, Father, and talked it over with Mama.” He was blushing, as he always did whenever he spoke to his father.
“Oh, so you two are thinking,” Felícito joked. “I’m glad to know it, that’s good news. May I ask what brilliant idea you’ve had? You’re not going to consult the witch doctors of Huancabamba about the spider extortionists, I hope. Because I already consulted with Adelaida, and not even she, who can foretell everything, has any idea who they can be.”