Dennis returned his grin briefly. “How can you be sure the cops you chose aren’t corrupt?”
“Well, that is relative, no? They came from a corrupt system. Anyway, I would put my hands in the fire for my comandantes. When I was a reporter like you, they were my best… fuentes.”
“Sources,” the blond woman said. Méndez nodded gratefully. She left off chewing her pen and picked up the pace. “Licenciado Méndez. The case that made your group famous is still pretty interesting to those of us north of the border. I mean when you arrested the chief of the state police in October with the two tons of cocaine and the dead bodies. Could you tell me where that stands?”
The arrest of Chief Regino Astorga of the state police, also known as the Colonel, had been something of a fluke, Méndez explained. Acting on a tip, the unit raided a warehouse, found the cocaine-and the Colonel and his state police detectives standing over three freshly tortured bodies, one of them a boss in a powerful cartel.
“We have confidence that he will be convicted, no matter how influential he is,” Méndez said. “That case shows that this city, this country, is capable of change. We came close to war between police forces, but it was worth it.”
“One thing,” Steinberg said cautiously. “Supposedly the Colonel worked for a new cartel that is pushing out the old groups. What exactly is this new mafia?”
“As well as drugs, we think they are connected to the increase in illegal immigrants from other nations, especially Asiatics and Arabs. In recent years in Mexico we have had an era of drug lords who were vicious, politically connected businessmen, then drug lords who were crazy pistoleros. This mafia combines both traditions. It also has unusual international connections. Including elements of American agencies, I should tell you. The new mafia is opening the valves of corruption and violence in a way I have not seen before.”
Steinberg gulped coffee, fueling herself. Dennis watched her with mixed resentment and interest. Méndez could picture the interview from her perspective, gauging how hard to push, the questions building on each other.
“But is it really a big mystery who this mafia is? What about the allegations that the Ruiz Caballero family is aligned with them?”
Méndez wished that they were talking one-on-one. He reminded her they were off the record. He said: “Drug lords come and go. But certain elites have enduring power, both legitimate and criminal. They have alliances with gangsters. I can say nothing right now, responsibly, about the names you mention. But that family definitely belongs to the super-elites.”
“Listen, I give you credit,” Dennis interjected, interrupting the blonde’s rhythm, her blue eyes jumping at him in annoyance. “How can you do what you do?”
Méndez wasn’t sure he understood the question. “It was difficult to change mentality when I began the job. There was a time when I believed, as Bakunin said, that society organizes crimes, and people only execute them. That all police were repressive and corrupt.”
“Yeah,” said Dennis, whose eyes had glazed until the word “corrupt.” “It’s such a cesspool. The police running dope, the government stealing elections-”
“Excuse me, elections?” Méndez said.
“Um, yes.”
“Pardon me,” Méndez said. “Elections are one thing here that is not corrupt. Even despite the recent crisis of government.”
“That’s well known,” Steinberg said forlornly, hoping to get back on track.
“Is it? What does television show Americans about Mexico? It amazes me to watch the news of San Diego. They start: a story about animals in distress. An important topic in the United States. Some dogs got mistreated in La Jolla. A fire burned a stable in, eh, Carlsbad. And by the way, seven Mexicans were shot in Baja. Fifteen Mexicans killed in bus crash. Corrupt Mexicans steal elections. But first, the sports.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Dennis said, his Adam’s apple bobbing in discomfort.
“And the corruption. Isn’t it curious we know the names of the Mexican drug lords, nombres y apellidos, and nothing about the American ones? Who are the American drug lords? Who protects them?”
“It seems to me,” said Dennis, “that the big traffickers in the U.S. are Colombians and Mexicans in immigrant communities.”
“But it’s impossible no Anglo-Saxon names are involved,” Méndez said. “Like the traffickers of arms in Phoenix and Las Vegas who sell guns to the narcos of Tijuana. And the legal gangsters: the businessmens who are partners of Mexican companies that launder drug money? American corporations, banks? I remember in New York years ago when they arrested all those Wall Street people and walked them in Wall Street in chains. Marvelous. You should do this every year. A parade, like Thanksgiving.”
“They say you are pretty left-wing,” Dennis said tersely.
Méndez grimaced, his eyes narrowing. “Ah sí? I’m not sure what is left-wing anymore. Señor Dennis, I answer your question: Why do I do what I do? At this point in my life, the most revolutionary thing I can do is to be a policeman. To arrest people regardless of who they are, what power they have. In this place, in these times, enforcing the law has become an act of subversion.”
The silence filled with the scratching of the woman’s pen on her notepad. Méndez looked at her until she glanced up and smiled.
“I have talked too much,” Méndez said. “Thank you for coming.”
During the good-byes, he accepted when Steinberg asked quietly if she could talk to him again soon. Having done his part to advance inter-American understanding, Méndez summoned Athos and a driver.
They drove to the Río Zone, the modern downtown east of the Avenida Revolución tourist district. They entered the square-block complex housing the courts and the state police behind a brawny detective with a prisoner in tow. The detective wore a flower-print shirt, denim jacket and cowboy boots. His pawlike hand rested lightly on the long-haired youth’s shoulder. The prisoner was not handcuffed. This was the macho style of the state police; they believed no prisoner would dream of running from them.
It was cold in the long drab hallways of the justice complex, one of those Tijuana government buildings with cinderblock walls that generated either an insidious chill or sweatbox heat. Méndez and Athos stepped over regularly spaced streams of water on the floor, leaks from the radiator system.
The receptionist wore a high-necked sweater and scarf along with her miniskirt. Her cheerful greeting contrasted with the glares of half a dozen cops, aides and other officials lounging in the outer office. A standard welcome for the Diogenes Group.
“Ah yes, from the Special Unit. Licenciado Losada is expecting you. And Commander Fernández Rochetti. Please go in.”
Deputy Attorney General Albino Losada, chief of the state prosecutor’s office in Tijuana, greeted them glumly. His narrow shoulders were encased in a trench coat that was belted against the cold. He had a small mustache jammed up under a pointy nose. He remained standing with his fists in the pockets of the coat. Losada’s predecessor had been murdered. His predecessor’s predecessor had been arrested with great fanfare, then released and fired. It was Losada’s custom to pace behind his desk, giving the impression that he was about to bolt from the room.
Homicide Commander Mauro Fernández Rochetti, meanwhile, reclined in a chair to the left of the desk. He looked more comfortable in the large, sparse office than Losada. Fernández Rochetti crossed his legs in shiny gray slacks and lit a thin cigar.