THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK NINE: BOOK of the JAGUAR PRIEST

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The sun, so much nearer this high place of the earth, assailed the weary eyes of the Tatoob when he woke in a strange hotel. The overcast had passed on and the Federal District shimmered like a rare jewel, only minutely clouded from the vapors of a few motorcars. Silvestro sat upon the edge of the bed, awaiting the passing of his vertigo. Almanzar was sprawled across another bed and snoring loudly. The Tatoob sighed deeply and counted to twenty before attempting to stand. Bracing himself with one hand against the wall, he managed to reach a washbasin and a bespattered mirror, in which the face of a bewildered stranger started back at him, a leprero with bloodshot eyes and hollow cheeks, begrimed with dust, dried blood and vomit. He filled the basin, dipped his head into it and counted to twenty once again, withdrawing it with a scream of such suddenness and terror that a few pigeons, prowling the windowsill and inspecting the ruined men for signs that they could make a meal upon their eyes, flapped away.

Almanzar leaped from his bed and reached for his pistol. To his surprise it was not at his side but neatly hung over a coatstand.

"What's got into you?" he asked, disturbed as if the General had roused him from Penelope's embrace.

"The Holy Mother kissed me," said Silvestro. "She held me in her arms, I quite remember, but little else. Except a street," he frowned.

"Yes," said the Corporal, "I do believe we have been drinking mezcal. I have seen the Virgin often under such conditions... also the feathered flying serpent and the whore of Babylon, Cortes, Karl Marx and San Pablo. Even the Devil himself once, but after mixing champagne with the mezcal. Do not ever do that, General, the Devil is strong, ugly... silk-hatted and immaculately dressed, of course... but he stinks worse than a German capitalist." Almanzar rose and edged the Tatoob from the mirror to count his teeth, which all seemed to be present. "Another night's drinking," he conceded, "and another morning. We'll feel better after breakfast."

"It was a dark street and there were two garages covered over with tin. And a policeman sleeping."

"Yes, I recall that. It seems, could it have been... the Street of Death? It must... yes, though I haven't been there for months. And we had a motorcar, that's it! But... did I lose it?" He searched through his pockets and discovered several crumpled, soiled notes. "Money?" he wondered. "I must be growing old, I'm not supposed to have this. Enough for breakfast and a driver for... where are we anyhow?" He stumbled to the window but the view was unremarkable and he turned, shrugging. "And where are we going?"

"We were to see the President," the General remembered, and remembered, also, the gift Carranza had made to him. The watch was in his pocket; ten minutes past nine, it told him. Holding it to his ear, Silvestro felt his pain and cares carried off into the ticking, a rhythm precise and inevitable as the astronomies of Chichen Itza, which figured in the predictions of the daykeepers. His own private link with science.

"Quite so," said the Corporal and sat down on the bed. "You are someone important," he remembered, looking up at the Tatoob as if they had just been introduced. "A General? That's it. It's starting to come back to me... something else, about the Hotel Londres. You've not escaped prison, have you?"

Silvestro had gone cold at the mention of the name and the man within, whom he remembered. The Tiger... less than that, no... the Jackal. Him! He picked up Almanzar's pistol and opened the chamber. Not a shot had been fired in the night. He placed it in his belt. The Corporal began to rise, as if in protest, but Silvestro's expression was terrifying. A corona of dust circled him, as if the Tatoob was a stele of ice set out in the sun, an ice so cold as to confound and blur the light instead of shrinking from it.

"Take me there," he ordered.

"Where?"

"The Hotel Londres. I have an appointment with the Jackal. Then with the President."

"Wouldn't you rather have breakfast first?" the Corporal suggested with an appropriate humility, for Silvestro had removed the gun again, holding it to the window as if assessing its qualities. "Nothing counteracts the cactus like a great, greasy breakfast! Some eggs with ham and chile, bread and coffee, plenty of coffee. When we've made peace with our heads and stomachs, there will be..."

"The hotel," interrupted the Tatoob. "You will have time for your breakfast while I pay my respects to El Chacol. Have you money to hire a taxi?

The corporal nodded. "At least," he pleaded, "let me wash my face." Silvestro turned away and looked out the window while Almanzar's splashings and snortings took place. They were in, or close to, the capital's center; he could see the Zocalo perhaps half a mile distant. The Cabo patted his face dry, moaning to the soft spots, and they went downstairs.

"Pay him," ordered the Tatoob when they reached the manager's cage. Almanzar reached for his money.

"It's been taken care of," they were told. The manager, small and round with jaws and fingers like a spider's, studied them from behind tinted glasses that had been most popular since Carranza's entry. "You're the ones whose friends come in hollering and screaming upstairs, getting into fights with my other tenants. Don't tell me lies, the night man knows all about the two of you. Come in here so stinking drunk that they had to carry you upstairs. Well, some lady settled your account... but that don't make you any gentlemen in my eyes. Next time, go sleep it off in some alley. Don't come back."

"We won't!" the corporal assured him, and steered Silvestro outside before the Tatoob could decide whether or not the manager was worth a bullet. A taxi was summoned and, within fifteen minutes, they were standing at the door to the Londres... Almanzar between his charge and the Captain of the guard.

"A General?" the Captain said. "You don't look like a General to me, more like a half-drunken indian assassin. Whose General are you... Huerta's? We've got some of your colleagues inside. Zapata's? Those too."

"He says he is General Silvestro Kaak," the Cabo translated, "provisional Governor of the Territory of Quintana Roo, Halach Uinic of the rebeldos of Chan Santa Cruz. And as far as it goes, I believe him, and so does President Carranza. He has business with a Major Macias inside."

The Captain notably soured. "Half of Mexico would like to get their hands on the Jackal; to kill him, or to break him out of here. The Constitutionalists - all of them would like to string him up, Zapata, Villa, too... but the pendejo has friends in El Norte. Germans, too. By the way, it is Colonel Macias now. A parting gift from old Death... Huerta, I mean. If I were sure that you weren't here to help him, I might let you go up... but tell him he'll have to find a better lie than that he's some General. Our standards have lowered but not that much."

Instead of translating, for the prospect of gunplay at such an hour before breakfast was alien to Almanzar, he waved to the Tatoob. "Watch!" he said, making grasping motions. "Give me the watch."

Silvestro complied and Almanzar showed the inscription to the Captain. "Al valiente Gral. Silvestro Kaak," he read, "con todo y sincero gratitude de la Republic... Venustiano Carranza. One of those Generals, eh?"

He handed back the watch. "Media hora, comprende?" Then he turned to Almanzar. "Tell General here that he can see Macias for a half an hour. He has one of Carranza's watches, so anything that you do is the responsibility of the President. Of course, were it almost any other, I'd be inclined to say that you stole it. Have him sign or make his mark at the desk. Just try not to leave too much of a mess." And his eyes met the Corporal's and both then wandered towards the gun, bulging conspicuously beneath Silvestro's overcoat. "Will you be going too?"

"The Colonel knows the Mayan language well; General Kaak, he can take care of himself. I'm going to breakfast."

"Send him along then. Macias is on the second floor, west side. Room two hundred seven. There's a man with the Jackal and a maid, they're armed and we leave our fellows their pistols for their personal protection. And that one... he's perfectly capable of killing with his hands. Prefers that, so I've heard. But I guess your man knows that. The restaurant isn't bad, I'll join you after I escort him up. I could use a bite, myself, in a place other than this." And carefully watching the indian with the battered face and the gun beneath his coat, the Captain followed him up an ancient staircase, and both were absorbed by the Hotel Londres.

The hotel manager exhaled with relief as Almanzar circled back, approaching his desk. Carranza had taken over the Londres six months ago, but instead of grief, the manager had found a great burden removed from his shoulders. He received a regular payment, had a steady, generous and mostly docile clientele, and the infrequent interruptions were handled by the military. A resolute supporter of the Cientificos, his suspicions about Carranza were abating; it was still possible to find a peso, if one knew where to look. "Another grafting, southern indian," was his judgment of Silvestro, "whom he's turning against Zapata." And he returned to the newly translated copy of "Under Western Eyes" by a Polish writer... Joséph Conrad, coincidentally an exile, also, and in a London of a grander sort.

"What a despicable fellow," the Captain said as soon as he and Almanzar were seated in the restaurant. "No wonder they call him the Jackal... he's handsome enough, a tall fellow, but pure poison runs through those veins. The tales I hear... well, crazy too. Talks to God, of course. Sees things, wakes screaming in the night, worse than an old woman when it comes animals. Birds mostly. The unfortunate Lieutenant says he flaps his arms like a bird trying to fly out the window. Snakes. Takes one to know one, Americans say." The Captain tapped the side of his head. "Your fellow gets into a scuffle and shoots the Colonel... he'll be doing Mexico a favor. Here we are... try a steak with your eggs. And orange juice, you look like you could use some. A wonderful object, the orange."

And while waiting for the return of the Tatoob, and for breakfast, the Captain explained the nature of the Colonel's present accommodations.

The Hotel Londres was the way station for those enemies of Carranza whom, for some reason or other, the First Chief was loathe to hang or shoot; they lingered, there, in what amounted to house arrest while some country was found that would have them. That, in the last days of Huerta's regime, the Americans had closed the traditional escape route of Veracruz, that his execrable Jackal, José Macias... claiming to have secured allies not only among the Villistas and Zapatistas, but among the shadowy men of Germany, Britain and the United States... had incredibly, and insolently, appeared on Carranza's doorstep, seeking... demanding!... immediate appointment to Governorship of the Territory, that Carranza had rashly broken his own Treaties of Teoloyucan (which had accomplished the exile, however temporary, of innumerable troublemakers... including Generals Bravo and Blanquet)... all of these ensured a mess which would remain with Mexico for some time.

Carranza, when told of the Jackal's petition, said, simply: "Shoot him!" But... although Salvador Alvarado detested José Macias under any name and should have argued enthusiastically for execution... he had made a pact with don Antonio and Obregon, the ally of Alvarado, was the one man that even the imperious don Venus could not risk offending. So, when further, veiled confirmations of his influence were received, the Jackal was situated in the Hotel Londres, with the rest of the First Chief's problem children for his neighbors. And, thus, Silvestro Kaak... who, curiously, was thinking of the sour oranges of his capital... paused at the door of 207, considering briefly whether to shoot the lock away. The Hotel Londres got the better of him and he knocked, tentatively.

"Who is there?" a woman's voice replied.

"A friend," Silvestro replied in Spanish.

A derisive laugh came from within. "Let him in, by all means. I was not aware I had friends, still."

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