Free The Uncomfortable Dead by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Subcomandante Marcos Page A

goodbye to the campamenteros real quick so’s they wouldn’t recognize Andrés and Marta. Those campamenteros were real pale and kinda didn’t have any color, but I think that’s the natural color people have back where they’re from.
    “Well, I’m here,” I said to Marta and Andrés.
    Andrés asked if I had a suitcase and I said I only had my backpack, and he said let’s go and I said let’s go. And we got on one of those metro things they’ve got.
    So, how did it go? Marta asked. No big deal, I said.
    Then Andrés told me that it was going to take about an hour to get there, depending on traffic, which depends on whether there’s a soccer match, and that his team used to be the UNAM Pumas, but when he heard how that Rosario Robles and a Televisa announcer also went for the Pumas, he decided to change teams and he quit the Pumas for the Chiapas Jaguars, but they have fruity uniforms. So what team did I go for? I said the Underdogs, and that ended the soccer talk.
    Finally we got to this house way up high in one of those buildings. I gave them the letter from El Sup and they read it. They asked how long I was gonna stay with them and I said about six months, learning how city people do things and maybe getting some jobs until El Sup’s communiqué comes out telling about the deceased Digna Ochoa and the deceased Pável González.
    “Ah, some more uncomfortable dead,” Andrés said.
    “Yes,” Marta said, “the downstairs dead are never quiet.”
    “You got that right,” I said.
    That was in July and August, I don’t rightly remember, but it was before the communiqués about the Good Governance Boards. We still hadn’t set out to find the biggest sonovabitch of all the sonovabitches in the world, including the bitch herself. I mean that sonovabitch Morales, who was like the Evil itself had married the Bad and they had an evil child who was that sonovabitch Morales. So a certain amount of time had gone by. I had forgotten until I got the letter from El Sup that closed with …
    From the mountains of Southeast Mexico,
Insurgent Subcomandante Marcos
December 2004

CHAPTER 4
    SHEER FORCETFULNESS DWELLS
    T he Black Palace of Lecumberri, the ancient prison of Mexico City, a pillar of the old city’s shadows, had been turned a few years earlier into the General Archives of the Nation. This political whitewash, this face-lift, had not succeeded in freeing the enormous building from its malignant aura, especially on one of those days at the onset of winter when the whole city becomes a kaleidoscope of grays. Thunderheads, smog, and a chill wind, somehow emanating from its past: The ominous building was crowned by clouds that were somehow blacker than the rest.
    He saw Fritz cross over from the main entrance of the palace, dodging cars, trying to keep from getting run over and lighting a cigarette at the same time. They sat in the park before the statue of Heberto Castillo.
    “Years, old buddy. It’s been years I haven’t heard from you. And something tells me I’m not going to learn anything about you now either. You’re undoubtedly going to ask me about some bullshit.”
    Belascoarán smiled. For historical, political, and personal reasons, Fritz Glockner had spent the last four years digging into the history of the Dirty War, combing through the records of the secret police agencies of the old regime. Records that chance had sent to the National Archives in the old prison. Chance had made a good turn, for once—after the collapse of the PRI era someone had gotten them confused with the records of the old Commission for the Development of Territorial Waters, or something like that.
    “What do you know about Jesús María Alvarado?”
    Fritz studied Belascoarán for a moment before answering. And that was logical, because in spite of the Austrian name, Fritz was a country boy and naturally suspicious.
    “He’s dead. They killed him in ’71, like they killed my father … a bullet in the back of the