Free Silver Bullets by Élmer Mendoza, Mark Fried Page A

father never had, end of story. I’ll pay for your Frappu if you’ll tell me where you were last Thursday night. At home, Friday was the final episode of To Die on Your Breast and I wasn’t going to miss the one before it for anything in the world. At last, the detective thought, someone who does not watch Channel 22. How did you learn about Bruno Canizales’s death? From the newspaper, so would he take her off the list? No, first he needed to learn a couple of things: Did you know Paola Rodríguez? Of course, a goddamn witch who kept getting in Bruno’s way, the idiot freaked out when I took her down a few pegs, I sent over a couple of thugs to shake her up a bit and it worked like a charm, people have such bad manners, why don’t they leave you in peace? What makes you think Mariana had nothing to do with it? She doesn’t go to such extremes, she’s really a live and let live girl, and besides she wouldn’t lie to me. You are her goddess. Something like that, she believes they’re going to come for her sooner or later and she’s terrified, I told her the Mexican police are useless, that my dad has them all bought and paid for, we even made a couple of calls when we knew they were looking for her, but she’s convinced they’re going to put the squeeze on her and she doesn’t want trouble; the district attorney gave usyour boss’s telephone and he gave us yours; we calculated your price more or less, would you prefer Madrid, Paris, New York, or cash, I’m talking about two weeks all-inclusive and, of course, accompanied by whomever you choose, since we’ve heard the rumors about you, she smiled knowingly. I find your pragmatism charming, who are the ones who use silver bullets? I’m not going to tell you, Bruno didn’t even register in their world and I don’t believe those people would shoot at anyone; stop playing the fool, you only live once and you ought to live it. Thank you for the advice. So? She pulled a manila envelope out of her bag and laid it in front of him. Mendieta spied Rudy Jiménez by the cash register and waved to him, the café’s owner winked and smiled. Tell Mariana Kelly if she thinks it’s going to happen, it will, and tell her to expect me, I’ll be by for her tomorrow, same story with your father. You are a son of a bitch, Mendieta, and you know what, you are going to regret it, sharp breath in, my father I don’t worry about, he can take care of himself, I’d like to see you try to lay a finger on Mariana so you’ll finally learn who you are dealing with, asshole. She picked up the envelope, stood up, dumped over the rest of her coffee, and stalked off. Okay.
    Rudy quickly wiped the table with a cloth. No question about it, you are a man of fixed tastes, Detective, you like them wild. I’ve got to be consistent in something, don’t you think? You like the debauched life, listen, if you get your appetite back, my wife just returned from Berlin and she brought back a ham that’ll make you die of natural causes, would you care to try some? Later, I’ve got to go to headquarters. Don’t dismiss it like that, life comes down to good meals and knowing how to get through the times in between. Not now, but if you don’t leave me any I’ll set the health department on you. A nice-looking thin man with a mustache approached. Do you know Ferocious Rendón? Rudy had called him over. I’ve not had the pleasure, they shook hands.I’ll leave you, Jiménez went back to his office. Detective, you studied literature, right? Yes, but I wouldn’t do it again. I remember seeing you at the university, you were always late to class and you yawned the whole time. Ah, you teach Hispanic-American literature, but I never had you. No, you took it with Liz. Short and chubby, right. Rudy tells me you’re a detective and you hate detective novels. There’s something to that. But I didn’t ask him to introduce us for that reason; I have a problem, I don’t know if you can help. Try me. A