Twenty-Seven
THE LINE OF TRAFFIC TO GO BACK INTO MEXico was longer and slower than the day before. Bosch figured this was because of the bullfight, which drew people from the entire region. It was a Sunday evening tradition as popular here as Raiders football was in L.A.
Bosch was two cars from the Mexican border officer when he realized he still had the Smith in its holster on his back. It was too late to do anything about it. When he got to the man, he simply said, "Bullfight," and was waved on through.
The sky was clear over Mexicali and the air cool. It looked like it would be perfect weather. Harry felt the tingle of anticipation in his throat. It was for two things: seeing the ritual of the fight and maybe seeing Zorrillo, the man whose name and lore had surrounded his last three days so thoroughly that Bosch found himself buying into his myth. He just wanted to see the pope in his own element. With his bulls. With his people.
Bosch took a pair of surveillance binoculars out of the glove compartment after parking at the Justice Plaza. The arena was only three blocks away and he figured they'd walk. After showing ID to the front-desk officer and being approved to go back, he found Aguila sitting behind the lone desk in the investigators' squadroom. He had several handwritten reports in front of him.
"Did you get the tickets?"
"Yes, I have them. We have a box on the sun side. This will not be a problem because the boxes get little sun."
"Is it close to the pope?"
"Almost directly across—if he is there today."
"Yeah, if. We'll see. You done?"
"Yes, I have completed the reports on the Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa investigation. Until a suspect is charged."
"Which will probably never happen down here."
"This is correct. . . . I believe we should go now."
Bosch held up the binoculars.
"I'm ready."
"You will be so close you will not need those."
"These aren't for looking at bulls."
As they walked toward the arena they moved into a steady stream of people heading the same way. Many of them carried little square pillows on which they would sit in the arena. They passed several young children holding armfuls of pillows and selling them for a dollar each.
After entering the gate, Bosch and Aguila descended a set of concrete stairs to an underground level where Aguila presented their box tickets to an usher. They were then led through a catacomblike passageway that curved as it followed the circumference of the ring. There were small wooden doors marked with numbers on their left.
The usher opened a door with the number seven on it and they went into a room no larger than a jail cell. Its floor, walls and ceiling were all unpainted concrete. The vaulted ceiling sloped downward from the back to a six-foot-wide opening that looked out into the ring. They were directly on the outer ring where matadors, toreros and other players in the fights stood and waited. Bosch could smell the dirt ring, its horse and bull odors, its blood. There were six steel chairs folded and leaning against the rear wall. They opened two and sat down after Aguila thanked the usher and closed and locked the door.
"This is like a pillbox," Bosch said as he looked through the window slot into the boxes across the ring. He did not see Zorrillo.
"What is a pillbox?"
"Never mind," Bosch said, realizing he had never been in one, either. "It's like a jail cell."
"Perhaps," Aguila said.
Bosch realized he had insulted him. These were the best seats in the house.
"Carlos, this is great. We'll see everything from here."
It was also loud in the concrete box and in addition to the smells from the ring there was the pervasive odor of spilled beer. The little room seemed to reverberate with a thousand steps as the stadium above them filled. A band played from seats high up in the stadium. Bosch looked out into the ring and saw the toreros being introduced. He felt the growing excitement of the crowd and the echo in the room grew louder with the cheers as the matadors bowed.
"I can smoke in here, right?" Bosch asked.
"Yes," Aguila said as he stood. "Cervesa?"
"I like that Tecate if they have it."
"Of course. Lock the door. I will knock."
Aguila nodded and left the room. Harry locked the door and wondered if he was doing it to protect himself or simply to keep uninvited observers out of the box. He realized once he was alone that he did not feel protected in the fortresslike surroundings. It was not like a pillbox after all.
He held the binoculars up and viewed the openings into the other boxes across the ring. Most of these were still empty and he did not see anyone among those already in place who he believed was Zorrillo. But he noticed that many of these boxes were customized. He could see shelves of liquor bottles or tapestries on the back walls, padded chairs. These were the shaded boxes of the regulars. Soon Aguila knocked and Bosch let him in with the beers. And the spectacle began.
The first two fights were uneventful and uninspired. Aguila called them sloppy. The matadors were heartily booed by those in the arena when their final sword thrusts into each bull's neck failed to kill and each fight became a prolonged, bloody display that had little resemblance to art or a test of bravery.
In the third fight, the arena came alive and the noise thundered in the box where Bosch and Aguila sat when a bull black as pitch—except for the whitish Z branded on its back—charged violently into the side of one of the picadors' horses. The tremendous power of the beast pushed the horse's padded skirt up to the rider's thigh. The horseman drove his iron-pointed lance down into the bull's back and leaned his weight on it. But this seemed only to enrage the beast further. The animal found new strength and made another violent lunge into the horse. The confrontation was only thirty feet from Bosch, but still he lifted the binoculars for a closer look. In what was like a slow-motion tableau captured in the scope of the binoculars' frame, he saw the horse rear against its master's rein and the picador topple off into the dust. The bull continued its charge, its horns impaling the padded skirt and the horse went over on top of the picador.
The crowd became even louder, cheering wildly, as the banderilleros flooded the ring, waving capes and drawing the bull's attention from the fallen horse and rider. Others helped the picador to his feet and he limped to the ring gate. He then shrugged their hands away, refusing any further help. His face was slick with sweat and red with embarrassment and the cheers of the arena had a jeering quality. With the binoculars, Bosch felt as though he was standing next to the man. A pillow came down from the stands and glanced off the man's shoulder. He did not look up, for to do that would be to invite more.
The bull had won this crowd and in a few minutes they respectfully cheered its death. A matador's sword deeply imbedded in its neck, the animal's front legs buckled and its huge weight collapsed. A torero, a man who was older than all the other players, quickly moved in with a short dagger and stabbed it into the base of the bull's skull. Instant death after the prolonged torment. Bosch watched the man wipe the blade on the dead animal's black coat and then walk away, replacing the dagger in a sheath strapped to his vest.
Three mules in harness were brought into the ring, a rope was looped around the black bull's horns and the body was dragged around in a circle and then out. Bosch saw a red rose fall from above and hit the dead beast as it made a flattened path in the ring's dirt floor.
Harry studied the man with the dagger. Applying the coup de grace seemed to be his only role in each fight. Bosch couldn't decide if his job was administering mercy or more cruelty. The man was older; his black hair was streaked with gray and his face had a worn, impassive look. He had soulless eyes in a face of worn brown stone. Bosch thought of the man with three tear drops on his face. Arpis. What look did he have when he choked the life out of Porter, when he held the shotgun up to Moore's face and pulled the trigger?
"The bull was very brave and beautiful," Aguila said. He had said little through the first three fights other than to pronounce the skills of the matadors as expert or sloppy, good or bad.
"I guess Zorrillo would have been very proud," Bosch said, "if he had been here."
It was true, Zorrillo had not come. Bosch had found himself checking the empty box Aguila had pointed out but it had remained empty. Now, with one fight to go, it seemed unlikely that the man who bred the bulls for this day's fights would arrive.
"Do you wish to leave, Harry?"
"No. I want to watch."
"Good, then. This match will be the finest and most artful. Silvestri is Mexicali's greatest matador. Another cervesa?"
"Yeah. I'll get this one. What do you—"
"No. It is my duty, a small means of repaying."
"Whatever," Bosch said.
"Lock the door."
He did. Then he looked at his ticket, on which the names of the bullfighters were printed. Cristobal Silvestri. Aguila had said he was the most artful and bravest fighter he had ever seen. A cheer went up from the crowd as the bull, another huge black monster, charged into the ring to confront his killers. The toreros began moving about him with green and blue capes opening like flowers. Bosch was struck by the ritual and pageantry of the bullfights, even the sloppy ones. It was not a sport, he was sure of this. But it was something. A test. A test of skills and, yes, bravery, resolve. He believed that if he had the opportunity he would want to go often to this arena to be a witness.
There was a knock on the door and Bosch got up to let Aguila in. But when he opened the door there were two men waiting. One he did not recognize. The other he did but it took him a few moments to place him. It was Grena, the captain of investigations. From what little he could see past their two figures, there was no sign of Aguila.
"Se?or Bosch, may we come in?"
Bosch stepped back but only Grena entered. The other man turned his back as if to guard the doorway. Grena closed and locked it.
"So we won't be disturbed, yes?" he said as he scanned the room. He did this at length, as if it were the size of a basketball court and needed careful study in determining there was no one else present.
"It is my custom to come for the last fight, Se?or Bosch. Particularly, you see, when Silvestri is in the ring. A great champion. I hope you will enjoy this."
Bosch nodded and casually looked out into the ring. The bull was still lively and moving about the ring while the toreros sidestepped and waited for it to slow. "Carlos Aguila? He has gone?"
"Cervesa. But you probably already know that, Captain. So why don't you tell me what's up?"
"What is 'up'? How do you mean?"
"I mean what do you want, Captain. What are you doing here?"
"Ah, si, you want to watch our little pageant and do not wish to be bothered by business. Get to the point, is the way it is said, I believe."
"Yeah, that works."
There was a cheer and both men looked out into the ring. Silvestri had entered and was stalking the bull. He wore a white-and-gold suit of lights and he walked in a regal manner, his back straight and his head canted downward, as he sternly studied his adversary. The bull was still game as it charged about the ring, whipping the blue and yellow banderillas stuck in its neck from side to side.
Bosch pulled his attention back to Grena. The police captain was wearing a black jacket of soft leather, its right cuff barely covering his Rolex.
"My point is I want to know what you are doing, Se?or Bosch. You don't come down here for bullfights. So why are you here? I am told identification of Se?or Gutierrez-Llosa has been made. Why do you stay? Why do you bother Carlos Aguila with your time?"
Bosch was not going to tell this man anything but he did not want to endanger Aguila. Bosch would be leaving eventually, but not Aguila.
"I am leaving in the morning. My work is completed."
"Then you should leave tonight, eh? An early start?"
"Maybe."
Grena nodded.
"You see, I have had an inquiry from a Lieutenant Pounds of the LAPD. He is very anxious at your return. He asked me to tell you this personally. Why is that?"
Bosch looked at him and shook his head.
"I don't know. You would have to ask him."
There was a long silence during which Grena's attention was drawn to the ring again. Bosch looked that way, too, just in time to see Silvestri leading the charging bull past him with his cape.
Grena looked at him for a long time and then smiled, probably the way Ted Bundy had smiled at the girls on campus.
"You know the art of the cape?"
Bosch didn't answer and the two just stared at each other. A thin smile continued to play across the captain's dark face. "Et ante de la muleta," Grena finally said. "It is deception. It is the art of survival. The matador uses the cape to fool death, to make death go where he is not. But he must be brave. He must risk himself over the horns of death. The closer death comes, the braver he becomes. Never for a moment can he show fear. Never show fear. To do so is to lose. It is to die. This is the art, my friend."
He nodded and Bosch just stared at him.
Grena smiled broadly now and turned to the door. He opened it and the other man was still there. As he turned to reclose the door he looked at Bosch and said, "Have a good trip, Detective Harry Bosch. Tonight, eh?"
Bosch said nothing and the door was closed. He sat there for a moment but his attention was drawn by the cheers to the ring. Silvestri had dropped to one knee in the center of the ring and had lured the bull to a charge. He remained stoicly fixed in position until the beast was on him. He then moved the cape away from his body in a smooth flow. The bull rushed by within inches and Silvestri was untouched. It was beautiful and the cheers rose from the stadium. The unlocked door to the box opened and Aguila stepped in.
"Grena, what did he want?"
Bosch didn't answer. He held the binoculars up and checked Zorrillo's box. The pope wasn't there but now Grena was, staring back at him with the same thin smile on his lips.
Silvestri felled the bull with a single thrust of his sword, the blade diving deep between its shoulders and slicing through the heart. Instant death. Bosch looked over at the man with the dagger and thought he saw a trace of disappointment on his hardened face. His work wasn't needed.
The cheering for Silvestri's expert kill was deafening. And it did not let up as the matador made a circuit around the ring, his arms up to receive the applause. Roses, pillows, women's high-heeled shoes showered down into the ring. The bullfighter beamed in the adulation. The noise was so loud that it was quite some time before Bosch realized that the pager on his belt was sounding its call to him.