The girl quickly handed her a plastic chip with a peacock painted on it. Ana went to the back and found a bunch of doors set along a narrow hallway, each one with a different animal on it: lion, panda, monkey. The peacock was at the far end of the hallway.
The room had a divan and an assortment of blue and green cushions on the floor. The head of a peacock had been mounted on a wall. Archibaldo had wallpapered the room with peacocks, as though the theme were not clear enough to even the most clueless spectator.
“Ana Aguirre! You beautiful woman, you,” Archibaldo said cheerily as he walked into the room. “You look younger than ever.”
“I don’t feel young,” Ana said, giving him a dismissive look. Archibaldo was a diminutive fellow, balding, and sporting the same mustache—mug shots testified to this—he’d worn since the ’70s. He had no charm, though he considered himself a smooth Don Juan.
“You should have told me you were coming over. What kind of tea do you want to drink?”
“How many girls do you have working here?” she asked, extending a hand and touching the peacock’s beak. It felt real.
“What?”
“We both know you’re fronting.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on, Archibaldo. Do I have to remind you what happened last time you tried this?”
The little man took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead with it, his eyes darting around the room. “You need money?” he asked. “I have—”
“You’re in luck. Today it’s just information.”
“What kind?”
“Last time I saw you, you told me stories about vampires. I’m interested in hearing the one about the vampire in La Roma. Where does he live?”
“Wait,” Archibaldo said. “I only told you because you like to hear about those things. It was just talking, passing the time, you know?”
“You said there was a vampire left in La Roma.”
“Are you sure you don’t want tea? I can tell the girl to bring tea.”
“Sit down.”
Archibaldo obeyed her, sitting at the edge of the divan. Ana leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette, and crossed her arms. “Tell me.”
“I told you there might be a vampire still in the Roma. God knows I haven’t tried to verify it.”
“What’s his name?”
Archibaldo toyed with his handkerchief. “Now that I pause to organize my thoughts, I don’t even remember what I told you. It was long ago and my memory is not so good.”
“Are you going to try that one on me?”
“Ana, please, let’s have tea.”
“You want me to drag you back to headquarters with me?” Ana asked. “Force carbonated mineral water up your nose so you can’t breathe, mix chile pepper into it to better force the water down the nasal passage? Huh? Do we have to do the whole song and dance?”
Ana had never been the kind of person who liked to liven up an interrogation with tehuacanazos and beatings, but she damn well knew others did. And she wasn’t above reminding Archibaldo about the techniques her coworkers liked to indulge in. Between the jerks at work and these fucking vampires going around eating people, she’d had it.
“No,” Archibaldo mumbled. “I’ll tell you.”
He was quiet, as if gathering his courage, and Ana held on to her cigarette.
“I met him in the ’70s. He was a Revenant. His name was Bernardino.”
A Revenant. Well, that wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear. Vampires who can suck your life with a single touch? No, thanks.
“Go on.”
“He lived in La Roma. A lot of them had left, were leaving, the area by then. Things were getting hairy with the police. He didn’t seem concerned, though. I think he’d been living in his place for a very long time, that he’d been a rich twat since the Porfiriato. You know how vampires can be. Old-fashioned, especially the elderly ones. He was old-fashioned. Didn’t see the benefit in moving.”
“How did you meet him?”
“He wanted people. You know, to feed. I had girls who were willing to do the work.”
“Did you ever see where he lived?”
Archibaldo shook his head. “On Parras. Number 25. A big, old house.”
“What makes you think he is still living in Mexico City? We haven’t had any reports of vampires for years and years.”
“When I met him, I heard he was some big shot. He could still pull a lot of strings. He knew many secrets, from a bunch of people. I don’t think people dared touch him because of that. He had plenty of money. I don’t know, he was the type who could stay and just keep his head down, you know? Make no fuss, keep things going for himself.” Archibaldo licked his lips. “Plus, I know he was still around as late as the ’90s.”
“Did you see him?” Ana asked.
“No, I didn’t see him. I stopped sending him girls over after a couple of mishaps. And the guy scared me, all right? He could read someone’s thoughts, and that was just too damn disturbing for me. Too much.”
“Then?”
“I’ve got to keep an ear to the ground and know what the competition is doing, you know? I was paying off one of his girls to tell me what my biggest competitor back then was up to. If he was importing Russian babes or if he’d been getting girls from Tlaxcala. Whether he was trying to run a massage parlor or—”