Death in Veracruz by Hector Camín Page A

I’m not your boss. I’m your colleague even though I’m older than you and have probably forgotten things about the job that you haven’t learned yet.” In two swallows he drained a quarter of his watery drink.“Do you know the Jesuit definition of education?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œThen
Sir
is going to tell you. Education is what’s left over after you’ve forgotten everything else. Don’t you agree?”
    I wrote it down.
    â€œDon’t take notes,” Arteaga said. “You can find that in any collection of quotable quotes from
The Readers’ Digest.
What you need to take down in your head, not your notebook, is what I’m going to tell you about cops. First, they’re all the same. Second, there never has been or ever will be a human society that doesn’t need them. Third, history is full of revolutions the police have outlived. They wind up as the underpinnings of the new regime. Fourth, it follows that if you want to know what makes a society tick, what stays the same no matter what, then you have to do time on the police beat. Wouldn’t you agree?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œI told you I’m not your boss. My name is Rene, and quit acting as if I were your boss.”
    The bartender served him two more watery
Cubas.
Arteaga ordered them in twos, two very tall drink glasses filled to the rim with ice and with dark rum trickling down to within two fingers’ width of the top of each glass.
    â€œI’m about to quit drinking,” he said. “I’m going to get so damn wasted that for the next month if anyone so much as mentions the word alcohol in my presence, I’ll curse his mother. Do you get what I told you about cops?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œThen just imagine what the political police must be like. You haven’t a clue about them yet. What are you drinking?”
    About eight months later, on a day when I’d finished writing, I stopped by the bar at Les Ambassadeurs Restaurantto see who was there. I wound up at the bar with Miguel Reyes Razo, who was just beginning to show signs of the brilliant reporter he’d later become. We talked and chatted. A half hour later the waiter approached with an air of deference that would have done justice to General Obregón inviting nuns to the Sonora-Sinaloa casino.
    â€œSir, I’ve been asked…,” he said, speaking to me, “… would you be so kind as to step into Mr. René Arteaga’s private dining room? He’d like to offer you a cognac.”
    Arteaga was holding forth in one of the Ambassadeur’s private dining rooms with a group of
Excelsior
reporters. Seated to his left was a man with a slight wave in his graying, neatly groomed hair and an impeccable trace of mustache above lips so thin they were barely visible. He was the director of federal security in the Internal Affairs Ministry, the chief of Mexico’s political police.
    â€œYou’re both from Veracruz, you’re
paisanos,”
Arteaga said by way of introduction. “And painful as it may be, you always will be.”
    The after-dinner drinks continued to flow for nearly half an hour. The guest got up to leave around seven.
    â€œCome see me,
paisano,”
he said affably. “I’m at your service in our offices on Bucareli.”
    â€œBe sure you look him up.” Arteaga sat between us as we talked. “Some day you’ll show that bastard there’s no such thing as an insignificant friend.”
    â€œThanks, René,” my
paisano
said with a smile. “You people always teach me something.”
    A week later at Arteaga’s instigation, I went to see him, and we chatted briefly. He asked if there was anything I needed, if I was earning enough, if there was anything he could do for me. All I asked was what Arteaga told me to ask: that he answer the phone when I called. Nothing more.
    Our relations remained distant but