Tequila Blue by Rolo Diez

her tricks to soften me up. I couldn’t avoid it and didn’t want to even if I had been able to.
    I had one more thing to do before my day was done.

Chapter eight
    Cruz turned out to be a hard nut: tough and booze-sodden, one of those who refuse to cooperate. He opened the door four inches, enough for me to make out his furtive animal face and the mop of hair sprouting in thick swirls from just above his eyebrows.
    Realizing there was a cop outside and trying to slam the door in my face combined in a single thought and action. I stuck my foot in the crack to stop him, and although my foot came out of it badly, I was stronger than he was, and managed to push my way in.
    I showed him my badge with my left hand, keeping my other hand on the butt of my regulation pistol. Cruz collapsed into a chair and did nothing but grunt unintelligibly for a couple of minutes.
    The place displayed all the charm of a typical bachelor’s apartment: bottles, clothes and newspapers strewn all over the floor; an inch of dust on any object an unwary visitor might touch; the stale smell of dirt, urine, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and fetid underwear. All of this protected from environmental pollution by firmly shut windows.
    I didn’t think there was much possibility of getting anything out of this ape. If he hadn’t got such valuable information, I would have made do with giving him a good kick in the balls for his bad manners, and gone off to sleep with Gloria.
    Instead, I took out Jones’s photo and said:
    â€œYou threatened this man and pretended to be an Interior Ministry agent in order to blackmail him.”
    Cruz spat between my shoes and replied:
    â€œFucking gringo faggots! They think they’re God’s gift, but all they do is come down here to Mexico and steal our fucking dough!”
    â€œHmm. So you decided to give him a fright because he was mixed up in shady business.”
    â€œWhy don’t they all just go back to their own fucking country!”
    â€œAnd make a bit of dough while you were at it.”
    â€œNo, whaddya . . . ”
    Cruz was not someone it was easy or interesting to talk to. Unlike his associate, who was quick to seize what was going on, he behaved like a chimpanzee on the defensive. His replies consisted of a mixture of vague generalizations; empty phrases passed off as answers to specific questions; insults intended to demonstrate rejection, denial or disagreement; and monosyllables in a kind of primitive tribal language aimed at protecting the speaker and confusing the questioner.
    I considered hauling him in and softening him up in solitary for the night, but it was already wellpast ten (I’d like to know who else works all day and is still working at ten at night . . . just so that the citizens of this fine country can hold the opinion that the police do not deserve the meagre wages we’re paid) and I was desperate to get back, eat, drink a couple of beers and go to bed. So I came straight to the point:
    â€œListen, asshole. You’re breaking the law, and that’s very bad. I’ve no intention of wasting the night on you. So either you tell me right now what you were up to and make me an offer, or I can throw you in the slammer and you can think it over as long as you like. We’ve got special holes for people like you. By the time you get out you’ll be so old you won’t even remember your name.”
    It sounded good, but it didn’t work.
    â€œYou’re fucked, you son of a bitch!” the ape replied, even angrier than I had been. “I’m the brother-in-law of a four-star general, and the Under-secretary of the Interior Ministry is my godfather! Try anything with me, and you’re a dead man! It’s up to you . . . ”
    Cruz was raising the stakes, and he knew it. I had no way of guessing whether this creep was simply friends with a patrolman, or if he dined every Friday in the Presidential Palace at Los Pinos.