Mexico City Noir Read Online Free PDF Page A

times, and that after a few weeks or a couple of years in the penitentiary they’ll throw him back out on the streets, where he’ll have to find a doorway to sleep in again and a supermarket cart to keep walking. He wants another cigarette really badly. But there are no matches. “I swear, chief. That’s right.” When the footsteps slow down behind him, Vikingo recalls the face of the corpse from the night before. “I don’t know anything. I’m nobody. I just walk. A step. Another. Then one more.”

    PRIVATE COLLECTION
    BY B ERNARDO F ERNÁNDEZ
    Vallejo
    T he set of jungle music Lizzy programmed on her iPod to wake her up went off at 7 in the morning. She stretched, untangling herself from the black silk sheets on the king-sized futon.
    Just like every morning, the first thing she looked at when she opened her eyes was a painting by Julio Galán on the wall directly in front of the bed in her Polanco apartment.
    Fifteen minutes later, her personal trainer was waiting for her in the adjoining gym with an energy drink in her hand. Helga was an ex—Olympic finalist from Germany who accompanied her everywhere.
    “ Guten Tag ,” said the blonde. Lizzy replied with a grunt. Lizzy did forty minutes of aerobic exercise and an hour of weights.
    At 9, after a cold shower, Lizzy ate a bowl of cereal with nonfat yogurt and drank green tea while checking her e-mail on her iPhone. Alone in the immense dining room, she peered out her large windows overlooking Chapultepec Castle. Pancho brought her breakfast from the kitchen, where he had prepared it himself.
    At 10, in her office parking lot in Santa Fe, Lizzy stepped out of her car, a black 1970 Impala with flames painted on the sides.
    On her orders, the car had been salvaged from a shop in Perros Muertos, Coahuila, and sent to Los Angeles for restoration.
    She busied herself during the morning hours with financial matters. Tired of the fiscal chaos left by her late father, she had sought advice from an investment counselor who suggested she diversify her portfolio.
    She loved verifying her account dividends and was fascinated to see how she was getting richer every day.
    At noon, she had a cold beverage, fresh fruit, a high-fiber muffin, and tea. Before lunch, at 2 in the afternoon, she took a call from a gallery in Europe. Although she’d studied at the Toronto School of Art in Canada, she’d abandoned her creative career to concentrate on building a contemporary art collection.
    “Lizzy, darling, I have something that’s going to blow your mind,” said Thierry in his thick French accent.
    “I’m not sure, Tierritas. Last time you came up with pure garbage.”
    “You are going to die, mon amour. I have seven pieces by David Nebrada.”
    After a tense silence, Lizzy asked: “How much?”
    Money was never a problem.
    At 2:30, she entered the VIP room at Blanc des Blancs, on Reforma, where she greeted Renato, an old industrialist friend of her father’s, who was dining with the minister of labor.
    The two old men invited Lizzy to join them, a proposal she gently declined before moving along to her favorite table in the back of the restaurant.
    On the way, she ran into Marianito Mazo, the son of a telenovela producer, who was sitting with a couple of pop singers enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame. Marianito greeted her with a kiss, introduced the two girls, and invited her to a cocktail party he was having at his parents’ house in the Pedregal the following Saturday.
    “I think I’m going to be away then,” said Lizzy, smiling. “Let me check and I’ll have my secretary confirm it with your people.”
    After another warm farewell, Lizzy finally sat down. She ordered an arugula salad, salmon carpaccio, and white wine. She ate in silence while checking her e-mail on her cell. After the meal, she called her cousin Omar, who worked as a deejay at an Ibiza nightclub.
    “Mademoiselle?” the waiter interrupted. “This cocktail is from the gentleman at that