Shadows of the Night

1. Mexico City, Present Day

Juan Morales let up a silent payer in praise of whoever had invented air conditioning for automobiles. As he threaded his way through the interminable log-jam of traffic that clogged the streets of Mexico City, he kept the air-con running and the windows of his Pinto firmly closed against the heat and the fumes that filled the busy streets of the great metropolis. An impatient taxi driver sounded his horn and waved an angry fist at Morales as he attempted to change lanes a little too sharply for the other man"s liking. Morales simply raised a finger and grinned in a rueful smile at the probably overworked and incredibly harassed man. He cast another glance at the street map balanced precariously across his lap as he drove. A red "X" marked in red felt pen marked his destination. Not far to go, thank God!

Following the death of his brother Rodrigo, and his painful retelling of the facts of the case to the sister of one of the murdered boys back in Hidalgo del Parral, Morales had decided to take a well-earned rest, and he"d taken up a long-standing invitation from his old friend, Francisco Tamayo, a fellow police officer based in Mexico City, to visit and stay with him for a while. Morales requested and had been granted the three weeks leave he had accumulated, and, after a telephone call to Tamayo, he left his home in Hidalgo del Parral and headed south for the capital.

Tamayo and Morales had grown up together in the town of Parral, and both had begun their police careers in their hometown. Francisco Tamayo had been ambitious however, and after five years serving the town of his birth he had sought the bright lights and higher profile cases of the big city. He"d earned himself a reputation as a dogged and intuitive investigator, and despite pressure being applied on him to accept promotion to higher office, his ambition had cooled sufficiently for him to make the decision to remain in the rank of Captain of Detectives, thereby allowing him to remain at the "sharp end" of police investigation. Tamayo would have hated a desk job. He was too good a field investigator to allow himself to stagnate in an office. In that respect, he and Morales mirrored one another. Morales too hated the thought of no longer being actively involved in day to day criminal investigations. A captain he was and a captain he"d stay. No amount of persuading, (not that anyone had ever tried) would induce him to "move" upstairs. The two men were much alike, and that sameness had proved to be one of the strongest bonds that cemented their friendship. Now approaching his fiftieth year, his hair retained its youthful rich dark brown coloration, though his waistline had spread a little more than he considered healthy. Morales certainly looked and indeed was, fit, but he knew it wouldn"t hurt to lose a few pounds. He liked to dress well and almost always wore a clean, well pressed suit to work. Now though, he was on vacation and on this very hot day, he wore a simply pair of tan slacks and a white, open necked polo shirt. His brown eyes, normally wide open and alert, felt heavy with tiredness after the rigours of his journey.

By the time he"d begun his journey to Mexico City, three weeks had elapsed since the funeral of Father Rodrigo. The pain of attending the funeral of his brother, and his own painful memories of all that had gone before, had taken a heavy toll on Morales, so he"d been more than glad to accept his friend"s invitation. Juan Morales at last pulled his car up outside the apartment of his friend, stepped out into the heat of the day, stretched his arms skywards to relieve the stiffness of his long drive, locked the door of his rather battered old Pinto and walked up the five steps that led into the cool interior of the apartment block. After a faster than expected ride to the fourth floor in the apartment block"s surprisingly quiet and modern elevator, Morales rang the doorbell of Tamayo"s apartment, and in seconds the door opened, for him to be greeted by the smiling and welcoming face of his oldest friend.

“Juan, my good friend, my dearest amigo,” Tamayo gushed. “It is so good to see you again. It"s been far too long. How are you? How was the journey? How is everyone in Parral?”

Extricating himself from the anaconda-like embrace of his friend, Morales stood back a little and laughed, perhaps for the first time since Rodrigo"s funeral. Francisco Tamayo was in his mid-forties, only marginally overweight, and with his bush of jet black hair and his full moustache, he looked every inch the archetypal Mexican detective that he was. Having said that, Morales often thought his friend could just as easily be taken for an old fashioned bandido, or a revolutionary freedom fighter, perhaps a relic from the days of Pancho Villa. Tamayo, Morales long ago concluded, simply possessed a "well lived in" face, one he found himself delighted to be standing before right at that moment.

bandido,“Cisco,” Morales replied, using the name by which he had always addressed Tamayo, “one thing at a time my friend. I"m fine, everyone in Parral is fine, and it"s good to see you too. You"re right; it has been far too long since we saw each other. Oh yes, and the journey was long and hot, the traffic in this city sucks, but I"m here now, so you should be a good friend and get me a long cold beer from your refrigerator to quench my thirst before I die of dehydration. The drivers in this city should all be arrested and locked away where they can"t get near the wheel of a car.”

“Of course, of course, I"m sorry. It"s just so good to see you. Come, sit down. Relax for a minute and rest yourself while I get us a beer. Hey, the traffic, tell me about it. But, I mean it, Juan, the car is still safer than walking and trying to cross those streets with all the morons behind the wheels. Sometimes I wonder how some of those damned drivers survive from one end of their journey to the other.”

Leaving Morales standing and breathing heavily, Tamayo quickly disappeared from the room, into his kitchen, returning just as quickly with the much needed drinks. Ten minutes later, the two men were on their second bottle of chilled beer, and Morales had begun to feel more human than he had for quite some time. A little of his grief for his brother had at last begun to lift, and the infectious good humour of Cisco Tamayo was as good an anti-depressant as he would ever likely receive. Draining his own drink with a satisfied slurp, Tamayo rose from his chair and beckoned to Morales to follow him. Exiting the living room, the two men walked the short distance along the hallway to the first door on the left, which stood slightly ajar, and Tamayo pushed it fully open.

“Your room, amigo,” he gestured with a sweep of his hand, stepping aside to allow his friend to view the guestroom.

Morales entered the room, allowing his eyes to take in the surprisingly neat and orderly layout and décor of his room for the next three weeks. The pale blue curtains matched the carpet, and even the bedding, blue background with gold star pattern woven in, had a look of careful co-ordination about it. As he scanned the room, his eyes came to rest on a small, black, furry object strategically placed in the dead centre of the bed.

“Cisco, my friend, you may not know it, but there"s a cat on the bed.” he exclaimed in surprise.

“Ah, si, amigo, I forgot to mention the cat. May I introduce you to my good friend Jerry, you know, like in Tom and Jerry?”

“But Cisco, Jerry was the mouse!”

“Ah, I know, but you should know me, amigo, I like to be different.”

“But the poor cat may have a complex,” said Morales, grinning widely.

“You think?”

“You could have one crazy mixed-up kitty-cat there. He may need treatment from a cat psychologist. He may have all sorts of neuroses, you naming him after a mouse and all.”

“But Juan, he may not know. He doesn"t watch much TV. Anyway, Tom and Jerry is transmitted in Americanos, and I"m sure he only just understands Mexican, so, no problem. In fact he sleeps almost all day, and then works the night shift, patrolling the streets like a cop on the graveyard shift. He rarely gets in until dawn.”

“And he sleeps on my bed, does he?”

“Oh no, sorry about that. He"s taking advantage. He normally sleeps on the sofa, but he heard you come in, ran out of the room, found the door open and shot in here. He"s weird with strangers, but he"ll soon get used to you. Hey cat, vamanos!” shouted Tamayo, and the cat sleepily opened one eye, surveyed the two men looking at him, and promptly closed it again, seeming to disappear back into his cat nap in a fraction of a second. Tamayo strode forwards to the bed, and swept the hapless Jerry off the bed with a firm but gentle sweep of his own paw-like hand. As he landed on the bedroom floor, Jerry the cat looked up at his owner in disgust, shook himself, and then, with a swish of his tail he ran past the two men and made his way back to the living room, presumably intending to resume his nap on the sofa.

“See, I told you,” laughed Morales, “the poor thing is probably riddled with feline neuroses.”

Tamayo laughed with his friend.

“Okay, Juan, I"ll try to be sympathetic towards his psychological well-being, okay? Now, you take a few minutes to unpack and settle in. I"m going to make a phone call and reserve us a table at my favourite restaurant for later tonight. We"ll celebrate your arrival in the city, and really catch up with each other"s news, okay? Tomorrow of course I have to work but I"m sure you"ll enjoy exploring the city a little. After that my leave begins and we have almost three weeks together to enjoy even more good food, good drink, and each other"s company.”

“That sounds good to me,” Morales said, as Tamayo left him to go and make the phone call to reserve their table. Morales took less than ten minutes to unpack his few belongings. The decision to travel light had been a wise one, he thought, the wardrobe in Tamayo"s guest room being a little on the small side. The two men spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with their respective news from Parral and Mexico City. Tamayo studiously left out any mention of the loss of Juan"s brother, Rodrigo. He thought it prudent to leave that subject alone until later, when they"d settled into each other"s company a little more, after their long separation. Maybe Juan would talk of such things without his prompting, if and when he felt the time to be right. Time passed quickly as the two old friends talked the afternoon and early evening away.

A few hours later, the two men found themselves seated across from each other at a corner table in the Casa Rivera, an intimate and friendly restaurant where the staff were obviously well acquainted with Cisco Tamayo. The welcome had been warm, effusive in fact, the service excellent, and the food quite wonderfully prepared. As they relaxed after their meal, Tamayo and Morales talked of many things, accompanied by glasses of the finest gold tequila. Their tongues and their inhibitions loosened a little by the tequila, Tamayo at last diplomatically touched on the subject that he knew to be most painful to Morales. So far, Juan had said nothing of his brother, and Tamayo felt it to be a barrier that hampered their time together and he simply needed to broach the topic, in a way that Morales wouldn"t find intrusive. Whilst expressing his sorrow at the death of Rodrigo after his years spent in the sanctuary of the seminary, Francisco diplomatically avoided interrogating his friend too much on the subject of his late brother. He knew that Juan found it hard to talk of his brother, and, though he remained ignorant of the true facts surrounding what had taken place in Hidalgo del Parral, and of the terrible revelations that Morales had discovered about his brother, he was wise enough to know that there are some subjects that are best left alone, even between friends, and that this, for now, at least, was one of them. Morales accepted his friend"s solicitous condolences, and respected him for not prying into the painful subject of the circumstances surrounding Rodrigo"s death. The three men had grown up together in Parral, and if Tamayo had pressed him, Morales would have felt obliged to go into the details of the case, so he appreciated Tamayo"s diplomacy on the subject. Morales knew that, when the time was right, he"d give Tamayo all the information surrounding his brother"s death, but for now, their time together existed for other, happier things.

The warm amiability of the evening continued until Tamayo and Morales remained as the last two customers in the restaurant, and the hands on Tamayo"s watch had passed two a.m. when the two men finally found themselves back in his comfortable apartment, where they rounded the evening off with a final glass of tequila before retiring to bed. For some strange reason, much to Tamayo"s bafflement, and Morales" chagrin, Jerry the cat had decided to take a night off from his nocturnal prowlings, and Morales found himself sharing his bed with the soft furry feline, who curled up comfortably on the end of the bed. Juan Morales didn"t mind, he was too tired to make a fuss, and after all, who was he to argue? It was Jerry"s home after all. Morales was the stranger in town. Tiredness soon took its toll on Morales. It had been a long day, entailing a long, hot drive, and of course, he"d enjoyed a convivial evening with his best friend. He managed a quiet, “Good night, Jerry,” before his eyelids grew unbearably heavy and the darkness of the night overtook his weakened waking senses.

As the two friends and the cat named after a mouse slept soundly through the night, events were taking place a few miles away that would change the whole nature of Juan Morales" vacation, and which would see the two twenty-first century detectives having to delve deep into the history of their homeland in their attempts to solve a very modern series of crimes.