"Mexico City Noir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Taibo II Paco Ignacio, Parra Eduardo Antonio, Fernández Bernardo, Haghenbeck F....)

VI

A cop stops me. My motorcycle is missing a mirror. I’m not willing to pay a bribe. We both laugh at how forthright I am. He tells me he has to pay for that corner. His supervisor charges him a weekly sum. If he doesn’t pay, they send him to a worse corner, without traffic. Plus, he has to pay for whatever goes wrong with his motorcycle, and he has to do it at a private garage-in the police shop they steal the new parts and replace them with used ones. He also says that he goes out every day with only half a tank of gas, though he has to sign a receipt that says he received a full one. I tell him I’m not going to pay a bribe. He refuses to give me his name. I refuse to give him mine. We wait, it starts to rain. He gets tired of me. With a wave, he tells me to go. He smiles. There’s not even ill will, it’s all routine.