The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa

the cops were in on it. Don’t you know what country we’re living in, compadre?”
    Felícito Yanaqué barely listened to him. It was true, it was hard for him to believe what he’d heard: Colorado Vignolo making monthly payments to those crooks. He’d known him for twenty years and always thought he was an upstanding guy. Fuck, what a world this was.
    “Are you sure all the transport companies are making payments?” he repeated, trying to look into his friend’s eyes. “Aren’t you exaggerating?”
    “If you don’t believe me, ask them. As true as my name’s Vignolo, if not all, then most. This isn’t the time to play the hero, Felícito my friend. The important thing is to be able to work and have your business run smoothly. If the only way is to make payments, you make them and that’s the end of it. Do what I do and don’t stick your neck out, compadre. You might be sorry. Don’t risk what you’ve built up with so much sacrifice. I wouldn’t like to attend your funeral Mass.”
    After that conversation, Felícito couldn’t shake his depression. He felt sorrow, pity, irritation, astonishment. Not even in the nighttime solitude of his living room, when he played the songs of Cecilia Barraza, could he think about anything else. How could his colleagues let themselves be squeezed this way? Didn’t they realize that by giving in they were tying their own hands and feet and compromising their own futures? The extortionists would demand more and more money until the businessmen were bankrupt. It seemed that all of Piura was out to get him, that even the people who stopped him on the street to embrace and congratulate him were hypocrites involved in the plot to take what he’d achieved after so many years of hard work. “Whatever happens, don’t you worry, Father. Your son won’t let those cowards—or anybody else—walk all over him.”
    The fame the little notice in El Tiempo brought him didn’t change Felícito Yanaqué’s orderly, diligent life, though he never got used to being recognized on the street. He felt embarrassed and didn’t know how to respond to the praise and expressions of solidarity from passersby. He always got up very early, did qigong exercises, and arrived at Narihualá Transport before eight o’clock. He was concerned that the number of passengers had gone down but understood it; after the fire at his business, it was to be expected that some clients would be frightened, afraid the crooks would seek reprisals against the vehicles and attack and burn them on the road. The buses to Ayabaca, which had to climb more than two hundred kilometers on a narrow, zigzagging route along the edges of deep Andean precipices, lost something like half their customers. Until the problem with the insurance company was resolved, he couldn’t rebuild the offices. But Felícito didn’t care that he had to work on a board and barrels in a corner of the depot. He spent hours on end with Señora Josefita, going over the surviving account books, bills, contracts, receipts, and correspondence. Fortunately, they hadn’t lost too many important papers. The one who couldn’t be consoled was his secretary. Josefita tried to hide it, but Felícito saw how tense and unhappy she was at having to work in the open, in plain view of the drivers and mechanics, the passengers who arrived and departed, the people who lined up to send packages. She confessed as much, her somnolent face pouting like a little girl’s.
    “Having to work in front of everybody makes me feel, I don’t know, like I’m doing a striptease. You don’t feel like that, Don Felícito?”
    “A lot of those guys would be happy if you did strip for them, Josefita. You’ve heard all the compliments Captain Silva pays you whenever he sees you.”
    “I don’t like that cop’s comments at all.” Josefita blushed, delighted. “And even less the way he looks at me you know where, Don Felícito. Do you think he’s a pervert? That’s what