Mexican Moonlighter

He8217;s a taxi driver, an intrepid newspaper reporter and daredevil TV camerman. Join Mario Salas on all three beats

Salsa downbeats jangled out of the flashing cellphone. Mario Salas pressed hard on the clutch, jammed the gearshift into second and wedged the phone between his right ear and shoulder.

8220;Dime,8221; he said in Spanish 8212; 8220;Tell me.8221; 8220;Si,8221; he said. 8220;Si. A bad accident? A really bad one? I8217;m on my way.8221;
It was 5:15 p.m. in this suburb of Monterrey. When the call came in, Salas was a taxi driver, prowling the streets for fares in a dented, bright green Ford sedan. The phone call hurled him into his other identity 8212; TV cameraman.

Salas is a Mexican archetype. In this country, where wages are painfully low, almost everyone, it seems, has a second gig, or a third, or a fourth. Salas juggles three jobs. He is a taxi driver, a newspaper reporter and a TV cameraman. Sometimes, he8217;s all three at once.

Salas hurtles down the hill, barreling toward the road to Saltillo. He hazards a glance at the back seat. There, snuggled into a baby carrier, is Grecia Salas, his daughter, all of 2 months old.

At 5:25, 10 minutes into his mad dash, the faintest wail rises from the opposite lanes of traffic. It8217;s a boxy ambulance with flashing lights. Salas pounds the steering wheel.
In the calculus of Salas8217; job, missing one ambulance is a bummer, but it isn8217;t a deal breaker. The first ambulance often carries a corpse or someone so badly hurt as to be motionless. The best footage, he explains, is of victims writhing in pain, their bodies shredded by flying glass and torn metal. 8220;The injured are worth more than the dead,8221; he says.

At 5:30, Salas spots a pickup truck. Farther ahead, a van lies upside down. Salas pulls his car over, jumps out, wrestles a television camera from his trunk and wriggles into a TV Azteca vest. He runs across the road, and stops in front of a sobbing young girl, shivering with a blanket on her shoulders. 8220;I8217;m so glad you survived,8221; Salas says.

By 5:45, Salas has filled his cartridge with footage. He grabs the phone and dials. 8220;Three cars, five hurt. It8217;s a miracle anyone survived,8221; Salas tells his boss.

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Behind him, a sedan pulls up and stops. It8217;s the Telediario cameraman. Salas8217; face lights up, a smile that says: 8220;I won.8221; No time to gloat, though. At, 5:50, Salas gallops toward his car. He has video to file, a newspaper story to write and a baby to tuck into a crib.
-Manuel Roig-Franzia LAT-WP