The guy who does the cartoons for the newspaper, the man said. ‘But he doesn’t come around here anymore. He got tired of Bogotá, that’s what I was told. He’s been living out of town for ages now, up in the mountains.
-- The Bootblack (Chapter 1)

Importance: When Mallarino asks the bootblack who is shining his shoes if he knows who Javier Mallarino is, this is the answer that man gives him. It is at this point that Mallarino realizes that even though his name is known, people do not know what he looks like nor can they connect his name to his face.

His political cartoons had turned him into what Rendón had been in the 1930s: a moral authority for half the country, public enemy number one for the other half, and for all of them a man able to cause the repeal of a law, overturn a judge...
-- Narrator (Chapter 1)