The Eagle's Throne

45. GENERAL CÍCERO ARRUZA TO GENERAL MONDRAGÓN VON BERTRAB

General, if anyone respects hierarchy it is I, your loyal servant Cícero Arruza. Forgive me for being insistent. This time I’m sending my faithful assistant Mauser with a tape for you of my voice so that you can hear out loud my sincerity and my anguish. Now is the time, my general. Things are boiling over and this is our opportunity for action, to make the things you and I want happen. The one thing we can’t have is a power vacuum, but we’re heading straight for that cliff. Ask yourself this: When was the last time the president was seen in public? I can tell you, I’ve been keeping track. The beginning of January, when he read his address and got us into this mess with the gringos. For three months we haven’t seen the so-called head of state’s face! If that isn’t the famous power vacuum we’ve all talked about, it’s a hell of a hole. Holes, holes, everything in life is holes. Crawl out of a hole, get into a hole, shit down a hole, stick it up someone’s or let them stick it up ours. . I’m going to be frank with you, General. Either we act now or they’re going to stick it to us both. You’re waffling, I can tell. I can tell you’ve even distanced yourself a little from your loyal subordinate Cícero Arruza. What’s the matter? Isn’t it kind of late to suddenly discover the kind of man I am? Forgive the frankness. I’m back where I was, at a bar, General — you know what they say, we only win battles in the bar and in bed. Do you remember that man from Tabasco, González Pedrero, who made our lives hell with “the dart of truth”? Wasn’t it González Pedrero who said that the Mexican Revolution may have left a million men dead, but that they’d died in bars during shoot-outs and not on the battlefield? I tell you that just to remind you: You know who I am, you know where I come from, and you know what I’m capable of. And I’m reminding you because I want you to be certain of one thing: Put the violence on my tab. The deaths are on me. . I’m not going to hide anything from you, General, I want you to know who you’re dealing with so that you won’t be cheated on like the husband in the song who asks, “Whose gun is this? Whose watch, whose horse whinnying in the stable?”. . Sorry about my voice. Whenever I drink I always feel the urge to sing. . Remember who’s on your side. . I once told you, didn’t I, how much I miss real violence — not those little exercises where we bust up meetings by letting loose mice or pouring piss down from the balconies. Let me remind you of my credentials, for your peace of mind. As regional commander in various states of our union, General, I finished off the malcontents as well as the rebels in a single stroke of pure genius. I disposed of the opposition leaders in Nayarit by slipping Benzedrine into their rum and Cokes while they were celebrating some supposed electoral victory. They’ve got nothing to celebrate anymore. The opposition candidate in Guadalajara disappeared quietly at a building site for the metro. Building site, my ass, General. More like a grave site. . I eliminated those annoying university students ten years ago by locking them up in a laboratory full of infected rabbits. And people don’t mess around when it comes to hunger, you know. . As for those rebels in Chiapas, I ordered them to be shot in a laundromat in Tuxtla Gutiérrez just because I knew the blood would contrast so well against those white sheets. . When the Yucatán tried to secede from the federation again, backed up by official and popular support, I made the whole bureaucracy disappear (don’t ask me where they ended up), and then I invited the townspeople to visit the empty government offices. There wasn’t a soul there.

“Take your places at the desks,” I ordered them. “Sit down and start working. Don’t you get it? The people who used to work here aren’t coming back.”

When the umpteenth Zapatista uprising broke out, this time in Guerrero, I ordered the troops to paint crosses on two out of every three doors in Chilpancingo, with a sign reading, “Here died everyone who opposed General Cícero Arruza and the government.”

Did you know all this already, General? Maybe yes, maybe no. It doesn’t matter. Now that the alcohol’s loosened my tongue, I want to make it real clear who you’re dealing with, I want you to know I’m not trying to fool you. You can count on me for laundry operations like the one in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, and you can keep your white gloves on— I won’t let anyone get them dirty. [Long silence, followed by a mariachi yelp.] Aee-aee-aee, this is Cícero Arruza here, one hell of a general who knows how to give his enemies a nugget of shit and pass it off as a hard candy. Enemies, me? You’ve got to be fucking kidding. Erase that, Mauser, General Bonbon’s a decent man, we don’t want to offend him. . Mauser, you’ve got to learn to tell the difference between vulgar louts like you and me, and queers like General Bonbon.

“Forgive your enemies,” the Bishop of Huamantla once said to me.

“I can’t,” I told him, dead serious. “I haven’t got any left. I’ve killed them all.”

Have you ever seen my photos of the men I’ve shot? There’s one that I keep above my bed. It’s famous. A rebel ringleader just before getting it. He’s got his cowboy hat on. Cigarette dangling from his lips. One leg in front of the other. Thumbs tucked into his belt loops. And smiling from ear to ear. Waiting for the grim reaper with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen. That’s how I want to die, General, now that I’m five sheets to the wind I’m telling you because you’re like my brother, my soul brother and my comrade-in-arms, that’s how Cícero Arruza wants to die, laughing his head off in front of a firing squad of traitors and sons of bitches. [Another long pause in the recording.] Oh, General, I’ve never had a shred of luck in life — when’s it going to get better? That depends on you. You give the order and I’ll carry it out. Easy as anything. The police take the blame for the crimes — that way we keep the army in the clear. I swear to you, I know how to carry out orders to the limit. Not for nothing people say I’ve got the face of a man with no friends. I’ve got no friends! Not even you, General. I obey you. You’re my superior. But you’re not my friend. That wouldn’t be good for you. I assure you. Being my friend would be hazardous to your health. On the other hand, you can count on me for loyalty and solid knowledge of the territory I’m heading to. I know I have the support of people who count. Governors and local strongmen who exercise the power that our democratic president refuses to exercise because he thinks society is capable of governing itself. Yeah, right. Hell will freeze over first. Mexicans only understand brute force. Cabezas in Sonora. Quintero in Tamaulipas. Delgado in Baja California. Maldonado in San Luis. They’re all sick of the dumbass democratic government and are ready to join forces with us. . I can’t speak for the big man in Tabasco because you can never tell how that one’s going to react. One day he promises his full support and then the next day he goes back on his word. Just so you can see I’m not hiding things from you, General. And as for all those other candidates jockeying for the succession, they’ll be scared shitless when they see that the hard core, guys with the military leading them on, have beaten them at their own game and are ready to take control in the interest of national security. I’ve already got ex-President César León’s public funeral all set up. No, no, I’m not going to kill him; you don’t announce crimes, you commit them. For the scheming César León I’m going to organize a funeral procession that will go past his window at noon. To see if he gets the hint, you know. As for Bernal Herrera, we can just let him be. He’s like President Terán’s double, and nobody wants a second act in this play. As for Tácito de la Canal, we’ve got no choice but to eliminate him. That bald bastard knows too many secrets that could damage too many people. The new kid at the interior office, Valdivia, is wet behind the ears. I doubt if he’s got any underarm hair yet. I’ll fix him. Right on, man! And as for that gossip María del Rosario Galván, I’ve got a little surprise in store for her. They say she likes a fuck, don’t they? Well, she’s really going to have her fun when twenty of my men break into her house, destroy everything, and then fuck her, all of them. Let’s see, who’ve I left out, General? Ah yes, the treasury secretary. He’s going to be our candidate for interim president, and I really mean interim because he won’t last more than two days on the Eagle’s Throne before he turns it all over to the armed forces — I mean the junta, General, presided over by you, with my patriotic support to reestablish order, restore people’s sense of security, reinstate the death penalty. And we’ll chop off the thief ’s hands, the rapist’s penis, the attacker’s legs, and the kidnapper’s eyes if we have to because that’s priority number one in this country — safety and crime, and that’s what drives our patriotism, the safety of our people, not personal ambition, and that’s why we’ll get unanimous support. The days of impunity are over. No more robberies. No more kidnappings. No more murder — except for the ones you and I consider necessary. Order, order, order, order. My wish. . is for. . natural death. . to no longer exist. [Fading voice, garbled words.] General, only stupid people play it safe. . ooh, I know I’m a full-blooded Mexican because, I’m telling you, for me every night is Independence Day. [Loud burp.] And don’t think any less of me because I’ve been straight with you. And answer me quickly, will you? We have to move now. We’ve been down a long road together, General. Answer me. You always just sit there listening and you never say a damn thing. I understand your silence to mean alliance and agreement. Shh, no flies are going to get into my mouth. . just tequila, pal. . Forgive me, General. Don’t make me think you’re having second thoughts about our plan. Don’t make me feel like a prickly old nopal that’s ignored unless it’s got fruit. . And you know something? Have you ever killed a man? After the first one, the rest are easy. .