Rafael Bernal - The Mongolian Conspiracy

The Mongolian Conspiracy

I

At six oclock in the evening he got up from bed and put on his shoes and a tie. In the bathroom, he rinsed his face and combed his short, black hair. He didnt need to shave; hed never had much of a beard, and one shave lasted three days. He splashed on a little Yardley cologne, returned to the bedroom, and took his .45 out of the drawer of the nightstand. He checked that the magazine was in place and that there was a cartridge in the chamber. He wiped it carefully with a chamois and slipped it into his shoulder holster. He picked up his switchblade, opened and closed it, then slid it into his pants pocket. Then he put on his beige trench coat and Stetson hat. Fully dressed, he went back to the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. The coat was new, and the tailor had done a good job; you could barely see the bulge of the gun under his arm and over his heart. Standing there looking at his reflection, he unconsciously lifted his hand and touched the gun through his coat. He felt naked without it. Once, at La pera cantina, the professor said that was because of his inferiority complex, but the professor, as usual, was drunk, and anyway the professor can go to hell! That .45 was a part of him, part of Filiberto Garca, as much as his name and his past. Fucking past!

He went from the bedroom into the living room. His small apartment was immaculate, its Sears furniture almost brand new. Not brand-new time-wise brand-new wear-wise, because so few people visited and nobody ever used them. It could have been anybodys room or a room in a cheap but decent hotel. There was not a single personal item: no pictures on the walls, no photographs, no books, not one armchair more worn out than another, no cigarette burns or rings on the coffee table in the middle of the room. Hed often thought about this furniture his only belongings besides his car and the money hed saved. He bought them when he moved out of the last of the many rooming houses hed always lived in; they were the first ones they showed him at Sears, and he left everything exactly where theyd been set down by the deliveryman, whod also hung up the curtains. Fucking furniture. But if you have an apartment, you have to have furniture, and when you buy an apartment building, you have to live in it. He stopped in front of the mirror on the console in the dining area and straightened his shiny red silk tie, then did the same with the black silk handkerchief in his chest pocket, the handkerchief that always smelled of Yardley. He examined his perfectly trimmed and polished nails. The only thing he couldnt fix was the scar on his cheek, but the gringo whod made it couldnt fix being dead, either. Fair is fair. Fucking gringo! Seems he knew how to handle a knife, but not lead. His day had come in Jurez. Or, rather, his night. And let that be a lesson not to wake people up in the middle of the night, because the early bird doesnt always get the worm but the worms got that gringo.

His dark face was inexpressive, his mouth almost always motionless, even when he spoke. Only his big, green, almond-shaped eyes had any life in them. When he was a kid, in Yurcuaro, they called him The Cat, and a woman in Tampico called him My Tame Tiger. Fucking tame tiger! His eyes might suggest nicknames, but the rest of his face, especially his slight sneer, didnt make people feel like using any.

The doorman downstairs greeted him with a military salute:

Good evening, Captain.

That chump calls me Captain because I wear a trench coat, a Stetson, and ankle boots. If I carried a briefcase, hed call me professor. Fucking professor! Fucking goddamned captain!

Night began to spread dirty grays over the streets of Luis Moya, and the traffic, as usual at that time of day, was unbearable. He decided to walk. The colonel had told him to be there at seven. He had time. He walked to Avenida Jurez, then turned left, toward El Caballito. He could go slow. He had time. His whole fucking life hed had time. Killing isnt a job that takes a lot of time, especially now that were doing it legally, for the government, by the book. During the Revolution, things were different, but I was just a kid then, an orderly to General Marchena, one of so many second-rate generals. A lawyer in Saltillo said he was small-fry, but that lawyer is dead. I dont like jokes like that. I dont mind a smutty story, but not jokes, you have to show respect, respect for Filiberto Garca, and respect for his generals. Fucking jokes!

People who knew him knew he didnt like jokes. His women learned fast. Only the professor, when he was drunk, dared to crack jokes around him. But that fucking professor, he doesnt give a rats ass about dying. When they dropped the atom bomb on Japan, he turned to me with a straight face, and right there in front of everybody, he asked me, As a fellow professional, what do you think of President Truman? Almost nobody in the cantina laughed. When Im there, nobody ever laughs, and when I play dominoes, just about all you hear is the sound of the tiles on the marble tabletop. Thats how men should play dominoes, thats how men should do everything. And thats why I like the Chinamen on Dolores Street. They play their poker and dont waste time talking or telling jokes. Pedro Li and Juan Po probably dont even know who I am. For them, Im just most honorable Mr. Garca. Fucking Chinamen! Sometimes it seems like they dont have a clue, but then it turns out they know everything. There I am pretending to be a big shot, and all the time theyre seeing what a chump I am, but they always, always, play it cool. Damn right I know all about their wheelings and dealings, their gambling and their opium. But I keep my mouth shut. If Chinamen want to smoke opium, let them smoke opium. And if kids want marijuana, its none of my business. Thats what I told the colonel when he sent me to Tijuana to find some guys who were moving marijuana across the border. Some were Mexicans and some were gringos and two of them ended up dead. But others keep moving marijuana across the border, and gringos keep smoking it, no matter what laws theyve got. And the police on the other side make a big deal about respecting the law. All I can say is, the law is for suckers. Maybe all gringos are suckers. Because the law doesnt get you anywhere. Take the professor, hes a lawyer, and all he does is hang around the cantina mooching drinks. If you get in trouble, hell get you out. But I dont get in trouble. I did once, but I learned my lesson: if you want to go around killing people, youve got to have orders. Just that once I stepped out of line. I had good reason to kill her, but I didnt have orders. And I had to go all the way to the top and promise all kinds of things to get them to let me off. But I learned my lesson. That was during General Obregns time, and I was twenty years old. Now Im sixty and Ive put away a small stash, not a lot, but enough to pay for my vices. Fucking experience. And fucking laws! Now everythings got to be done legally. Lawyers everywhere you look. And I dont matter anymore. Beat it, old man. What university did you go to? When did you graduate? No, sorry, you need a degree for that. Before, you just needed balls, and now you need a degree. And you need to be in good with the gang in charge, and to be full of a whole load of shit. Otherwise all your experience isnt worth a hill of beans. We are the ones building Mexico to hell with you old timers. You cant do what we do. All youre good for is producing dead bodies, or rather stiffs second-rate dead bodies. And in the meantime, Mexico keeps making progress. Its moving forward. The battle you fought is over. Bullets dont solve anything. The Revolution was fought with bullets fucking Revolution. We are Mexicos future, and youre just holding us back. Move aside, out of sight, till we need you again. Till we need somebody else dead, because thats all you know how to do. Because were the ones building Mexico, from our bars and our cocktail lounges, not your old-time cantinas. You cant come in here with your .45 and your trench coat and your Stetson. Much less with those rubber soles. Thatll do in your cantina, for you boys who fought the old fight, you boys who won the Revolution and lost the old fight. Fucking Revolution! And then they come along with their smiles and their moustaches. Are you an existentialist? Do you like figurative art? Youre one of those people who like those Casa Galas calendar paintings. What the fuck is wrong with Casa Galas calendars? Well, its just that Mexico cant be built like that: well call you when we need another stiff. Son-of-a-bitch kids got the jump on us. The colonel isnt even forty years old and hes high up already. A colonel and a lawyer. Fucking colonel! Im better off with the Chinamen. They respect old people, and old people run things there. Fucking Chinamen and fucking old people!