by Dick Wolf
One of the Zetas, a fat, powerfully built man with a blue Tecate T-shirt stretched over his pendulous gut, was cutting the heads off of the bodies. The fat man used a strange tool for the beheadings, a sort of spade-shaped blade attached to a heavy, rough-hewn piece of wood about three inches thick and six feet long. The tool was crude and appeared to have been handmade, perhaps by a blacksmith. But the cutting edge was very sharp. The fat man used the tool much like a post-hole digger. He straddled the bodies, one foot on either side of their chest, lifting the heavy tool up in the air with the blade pointing down. Then he would drive it straight down with a heavy thunk on the necks of the dead and the not-yet-dead, severing their heads with one stroke. With each cut he muttered curses under his breath—coño chinga puta madre pendejo, an unconnected string of obscenities—the way a man might curse his work while digging a well in stony ground.
Then another Zeta grabbed the head by its hair and tossed it back onto the truck bed, where it thudded and bounced like an American football before settling still.
“Won’t someone hear all the screaming?” Ramon said to his uncle. The desperate howls of the three or four live prisoners were starting to wear on Ramon’s nerves. He was sweating and feeling a little like he might throw up, and he did not want his uncle to know.
His uncle seemed to read Ramon’s distress in the way that he shrugged. “Take some water if you want.” The hummingbird zipped overhead again, returning to the red hibiscus flowers. “You are among friends here in Nuevo Laredo. And we have work that must be completed.” He turned away from the grisly work being done behind the truck, briefly more interested in the flight and habits of the hummingbird. “Selasphorus rufus. The rufous hummingbird. The only bird capable of hovering. So still, and yet so alive with movement.”
Ramon thought: This is why you identify with them, Uncle.
“They only feed in the earliest morning and the latest afternoon,” his uncle said, continuing. “Feeding and hovering takes so much effort, you see, that they must spend most of their time resting.”
Another thunk behind them. Ramon tried to listen to his uncle, he wanted to learn . . . but it was impossible to concentrate while the fat man was beheading bodies. Ramon’s eyes cheated back to the fat man; specifically, his blade. Ramon wanted to look at hummingbirds instead, but he could not.
Who were these dead and near-dead people? And why desecrate their bodies with such workmanlike efficiency? His uncle had not said, and so Ramon did not ask. Some had been burned or beaten. Some had had their eyes gouged out. Some were already missing their feet and hands. After the fat man cleaved the heads from the bodies, two other Zetas would drag the headless corpses by their feet over near the front door of the Palacio Municipal, where they laid them in a shoulder-to-shoulder line.
At one point Ramon’s uncle looked over and called irritably to them, “Please! Neatly! Have some pride in your work.”
“Sí, patrón!” the men said, bobbing their heads nervously. Country boys, with the habit of obeisance to authority. And yet Ramon’s uncle was not their boss. But none would cross him.
The fat man had finished with the dead. Now he was dragging one of the live men off the truck. The prisoner was very hairy, and he screamed and squirmed continuously . . . until, as he fell from the truck, the back of his head bounced off the pavement with a sharp crack. It was an awful sound, but then for a moment the plaza went blessedly quiet. Ramon heard only the whir of the hovering bird. It sounded ominous now, and horrible, like the sound of some machine-beetle designed by American military scientists, ready to drill its beak into Ramon’s body and feed.
The stunned man who lay on the ground stirred, then moaned. His hands and feet were bound with heavy black zip ties. The fat Zeta dragged him over to the work area. Chunk! went the spadelike tool. The man’s body went limp as his head flopped off.
Blood gushed out for a moment, then ceased. The dead man’s eyes stared unblinkingly at the sky.
This work was easier on the dead.
In the distance, Ramon heard a thin whine. For a moment he thought it was another hummingbird, perhaps a flock of them.
But then he realized it was a siren. First one, then another, then another.
His uncle heard it, too. He glanced at his watch—it was an elegant and thin timepiece, to which his uncle had given a fancy foreign name, “Patek Philippe”—and scowled. “The lesson here, Ramon? Never trust a policeman. They were supposed to wait until seven thirty sharp. You see what time it is?” He held out the watch on his thin brown wrist. “Seven oh nine.” He shook his head in disgust. “Incompetence.”
“We should go then,” said Ramon, trying not to sound too eager.
Ramon’s uncle neither agreed nor disagreed, turning instead to watch the fat man decapitate another prisoner. One more to go.
Ramon’s uncle called to the fat man. “Bring that last one over here, Carlito.”
Ramon shuddered. He wished the sirens would speed up.
The executioner dragged the final prisoner over to Ramon’s uncle, dropping his legs there. Up close, Carlito was even more powerful in appearance. Even with a custom tool, it took strength to chop off men’s heads.
Ramon’s uncle nodded toward the spadelike tool. He said, “Give the blade to my nephew, Carlito. The time has come for him to see what this business is all about.”
Ramon’s uncle’s life had always seemed romantic and exciting. His estate, his fine things, his commanding attitude. Just being in his presence was seductive.
But now that he had seen his uncle’s work up close, Ramon felt sickened. His uncle, he knew, was not paid by the head. The job was already completed. This was more of a flourish. And Ramon had seen quite enough already, thank you.
But before Ramon could think of an honorable way to protest, the fat man shoved the tool into his hand. Extremely heavy, the wooden handle smooth and worn from having seen so much use. Its crude fan-shaped blade dripped blood onto the ground.
“I made this tool with my own hands,” Ramon’s uncle said. “Mesquite wood. Very tough. And the blade was hand-forged from steel from an excavator tooth. A Caterpillar 321, if I’m not mistaken. American steel, the highest quality.”
Ramon held in his hand the weapon that had beheaded dozens of men. “What is it called?” asked Ramon, stalling desperately.
Ramon’s uncle eyed him, shaking his head. “It has no name.”
The last prisoner rolled from side to side on the ground, his flex-cuffed hands covering his crotch. He was a thin, hairless young man, not many years older than Ramon himself. He had pure Indian features. And all Ramon could think, looking at him, was: Why do you not scream?
The prisoner just stared up at Ramon, his eyes dark and frightened . . . and yet he did not break Ramon’s gaze.
Ramon’s uncle motioned with his hand, a precise downward motion. “Let the weight of the thing do the work. Half of the job is just lifting it up and dropping it.”
Ramon said, “What is the other half?”
“The muscle this task requires is not mere body strength. You must commit to the act. You must drive the blade down and make sure it finds its mark. The thing knows its job. If you do it carefully, and decisively, the thing will do its job kindly. Otherwise . . .”
“Otherwise?” asked Ramon.
“Otherwise you will bungle the job, and try again. Do not take many hacks where one is sufficient.”
The sirens were getting louder. Ramon knew he did not have much time. He also knew he did not want to do this. And he knew that his uncle knew.
“Now is your time,” said his uncle, the brim of his ball cap shading his penetrating eyes. “This tool is a special object. It will find you out. It will do the command not of your grip, but of your will. Of your commitment.”
The tiny hummingbird flew between them, zipping right, then darting away, heading in an upward arc toward a long row of palm trees on the far side of the plaza.
Ramon’s uncle said, “Do
you see? Even our little friend knows. It is time to go.”
Then his uncle turned, made a circle in the air with his hands, and began walking away. Suddenly the Zetas around the plaza weren’t lounging anymore. Everyone stood and began sprinting for their trucks: two armored Humvees, an Escalade, and a Ford pickup with a heavy tube frame welded to the back, on which was mounted a belt-fed machine gun.
The fat man, however, stayed with Ramon. He stared at him with black, expressionless eyes. “Come on, you little pendejo. Get it over with. Your uncle is not someone you want to disappoint.”
Ramon looked into the face of the decapitator. He saw pleasure there. “Leave me.”
“You can’t do it.”
“Leave me now,” Ramon said. “I’ll do it. And then I will tell my uncle how you doubted me.”
The fat man shrugged, but didn’t give up on taunting Ramon with his eyes. He walked back to the big GMC and started closing the gate to the bed, obstructing Ramon’s view of the litter of heads lying there.
What had become of his world? Ramon felt his entire body trembling. His armpits and face were slick with sweat, even though the sun was barely higher than the buildings at the edge of the square.
He was aware of the eyes of the man at his feet, looking up at him. Ramon did not look down.
He had to do it. He had to. If he didn’t kill this man, his uncle would never respect him.
Or worse.
Let the weight of the thing do the work. That’s what his uncle said. Whether he was referring to the weight of the object or the psychological measure of the act, it was all the same. If Ramon could just let the weight of the thing do the work, he would not have to get involved at all.
His hands would be clean. And it would be done with.
“You don’t have to,” came the voice.
Not Ramon’s own voice. The young man’s beneath him.
“No one will care if you don’t.”
“Shut up!” said Ramon, kicking his bare shoulder.
The sirens grew closer. Ramon felt eyes on him, real or imagined. The eyes of his uncle, the eyes of the dead, the eyes of the fat, taunting Carlito . . . and the eyes of the young man at his feet.
In that single moment, Ramon could see his entire life ahead of him. Why had he ever wanted this? He had not been forced into it. He had sought it. His older brother was a simple farmer like their father. His younger brother was going to the military school in Mexico City.
There was no need for this, he realized. There never had been.
“This is insane,” said the young man on the ground. “You see that, can’t you?”
Yes. Maybe it was. But perhaps it came to this: Who would Ramon rather be in this insane situation, the man at his feet, or the man wielding the blade?
It was too late to stop this. Ramon moved toward the young man. The man tried to roll away, but Ramon got his feet down on either side of his chest, straddling him. He did not want to look at the man’s face, but there was no doing the job without it.
The young man was looking up at him. Not at the blade: at Ramon.
Ramon raised the blade all at once. He lifted the spadelike tool high into the air—and smashed it downward. But as the tool plunged toward the ground, Ramon realized he’d done exactly what his uncle had warned him not to: he had tried to muscle the blade into the man, instead of simply letting the tool do the work.
His hands and arms attempted to do what his heart could not.
And so he missed—the blade twisting slightly in its descent, whacking the man in the upper shoulder. It opened up a gaping, smile-shaped gash just above his clavicle.
But it was no killing blow. Ramon saw white flashes of bone in the moments before the wound filled with blood.
The young man grunted like he’d been punched. His eyes went white and teary, his eyelids fluttering, his mouth grimacing.
Ramon looked around. He thought he saw his uncle on the running board of the Escalade, a ball cap shading his face, obscuring his expression. But it was another man. This man gave Ramon a simple wave. A summons. A hurry-up gesture.
From that distance, it must have looked like a killing blow. The young man lay still.
Ramon checked for the fat man, Carlito, but he was loading his own bulk into the driver’s seat of the truck.
But he could not step away without being sure that his uncle . . .
There he was. His uncle was up at the front door of the Palacio Municipal, kneeling over one of the beheaded corpses. He was writing something on the body’s bare back.
No—a writing gesture, but not with a pen. A knife. Cutting swiftly yet delicately.
For a moment Ramon wondered vaguely what he was doing. But the sirens were loud now, and almost upon them. Ramon knew that, whatever he was going to do, it had to be done now.
On the ground beneath him, the young man gritted his teeth as though biting down on his pain.
Ramon quickly leaned down. “Don’t scream,” he said.
Then he began to run toward the knot of Humvees.
CHAPTER 5
Juan de Jesus Ramos Diaz, the chief of police of Nuevo Laredo, considered himself to be uno hombre moderno—a modern man. He had graduated from the Instituto Tecnologico with a licenciado in business administration, where he had written his honors thesis on “The Use of Decision Trees in Managerial Problem Solving.”
There were a great many interesting tools at the disposal of the modern managerial executive. Decision trees, game theory, statistical analysis. Whatever. The point was that one had to remove emotion from the process and make decisions that were rational and sensible, that encapsulated all environmental and human factors within a matrix of clean, pure logic.
Chief Ramos’s predecessor, Chief Cardenas, had been a romantic, a man who made decisions based on emotion. And yet to make decisions based on one’s desires, while at the same time lacking true passion: that is a recipe for mediocrity.
“We are cops, Juan. Cops make decisions with their balls.”
And then he would helpfully grab his own through his uniform pants and give them an overly generous squeeze, in case Ramos forgot where men’s balls were located.
Before being named chief, Ramos’s predecessor had thundered about winning back the town from the Zetas—the notorious criminal cartel that controlled Nuevo Laredo—making speeches about the great evils of crime and drugs, the plague of corruption, the necessity for facing down the thugs, and so on and so forth. It was all very inspiring, if one had never heard such platitudes before. Without a doubt, Chief Cardenas imagined himself a man of very big cojones, a noble man, a man of firm moral courage.
Six and one half hours after Cardenas was sworn in as police chief of Nuevo Laredo, three vehicles pulled up next to the Ford F-150 in which the noble and courageous man was riding and blew the living shit out of him. The best estimate was that over 140 rounds were shot into his car, with at least 39 of them entering Chief Cardenas’s body.
Cardenas had left four kids and a wife, no pension, eighteen thousand pesos in the bank. His shredded balls were buried with him.
Chief Ramos was not going to make the same mistake. It was a simple matter of reason, of management science, based on fact and information and analysis. The Zetas were here for the duration. They were an established force and an accepted evil. And uno hombre moderno simply made his peace with that and integrated the fact of it into his strategic plan.
“How many bodies?” said the chief, with one boot on the stone step.
Detective Inspector Luis Delgado had seen a lot of horrible things over the past few years, but after walking the plaza, even he looked a little green around the gills. “Twenty-two, jefe.” Delgado then flipped open his notebook. “We thought there were twenty-three, but we have a survivor.”
Chief Ramos’s mouth went dry. “Puta madre.” He blew out a long breath and adjusted his sunglasses. “Where?”
Delgado pointed to the far end of the colonnade, well away from the l
ine of corpses.
An anomaly amid such a carefully arranged scene of horror. This was not good.
“Is he going to make it?”
Delgado hiked up his pants and scanned the plaza once again before looking back at Ramos and shrugging. “Do we want him to?”
“What kind of stupid question is that?” snapped Ramos.
Delgado shrugged again. There had been more than 250 murders in Nuevo Laredo over the past three years. The Zetas had been in a fierce war with the Gulf Cartel for much of that time. And now that the Zetas had all but declared victory, wiping out the Gulf Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel was getting involved, too. Nuevo Laredo, a sleepy little city of about 350,000 people, had the highest murder rate of any town on the entire North American continent, sixty times greater than the murder rate in New York City. In a place like this, a homicide cop had better get good at shrugging. There was little else he could do. Sure, the policía solved the occasional domestic killing, the occasional bloody dust-up between a couple of drunks in a bar, even one murder for hire involving a hot-blooded farmer’s wife. But there had not been a single gang-related murder placed in the “solved” column since Chief Ramos took over. And this was no accident. Not solving that many murders took a surprising amount of work.
Unless the Zetas wanted the murder solved, of course. It happened occasionally. Maybe this was one of those.
Chief Ramos had not looked closely at the bodies. That was what management was all about. These things you delegated.
“Where are the heads?” Chief Ramos said.
Another shrug. “Not present.”
“Do we know who any of these people are? The corpses?”
Delgado fired up a Marlboro and surveyed the plaza again before he finally spoke. “Sometimes I think about quitting and just walking across the river, you know? I got a cousin lives up in Texas. Manages the sporting goods department at a Walmart up in New Braunfels. You remember Helio Diaz? He was a couple classes ahead of us in high school?”
