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Title Page

Praise

DEAD MAN IN CANAL WAS A STREET CORNER CLOWN

Dedication

PROLOGUE

Miss Sinaloa

Dead Reporter Driving

Murder Artist

Miss Sinaloa

Dead Reporter Driving

Miss Sinaloa

Murder Artist

Dead Reporter Driving

Murder Artist

Dead Reporter Driving

Murder Artist

Afterword

After That Year

APPENDIX - THE RIVER OF BLOOD

EXTENDED PHOTO CAPTIONS

Acknowledgements

Copyright Page

Also by Charles Bowden

Killing the Hidden Waters

Street Signs Chicago: Neighborhood and Other Illusions of Big City Life

(with Lew Kreinberg)

Blue Desert

Frog Mountain Blues (photographs by Jack W. Dykinga)

Trust Me: Charles Keating and the Missing Billions (with Michael Binstein)

Mezcal

Red Line

Desierto: Memories of the Future

The Sonoran Desert (photographs by Jack W. Dykinga)

The Secret Forest (photographs by Jack W. Dykinga)

Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America

Chihuahua: Pictures from the Edge (photographs by Virgil Hancock)

Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau (photographs by Jack W. Dykinga)

The Sierra Pinacate (by Julian D. Hayden; photographs by Jack Dykinga;

with essays by Charles Bowden and Bernard L. Fontana)

Juárez: The Laboratory for Our Future (preface by Noam Chomsky;

afterword by Eduardo Galeano)

Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family

Blues for Cannibals

A Shadow in the City: Confessions of an Undercover Drug Warrior

Inferno (photographs by Michael P. Berman)

Exodus/Éxodo (photographs by Julián Cardona)

Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing: Living in the Future

Trinity (photographs by Michael P. Berman)

His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.

—ARTHUR MILLER, Death of a Salesman

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those.

—LEONARD COHEN, “FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN”

Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.

—ANATOLY RYBAKOV, Children of the Arbat, FICTITIOUSLY QUOTING JOSEPH STALIN

I shot a man in Reno

Just to watch him die.

—JOHNNY CASH, “FOLSOM PRISON BLUES”

Thank you for waiting.

—ANONYMOUS, THE FINAL WORDS OF THE FOURTH DEATH LIST OF COPS

POSTED IN CIUDAD JUÁREZ, JUNE 2008. THIS ONE WAS LEFT OUTSIDE THE

STATION.

DEAD MAN IN CANAL WAS A STREET CORNER CLOWN

Armando Rodriguez, El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,

November 13, 2008

The man assassinated

Tuesday night in the Diaz Ordaz viaduct

was

a street clown,

according to the state authority.

Nevertheless, this person has not been identified,

but it was reported

that he was between 25 and 30 years old,

1.77 meters tall,

delicate,

light brown complexion,

short black hair.

The victim’s face was painted as a clown,

green with a red nose,

reported the State Prosecutor’s office.

He wore a red polo shirt,

a navy blue sweatshirt, blue jeans,

white underwear,

gray socks labeled USA,

gray and white Converse tennis shoes

and a dark, cherry red beret.

The body was found in the Diaz Ordaz viaduct,

at Norzagaray Blvd in the colonia Bellavista,

on November 11 at 9:40 pm.

The body was found on its side,

with bullet wounds in the right side,

chest

and head.

At this time, the motive for the murder is unknown as well as the

identities of the murderers.

For Armando Rodriguez, who was gunned down

on November 13, 2008, after filing 907 stories on the

murders of that calendar year.

Like the rest of us, he was a dead man walking.

His last story appeared hours after he was killed.

BLANCA MARTÍNEZ RAISES THE PHOTOGRAPH OF HER HUSBAND, ARMANDO RODRÍGUEZ, WHILE REPORTERS AND EMPLOYEES OF EL DIARIO PAY THEIR LAST RESPECTS TO THEIR MURDERED COLLEAGUE. SHE IS ACCOMPANIED BY ROCIO GALLEGOS.

PROLOGUE

GET IN THE CAR

Here’s the deal.

We’re gonna take us a ride.

Now be quiet.

Time’s up, you gotta