Murder City_ Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields - Charles Bowden [29]
I put down my coffee. We are sitting in the sun on a clear day. He does not approve of my cigarette. He lives very cleanly, always has, even those years he spent in the Juárez cartel.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil.
(Ephesians 6: 10-11)
He says once he thought the power was with the strong, that the power came with the guns.
“I was, you see, a son-of-a-bitch, a real motherfucker.”
I nod. He has been told that I do not believe in God and so he is both disturbed by me and yet desirous of finding some common ground so that my soul might be saved.
He lines up two cell phones on his Bible, also a set of keys he keeps fingering. I am to take dictation. He has decided to give me his testimony. For months, he has moved just on the edge of my consciousness, a man of mark with a dark past trailing him, but also a man I am never able to meet until now. He is connected and this makes him seem dangerous in the eyes of others. I can feel caution when others speak of him, because no one can ever be certain who is in the organization and who is out of the organization. And no one can be certain that anyone is ever really able to leave the organization. So he moves with this aura of power and this may be fantasy or fact. There is no number to call where such matters can be verified.
He learned the martial arts in the university in Juárez and became the school champion. When the man was twenty-two, the governor of Chihuahua hired him as a bodyguard. One day, some dumpy-looking guy came to the governor’s office and everyone treated him like a God.
Later, the bodyguard asked, “Who was that dumb asshole?”
He was told it was the head of the Juárez cartel.
He thought to himself, I could run that business better than this guy.
So, he joined the game, and soon he was living the life.
He moved marijuana through the U.S. port of entry by using deaf and mute people as mules. When they occasionally got busted, they were released because they were handicapped. Also, they could not reveal anything to anyone. One day, he lost a load to the United States and suddenly owed the supplier twenty-five thousand dollars. That is the rub in the business. The supplier places a high value on the drug even though its cost to him is wholesale. The drug smuggler is making 10 to 20 percent a load—there is an overhead for bribes and muscle. So if you lose a load, you must pay full value, even though you only earn a fraction of that amount if the load goes through. When these economic facts are coupled with whores and cocaine consumption, the drug smuggler winds up working for the company store. Or winds up dead.
He is told he will be killed if he does not come up with the twenty-five thousand. His family also may be killed. It is a business.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be
able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on
the breastplate of righteousness;
And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
(Ephesians 6: 12-15)
He drives to Michoacan in central Mexico to face the boss. When he arrives, an AK-47 is pointed at him and he is shoved into a truck. The boss takes him high up into the mountains. Then he is pulled out, and he marches for fifteen minutes with the AK near his head. He expects to have his brains blown out at any second.
They reach a high mesa with twenty hectares of marijuana.
The boss says, “All this is mine.”
Then he is marched back to the truck and taken into town. He does not drink or smoke, but when they enter a