Guadalupe Island, Morelos district.
"Let me go! I'm gonna hack that bastard to death!" Santos roared, face twisted, a stick raised in his hand. Seeing the smug look of that male host on TV as he ran his mouth made his blood boil.
"Santos, calm down, calm down! It's TV," good buddy Campos dragged him back with all his might.
But Santos had shot up lately. With better nutrition, at nearly fifteen he was already around 5'7", his body getting sturdier by the day.
Valentina tried to soothe him too.
Talking trash about Mr. Victor in front of Santos was like singing "Sunshine Rainbow Little White Horse" in front of a Black crowd.
On TV, the segment kept rolling.
"You're saying Victor's a perverse patient with psychological distortion?" a female voiceover asked, feigning shock.
Male host Kevin Caletri grinned, nodding, lifting a file. "What I have here is a 210-page report from authoritative experts combining Victor's behavior, movements, and speech."
He flipped to the first page, where it read: Victor meets the criteria for mental illness.
He didn't flip further. It'd be bad if they saw blanks.
Right on cue, the voiceover gasped.
The camera cut to audience reactions—shocked faces, perfect for the show's effect.
"Maybe Mr. Victor's too empty inside, so he does these brutal things?" Kevin Caletri smiled. "A mentally ill man being police chief—that's a joke. I call on the Mexican government to remove him and let him go home and rest. If Mr. Victor can't find help, he can come to me. I'd be happy to be his psychological coach."
"Now let's take a hotline call—hello."
"I want to spill. I knew Victor. As a kid he was a petty thief. I even fought him because he peeked at a woman bathing. I couldn't stand it, so we went at it."
Kevin Caletri let out an astonished oh and sighed, "You're truly a good man."
The caller got more absurd by the second, even claiming Victor slept his way up—otherwise how'd he become police chief?
Had to be the casting couch.
Sure enough, casting-couch culture thrives everywhere.
"Let me go!"
Santos suddenly tore free from Campos, slammed his door, and locked himself in. In the living room, everyone looked at each other.
"These people are vile!" Stephanie, having grown more outspoken, frowned, nauseated by Kevin Caletri on TV.
"The ugliness of human nature is this: we demand perfection from justice and offer indulgence to evil," her father Dexter said, patting her head with a sigh. "It's bullying the soft and fearing the hard."
Inside, Santos held his father's medal, looking up at the brightest morning star.
"Dad, please bless Mr. Victor."
…
Sonora TV.
After Kevin Caletri's show, he casually tossed his script aside. He was a big shot now. Seeing that curvy "voiceover" woman got him hot. He grabbed her backside. "Hey, Maracia, how about a drink tonight?"
She tossed him a glance. "Afraid not. My husband's back tonight. Tomorrow. I'll go with you tomorrow."
Kevin's Adam's apple bobbed. "Tomorrow morning, same spot."
She smiled, pecked his cheek, grabbed her bag, and left.
Humming, Kevin left the studio for the parking lot and found his Maserati. A black bag sat on the hood.
Like it was routine, he grabbed the bag and tossed it into the back seat. The mouth gaped, several stacks of U.S. cash rolling out.
All from the local cartel.
All to smear Victor on air!
The point was to cool down Victor's meteoric heat.
They used to pay per appearance, now it was by ratings.
Cartels had "rules," and they paid in full.
Spreading rumors? Easy.
Kevin had been a small-time host barely scraping by. Now he'd do anything for money—and he never imagined the show would blow up. He was Mexico's hot property now.
Who in the country didn't know him?
Kevin fired up the engine, ready to hit a bar and find a woman. The car had just moved when a black van slammed him from the side, shoving the Maserati into a load-bearing column.
Bang…
The hood crumpled and popped, smoke billowing.
Four masked brutes climbed out, wrenched open the crushed door, yanked him out by the hair, and hammered him twice—flattening his freshly redone nose.
"Kevin Caletri?" the leader asked in a low voice.
"Don't kill me. The money—the money's in the back seat," the host said, hands up, face covered in blood, voice shaking.
The man snorted, took a javelin from a buddy behind him.
"Talking nonsense gets people killed!"
He drove the javelin hard into Kevin's mouth. Kevin howled in pain.
"What's going on! Who's there?"
A security guard popped his head out at the noise—only to be stitched back by the buddy's submachine gun.
"Mmm—ahhh!" Kevin screamed different pitches as the man hammered the javelin into the load-bearing wall.
Not done, he grabbed a chainsaw from the van, yanked the cord—bzzzz. "Next life, don't grow a mouth."
Kevin stared, eyes wide, terror reflected in his pupils.
Meanwhile, Maracia, who'd left early, drove her compact car barefoot in stockings.
She saw a burger joint and, hungry, parked and got out. Stepping into the street, blinding high beams lit her up. She turned instinctively—just in time to see a cement mixer barreling toward her.
Crunch…
It rolled right over her, pinning her underneath and dragging her far. Customers and staff rushed out at the commotion—only to see the ground… all blood and flesh.
They screamed in terror!
"Call the police! Call the police!" The manager watched the mixer disappear and immediately understood. He was an old hand in Mexico.
Customers gagged and puked. Who could still eat?
It was destined to be a bloody night.
At dawn, someone saw a body hanging upside down from a bridge near their home—scalp peeled back!
Someone found unknown ashes in a boiler room.
A body hacked into chunks turned up in a roadside trash can.
Hermosillo PD received 21 homicide reports—all in one night, all victims tortured before death.
They found two things in common.
Each had several deposits of murky origin. Most had deep ties to the local cartel.
Second, all had insulted Victor on TV!
Their identities came out too—local station producers, directors, hosts, and some reporters.
The Hermosillo police chief's head throbbed as he read the report.
"You're saying Victor did this?" he asked the young officer.
The officer nodded. "There's a lot of evidence to support it!"
The chief nodded. "Very good, sir. From this afternoon, you're posted to pond duty. They need your courage there."
The officer froze as the chief tore up his documents, folded his hands on the desk. "I've concluded the case. Suicide."
"How is that possible?!"
…
"Suicide! How is that possible!"
In Mexicali City Hall's Security Department office, Alejandro stared at Victor and raised his voice.
Victor scratched his ear. "Why not? There's nothing impossible in Mexico."
Alejandro took a deep breath. He saw someone peeking at the door and glared. "What are you looking at?"
The government employee snapped back out of sight.
Alejandro closed the door.
"Victor, you don't need to hide things from me."
"I didn't lay a hand."
No, not "personally."
"The locals forgot their manners. Maybe someone couldn't stand it."
Alejandro's eyelid twitched, but he also knew if the other refused to budge, there was nothing he could do. He pulled a file from the desk and handed it over. "Sonora's security department demands we hand over the killers of their soldiers."
Victor smiled, tilted his chin, and pointed at the phone. "Call him. Ask if he wants to eat shit."
(End of Chapter)
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