The War in 2020

He had long since given up on offering drinks to the Japanese, who never accepted them.

'What does he say?' Captain Morita asked impatiently.

Vargas looked coldly at the Japanese, then made a sharp, dramatic gesture of downing his tequila.

'He says the American is a clown. He wears spurs. He whistles.'

'He told you more than that,' Morita said curtly. 'What else did he say?'

'He said the American is one ugly cocksucker.'

'What about his background? Did your man gain any information about the new commander's operational techniques? What kind of threat does he pose?'

Vargas laughed. Loudly. Then he wiped the back of his hand across his stubble. 'Man, what kind of shit are you talking about? He don't pose no fucking threat.' Vargas stuck his thumb in his gunbelt. It was made of soft black leather with a circular gold device on the clasp. 'You know where I got this, Morita? I took this off an American general. Everybody said, 'Hey, Vargas, this guy's a tough customer. You better look out.' And you know what I fucking did? I cut his throat, man. Right in his own fucking house. Then I fucked his old lady. And then I fed her his eggs.' Vargas spat on the plank floor.

'Ask your man,' Morita said sternly, 'whether he managed to collect any real information on this new commander.'

Vargas gestured theatrically to the bartender. Two more. 'You worry too much, man,' he told the Japanese. But he turned his attention back to the scout. 'Hey, what the fuck is this, Luis? You come in here with ghost stories. We don't need no stinking ghost stories. You tell me something serious about this dude.'

The scout looked at him nervously. 'This guy, my colonel, he don't play by the rules. He does crazy things. They say he's very different from the other gringos. He speaks good Spanish and carries himself like some kind of big charro.' The scout paused, and Vargas could tell that the man was weighing his words carefully. 'He brought his own people with him. He has this black guy who's pretty as a girl—'

'Maybe they fuck each other,' Vargas said. The scout laughed with him. But not as richly as the man should have laughed. A question began to scratch at Vargas.

'Also, my colonel, he has a Mexican from north of the border. That one, he don't speak Spanish worth shit, but he talks real fancy English.'

'That's good,' Vargas said definitely. 'All Mexicans go soft up north.'

'And there's an officer who speaks with an accent. They say he is a Jew. From Israel.'

'Another loser,' Vargas said. 'Luis, this fucking devil don't sound so bad to me.'

The scout laughed again. But the sound was noticeably sickly. It was the laugh of a nervous woman. Not of a revolutionary soldier.

'You know, Luis,' Vargas said, moving close enough so that the scout could smell his breath and get the full sense of his presence, 'I think there's something else. Something maybe you don't want to tell me. Now I don't know why you don't want to tell your colonel everything.'

'My colonel…' the scout began.

Vargas slapped a big hand around the back of the scout's neck. He did it in such a way that the Japanese would simply think it a personal gesture. Happy, dumb Mexicans, always touching each other. But the scout understood the message clearly.

'Here,' Vargas said. 'You drink another tequila. Then you fucking talk to me, Luis.'

The scout hastily threw the liquor into his mouth, ignoring the usual ceremony.

'My colonel,' he said, with unmistakable nervousness in his voice, 'they say he is the one who killed Hector Padilla over in Guanajuato.'

Vargas froze for a long moment. Then he made a noise like a bad-tempered animal. 'That's bullshit,' he said. He pulled his hand off the back of the scout's neck, then held it in midair in a gesture that was half exclamation and half threat. 'Hector was killed in an accident. In the mountains. Everybody knows that.'

'My colonel,' the scout said meekly, 'I only tell you what the people say. They say that the accident was arranged. That El Diablo infiltrated men into Commandante Padilla's camp. That—'

'Luis,' Vargas said coldly. 'How long have we known each other?'

The scout counted the months. The months became a year, then two. 'Since Zacatecas,' he said. 'Since the good days. Before the gringos came.'

'That's right, my brother. And I know you well. I know, for instance, when you got something to tell me. Like now.' Vargas swept the air with his hand. 'All this shit about Hector Padilla. When we're not really talking about Hector at all.' Vargas stared into the scout's inconstant eyes. 'Are we?'

'No, my colonel.'

'Then who are we talking about, Luis?'

The scout looked at Vargas with solemnity in the yellow light of the cantina. 'About you, my colonel. They say this gringo has been sent to… take you.'

Vargas laughed. But the laugh did not begin quickly enough, and it was preceded by an unexpected shadow of mortality that fell between the two men.

Vargas slapped the bar. Then he laughed again, spitting. 'What are you talking about?' the Japanese adviser demanded. 'What's he saying?'

Vargas stopped laughing. He gestured for the scout to leave the cantina, and the man moved quickly, in obvious relief. Vargas shifted his broad-footed stance to face the tiny yellow man who sat so smugly behind his table. Vargas did not trust the Japanese. He never imagined that these people were aiding the revolution out of the goodness of their hearts. It was all about power. Everything was about power. The relationship between men and women, between men and other men. Between governments and countries. The Japanese were very hungry for power. Crazy for it. As crazy as an old man who had lost his head over a younger woman.

It was a shame that the Japanese weapons were so good. And so necessary.

'He just said,' Vargas told his inquisitor, 'that I got to kill me one more fucking gringo.'

'There was more than that,' Morita said coldly. 'A great deal more. Under the terms of the agreement between my government and the People's Government of Iguala, you must provide me with all of the information I require to do my work.'

Yes, Vargas thought. The great People's Government of Iguala. What was left of them. Hiding like rats down in the mountains of Oaxaca. The glory days were over. Thanks to the fucking gringos. Now it was a matter of survival. Of holding on to your own piece of dirt, your own little kingdom. They had come a long way since they had paraded down the boulevards of Mexico City under the banner of the revolution.

Vargas snorted. 'Government of Iguala, government of Monterrey — it don't mean a fucking thing up here, man. You know what the government is, Morita?' Vargas drew out the ivory-handled automatic he had taken from the American general and slammed it down on the table in front of the Japanese. 'That's the fucking government.'

Vargas watched the Japanese closely. The man was obviously trying not to show fear, but the situation was getting to him. Morita was new to Mexico, to the food and water, to the simplicity of death. He was a replacement for an adviser lost months before. The system was breaking down. Vargas's men had received their late-model antiaircraft missiles without readable instructions, without training. Vargas had suffered through a season of relative defenselessness against the American helicopters. He had only been able to stage small operations — raids, bombings, robberies. Then, finally, this impatient captain had made his way up through the mountains.

Now they were ready for the helicopters. Vargas thumped the bar. More tequila. When the bartender came within reach of Vargas's arm, he found himself yanked halfway across the bar.

'You're slow, old man.'

The bartender paled. White as a gringo. It made Vargas smile. They were ready for the helicopters now. And they would be ready for this devil in spurs.

The gringos were always too soft. That was their problem. They never understood what a hard place Mexico had become. They were too respectful of death.

'Your agent,' the Japanese said, 'seemed unbalanced by the thought of this new American commander. In fact, he seemed afraid.'

'Luis? Afraid? Of some fucking gringo?' Vargas shook his head at the hilarity of the thought, even as he realized that it was true, and that some things were so obvious in life that you did not need to share the same language. 'Morita, you don't know how we do things here. You don't know how Mexicans live, how we think. We're