King of Swords

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“Quite a night, huh, Jefe?” the tattoo artist commented in a tone that belied a complete lack of interest in any response. He was just making idle chatter while he prepared the drawing and busied himself removing the sterilized tattoo gun tip from the sealed paper envelope. His Spanish accent placed him as Argentinean. Not unusual in Mexico, because when people emigrated from Argentina, they generally went to countries where Spanish was the native language.

Sinewy muscles rippled under the artist’s gaunt forearms, which were covered from the wrists to his shoulders in vividly-articulated tattoos, as was his neck. His nose was pierced and held a stainless steel horseshoe suspended from the columella, complimented by the rows of studs that adorned both ears from top to bottom, visible because his two feet of dyed black hair was tied back in a ponytail. The squalid ambience of the little place was fortified by the speed-metal of Slayer blasting from the overhead stereo speakers, which was in keeping with the shop’s name: Metal Ink.

“How long will this take?” the man asked impatiently.

“Figure an hour and a half to two hours. Two to be safe. Why, you got somewhere pressing you need to be?” the tattoo artist replied.

“Nah. Just want to know what to expect.”

“It will hurt a little, but shouldn’t be too bad. This area of the chest isn’t nearly as sensitive as a lot of areas I’ve done,” the artist said, with a suggestive leer that revealed decaying teeth and badly receded gums — telltale signs of a chemical romance with methamphetamines.

“I’m not worried about it.”

“You want a shot of meanstreak before I get going?” the artist asked, gesturing with his head at a bottle of Chinaco tequila sitting on the small bar that was part of the establishment’s limited charms. Several shot glasses were aligned next to it, like small glass soldiers standing at the ready.

“No. I’m good,” the man replied.

“Suit yourself.”

The artist sterilized the spot on the man’s bare chest where he’d indicated he wanted the tat and pulled a disposable razor from a drawer in the small stainless steel work table. He thumbed the plastic blade cover into the garbage and quickly shaved the area, then applied some neutral deodorant so the artwork would leave a clear impression. Satisfied with his work, he held up the stencil and placed it carefully on the newly shaved area, just above the left nipple on the pectoral muscle. When he removed it, he tossed it into the wastebasket and applied a film of ointment over the blue outline, humming to himself in time with the incomprehensible noise blaring from the stereo. After inspecting his handiwork with satisfaction, he opened a package of surgical gloves and expertly pulled them over his dexterous fingers. Grinning again, he looked at the man and rubbed his latex-sheathed hands together with anticipation.

“So now we begin,” he said, grasping the tattoo gun and activating it.

The high-pitched hum of the gun droned against the machine-gun bursts of staccato guitar riffs as the artist swiveled his stool and wheeled to the man’s side.

From the trash bin, the watchful eye of the crow depicted on the stencil seemed to follow the artist’s movements as he lowered the gun to skin and started to draw.

Cruz had called a meeting with CISEN to inform them of his suspicions, but it wasn’t exactly going as planned. He’d dutifully driven to their headquarters and was escorted to a conference room, where he’d waited impatiently for half an hour before four men emerged from the large building’s cavernous depths. Nobody had apologized for being late, although they’d been polite enough, at least in the beginning.

The bonhomie had quickly degraded into an adversarial exchange that hadn’t gone anywhere good.

“Hmmm, yes, well, I see how you could draw that inference, but the problem is that you have not one iota of evidence to support your, hmm, intellectual leap,” the oldest of the men and the director of the agency, Armando Serrate, pointed out.

“I understand. But I’m telling you that standing in the room with the man…it wasn’t something he just tossed off. He was telling me, no, he was bragging, that he was going to kill the President and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. He didn’t seem to care whether I knew. That’s part of what makes me uncomfortable. He was convinced it would happen no matter what steps were taken because of the assassin involved. El Rey,” Cruz repeated.

“Yes. We heard you the first time. But all of this is purely guesswork on your part, gut feel, if you like, absent any proof. Would you agree with that?” Serrate’s right hand man, Guillermo Trudo, asked.

“I’m currently gathering evidence, gentlemen. But the man’s dying statement, coupled with the mention of El Rey, should give you all pause for concern,” Cruz fired back.

“Capitan Cruz, while I appreciate you coming to us with your, hmm, theories, I think we’re probably better equipped to gauge what should concern us than you are,” Serrate declared.

“You can’t discount this. We’re talking about a plot to assassinate the President, confirmed by a cartel chief,” Cruz insisted.

“Who are well known for their veracity, I’m sure. Look, you told us that this man, Santiago, died of a brain injury, correct? How do you know that his flight of fancy wasn’t an early sign of his brain malfunctioning? Or that he wasn’t simply lying in order to torment you, or so he’d appear to have some valuable information to bargain with?” Trudo reasoned.

“You weren’t there. You didn’t look into his eyes,” Cruz said, feeling lame even as he uttered the words. “I know how far-fetched this sounds, but the summit is only five weeks away so we don’t have a lot of time. I could use your help. You have resources I don’t. You can partner with the Americans, and use technology we don’t have, to pinpoint this man-”

“Yes, I’m quite sure the National Security Agency will be anxious to step in and assist the Mexican government with their domestic murder-for-hire problem,” Serrate offered, glancing at his associates in an openly skeptical manner. His tone softened. “You have a hard job, Cruz. We all do. If you get some concrete evidence that there’s a plot, you’re welcome back to present it to us, and we’ll be happy to hear it. But right now, you have nothing. You have a hunch, yes? And we don’t trade in hunches, hmm, when discussing our business with the Americans. They already think we’re a bunch of savages due to the drug violence — we don’t need to add superstitious fools to their list, you see?”

“So this is all about how you’re afraid it might look to your counterparts in the U.S.? Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? This isn’t my first week on the job, and-”

“Nor is it mine, Capitan. Do you have any idea how many false alarms or threats against the President’s life we field in any given month? No. You probably don’t. Let’s just say it’s a fair number, and that most are more solid than what you’ve brought.” Serrate pushed back his chair and prepared to terminate the meeting. “Thank you for coming, and stay in touch — keep us up to date on any progress, hmm, yes? We’ll take the El Rey matter under advisement and enact appropriate safeguards. Now, perhaps you can go back to solving the nation’s drug crisis, and we can return to our humble tasks…”

“You’re making a horrible mistake,” Cruz, furious, managed through clenched teeth.

“Noted, Capitan, noted. Now, if there isn’t anything else, Trudo here can show you the way out,” Serrate said.

“I know the way. I found my way in, didn’t I? Oh, and I hope you don’t mind if I contact the American Secret Service and alert them to my suspicions, all right? Perhaps they would be more receptive than you,” Cruz threw out as his final leverage.

“Well, Capitan, if you think that they’ll be any more courteous or receptive to your baseless suppositions and wild theories than we were, by all means, embarrass yourself further. But my advice is to wait until you have something besides emotion to contact them with, or you’re quite likely to be laughed out of the room, or treated like a slow child. I deal with them on a regular basis, and you can trust me when I tell you they won’t be nearly as gracious,” Serrate warned.

Cruz stalked out of the building, fuming at the treatment. He’d never been so humiliated in twenty-something years as a Federal. These arrogant pricks had acted as if his interrogation evaluation was toilet paper, unworthy of their time.

He started the Charger engine and sat staring at the wall of the building, thinking. He needed to come up with some evidence, and quickly, or nobody would take anything he said about El Rey