Starving Port (7)
El Fuego dragged the sofa closer to me and leaned back against the armrest at a slant.
"I showed you an ugly side for a bit there."
"......No, not at all."
"Don't be too scared. El Tiro here's just on edge right now. He needs to gather forces before HQ lands, but at this rate, the commander'll chew him out big time."
"That military fund you mentioned earlier—is it a bribe for the commander? To smooth over the failure?"
"Whoa! Sharp as a tack, like a real businessman! Yeah, exactly!"
El Fuego affirmed it without hesitation. Even with the word bribe hanging in the air, El Tiro showed no shame. It was just natural business to people with a different mindset.
"Around forty million pesos oughta do it. What do you think? Think of it as peace maintenance fees for the city—not bad, right? Dollars would be even better. Mexican pesos are shaky these days."
Forty million pesos was roughly two billion won. I could pay it if I had to, but avoiding unnecessary waste was always smart.
I racked my brain and tossed out a question that meant nothing to me but felt natural for "Hwang."
"I can't hand over that kind of money—pesos or dollars—without conditions. You said earlier your organization would provide conveniences on an institutional level. What exactly can you offer me?"
If "Hwang" saw the business environment here as too risky or got cold feet and decided to cut losses on this port, El Fuego would be in a real bind. His earlier mentions of "concessions" and "my position" were already clues. He had no choice but to play nice with "Hwang," and so he proposed:
"For businesses you own in this port, I'll give you a ten-year tax exemption."
"Tax exemption?"
"Yeah, tax exemption! The floor rights—the protection fee our organization collects."
"Hm......"
"We usually take ten percent of operating profits as tax. Imagine how huge that edge is in a chicken game with competitors in the same line. Most rivals won't even dare start up! What I'm offering is basically a monopoly!"
"That's...... definitely advantageous."
Honestly, the terms were pretty sweet. Not that they'll honor it to the end, of course.
Once "Hwang" owned a lot here and couldn't easily pull out, that's when El Fuego would show his true colors. He'd renege on the deal, make ever more outrageous demands, forcing the foreign businessman into a tightrope walk of razor-thin profits until he coughed up the real juice. Fattening them up with profits first. Whether in casinos, businesses, or the criminal underworld, the wisdom of handling people boiled down to the same thing.
As if I couldn't see through this arrogant prick.
El Fuego's temptation flowed from rude attitude into slick technique.
"Right, right. And with ties to our organization, you won't need to pay any express fees here and there. No two-bit official in cartel territory will dare ask you to grease them. I stake my name on it."
Express fees and grease. Those two terms summed up Mexico's business landscape. Grease in particular had its own idiom: Mexican ointment. Without lubing the bureaucracy like oiling a machine, business ground to a halt. Before it became an idiom, ungüento meant oily ointments used as medicine or scented oils to delay decay on corpses. Corruption of bodies or bureaucracy—either way, the grease masked the stench.
I nodded. "So basically, I'm paying all future unofficial expenses upfront? At a massive discount?"
"Exactly! You get it."
"......Alright."
"Hallelujah!"
"In that case, I'll invest even bigger. I want to build a good relationship with you too, El Tiro."
"Asians are quick on the uptake! So, how much you planning to drop?"
"Under the condition that you notarize the terms in a document, I'll prepare two million dollars in cash by four days from now. But the document needs all three of your fingerprints. Signatures alone won't cut it."
My ship would dock in three days. It was money I wasn't using anyway, so I jacked up the amount. Chelino looked deeply troubled at the political suicide I was demanding as collateral, but that's why he was here. He'd skim a cut too.
"Wait, fingerprints......?"
Chelino started to protest uncomfortably, but El Fuego jumped up, arms raised high, cutting him off.
Lost in his own ecstasy, silently cheering, El Fuego turned to El Tiro in a submachine-gun rattle of excitement.
"See that? See? That's how you talk! Take notes from me, you musclehead! Two million dollars! Say it after me: two—million—dol—lars!"
Despite El Fuego's explosive frivolity, El Tiro didn't seem too displeased. Money, naturally. Even for cartel execs used to big bucks, a one-time two-million-dollar bribe wasn't pocket change.
"Four days is still too late, though. We'll be deployed by then."
El Tiro grumbled a bit, and Fuego shot back.
"I'll hold it till the op's over. I'll vouch to Chomo myself, so relax."
Context suggested Chomo was the Dobla A commander's nickname.
Chomo as a pet name? Real name's probably Geronimo.
El Tiro shot me a slight frown at Fuego's loose lips, but I played dumb, like I hadn't caught it.
Civilians might be surprised, but criminal deals often ran on trust. Especially inside organizations—cheat, and you'd end up in a death feud with the other faction. Building a faction to avoid getting scammed was on you. If you fell for it, you were the idiot.
"Can't be helped."
El Tiro nodded at me. "Deal. I'll gladly take the money. You won't regret earning my goodwill."
"I hope this proves a solid investment for me too."
After that, Chelino was more or less shoved into notarizing the documents.
"Putting fingerprints on a contract feels weird. Do we really have to?"
"Nothing proves it more solidly. Think of it as Eastern culture."
"......"
Chelino hesitated in front of the ink pad, clearly reluctant. Fingerprinting—sello dactilar—wasn't unknown in Mexico, but it wasn't common. For a public official, leaving prints on something like this was way riskier than for cartel goons.
As he dragged his feet, El Fuego snapped irritably.
"Hey, Chelino. What's with the dawdling? Five percent to you like always. Gotta hustle if you want that bigger house, promotion, and fresh young tail, right?"
Even with the five-percent skim promised, Chelino didn't look thrilled. Already stuck guaranteeing this mess, watching cartel brass pocket easy millions must've stung. But with El Tiro's glare hardening too, Chelino had no room left to resist.
In the end, four signed, four-fingerprinted copies went into four envelopes. Laughably, the official envelopes bore the state government's logo and phone number.
Handy having water control for moments like this.
The pad was water-based ink, so I used my binding on water to distort my print's shape while pressing. Just hold steady to buy time. My refined circuit's precise incantation control enabled flawless forgery. Even oil-based would've been easy—water and oil don't mix, so I could've molded a template with moisture control, smeared ink in, and stamped a fake.
I pocketed my copy, then—as if it just occurred to me, casually—asked something crucial.
"Now that it's done, one last question: what if I hadn't offered the military fund?"
El Fuego shot back. "Why curious?"
"Just idle curiosity. A foreigner wondering about Mexico's reality."
"Fair. You knew your US stuff pretty well too."
Convinced, Fuego launched into cartel-exec bravado, brutal and boastful. Deal sealed, he could spout threats without issue. Perfect—I got plenty of recording fodder for the edit, filling gaps nicely.
"One more thing?"
"Shoot."
"This city's crawling with army and police. Can your cartel sicarios really mass here? Does the mayor have pull over navy, army, police, and National Guard too?"
The National Guard—Guardia Nacional—was Mexico's unique force blending military police and federal cops, under the Security and Civilian Protection Secretary in the federal cabinet. Meaning, directly reined by President López Obrador.
No matter his ruling party ties, one mayor couldn't cover mass cartel maneuvers. Unless bribed—but that'd be a losing deal for the mayor.
If bribes were involved, it'd hurt the mayor more.
Mayor Chelino gave a bitter smile and shook his head. "I can't go that far."
"Then?"
"Simple. For order's sake, the president decided—just this once—to tolerate Sinaloa's expansion."
Hm. Total shitshow.
When Sinaloa took Guadalajara's dark corners, it festered underneath but kept surface peace. A quintessentially Mexican political call.
Cartels fighting each other? Blame falls primarily on them first.
Last year-end's Culiacán showdown forced the government to admit defeat amid endless civilian casualties. That soured public opinion still gripping the president. So his eye-for-an-eye play was ice-cold realpolitik.
Sinaloa expands—good for them. Government restores peace while tarnishing Sinaloa's image amid the civilian fallout from rooting out the Knights' base. Government's incompetence would get highlighted too, but for an administration still unrehabbed from last year's plunge, gains outweighed losses. Bonus if Sinaloa's forces got whittled down.
El Fuego played his fool part perfectly. "Get it, Don Hwang? That's our cartel. Mexico's other government."
Devilish soundbite for the edit.
"I see. Folks like me can only lean on the mercy of you two, El Fuego and El Tiro."
"Yeah, yeah. You grabbed a real good lifeline. Let's do great things."
Great things my ass. I shook hands one last time with the three dreamers.
Now I just had to wait out the remaining three days. Not dropping my guard till it was over, but I'd cleared every obstacle effort could touch.
But no matter how meticulously you plan, life trips you on unseen stones. What upended the board wasn't Sinaloa or the Templar Knights.
It was the Mexican government's secret decision to accept foreign aid. And among those foreigners was the first nation to form a special forces unit of Awakened ability users only: Britain.
The Round Table Masters had set their sights on the Templar Knights' Mexican leader.
The freakishly powerful natural Awakened: their boss, El Maestre.
Here, in this distant land, I drew closest for the first time to the Round Table's vanguard.