Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord Read Online Free PDF

knew about locally but which was not on any maps in any army or air-force headquarters.
    The first one to see the helicopter was Sergio. He was walking home with a burn on his hand because he had tried to lasso his horse up on the pajonale and the rope had somehow caught the running horse’s right foreleg. The rope had whistled through his palm and scarred him before he could let go. When he got into the town the helicopter had already landed in the courtyard of the Palace of the Lords, and the two occupants were already walking through the streets softening up the population.
    The two men were pressing huge wads of thousand-peso notes into the hands of everybody they met. Very soon there were hordes of folk pouring out of the doorways to take advantage of this unexpected munificence, and people were shoving and pushing, shouting and trampling. The two men were saying, ‘There is more of this when El Jerarca arrives, you just wait and see. All of you will be rich, and he gives you this to show how he will be a padrino to you and look after you,’ and some people were shouting ‘Viva El Jerarca’ without even knowing who he was.
    Sergio watched as Hectoro sensibly collected his wad of notes and then rode away to regard the mayhem with growing contempt. Hectoro was observing through half-closed eyes because the smoke from his puro was drifting into them, and his hard mouth was set into a frown, turning down at the corners. As he sat there in his saddle he looked more like a conquistador than ever, with his black beard, his face of a Spanish aristocrat, and his black glove on his rein hand. For a few moments he thought of taking his revolver from his holster, taking the money from those two slick-looking types, giving it to the people himself, and ordering them to leave. There was something about the lack of dignity in the stampede that repelled him.
    But just then Remedios approached and stood by him. She was still dressed in the khaki of her days as a guerrilla, and she still carried a Kalashnikov wherever she went. ‘Hectoro,’ she said.
    ‘Si?’ replied Hectoro, who never used more words than a man should.
    ‘I have seen this before. This is what the coca people do when they come to take a place over. Go and get Misael and Josef and Pedro; we must do something.’
    Hectoro tossed his head and his frown deepened. ‘I never take orders from a woman; you know this.’
    Remedios sighed exasperatedly, put her hands on her hips, and then smiled. ‘Give the order to yourself, then, but do it quickly.’
    He looked down at her. He was fond of Remedios, as everyone was, but he would never let it show, and he would never slacken his lifetime’s dedication to the cult of machismo, even for her. He called over a child and told it to go and fetch Pedro and Josef and Misael.
    When they came Remedios informed them of the situation, and Misael immediately suggested asking Don Emmanuel for advice, but Remedios dismissed the idea. Lately she had got fed up with his relentless jokes about parts of the body, and he had begun to think that she was a prig. And in any case, Misael himself had an idea that would get rid of them for good without anyone knowing who was to blame. It would have been most undesirable had El Jerarca ever found out, and maybe the people would have blamed them if it was revealed that Hectoro had deprived them of riches.
    Hectoro was a man with a liver that had been on the point of collapse for several years, but which was to last him a lifetime against all the prognostications of medicine, the laws of probability, and the inscrutable workings of natural justice. He was an indefatigable drinker of fiery liquors whom no one had ever seen drunk.
    In the bar of Consuelo’s whorehouse he treated the two slickers to drinks. Whenever they showed unwilling or declined another dose of aguardiente, Hectoro would say, ‘Are you men? Come, drink now,’ and they would look at him with growing desperation, understand that