The Crime of Culiacán
The Sinaloa Cartel drove over Paco and Paco with a fully outfitted Chevy Silverado. They started at the feet. The heads were last. The direction did not matter. Bodies were squashed. Nobody saw it happen. It wasn’t until the morning, when stray dogs ate the chuck and flank of Paco and Paco’s cuts, that they were found dead. News of double Pacocide spread through Culiacán.
“Well, clearly it was Paco’s fault,” said one of the detectives.
Francisco Beltrán was, of course, innocent. His father was a tortillero, and he was to inherit the family tortilleria. As a grown man, he split the profit with his father, and comfortably provided for his wife and two sons. There was always food on the table. So, Paco B had little reason to lie, cheat, steal, and almost never did. The few times Paco B did find himself involved in such sins, they were venial, inconsequential, and, for fun.
Francisco López, on the other hand, was less neat. He had a good job as a bartender, but such an occupation carries with it bad habits. One develops expensive taste for nice liquor. One falls for a woman who shares this taste and has other expensive likes of her own. One spends a lot of money satisfying the woman’s desire. One borrows money to keep her. One, inevitably, loses that woman to a man with more money. One kills that man. When Paco L murdered Sebastian Orrosco, a member of the Sinaloa Cartel, to win back the heart of Xochitl Fernandez, the 137 bar songs about that very trope played in his head, and of them, only 5 ended well.
Paco L realized he had two options. He could either try his luck and see if his story would be the sixth man-murders-lovers’-new-man story to end well, or, he could get the hell out of Culiacán.
Paco L left dead Sebastian’s house and went to the home of the most trustworthy man that he knew, but when Padre Ambrosio didn’t answer, he went next door to Paco B’s house.
“Paco,” he said. “I need to borrow your car.”
“What the hell, Paco? It’s 3 in the morning. My children are asleep. My wife is in bed.”
“Well I don’t need them, I just need your car.”
Paco B began closing the door. “Goodnight, Paco-”
“Please. If you don’t help, they’ll kill me!”
After an hour, Paco L had worn down Paco B’s will, but Paco B wasn’t ready to part with his car. Instead, he offered to drive Paco L for whatever money he had on him. Paco L said he had nothing, pulled out his wallet, showed off 700 pesos, but explained that he might need them later.
“Dammit, fine, whatever, let’s go.”
Dead Sebastian’s friends had already had eyes on the five roads in and out of Culiacán. When they saw a lone car driving south on highway 15, they flashed lights on it and saw Paco L in the passenger seat. It only took them 10 minutes to force the car off the road, into a ditch, beat the shit out of the Pacos, drive them downtown, lay them on the road, and drive over them with a lifted Chevy Silverado. The truck was lifted to fit 35-inch tires. Both Pacos were properly restrained, and the tires covered their bodies perfectly.
“This is for what you did to Sebastian,” one gangster said to Paco B, mistaking him for Paco L.
“That wasn’t me, that was him! I didn’t do anything,” said Paco B, crying as he felt his toes crunch under two and a half tons of American engineering.
“Well then, this is for having shitty friends.”
Oso Guardiola
11.7.21
