David Unger - The Mastermind

It is seven a.m. Sunday morning and Guillermo gets his Pinnarello mountain bike out of the back bedroom and parks it in the living room. He truly loves his bicycle now that Braulio has had it restored. It has twenty speeds and is made of the lightest of carbons, so that it can be lifted with one hand. It’s a model of engineering genius. Actually, it can be balanced on two fingers once it’s been hoisted up.

Guillermo goes out to the terrace of his apartment. The sun is shining. The flamboyant tree below is about to burst into bloom. Soon there will be orange flowers falling on the grass and into the central fountain, something he will not live to see. He stares off in the distance and sees the tranquil surface of polluted Lake Amatitlán. Beyond the water he sees a plume of smoke rising up from the Pacaya volcano against a blue sky. He is horrified by the thought of never again seeing the people and places that have accompanied him for nearly fifty years.

Guillermo opens the refrigerator and takes out a plate of frijoles volteados and tortillas wrapped in cloth. He puts them in the microwave for twenty seconds and then pours himself a glass of orange juice for the dead man’s last meal. Within the hour, the world will be spinning without him, though he imagines his face will be plastered across the front page of every website reporting Guatemalan news. He wonders if anyone at this very moment is even thinking of him. Perhaps Ilán or Andrea.

Who is going to call them to tell them their father has been killed?

Miguel has helped Guillermo devise a perfect plan, so that there will be no way to trace the killing back to him. Miguel called a cousin who had been affiliated with the Mano Blanco back in the eighties, when the guerrillas were threatening to destroy civic catholic society. The cousin has anonymous connections to three assassins: a cashiered sergeant whose brutality is known throughout the country and is now working with the Zetas of Mexico to bring Colombian cocaine to the US via landing fields in the Petén; an oreja who serves in the presidential guard and is a member of Opus Dei; and a glue-sniffing criminal who has been in and out of prison for years and is reputed to have murdered half a dozen people for a handful of quetzales.

Any of these criminals would be happy to execute a stranger, no questions asked, for the paltry sum of 2,400 quetzales. The killer will do the shooting and disappear.

Guillermo looks at the food on the table one last time and is unable to eat a thing. He had been drinking all night, still gathering the courage to go through with his suicide. He is beyond depression and yet keeps thinking about his kids and his desire to see them again. He is upset by the thought that they will be ushered through college by Rosa Esther’s uncle, or by a new rich Mexican boyfriend. Still, he has set something in motion — the video has been made, the murderer hired. Guillermo can already hear the outraged speeches that his cohorts will be making at his burial at the accusation that the president was the architect of his murder.

The mole-faced president is about to wake up to the biggest surprise of his shitty life, thinks Guillermo. He has no idea what is awaiting him. A downside to the suicide is that he will not get the chance to see the president’s face blanch, tick nervously, and tighten up like a ball of tissue when he is served the news that even the dead want him out of office. And the president will glance around to see the face of his wife, that sow who believes the world is fooled by her constant photo opportunities in which she hands over a thirty-dollar monthly payment to an Indian family to demonstrate the government’s generosity.

Maybe the president will be placed in the same prison as Byron Lima who oversaw the murder of Bishop Gerardi in 1998. Let’s see which of the two makes it out of jail first.

Guillermo is sure the manila folder he is leaving in his gym bag with Ibrahim Khalil’s documents will be a trove of incriminating evidence for independent investigators. He hopes Ibrahim’s discovery that Monsieur and Madame President were siphoning funds from Banurbano to place in secret accounts is sufficient evidence to have them both arrested.

* * *

Miguel Paredes’s brilliant plan is to have Guillermo at the designated assassination spot at eight a.m. A ten-minute ride from his building.

Guillermo is ready at seven thirty. He has a splitting headache — his body is rebelling against him. Dying, putting an end to it all, is obviously the only solution.

He goes down the hall to the bathroom overcome by excruciating pain, brought about by the nonstop ingestion of almost pure alcohol. Nothing comes out — it must be gas. He goes back to bed to lie down, just for a minute. He is tired, extremely tired. He doesn’t intend to sleep, but he does. When he wakes up it is ten to eight. He needs to hurry.

He races across the apartment, gets his bike, and takes the elevator down to the basement. As usual no one is in the elevator. The doors open and he walks his bike across the nearly empty garage and up the back ramp to the door, which leads to the garbage dumpster on the side of the building. From there he can take the alley, used only by the garbage trucks that come every Thursday, to the main road.

His route through the alley is the only way to avoid being seen. Actually, it doesn’t matter if Guillermo is seen or not, by either the lobby or parking attendant. Once the news of his death is announced, who cares who has seen what?

He doesn’t need anyone’s permission to go for a bicycle ride on an early Sunday morning. Still, he prefers to be cautious and not to be seen. Or rather he doesn’t want to get into a conversation with a tenant or the guard in the guardhouse. None of the usual banter: It’s a beautiful day, sir. Any news from the family? I have a package for you . All the innocuous blah blah blah .

Guillermo goes out the parking lot door, which for some reason does not shut behind him. Should he go back and close it to protect his few neighbors from any potential burglars? He frankly doesn’t care, since he won’t be coming back. The door can remain ajar.

It is a spectacular morning. The wind blows softly and it’s cooler than it has been in recent days. He walks his bicycle along the alleyway that smells of stale beer and, oddly enough, almonds, though there are no almond trees around. When he reaches the avenue he notices the long shadows from the eucalyptus trees growing on the lawns of the houses across the street from his building. His neck feels a bit sore, but the tightness eases as he stretches, moving his head in gentle circles. He leans the bike against his hip and extends his arms to the side.

Enough stretching: he’s ready to go.

He mounts his bicycle and begins peddling. What a pleasure to ride a machine so carefully designed as to nearly ride itself. The gears shift effortlessly with hardly a trace of sound or friction, only the soft click of the derailleur. His legs are pedaling at a good clip. Maryam loved his lean and powerful legs, like those of a stallion. She liked grabbing his ass in her hands, trying and failing to shake it loose from his trunk.

Guillermo glances around. He has never been as conscious of nature as he is this morning. It’s as if he has awakened to a newly created world, one that dazzles him with its beauty and serenity. He hears birds chirping, yes, birds chirping , and feels the sun warm his face. Where has he been these past weeks? Has he lived with his head deep in the ground? Even when he had gone riding to get into shape and shake off his drunkenness, it was on a mission to expiate pain, fatigue, booze, and frustration, rather than to enjoy the beauty of a sunset ride. Nature had once been important to him.