“I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY! GIVE ME MY FUCKING MONEY … NOW!!!!”
—President J. T. Tower
“You want to take me down?” Tower asked. “Is that why you write such foul things about me?”
“I only hope to tell the truth and shame the devil,” Jules said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Does your so-called ‘truth crusade’ give you the right to impugn my character and call me names?”
“Give me an example.”
“That thing you blogged yesterday. You said I ‘careen through life like a hurricane out of this inferno.’ You described me, Jules, as ‘swaggering through a hellworld of my own making with Mein Kampf in one hand and Atlas Shrugged in the other.’”
“I also described you as ‘a depraved megalomaniac suffering from predatory greed, malignant narcissism, paranoid ideation and severe delusional thinking.’”
“That’s only your opinion,” Tower said. “My supporters call me a ‘jobs creator.’”
“Except the world would be better off without the vile jobs and toxic products you poison it with,” Jules said, “and without your heinous hedge funds and gargoyle-ugly needle towers.”
“But what gives you the right to be judge, jury and executioner?”
“President Tower, I reported on some of your more disreputable deeds—stories that were all excruciatingly accurate—and then I summarized what they meant. What’s wrong with that?”
“But do your summations have to be so hateful?”
“In your case, the truth has to hurt,” Jules said. “You’re a world-class psychopath with genocidal impulses and the world would be better off if you were dead.”
Tower’s cell rang. Grimacing, he said:
“Sorry, but my sister, Brenda, says I have to take this. It’s the president of Mexico.
“Yes, President Rodriguez, very good to speak to you too. How’s the family?… Excellent … Now, Señor President, I have people with me, and I’m a little pressed for time. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to be blunt. I hope you don’t take offense at my words, but you do owe me and Tower, Inc.… money. In fact, you and your entire nation are very seriously in arrears, and I and my company want our money … now.”
There was a moment of silence during which Tower listened intently, his face reddening slowly.
“All right, I completely understand. Now let me tell you what my position is. I don’t want to hear about how miserable and broke your people, taxpayers and businesses are or what a shithole of a country Mexico is. That is something I can do nothing about. Yes, I know you and your people are suffering. Well in my opinion you were all born to suffer. So no excuses or extenuations.”
More silence, more grimaces and groans from Tower.
“Yes?” Tower finally said. “Yes? What do I want, you ask?… I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY! GIVE ME MY FUCKING MONEY … NOW!!!!”
There was a long silent pause, and Tower held the phone a full foot away from his ear, all the while smiling.
“Oh, you call me a ‘bastardo,’” Tower said. “Si, there are many bastardos in the world, and, es verdad, I am one of them. Some say we bastardos own the world, but in truth, we only run it. And you, cabrón, this time, you fucked with the wrong bastardo. This bastardo-gringo’ll send some men down there who will alter you surgically and set you up in a Tampico brothel as uno hombre-puto. It will be a major comedown for a man of your machismo. Then I’ll pimp out your mother, your sisters, your daughters. I’ll destroy your credit rating in all the world’s financial markets. I’ll flood the market with dirt-cheap oil and drop its price so low you’ll have to pay your customers just to take your petrol off your hands. When I’m done with you, you’ll be blacklisted from every bank, stock exchange and marketplace worldwide. Forget about taking out loans or selling goods. The Mexican cartels will eat you alive and move to Colombia so you won’t even have drugs to smuggle. You’ll have to go to Bogotá to buy a joint. Then I’ll turn Mexico into a charnel house of horrors, a blood-splattered abattoir. There’ll be enough left in your benighted land for the vultures to peck at. When I’m finished with you, you’ll be so busted-out you won’t be able to sell frijoles in an alley or peddle your fat ugly puto ass in the street.
“In point of dull plain fact you have tried my patience long enough, so let me be just as plain as the balls on a tall dog. When I want to buy a woman … I go to a whore. When I want to buy a murder … I go to a paid killer. And when I want to buy a squalid fifth-rate shit-stinking outhouse of a country and its brain-damaged IQ-30 pederastic president, I go to Mexico. I buy that country and that president lock, stock and barrel, and guess what? They stay bought. Your country stays bought. You stay bought. ’Cause if you don’t, I’ll nail your ass to the floorboards. I’ll bring the whole U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force down on you. I’ll then personally arm every peon, bandido, drug dealer and revolucionario in Mexico against you. When I’m done, you won’t have enough money, property or credit to get jackrolled by your drunken, syphilitic puta madre. You’ll be deader than refried javelina shit—deader than dead, dead as dead can be. Do you catch my drift? Is there any part of this you don’t comprendo? Understand me now … GREASER?”
Slamming the phone down, he looked up at Jules Meredith. “Now where were we?” President Tower asked with an amiable smile.