Free Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis De Bernières

Dionisio began to think about it.
    Jerez pretended that he had to go away for a long time on an assignment, and he disappeared with some of the bag of money. He went to Rio and Caracas and gambled some of it, and spent the rest on the highest-class and most expensive whores he could find. He returned with the most intractable cocktail of venereal diseases that the doctors at the clinic had ever encountered, and they forbade him to sleep with a woman for six months at the very least. He decided to wait until Dionisio was dead before he spent the rest of it. Like everyone else he believed that this would happen sooner rather than later.
    So Dionisio never had the chance to test on himself his psychological theory of bribery, which was that anyone could be corrupted by being offered a sum that exceeded their annual income by a factor of ten, and he carried on writing the coca letters. But that night he noticed a turd on the stairs, and wondered how on earth a cat had got in.

16
Memos
    (
a
)
    F ROM : Headquarters, Central Intelligence Agency.
    T O : Headquarters, Central Intelligence Agency, Hispano-American Division
    Please assess reality of recent threat by coca cartels to blow up all US nuclear installations near to civilian populations, and recent offer of one billion dollars on the head of the president unless the policy of extradition is discontinued.
    (
b
)
    F ROM : The Office of His Excellency, President Veracruz
    T O : Pablo Ecobandodo, Ipasueño
    What contribution to the paying off of the National Debt may be expected in return for concessions on the part of the National Government?
    (
c
)
    Dear President,
    Are you loco? We do what we want, and this isn’t Colombia. Go fuck yourself.
    Pablo Ecobandodo.
    (
d
)
    F ROM : Club Hojas
    T O : Pablo Ecobandodo, Ipasueño
    We regret that your application for membership of our prestigious club has been turned down by our admissions committee. We advise that you read a copy of
La Prensa
from the fifth of May of this year. There you will find a letter from Dionisio Vivo, now an honorary member of this club, in which he states clearly why ‘the oligarchy’ should not allow a fifth column to be formed within its ranks. The committee particularly regrets your threats of violence in the event of refusal, your offers of financial inducements, and your suggestion that the club should provide gratis the use of prostitutes to its members.
    (
e
)
    F ROM : PE
    T O : El Guacamayo and El Chiquitin
    Arrange for Club Hojas to be blown up God’s own asshole.
Buy the land and build a new Club Hojas twice as big.
Don’t admit any members from the old club.
Get plenty of girls and put them in it.
Do it quick.
    (
f
)
    F ROM : The Office of His Excellency, President Veracruz
    T O : The Ministry of Agriculture
    Is it true what Dionisio Vivo says in the letter of the twenty-sixth of June, that the rural economy has collapsed because of the coca trade and that we are now net importers of food? If so, please calculate the financial loss to the state revenue.
    (
g
)
    T O : Rodrigo
    F ROM : Me
    Please deal with this memo from the president’s office. I can’t stand his Vivomania anymore.
    (
h
)
    F ROM : The Office of His Excellency, President Veracruz
    T O : The Ministry of Justice
    Is it true what Dionisio Vivo says, that our murder rate is now almost as bad as Washington DC, and that this is because of the coca trade? Is it true that this is discouraging foreign investment and destroying the tourist industry?
    (
i
)
    F ROM : The Ministry of Justice
    T O : The Office of His Excellency, President Veracruz
    Regrettably, Your Excellency, the answer to both your questions is ‘yes’. We beg you once more to declare a state of emergency.
    (
j
)
    F ROM : The Office of His Excellency, President Veracruz
    T O : The Office of The President of the United States of America
    Please find enclosed a copy of a letter by the famous Dionisio Vivo, in which he argues that the coca trade in this country is the