Read Online The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes - Free Book Online

through all the supply closets in the office, counting out all the pencils, the sheets of letterhead, paper clips, erasers, scissors, folders, pens, et cetera. Yesterday, Penélope beat him to it and replaced all the office supplies that had gone missing.
    “I keep an exact count, sir,” she said. “If you like, we can go through it together and you’ll see nothing is missing.”
    “Did you just put them all back in time, Penélope?” the arrogant de la Canal asked.
    “I never took them, sir.”
    “Have you been snooping through my desk, Penélope?”
    “My job is to see that nothing is missing, don Tácito.”
    Do you know what I did, María del Rosario? I took Doris by the arm, dragged her to Fratina, and dressed her in black from head to toe, black tailored suit, black stockings, black stiletto heels, Chanel handbag, the works, and then I took her to her mother’s house in Colonia Satélite. The poor girl was frightened to death, and once we walked through the door I introduced her anew to her mother, a dried-up old hag who was staring aimlessly at a ball of yarn in her hands, sitting in a wheelchair with a jug of lemonade and an arsenal of pills at her side. Oh, yes, and an ugly cat on her lap.
    All I said was, “From now on, this is what Doris will wear to work.”
    “And who the hell are you?”
    “I’m her employer, madam, and if you want your daughter to bring a salary home and look after you, Doris better turn up to work looking like this, because if not, I might just kidnap her and take her to come and live with me. . . .”
    The old lady began to scream and suddenly I had one of those revelations, like a little thunderbolt flashing through the brain. “And I’d be very careful about saying anything about this to that lowlife Tácito de la Canal. The game is over, madam. If you continue pimping your daughter I’ll put you in jail.”
    The old lady started to shriek in earnest now, and the cat jumped up, meowing with a vengeance, as if defending its mistress. I kicked the bloody cat in the ass and when Doris saw that her mother was defeated she smiled for the first time. Ever since then, she’s come to the office dressed like a woman her own age.
    Penélope winks at me and gives me the thumbs-up for that one.
    But Tácito looks at me with true hatred. He knows I’ve
read
him like a book, from top to bottom. Servile with the powerful. Contemptuous with the weak. In what intermediate position have I placed myself ? I look him straight in the eye. He has no choice but to stare right back at me. But I smile. He does not. And when he calls Doris into his office, I say, “Sorry, sir. Doris is working on a very urgent matter for me.”
    If the bastard had any hair, it would stand on end.

12
    BERNAL HERRERA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN
    Are you certain that your strategy is the right one? If your protégé Nicolás Valdivia is working with Tácito de la Canal, it isn’t just to gain experience. Not even to gain firsthand knowledge of our adversary. He’s there to uncover Tácito de la Canal’s weak spot, the truth that will undo him, the act that will condemn him. We already know that Tácito’s a lowlife. But how many other lowlifes have you met in politics who still enjoy their ill-gotten wealth with impunity? What we must do is catch Tácito red-handed. What has Valdivia discovered? Not much. Things we already knew. That Tácito is servile. That he’s cruel. That in dealing with people he kisses up and kicks down. That he lets the president treat him like a used napkin. That perhaps the president needs a servant to fawn over him. That perhaps the president needs a guard dog with a spiked collar to defend him from inopportune visitors.
    Nothing new. Our most exalted leader needs the security of a yes-man, someone who will agree with everything he says. As you can see, our president is following the age-old custom, observed by the likes of Frederick of Prussia and Catherine the Great, of bringing