A Slug In the Heart

In the cheerless lobby of Mexico City's Hotel Ambos Mundos one night last week, General Jesus H. Alva sat stroking his huge mustache. He was reminiscing about the old days when he was one of Pancho Villa's Dorados ("golden" shock troops). As he talked, the 70-year-old general played with a wooden bullet. "Son," he said to a bystander, "they sent us these, thinking that we wouldn't be able to fight with them. That trick could not stop the Dorados!"

The general got up, crossed the lobby to the cigar stand, bought four of his favorite cigars. As he turned from the stand, he brushed against one Jesus Arias, police chief from the tiny Michoacan town of Vista Hermosa, who was a little the worse for tequila. General Alva's dark green felt hat fell to the floor.

"Be a man!" he shouted at Arias, reaching for his hip. "I was one of Villa's Golden Ones!" "And I am from Michoacan!" snarled Arias. Alva drew his .45 Colt automatic; Arias leveled his pearl-handled .38 at the general's middle. Without saying anything more, he squeezed the trigger three times. The general sank to the black-&-white marble tiles, fired once before he hit the floor. Once was enough: his slug ripped through the police chief's heart.

As General Alva lost consciousness, his left hand opened and the wooden bullet rolled slowly into a dusty corner. The next morning he died.

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