Evil required no real genius, only power, lack of conscience, and an inquisitive nature such as I had seen at work in the tea forest. Men were, indee… - Lucius Shepard

And then along came Satan's Eye Itself. Television." He laughed, as at some fatal irony. "Don't you hear the evil hum of the word, the knell of Satan? Television! It's the ruling character of your lives, like the moon must have been for Indians. An oracle, a companion, a signal of the changing seasons. But rather than divine illumination, each night it spews forth Satan's imagery. Murders, car crashes, mad policemen, perverted strangers! And you lie there decomposing in its flickering, blue-gray light, absorbing His horrid fantasies!

The half moon sailed high, sharp-winged shadows skimming across it, and the conical hills and the vine-shrouded trees washed silver-green under the moonlight had the look of a decaying city millennia after a great catastrophe.

That the official and the criminal are inextricably aligned should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the workings of their government, but nowhere is this juxtaposition so literal and apparent as in Mexico City.