international drug shipments on behalf of Ruiz—this time around, El Rey del Mar, as he was now being called in the Mexican press, came out the eventual victor. Garbo's army was destroyed, any last remnants hunted down with cruel efficiency by Ruiz's agents. As for Garbo himself, he disappeared in the final weeks of the war and was never heard from again. A rumor which arose at the time and that has never fully been quelled is that Ruiz, along with several of his most loyal mermaids, took Garbo out into the Pacific Ocean, miles from shore, and let him slowly dehydrate and bake in the brutal sun, before finally allowing a swarm of circling, blood-thirsty sharks—pets of the mermaids—to feed on the screaming, elderly man.
Throughout the 1990's and into the 2000's, Fernando Alberto Ruiz enjoyed unrivalled fame and power as the head of one of Mexico's largest drug cartels. Using his mermaids to transport drugs beneath the water to a variety of foreign shores, Ruiz was able to reach new markets and highly-patrolled ports with unprecedented ease. No one is certain how many mermaids were working under Ruiz or how much product they were able to move, but joint operations conducted by several nations, including Mexico, the United States, Panama, Canada, and Chile, were wholly unsuccessful in stopping Ruiz's shipments. No mermaid working for Ruiz was ever captured, and no evidence has ever surfaced that any agency was even close to capturing one.
Private individuals proved slightly more successful. One famous incident, in which a sea glass collector, out late at night on a quiet beach in southern California, encountered a pair of mermaids hauling several crates onto the empty beach, made the local news at the time. Grainy video, shot by the collector on an early-model smart phone in the near-dark exists, but experts examining the video have been unable to glean anything from the pixelated, almost-black images. Known as the Freedman Film, after Linda Freedman, the glass collector who shot the footage, it remains to this day the best available evidence of Ruiz's mermaids, whom the press took to calling "Sea-Dealers." As for Linda Freedman, she claimed in the months following the release of her footage to have been the victim of constant bullying by all manner of lifeforms and creatures in the ocean, to the point that she was forced to give up her hobby. Less than a year later, she gave away all of her sea glass and moved from southern California, back to her hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana.
In 2008, a Hollywood version of El Rey del Mar's life was released to theatres, entitled Sea of Violence. It starred Adrien Brody as Ruiz, and Kevin Spacey as Alejandro Garbo. Charlize Theron portrayed Ruiz's mermaid wife, Ilsa-Doll. The movie was a failure at the box office, due in large part to several high-profile negative campaigns which focused on the fact that the film featured Caucasian actors and actresses in all the major roles, and a complete lack of any Spanish dialogue at all.
About the time the movie was fizzling in theatres, the public opinion for Ruiz began to turn. Several high profile instances of violence on both sides of the U.S - Mexico border began to erode El Rey del Mar's popularity, as the public became increasingly distressed by the uptick in drug-related violence. In particular, the bombing of a Rite-Aid Pharmacy in southern Arizona by a rival drug cartel, and the bombing and subsequent sinking of a Carnival Cruise Lines passenger ship in the Pacific Ocean by a militant branch of mermaids with loose ties to Ruiz, caused great public outcry. Thus began a crackdown on the drug cartels, which until then had operated with relative impunity. By 2011, a violent campaign was being waged in many cities, mostly in Mexico, as the united militaries of the United States and Mexico sought to crush the drug cartels for good.
Around this same time, it was first reported that Fernando Alberto Ruiz was engaged in another type of battle—he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Ruiz retreated to his hometown of Bescalero on the Baja peninsula, and began to give back to the locals there, who for years had championed El Rey del Mar. Now, with the end of his life perhaps in sight, he began a program of charity and massive construction projects. He built schools, parks, a soccer stadium, and several multi-story outdoor shopping malls. He ordered the construction of one of Mexico's most luxurious and hi-tech movie theatres, and was even seen to laugh good-naturedly when asked whether he'd show his own movie, Sea of Violence. He didn't. (Show the film, that is.)
Initially given a diagnosis of two or three months to live, Ruiz spent much of the vast illegal fortune he'd amassed on his hometown and the surrounding areas. Four years later, Ruiz was still alive and kicking (the same couldn't be said for the doctor who had given him the original estimate) and was in good spirits when he appeared on the Mexican television show La Entrevista (The Interview).
"I'm a blessed man," he told TV host Don Miguel Sanchez. "I've lived a blessed life, and I've been able to give something back to the community. This is very important to me. In addition, I've met and swam with and made love to dozens of mermaids far more beautiful than any two-legged puta."
When asked why he thought the mermaids had chosen to reveal themselves to him, and to serve him loyally throughout his life, running drugs and occasionally carrying out hits on targets known to be in boats or near the water, Ruiz shrugged and offered the camera his famous smile.
"Why not?"
Hours after the interview was filmed, Ruiz collapsed at his hotel and was rushed to hospital. Doctors worked frantically overnight to save him, but at 5:52 A.M. local time, on October the 22nd, Fernando Alberto Ruiz, El Rey del Mar—the King of the Sea—was pronounced dead. Three days later, his body was laid to rest in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Baja near his beloved town of Bescalero. Reported mermaid sightings surged the day of the funeral and in the days that followed.
Ruiz was not a great man. Some would insist he was merely a bad man—one of the worst—but that isn't the whole story, either. Fernando Alberto Ruiz was a complicated man, who in many ways lived an extraordinary life. From humble beginnings, he rose to the head of a powerful, international drug smuggling organization. He met and mingled with mythical creatures, Hollywood featured the story of his life on celluloid, and through it all, Ruiz never forgot where he came from. He spent the last few years of his life giving back, perhaps in an effort to repay in some small measure the pain that the blood and violence and deaths for which he was responsible had caused—an attempt to even the scales, so to speak, with works of good will and charity.
In the end, Fernando Alberto Ruiz will be remembered as far more than just another drug lord. He was a hero, a villain, a myth and a legend. He was El Rey del Mar. The King of the Sea.
THE END
About the Author
Alpert L Pine lives and writes in a small cabin, off the grid, in the Northwest United States. Once per week, he treks to the nearest town on foot—rain, snow or shine—and spends the day transferring his material into a digital format, with the help of the kindly librarians whom he has befriended. When he's not writing, he spends much of his time with a metal detector, looking for a rumored Templar treasure which is said to be buried somewhere nearby. To date, he's found a few nails, and an old Liberty head penny.
For free stories, news about past and future releases, and more, visit his website: AlpertLPine.com
Also by Alpert L Pine
BOOKS
It's Always the Apocalypse Somewhere
Blake Starwater and the Adventures of the Starship Perilous: The First Five Adventures
STARSHIP PERILOUS ADVENTURES
#1 A Precious Cargo
#2 Not Remotely Possible
#3 Planet of the Molers
#4 All Aboard
#5 Adrift
#6 The Truth of the Matter (forthcoming August 2016)
SHORT STORIES
The Short and Tragic Reign of the Spider King
A Customer Review
The Betty
A Little Lore Goes a Long Way
The Live Ball Controversy
Message From Another Star
Nothing Down There But Rocks
The Shaken World
The Witch of Mbuji-Mayi
Young Tristan's First Adve
nture
The Heart of Twistown
The Guardian in the Shower
MANY WORLDS SAGA
They Who Hold the Cards
Milli Lands Onward
Closer to the Edge
Through a Blind Man's Eyes
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