Don Winslow: The Kings Of Cool

“Call it off.”

John fumbles in his pocket and pulls out his phone.

Funny these days how life or death can come down to cell phone service.

Ben opens the door and a guy is standing there with a cell phone in his hand.

“Hi,” Ben says.

“Hey,” the guy says. “I must have the wrong place. I’m looking for Jerry Howard?”

“I think you do have the wrong place.”

“Sorry to bother you.”

“No worries.”

Chon yells over the din Time to go do what I do and he starts to crawl, his old man crawling behind him, the general rule being if you can stay low you have a chance, and the truth is we didn’t walk out of the formless primordial ooze, we crawled.

In the dark of course there is not sight but sound, so

Follow the fight from the rhythm of its fire

Like most battles

It doesn’t end in a thundering crescendo

But in sporadic spurts then desultory single shots then silence.

There is no climax just anticlimax, or more properly speaking nonclimax.

Lado’s men work their way through the house

Hallway by hallway

Door by door

Room by room

Methodically killing, just as

Methodically dying

And then it’s over.

Chon makes it out into the courtyard.

His father crawling behind him.

There is a chance, just a chance, that they can get to the car and make a break through the chaos, although Chon hears the firefight dying down and knows that the confusion will quickly end and the window is closing. But there’s still a chance and he’s just about to gather his legs under him and lunge for the car when the hears the chomp-chomp-chomp of the helicopter rotors and then the light hits him.

From above the searchlight from a helicopter hovering illuminating the scene of slaughter.

The light is blinding, Chon can barely see, chokes on dust as the rotors whip up the dry dirt around him and he hears the amplified command, in English “Freeze! Drop your weapons and stand up with your hands over your heads!”

Chon does it.

Struggles through the wash to his feet, drops his gun, and raises his arms above his head.

Sees John do the same.

Looks around at a scene of execution, as black-clad men dispatch the wounded with shots to the back of the head, while others work on their own wounded.

The helicopter lands, kicking up a whirlwind of dust.

A man gets out, bending low beneath the rotors. Straightens up and walks toward them, holding a badge ahead of him.

“Special Agent Dennis Cain, DEA. Come with me, please.”

They follow him into the helicopter.

Lado stands over Doc’s body.

Then bends over, slices the dead man’s stomach open, pulls out his intestines, and carefully forms them into the word

“P-A-P-A”

Magda’s request.

Sitting in the chopper before it takes off, Chon says, “Give me your phone.”

John gives it to him.

Chon punches in Ben’s number.

Ben answers first ring.

“Thank God,” Ben says.

“You okay?”

“I’m good,” Ben says. “You?”

“Yeah, good,” Chon answers. “O?”

“She’s here with me. What the-”

“I’ll tell you all about it,” Chon says, “when I see you.”

He clicks off.

“I wanted him alive,” Dennis says, looking down at Doc’s body. “Biggest bust of my career.”

Lado shrugs.

“So you’re on the cartel’s payroll,” Dennis says.

Lado looks at him.

Says, “Just like you.”

Five hundred K for a walkaway, and Filipo had it all on tape.

“You work for us now,” Lado says. “I’m moving north. With my family. I want a green card and a CI designation.”

Dennis nods.

Granite countertops aren’t cheap.

INT. HELICOPTER — DAY

JOHN

Just so we’re clear-this doesn’t change anything between us.

Didn’t think it did.

You do your thing, I do mine. We see each other on the street, we nod, go our separate ways.

CHON

Sounds about right.

They sit and watch as DENNIS climbs into the chopper and supervises the loading of Doc’s corpse in a body bag.

JOHN

We let the past stay in the past.

Okay with Chon.

But he knows

The past isn’t the past.

It’s always with us.

In our history.

Our minds, our blood.

July Sky.

Bright-blue sunny California.

Happy tourists.

Like, this is the California you pay for. This is the California you saw on TV and in the postcards. This is more like it.

Ben, Chon, and O sit in the Coyote and watch Dennis’s press conference on the television above the bar.

It’s genius.

Dennis-rock star-poses beside a blown-up photo of Doc taken back in the sixties.

“Doc Halliday,” he says, “was killed resisting arrest as he tried to flee across the border. This represents the final breakup of one of America’s oldest and most powerful drug rings, one with connections to the vicious Mexican cartels.”

“You okay?” Ben asks O.

“Absolutely crunchy,” she says, looking at her guys.

Knows you get two chances at a family-the one you’re born into and the one you choose.

She has hers.

Her dad was always dead to her.

Now Dennis’s mouth twists into a somber frown. “Sadly, a corrupt policeman, William Boland, was involved in the ring and also killed. Two others, Duane Crowe and Brian Hennessy, apparently killed each other in a gunfight. Both are believed to have been involved in the murders of Scott Munson and Traci McDonald.”

Karma, Ben thinks, is a bitch.

Theirs, and mine.

I might not be guilty of Scott’s and Traci’s murders, but I am responsible. Lot of karma to pay off.

Maybe set up some kind of foundation, help out in the Third World. Start paying it back.

There are some things you carry alone, Chon thinks, looking at the two people in the world who he loves.

Inside you.

Heavy but bearable.

Like your own DNA.

He looks back up at the television.

“The final breakup of the Association,” Dennis says, looking into the camera, “is a major victory in the War on Drugs.”

“I thought I looked pretty good on TV,” Dennis says. “Didn’t you?”

“You’re a handsome man,” Ben says.

Chon doesn’t say anything.

They’re meeting in the usual spot at Los Cristianitos. Dennis takes a spicy chicken sandwich from the Jack in the Box bag. “Lunch on the run. You have something for me?”

Ben slips him an envelope.

“First of every month,” Dennis says. “Your girlfriend can be late, you can’t.”

“As long as you keep DEA off our ass,” Ben says.

“Yeah, that’s the idea.”

“Guaranteed?”

“You want a guarantee, go to Midas,” Dennis says. He sees Chon’s frown, takes a bite of his sandwich, and says, “Jesus, cheer up.”

He wipes his mouth with a paper napkin, looks them up and down, and says, “What I wouldn’t give to be you. You have your youth, money, the cool clothes, the girls. You have it all. You’re kings.”

That’s us, Ben thinks.