Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

“Look,” Fabian answers, “you’re kids. And you didn’t do the shooting. You’ll only get a few years, and while you’re in, your families will be taken care of like royalty. And when you get out, you’ve had the appreciation and respect of Adan Barrera in the bank, earning interest for you. Flaco, your mother is a maid in a motel, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Not anymore she isn’t,” Fabian says, “if you show heart.”

“I don’t know,” Dreamer says. “Mexican cops…”

“Tell you what,” Fabian says. “That reward for Guero? That fifty thousand. You two split it, tell us who to bring it to and it’s done.”

Both boys say they want the money to go to their mothers.

As they get near the border, Flaco’s legs are shaking so hard he’s afraid that Fabian can see them. His knees are literally knocking together and he can’t seem to stop them, and his eyes are filled with tears and he can’t stop the tears from spilling over. He’s ashamed, even though he can hear Dreamer sniffling in the backseat.

When they get near the crossing, Fabian pulls over to let them out.

“You got heart,” he tells them. “You’re warriors.”

They make it through Immigration and Customs with no problem and start walking south into the city. They get about two blocks when searchlights hit them in the face, blinding them, and the federales are yelling and telling them to get their hands up and Flaco throws his hands up high. Then a cop grabs him, throws him to the ground and cuffs his hands tight behind his back.

So Flaco’s lying there in the dirt, his back arched painfully because his arms are pulled back so hard, but then that pain don’t seem like nothing because the federale spits on his face then kicks him hard, right in the ear, with the toe of his combat boot, and Flaco feels like his eardrum has just exploded.

Pain goes off like fireworks inside Flaco’s head.

Then, from a long way away, he hears a voice tell him It’s just the beginning, mi hijo.

We’re just getting started.

Nora’s phone rings and she picks it up.

It’s Adan.

“I want to see you.”

“Go to hell.”

“It was an accident,” he says. “A mistake. Give me a chance to explain it to you. Please.”

She wants to hang up, detests herself for not hanging up, but she doesn’t hang up. Instead, she agrees to meet him that night on the beach at La Jolla Shores, by Lifeguard Tower 38.

Under the dim light of the tower he sees her coming. She looks like she’s alone.

“You know I put my life in your hands,” he says. “If you called the police…”

“He was your priest,” she says. “Your friend. My friend. How could you-”

He shakes his head. “I wasn’t even there. I was at a christening in Tijuana. It was an accident, a cross fire-”

“That’s not what the police are saying.”

“Mendez owns the police.”

“I hate you, Adan.”

“Don’t say that, please.”

He looks so sad, she thinks. Lonely, desperate. She wants to believe him.

“Swear,” she says. “Swear to me you’re telling the truth.”

“I swear it.”

“On your daughter’s life.”

He can’t bear losing her.

He nods. “I swear.”

She reaches her arms out and he holds her. “God, Adan, I’m so miserable.”

“I know.”

“I loved him.”

“I know,” Adan says. “So did I.”

And the sad thing is, he thinks, that’s the truth.

They must be at a dump because Flaco smells garbage.

And it must be morning because he can feel faint sunlight on his face, even through the black hood. One of his eardrums is ruptured, but he can hear Dreamer pleading, “Please, please, no, no, please.. .”

A gunshot explodes and Flaco don’t hear Dreamer no more.

Then Flaco feels a gun barrel brush the side of his head, by his good ear. It makes little circles, like its holder wants to make sure Flaco knows what it is, then he hears the hammer click back.

Flaco screams.

A dry click.

Flaco loses it. His bladder lets go and he feels the hot urine run down his leg and his knees give out and he crumbles to the ground, squirming and twisting like a worm, trying to get away from the gun barrel at his head and then he hears the hammer go back and another dry click and then a voice says, “Maybe the next one, little pendejo, eh?”

Click.

Flaco messes his pants.

The federales whoop and holler. “God, what a stink! What you been eating, mierdita?”

Flaco hears the hammer click back again.

The gun roars.

The bullet plows into the dirt by his ear.

“Pick him up,” the voice says.

But the federales balk at touching the filthy kid. They finally hit on a solution-they take the hood off Dreamer and the gag out of his mouth and make him pull off Flaco’s soiled pants and underwear, and they give him a wet rag to wipe the shit off his friend.

Flaco murmurs to him, “I’m sorry. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Then they put both of them into the back of the van and take them back to their cell. Throw them on the bare concrete floor, slam the door shut and actually leave them alone for a while.

The boys lie on the floor and cry.

An hour later a federale comes back in and Flaco starts to tremble uncontrollably.

But the federale just tosses them each a pad of paper and a pencil and tells them to start writing.

Their stories hit the papers the next morning.

Confirmation of what the MJFP thought had happened in the Parada case-the cardinal was the victim of mistaken identity, killed because American gang members mistook him for Guero Mendez.

El Presidente gets back on television with General Leon at his side to announce that this news only strengthens his administration’s resolve to wage a merciless war against the drug cartels. They will not stop until these thugs are punished and the narcotraficantes are destroyed.

Flaco’s tongue lolls lazily from his mouth.

His face is dark blue.

He hangs by the neck from the steam pipe that runs across the ceiling in his cell.

Dreamer dangles next to him.

The coroner returns with a verdict of double suicide: The young men couldn’t live with the guilt of killing Cardinal Parada. The coroner never deals with the unexplained blunt-trauma blows on the backs of their heads.

San Diego

Art waits on the American side of the border.

The terrain looks strangely green through the night-vision scopes. It’s a strange piece of ground anyway, he thinks. No-man's-land, the desolate stretch of dusty hills and deep canyons that lies between Tijuana and San Diego.

Every night a weird game is played out here. Just before dusk, the would-be mojados gather above the dry drainage canal that runs along the border, waiting for darkness. As if on a signal, they all rush across at once. It’s a numbers game-the illegals know that the Border Patrol can stop only so many, so the rest will get through to find the sub-minimum wage jobs picking fruit, washing dishes, working on farms.

But this night’s mad scramble is already over, and Art has made sure that the Border Patrol has been cleared from this sector. A defector is coming over from the other side, and even though he’s going to be a guest of the United States government, he can’t come across at any of the regular stations. It would be too dangerous-the Barreras have spotters who watch the checkpoints 24/7, and Art can’t take the chance that his man might be spotted.

He checks his watch and doesn’t like what he sees. It’s 1:10 and his man is ten minutes late. It could just be the difficulty of negotiating the treacherous terrain at night. His guy could be lost in one of the numerous box canyons, or come up the wrong ridge, or…