Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

“It don’t bother me,” Scachi said. “Shouldn’t bother you. The VC don’t believe in God, anyway, so fuck 'em.”

They got into a ferocious debate, Art appalled that Scachi actually thought they were “doing God’s work” by assassinating Vietcong. Communists are atheists, Scachi repeated, who want to destroy the Church. So what we’re doing, he explained, is defending the Church, and that isn’t a sin, it’s a duty.

He reached under his shirt and showed Art the Saint Anthony’s medal he kept around his neck on a chain.

“The saint keeps me safe,” he explained. “You should get one.”

Art didn’t.

Now, in Culiacan, he stood and stared into the obsidian eyes of Santo Jesus Malverde. The saint’s plaster skin was stark white and his mustache a sable black, and a garish circle of red had been painted around his neck to remind the pilgrim that the saint had, like all the best saints, been martyred.

Santo Jesus died for our sins.

“Well,” Art said to the statue, “whatever you’re doing, it’s working, and whatever I’m doing, it’s not, so…”

Art made a manda. Knelt, lit a candle, and left a twenty-dollar bill. What the hell.

“Help me bring you down, Santo Jesus,” he whispered in Spanish, “and there’s more where that came from. I’ll give money to the poor.”

Walking back to the hotel from the shrine, Art met Adan Barrera.

Art had walked past this gym a dozen times. He had been tempted to check it out and never had, but on this particular evening a fairly large crowd was inside, so he walked in and stood at the edge.

Adan was barely twenty then. Short, almost diminutive, with a thin build. Long black hair combed straight back, designer jeans, Nike running shoes, and a purple polo shirt. Expensive clothes for this barrio. Smart clothes, smart kid-Art could see that right away. Adan Barrera just had a look like he always knew what was going on.

Art put him at about 5'5?, maybe 5'6?, but the kid standing beside him had to go 6'3” easy. And built. Big chest, sloping shoulders, lanky. You wouldn’t make them for brothers except for their faces. Same face on two different bodies-deep brown eyes, light coffee-colored skin, more Spanish-looking than Indian.

They were standing on the edge of the ring looking down at an unconscious boxer. Another fighter stood in the ring. A kid, really, certainly not out of his teens, but with a body that looked like it had been chiseled out of living stone. And he had those eyes-Art had seen them before in the ring-that had the look of a natural killer. Except now he seemed confused and a little guilty.

Art got it right away. The fighter had just knocked out a sparring partner and now had no one to work out with. The two brothers were his managers. It was a common enough scene in any Mexican barrio. For poor kids from the barrio, there were two routes up and out-drugs or boxing. The kid was an up-and-comer, hence the crowd, and the two middle-class Mutt-and-Jeff brothers were his managers.

Now the short one was looking around the crowd to find someone who could step into the ring and go a few rounds. A lot of guys in the crowd suddenly found something very interesting on the tops of their shoes.

Art didn’t.

He caught the short guy’s eye.

“Who are you?” the kid asked.

His brother took one look at Art and said, “Yanqui narc.” Then he looked over the crowd, straight at Art, and said, “?Vete al demonio, picaflor!”

Basically, “Get the hell out of here, faggot.”

Art instantly answered, “Pela las nalgas, perra.”

Shove it up your ass, bitch.

Which was a surprise coming out of the mouth of a guy who looked very white. The lanky brother started to push his way through the crowd to get at Art, but the smaller brother grabbed him by the elbow and whispered something to him. Tall brother smiled, then the smaller one said to Art, in English, “You’re about the right size. You want to go a few rounds with him?”

“He’s a kid,” Art answered.

“He can take care of himself,” the short brother said. “In fact, he can take care of you.”

Art laughed.

“You box?” the kid pressed.

“Used to,” Art said. “A little bit.”

“Well, come on in, Yanqui,” the kid said. “We’ll find you some gloves.”

It wasn’t machismo that made Art accept the challenge. He could have laughed it off. But boxing is sacred in Mexico, and when people you’ve been trying to get close to for months invite you into their church, you go.

“So who am I fighting?” he asked one of the crowd as they were taping his hands and getting him into gloves.

“El Leoncito de Culiacan,” the man answered proudly. “The Little Lion of Culiacan. He’ll be champion of the world one day.”

Art walked into the center of the ring.

“Take it easy on me,” he said. “I’m an old man.”

They touched gloves.

Don’t try to win, Art told himself. Take it easy on the kid. You’re here to make friends.

Ten seconds later, Art was laughing at his own pretensions. Between taking punches, that is. You couldn’t be much less effective, he told himself, if you were wrapped in telephone wire. I don’t think you have to worry about winning.

Worry about surviving, maybe, he told himself ten seconds later. The kid’s hand speed was awesome. Art couldn’t even see the punches coming, never mind block them, never mind counterpunch.

But you have to try.

It’s about respect.

So he launched a straight right behind a left jab and collected a wicked three-punch combination in return. Boom-boom-boom. It’s like living inside a fucking timpani drum, Art thought, backing away.

Bad idea.

The kid came rushing in, threw two lightning jabs and then a straight shot to the face, and if Art’s nose wasn’t broken, it was doing a damn good imitation. He swiped the blood off his nose, covered up, and took most of the subsequent drubbing on his gloves until the kid switched tactics and went downstairs, digging rights and lefts into Art’s ribs.

It seemed like an hour later when the bell rang and Art went back to his stool.

Big Brother was right there. “You had enough, picaflor?”

Except this time the “faggot” wasn’t quite so hostile.

Art answered in a friendly tone, “I’m just getting my wind, bitch.”

He got the wind knocked out of him about five seconds into round two. A wicked left hook to the liver dropped Art right to one knee. He had his head down, and blood and sweat dripped off his nose. He was gasping for air, and out of the corners of his teary eyes he could see men in the crowd exchanging money, and he could just hear the smaller brother counting to ten with a tone of foregone conclusion.

Fuck you all, Art thought.

He got up.

Heard cursing from some in the crowd, cheers from a few.

Come on, Art, he told himself. Just getting the shit beat out of you isn’t going to get you anywhere. You have to put up some kind of a fight. Neutralize this kid’s hand speed, don’t let him get off punches so easy.

He charged forward.

Took three hard shots for his trouble but kept going forward and worked the kid into the ropes. Stayed toe to toe with him and started throwing short, chopping punches, not hard enough to really hurt, but enough to make the kid cover up. Then Art ducked down, hit him twice in the ribs, and then leaned forward and tied him up.

Take a few seconds off the round, Art thought, get a blow. Lean on the kid, maybe wear him out a little. But even before Little Brother could come in and break the clinch, the kid slipped under Art’s arms, spun out, and hit him with two punches in the side of the head.

Art kept coming forward.

Absorbing punches the whole time, but it was Art who was the aggressor, and that was the point. The kid was backing off, dancing, hitting him at will, but nevertheless going backwards. He dropped his hands and Art hit him with a hard left jab in the chest, driving him back. The kid looked surprised, so Art did it again.