Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

Where the cold makes his bones ache.

And the screaming need for crack gnaws at his bones like a hungry dog. The dog chewing on him, chewing on him, wanting that cocaine.

But worse than any of that is the anger.

The rage of betrayal.

The betrayal of his allies-for there must have been a betrayal at the highest levels for him to be sitting in this cell.

That hijo de puta and his brother in Los Pinos. Whom we bought and paid for and put in office. The election that was stolen from Cardenas using my money and the money I made the cartel give them-and they have betrayed me like this. The motherless whores, the cabrones, the lambiosos.

And the Americans, the Americans whom I helped in their war against the Communists, they have betrayed me, too.

And Guero Mendez, who stole my love. Mendez, who has the woman that should have been mine, and the children that should have been mine.

And Pilar, that cunt who betrayed me.

Tio sits on the floor of the cell, his arms around his legs, rocking back and forth with need and rage. It takes him a day to find a guard to sell him crack. He inhales the delicious smoke and holds it in his lungs. Lets it seep into his brain. Give him euphoria, then clarity.

Then he sees it all.

Revenge.

On Mendez.

On Pilar.

He falls asleep smiling.

Fabian Martinez-aka El Tiburon-is a stone killer.

The Junior has become one of Raul’s key sicarios, his most efficient gunman. That newspaper editor in Tijuana whose investigative journalism got a little too investigative-El Tiburon took him out like a target in a video game. That loser Californian surfer and dope dude who had three tons of yerba dropped off on the beach near Rosarita but didn’t pay his landing fee-El Tiburon popped him like a balloon and then went out to party. And those three totally fucking idiotic pendejos from Durango who did a tombe, a robbery-murder, on a shipment of coke that the Barreras had guaranteed-well, El Tiburon took an AK and hosed them off the street like dogshit, then poured gasoline over their bodies, set them on fire and let them burn like luminarias. The local firemen were afraid, with good reason, to put them out, and the story goes that two of the guys were still breathing when El Tiburon dropped the match on them.

“That’s bullshit,” Fabian would say, denying the story. “I used my lighter.”

Whatever.

He kills without feeling or conscience.

Which is what we need, Raul thinks now as he sits in the car with the kid and asks him to do this favor for the Barrera pasador.

“We want you to take over making the cash deliveries to Guero Mendez,” Raul tells him. “Become the new courier.”

“That’s it?” Fabian asks.

He’d thought it would be something else, something wet, something that involved the sharp, sweet adrenaline high of killing.

Actually, there is something else.

Pilar’s children are the loves of her life.

She’s a young madonna, with a three-year-old daughter and an infant son, her face and body more mature, and there is character around her eyes that wasn’t there before. She sits at the edge of the pool and dangles her bare feet in the water.

“The children are la sonrisa de mi corazon,” she tells Fabian Martinez. Then adds pointedly, sadly, “Not my husband.”

Fabian thinks that Guero Mendez’s estancia is totally gross.

“Traficante chic” is how Pilar privately describes it to him, her tone not even attempting to hide her contempt. “I am trying to change it, but he has this image in his head…”

Narcovaquero, Fabian thinks.

Drug cowboy.

Instead of running from his rural roots, Guero flaunts them. Creates a grotesque, modern version of the great landowners of the past-the dons, the ranchers, the vaqueros who wore wide-brimmed hats and boots and chaps because they needed them out in the mesquite, herding cattle. Now the new narcos are turning the image on its head: black polyester cowboy shirts with fake mother-of-pearl buttons, polyester chaps in bright pastels-lime greens, canary yellows and coral pinks. And high-heeled boots. Not practical walking boots, but pointed-toe Yanqui cowboy boots, made from all kinds of materials, the more exotic the better-ostrich, alligator-dyed in bright reds and greens.

The old vaqueros would have laughed.

Or would spin in their graves.

And the house…

Pilar’s embarrassed by it.

It’s not the classic estancia style-one-floor, tile roof, gentle, gracious porch-but a three-story monstrosity of yellow brick, pillars and ironwork railing. And the interior-leather chairs with cattle horns as wings, and hooves for feet. Sofas made from red and white cattle hide. Barstools with saddles for seats.

“With all his money,” she sighs, “what he could do…”

Speaking of money, Fabian has a briefcase of it in his hand. More money for Guero Mendez to commit to his war against taste. Fabian’s the courier now, the pretext being that it’s too dangerous for the Barrera brothers to move around, with all that’s happened to Miguel Angel.

They have to lie low.

So Fabian will make the monthly cash deliveries and report from the front.

They’re having a weekend party at the ranch. Pilar is playing the gracious hostess, and Fabian is surprised to find himself thinking that she is gracious-lovely and charming and subtle. He’d expected some frumpy housewife, but she’s not that. And at dinner that night, in the large formal dining room now crowded with guests, he sees her face in candlelight, and her face is exquisite.

She glances over and sees him looking.

This movie-star-handsome boy with the good, stylish clothes.

Pretty soon, he finds himself walking out by the pool with her, and then she tells him that she doesn’t love her husband.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he shuts his mouth. He’s surprised when she continues, “I was so young. So was he, and muy guapo, no? And, forgive me, he was going to rescue me from Don Angel. Which he did. Make me into a grand lady. Which he has. An unhappy grand lady.”

Fabian says, stupidly, “You’re unhappy?”

“I don’t love him,” she says. “Isn’t that terrible of me? I am a terrible person. He treats me well, gives me everything. He has no other women, doesn’t go with whores… I am the love of his life, and that’s what makes me feel so guilty. Guero worships me, and I have contempt for him because of that. When he is with me, I don’t feel.. . I don’t feel. And then I start to make a list of the things I dislike about him: He’s crass, he has no taste, he’s a hick, a hillbilly. I hate it here. I want to go back to Guadalajara. Real restaurants, real shops. I want to go to museums, concerts, galleries. I want to travel-see Rome, Paris, Rio. I don’t want to be bored-with my life, with my husband.”

She smiles, then looks back at the guests gathered around the enormous bar at the other end of the pool. “They all think I’m a whore.”

“They don’t.”

“Of course they do,” she says evenly. “But none of them is brave enough to say it out loud.”

Of course not, Fabian thinks-they all know the story of Rafael Barragos.

He wonders if she does.

“Rafi” had been at a barbecue at the ranch, shortly after Guero and Pilar were married, and was standing around with some cuates when Guero came out of the house with Pilar on his arm. And Rafi chuckled, and under his breath made a wisecrack about Guero hitching his cart to Barrera's puta. And one of his good buddies went to Guero and told him, and that night Rafi was grabbed from his guest room and the silver plate that he had given them for a wedding present was melted down in front of him and a funnel was stuck in his mouth and the molten silver poured into it.