Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

But Art can understand the temptation as he looks at Nora.

She might be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

On the outside, anyway, he thinks, reminding himself that this cunt fucks Adan Barrera.

Professionally.

He’d had a tail put on her three months ago when she’d come back across the border. So he had a name and an address, and pretty soon he had something else.

Haley Saxon.

The DEA had had the madam up for years. So, it turned out, had the IRS. The San Diego PD knew all about the White House, of course, but nobody had moved on it because Haley Saxon’s client list was a political hornet’s nest that nobody had the balls to stir up.

And now it turns out that Adan’s segundera is one of Haley’s best earners. Shit, Art thinks, if Haley Saxon were Mary Kay, Nora Hayden would have her own fleet of pink Cadillacs by now.

He waits until she gets a little closer, then steps out of the car, shows her his badge. “Ms. Hayden, we need to talk.”

“I don’t think we do.”

She has amazing blue eyes, and her voice is cultured and confident. He has to remind himself that she’s just a whore.

“Why don’t we sit in my car?” Art suggests.

“Why don’t we not?”

She starts to walk away but he holds her by the elbow. “Why don’t I have your friend Haley Saxon arrested for running a house of prostitution?” Art asks. “Why don’t I shut her down for good?”

She lets him walk her to the car. He opens the front passenger door and she gets in. Then he walks around and sits in the driver’s seat.

Nora looks pointedly at her watch. “I’m trying to make a one-fifteen movie.”

Art says, “Let’s talk about your boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend?”

“Or is Barrera your 'client'?” Art asks. “Or your 'john'? Educate me on the jargon.”

She doesn’t blink. “He’s my lover.”

“Does he pay you for the privilege?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Art asks, “Do you know what your lover does for a living?”

“He’s a restaurateur.”

“Come on, Nora,” Art says.

“Mr. Keller,” she said, “let’s just say I have some sympathy for dealing in pleasures that society deems illegal.”

“Yeah, okay,” Art said. “How about murder? Are you okay with that?”

“Adan’s never killed anybody.”

“Ask him about Ernie Hidalgo,” Art says. “While you’re at it, ask him about Pilar Mendez. He had her head cut off. And her children. Do you know what your boyfriend did with them? He threw them off a bridge.”

“That is an old lie that Guero Mendez put out to-”

“Is that what Adan told you?”

“What do you want, Mr. Keller?”

She’s a businesswoman, Art thinks. She’s getting right down to it. Good. Time to make your pitch. Don’t fuck it up.

“Your cooperation,”Art says.

“You want me to inform on-”

“Let’s just say you’re in a unique position to-”

She opens the car door. “I’m going to be late for my movie.”

He grabs her and stops her. “Go to a later show.”

“You have no right to hold me against my will,” Nora says. “I haven’t committed any crime.”

“Let me explain a few things to you,” Art says. “We know that the Barreras are investors in Haley Saxon’s business. That alone puts her on Queer Street. If they ever used the house to have a meeting, I’ll RICO her into twenty-to-life, and it will be your fault. You’ll have plenty of time to apologize to her, though, because I’ll put you in the same cell. Can you explain all your income, Ms. Hayden? Can you account for the money that Adan is paying you now to be your 'lover'? Or is he laundering drug money along with the dirty sheets? You’re in deep, hot water, Ms. Hayden. But you can save yourself. You can even save your pal Haley. I’m reaching out my hand. Take it.”

She looks at him with pure loathing.

Which is fine, Art thinks. I don’t need you to love me, I just need you to do what I want.

“If you could do what you say you can do to Haley,” Nora says calmly, “you would already have done it. And as for what you can do to me-take your best shot.”

She starts to get out again.

“How about Parada?” Art asks. “Are you doing him, too?”

Because they have her visiting the priest in Guadalajara, and even San Cristobal, on numerous occasions.

She turns and glares at him.

“You’re a piece of filth.”

“You’d better believe it.”

“For the record,” she says, “Juan and I are friends.”

“Yeah?” Art says. “Would he still be your friend if he knew you were a hooker?”

“He does know.”

He loves me anyway, Nora thinks.

“Does he know you sell yourself to a murdering little piece of shit like Adan Barrera?” Art asks. “Would he still be your friend if he knew that? Should I pick up the phone and tell him? We go way back.”

I know, Nora thinks. He’s told me about you. What he didn’t tell me is how awful you are.

“Do whatever you’re going to do, Mr. Keller,” Nora says. “I don’t care. May I go?”

“For now.”

She gets out of the car and walks back down the street, her skirt swinging against her beautiful, tanned legs.

Looking, Art thinks, as cool as if she’d just had tea with a friend.

You fucking asshole, he thinks, you totally blew it.

But I’d love to know, Nora, if you tell Adan about our little chat.

Mexico

Adan has spent the whole day at cemeteries.

He had nine graves to visit, nine little shrines to build, nine elaborate meals to lay out. Nine family members killed by Guero Mendez on a single night barely one month ago. His men, dressed in the black uniforms of the federales, had taken them from their houses or kidnapped them off the streets, in Mexico City and Guadalajara, driven them to safe houses and tortured them, then dumped their bodies on busy corners for the morning street sweepers to find.

Two uncles, an aunt and six cousins-two of the latter women.

One of the female cousins was a lawyer working for the pasador, but the others were uninvolved with the drug end of the family business. Their only connection was being related to Miguel Angel and Adan and Raul, and that was enough. Well, it was enough for Pilar and Guerito and Claudia, wasn’t it? Adan thinks. Mendez didn’t start this thing of killing families.

We did.

So it was expected, Mendez’s “Bloody September,” by everyone in Mexico who knew anything about the drug trade. The local police barely investigated the murders. “What did they expect?” ran the general opinion. “They killed his wife and children.” And not only killed them, but sent Mendez his wife’s head and a videotape of his children plummeting off a bridge. It was too much, even for Mexico, even for the narcotraficantes-it put the Barrera pasador beyond the pale, as it were. And if Mendez retaliated by killing members of the Barrera family, well, it was expected.

So Adan had a busy day, starting early in the morning with the Mexico City graves, then flying to Guadalajara to attend to his duties there, then a quick flight here to Puerto Vallarta where his brother Raul was, characteristically, throwing a party.

“Cheer up,” Raul tells Adan when he arrives at the club. “It’s El Dia de los Muertos.”

Sure, they’ve taken some hits, but they’ve delivered some, too.

“Maybe we should bring food to their graves, too,” Adan says.

“Shit, we’d go broke,” Raul says to him, “feeding all the guys we’ve sent to the devil. Fuck them-let their families feed them.”

The Barreras v. the world.

Cali cocaine v. Medellin cocaine.

If Adan hadn’t made the deal with the Orejuela brothers, the Barreras would be the recipients of the candy and flowers today. But with the steady supply of product from Cali, they have the men and the money to fight the war. And the battle for La Plaza has been bloody but simple. Raul has presented the local dealers with a clean choice: Do you want to be a Coca-Cola distributor or a Pepsi distributor? You have to choose; you can’t be both. Coke or Pepsi, Ford or Chevy, Hertz or Avis-it’s either one or the other.