Don winslow Don winslow - The Border

The oldest Esparza brother has always been pushing him, since they were little kids. Daring him to jump off the cliff into the quarry pond. Go on, do it, I dare you. I dare you to break into the school, steal your papi ’s whiskey, unbutton that girl’s blouse. They’ve chugged bottles of vodka, raced speedboats straight at each other, cars to the edge of cliffs, but this …

Amid chants of “Do it! Do it! Do it!,” Ric picks up the pistol and puts it against his right temple.

Just like that yanqui cop did.

The one who did a number on Iván’s face.

It’s been what, a year, and the scar is still angry on Iván’s cheek, even after the best plastic surgeons money can buy. Iván is cool about it, of course, claiming that it makes him look even more macho.

And swearing that one day he will kill that gringo Keller.

Ric’s hand shakes.

Drunk and stoned as he is, all he wants in the world right then is to not pull the trigger. All he wants is to go back a few minutes to the moment when he had this insanely stupid idea, and to not suggest it.

But now he’s trapped.

He can’t punk out, not in front of Iván, Alfredo and Oviedo, not in front of Rubén. Especially not in front of Belinda, the girl sitting beside him in a black leather jacket, a sequined bustier and painted-on jeans. Belinda is as crazy as she is beautiful; this girl will do anything. Now she smiles at him and the smile says, Do it, boyfriend. Do it and I’ll make you so happy later.

If you live.

“Come on, man, put it down,” Rubén says. “It was a joke.”

But that’s Rubén. The cautious one, the careful one, what did Iván call him once—the “Emergency Brake.” Yeah, maybe, but Ric knows that Rubén is his father’s son—El Cachorro, “The Puppy,” is absolutely, totally lethal, like his old man.

He doesn’t look lethal now, though; he looks scared.

“No, I’m doing it,” Ric says. They’re telling him not to, and he knows they mean it, but he also knows they’ll think less of him. He’d be the one who chickened out, not them. But if he pulls the trigger and it doesn’t go off, he’ll be the man.

And it’s great to see Iván freaking out.

“It was a joke, Ric! No one expected you’d do it!” Iván yells. He looks like he’s going to lunge across the table but is afraid to make the gun go off. Everyone at the table is frozen, staring at Ric. From the corner of his eye, he sees their private waiter sneak out the door.

“Put the gun down,” Rubén says.

“Okay, here goes,” Ric says. He’s starting to tighten his finger when Belinda grabs the gun from his hand, sticks it in her mouth and pulls the trigger.

The hammer clicks on the empty chamber.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Iván yells.

They all freak out. The crazy chava actually did it, and then she calmly sets the gun back on the table and says, “Next.”

Except Rubén picks up the gun and sticks it in his pocket. “I think we’re done.”

“Pussy,” Belinda says.

If it were a guy who’d said that, Ric knows, it would be on, a reason to go, and Rubén would either pull the trigger on himself or on the mouth that called him that. But it’s a girl, a chica, so it’s all good.

“What a rush,” Belinda says. “I think I came.”

The door opens and Rudolfo Sánchez walks in. “What the hell is going on in here?”

“We’re just having some fun,” Iván says, assuming leadership.

“I heard,” Rudolfo says. “Do me a favor? You want to kill yourselves, don’t do it in my place, okay?”

He asks politely, but if it were any other club owner, there’d be a problem. Iván would feel a need to face him, maybe slap him down, or at least cause some damage, break some shit up, throw down some bills to cover the damage, and walk out.

But this isn’t any club owner.

Rudolfo is Adán Barrera’s nephew, his sister Elena’s son. A little older, but an Hijo like them.

Rudolfo looks at them like, Why are you in my club raising dust? Why did you have to pick this place? And he says, “What would I say to your fathers if I let you blow your brains out in my club?”

Then he stops, looking embarrassed, only now remembering that Iván’s father is dead, killed by the Zetas in Guatemala.

Ric feels bad for him. “Sorry, ’Dolfo. We’re fucked up.”

“Maybe we should just get the check,” Rubén says.

“It’s comped,” Rudolfo says.

But Ric notices he doesn’t say anything like, No, please stay. Have another round. They all get up, say good night to Rudolfo, thank him—show some respect, Ric thinks—and walk out onto the street.

Where Iván goes off . “That malandro, pendejo, pinche motherfucker lambioso fuck! Does he think he’s funny?! ‘What would your fathers think?’”

“He didn’t mean anything,” Rubén says. “He probably just forgot.”

“You don’t forget something like that!” Iván says. “He was stepping on my dick! When I take over …”

Ric says, “The guy hasn’t been the same since he got back.”

Unlike any of them, Rudolfo had gone to prison. Did time in an American supermax and the word was that it wrecked him, that he came home messed up.

“The guy is weak,” Iván says. “He couldn’t take it.”

“None of us know what we’d do,” Rubén says. “My old man says prison is the worst thing that can happen to you.”

“He came out of it okay,” Ric says. “Your dad is tough.”

“None of us know,” Rubén repeats.

“Fuck that,” Iván says. “This is our life. If you go, you go. You have to hold it together, like a man.”

“Rudolfo did,” Ric says. “He didn’t bitch up, he didn’t flip.”

“His uncle got him out,” Iván says.

“Good,” Ric says. “Good for Adán. He’d have done the same for you.”

They all know that Adán did it before, too, when his nephew Sal got busted for killing two people outside a club. Adán made a deal to get the charges dropped, and the rumor they all heard was that he flipped on the Tapia brothers, launching the bloody civil war that almost destroyed the cartel.

And Sal got killed anyway.

Blown to shit by Crazy Eddie Ruiz.

Sal should be here tonight, drinking with us, Ric thinks.

Go with God, ’mano .

Iván notices the girls staring at him. “What are you looking at?! Walk ahead, get in the fucking cars!”

Then, just as quickly as he got furious, he gets all happy again. Throws his arms around Ric’s and Rubén’s shoulders and yells, “We’re brothers! Brothers forever!”

And they all shout, “ ¡Los Hijos! ”

Coked, drunk, and orgasmed out, the girl falls asleep.

Belinda shakes her head. “No stamina. I wish Gaby was here.”

She rolls over and looks at Ric.

Shit, he thinks, she wants to go again. “I can’t.”

“I’ll give you a few minutes,” Belinda says. She finds a blunt on the nightstand, lights it up, takes a hit and offers him one.

He takes it. “That was crazy tonight, what you did.”

“I did it to bail you out,” she says. “You talked yourself into a trap.”

“You could have died.”

“Could have,” she says, gesturing to get the joint back. “Didn’t. Anyway, it’s my job to protect you.”

Belinda Vatos—La Fósfora—was the jefa of FEN, Fuerza Especial de Núñez, the armed wing of the Núñez faction of the Sinaloa cartel. It’s unusual to have a woman in that position, but God knows she earned it, Ric thinks.

Started as a courier, then a mule, then took a major step up when she volunteered to kill a Zeta operative who was playing hell with their people in Veracruz. The guy didn’t expect a young, beautiful woman with big round tits and a head of wavy black hair to walk up and put two bullets in his face, but that’s what Belinda did.