Don winslow Don winslow - The Border

Ric would definitely fuck Eva, who was, after all, his own age, but he wasn’t going to say that, either, not in front of her brother Iván.

“ I’d fuck her,” Belinda had said to Ric. “Definitely.”

“You think she goes both ways?”

“Baby,” Belinda said, “with me, they all go both ways. I get anyone I want.”

Ric thought about this for a second. “Not Elena. She has ice down there.”

“I’d melt it,” Belinda said, flicking out her tongue. “And turn it to tears of joy.”

Belinda never lacked for confidence.

Anyway, what they finally decided to put in the coffin was a baseball, because Adán sort of liked baseball—although no one there could remember him going to a single game—an old pair of boxing gloves from Adán’s teenage days as a wannabe boxing promoter, and a photo of the daughter who died so young, which made Ric feel a little bad about wanting to put a dead chick in with him.

So that was that discussion—the more serious debate had been where to hold the velorio in the first place. At first they thought they’d do it at Adán’s mother’s house in his home village of La Tuna, but then they reconsidered that it might be too much on the old lady and also—as Ric’s father had pointed out—“the rural location would present a host of logistical difficulties.”

Okay.

They decided to hold it in Culiacán, where the cemetery was, after all, at someone’s house. The problem was that everyone had a house—actually, houses—in or around the city, so an argument started about whose house they should do it in because it seemed to have some significance .

Elena wanted it at her house—Adán was her brother, after all; Iván wanted it at the Esparza family home—Adán was the son-in-law; Ric’s dad suggested their place in the suburbs of Eldorado, “farther away from prying eyes.”

The fuck difference does it make? Ric wondered, watching the debate get heated. Adán’s not going to care, the guy is dead. But it seemed to matter to them and they really got into it until Eva quietly said, “Adán and I also had a home. We’ll do it there.”

Ric noticed that Iván didn’t look too thrilled about his little sister speaking up. “It’s too much to ask you to host this.”

Why? Ric wondered. It’s not like Adán’s going to be too busy laying out bean dip or something to enjoy his own wake.

“It really is too much, dear,” Elena said.

Ric’s dad nodded. “It’s so far out in the country.”

They finally agree on something, Ric thought.

But Eva said, “We’ll do it there.”

So Ric and everyone else had to drive all the way out to East Buttfuck to Adán’s estancia, up twisting dirt roads, past blockades of state police providing security. Fucking caravans of narcos coming to pay their respects, some out of love, some out of obligation, some out of fear of not being seen there. You got an invitation to Adán Barrera’s velorio and you no-showed, you might be the guest of honor for the next one.

His dad and Elena had made most of the arrangements, so of course it was perfect. Helicopters circling overhead, armed security prowling the grounds, parking valets with nines strapped to their waists.

Guests crowded the sloping front lawn. Tables with white cloths had been set out and were heavy with platters of food, bottles of wine, and pitchers of beer, lemonade, and water. Waiters walked around with trays of hors d’oeuvres.

One of Rudolfo Sánchez’s norteño bands played from a gazebo.

The walkway up to the house was strewn with marigold petals, a tradition in a velorio.

“They really went all out,” Ric’s wife, Karin, said.

“What did you expect?”

Ric had attended the Autonomous University of Sinaloa for all of two semesters, majoring in business, and all he really learned about economics was that a cheap condom can be far more expensive than a good one. When he told his father that Karin was embarazada, Ricardo told him he was going to do the right thing.

Ric knew what that was: get rid of the thing and break up with Karin.

“No,” Núñez said. “You’re going to get married and raise your child.”

Ric Sr. thought the responsibility of having a family would “make a man” out of his son. It sort of did—it made a man who rarely came home and had a mistress who would do everything his wife wouldn’t. Not that he asked her—Karin, while pretty enough, was as dull as Sunday dinner. If he suggested some of the things that Belinda did, she would probably burst out crying and lock herself in the bathroom.

His father was unsympathetic. “You spend more time running around with the Esparzas than you do at home.”

“I need a boys’ night out now and again.”

“But you’re not a boy, you’re a man,” Núñez said. “A man spends time with his family.”

“You’ve met Karin?”

“You chose to have sex with her,” Núñez said. “Without adequate protection.”

“Once,” Ric said. “I don’t have to worry about sex with her much now.”

“Have a mistress,” Núñez said. “A man does that. But a man takes care of his family.”

Although his father would shit bricks sideways if he knew Ric’s choice of a mistress—an out-and-out psycho who is also his head of security. No, Dad would not approve of La Fósfora so they’ve kept it on the down low.

His old man had more to say. “To disrespect your marriage is to disrespect your godfather, and that I cannot allow.”

Ric went home that night, all right.

“Have you been bitching to my father?” he asked Karin.

“You’re never home!” she said. “You spend every night with your friends! You’re probably fucking some whore!”

Whores, plural, Ric thought, but he didn’t say that. What he said was “Do you like this big new house? How about the condo in Cabo, do you like that? The Rosarito beach cottage? Where do you think all that comes from? The clothes, the jewelry, the big flat-screen your eyes are always glued to. The nanny for your daughter so your telenovelas won’t be interrupted. Where do you think all that comes from? Me?”

Karin sneered. “You don’t even have a job.”

“My job, ” Ric said, “is being that man’s son.”

Another sneer. “ ‘Mini-Ric.’ ”

“That’s right,” he said. “So someone who’s not acting like a dumb bitch might think, ‘Hmm, the last thing I want to do is run my husband down to his dad and risk cutting all that off.’ Of course, that’s someone who’s not acting like a dumb bitch.”

“Get out.”

“Jesus Christ, make up your mind,” Ric said. “You want me home or you want me out, which is it? One fucking night with you and it turns into a life sentence.”

“How do you think I feel?” Karin asked.

That’s the best she can do, Ric thought. If he’d called Belinda a dumb cunt, she would have shot him in the dick and then sucked the bullet out.

“Here’s the point,” Ric said. “You want to bitch, bitch to your girlfriends over one of your lunches. Complain to the housekeeper, complain to the worthless little piece of shit dog I paid for. But you do not, ever, complain to my father.”

“Or you’ll what?” She got right in his face.

“I would never hit a woman,” Ric said. “You know that’s not me. But I will divorce you. You’ll get one of the houses and you’ll live in it alone, and good luck trying to find a new husband with a kid on your hip.”

Later that night he crawled into bed, drunk enough to soften a little. “Karin?”

“What?”

“I know I’m an asshole,” Ric said. “I’m an Hijo, I don’t know any different.”