by Don Winslow
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 Culiacán, he stood and stared into the obsidian eyes of Santo Jesús 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 Jesús 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 Jesús,” 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 Adán 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.
Adán 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. Adán 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 Culiacán,” the man answered proudly. “The Little Lion of Culiacán. 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.
Between rounds, the two brothers were too busy giving their boxer hell to give Art any shit. He was grateful for the rest. One more round, he thought. Just let me get through one more round.
The bell rang.
A lot of dinero changed hands when Art got off his stool.
He touched gloves with the
kid for the last round, looked into his eyes and instantly saw that he’d wounded the kid’s pride. Shit, Art thought, I didn’t mean to do that. Rein in your ego, asshole, and don’t take a chance on winning this thing.
He needn’t have worried.
Whatever the brothers had told the kid between rounds, the kid made the adjustment, constantly moving to his left, in the direction of his own jab, keeping his hands high, pretty much hitting Art at will, then getting out of the way.
Art was moving forward, hitting at air.
He stopped.
Stood in the center of the ring, shook his head, laughed and waved the kid to come on in.
The crowd loved it.
The kid loved it.
He shuffled into the center of the ring and started raining punches down on Art, who blocked them the best he could and covered up. Art would shoot a jab or counterpunch back every few seconds, and the kid would fire over it and nail him again.
The kid wasn’t going for knockout punches now. There was no anger in him anymore. He was truly sparring, just getting in his workout and showing that he could hit Art anytime he wanted, playing to the crowd, giving them the show they’d come to see. By the end, Art was down on one knee with his gloves tight to his head and his elbows tucked into his ribs, so he was taking most of the shots on his gloves and arms.
The final bell rang.
The kid picked Art up and they embraced.
“You are going to be champ one day,” Art said to him.
“You did okay,” the kid said. “Thank you for the match.”
“You got yourself a good fighter,” Art said as Little Brother was taking his gloves off.
“We’re going all the way,” Little Brother said. He stuck out his hand, “My name is Adán. That’s my brother, Raúl.”
Raúl looked down at Art and nodded. “You didn’t quit, Yanqui. I thought you’d quit.”
No “faggot” this time, Art noted.
“If I had any brains, I’d have quit,” he said.
“You fight like a Mexican,” Raúl said.
Ultimate praise.
Actually, I fight like half a Mexican, Art thought, but he kept it to himself. But he knew what Raúl meant. It was the same in Barrio Logan—it isn’t so much what you can dish out as what you can take.
Well, I took plenty tonight, Art thought. All I want to do now is go back to the hotel, take a long, hot shower and spend the rest of the night with an ice pack.
Okay, several ice packs.
“We’re going out for some beers,” Adán said. “You want to come?”
Yeah, Art thought. Yeah, I do.
So he spent the night downing beers in a cafetín with Adán.
Years later, Art would have given anything in the world to have just killed Adán Barrera on the spot.
Tim Taylor called him into the office the next morning.
Art looked like shit, which was an accurate external reflection of his internal reality. His head was pounding from the beers and the yerba he’d ended up smoking in the after-hours club Adán had hauled him to. His eyes were black and there were still traces of dark, dried blood under his nose. He’d showered but hadn’t shaved because one, he hadn’t had time; and two, the thought of dragging anything across his swollen jaw was just unacceptable. And even though he lowered himself into the chair slowly, his bruised ribs screamed at him for the offense.
Taylor looked at him with undisguised disgust. “You had quite a night for yourself.”
Art smiled sheepishly. Even that hurt. “You know about that.”
“You know how I heard?” Taylor said. “I had a meeting this morning with Miguel Barrera. You know who that is, Keller? He’s a Sinaloan state cop, the special assistant to the governor, the man in this area. We’ve been trying to get him to work with us for two years. And I have to hear from him that one of my agents is brawling with the locals—”
“It was a sparring match.”
“Whatever,” Taylor said. “Look, these people are not our pals or our drinking buddies. They’re our targets, and—”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Art heard himself say. Some disembodied voice that he couldn’t control. He’d meant to keep his mouth shut, but he was just too fucked-up to maintain the discipline.
“What’s the problem?”
Fuck it, Art thought. Too late now. So he answered, “That we look at 'these people’ like 'targets.’ ”
And anyway, it pissed him off. People as targets? Been there, done that. Besides that, I learned more about how things work down here last night than I did in the last three months.
“Look, you’re not in an undercover role here,” Taylor said. “Work with the local law enforcement people—”
“Can’t, Tim,” Art said. “You did a good job of queering me with them.”
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Tim said. “I want you off my team.”
“Start the paperwork,” Art said. He was sick of this shit.
“Don’t worry, I will,” Taylor said. “In the meantime, Keller, try to conduct yourself like a professional?”
Art nodded and got up out of the chair.
Slowly.
While the Damoclean sword of bureaucracy was dangling, Art thought he might as well keep working.
What’s the saying, he asked himself. They can kill you but they can’t eat you? Which isn’t true—they can kill you and eat you—but that doesn’t mean you go easy. The thought of going to work on a senatorial staff depressed the hell out of him. It wasn’t so much the work as it was Althie’s father setting it up, Art having a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward father figures.
It was the idea of failure.
You don’t let them knock you out, you make them knock you out. You make them break their fucking hands knocking you out, you let them know that they’ve been in a fight, you give them something to remember you by every time they look in a mirror.
He went right back to the gym.
“¡Qué noche bruta!” he said to Adán. “Me mata la cabeza.”
“Pero gozamos.”
We enjoyed ourselves all right, Art thought. My head is splitting, anyway. “How’s the Little Lion?”
“Cesar? Better than you,” Adán said. “Better than me.”
“Where’s Raúl?”
“Probably out getting laid,” Adán said. “Es el coño, ése. You want a beer?”
“Hell, yes.”
Damn, it tasted good going down. Art took a long, wonderful swig, then laid the ice-cold bottle against his swollen cheek.
“You look like shit,” Adán said.
“That good?”
“Almost.”
Adán signaled the waiter and ordered a plate of cold meats. The two men sat at the outdoor table and watched the world go by.
“So you’re a narc,” Adán said.
“That’s me.”
“My uncle is a cop.”
“You didn’t go into the family business?”
Adán said, “I’m a smuggler.”
Art raised an eyebrow. It actually hurt.
“Blue jeans,” Adán said, laughing. “My brother and I go up to San Diego, buy blue jeans and sneak them back across the border. Sell them duty-free off the back of a truck. You’d be surprised how much money there is in it.”
“I thought you were in college. What was it, accounting?”
“You have to have something to count,” Adán said.
“Does your uncle know what you do for beer money?”
“Tío knows everything,” Adán said. “He thinks it’s frivolous. He wants me to get 'serious.’ But the jeans business is good. It brings in some cash until the boxing thing takes off. Cesar will be a champion. We’ll make millions.”
“You ever try boxing yourself?” Art asked.
Adán shook his head. “I’m small, but I’m slow. Raúl, he’s the fighter in the family.”
“Well, I think I fought my last match.”
“I think
that’s a good idea.”
They both laughed.
It’s a funny thing, how friendships are formed.
Art would think about that years later. A sparring match, a drunken night, an afternoon at a sidewalk café. Conversation, ambitions shared over shared dishes, bottles and hours. Bullshit tossed back and forth. Laughs.