by Don Winslow
“CI-D0243 is kind of impersonal, isn’t it?” Shag asks one day. “I mean, for a guy who’s contributing as much as he is.”
“What do you want to call him?” Art asks.
“Deep Throat,” suggests Ernie.
“It’s been done,” Art says. “But he is sort of a Mexican Deep Throat.”
“Chupar,” Ernie says. “Let’s call him Source Chupar.”
Blow job.
Source Chupar gives Art a bank account with every other law enforcement agency on the border. They deny getting anything from the guy, but they all owe him. Owe him? Shit, they love him. The DEA can’t function without local cooperation, and if they want that cooperation, they better not fuck with Art Keller.
No, Art Keller is fast becoming intocable.
Except he’s not.
It’s wearing him down, running an op against Tío while pretending that he’s not. Leaving his family late at night, keeping his activities secret, keeping his past secret, waiting for Tío to track it back to him and then come to remind him that they have a past relationship.
Tío to sobrino.
Art’s not eating, he’s not sleeping.
He and Althea rarely make love anymore. She chides him for being irritable, secretive, closed.
Untouchable.
Art thinks, as he sits on the edge of his bathtub at four in the morning. He’s just thrown up the leftover chicken mole that Althea left in the fridge for him and that he ate at three-thirty. No, the past isn’t catching up with you, you’re marching toward it. Resolutely, step by step, walking toward the abyss.
Tío’s lying awake nights trying to figure out who the soplón—the informer—is. The Federación patrónes—Abrego, Méndez, El Verde—have taken serious shots, and they’re putting enormous pressure on him to do something.
Because it’s obvious that the problem is right here in Guadalajara. Because all three plazas have been hit. Abrego, Méndez, El Verde all insist that there must be a soplón in M-1’s organization.
Find him, they are saying. Kill him. Do something.
Or we will.
Pilar Talavera lies beside him, breathing evenly and easily in the deep, untroubled sleep of youth. He looks down at her shiny black hair, her long black eyelashes, now closed, her full upper lip moist with sweat. He loves the fresh, young smell of her.
He reaches out to the night table, grabs a cigar and lights it. The smoke won’t wake her. Neither will the smell. He’s gotten her used to it. Besides, he thinks, nothing could wake the girl after such a session as we have had. How odd, to have found love at this age. How odd and how wonderful. She is my happiness, he thinks, la sonrisa de mi corazón—the smile of my heart. I will make her my wife within a year. A quick divorce, then a quicker marriage.
And the Church? The Church can be bought. I will go to the cardinal himself and offer him a hospital, a school, an orphanage. We will marry in the cathedral.
No, the Church will be no problem.
The problem is the soplón.
Condenado “Source Chupar.”
Costing me millions.
Worse, making me vulnerable.
I can just hear Abrego now, the jealous zorro viejo, the old fox, whispering against me, M-1 is losing it. He’s charging us fortunes for protection he can’t deliver. There is a soplón in his organization.
Abrego wants to be patrón of the Federación anyway. How long before he thinks he’s strong enough to act? Will he come at me directly, or will he use one of the others?
No, he thinks, they’ll all act together if I can’t find the soplón.
It starts at Christmas.
The kids have been bugging Art to take them to see the big Christmas tree in the Cross of Squares downtown. He had hoped they’d be satisfied with the posadas, the nightly parades of children who go house to house through the Tlaquepaque neighborhood dressed as Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay. But the little processions only fired the kids up to go see the tree and the pastorelas, the funny, slapstick plays about the birth of Christ that are performed outside the cathedral.
It isn’t the time for funny plays. Art has just listened in on one of Tío’s conversations about sixteen hundred pounds of cocaine in eight hundred boxes, all brightly wrapped in Christmas paper, with ribbons and bows and the whole holiday nine yards.
Thirty million dollars’ worth of Christmas cheer at a safe house in Arizona, and Art hasn’t decided yet whom he’s going to take it to.
But he knows he’s been neglecting his family, so on the Saturday before Christmas he takes Althea, the kids and the extended household of the cook, Josefina, and the maid, Guadalupe, shopping in the open market in the old district.
He has to admit that he’s having a wonderful time. They go Christmas shopping for each other and buy little handcrafted ornaments for the tree back at the house. They have a long, wonderful lunch of freshly sliced carnitas and black-bean soup, then sweet, honied sopaipillas for dessert.
Then Cassie spots one of the fancy horse-drawn carriages, enamel-black with red velvet cushions, and she has to have a ride, Please, Daddy, please, and Art negotiates a price with the driver in his bright gaucho suit and they all get under a blanket in the back and Michael sits on Art’s lap and falls asleep to the steady clop-clop of the horses’ hooves on the cobblestones of the plaza. Not Cassie; she’s beside herself with excitement, looking at the white caparisoned horses with the red plumes in their harnesses, and then at the sixty-foot tree with its bright lights, and as Art feels his son’s deep breathing against his chest he knows that he’s happier than it’s possible to be.
It’s dark by the time the ride ends, and he gently wakes Michael and hands him down to Josefina and they walk through the Plaza Tapatía toward the cathedral, where a small stage has been set up and a play is about to start.
Then he sees Adán.
His old cuate wears a rumpled business suit. He looks tired, like he’s been traveling. He sees Art and walks into a public rest room at the edge of the plaza.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Art says. “Michael, do you need to go?”
Say no, kid, say no.
“I went in the restaurant.”
“Go see the show,” Art says. “I’ll catch up with you.”
Adán’s leaning against the wall when Art comes in. Art starts to check the stalls to make sure they’re empty, but Adán says, “I already did that. And no one will be coming in. Long time no see, Arturo.”
“What do you want?”
“We know it’s you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play games with me,” Adán says. “Just answer me a question—what do you think you’re doing?”
“My job,” Art says. “It’s nothing personal.”
“It’s very personal,” Adán says. “When a man turns on his friends it is very fucking personal.”
“We’re not friends anymore.”
“My uncle is very unhappy about this.”
Art shrugs.
“You called him Tío,” Adán says. “Just like I do.”
“That was then,” Art says. “Things change.”
“That doesn’t change,” Adán says. “That’s forever. You accepted his patronage, his counsel, his help. He made you what you are.”
“We made each other.”
Adán shakes his head. “So much for an appeal to loyalty. Or gratitude.”
He reaches into his lapel pocket and Art takes a step toward him to check him from pulling the gun.
“Easy,” Adán says. He takes out an envelope, sets it on the edge of a sink. “That’s a hundred thousand U.S. dollars, cash. But if you prefer, we can make deposits for you in the Caymans, Costa Rica . . .”
“I’m not for sale.”
“Really? What’s changed?”
Art grabs him, pushes him against the wall and starts to pat him down. “You wearing a wire, Adán? Huh? You setting me up? Where are the fucking cameras?”
Art lets him go and starts searching the room. In the top corners, the stalls, under the sinks. He doesn’t find anything. He stops searching and, exhausted, leans against the wall.
“A hundred thousand right now for good faith,” Adán says. “Another hundred for the name of your soplón. Then twenty a month just for doing nothing.”
Art shakes his head.
“I told Tío you wouldn’t take it,” Adán says. “You prefer a different kind of coin. Okay, we’ll give you enough marijuana busts to make you a star again. That’s Plan A.”
“What’s Plan B?”
Adán walks over, wraps his arms around Art and holds him tightly. Says quietly into his ear, “Arturo, you’re an ungrateful, inflexible, güero-wannabe prick. But you’re still my friend and I love you. So take the money, or don’t take the money, but back off. You don’t know what you’re fucking around with here.”
Adán leans back so he’s face-to-face with Art. Their noses are practically touching as he looks him in the eyes and repeats, “You don’t know what you’re fucking around with here.”
He steps back, takes the envelope and holds it up. “No?”
Art shakes his head. Adán shrugs and puts the envelope back into his pocket. “Arturo?” he says. “You don’t even want to know about Plan B.”
Then he walks out.
Art steps to the sink, runs the tap and splashes cold water on his face. Then he dries himself off and goes outside to meet his family.
They’re standing on the edge of a small crowd in front of the stage, the kids hopping up and down in delight to the antics of two actors dressed as the Ángel Gabriel and Lucifer, banging each other on the head with sticks, fighting for the soul of the Christ Child.
When they leave the parking garage that night, a Ford Bronco pulls off the curb and follows them. The kids don’t notice, of course—they’re sound asleep—and neither do Althea, Josefina and Guadalupe, but Art keeps track of him in the rearview mirror. Art plays with him for a while through the traffic, but the car stays with him. Not even trying to disguise himself, Art thinks, so he’s trying to make a point, send a message.
When Art pulls into the driveway, the car passes, then turns around, then parks across the street a half-block away.
Art gets his family inside, then makes an excuse about forgetting something in the car. He goes out, walks over to the Bronco and knocks on the window. When the window slides down, Art leans in, pins the man to the seat, reaches into his left lapel pocket and hauls out his wallet.
He tosses the wallet with the Jalisco State Police badge back onto the cop’s lap.
“That’s my family in there,” Art says. “If you scare them, if you frighten them, if they even get the idea you’re out here, I’m going to come back, take that pistola you have on your hip and shove it so far up your ass it’ll come out your mouth. Do you understand me, brother?”
“I’m just doing my job, brother.”
“Then do it better.”
But Tío’s message has been delivered, Art thinks as he walks back into the house—you don’t fuck your friends.
After a mostly sleepless night, Art gets up, makes himself a cup of coffee and sips at it until his family wakes up. Then he fixes the kids’ breakfast, kisses Althea good-bye and drives toward the office.
On the way he stops at a phone booth to commit professional suicide—he calls the Pierce County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Department. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and tells them about the eight hundred boxes of cocaine.
Then he goes to the office and waits for a phone call of his own.
Althea’s driving back from the grocery store the next morning when a strange car starts to follow her. Not even being subtle about it, just getting on her tail and staying there. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s afraid to drive home and get out of the car, and she’s afraid to go anywhere else, so she heads for the DEA office. She’s absolutely terrified—her two kids are in car seats in the back—and she’s three full blocks from the office when the car forces her over and four men with guns get out.
The leader flashes a Jalisco State Police badge.
“Identification, Señora Keller?” he asks.
Her hand shakes as she fumbles for her driver’s license. As she does, he leans through the window, looks in the back and says, “Nice children.”
She feels stupid as she hears herself say, “Thank you.”
She hands him the license.
“Passport?”
“It’s at home.”
“You’re supposed to have it on you.”
“I know, but we’ve been here a long time and—”
“Maybe you’ve been here too long,” the cop says. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.”
“But I have my children with me.”
“I can see that, Señora, but you must come with me.”
Althea finds herself near tears. “But what am I supposed to do with my children?”
The cop excuses himself for a moment and goes back to his car. Althea sits, trying to get herself under control, for long minutes. She fights off the temptation to look in the rearview mirror to see what’s going on, likewise fights the urge to just get out of the car with the kids and start walking. Finally, the cop comes back. Leans through the window and with elaborate courtesy says, “In Mexico we appreciate the meaning of family. Good afternoon.”
Art gets his phone call.
Tim Taylor, phoning to say he’s heard something disturbing and they need to talk about it.
Taylor’s still yapping at him when the shooting starts.
Plan B.
First they hear the roar of a speeding car, then the cacophony of AK-47s going off, then they are all on the floor, crouching behind desks. Art, Ernie and Shag wait for a few minutes after the shooting stops and then go out to look at Art’s car. The Ford Taurus’s windows are all blown out, the tires flat and a few dozen large bullet holes punched into its sides.
Shag says, “I don’t think you’re going to get Blue Book on this, boss.”
The federales are there within moments.
If they weren’t here already, Art thinks.
They take him to the station, where Colonel Vega looks at him with deep concern.
“Thank God you were not in the vehicle,” he says. “Whoever could have done such a thing? Do you have any enemies in the city, Señor Keller?”
“You know goddamn well who did this,” Art snaps. “Your boy, Barrera.”
Vega gives him a look of wide-eyed incredulity. “Miguel Ángel Barrera? But why would he want to do such a thing? You yourself told me you are not investigating Don Miguel.”
Vega keeps him in the interview room for three and a half hours, basically interrogating him about his investigations, on the pretext of trying to determine who might have had a motive for the attack.
Ernie’s half-afraid he’s not coming out. He parks himself in the lobby and refuses to leave until his boss comes back out those doors. While Ernie’s camped there, Shag drives over to the Kellers’ house and tells Althea, “Art’s fine, but . . .”
When Art gets home, Althea is in their bedroom packing.
“I got us on a flight to San Diego tonight,” she says. “We’ll stay with my parents for a while.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was scared today, Art,” she says. She tells him about the interaction with the Jalisco cop, about what it felt like to hear that his car had been shot up and that he was being taken to the federale station. “I’ve never been really scared before, Art. I want out of Mexico.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of.”
She looks at him like he’s nuts. “They shot your car up, Art.”
“They knew I wasn’t in it.”
“So when they bomb the house,” she says, “are they going to know that me and the kids aren’t in it?!”
“They won’t hurt families.”
“What is that,” she asks, “some sort o
f rule?”
“Yes, it is,” he says. “Anyway, it’s me they’re after. It’s personal.”
“What do you mean, 'it’s personal'?”
When he hasn’t answered after about thirty seconds she says, “Art, what do you mean?!”
He sits her down and tells her about his prior relationship with Tío and Adán Barrera. Tells her about the ambush in Badiraguato, the execution of six prisoners and how he kept his mouth shut about it. How it helped Tío form his Federación, which is now flooding the streets of America with crack, and how it’s up to him to do something about it.