by Don Winslow
She looks at him incredulously. “You have all that on your shoulders.”
He nods.
“You must be a pretty powerful guy, Art,” she says. “What were you supposed to have done back then? It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known what Barrera was up to.”
“I think,” Art says, “maybe a part of me knew. And just didn’t want to admit it.”
“So you feel you have to atone for this in some way?” she asks. “By bringing the Barreras down? Even if it costs your life.”
“Something like that.”
She gets up and goes into the bathroom. It seems to him as if she’s in there forever, but it’s really only a few minutes later when she comes out, goes into the closet, grabs his suitcase and tosses it onto the bed. “Come with us.”
“I can’t do that.”
“This crusade of yours is more important to you than your family?” she asks.
“Nothing is more important to me than my family.”
“Prove it,” she says. “Come with us.”
“Althea—”
“You want to stay here and play High Noon, fine,” she says. “If you want to keep your family together, start packing. Just enough for a few days. Tim Taylor said he’d arrange to have the rest of our things packed and shipped.”
“You talked to Tim Taylor about this?!”
“He called,” she says. “Which is more than you did, by the way.”
“I was in an interrogation room!”
“Which is supposed to make me feel better?!”
“Goddamn it, Althie! What do you want from me?!”
“I want you to come with us!”
“I can’t!”
He sits on the bed, his empty suitcase beside him like a piece of evidence that he doesn’t love his family. He does love them—deeply and profoundly—but he just can’t bring himself to do what she’s asking.
Why not? he asks himself. Is Althea right? Do I love this crusade more than my own family?
“Don’t you get it?” she asks. “This isn’t about the Barreras. It’s about you. It’s about you not being able to forgive yourself. It’s not them you’re obsessed with punishing, it’s yourself.”
“Thanks for the dime-store psychotherapy.”
“Fuck you, Art.” She snaps her suitcase shut. “I called a taxi.”
“At least let me take you to the airport.”
“Not unless you’re getting on the plane. It’s too hard on the kids.”
He picks up her bag and carries it downstairs. Stands there with her bag in his hand as she and Josefina exchange hugs and tears. He squats down to hug Cassie and Michael. Michael doesn’t really understand. Cassie’s tears are warm on Art’s cheek.
“Why aren’t you coming, Daddy?” she asks.
“I have some work I have to do,” Art says. “I’ll be along in just a little bit.”
“But I want you to come with us!”
“You’ll have so much fun with Grandpa and Grandma,” he says.
A horn beeps and he carries their bags outside.
The street is crowded with a posada, the local kids dressed as Joseph and Mary and kings and shepherds. The latter bang their staffs, decked out with ribbons and flowers, in time with the music of a little band that follows the procession down the street. Art has to hand the bags over the children to the cab driver.
“Aeropuerto,” Art says.
“Yo sé,” the cabbie says.
As the driver puts the luggage in the trunk, Art gets the kids into the backseat. He hugs and kisses them again and keeps a smile on his face as he says good-bye. Althea is standing awkwardly by the front passenger door. Art hugs her and goes to kiss her but she turns to take it on her cheek.
“I love you,” he says.
“Take care of yourself, Art.”
She gets in. Art watches until the cab’s red taillights disappear in the night. Then he turns and makes his way through the posada, hears the singing in the background—
“Come in, you holy pilgrims—
Into this humble house—
It is a poor lodging—
But it is a gift from the heart—“
He sees the white Bronco still parked down the street and heads for it, bumping into a little boy who asks the ritual question: “A place to stay tonight, Señor? Do you have a room for us?”
“What?”
“A place to stay—”
“No, not tonight.”
He makes it over to the Bronco and knocks on the window. When it slides down, he grabs the cop, pulls him out of the window and hits him with three straight, hard rights before slamming him onto the street. Holding him by the shirtfront, he hits him over and over again, yelling, “I told you not to fuck with my family! I told you not to fuck with my family!”
Two of the local parents pull him off.
He shucks himself out of their grip and starts to walk back to his house. As he does, he sees the cop, still lying on the ground, reach around and pull the pistol from his hip holster.
“Do it,” Art says. “Do it, motherfucker.”
The cop lowers his gun.
Art makes his way through the shocked crowd and goes into his house. He kills two strong scotches, then goes to bed.
Art spends Christmas Day with Ernie and Teresa Hidalgo, at their insistence and over his objections. He gets there late, not wanting to watch Ernesto Jr. and Hugo open their presents, but he arrives with toys in his hands and the boys, already crazed with overstimulation, jump around, screaming, “Tío Arturo! Tío Arturo!”
He feigns an appetite. Teresa has gone to great trouble to make a traditional turkey dinner (traditional for him, not for a Hispanic household), so he forces himself to down a great quantity of turkey and mashed potatoes, which he really doesn’t want. He insists on clearing the table, and it’s in the kitchen that Ernie says to him, “Boss, I’ve been offered a transfer to El Paso.”
“Oh?”
“I’m going to take it.”
“Okay.”
Ernie has tears in his eyes. “It’s Teresa. She’s scared here. For me, for the boys.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Look, I don’t blame you.”
Tío has unleashed his federale dogs to harass the DEA agents in Guadalajara. The federales have come to the office, searching for guns, illegal wiretapping equipment, even drugs. They’ve stopped the agents in their cars two or three times a day on the flimsiest of pretexts. And Tío’s sicarios drive past their houses at night, or park across the street, wave to them in the morning when they come out to get their newspapers.
So Art doesn’t blame Ernie for bugging out. Just because I’ve lost my family, he thinks, doesn’t mean he should lose his. He says, “I think you’re doing the right thing, Ernie.”
“Sorry, boss.”
“Don’t be.”
They share an awkward hug.
When it breaks up, Ernie says, “It’ll be a month or so before the new job opens up, so . . .”
“Sure. We’ll do some damage before you go.”
Art excuses himself shortly after dessert. He can’t stand the thought of going back to his empty house, so he drives around until he finds an open bar. Sits on a stool and has two drinks that don’t numb him enough to face going home, so instead he drives to the airport.
Sits in his car on the ridge over the airfield and watches the SETCO flight come in. “On Dancer, on Prancer,” he says to himself. “On Donner, on Blitzen.” Santa’s sleigh coming in with goodies for all the good children.
We could seize enough snow to cover a Minnesota winter, he thinks, and the snow would just keep coming. We could seize enough cash to pay off the national debt, and the cash would just keep rolling in. As long as the Mexican Trampoline is still in operation it doesn’t matter. The coke just bounces from Colombia to Honduras to Mexico and then into the States. Gets turned into crack and bounces merrily onto the s
treet.
The white DC-4 sits on the runway.
This coke isn’t meant to be snorted by stockbrokers or starlets. This coke is going to be smoked as crack—sold at ten bucks a rock to the poor, mostly black and Hispanic. This coke ain’t going to Wall Street or Hollywood; it’s going to Harlem and Watts, to South Chicago and East L.A., to Roxbury and Barrio Logan.
Art sits up on the ridge and watches the federales finish loading the coke into trucks. The usual SETCO drill, he thinks, smooth and intocable, and he’s about to go home when something new happens.
The federales start loading something on to the plane. Art watches as they lift crate after crate into the DC-4’s cargo hold.
What the hell? he thinks.
He swings his binocs around and sees Tío supervising the load-in.
What the hell? What could they be loading on to the plane?
He considers it on the drive home.
Okay, he thinks, you have airplanes flying coke out of Colombia. The planes aren’t guided by any radio signals, and they fly under the radar. They stop and refuel in Honduras under the protection of Ramón Mette, whose partner is an old Operation 40 Cuban ex-pat.
The planes then fly to Guadalajara, where they’re off-loaded under Tío’s protection and distributed to one of the three cartels—Gulf, Sonora or Baja. The cartels take the coke across the border to safe houses, then deliver it back to the Colombians at $1,000 a kilo. Then the Mexican cartels pay Tío a percentage of that fee.
It’s the Mexican Trampoline, Art thinks, cocaine bouncing from Medellín to Honduras to Mexico to the States. And the Honduran DEA office is closed, Mexico doesn’t want to do anything about it, and the DEA, the Justice Department and the State Department don’t want to know. See no evil, hear no evil, and for God’s sake speak no evil.
Okay, that’s old news.
What’s different?
What’s different is two-way traffic. Now you have something going back the other way.
But what?
He’s thinking about this as he unlocks the door and goes into his empty house and feels a gun barrel shoved into the back of his head.
“Don’t turn around.”
“I won’t.” Fuckin’ A, I won’t. I’m scared enough just feeling the gun. I don’t need to see it.
“See how fucking easy it is, Art?” the man says. “To get to you?”
It’s an American voice, Art thinks. East Coast. New York. He risks a look down, but all he can see are the tips of the man’s shoes.
Black, shined to a mirror-like gloss.
“I get that, Sal,” Art says.
The subsequent moment of silence tell him he’s right.
“That was really fucking stupid, Art,” Sal says.
He pulls the trigger.
Art hears the dry, metallic click.
“Jesus God,” he says. His knees feel weak, like water, like he’s going to fall down. His heart is racing, his body hot. He feels like he can’t breathe.
“The next chamber ain’t empty, Art.”
“Okay.”
“Knock this shit off,” Sal says. “You don’t know what you’re fucking with.”
Same thing Adán told me, Art thinks. Same words.
“Did Barrera send you?” he asks.
“When you got a gun at my head, you can ask the questions,” Sal says. “I’m telling you, stay away from the airport. Next time—and there’d better not be a next time, Arthur—we won’t be having a 'dialogue.’ You’ll just be alive, and then you won’t. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Sal says. “I’m going to be leaving now. Don’t turn around. And Arthur?”
“Yeah?”
“Cerberus.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” the man says. “Don’t turn around.”
Art doesn’t turn around as he hears Sal walk away. He stands where he is for a full minute, until he hears a car on the street pull away.
Then he sits down and starts shaking. It takes a few minutes and a heavy scotch to get it together, but he tries to think it through.
Stay away from the airport.
So whatever it is they were loading on that plane, Art thinks, they’re very sensitive about it.
And what the hell is Cerberus?
He looks out the window, and there’s another Jalisco cop out there on surveillance. He goes into his study and calls Ernie at home. “I need you to bring a car over here. Come in the other way, and park it two blocks south. Take a cab home.”
He lets himself out the back way, through the kitchen door, then climbs over the back fence into his neighbor’s yard and out onto the back street. He finds Ernie’s car where it’s supposed to be, but there’s a problem.
Ernie’s still in it.
“I told you to take a cab home,” Art says as he slides in.
“I guess I didn’t hear that part.”
“Go home,” Art says. When Ernie doesn’t move, he says, “Look, I don’t want to fuck up your life, too.”
“When are you going to let me in on this?” Ernie asks as he gets out of the car.
“When I know what I’m doing,” Art says.
Like, maybe never.
He gets into Ernie’s car and drives to La Casa del Amor.
What if they’re waiting for me? he thinks as he makes his way over to the wall to retrieve the tape.
You’ll just be alive, and then you won’t.
Click.
Out.
He shakes off his fear and makes his way through the shrubbery to the wall. Takes a quick glance over the top and sees that Tío’s bedroom light is on. Crouching by the wall, he taps his earpiece into the tape recorder so he can listen live.
They say eavesdroppers never hear anything nice about themselves, Art thinks as he listens.
“Did it work?” Tío asks.
“I don’t know.” Sal’s Spanish is pretty good, Art thinks, but it’s definitely the same voice. “I think so, though. The guy seemed pretty scared.”
Yeah, no shit, Art thinks. Let me stick a gun in your neck and see how cool you are.
“Did he know anything about Cerberus?”
“I don’t think so. He didn’t respond at all.”
Relax, Art thinks. I don’t know shit about it. Whatever it is.
Then he hears Tío say, “We can’t take the chance. The next exchange . . .”
Exchange? Art thinks. What exchange?
“. . . we’ll do El Norte.”
El Norte, Art thinks.
In the States.
Yeah, Art thinks. Do it, Tío.
Fly it across the border.
Because as soon as you do?
I’m going to reach up and grab that plane right out of the sky.
Borrego Springs, California
January 1985
The plane, any plane really, flies toward a VOR signal. A VOR (Variable Oscillation Radio) signal is kind of like the radio version of a lighthouse, but instead of a beam of light it emits sound waves that register as beeps on a plane’s radio or a pulsing light on its instrument panel. All airports, even small ones, have a VOR.
But a plane full of dope isn’t going to land at an airport in the United States, not even a small one. What it’s going to do is land on a private airstrip bulldozed out of a remote part of the desert. The VOR signals are still crucial because the pilot is going to locate the landing strip by triangulating the location between three VOR signals, in this case, the VORs at Borrego Springs, Ocotillo Wells and Blythe. What happens is that the people on the ground are going to get on the ADF radio and give him that location, cross-referencing it by distance and compass points—called “vectors” in air navigation—from the three known locations of the VORs.
Then they’re going to park at the end of that landing strip, and when they see the plane, they’ll become their own landing tower, if you will, by flashing their headlights. The pilot will line his plane up toward the headlights and bring down the pla
ne, with its valuable cargo.