The Border: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  It brings it all back.

  He sees Caro stop and speak into one of the microphones pressed to his face. “I’m an old man. I made mistakes in my past and I’ve paid for them. Now I just want to live my life out in peace.”

  “Fuck him,” Hugo says.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Keller says. “I don’t want to hear about you taking any trips to Mexico.”

  “You won’t.”

  Keller looks at him. “I won’t hear about them or you won’t go?”

  “Both.”

  Turning back to the television, Keller watches Caro’s people usher him into the back seat of a town car.

  So Caro’s out of prison, he thinks. Jesus, when do I get out? Or am I serving life, with no time off for good behavior? And something hits him from his other war, his first, Vietnam. Something Ho Chi Minh had written:

  “When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.”

  4

  The Bus

  Jesus wept.

  —John 11:35

  Culiacán, Mexico

  September 2014

  At first Damien Tapia is shocked, disappointed by the little house in which Rafael Caro lives, the plain clothes that the man wears. The house, built back in the ’80s, is modest—a single-level one-bedroom with a bathroom, small living room and smaller kitchen. The furniture is old, like you’d find at a yard sale.

  This is Rafael Caro, one of the founders of the Federación—he should be living in a mansion and wearing Armani, not an old denim shirt and wrinkled khaki trousers. He should be dining at the best restaurants, not scraping leftover frijoles from a pan.

  Damien feels cheated.

  But then he sits with the old man and sees that what he thought was degradation is in fact simplicity, that the man hadn’t fallen but is above it all, that his years in solitary confinement have turned him not into a madman but into a monk.

  A sage.

  So he sits and listens as Caro says, “Adán Barrera was your father’s enemy. He was mine, too. He sent your father into death and me into a living hell. He was the devil.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know your father,” Caro says. “I was already in prison. But I have heard he was a great man.”

  “He was.”

  “And you want to avenge him.”

  “I want to restore my family to its proper place,” Damien says.

  “I heard you came into possession of a large amount of heroin,” Caro says.

  It’s true. Damien and his boys hit a Núñez lab in Guerrero and took fifteen kilos. But how does the old man know?

  “But you have no way to move it and no American market,” Caro says.

  “I have docks in Acapulco,” Damien says.

  But he knows what the old man is getting at. The docks are useful for bringing chemicals in, but less valuable for exporting drugs. The Pacific port only gives him access to the American West Coast; the trip is slow, unwieldy and risky. You can move marijuana by sea, dropping bales of it in the ocean off California where boats will come out and get it, but there’s no profit in weed anymore.

  He needs the heroin trade to take on Sinaloa, and Caro is right—they’ve locked him out of the transport and market infrastructure.

  “Some of your father’s old friends are moving Sinaloa heroin on buses out of Tristeza,” Caro says.

  Damien knows. Guerreros Unidos has become a client of Sinaloa. He can’t blame them, they have to survive, they have to eat.

  “What if they moved product for you, too?” Caro asks.

  “They won’t,” Damien says. “The Rentería brothers are under Núñez’s thumb.”

  “Maybe they want to get out from under.”

  Damien shakes his head. “I’ve approached them.”

  The Renterías were his father’s old friends, worked for him for years, fought for him against Adán. After Diego’s death, they went with Eddie Ruiz. Damien’s known them since he was a kid. But when he tried to feel them out about helping him, they blew him off.

  “It’s one thing if you approach them,” Caro says. “It’s another thing if I do.”

  The city of Tristeza sits on Route 95 near the northern edge of Guerrero State where it borders Michoacán and Morelos. An old city, founded in 1347, it has a history. It was here that the Mexican War of Independence officially ended, here where the first flag of Mexico was raised.

  It’s a pretty town, known for its tamarind trees, its neoclassical churches and the lake just outside the city.

  Damien follows a car along Bandera Nacional, then left onto Calle Álvarez.

  “Where are we going?” Fausto asks.

  “I don’t know,” Damien says. “El Tilde just said follow him.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Just keep the gun ready.”

  Tilde pulls over opposite the Central de Autobuses.

  “The bus station?” Fausto asks.

  “I guess,” Damien says, getting out of the car. He jams a black baseball cap onto his head because the sun is hot. He’s wearing a black shirt over jeans and Nikes, a Sig Sauer .380 bulging slightly under the shirt. Fausto, he isn’t fucking around with a small piece, but takes a MAC-10 out of the back seat, even though this is supposed to be a friendly meeting.

  El Tilde steps out of his car, a big smile on his face, his arms outstretched in welcome, “¡Bienvenidos, todos! It’s been too long!”

  Cleotilde “El Tilde” Rentería was another one of Damien’s father’s bodyguards who then went with Eddie. The story about Tilde is that he killed twenty tourists one time in Acapulco, thinking they were rival gang members. They weren’t, but Tilde’s response was something along the lines of “better safe than sorry.”

  After Eddie left, Tilde and a few others of the old Tapia and Ruiz organizations formed their own thing—Guerreros Unidos—and now Tilde’s two brothers, Moisés and Zeferino, run the organization with him.

  Tilde wears a striped blue-and-yellow polo shirt over khakis, Damien notices, a throwback to Eddie’s old rules that his people dress sharp. Now he walks up and throws his arms around first Damien and then Fausto.

  “It’s a beautiful thing,” Tilde says. “From here, these buses go everywhere. Guadalajara, Culiacán, Mexico City. How much are we talking here?”

  “Fifteen keys now,” Damien says. “Maybe more later. I have the product, I just have to move it out of Guerrero. I came to you first out of respect.”

  Tilde doesn’t want to know where Damien laid his hands on fifteen bricks of heroin paste, although he has a pretty good idea. One of Ricardo Núñez’s packagers in Guerrero was hit a week ago by ten hooded men with AK-47s—fifteen keys were taken—and Núñez is not happy about it. He has his people all over the state looking for his property and the men who took it.

  If Núñez knew, he would shit bricks sideways.

  Then he’d start killing.

  Better he doesn’t know.

  And better I don’t know, he thinks as he looks at Damien. So he doesn’t ask. It’s better to maintain deniability, although he has strongly hinted to Núñez that Los Rojos were behind the raid.

  Fuck Núñez.

  Fuck Sinaloa.

  Although they’re doing a pretty good job of fucking themselves, he thinks. The Esparza and Sánchez wings are going at it hard up in Baja—leaving bodies hanging from bridges or scattered in pieces on the streets.

  Núñez can’t stay neutral forever.

  “We’ll move it for you,” he says.

  “You’re not afraid of Sinaloa?” Damien asks.

  “What Sinaloa doesn’t know, it doesn’t know,” Tilde says. “Fuck those assholes. This stays between us, yes?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You’re a good kid,” Tilde says.

  Your father’s son.

  “Look at your boys, Ric,” Belinda Vatos says. “Luis is the head of his own thing, Iván the same. Even Damien has his own outfit now.”

  “Wha
t are you saying?” Ric asks.

  He’s back from Guerrero, in her apartment in La Paz.

  “None of them are Adán Barrera’s godson,” Belinda says. “It’s all there for you. And you sit around jerking off.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Ric asks.

  “Be a soldier,” she says. “Become your father’s general. Then when he retires, the big chair is yours. It’s what he wants, too.”

  “I know.”

  “You know, but you don’t do shit,” she says. “Your father needs you.”

  “Who am I right now—Michael Corleone?”

  “You gotta get your dick wet, Ric,” she says. “You gotta fuck the Skinny Lady.”

  “Yeah, I’ve never . . .”

  “Duh. Don’t worry, I’ll help you pop your cherry.”

  All of Baja is in freaking chaos. Not so much over the border crossings but the domestic drug sales and the extortion rackets. But to control the border you need soldiers, and to pay the soldiers, you have to give them neighborhood franchises where they can sling dope and shake down the bars, the restaurants, the grocery stores.

  It used to be well organized under the Sinaloa monopoly, but now it’s all in play—from one block to another, one day to another—in La Paz, Cabo, Tijuana, anywhere—you don’t know if it’s Sánchez or Esparza, Núñez or piraterías—independents taking advantage of the chaos to get by without paying taxes to Sinaloa. The corner slingers don’t know who they’re working for, the business owners don’t know who to pay.

  Belinda’s going to tell them.

  So Ric piles into a car with Belinda, Gaby, and a couple of her boys, Calderón and Pedro, and they drive down to the Wonder Bar on Antonio Navarro, not far from the marina. He follows Belinda to the bar, where she walks into the office and fronts the owner, a young guy named Martín.

  “Your payment’s due,” Belinda says.

  “I already paid,” Martín says.

  “Who?” Belinda asks. “Who did you pay?”

  “Monte Velázquez. He said he’d take the money now.”

  “Monte’s not with us,” Belinda says.

  “He said—”

  “What, Adán Barrera’s dead so everyone can do their own thing now?” Belinda says. She points to Ric. “Do you know who this is?”

  “No. I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  “This is Ric Núñez.”

  Now Martín looks scared.

  “Ric,” Belinda says, “does Monte Velázquez work with us?”

  “No.”

  “But he said—”

  “Are you going to tell Ric,” Belinda asks, “that he doesn’t know who works with his father?”

  “No, I—”

  “And are you going to tell us,” Belinda asks, “that Monte told you he was with Sinaloa? Really, Martín?”

  “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Belinda says, “just pay us our money.”

  “I already paid!”

  “Yeah, the wrong guy,” Belinda says. “Look, Martín, if you made a mistake, it’s your mistake, not ours. You still owe us our money.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “You don’t have it?” Belinda asks. “What’s in the safe, there, Martín?”

  “I can’t afford to pay twice.”

  “So pay us and don’t pay Velázquez.”

  “He said he’d burn the place down,” Martín says. “He said he’d kill me, my employees, my family . . .”

  Then Ric sees that Martín has bigger balls than he thought.

  “I pay you protection,” Martín says, “to protect me. Where the hell are you when Velázquez and his guys come around?”

  Ric expects Belinda to shoot Martín in the face, but she surprises him, too. “You make a point. We should have been here, we weren’t. That stops tonight. You see Ric Núñez, Adán Barrera’s godson, standing right here to give you assurances. Isn’t that right, Ric?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s right,” Belinda says. “What you’re going to do, Martín, is you’re going to go into that safe and give us our money. In return, you have Ric Núñez’s personal guarantee that nobody else will hassle you. That includes that lambioso Monte.”

  Martín looks up at Ric.

  Ric nods.

  Martín gets up, opens the safe, counts out the money and goes to hand it to Ric.

  “To me, not to him,” Belinda says. “Señor Núñez doesn’t touch money.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry.”

  “Pedro here is going to come around every week for our payment,” Belinda says. “If you hand anyone else any money, we will chop those hands off and nail them to the front door. Don’t make Señor Núñez and me come back and do that, okay?”

  They leave the club and drive past one of the corners to a vacant lot that Velázquez’s people have taken over. Two malandros are standing out there, clearly slinging crack and heroin. They’re freaking kids, really, Ric thinks. Can’t be out of their teens, wearing hoodies and skinny jeans and basketball shoes.

  “They’re piraterías,” Belinda says. She reaches into the back and hands Ric a MAC-10. “It’s pretty easy. Put the stock into your shoulder, slide this back and pull the trigger.”

  She hands him the little machine gun, pulls out one of her own. Ric sees that Gaby, Pedro and Calderón are all doing the same. Pedro, driving, pushes down the button opening all the car windows.

  “Time to party,” Belinda says.

  “Shouldn’t we warn them first?” Ric asks. “Like we did the club owner?”

  “These little fucks don’t pay us money,” Belinda says. “They cost us money. Your money, Ric. And lessons must be taught. Just stick it out the window and let loose. You’re going to love it—it’s like fucking, only you get off every time.”

  Gaby laughs.

  “Let’s do this,” Belinda says.

  Pedro turns the car around, heads back for the corner. Guns stick out the windows like porcupine quills.

  Belinda yells, “Now!”

  Ric points his gun at one of the kids, then tilts the gun high and pulls the trigger. The gun chatters like a speed freak on a riff. Ric sees the kid’s body jerk and then stagger and then fall and he hears Belinda and the rest laughing.

  People on the street run away.

  Pedro turns the car around again.

  “What are we doing?” Ric asks.

  “Marking your turf,” Belinda says.

  The car stops in front of the bodies, crumpled up like trash. Gaby pulls a big sheet of cardboard out of the back, Belinda takes a can of red spray paint.

  “Come on,” she says to Ric.

  Ric gets out, follows them to the two bodies.

  Looking down at one of the kids, he’s surprised the blood looks more black than red; then he looks over and sees Gaby going at the other body with a machete, chopping off its arms. After that she lays the cardboard on the mutilated body. Belinda bends over and sprays the message: You lose the hands you sling with. This is Sinaloa turf. —Mini-Ric, El Ahijado.

  The Godson.

  “The job isn’t finished,” Belinda says, “until the paperwork is done.”

  “Jesus Christ, Belinda!”

  “It’s not evidence,” Belinda says. “Tranquilo.”

  They get back in the car and drive away.

  Down to another club by the marina, where Belinda orders a bottle of Dom, pours a glass for everyone and toasts, “To Ric popping his cherry.”

  Ric drinks.

  She leans over and whispers, “Tomorrow, you’ll be famous. You’ll be somebody. Your name will be in the papers, in the blogs, on Twitter . . .”

  “Okay.”

  “Come on, baby,” she says. “Say the truth—it was good, wasn’t it? It felt good, huh? I fucking came.”

  “So now what happens?”

  “Now we get Monte Velázquez.”

  The arrogant motherfucker is living on a motor yacht docked at a slip in the marina.
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  “He likes to fish,” Belinda says. “He also likes pussy.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Gaby asks.

  “What fishing and fucking have in common,” Belinda says, pointing at Gaby, “is bait.”

  Ric has to admit Gaby looks hot. Halter top, miniskirt, heels, her black hair shimmering, full lips glossy—a narco’s wet dream. She totters down the dock like a tipsy party girl, stops and takes off her heels, then keeps walking toward Monte’s boat.

  When she gets to the slip she calls, “’Jandro?! Baby?! ’Jandro?”

  A few seconds later, Monte comes out on the deck, his fat belly pouring over his jockey shorts. “It’s late, chica. You’re going to wake people up.”

  “I’m looking for Alejandro,” Gaby says.

  “Lucky man, Alejandro,” Monte says. “But this isn’t his boat.”

  “Whose boat is it?”

  “Mine. You like it?”

  “I like it.”

  “This Alejandro,” Monte says, “he your boyfriend?”

  “Just a friend,” Gaby says. “With benefits. I’m horny.”

  “I can give you benefits.”

  “You have vodka?” Gaby asks.

  “Sure.”

  “Good vodka?”

  “The best,” Monte says.

  “How about coke?”

  “Enough to cover my entire dick,” Monte says.

  “You have a big dick?”

  “Plenty big for you, mamacita,” Monte says. “Come on up, see.”

  “Okay.”

  It’s that easy, Ric thinks.

  The guy doesn’t even hear them step into the stateroom, he’s that focused on fucking Gaby. Belinda walks over and jabs a needle into his neck.

  When Monte comes to, he’s tied to a chair, his feet set in a dishpan.

  Belinda sits in front of him. “You been telling people you’re with Sinaloa.”

  “I am with Sinaloa,” Monte says.

  “With who specifically?” Belinda asks. “Give me a name.”

  “Ric Núñez.”

  Belinda laughs. “I have bad news for you, motherfucker. Guess who this is. Ric, is this guy with you?”

  “I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Telling people you’re with us when you’re not is a very bad thing to do,” Belinda says. “You’ve been stealing our money and our name. You have to pay for that.”