The Border: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  “I’m not,” Callan says. “I’m going to let them find me. I expect to be back in a few hours. If I’m not, you take your passport, you cross the bridge, you get in touch with Keller. He’ll know what to do.”

  “I haven’t spoken to Keller in sixteen years.”

  “I think he’ll remember you.” He kisses her. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  The valet brings the car up and Callan drives all the way out to Rosarito. The Club Bombay sits along the beach. It used to be one of their hangouts in Baja.

  He takes a seat at the bar and orders a Tecate.

  Asks the bartender, “Do the Barreras still own this place?”

  The bartender doesn’t like the question. He shrugs and asks, “Are you a reporter?”

  “No,” Callan says. “I worked for Adán back in the day.”

  “I don’t think I know you.” The bartender gives him a closer look.

  “I haven’t been here in a long time,” Callan says.

  The bartender nods and walks into the kitchen. Callan knows he’s going to make a phone call.

  It takes twenty minutes for the cop to get there.

  A Baja state cop, not a local, in plainclothes.

  He walks up to Callan, gets right to the point. “Let’s you and me go for a walk.”

  “I was enjoying my beer.”

  “You’ll enjoy it even more in the sunshine,” the cop says. “Don’t worry, no one will write you a ticket.”

  They walk out onto Avenida Eucalipto.

  “American?” the cop asks.

  “Once upon a time.”

  “New York,” the cop says.

  “How did you know?”

  “It’s a tourist town,” the cop says. “I know accents. What brings you here, asking about the Barreras?”

  “Old times.”

  “What did you do for El Señor?”

  Callan looks straight at the cop. “I killed people for him.”

  The cop doesn’t blink. “Is that what you’re here for now?”

  “It’s what I’m here trying to avoid now.”

  The cop walks him toward a car parked at the edge of the beach. “Get in.”

  “First rule of a yanqui wanting to survive in Mexico,” Callan says, “‘Don’t get in the cop car.’”

  “I wasn’t asking, Mr. . . .”

  “Callan. Sean Callan.”

  The cop’s pistol is out in a second. Pointed at Callan’s head. “Get in the fucking car, Señor Callan.”

  Callan gets in the car.

  Eighteen years and the legend still lives about “Billy the Kid” Callan. The American who was one of Adán Barrera’s key gunmen in the war against Güero Méndez. How Callan saved Adán’s life in an assassination attempt in Puerto Vallarta, fought alongside Raúl at the famous “Sinaloa Swap Meet” gun battle on Avenida Revolución in Tijuana, was there at the airport shoot-out when Cardinal Parada was killed.

  They sing songs about Billy the Kid Callan, and now he sits in the back of an unmarked police car while the cop makes calls trying to figure out what to do with him.

  Callan speaks pretty good Spanish by now so he knows what the cop is saying, picks up the phrase “Do you want us to just kill him?,” among others. There are a whole bunch of phone calls, so it must be some discussion, and finally the cop rings off and starts the car.

  “Where are we going?” Callan asks.

  “You’ll see.”

  Cops are cops, Callan thinks. Doesn’t matter what nationality, they like to ask the questions, not answer them. He sits back in the seat and gives up on any further conversation as the car makes a long drive down the coast on Route 1 through Puerto Nuevo and La Misión. The car pulls off at the cloverleaf junction where Route 1 becomes Route 3.

  A van sits by the side of the road.

  Three men, armed with MAC-10s, get out and hold guns on Callan as the cop takes him out of the car and hands him over. One of the guards pats Callan down.

  “You think I wouldn’t know if he had a gun?” the cop asks, irritated.

  “Just making sure.”

  The cop shakes his head, gets back in his car and drives off. The guard ushers Callan into the back of the van.

  Another guy, maybe in his forties, Callan thinks, starts in as the van pulls south onto the road, toward El Sauzal. “What do you want? What are you doing here?”

  He’s not Mexican, and from his accent Callan makes him to be Israeli. It doesn’t surprise him—the Barreras used to use a lot of former Israeli military as security.

  “I want to speak with Señora Sánchez.”

  “Why? What for?” the Israeli asks.

  “There’s a problem.”

  “What? What kind of problem?” the Israeli asks. “Did Iván send you?”

  “Who’s Iván?”

  “Who sent you?”

  “No one,” Callan says. “I came on my own.”

  “Why?”

  “We going to keep doing this?” Callan asks.

  “We don’t have to,” the Israeli says. “We could just shoot you and dump your body out on the road.”

  “You could,” Callan says, “but that would make your boss unhappy.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I saved her brother’s life once,” Callan says.

  “I’ve heard the songs,” the Israeli says. “They say a lot of things in songs that aren’t true. ‘I’ll love you forever,’ ‘You’re my everything’ . . .”

  “‘Santa Claus is coming to town’ . . .”

  “This is what I mean.” He yells for the van to pull over. It stops, and they jerk Callan out of the van and haul him into a vacant lot that was a baseball field and is now just gravel and dust. They start beating him. Punches and kicks rain down on him, but they’re all to the body, not to the face or head, and Callan does his best to cover up and stay on his feet as the Israeli lectures him. “You do not come down here asking questions about the Barreras. You do not come down here without being asked. Do you think we’d allow a known gunman to just traipse around our territory? Why are you really here? What do you really want? Tell me and this can stop.”

  “I told you.”

  “I’m done with this,” the Israeli says.

  The guards shove Callan to his knees. The Israeli points a pistol at Callan’s head. “Iván sent you!”

  “No.”

  “Tell the truth! Iván sent you!”

  “No!”

  “Then who did?!”

  “No one!”

  “Liar!”

  “I’m telling the truth!”

  The Israeli pulls the trigger.

  The sound is horrific, deafening. The muzzle flash scorches Callan’s ear. He slumps face-first into the dust. The guards turn him over and he looks up at the Israeli’s face. He can’t hear a thing except the loud buzz in his ears, but he can read the man’s lips as he says, “Last chance—tell me the truth.”

  “I am. I have.”

  They pick him up.

  “Bring him back to the car.”

  They sit him in the van, give him a bottle of water, and Callan drinks as he watches the Israeli talk on the phone.

  The van pulls out on the road and heads south.

  “You’re telling the truth,” the Israeli says.

  “I already knew that.”

  “What do you want to discuss with Señora Sánchez?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  The Israeli smiles.

  Sometimes what they sing in songs is true.

  Nora lies out by the pool and it reminds her of her youth.

  The California Girl, the Golden Girl, the Laguna Beach babe that all her friends’ fathers hit on. It was lying by a pool in Cabo, she reflects now, that she met Haley, who turned her out, put her into the life.

  And all that followed.

  Adán.

  She was the mistress of the world’s biggest dope dealer.

  Then she became Kell
er’s most valued informant.

  Then Callan saved her life.

  In so many ways, Sean has saved her life and made it worth living.

  And she his.

  They’ve built a life together, a life worth living, but then the past comes creeping out of its ooze, like old sins for which there’s no redemption, only the delay of punishment, a suspension of the sentence, and now here they are back in Mexico.

  As if Adán had reached out from the grave to pull them both back.

  He loved her, she knows that. Maybe she even loved him once, before she knew what he really was. Art Keller told her, Art Keller taught her what Adán really was, and then Keller used her, like all the other men in her life used her.

  Until Sean.

  But you used them, too, she thinks. If you’re honest with yourself—and what’s the point otherwise—you used them, too.

  So don’t play the victim.

  You’re better than that.

  Stronger.

  Callan told her if he doesn’t come back to walk across the bridge, but she isn’t going to do that. If he doesn’t come back, she’s going to find him, bring him back or bring his body back or at the very least find out what happened to him, and now she’s angry at herself that she let him go alone.

  I should have gone with him, she thinks, forced him to “let” me. I could talk to Elena at least as well, if not better.

  After all, I knew her.

  Dined together, shopped together, shared family gatherings. She knew her brother loved me, she knew that I was good to him.

  Up to a point.

  She never knew that I betrayed him.

  If she did . . .

  But I should have gone.

  The house sits on a point north of Ensenada.

  The van stops at a security gate—the guard waves them through—then goes up a gravel driveway.

  Callan doesn’t go inside. The Israeli leads him around to an expanse of manicured green lawn overlooking the ocean and the black rocks below. A stand of tall palm trees wave in the breeze on the north side, a huge stretch of beach runs to the south, then there’s a marina with sailboats. The house, Callan thinks, must cost millions. White stucco, enormous picture windows—tinted—generous decks and patios, several outbuildings.

  The Israeli sits him in a white wrought-iron chair by a table and walks away—out of earshot, Callan notes, but within eyesight. A young woman clad all in black comes out and asks him if he’d like anything to drink or eat. A beer, perhaps, some iced tea, maybe a little fruit?

  Callan declines.

  A few minutes later, Elena Sánchez walks out of the house.

  She’s wearing a long, loose white dress; her black hair is tied back. She sits across from Callan, inspects him for a few moments, and then says, “I apologize for the rough treatment. You understand that my people had to be sure. I believe that you performed similar services for my brother. If story and song are to be believed, you saved his life once.”

  “More than once.”

  “Which is why I agreed to see you,” Elena says. “Lev said there was some kind of problem?”

  Callan gets right to it. “I killed three of your people.”

  “Oh.”

  Callan tells her what happened in Bahia, and then says, “I came to make things right.”

  “Sit for a few minutes, please,” Elena says. “I’ll be just back.”

  Callan watches her walk back to the house. Then he sits and looks at the ocean. The adrenaline is wearing off and his body is starting to hurt. Lev’s guys are professionals—no bones are broken—but the bruises are deep.

  And he’s feeling his age.

  Fifteen minutes later Elena comes back out.

  A young man is with her.

  “This is my son, Luis,” Elena says. “He is actually in charge of the business now, so I thought he should be present.”

  If he were really in charge of the business, Callan thinks, you wouldn’t be present, but he nods to Luis. “Mucho gusto.”

  “Mucho gusto.”

  It takes only a second glance at Luis to know that he doesn’t want to be in charge of the family business, that he’d rather be anywhere in the world but in this discussion. Callan has known a lot of narcos—Luis isn’t one of them.

  “The three men you killed were independent contractors,” Elena says, “but under our protection.”

  And paying a percentage of their profits for the privilege, Callan thinks. “I’m willing to pay restitution, even protection, if that’s what it takes.”

  “You can’t possibly pay what they were,” Elena says. “I’m at war, Mr. Callan, and as I’m sure you remember, wars are expensive. I need all the income I can get. I need the money that was coming out of Costa Rica.”

  “I only want for my wife to be safe,” Callan says. “So would Adán.”

  Elena looks surprised. “Why is that?”

  “He loved her,” Callan says.

  It’s rare, but Elena actually shows surprise. “You’re married to Nora Hayden?”

  “Yes.”

  “Extraordinary,” Elena says. “I was always envious, such a beauty. Actually, I liked her very much. Do give her my best. All the legends coming back. First Rafael Caro, now you and Nora—”

  There’s a burst of noise as three children run out onto the south end of the lawn, giggling, yelling, chased by a nanny as another woman looks on.

  “My grandchildren. The young are so resilient.” She sees Callan’s uncomprehending look and adds, “Their father was killed not too long ago. Murdered, actually. In front of them. Iván Esparza ordered his hit.”

  Which explains the war, Callan thinks. And my rough reception. Iván sent you!

  She leans back in her chair and looks out at the ocean. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  It is if you haven’t seen Bahia, Callan thinks.

  “All this beauty, all this wealth,” Elena says, “and we have to slaughter each other like animals. What is wrong with us, Mr. Callan?”

  Callan assumes it’s a rhetorical question.

  “Perhaps we can come to some kind of arrangement,” Elena says. “I give you amnesty for my three people, I leave your little village alone, not to mention the beauteous Nora . . .”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “Iván Esparza,” she says. “Kill him for me.”

  As Lev drives him back to Rosarito, Callan thinks about Elena’s offer.

  Fight for me, fight for Luis. Help us take the cartel and if we win, I will give you everything you want.

  Absolution.

  Safety.

  Your wife, your home.

  Your life.

  He knows he has no choice.

  He’s back in the war now.

  Keller sits beside Marisol and watches the evening news.

  Specifically, John Dennison announcing his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. “I’m going to build a great wall along the Mexican border, and nobody builds walls better than me. I’ll build a great, great wall down there, and you know who’s going to pay for that wall? Mexico. Mark my words.”

  “‘Mark my words,’” Marisol says. “How is he going to get Mexico to pay for this damn wall?”

  “Our country,” Dennison goes on, “has become a dumping ground. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. The people they send bring drugs, they bring guns, they bring crime. They’re thieves, they’re murderers and they’re rapists.”

  “It’s an expensive TV,” Keller says. “Please don’t throw your glass through it.”

  “‘Rapists’?!” Marisol says. “He calls us murderers and rapists?!”

  “I don’t think he meant you personally.”

  “How can you joke?” Marisol asks.

  “Because it is a joke,” Keller says. “This guy is a joke.”

  The Republicans might win the next election and I’ll be out of a job, Keller thinks, but it won’t be this guy handing me the pink slip, even t
hough he’s famous for firing people.

  Dennison goes on, “So many are in the room, so many friends—and they told me that the biggest problem they have up here is heroin. How is that possible with all these beautiful lakes and trees? The drugs are pouring across our southern border and when I say I’m going to build a wall—we’re gonna have a real wall. We are going to build the wall, but we’re going to stop the poison from pouring in and destroying our youth and plenty of other people. And we’re going to work on those people that got addicted and are addicted.”

  The next morning the Washington Post asks Keller about Dennison’s promise to build a wall.

  “In terms of stopping drugs,” Keller says, “a wall won’t do a thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s simple,” Keller says. “The wall would still have gates. The three biggest are called San Diego, El Paso and Laredo—the busiest commercial border crossings in the world. A tractor-trailer truck comes through El Paso every fifteen seconds. Seventy-five percent of illegal drugs that come up from Mexico come through these legal crossings, most of them in trailer trucks, some in cars. There’s no way we can stop and thoroughly search even a small portion of those trucks without completely shutting down commerce. There’s no point in building a wall when the gates are open twenty-four/seven.”

  He knows he should let it go at that but he doesn’t.

  “You had to shoot your mouth off about the wall,” O’Brien says.

  “It’s a stupid idea,” Keller says. “It’s worse than stupid, it’s a cynical political ploy—to tell grieving parents in New Hampshire that you’re going to stop the flow of heroin by building a wall.”

  “I agree,” O’Brien says. “I just don’t go to the Post and say it.”

  “Maybe you should,” Keller says.

  “It’s the optics,” O’Brien says. “The head of DEA comes out against something that might stop the flow of drugs from Mexico—”

  “Again, it won’t.”

  “—and he has a Mexican wife.”

  “I mean this with all respect and affection, Ben,” Keller says. “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Dennison isn’t going to win,” O’Brien says. “His wall isn’t going to get built. Leave it alone, let the silly season pass. Why pick a fight with this asshole?”