The Border: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  Cirello hears the temporizing but doesn’t care. If they get these kids for a few days, they might be able to hold on to them. At least they have a chance.

  Jacqui doesn’t see it that way.

  “You chickening out on me?” Jacqui asks her boyfriend. “Going pussy? But, hey, if you want to go . . .”

  “Not without you.”

  Touching, Cirello thinks.

  Junkie love.

  But maybe it works, maybe they guilt each other into it. Whatever it takes, he doesn’t give a shit.

  “Okay,” Jacqui says. “I’ll go.”

  Travis nods.

  “I’ll make the calls,” Cirello says. “Get your shit, such as it is, together, and I’ll meet you here at six, take you over there. You have anyone you need to inform?”

  “No,” Travis says.

  “I guess I should tell my mom,” Jacqui says.

  “Yeah, do that,” Cirello says. “Six o’clock. Hang in until then, things are going to get better.”

  One last fix, Jacqui thinks.

  She’s sicker than shit.

  “You don’t want to go into detox too sick,” she tells Travis.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know people who’ve detoxed,” she says. “Shit, Shawna did it five times. She told me.”

  “We don’t even know where to score.”

  “It’s Heroin Island,” she says. “Just drive.”

  “I dunno.”

  “Come on, baby,” Jacqui says. “One last high. One last party before we go all twelve-step and shit.”

  They cruise Tottenville.

  Down Hylan, along Craig, across Main.

  They don’t see anyone.

  It’s the problem with scoring on the Island. It’s all invisible, you don’t see it. It’s behind doors, in back rooms, behind stores. If you didn’t know there was a heroin problem on Staten Island, you wouldn’t know.

  They find it, appropriately enough, in an alley behind a drugstore off Arthur Kill—a van parked where it has no business being, the side door open and two black guys standing there like they’re open for business.

  They are.

  Jacqui gets out of the van and walks over.

  “What you looking for, mama?”

  “What you got?”

  “What you need.”

  She gives him a twenty. He reaches back into the van and comes out with two envelopes.

  “It looks funny,” Jacqui says.

  “It’s new shit.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The future,” he says. “You do this, you never go back.”

  She takes the envelopes and gets back into the van. Travis drives up to South Bridge Street and pulls over into a parking lot by a body shop.

  “Come on,” Jacqui says. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  They have to meet the pushy do-gooder cop in forty-five minutes.

  She cooks up.

  So does Travis. “What is this shit?”

  “Something new. Supposed to be great.”

  “I hope so,” Travis says. “For the last ride.”

  Jacqui is shaking so bad she’s having trouble holding her needle in the cooker.

  “Hold on,” Travis says. “Let me fix and I’ll shoot you up.”

  He stretches out his long white arm, puts the needle into his vein and pushes the plunger. Then he takes the needle out and dips it into her mix.

  “The fuck you doing, man?” she asks.

  “I’m bigger than you,” Travis says. “I need more.”

  He pops again.

  Smiles at her.

  Then his head snaps back, his body begins to tremble and then shake and then jerk around like he’s being electrocuted.

  “Travis!” Jacqui grabs him by the shoulders. Tries to hold him but he’s jerking like a live wire and she can’t. The back of his head hits the floor of the van. “Travis! Baby! No!”

  Then he’s quiet.

  Limp.

  His chest heaves.

  Bubbles froth from his mouth as he gasps.

  His empty eyes look at her.

  “Travis!!!!! Nooooooooo!!!!!!”

  Cirello sits waiting outside the Sonic.

  I should have known, he thinks, they wouldn’t show up. Mullen tried to tell me, I wouldn’t listen.

  Bleeding-heart liberal asshole.

  Then he hears the call come across the radio. Squad car calling for the EMT and he knows it, just knows it. He puts the flasher on the roof, pulls out and races toward South Bridge Road. Jacqui’s sitting on the ground outside the van, her arms around herself, rocking back and forth, moaning.

  The EMTs are already there.

  Cirello shows his badge to the uniform. “What do we have?”

  “White male, twenties, OD,” he says. “They administered Narcan, but too late. Waiting for the ME now.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “Possession.”

  “You write it yet?”

  “No.”

  “Do me a favor?” Cirello asks. “Cut her loose?”

  “You got it, Detective.”

  Cirello makes a note of the patrolman’s name and badge number, then walks over to Jacqui and squats in front of her. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “It was going to be our last high,” she says. “We were going to kick.”

  “Sit tight.”

  He goes into the van. Travis’s body is sprawled on the floor.

  Fentanyl, Cirello thinks.

  Maybe the same shit I helped deliver.

  The kid didn’t know.

  Cirello goes back out, says to Jacqui, “Get in the car.”

  She shakes her head. “It’s too late.”

  “For him, not for you.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “Don’t do this Romeo and Juliet shit,” Cirello says. “Save yourself. If it’s any comfort, he’d have wanted you to. Now get in the car.”

  “No.”

  “What do I have to do,” Cirello says, “cuff you?”

  “I don’t care what you do.”

  “Okay.” He hauls her to her feet, turns her around and cuffs her behind her back. Walks her to his car, opens the door, presses her head down, and pushes her inside. Then he drives her to Brooklyn while she pukes all over the front of his car.

  Cirello walks her into the rehab, where the admitting nurse says, “I thought you were bringing two.”

  “One didn’t make it.” He uncuffs Jacqui. “She’s coming in on her own.”

  “Got it.”

  “Good luck, Jacqui.”

  She’s out of it but manages, “Fuck you.”

  “Yeah, fuck me,” Cirello says as he walks out. He takes his car to a self-wash, vacuums the interior, wipes it down and sprays it until it smells like vanilla puke instead of just puke.

  5

  Banking

  My house shall be a house of prayer

  But you have made it a den of thieves.

  —Luke 19:46

  Washington, DC

  July 2016

  Keller meets O’Brien at the bar at the Hamilton.

  O’Brien asks, “You want a beer, or something stronger?”

  “Just coffee,” Keller says. “It’s a school day.”

  The bartender overhears and sets a mug of coffee down in front of him. The bartenders and waiters hear everything in this town, Keller thinks. The cabbies—although it’s more Uber drivers now—see everything.

  “Jesus Christ, who thought that asshole could win the nomination?” O’Brien asks.

  “You should have run,” Keller says.

  “That clown car was already too crowded,” O’Brien says. “And I’m one of those evil ‘professional politicians.’ It’s the amateur hour now. And let’s face it—guys like you and me, the Vietnam generation, we’re dinosaurs.”

  “Dennison is from the same generation.”

  “But he didn’t serve,” O’Brien says. “He didn’t go. You
and I did.”

  “Are you going to support him now?” Keller asks. “After all the shit you said about him? All the shit he said about you?”

  “It’s shit under the bridge,” O’Brien says.

  “And ‘the wall’?”

  “A lot of my constituents like that wall,” O’Brien says.

  “If you want to throw me under the bus, it’s okay, I get it,” Keller says. “No hard feelings, vaya con Dios.”

  “I might have to,” O’Brien says. “You haven’t made any friends with that wing of the party.”

  “I haven’t tried to make any friends,” Keller says, “with any wing of any party. If it comes to that, whoever is president, I’ll go peacefully.”

  “What will you do?” O’Brien asks.

  “I have a decent pension,” Keller says. “We could live well somewhere. Maybe not DC . . .”

  “You’re not thinking about going back to Mexico, are you?” O’Brien asks.

  “No,” Keller says. “Maybe Costa Rica? I don’t know, Ben, we haven’t really thought it out.”

  They haven’t even discussed it.

  Keller goes back to the office.

  There’s a lot to do before he leaves this desk, including a stack—that’s a mild word for it, he thinks—of literally thousands of drug-related pardon or commutation requests that the White House sent over for his recommendations. If a Republican administration takes over, it will shitcan the requests. They’ve already said they’ll instruct federal prosecutors to push for maximum sentences on all drug cases.

  Back to the bad old days, Keller thinks.

  He’s in a race to approve pleas that he thinks are worthy, a race to protect his people inside the agency, to reassign them to postings they want, a race to move Operation Agitator forward.

  His receptionist buzzes. “Agent Hidalgo to see you.”

  “Send him in.”

  “Claiborne set up a meeting with the Mexicans,” Hidalgo says.

  “When and where?”

  “New York,” Hidalgo says. “Tomorrow.”

  “Will Lerner be there?”

  “No,” Hidalgo says.

  So Claiborne is the cutout, Keller thinks.

  Okay.

  One step at a time.

  “Do you want to go out tonight or stay in?” Keller asks Marisol.

  “I’d love to stay in,” she says. “Do you mind?”

  “No,” Keller says. “Chinese, Indian, or pizza?”

  “Indian?”

  “Sure.”

  Keller pours himself a strong scotch and sits down in a chair by the window.

  Getting a warrant to wire Claiborne for the meeting is a problem.

  The federal jurisdiction would be the Southern District of New York, and while Dennison doesn’t have a lot of friends there, the prosecutor might be reluctant to request a warrant with Terra and Jason Lerner as its target. It could be seen as too political during a presidential campaign.

  It also puts Mullen in a tough position. How long he can keep the investigation from his superiors is doubtful, and the potential blowback is worrisome. The nominee has a lot of allies in NYPD, New York is his base, as it is the Berkeley Group’s. It would take only one cop, one lawyer—hell, one secretary—to tip Berkeley off. And Lerner could exert enormous pressure to shut the investigation down completely.

  The warrant is also a problem just on substance, Keller has to admit. We don’t have a compelling argument, just a statement from an informant that Berkeley might take a meeting with a financial institution that might have a connection with a Mexican drug cartel. Even the most independent, disinterested judge might reject that as a predicate for a wire.

  Keller thinks, It’s the same old vicious circle that we always face when trying to get a surveillance warrant—without underlying evidence we can’t get the wire, and without the wire we can’t get underlying evidence.

  “Where did you go?” Marisol asks.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Just now, where did you go?” she asks. “Do you want me to call for the food, or do you want to?”

  “No, I’ll do it. The usual?”

  She nods. “I’ve become a sad creature of habit.”

  What’s sad, Keller thinks as he picks up the phone, is that I have a delivery service on speed dial. He orders Marisol’s usual chicken tikka masala and himself a lamb vindaloo and gets the standard answer that it will be about forty minutes. It’s been Keller’s experience that no matter what you order, whether it’s a pepperoni pizza or pheasant under glass, the response is always that it will be about forty minutes.

  They eat in front of the television, watching the convention in Cleveland and a schlumpy, profusely sweating politician leading the crowd in a chant of “Lock her up! Lock her up!”

  “This is what it’s come to,” Marisol says. “That could be your new boss. They say he’s going to be the new attorney general.”

  “Who is he?”

  “The governor of New Jersey.”

  “I thought it was Fred Flintstone.”

  “Or Hermann Goering,” Marisol says. “Tell me they can’t win.”

  “They can’t win.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “I’m not,” Keller says. “Have you given any thought to what you want to do next?”

  “I don’t know,” Marisol says. “Are you ready to retire?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And do what?” she asks.

  “Read books,” Keller says. “Go for long walks. We could travel.”

  “I’m not going on a cruise,” she says.

  Keller laughs. “Who said anything about a cruise?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Okay, no cruises,” Keller says. “I feel bad, Mari. I took you from your life, your work, and I brought you up here with the expectations of a certain kind of life. And you’ve been . . . great. You’ve helped me fight every goddamn battle, usually better than I have, and I don’t know what life I can give you now.”

  “You don’t have to ‘give’ me anything,” Mari says. “I made my choices, I’m very happy with them.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes!” she says. “How can you ask that? I love you, Arturo, I love our life here. I’ve loved the work I’ve been doing.”

  “So you’d like to stay in Washington,” Keller says.

  “If we could, yes,” Marisol says. “I’m not ready to play golf yet, or go mall-walking, or whatever retired Americans do. Neither are you, if you’re being honest.”

  There are things I could do in DC, Keller thinks. He’s been dodging calls from half a dozen think tanks, all of which would love to bring on a former administrator of DEA. On his call-back list are messages from Georgetown and American University. And he’s had feelers from two television news networks about being an on-call expert about drug issues.

  But do I want to be involved with “drug issues” on any level? he asks himself. I’ve walked away from that world twice now, and it’s always drawn me back in. Wouldn’t it be great to walk away for good this time?

  And what’s best for Mari? “Aren’t you tired of being attacked?”

  “The attacks will stop,” she says. “I won’t be relevant anymore. And really, Arturo, Breitbart? Fox News? Amateurs in the attack business. I eat chunky little boys like Sean Hannity for lunch.”

  True enough, Keller thinks. This woman faced down the goddamn Zetas. “We can make a comfortable living in DC. If you really want to stay here, given . . .”

  “That it might be the new locus of fascism in North America?” Marisol asks.

  “A tad overstated, but okay.”

  “It’s not overstated,” Mari says. “The man is a fascist, his ideas are fascist.”

  “And you’d want to stay in his capital.”

  “What better place to join the resistance?” Marisol asks. “Anyway, it’s not going to happen.”

  Your lips to God’s ears, Keller thinks.

&n
bsp; He doesn’t tell her what he fears—that this crew could win the election and come into power owing the Mexican cartels.

  The phone rings.

  It’s Mullen. “The meeting is set. The Pierre.”

  “Why not the Berkeley offices?”

  “Awareness of guilt?” Mullen asks. “They don’t want the HBMX people seen walking through the door. I’m surprised the Mexicans are okay with that.”

  “We have to get a wire,” Keller says.

  “What’s the predicate?” Mullen asks. “We have bankers and real estate people meeting about a loan. It’s not like we have reason to believe they’re making a drug deal.”

  “They are making a drug deal,” Keller says. “Two kids pass twenty bucks’ worth of weed on a corner, I can wire them. These guys are moving hundreds of millions and get a pass because it’s going down at the Pierre?”

  “We’re on the same team here,” Mullen says. “What I’m saying is that I don’t think a judge is going to agree. What if we weren’t wiring Claiborne to tap the meeting, but so we could monitor his personal safety? A CI going into a high-risk meeting . . .”

  “We can’t sell that,” Keller says. “Fear for Claiborne’s safety? In the Pierre, with bankers and real estate developers? What are we afraid of, he chokes on the foie gras? We can bust in and give him the Heimlich? We have to have something we can bring to a judge and not get laughed out of chambers.”

  “Maybe not,” Mullen says. “Suppose Claiborne keeps his phone in his pocket and records the meeting for his own purposes? There would be an evidentiary problem if you wanted to use it in court later—it would get tossed on an exclusionary ruling—but if we’re just looking for intelligence, that doesn’t matter.”

  “Remind me never to screw with you,” Keller says.

  “Will Claiborne do it?” Mullen asks.

  He’s going to have to, Keller thinks.

  Claiborne is as nervous as a whore in church.

  Hidalgo’s afraid the guy is going to blow it, go in there and throw up or break down into tears or something.

  “What if they tell us to turn phones off?” Claiborne asks.

  “Then you make like you turn it off, but you don’t,” Hidalgo says.

  Jesus.

  “What if they confiscate phones before the meeting?”

  “You’ve been in meetings like that?” Hidalgo asks. “Because I’d like to hear about those meetings.”