The Border: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  Didn’t want to know where they came from.

  They knew new Jordans weren’t from Payless. The Yankees windbreaker, the button-down long-sleeve plaid shirt, the shades, where did they come from? Where did Nico get the money for those? Where did he get the money to go to Burger King, McDonald’s, Taco Bell? Where did the boy go when they were at work, when they were so tired all they could do was hit the bed and go to sleep? They knew but they didn’t want to know.

  They didn’t want to see his grades tanking, the letter on his “attitude” going from “E” to “U”—Excellent to Unsatisfactory; they didn’t want to answer the phone messages from the school asking about his absences.

  They returned the calls, they went to the school, they talked to Nico, he swore he wasn’t doing anything wrong; he knew he was and they knew he was, they knew what he was doing but they didn’t know why.

  They knew but they didn’t want to know.

  Nico might have been the best cell-phone booster Calle 18 ever had because he was small and he was fast. The marks didn’t see him coming and they couldn’t catch him going. There was money in cellies, but Nico turned all the phones right over to Davido, who hit him back with cash. So now under the mattress Nico had a gun, money and a cell phone.

  Davido got more intense. Said they have to start producing more because they were moving in on ABK and that meant war and wars took money.

  “Everyone pays rent,” he said. “There are no guests in 18.”

  He put Nico on a cell-phone quota—Nico had to bring in one a week, minimum, which meant Nico had to expand his activities beyond Jackson Heights into Woodside, Elmhurst and Astoria, which was risky because other gangs worked those territories.

  Didn’t matter, Nico had to produce.

  He was trying to figure out a way to get Dominique to suck his cock again, or go to a movie or something, when his phone rang and it was Davido. “I need that thing.”

  “What thing?” Nico asked.

  “The thing you’re holding for me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Men’s room. Taco Bell. Half an hour.”

  Nico ran home, got the pistol, stuck it under his coat, and hustled over to Taco Bell. Davido was in the men’s room already and Nico slipped him the gun.

  “Be where I can find you in an hour,” Davido said. “I’ll call.”

  Nico hung out on the street for the hour and then Davido called. “Get your ass over to Roosevelt. Now.”

  He sounded pretty jacked.

  Nico ran over to the train station.

  Davido was standing on the platform. He gestured Nico close and jammed the gun into his jacket pocket. “Put it away until we need it again.”

  “Shouldn’t I throw it in the river or something?” Nico asked.

  “You don’t ask questions,” Davido said. “You do what you’re told.”

  “But—”

  “We’re not throwing away a good gun,” Davido said. “What do you think I did with it, anyway? Go. Get going.”

  Davido stepped onto a train.

  Nico took the gun home and put it away.

  Tried not to think about it but the next morning heard the news on television that a black kid got shot to death in Travers Park.

  The Daily News said that he was one of the Always Banging Kings.

  Davido disappeared for a couple of weeks.

  Nico hung out with some other 18’s, but none of them knew, anyway none of them said, where Davido went. Somewhere upstate, they guessed, until the police got tired of looking for someone who got gone, someone they’d just as soon have gone anyway.

  Benedicto took over and warned everyone to have their heads on swivels, because the ABK would be looking to pay back for their boy. They wouldn’t get tired, and unlike the cops, they didn’t have to hunt down a specific person—they’d rather get Davido, but any 18 would do.

  That’s just the way it is in the thug life, Nico figured.

  La vida mara.

  So he kept his head up when he was out on the street now, because the ABK wouldn’t be looking to put on a beating, they’d be looking to kill. It was winter and cold anyway, so a lot of the street life had gone indoors where it was warmer and safer.

  The parties went on in Davido’s crib, even though he wasn’t around. Benedicto had a key and they went up there to blaze up and drink and Nico tried to get Dominique to give him at least a hand job, but he didn’t have any luck.

  “You’re too young,” she told him.

  “I wasn’t too young before,” Nico argued. “And I’m older now than I was then. Come on, ’Nique.”

  She kept telling him no but one afternoon got loaded enough to jack him off.

  “As a present,” she told him.

  “I don’t have anything for you,” Nico said.

  “You got some weed?”

  He gave her some weed.

  The week before Christmas, Nico walked along Thirty-Seventh Avenue, happier than shit, cash in his pocket, shopping.

  He got Tía Consuelo a pretty blouse and some nice bracelets, and then he found Tío Javier a nice pair of gloves and some warm socks and a new denim shirt. And he bought his mother a sweater, a pair of jeans and some of the same bracelets he got for Consuelo, so they could mail them down to Guatemala.

  Nico found a silver chain for Dominique.

  Then he took himself to Micky D’s and grabbed a Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries and a Coke. Polished it off with an apple pie and walked home on a real high that he had the money to buy things for the people he loved.

  When he opened the door Tía Consuelo was crying.

  Tío Javier was standing there.

  With the gun.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  Nico didn’t know what to say.

  “Nico, what is this?” Javier asked. In his other hand, he had the cell phone and some of Nico’s money.

  “It’s not mine.”

  “It was under your mattress.”

  “You shouldn’t have looked there,” Nico said. “It’s my bed.”

  Javier was a gentle man, a good man who never wanted to hurt anyone, but he stepped forward and slapped Nico across the face. Nico’s head snapped back but he stayed on his feet and stared back at Javier, who looked back at him, ashamed.

  “Where did you get this?” Consuelo asked. “Where did you get a gun?”

  “Maras,” Javier said. “Isn’t that right? You want to end up in prison with the other malandros? You want to get deported?”

  I’m not a malandro, Nico thought. I earn my money. “I have things for you. Presents.”

  “Take them back,” Javier said. “We don’t want presents you bought with your dirty money.”

  Nico was crushed.

  “I’m throwing this away,” Javier said, holding up the gun. “I’m throwing it in the river.”

  “No!” Nico yelled.

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll kill me.”

  “Who are they?” Javier asked. “I’ll go talk to them, straighten them out.”

  “Tell them to leave him alone,” Consuelo said.

  “If you talk to them,” Nico said, “they’ll kill you! Please!”

  “It’s going in the river.”

  He pushed past Nico. Nico grabbed him around the waist and tried to stop him but Javier was too big. He threw Nico off and walked out.

  “They’ll kill me!” Nico yelled.

  Consuelo broke down sobbing.

  Nico ran into his room.

  They will kill me, he thought. The best he could hope for was a bad beating before they threw him out of 18. He could keep it a secret, but what would happen when Davido demanded the gun again? It would be even worse.

  Nico knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep because he’d just worry.

  He went out the window onto the fire escape and called Davido from the street. “I have to talk to you.”

  “Getting laid, ’mano.” Davido was just back from his trip up north.

/>   “I have to talk to you.”

  “Come on over.”

  Davido opened the door, Nico rushed in.

  Dominique sat on the couch, pulling on her jeans. She looked at Nico like What?, strode past him and walked out the door.

  Davido said, “What’s so important?”

  Nico swallowed. “I lost the gun.”

  “You what?”

  “The gun,” Nico said. “I lost it.”

  Davido slammed him against the wall. “How the fuck could you lose a gun?! What happened?”

  “My uncle found it,” Nico said. “He took it.”

  “Tell him to give it back,” Davido said.

  “I can’t.”

  “You want me to tell him to give it back?”

  Nico said, “He threw it in the river.”

  Davido let Nico go. Walked over to the table and lit a joint. Didn’t offer Nico a hit. “This isn’t good. You know what’s going to happen to you now?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I,” Davido said. “I have to take this to the shot callers. It could be bad, Nico. It could be real bad.”

  “I’ll pay you back for the gun.”

  “How much money you got?” Davido asked.

  “I got fifty.”

  “Give it.”

  Nico pulled the bills from his pocket and handed them over.

  “The gun is going to be at least three hundred,” Davido said. “Where are you going to get the rest?”

  “I don’t know,” Nico said. “I will.”

  “I’ll talk to the llaveros, see what I can do for you,” Davido said. “You better start producing, boy. Big time. Go out, make some money, show them you’re useful, you have some reason to be alive.”

  “Okay.”

  “Start with the two-fifty you owe,” Davido said. “Without that, you’re fucked. Now get out. Until you got that money, I don’t know you. Don’t come around anywhere; you see an 18, you cross the street.”

  Nico went home.

  Javier was up, waiting for him. “I’m sorry I hit you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You have your deportation hearing coming up,” Javier said. “If they find out you’re in a gang, they won’t let you stay.”

  “They won’t find out.”

  “It’s not right, Nico,” Javier said. “These people are garbage.”

  “They’re my friends.”

  “No, they’re not,” Javier said. “They sell drugs, they kill people. Isn’t that why you left Guatemala? Left your mother? To get away from this kind of people? To make some kind of life here?”

  What kind of life do you have here? Nico wondered.

  You work all the time, you’re always tired.

  Your clothes are bad.

  “I bought you gloves,” Nico said. “And a new shirt.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t want them.”

  “Why not?!”

  “You know why not, Nico,” Javier said. “And you know right from wrong. You’ve just forgotten. You need to remember.”

  What I need, Nico thought when he went to his room, is two hundred and fifty dollars. Because you threw the gun away.

  He got up early in the morning and went out to hustle.

  Got on the S line and took the 7 train to Grand Central Station.

  It was packed, mobbed with commuters rushing to work and people coming into the city to go Christmas shopping. Nico scored two phones in twenty minutes and then decided he shouldn’t push his luck, so he went out onto the street.

  Nico had never been to Manhattan before.

  It was amaaaazing.

  He’d seen the skyline from Queens but he never imagined this. The size of the buildings, their beauty, the crowded streets, people bustling everywhere, the storefronts with beautiful things in the windows.

  I’m going to live here someday, he promised himself.

  If I don’t live here sometime in my life, I’m going to die.

  He’d heard of Forty-Second Street so he walked on that until he came to Times Square, where he just stopped and stared. Even in the daytime, it was exciting, the gigantic video screens, the news crawling around the sides of buildings, the neon lights—Nico stood there and gaped. Wandered up Seventh Avenue with his neck craned, looking up, feeling smaller than he’d ever felt, more excited than he’d ever been.

  This was New York.

  This was America.

  He almost forgot why he was there, but then he reminded himself, You’re not here to gawk, you’re here to work, you’re here to steal, you’re here to make money.

  Three things he needed: cash, phones and credit cards.

  The cash he’d use to pay off his debt, the phones and credit cards he’d give to Davido to help impress the shot callers because they make a lot of their money reselling the phones and pulling credit card fraud.

  Nico picked his targets carefully.

  They were easy to spot—tourists who were also awed by Times Square and were looking all around and not paying attention. He picked them out from the people who were walking fast, getting from point A to point B, obviously New Yorkers. Like any good predator, he looked and he listened—for people speaking strange languages, foreigners, tourists who weren’t likely to chase him if they felt him take their wallets from their pockets.

  He made his first score outside the Disney Store, a father standing there with his wife and kids looking into the window at Mickey and Goofy, his wallet poking out of his back pocket like it was asking to get away from this dork.

  Nico obliged.

  Grabbed it, shoved it in his jacket pocket and kept walking along with the crowd until he hit a McDonald’s. Went into the men’s room, into a stall and took out the wallet. It was a little disappointing cash-wise—two tens and a twenty—but it did have a Visa card. Nico shoved the loot into his jeans pocket, threw the wallet into the trash and went back onto the street.

  On Forty-Seventh he crossed over to Broadway and walked south two blocks to the giant video screens, which just might be the thief’s best friend, because a few hundred people were standing there looking up, pointing, smiling, taking selfies, all happy and shit.

  Nico zoomed in on a group of Asian teenagers, all wearing blue kerchiefs and blue hats. Must be some kind of school group, he thought, rich kids, foreign kids. Every one of them had a cell phone and they were all taking pictures of the video screens, each other and themselves. He zeroed in on one girl holding an iPhone 7 way out to get a snap of herself and her BFF.

  Bam.

  He had the phone and was moving.

  Heard the Asian kids yelling but there was nothing they could do because Nico Rápido was already in the middle of the crowd, cutting through, hidden in the mass of bodies. Sometimes it was good to be small.

  They weren’t going to catch him.

  Shit, they weren’t even going to see him.

  One good citizen tried to grab him by the elbow but Nico shrugged him off and kept moving. Made it out to Eighth Avenue and saw another McDonald’s—man, were McDonald’s stores everywhere in Manhattan—and went in. Looked around to see if anyone had followed him and saw that he was safe. So he ordered a Big Mac, a Coke and fries and sat down to eat.

  He was tempted to go back for another hit but then decided it was too risky. Someone might recognize him (“That’s the kid!”). So he walked uptown to get into the subway and then made his way back to Queens. Under the mattress was blown as a hiding place, so he went up to the roof and jammed his stuff into an exhaust pipe.

  Nico hit Manhattan for the next three days.

  Ripped $327 in cash, four credit cards and three more phones.

  A one-boy crime wave.

  Nico called Davido. “I got the money.”

  “Bring it.”

  Six other 18’s were there, including Dominique. Nico knew it wasn’t good the second he walked through the door because none of them smiled at him, no greeting, no nothing. They didn’t o
ffer him a drink or a hit or anything.

  Lápiz Conciente was slamming from the speakers.

  Davido said, “You got the money?”

  Nico handed him two-fifty.

  “There were bullets in that gun,” Davido said. “Bullets cost money.”

  Nico gave him the rest of the cash, then handed him the phones and credit cards. “I’ve been productive.”

  “Listen, I talked to the shot callers,” Davido said. “They said you got to be punished, taught a lesson. They said I got to hurt you, Nico.”

  Two guys behind Nico blocked him from the door.

  “What do you got to do?” Nico asked.

  “They said to cut off a finger.”

  Nico felt like he was going to throw up. Maybe pass out. He thought about running, but there was nowhere to go.

  “But I talked them out of it,” Davido said. “So I can just break your arm instead.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Bones heal, fingers don’t grow back.”

  “Right,” Nico said. It was hard to breathe.

  “Take your punishment,” Davido said. “Otherwise, we’re going to give you a bad beating, throw you out and you can’t walk in this neighborhood anymore.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Good.” Davido picked up an aluminum baseball bat off the couch. The two guys behind Nico walked him up to the bar.

  “You right-handed, Nico?” Davido asked.

  “Yes.”

  Davido nodded at the guys and they stretched Nico’s left arm between two stools.

  Raising the bat over his head, Davido asked, “You ready, paro?”

  Nico took a deep breath and nodded.

  Davido brought the bat down.

  It hurt like crazy. Nico felt his feet go out from under him but the two guys held him up and he didn’t scream, he swallowed the pain and groaned. His eyes filled up but he didn’t let the tears spill over. He felt like he was going to throw up again but held that in, too.

  Through watery eyes he saw Dominique looking at him.

  Nico didn’t care. It hurt too much to care about anything but the pain and staying on his feet. He heard Davido say, “Take him to Elmhurst.”

  “I don’t have insurance,” Nico said.

  “They have to take care of you anyway, in the emergency room,” Davido said. He handed Nico a bottle of rum. “Knock some of this down. You might have to wait awhile.”