The Cartel

by Don Winslow

  “It’s when they kidnap someone,” the guy says, “and they torture him for information, about moving drugs or money, and then they take him to a ranch or somewhere and execute him. They shoot him in the head and then they throw him in a barrel and burn him with gas or diesel or something.”

  “Tell me about the Zetas,” Eddie says. “Tell me about the nasty shit you guys do.”

  The guys start talking. It turns into a regular Jerry Springer Show as they start talking about murders, kidnappings, rapes. The bare-chested guy talks about killing that woman reporter.

  “That radio woman?” Eddie asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “She took our money,” the guy says, “but then said bad things about us.”

  “What about the reporter whose hands you broke?”

  “That was Ochoa.”

  “What did that reporter do?” Eddie asks.

  “He just made Z-1 mad.”

  Eddie steps over beside the fourth guy. Making sure that only the pistol is on camera, but not himself, Eddie asks, “What about you, buddy?”

  The Zeta looks up at the gun barrel.

  Fuck it, Eddie thinks, and pulls the trigger.

  Good thing he put the plastic up.

  “Get rid of the rest of these assholes,” Eddie orders. He takes the video camera and goes back downstairs.

  The little girl is in the pool, wearing inflatable water wings.

  Having a great time.

  Eddie goes out, sits next to the wife. “What’s her name?”

  “Ina.”

  “Cute. What’s your name?”

  “Norma,” the woman says.

  She’s pretty, maybe an eight. Not an Acapulco Eight, where the ratings are inflated, but sort of a national eight.

  Eddie’s phone rings.

  “Eddie Ruiz?”

  “How’d you get this number?” Eddie asks, getting up and walking into the kitchen.

  “You think if I can get your number, I can’t get you?” Forty asks.

  “Yeah, how’s that working out for you?”

  “I’m warning you,” Forty says. “Don’t hurt the family.”

  Eddie looks out the window to the girl swimming in the pool and her mother dangling her feet in the water.

  “I’m not you,” Eddie says. “I don’t hurt women and children.”

  “I’ll tell that to those girls in Matamoros.”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “No, it was those jungle bunnies, right?” Forty asks.

  “You running out of Rambos?” Eddie asks. “Because you sent F Troop down here.”

  Forty laughs. “You gotta lay off Nickelodeon, Crazy Eddie.”

  “No, I like it.”

  “Let the family go.”

  Eddie clicks off as Norma and her daughter come in.

  “Is she hungry?” Eddie asks. He turns to one of his flunkies. “What we got? For a kid?”

  “I don’t know. Cheerios, maybe. A banana?”

  “Then give her Cheerios and a banana,” Eddie says. “What are you standing there for?”

  The girl sits down at the table and eats hungrily. Eddie watches her. When she’s done, he reaches into his pocket and gives Norma a thousand pesos. “Bus fare. My guys will run you to the station.”

  She takes the money.

  “What about my husband?” Norma asks.

  “He said to tell you that he loves you,” Eddie says.

  Actually, he didn’t. Eddie doesn’t even know which one he was, but what the fuck, right? Make the woman feel a little better, something to tell her friends. After they leave, he slips the videocassette into an envelope, addresses it to the Dallas Morning News, and has one of his guys drop it off at FedEx.

  Then he goes back to Acapulco and thinks about maybe starting a new career.

  Filmmaking.

  His phone rings and it’s Diego. “You have someone’s wife and kid?”

  “I did.”

  “Oh shit, Eddie.”

  “No, not that,” Eddie says. “I put them on a bus home.”

  Diego sighs with relief and then asks, “What about the men?”

  Eddie says, “Let’s go to the videotape.”

  Santa Marta, Colombia

  This time Magda went to Benito Juárez Airport to catch a flight bound for Colombia and actually made it on board.

  Which was a definite improvement and the difference between being connected, via Adán, to Nacho Esparza and not being connected. Technically still a fugitive on the Most Wanted list, she used a different passport, but no one even took a second look, even though her photo was once plastered over every front page in the country.

  True, she dyed her hair blond and had sort of a Christina Aguilera, Shakira thing going on, but that wouldn’t fool anyone who didn’t want to be fooled, and she did it more as a style statement than an effort at disguise.

  It was refreshing, different, and she wanted to see if men reacted to her differently as a blonde.

  The reaction was actually pretty much the same, the men’s eyes went from her hair to her boobs to her legs and then made the trip back up again, but it is fun to be a blonde for a change.

  In any case, she breezed through check-in and passport control and took her seat on the plane.

  First class, of course.

  She accepted a mimosa and settled back into the cushioned seat and started in on her stack of magazines—Spanish editions of Vogue, WWD, and Cosmo—which featured photos of clothes that she could actually afford now.

  With Adán’s money.

  But Magda doesn’t want Adán’s money.

  She wants her own money. Like that Destiny’s Child song, right? She sings the lyrics to herself—

  The shoes on my feet, I bought ’em

  The clothes I’m wearing

  I bought ’em.

  That’s what Magda wants, because at the end of the day men are like stockings—no matter how well you take care of them, they eventually run on you.

  It was a short flight into Simón Bolívar International Airport in Santa Marta, and as Magda “deplaned,” as they say, she vaguely recalled from high school history classes that Bolívar was born here or died here, one of the two.

  Jorge used to take her here a lot, to this, the oldest city in Colombia, with its beautiful beaches on the Caribbean and its fine hotels. They would come for a week or just a weekend and lie on the sand, and then get a little drunk at some bar on the beach, and then go back to the cabana and make love. Then they’d have dinner and go out to one of the clubs on the Parque de Los Novios and dance until the sun came up.

  It was nice.

  —

  Jorge is surprised to see her, to say the least, when she appears at the terrace of the hotel bar overlooking the sea.

  He always liked to have lunch here, so Magda had no trouble finding him. And he’s still handsome—the hair a trifle thinner—and still stylish in a sky-blue shirt tucked into white jeans. Hasn’t gained a pound, has Jorge, his stomach is tight, his tan rich, his eyes match the color of his shirt as he takes off designer shades to make sure he’s seeing what he thinks he’s seeing.

  “Magda?”

  She just smiles, knowing that she looks, well, fetching in her white sundress cut to maximum advantage and her white sunhat.

  “I’m glad,” he stammers, “that you’re out.”

  “From the prison you abandoned me to? Thank you so much.”

  Magda enjoys his discomfiture. She likes that oh-so-cool Jorge looks afraid, almost as if he expects Adán Barrera and his gunmen to appear any second. He knows, of course; he has to have heard that she’s made a powerful connection. “It’s all right. I haven’t come to kill you.”

  “You’d be within your rights.” He smiles.

  Same old Jorge, still charming.

  But now his charm eludes her.

  Magda would still fuck him, if that’s what it takes, but it would just be part of the job. Hopefully mildly
diverting, perhaps even providing some sexual release, but there was no longer any question of loving this man. She can’t imagine now that she ever found him anything but pathetic.

  “Adán did send me to see you, though,” she says, watching him turn pale. “Are you going to offer me a drink?”

  “Of course,” Jorge says. “What would you like?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  “No lime.”

  He orders two and his drink settles him down a little, at least enough to ask, “What can I do for Barrera?”

  “It’s what he can do for you,” Magda says.

  “What’s that?”

  “He can make you wealthy, or he can make you dead.” She smiles at him and adds, “You choose, cariño.”

  Jorge chooses the money.

  “Of course,” he says, “as much product as Barrera wants. Depending on the quality, I can give it to him at around, say, $7,000 a kilo.”

  Magda knows her math, knows that the same kilo can be turned around in Mexico for about $16,000, around $20,000–$24,000 in the northern towns along the border.

  “You’re not ‘giving’ anything,” Magda says, “you’re selling. And you’re going to sell it to me at six.”

  “And you’ll tell Barrera it was seven?” Jorge smirks.

  “No, Adán will pay retail for whatever of your product he wants,” Magda says. “If I want to buy additional kilos on my own, the price will be discounted to six.”

  Jorge smirks. She used to think of it as a charmingly sardonic smile, but now she sees it’s a smirk as he says, “And why should I do that?”

  “Because you owe me,” Magda says.

  “Would you like another drink?” Jorge asks. “I would. Listen, cariño, certainly I owe you something, for old time’s sake, but not that much. To be perfectly honest, at the risk of hurting your feelings, you weren’t that good in bed.”

  “I’m not talking about the sex,” Magda says. “I’m talking about the months I spent in prison.”

  “You knew you were taking a chance,” Jorge says. “All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do because I’m still so fond of you—let’s say six-five to you for the first ten kilos, but after that, I’m afraid it has to be seven.”

  “And I’ll tell you what I’ll do because I’m still so fond of you,” Magda says. “Six for the first ten kilos, but I’m afraid it has to be five-five after that.”

  “Or your boy Barrera will send gunmen to kill me?” Jorge asks.

  “No,” Magda says. “I will.”

  She gets up from the table.

  “I’ll be at the Carolina,” Magda says. “Send me your answer there. And send it, don’t come yourself, because that’s just not going to work anymore.”

  “Prison changed you.”

  “Oh, no kidding, Jorge,” Magda says. “And don’t look so forlorn, cariño, you’re going to make a lot of money with me.”

  She walks away, knowing that he’s looking at her ass.

  She thinks about going out that night to one of the clubs, to dance and maybe find someone to bring back, but decides to settle for a good room-service dinner, a bath, and an evening of solitude instead.

  The message is in her mailbox in the morning.

  Jorge is honored to accept her offer.

  Magda’s pleased, because it will make her rich and she didn’t really want to have him killed. She would have done it, though, to teach the next prospective seller a lesson. She would have taken the bonus money Adán is paying her to set up the connection and used it to buy sicarios to come to Colombia and kill Jorge.

  Either way, the story will get around and the men will respect her. She leaves the hotel humming—

  Ladies, it ain’t easy being independent.

  It may not be easy, Magda thinks.

  But it’s good.

  Mexico City

  Even from the faint hallway light, Keller can see that his door has been jimmied.

  The bedroom lamp is on in his apartment and the light shines under the door. He pulls his Sig Sauer and kicks the door open.

  A man sits in his one chair and looks calmly at him. “Señor Keller?”

  Keller trains the sight on his chest. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  The man slowly holds up an eight-by-ten photograph of a young woman who looks into the camera, terrified. “Her name is María Moldano, she was kidnapped off the streets today, and she will be killed in a brutal way if you don’t come with me.”

  “And if I do?”

  “I give you my word that she will be released,” the man answers, and then adds, “Intact. We know who you are. “So we know you will make this trade.”

  Keller lowers his gun.

  They put him in the back of a Navigator, then pull a black hood over his head and make him lie down on the floor. Keller got a glimpse of the license plate and knows it will make no difference. Even if he does survive, the plates will turn out to have been stolen.

  The men are well trained and don’t talk.

  Keller tries to time the drive but he knows that fear and adrenaline will speed up his mental clock.

  He doesn’t try to initiate conversation or ask questions. Who are you? Where are you taking me? What do you want? It would do no good and only show weakness. If they want two million dollars of Adán Barrera’s money they’re going to get it.

  They drive for a long time—Keller estimates two hours—out of the city and into the country. Traffic noises gradually fade and then Keller can feel them leave tarmac and go onto a bumpy gravel road. He can hear goats and chickens. He feels the car go uphill, the driver shift into first, and then a sharp curve to the right.

  The car stops.

  Doors open, hands reach down and lift him out.

  If they’re going to kill me, he thinks, they’re going to do it now. Shove me to my knees and put a bullet in the back of my head. It isn’t the worst result. The other possibility is torture, the kind that the Zetas described on Crazy Eddie’s video clip.

  It’s hard to be brave in the face of that. Any man who says he’s not afraid of torture is lying, and Keller feels his legs quiver as they walk him away from the car and then into a building.

  Hands push him down onto a stool.

  Keller gets a faint whiff of something familiar.

  Gasoline.

  The place smells of gasoline and it smells of something else, too.

  Death.

  It’s palpable, and Keller feels it the way that perhaps cattle feel a slaughterhouse, a sympathetic sense that members of your species have suffered and died in this place.

  He shivers.

  Then he hears a man sit down across from him. His tone is strong, calm, authoritative. “Señor Keller, I’m Heriberto Ochoa. I’m sorry to have brought you here this way. But we have no one else to go to, and we didn’t know if you’d come otherwise.”

  “Release that girl,” Keller says.

  “She’s already in a taxi on her way home,” Ochoa says. “I’m a man of my word.”

  “What do you want?” Keller asks, steeling himself to be interrogated. The names of informants? The status of investigations? A way to get to Aguilar or Vera? He flashes back to Ernie Hidalgo’s body, showing the marks of torture, his face frozen in a grimace of agony. How long can I hold out, he wonders, before I give it to them?

  “We have something in common,” Ochoa says.

  “I doubt that.”

  “We both want to take down Adán Barrera,” Ochoa says. “You know the old saying, ‘The friend of my enemy is my friend.’ ”

  “I’m not your friend.”

  “You could be.”

  “No.”

  “Barrera will kill you.”

  “Or I’ll kill him.”

  “You’re exactly who they said you are,” Ochoa says. “That rarest of creatures—an honest cop.”

  “Well, you should know about cops,” Keller says. “You own enough of them.”


  “I don’t own the federales,” Ochoa says. “Barrera does.”

  “If you have evidence of that, give it to me,” Keller says. “I’ll see that it gets into the right hands.”

  Ochoa laughs. “Those hands are too full grabbing Barrera’s money.”

  So I guess we do have something in common, Keller thinks. We don’t trust anyone.

  “All we want is a level field,” Ochoa says, “for the government to treat both sides the same. If we lose, we can respect that, but we can’t tolerate the government applying the law only against us.”

  “Do you have incriminating evidence?”

  Ochoa stands up. “You’re the super-cop. Find it. If I were you I’d start with the Tapias. I’m sorry you rejected my friendship. It might have been mutually beneficial.”

  Back in the vehicle for the long drive back to the city. They stop a block from his apartment, remove the hood, and let him out. He goes up to his apartment, sits on the bed, and shakes. It lasts only for a few seconds, then he checks under the bed. The shotgun is there—they didn’t take it. So is the knife.

  Everything Ochoa said rang true.

  The near misses on Barrera, the apparent fact that he’s living in perfect safety in Sinaloa, Batman and Robin’s war on Barrera’s enemies in Tijuana, the arrest of Osiel Contreras, the AFI and SEIDO fighting against the CDG-owned cops in Tamaulipas…all those facts would support a theory that the administration is backing Barrera at the cost of the other cartels.

  But which parts of the administration?

  Aguilar?

  Vera?

  Neither? Both?

  And how do you find out? And how do you prove it?

  Start with the Tapias, Ochoa said.

  Face it, Keller thinks, the hunt for Barrera is going nowhere and now Batman and Robin, disingenuously or not, are bogged down in the Gulf War and they’ve taken you with them.

  Start with the Tapias.

  Again, how?

  Although the night isn’t cold, Keller can’t seem to get warm.

  He gets into the shower and turns it up hot, to warm up but also to scour away the place where he met Ochoa. Some places hold horror in them, it seeps into the walls, it permeates the air, its smell stays with you after you leave, as if it wants to seep through your pores into your blood, into your heart.

  Pure evil.