The Cartel

by Don Winslow

  “I came down here to—”

  “Down here?” she asks. “Do you even hear the paternalism and condescension implied—”

  “I meant ‘down’ as in ‘south.’ ”

  “South of the border, down Mexico way.”

  “Jesus Christ, Mari, stop being such a—”

  “Bitch?” she asks. “That’s what a woman who stand up for her own opinions is, right?”

  Keller walks out of the apartment. He’s angry about the election, too, and for reasons he can’t tell her.

  The continuation of a PAN administration is going to force his hand vis-à-vis the Tapia money tube. He’ll have to do something—trust Aguilar or Vera—or finally take it to Taylor, who is going to reasonably ask why he wasn’t told sooner.

  And pull you out of Mexico, Keller thinks.

  And then what?

  Do you ask Marisol to come with you? She loves her country, it wouldn’t be fair to ask her. So far, she’s put up with the secret part of his life. She’s smart, she senses that his job is more than “policy liaison,” and she doesn’t ask where he goes or what he does when he’s not with her.

  But that can’t last; it’s no kind of life.

  In a different life, he’d ask her to marry him, and he thinks she’d say yes. In a different life, he’d leave the agency and settle in Mexico, find something to do—a job in SEIDO, or a private security firm. Maybe he’d open a bookstore or a café.

  But that would be a different life.

  You’ve been at this for coming on two years now and you’re no closer to getting Barrera than you were when you started. Adán is more entrenched in power than he ever was.

  And it’s more than that—the validated election result will free Barrera to come after you.

  He’ll hunt you down in the States, or Mexico, or wherever you go, and it isn’t fair to ask Marisol to endure that.

  You don’t do that to someone you love.

  Keller knows what he should do, and knows that he should do it soon. The holidays will be here soon, and it’s cruel to break off a relationship then. It’s going to be cruel anyway—on both of them—but he doesn’t have a choice.

  That night at her place in Condesa, he says, “Marisol, I want to tell you something.”

  “I want to tell you something, too.” She walks him over to the sofa and helps him sit down. Then she gently sits down next to him. “I guess this isn’t the best time, but I want to tell you that I’ve moving.”

  “Where?”

  “Valverde,” Marisol says. “I’ve decided to go home.”

  She feels useless here, she says, treating rich patients, when there is so much poverty and need back home. She could do something there, mean something to people there, be part of the struggle instead of just making symbolic gestures at protest marches. She can’t live like this anymore.

  “We can still see each other,” she says. “I can come down here, you can come to Juárez…”

  “Sure.”

  It’s the sort of thing people tell each other when they both know it isn’t really going to happen.

  “Arturo, please understand,” she says. “I feel like I’m living a lie here. That we’re living a lie.”

  Keller gets that.

  He knows about living lies.

  —

  Adán decides to make peace in the Gulf.

  The CDG and their Zeta troops have proved to be a surprisingly tough and resilient enemy, even with Osiel Contreras in jail. There have already been seven hundred killings in Tamaulipas, another five hundred in Michoacán, and the Mexican public is growing tired of the violence.

  “Do you think they’d come to the table?” Magda asks. She knows her role—play devil’s advocate to let him test his ideas. So she asks, “Why make peace now?”

  “Because we can get what we want now,” Adán says.

  “What about La Familia?” Magda asks. “They’ve been good allies, and they’ll never make peace with the Zetas.”

  She’s heard the story about the murdered young whore and the boy who loved her.

  It’s almost romantic.

  “The Zetas can have Michoacán,” Adán answers. “I don’t want it.”

  Magda knows what he does want.

  —

  Eddie sits with Diego and Martín Tapia in the back of a Cessna 182 on its way to the meeting with the CDG and Zetas. After long negotiations, the Sinaloans had agreed to meet at a ranch Ochoa owns between Matamoros and Valle Hermosa.

  “Let me teach you what my mother taught me,” Diego says to him. “If you keep your mouth shut, no one can stick his dick into it.”

  “Your mom didn’t teach you that, Diego,” Eddie says.

  Diego says, “What I’m telling you is, at this meeting, you keep your fucking mouth shut.”

  Eddie looks out the window at the sere landscape below. “If you think I’m just going to sit there with the people who tortured my best friend to death—”

  “Sí, m’ijo, I think you are,” Diego says. “Or you take your money, go back el norte, and open a Sizzler’s or whatever.”

  “Maybe a Soup Plantation,” Eddie mutters.

  “Cheer up,” Diego says. “Things might go bad and then we can kill everybody.”

  God knows they have enough firepower to do it. They didn’t come light—four airplanes full of automatic rifles, handguns, grenade launchers, and the people to use them. If this is a trap, they aren’t going to be defenseless.

  “Remember, I get Forty and Ochoa,” Eddie says.

  Gordo Contreras—aka Jabba the Boss—he could give a shit about either way, although it was Eddie who started the joke: “What happened when Gordo took over the Gulf?” “The water level rose three feet.”

  Martín has warned Eddie that if he wants to do jokes, he should find an open mike night at a comedy club, but definitely, definitely not try out his material at the peace table.

  The plane lands on a strip on the west side of Ochoa’s ranch. Eddie looks out the window to see a dozen jeeps, three of them with machine guns trained on the aircraft, and Forty on full alert.

  “Yeah, I can feel the love here,” he says.

  “If that’s you keeping your mouth shut, it’s not working,” Martín says.

  —

  The hacienda has a tiled roof and a broad, covered porch where a long table has been set with carafes of ice water, iced tea, and bottles of beer. Ochoa, looking like a matinee idol from one of those old movies, steps down from the porch and walks toward Adán as he gets out of the jeep.

  It’s a key moment, Adán knows. Everyone here knows that the whole thing could go south and the guns will come out. He looks Ochoa up and down and then says, “You’re as good-looking as they said. If my gate was hinged on the other side, I’d marry you.”

  A moment of silence, then Ochoa cracks up.

  Everyone laughs and then they go up onto the porch.

  Gordo Contreras—the little brother who is now the putative head of the CDG—is sitting at the table, not having bothered, Adán notes, to haul his fat ass out of the chair. He’s sweating heavily—it’s disgusting. All the more so when he leers at Magda.

  “I didn’t know segunderas were invited,” Gordo says. “I would have brought mine.”

  Adán is about to step in when Magda says, “Partners were invited, Gordo. Your segundera can stay home where he belongs.”

  The look on Gordo’s fat face is priceless—slack-jawed and furious at the same time. He glares at Magda but she looks coolly back at him until he drops his eyes.

  Advantage Magda, Adán thinks.

  They sit down, Adán and Ochoa at respective ends of the table. Drinks are poured and then Nacho says, “I think we should limit our discussions as to how we move forward. I see no gain in bringing up the past.”

  “We didn’t start this war,” Gordo says.

  “Your brother tried to have me killed in Puente Grande,” Adán says calmly. “I considered that a declaration of war.”
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  “There was a gap of several years before you acted on it,” Gordo says, already huffing with effort. He leans over and gulps from a glass of ice water.

  Adán shrugs. “I have a long fuse.”

  “Can we just focus on how to end the war?” Nacho asks.

  “Sure,” Gordo says. “You withdraw all of your people from Tamaulipas, and if you want to use the Laredo plaza, you pay us tax. And we want what-do-you-call thems…reparations.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Magda says.

  Adán notices that Ochoa has said nothing. The former soldier is sitting back, letting Gordo go through the preliminary nonsense. As Tío taught me, Adán thinks—Él que menos habla es el más chingón.

  He who speaks least has the most power.

  Speaking of nonsense, Vicente Fuentes weighs in with cocaine-inspired gibberish. “Profit is the blossom of the plant of peace. While we are watering the fields with blood, we should be…”

  As Vicente goes on, Ochoa looks down the table at Adán, who wonders if he’s really seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. Ochoa’s smile is subtle, almost undetectable, but it’s there, and then Ochoa ever so slightly juts his chin at Vicente.

  It’s a question.

  And Adán ever so subtly nods.

  Yes.

  The real deal of this meeting has been made—Juárez is a legitimate target and the CDG won’t interfere. Adán stands up. “We’re not going to withdraw from Tamaulipas nor are we going to pay reparations. But here’s what we will do…”

  A cease-fire will start immediately, with each side keeping the territories it has taken.

  The CDG will keep all of Tamaulipas with the exception of Nuevo Laredo, which will be an open city. In addition, it will retain Coahuila, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, and Quintana Roo.

  The Alliance will move product through Laredo without paying a tax. It will retain control of all of its old territories—Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, Nayarit, Jalisco, Ochoa, Guanajuato, Querétaro, and Oaxaca, as well as Acapulco, and it will acquire—as Diego had insisted to Adán—the Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza García, the richest municipality in Mexico.

  The territories of Nuevo Léon, Federal District, State of Mexico, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, and Puebla will be neutral.

  Gordo struggles to his feet. “Barrera graciously offers to give us what we already have. This is a waste of time.”

  “Sit down,” Ochoa says quietly.

  Gordo glares at him.

  But he sits down.

  An amazingly blunt show of power, Adán thinks. Which Ochoa didn’t bother to disguise and so wanted me to see. Gordo Contreras will hold on to power for as long as Ochoa wants him to and not a moment longer. Then Ochoa says, “I’m sure Barrera wasn’t finished with his offer and was about to say something about Michoacán.”

  Ochoa has grown at the game, Adán thinks, but he’s still no Osiel Contreras. Osiel would never have brought up Michoacán proactively, tipping off his main concern like that.

  “I don’t control La Familia,” Adán says. “They’re loose cannons. But we would become neutral in that conflict.”

  “Your friends in the government aren’t neutral,” Ochoa answers.

  “If we make peace, our friends will become your friends,” Adán says. “At the very least, they won’t be your enemies. The government might decide to focus its efforts onto La Familia.”

  “And what would these ‘friendships’ cost us?” Gordo asks.

  Rudely.

  “I don’t ask guests to dinner,” Adán answers, “and then hand them a bill.”

  Ochoa takes a moment to look over at Gordo as if to ask, Do you understand the importance of this? What he’s offering is more valuable than territory. He looks back to Adán and says, “Still, you’ll be polite enough to let us pick up the check every now and then?”

  Adán nods.

  He has to give in on this issue—it’s not only a matter of Ochoa’s pride, to pay his way, but he knows that the Zeta boss also wants to establish his own relationships with Mexico City.

  That’s a problem, but he’ll work it out.

  “At the same time,” he says, “if we don’t assist a rebellion against you in Michoacán, we wouldn’t expect you to help rebels fighting against us in Tijuana.”

  “Agreed,” Ochoa says.

  “Are we done?” Adán asks.

  “Not quite,” Ochoa answers. He looks pointedly at Eddie. “This man has to leave Nuevo Laredo. His presence there is an insult.”

  Eddie keeps his mouth shut. It’s hard because he’s thinking, shit, I took Laredo for us. Now that we have it, I have to leave? It’s hard, because as he looks at Ochoa, he sees Chacho’s face, hears him howl in agony, smells his burning skin. What he wants to do is stand up and put a bullet between Movie Star’s eyes, but he keeps his mouth shut.

  “Agreed,” Adán says.

  They all get up from the table.

  The Gulf War is over.

  Adán has created peace among the narcos and divided the country into plazas.

  He’s become his uncle.

  —

  What follows is a bitchin’ good party.

  Adán and Magda left right away, which made the party even better, because El Patrón is notoriously stuffy about these things. But with Barrera gone, the wraps came off—champagne, weed, coke, hookers—it goes on all night into the next day.

  Eddie is particularly taken with Las Panteras—the female contingent of the Zetas. These are some hot chicas, who went through the same training that the men did, and came out on the other side smokin’. They even have hot names. Eddie gets with the Panteras’ leader, Ashley (no, seriously, a Mexican chick named Ashley), who calls herself La Comandante Bombón. “Commander Candy” carries a pink Uzi, which Eddie really digs. She likes to hold on to it while she rides him, threatening, “Let’s see which goes off first, you or the Uzi.”

  Eddie’s been with a lot of women, but there’s a unique sexual thrill to banging a gash you know has canceled some guy’s reservation. Like, literally killer pussy. Doing the midnight rodeo with a babe you know would waste you if she got the order adds a little Tabasco to the taco.

  Commander Candy…shit.

  Eddie still plans on killing both Forty and Ochoa, but he has to admit they know how to throw a party.

  —

  “Ruiz behaved himself,” Nacho says to Adán on the flight back to Sinaloa.

  “He did,” Adán agrees. “Diego is going to bump him up, give him San Pedro Garza García.”

  “He’ll do well.”

  “Nacho,” Adán says, “I have something I want to ask you.”

  But he’s looking at Magda instead of Nacho.

  She arches a curious eyebrow at him, and then he turns back to Nacho. “Now that we have peace with the Gulf, I want to ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

  Magda forces herself to smile.

  Despite his amazing cruelty, to ask for another woman in front of her. She knows this is payback for her sleeping with Jorge—or not, as the case may be—and she accepts it as such.

  But even Nacho—smooth, unflappable Nacho—is a little taken aback and stammers, “Adán, I’m honored.”

  “If she’ll have me,” Adán adds.

  “I’m sure she will.”

  It’s time, Adán thinks, to create another family.

  “There’s one other thing,” he says.

  “Anything.”

  “I don’t want to hear that now is not the time, it’s too politically sensitive, it’s risky, anything,” Adán says to both of them. “As soon as the new president takes office, I want Keller dead.”

  It’s time for that, too.

  Past time.

  —

  Yvette Tapia invites Keller to their house on inauguration eve for a celebratory dinner party.

  “You’re happy about the results?” Keller asks when she phones.

  “Of course,” Yvette
says. “Six more years of PAN means six more years of prosperity, growing the economy, lifting people out of poverty. Genuine democracy.”

  “Even though it was decided by a federal tribunal?”

  “Sort of like your Supreme Court?” Yvette asks. “Come to dinner. We can talk about Florida, hanging chads, and voter fraud.”

  He might as well go, continue his dangerous courtship with the Tapias, all the more dangerous now that PAN will retain the presidency. It remains to be seen if Barrera money will continue to flow through the Tapias to the new president, whether either Vera or Aguilar will be retained in their positions or how the change of administrations, if not parties, will affect the drug situation.

  The fighting in Tamaulipas, anyway, stopped as abruptly as it started, and there are rumors of a peace meeting between the Alliance and the CDG. It could be true, because Barrera has apparently withdrawn his men from Michoacán and the Zetas have stopped their public complaints about the government being prejudiced against them.

  The intel coming out of Nuevo Laredo is that Barrera has use of the city without paying a piso. The common wisdom is that he “lost” the war against the CDG and had to “settle” for Laredo, but Keller knows that the common wisdom is bullshit.

  Barrera, as usual, got exactly what he wanted.

  Laredo.

  A plaza.

  At the same time, the war in Tijuana seems to be going Barrera’s way, and the word is that he’ll soon wrest control of the city back from Teo Solorzano, if he hasn’t already.

  Two down, Keller thinks, one to go.

  And me.

  Adán will be looking to settle the tab with me now.

  At least Marisol is safely away from it.

  She’s in Valverde now, bought a house, opened her clinic. He helped her pack and move out of the Condesa place. They were both very civilized about it, and made mutual pro forma promises to visit when she got settled.

  Which they haven’t done yet.

  Keller misses her.

  They talk on the phone, but the calls are short and awkward, and he can tell she’s very busy with her work.

  It’s good, he thinks, as he drives out to Cuernavaca.

  It’s the right thing.