The Cartel Read online

  “You can trust us, man,” Chuy says. “One hundred percent.”

  It’s important, Esteban tells them. This former Nuevo Laredo city cop flipped and went over to the Alliance. Now he’s in Laredo, providing protection for the opposition. Before we can get to them, we gotta take this guy out.

  Tonight.

  Chuy gets into the work car and sees it’s serious because Esteban hands him an erre.

  “You remember how to use this?” Esteban asks.

  “Sure.”

  “I hope so.”

  Gabe drives. They wait outside a strip club out by the airport until the guy comes out and then follow his Dodge Charger along an access road along a bunch of factories and warehouses. Esteban takes out a police flasher, puts it on the car roof, and sets it off.

  “Bad boys, bad boys,” Gabe sings, “whatcha gonna do…”

  “Shut up,” Esteban says.

  The Charger pulls over.

  Chuy sees the dome light come on but can’t make out whether the guy is reaching for his registration or a gun. He don’t wait to find out. As they pull up alongside, he rolls the window down, sticks out the AR, and melts the guy.

  It’s the small hours of the morning, though, so Mrs. Fields is closed.

  That’s okay—Esteban gives them each ten grand in cash instead.

  —

  Chuy and Gabe don’t play Call of Duty so much anymore. After you’ve done the real thing, a video version is…boring.

  Their next job is big.

  A big step up.

  “ ‘Bruno,’ ” Gabe says when they get the assignment. “Isn’t that, like, a cartoon character?”

  “I thinks that’s ‘Bluto,’ ” Chuy says. He watches a lot of Cartoon Network.

  Bruno Resendez ain’t no cartoon. He’s a major marijuana dealer based in Rio Bravo, Texas, right on the border, and he’s with the Alliance. He’s so much with the Alliance that what he does is finger Zetas on the Mexican side for assassination. Esteban figures Bruno’s responsible for about a dozen dead Zetas.

  Forty wants him dead.

  “You guys take Bruno out,” Esteban tells them, “you’re gold.”

  They spend a week scoping out the town and blend right in because of the five thousand or so citizens of Rio Bravo, about four thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight of them are Hispanic.

  Bruno tools around Rio Bravo like he owns it.

  Maybe he does, Chuy thinks.

  Bruno rolls up and down Route 83 in his black Ford pickup, in a straw cowboy hat, with his nephew in the passenger seat. No bodyguard, no follow car, so he must think he’s safe on this side of the border.

  The man has a routine as he makes his rounds. Bruno waits in the truck, the nephew goes in and picks up the money. Nephew looks to Chuy like he’s fifteen, sixteen. Nice work, riding around with your tío picking up the cash.

  “How you wanna do this?” Gabe asks Chuy.

  “I dunno, the highway?”

  “What about the nephew?” Gabe asks. “Nobody said nothing about him.”

  “Fuck the nephew,” Chuy says.

  They take Bruno on the 83.

  Bruno don’t want to be caught. Must have seen trouble in the rearview mirror because he takes that Ford up to eighty, then ninety. Gabe’s gotta be doing a buck ten in the Escalade when they pull into the lane beside Bruno’s truck.

  Chuy laughing like a motherfucker as he rips off a clip from the AR. Hears the nephew scream like a little girl. Sees Bruno slumped over the wheel, the cowboy hat slammed over his face.

  Truck swerves and then flips.

  Does a double roll and then goes into the ditch.

  Gabe eases off on the gas. “Think they’re dead?”

  “We gotta make sure.”

  Gabe flips a U-ey and they go back. Get out of their Escalade and walk over to the ditch, where the truck is upside down.

  Bruno is dead, no question.

  Half his head is crushed, the rest of it shot away.

  The nephew is whimpering. Trapped in the passenger seat, jaws-of-life candidate, he don’t look so good. He stares up at Chuy and moans, “Please.”

  “Doing you a favor,” Chuy says. Even if the nephew makes it, gonna be a helper-monkey situation.

  He fires into the kid’s head.

  When they get back to Laredo, Esteban gives them $150,000.

  And Chuy gets an aporto.

  They call him Jesus the Kid.

  La Tuna, Sinaloa

  Adán’s reaction to Magda’s meeting with Jorge is typically male.

  “Did you sleep with him?” he asks when she comes back.

  “Do you need the coke connection?” Magda asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I slept with him,” Magda answers. “Or I didn’t, whichever turns you on more.”

  She still likes to turn him on, maybe all the more so because she no longer has to. It’s now a matter of choice, not survival, and the distinction is important. Whether or not she slept with Jorge—or anyone else for that matter—is none of Adán’s damn business, so she leaves the question unanswered.

  Let him twist.

  Besides, she’s heard all about his courtship of Nacho’s daughter, Eva, the little virgin. It’s not surprising, but a little disappointing, Adán playing the stereotypical Sinaloan señor, plucking a rose from the beauty pageant garden. Still, he hasn’t really plucked her yet, has he, if the rest of the rumors are true. Our Adán, every inch the gentleman.

  Magda chose a basic black dress for this reunion, with a diamond necklace that she bought for herself. It does more than draw his eye to her décolletage, it makes a point—I bought this, Adán darling, with my own money. I don’t need you to drape jewelry around me anymore.

  Or a blanket.

  Magda got a bonus of twenty kilos of cocaine for setting up the Colombian connection. Of course Adán knows that she’s already sold all twenty kilos and used the profit to buy more discounted coke from Jorge, which she’ll parlay into a larger fortune. Nothing happens in Sinaloa that Adán Barrera doesn’t know about. Still, numbers are numbers to an accountant—it helps to have a little visual aid. “Do you like what you see?”

  “I always have,” Adán says.

  “I meant the necklace.”

  “I know.” He understands—Magda is asserting her independence. It’s not such a bad thing, given that he’s probably going to have to cut her loose anyway. She’s doubtless heard all about Eva, and her pride will make her pull away before she’s pushed. “It’s lovely.”

  “Would you like me to take it off?”

  “No,” Adán says, his throat tightening. She doesn’t need him, and it makes her wildly attractive. Like Nora. “Just the dress. Please.”

  “Oh. ‘Please.’ In that case…” The dress slides off her like water. The diamonds dig into his chest as he makes love to her.

  —

  Chuy has about $120,000 in the bank (well, not in the bank, he can’t open his own account), but what does an eleven-year-old buy with $120K?

  Can’t buy a house.

  Can’t buy a car.

  Can’t buy a ticket to an R-rated movie.

  He can buy clothes, he can buy Air Jordans, he can buy video games. He can buy a woman, or rent one, anyway. Him and Gabe go across the bridge and through the guard shack into Boy’s Town down Calle Cleopatra where Esteban hooks them up with a brothel. And not a house where their next stop is a pharmacy, but to a really good house where the women are beautiful and really know what to do.

  Which is a good thing, because Chuy really don’t.

  Next morning he revisits the car issue.

  “You want a car?” Esteban asks. “No problem.”

  They get back to the other Laredo, Esteban takes Chuy to a dealership and lays down the kid’s cash for a new Mustang convertible, black. It’s in Esteban’s name, but it’s Chuy’s car, and Esteban hands him the keys.

  Chuy’s rolling.

  He has money, clothes, a bra
nd-new ride. He has dreams that would sear the inside of your eyelids. Speaking of eyelids, Gabe does something really weird. Comes home one night, and his eyelids are tattooed with images of eyeballs.

  “So when I close my eyes,” Gabe says, demonstrating, “it looks they’re still open.”

  What it looks like is creepy, Chuy thinks. Especially because Gabe’s real eyes are brown but his tattoo eyes are blue.

  It gets creepier.

  Gabe gets called across the river to do some “work.” Calls one night and he sounds messed up, really high, and he’s talking some weird shit about kidnapping this kid they knew, Poncho, who was dealing for the Alliance, and his girlfriend.

  Gabe, he’s just riffing. “You should have seen Poncho, dude. He was crying like a fag. ‘No! I’m your friend! I’m your friend!’ I was all like, ‘What friend, you son of a bitch, shut your fucking mouth!’ and then—POOM—I just slashed him, dude. Just took this motherfucking beer bottle and slit his whole fucking belly open! You should have been there, dude, you should have seen it. He was bleeding? And I took this plastic cup and held it under his belly and filled it with blood and then I drank it, dude! Right in front of him I drank it and held it up and dedicated it to Santísima Muerte, and then I went over to the girl and did the same thing.”

  “So they’re both dead?” Chuy asks.

  “Yeah, they both bled out. They died and shit, dude.”

  “You really cooked them?”

  “Of course, dude. Right there at the house.” Fifty-gallon drum and gasoline. “They’re soup, dude.”

  Chuy clicks off and goes back to Grand Theft Auto. He didn’t know Gabe was into that weird Santísima Muerte shit. Chuy’s a Catholic, man, he believes in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

  —

  Eddie’s having a relaxing evening cocktail at the Punta Bar down by the beach in Acapulco, scoping out this tourista chick who looks like she’s either Danish or Swedish or Norwegian, but definitely a Scandinavian Ten.

  Blond hair.

  Rack.

  Yoga ass.

  Eddie knows he’s looking tight—new plum-colored polo, white jeans, huarache sandals. It’s annoying that the shirts have to be a size too large these days to accommodate the Glock, but war is hell.

  The chick is drinking a mojito—of course she is—and Eddie has the bartender set up another for her. She looks over at Eddie, lifts her glass in thanks, and Eddie smiles back.

  He’s going to get up in that tonight.

  Then an explosion goes off.

  —

  Chuy goes in heavy.

  Okay, a little too heavy.

  Okay, a lot too heavy.

  He knows Ruiz’s rep. He’s seen the video and doesn’t want to star in Ruiz’s next movie, and he knows that the Punta Bar is a Tapia hangout and that Ruiz will have people there.

  Chuy got orders to go to Acapulco to take out this guy, this Eddie Ruiz.

  Because what the fuck, right?

  Why not?

  Ruiz is looking for men, Zeta sicarios. He’s not going to have his eyes open for some eleven-year-old kid. Plus, this is a chance. If Bruno Resendez was worth $150K, Eddie Ruiz—public enemy número uno—has to have a price tag of what, half a million? A mil? More? And if Esteban could buy him a car, he could also buy him a house. Two houses—one for him and one for Mami and Papi.

  It’s Chuy’s fantasy, rolling up on the house in his sled, walking in and saying, No more digging ditches, Papi, no more cutting hair, Mami—and handing them the keys to their new house on the other side of Laredo. A nine-bedroom house—a room for everyone and a Guatemalan maid to keep it clean.

  If he takes Eddie Ruiz off the count, Forty and Ochoa will throw him a party, give him coke, make him an officer, give him his own plaza to run. He’ll boss Gabe around, shit, he’ll boss Esteban around. People will treat him with respect, whisper, That’s the guy who did Eddie Ruiz. That’s Chuy Barajos, Jesus the Kid, the macho who walked into the Punta Bar on his own and…

  Chuy opens the door and tosses in a grenade.

  Then he unslings the erre and opens up.

  —

  Eddie jumps on Ilsa, throws her to the floor, and lies on top of her.

  Pulls the Glock and looks up.

  It’s ugly. People hold their bleeding faces, shards of glass sticking out. One of his flunkies looks down, staring, at his severed left arm. Bottles behind the bar shatter and then the mirror goes. Bullets zing, people go down, women scream, men scream…

  Fucking Zetas, Eddie thinks—the place is packed with civilians. This is not the way you do things. He looks for the shooters but only sees one, a spindly-looking little dude standing in the doorway spraying fire like this is some sort of video game.

  Ain’t no replay, asshole, Eddie thinks.

  He sights the bead on the shooter’s chest.

  The shooter sees him, swings his rifle, and fires.

  —

  Chuy drops the AR and runs.

  Runs the way that only a scared boy can run, fast and fluid, through the streets. Doesn’t dare turn his head to see if they’re coming after him.

  Tells himself you gotta be alive to spend the money. Gotta be alive to buy your mom and dad the house. Except the Zetas will take care of them—that was the promise, that was the oath. A soldier falls in combat, his family will be taken care of. Ochoa told him that himself, on graduation night before…

  Chuy runs until he’s out of breath.

  Stops and looks around.

  Hears the sirens, sees the ambulances speed past him, going the other way, toward the Punta Bar.

  An hour later he’s on a bus, heading up the coast to the port of Lázaro Cárdenas, Zeta country, to collect his beautiful reward for killing Eddie Ruiz.

  —

  Four dead, twenty-five wounded.

  A real mess.

  It takes Eddie three hours to get Forty on the phone, but when he does he says, “What the fuck? You’re so desperate for men now you’re using midgets?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That pygmy you sent,” Eddie says, “was even smaller than your dick. Good job, by the way—he hit a dozen civilians and one of them’s dead. Lobbing a grenade into a public place? Is this the way we play now?”

  Forty hangs up.

  Eddie turns to Ilsa, who’s sitting on his bed.

  The sex had been incredible—something about that near-death experience thing, he guesses.

  “Crazy night, huh?” he says.

  —

  Chuy goes to the address of the safe house they gave him.

  Gabe and Esteban are there waiting for him, and Chuy smiles at them.

  “Forty wants to see you,” Esteban says.

  Chuy smiles. Of course Forty wants to see him. When he gets into the room, Forty stands up and slaps him so hard across the face Chuy thinks he might black out. His head spinning, he says, “But I killed Ruiz.”

  “No you didn’t,” Forty says. “You missed.”

  “I saw—”

  Forty slaps him again. “A grenade?! You throw a grenade into a bar full of tourists, and then start shooting?! Are you stupid?! Are you crazy?!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Make it hurt,” Forty snaps.

  Gabe and Esteban grab Chuy and drag him up the stairs. They strip him, tie his wrists to a rope, run the rope through a pulley, haul him up until he’s barely on his toes, then tie the other end of the rope off on a bolt in the floor.

  Esteban hands Gabe a thick leather strap. Walking behind Chuy, Gabe says softly, “Sorry, dude.”

  He takes a swallow of Coke, the good Mexican Coke in a bottle with all the sugar, then starts in with a leather strap on Chuy’s back, on his ass, on his legs. Takes another hit of Coke, sets the bottle down on the floor, and starts whipping him again.

  Chuy tries not to scream, but his determination doesn’t last past the third stroke.

  It hurts bad.

  He screams and
twists and cries.

  Begs.

  Like the little bitch he knows he is.

  Finally, Esteban says, “Enough.”

  He picks up a length of two-by-four and shows it to Chuy. “You know what I’m going to do?”

  Chuy knows.

  La paleta is a Zeta specialty they taught at the training camp.

  You take a piece of board and hit someone in the lower back. Slowly, rhythmically, again and again. The victim wants to die a long time before he does. Sometimes they stop before they kill him, and then the man is a cripple, barely able to walk, groaning every time he takes a piss.

  Chuy had seen those guys and laughed at them.

  Now Esteban steps behind him.

  Chuy breaks down sobbing.

  “Bitch,” Esteban says. “You’re nothing but a little bitch after all.”

  “Bitch,” Gabe chimes in. “Fag.”

  “You think about it,” Esteban says. “You think about what’s going to happen to you, perrita.”

  He unties the rope and Chuy falls to the floor.

  “Forty wants to do it himself,” Esteban says.

  —

  Chuy lies fetal on the floor.

  His blood sticks to the wooden planks.

  Gabe sits with his back propped against the wall. “I’m sorry, dude.”

  Chuy don’t answer.

  “You don’t know,” Gabe says. “You don’t know what they make you do. At the ranch. One after the other. One after the other. Like a machine, dude. Then we burn them. Put them in drums and burn them.”

  Chuy don’t want to listen, don’t want to feel sorry for Gabe. Fuck him, they aren’t about to beat him to death. He closes his eyes and doesn’t open them again until Gabe finally shuts up.

  He looks over at Gabe’s eyes.

  His blue eyes.

  Staring back at him, unseeing.

  Chuy wriggles across the floor like a snake. Grabs the Coke bottle and smashes it against the wall. It wakes Gabe up but Chuy is already on top of him and slashes the jagged glass across his throat.

  Gabe tries to keep his blood in, but it spurts out his carotid artery.

  Tries to yell, but his throat is cut.

  Naked, his wrists still bound together in front of him, Chuy jumps out the window.

  Morelia, Michoacán

  A whore finds Chuy two weeks later, sleeping in a Dumpster in the alley off the street she works.