The Power Of The Dog (66 page)

And Manuel Sánchez sits outside Adán’s bedroom window like a faithful dog. We’re twins now, Adán thinks, with our identical limps. But mine is temporary and his is permanent, and this is why I have kept the man employed all these years as a bodyguard since the bad old days of Operation Condor.

Sánchez will not leave his post—not to eat, not to sleep.

Just props himself against the wall with his shotgun in his lap, or occasionally gets up and limps back and forth along the wall.

“I should have been there, patrón,” he told Adán, with tears streaming down his face. “I should have been with you.”

“Your job is to protect my home and my family,” Adán answered. “And you have never let me down.”

Nor is he likely to.

He won’t leave Adán’s window. The cooks bring him plates of warm flour tortillas with refritas and peppers, and bowls of hot albóndigas, and he sits outside the window eating. But he will not leave: Don Adán saved his life and his leg, and Don Adán and his wife and daughter are inside that house, and if Güero’s sicarios somehow get inside the compound, they will have to come through Manuel Sánchez to get to them.

And no one is getting through Manuel.

Adán’s glad he’s there, if only to give Lucía and Gloria a feeling of security. They were already put through an upsetting ordeal, being woken in the middle of the night by the pasador’s sicarios and hustled off to the countryside without even a chance to pack. The upset had set off a major respiratory episode, and a doctor had to be flown in, blindfolded, then driven out to the ranch to see the sick girl. The expensive and delicate medical equipment—respirators, breathing tents, humidifiers—all had to be packed out of the house and moved in the middle of the night, and even now, weeks later, Gloria is still displaying symptoms.

And then when she had seen him limping, in pain, it was yet another shock and he had felt bad about lying to her, telling her that he had been in a motorcycle accident, and lying to her more, telling her they were staying out in the country for a while because the air is better for her.

But she’s not stupid, Adán knows. She sees the towers, the guns, the guards, and she will soon see through their explanation that the family is very wealthy and needs protection.

And then she will ask harder questions.

And get harder answers.

About what Papa does for a living.

And will she understand? Adán wonders. He’s restless, edgy, tired of being a convalescent. And be honest, he tells himself—you miss Nora. You miss her in your bed and at your table. It would be good to talk with her about this whole situation.

He’d managed to get a phone call off to her the day after the La Sirena attack. He knew that she’d have seen it on TV or read about it in the papers, and he wanted to tell her that he was all right. That it would be a few weeks before he could see her again, but more important, that she should stay out of Mexico until he tells her it’s safe.

She’d responded just the way he’d imagined she would, just the way he’d hoped. She answered the phone on the first ring, and he could feel her relief when she heard his voice. Then she’d quickly started to joke with him, telling him that if he let himself be lured by any siren other than her, he got what he deserved.

“Call me,” she’d said. “I’ll come running.”

I wish I could, he thinks as he painfully stretches his leg. You don’t know how much I wish I could.

He’s tired of being in bed and sits up, slowly swings his wounded leg out and gently eases himself to his feet. He takes his cane and hobbles over to the window. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is bright and warm and the birds are warbling and it’s good to be alive. And his leg is healing quickly and well—there has been no infection—and soon he will be up and around. Which is a good thing because there is much to do and not a lot of time to do it.

The truth is that he’s worried. The attack on La Sirena, the fact that they used federale uniforms and identification—it must have cost hundreds of thousands in mordida. And the fact that Güero felt strong enough to violate the prohibition on violence in a resort town must mean that Güero’s business is healthier than they had thought.

But how? Adán wonders. How is the man getting his product through La Plaza, which the Barrera pasador has all but shut down to him? And how has Güero won the support of Mexico City and its federales?

And has Abrego aligned himself with Güero? Would Güero ever have launched the La Sirena attack without the old man’s approval? And if that is the case, Abrego’s support would bring the president’s brother, El Bagman, and the full weight of the federal government.

Even in Baja itself, there’s a civil war going on between the local cops—the Barreras own the Baja State Police and Güero owns the federales. The Tijuana city cops are more or less neutral, but there’s a new player in town—the Special Tactical Group, an elite group sort of like the Untouchables, run by none other than the incorruptible Antonio Ramos. If he ever allies himself with the federales …

Thank God there’s an election coming up, Adán thinks. Adán’s people have made several discreet approaches to the PRI’s handpicked candidate, Colosio, only to be turned down flat. But Colosio at least gave assurances that he is anti-narco across the board—when elected he will be coming after the Barreras and Méndez with equal vigor.

But in the meantime it’s us against the world, Adán thinks.

And this time, the world wins.

Callan don’t like it one bit.

He’s in the backseat of a stolen fire-engine red Suburban—the vehicle of choice among the narcotraficante cowboys—sitting beside Raúl Barrera, who’s cruising around Tijuana like he’s the fucking mayor. They’re rolling down Boulevard Díaz Ordaz, one of the busiest streets in the city. He has a Baja State Police officer driving and another one in the front seat. And he’s tricked out in full Sinaloa cowboy gear, from the boots to the black pearl-button shirt to the white cowboy hat.

This is no fucking way to fight a war, Callan thinks. What these guys should be doing is what the old Sicilians would do—go to the mattresses, lay low, pick your spots. But this apparently ain’t the Mexican way, Callan has learned. No, the Mexican way is macho—go out there and show the flag.

Like, Raúl wants to be seen.

So it ain’t no surprise to Callan when two black Suburbans filled with black-uniformed federales start to follow them down the boulevard. Which ain’t good news, Callan thinks. “Uh, Raúl …”

“I see them.”

He tells the driver to take a right down a side street, alongside a gigantic flea market.

Güero’s in the second black Suburban. He looks out and sees this yuppie fire engine take a right, and in the backseat he thinks he sees Raúl Barrera.

Actually, the first thing he sees is a clown.

A stupid laughing clown’s face is painted on the wall of the enormous flea market, which runs the length of two city blocks. Clown’s got one of those big red noses and the white face and the wig and the whole clown nine yards and Güero sort of blinks at it and then focuses on the guy in the backseat of the red Suburban with California plates and it sure as hell looks like Raúl.

“Pull him over,” he tells his driver.

The lead black Suburban pulls ahead and forces the red Suburban to the curb. Güero’s vehicle pulls up behind and wedges in the red SUV.

Oh, fuck, Callan thinks, as a comandante federale gets out of the lead car and comes toward them, pointing his M-16, two of his boys right behind him. This ain’t no traffic ticket. He slides a little lower in his seat, gently pulls his .22 from his hip and lays it under his left forearm.

“We got it covered,” Raúl says.

Callan’s not so sure because rifle barrels poke out of the windows of the two black Suburbans like muskets out of wagons in one of them old Westerns, and Callan figures if the cavalry don’t ride in soon there ain’t gonna be much to bury here out on the old prairie.

Fuckin’ Mexico.

Güero lowers the right back window, rests his AK on the sill, flicks the lever to “bush rake” and gets ready to hose Raúl.

The Baja state cop driver rolls down his window and asks, “Is there a problem?”

Yeah, apparently there is because the comandante federale spots Raúl from the corner of his eye and starts to pull the trigger on his M-16.

Callan shoots from his lap.

The two rounds smack the comandante in the forehead.

The M-16 hits the pavement a moment before he does.

The two Baja state cops in the front seat shoot right through their own windshield. Raúl sits in the back, zinging bullets past the ears of his two boys in the front and he’s yelling and shooting because if this is the last Arriba, he’s going out in style. He’s going out in a way that the narcocorridos will be singing about for years.

Except he ain’t going out.

Güero had spotted the bright red Suburban, but he didn’t see the nondescript Ford Aerostar and the Volkswagen Jetta that were trailing it from a block behind, and now those two stolen vehicles roar in and trap the federales.

Fabián jumps out of the Aerostar and rakes a federale across the chest with an AK burst. The wounded federale tries to crawl for cover underneath the black Suburban, but one of his own boys sees how outgunned they are and makes a bid for survival by switching sides on the spot. He raises his own M-16 and as the man pleads for his life delivers the coup de grâce through his partner’s upraised arms and into his face, then looks to Fabián for acceptance.

Fabián puts two rounds into his head.

Who needs a coward like that?

Callan pulls Raúl down onto the seat and shouts, “We have to get you the fuck outta here!”

Callan opens the car door and rolls out onto the sidewalk. He shoots from underneath the car at anything that has black pants on as Raúl climbs out over the top of them and then they start shooting their way out, backing down the street toward the main boulevard.

It’s a major goat fuck, Callan thinks.

Cops are roaring in from all compass points, in cars, on motorcycles and on foot. Federal cops, state cops, Tijuana city cops, and they’re not sure who’s who—it is just a fucking free-for-all.

Everyone’s trying to figure out who to shoot at the same time they’re trying to work out how not to get shot. Fabián’s shooters at least know who they’re shooting at, though, as they methodically gun down the federales who pulled them over. But those guys are tough, they’re shooting back, and there are bullets flying every which way and you have some moron across the street standing there with his Sony 8mm trying to videotape the whole goddamn mess, and through that grace given to idiots and drunks he lives through the whole ten-minute gun battle, but a lot of people don’t.

Three federales are dead and three others wounded. Two Barrera sicarios—including one Baja state policeman—have checked out and two others are pretty badly shot up, as are the seven bystanders who are down with gunshot wounds. And in one of those surreal moments that seem to occur only in Mexico, you have the bishop of Tijuana, who just happened to be in the neighborhood, going from body to body giving last rites to the dead and spiritual comfort to the living. You got ambulances coming in, and cop cars and television trucks. You got everything except twenty midgets tumbling out of a little car.

The clown ain’t laughing anymore.

The smile has literally been blasted off his face, his red nose is pockmarked with bullets and there are fresh holes drilled in the bottom inside corner of each pupil, so he’s looking down at the scene cross-eyed.

Güero’s done a walkaway—he spent most of the firefight lying on the floor of his Suburban and then he slid across to the opposite door and slunk away without anyone seeing him.

A lot of people see Raúl, though. He and Callan are backing down the street, shoulder to shoulder, Raúl just blasting away with his AK, Callan firing precise two-shot groupings with his .22.