Savages

212

It’s a yeeee-had.

Full-out war between Treinte and 94, a surrogate battle shadowing the struggle between Elena and El Azul South of the Border down Mexico way.

It had to happen. Just a matter of time, all the experts say, a little gratified to see their gloomiest prognostications realized. The drug violence in Mexico had to leak across the border. A pool of blood seeping under the fence, an unstoppable toxic tide like the mujados coming across.

Like—

The Swine Flu.

(Except you won’t need a “preexisting medical condition” and there is no vaccine.)

Heche en Mexico.

Drug war.

Treinte strikes back at 94. Then 94 strikes back at Treinte. The bodies start stacking up in the barrios of SoCal. It will only be a matter of time, the grave newscasters warn, before an innocent (white) person gets killed.

“Why is this my problem?” Ben asks Jaime at the “staff meeting,” which takes place in the parking lot at Salt Creek Beach.

“From now on, you deliver your product to us,” Jaime tells Ben.

“No way,” Ben says. “I’m not putting my people at risk.”

“There’s no risk,” Jaime says. “We plugged the leak.”

Yeah. Ben remembers “plugging the leak.” Ben sees it over and over again, his hand pulling the trigger on Alex. Now he says, “I don’t know …”

“There’s no argument,” Jaime says.

Putting a Lid (as it were) on It

That’s our decision.

Well, then—