The Kings Of Cool

65

“D-E-D-O”

“Informer” in beautiful cursive script made up of men’s intestines laid out on the floor.

DEA Agent Dennis Cain stands in the Tijuana warehouse with his Mexican counterpart, a Baja state policeman named Miguel Arroyo-aka “Lado” (“Stone Cold”)-and looks at the message from the Sanchez family that just as easily might have spelled out

“C-H-I-N-G-A-T-E D-E-N-N-I-S”

Translation: Fuck you, Dennis.

Because it gets very personal, this kind of long-term, close-range war. These guys all know each other. No, they don’t actually know each other, but they know each other. The Sanchez family probably does as much intelligence on the DEA as the DEA does on them. They know where the others live, where they eat, who they see, who they fuck, how they work. They know their families, their friends, their enemies, their tastes, their quirks, their dreams, their fears-so leaving a message in human entrails is almost a grisly joke between rivals, but it’s also a statement of relative power, like, look what we can do on our turf that you can’t do on yours.

Dennis started his career as a uniformed cop in Buffalo. One morning in a frigid predawn, wind coming off the lake like the swing of a killing sword, he saw an old carpet leaning at an odd angle against an alley wall. The carpet turned out to contain the frozen corpse of a coke whore, and pressed against her cold chest was her frozen baby, blue in death.

He volunteered for the narco squad the next day.

Weeks later, he went on his first undercover and busted the dealers. Took night classes, got his degree, and applied to DEA. Happiest day of his life when he got accepted, although he will say it was his wedding day, and later, the days his children were born.

(Undercovers are great liars-their lives depend on it.)

DEA threw him right back undercover-upstate New York, then Jersey, then the city. He was a star, a real stud monkey, making cases that the federal prosecutors loved. Then they jerked him up from under and sent him down to Colombia, then Mexico. Sandy-haired, boyish grin-Huck Finn with an East Coast mouth and a killer’s heart-the targets loved him, fell all over themselves to sell him dope and put themselves in the shit.

(Undercovers are great con men-their jobs depend on it.)

A star now, he was moved to the Front Line of the War on Drugs, the two-thousand-mile border with Mexico.

They even gave him a choice of assignments-El Paso or San Diego.

Hmmm.

Lemme think El Paso or San Diego.

El Paso or… San Diego.

El Passhole or Sun Dog.

Sorry, Tex, no offense, pard, but — come on.

So Dennis Cain set up shop in the backyard of the Baja Cartel, just across the fence (literally) from the Sanchez Family Business, and no one’s inviting the neighbors over for a cookout.

It’s just war, day in, day out.

You wanna talk about the War on Drugs (of course, it should be the War Against Drugs, the ambiguity of the “on” having caused some spectacular HR problems at DEA, and Chon would tell you about a lot of guys who fought their war on drugs), this is

No Man’s Land

All Unquiet on the Western Front.

Dennis and Cohorts bust a shipment, the Sanchezes kill a snitch. Dennis and Company find a tunnel under the border, the Sanchezes are already digging a new one. Dennis busts a cartel leader, another Sanchez steps into the gap to replace him.

The drugs and the money keep on turnin’, Proud Mary Juana keeps on burnin’.

Now Dennis looks down at the eviscerated bodies of three men, one of whom was his snitch, and the calling card arranged with their intestines.

“What?” he says. “They ran out of spray paint?”

Lado shrugs.