The Power of the Dog

Chapter Nine
Days of the Dead

San Diego. 1994

It’s the Day of the Dead.

Big day inMexico.

The tradition goes back to Aztec times and honors the goddess Mictecacihuatl, “Lady of the Dead,” but the Spanish priests cleaned it up and moved it from midsummer to autumn to make it coincide with All Hallow’s Eve and All Souls’ Day. Yeah, okay, Art thinks, the Dominicans can call it what they want-it’s still about La Muerte.

The Mexicans, they don’t mind talking about death. They have lots of names for it-The Fancy Lady, The Skinny, The Bony, or just plain old La Muerte. They don’t try to keep it at arm’s length. They’re tight with death, intimate with it. They keep their dead close to them. On El Dia de los Muertos, the living go to visit the dead. They cook elaborate dishes and take them to the cemeteries and sit down and share a nice meal with their dearly departed.

Shit, Art thinks, I’d like to share a nice meal with my living family. They live in the same city, occupy the same physical space and time, and yet somehow we’re all on separate planes of existence.

He’d signed the divorce papers shortly after getting word of the murders of Pilar Mendez and her two children. A simple acknowledgment of an inevitable reality, he wondered, or a form of penance? He knew that he shared some responsibility for the children’s deaths, that he’d helped to set that hideous train in motion the moment he whispered into Tio’s ear the false information that Guero Mendez was the imaginary Source Chupar. So when the word came through intelligence channels-the rumors that the Barreras had decapitated Pilar and thrown her children off a bridge in Colombia-Art finally picked up a pen and signed the divorce papers that been on his desk for months.

He gave full custody of the children to Althie.

“I’m grateful, Art,” she said. “But why now?”

Punishment, he thought.

I lose two kids, too.

He hasn’t lost them, of course. He gets them every other weekend and for a month in the summer. He goes to Cassie’s volleyball matches and Michael’s baseball games. He faithfully attends school assemblies, plays, ballet recitals, parent-teacher conferences.

But it’s forced. By definition, the little spontaneous moments don’t happen during scheduled time, and he misses the little things. Making them their breakfasts, reading stories, wrestling on the floor. The sad reality is that there’s no such thing as “quality time”; there’s only “time,” and he misses it.

He misses Althie, too.

God, how he misses Althie.

But you threw her away, he thinks.

And for what?

To become “The Border Lord”? That’s what they call him now in the DEA-behind his back, that is. Except for Shag, who says it to his face. Brings a cup of coffee into his office and asks, “How’s the Border Lord this morning?”

Technically, he’s the head of the Southwest Border Task Force and runs a coordinating group of all the agencies fighting the War on Drugs: DEA, FBI, Border Patrol, Customs and Immigration, local and state police-they all report to Art Keller. Based inSan Diego, he has a huge office, with a staff to match.

It’s a powerful position, exactly the one he demanded of John Hobbs.

He’s also a member of the Vertical Committee. It’s a small group-it consists of him and John Hobbs-that coordinates DEA and CIA activities in theAmericas to ensure that they don’t trip over each other’s feet. That’s the stated purpose; the unstated purpose is to make sure Art doesn’t do anything to screw the Company’s agenda.

That was the quid pro quo. Art got the Southwest Border Task Force so he could wage his war against the Barreras; in exchange, he slips his head into the leash.

Day of the Dead? he thinks as he sits in a parked car on a street inLa Jolla. I might as well go put candy on my own grave.

Then he sees Nora Hayden come out of the boutique.

She’s a creature of habit and has been for the months that he’s had her under surveillance. She first came to his attention through sources he keeps inTijuana. The word was that Adan Barrera had a girlfriend, a mistress, that he had rented an apartment in the Rio district and went to see her there regularly.

Uncharacteristically careless of Adan, picking an American woman for his piece of strange, Art thinks as he watches the woman come down the sidewalk with shopping bags in both hands. Not like Adan at all, really, who had the reputation-at least until recently-of being a devoted family man.

But Art can understand the temptation as he looks at Nora.

She might be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

On the outside, anyway, he thinks, reminding himself that this cunt fucks Adan Barrera.

Professionally.

He’d had a tail put on her three months ago when she’d come back across the border. So he had a name and an address, and pretty soon he had something else.

Haley Saxon.

The DEA had had the madam up for years. So, it turned out, had the IRS. The San Diego PD knew all about the White House, of course, but nobody had moved on it because Haley Saxon’s client list was a political hornet’s nest that nobody had the balls to stir up.

And now it turns out that Adan’s segundera is one of Haley’s best earners. Shit, Art thinks, if Haley Saxon were Mary Kay, Nora Hayden would have her own fleet of pink Cadillacs by now.

He waits until she gets a little closer, then steps out of the car, shows her his badge. “Ms. Hayden, we need to talk.”

“I don’t think we do.”

She has amazing blue eyes, and her voice is cultured and confident. He has to remind himself that she’s just a whore.

“Why don’t we sit in my car?” Art suggests.

“Why don’t we not?”

She starts to walk away but he holds her by the elbow. “Why don’t I have your friend Haley Saxon arrested for running a house of prostitution?” Art asks. “Why don’t I shut her down for good?”

She lets him walk her to the car. He opens the front passenger door and she gets in. Then he walks around and sits in the driver’s seat.

Nora looks pointedly at her watch. “I’m trying to make a one-fifteen movie.”

Art says, “Let’s talk about your boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend?”

“Or is Barrera your 'client'?” Art asks. “Or your 'john'? Educate me on the jargon.”

She doesn’t blink. “He’s my lover.”

“Does he pay you for the privilege?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Art asks, “Do you know what your lover does for a living?”

“He’s a restaurateur.”

“Come on, Nora,” Art says.

“Mr. Keller,” she said, “let’s just say I have some sympathy for dealing in pleasures that society deems illegal.”

“Yeah, okay,” Art said. “How about murder? Are you okay with that?”

“Adan’s never killed anybody.”

“Ask him about Ernie Hidalgo,” Art says. “While you’re at it, ask him about Pilar Mendez. He had her head cut off. And her children. Do you know what your boyfriend did with them? He threw them off a bridge.”

“That is an old lie that Guero Mendez put out to-”

“Is that what Adan told you?”

“What do you want, Mr. Keller?”

She’s a businesswoman, Art thinks. She’s getting right down to it. Good. Time to make your pitch. Don’t fuck it up.

“Your cooperation,”Art says.

“You want me to inform on-”

“Let’s just say you’re in a unique position to-”

She opens the car door. “I’m going to be late for my movie.”

He grabs her and stops her. “Go to a later show.”

“You have no right to hold me against my will,” Nora says. “I haven’t committed any crime.”

“Let me explain a few things to you,” Art says. “We know that the Barreras are investors in Haley Saxon’s business. That alone puts her on Queer Street. If they ever used the house to have a meeting, I’ll RICO her into twenty-to-life, and it will be your fault. You’ll have plenty of time to apologize to her, though, because I’ll put you in the same cell. Can you explain all your income, Ms. Hayden? Can you account for the money that Adan is paying you now to be your 'lover'? Or is he laundering drug money along with the dirty sheets? You’re in deep, hot water, Ms. Hayden. But you can save yourself. You can even save your pal Haley. I’m reaching out my hand. Take it.”

She looks at him with pure loathing.

Which is fine, Art thinks. I don’t need you to love me, I just need you to do what I want.

“If you could do what you say you can do to Haley,” Nora says calmly, “you would already have done it. And as for what you can do to me-take your best shot.”

She starts to get out again.

“How about Parada?” Art asks. “Are you doing him, too?”

Because they have her visiting the priest in Guadalajara, and even San Cristobal, on numerous occasions.

She turns and glares at him.

“You’re a piece of filth.”

“You’d better believe it.”

“For the record,” she says, “Juan and I are friends.”

“Yeah?” Art says. “Would he still be your friend if he knew you were a hooker?”

“He does know.”

He loves me anyway, Nora thinks.

“Does he know you sell yourself to a murdering little piece of shit like Adan Barrera?” Art asks. “Would he still be your friend if he knew that? Should I pick up the phone and tell him? We go way back.”

I know, Nora thinks. He’s told me about you. What he didn’t tell me is how awful you are.

“Do whatever you’re going to do, Mr. Keller,” Nora says. “I don’t care. May I go?”

“For now.”

She gets out of the car and walks back down the street, her skirt swinging against her beautiful, tanned legs.

Looking, Art thinks, as cool as if she’d just had tea with a friend.

You fucking asshole, he thinks, you totally blew it.

But I’d love to know, Nora, if you tell Adan about our little chat.

Mexico