The Power of the Dog

B.”

Then he walks out.

Art steps to the sink, runs the tap and splashes cold water on his face. Then he dries himself off and goes outside to meet his family.

They’re standing on the edge of a small crowd in front of the stage, the kids hopping up and down in delight to the antics of two actors dressed as the Angel Gabriel and Lucifer, banging each other on the head with sticks, fighting for the soul of the Christ Child.

When they leave the parking garage that night, a Ford Bronco pulls off the curb and follows them. The kids don’t notice, of course-they’re sound asleep-and neither do Althea, Josefina and Guadalupe, but Art keeps track of him in the rearview mirror. Art plays with him for a while through the traffic, but the car stays with him. Not even trying to disguise himself, Art thinks, so he’s trying to make a point, send a message.

When Art pulls into the driveway, the car passes, then turns around, then parks across the street a half-block away.

Art gets his family inside, then makes an excuse about forgetting something in the car. He goes out, walks over to the Bronco and knocks on the window. When the window slides down, Art leans in, pins the man to the seat, reaches into his left lapel pocket and hauls out his wallet.

He tosses the wallet with the Jalisco State Police badge back onto the cop’s lap.

“That’s my family in there,” Art says. “If you scare them, if you frighten them, if they even get the idea you’re out here, I’m going to come back, take that pistola you have on your hip and shove it so far up your ass it’ll come out your mouth. Do you understand me, brother?”

“I’m just doing my job, brother.”

“Then do it better.”

But Tio’s message has been delivered, Art thinks as he walks back into the house-you don’t fuck your friends.

After a mostly sleepless night, Art gets up, makes himself a cup of coffee and sips at it until his family wakes up. Then he fixes the kids’ breakfast, kisses Althea good-bye and drives toward the office.

On the way he stops at a phone booth to commit professional suicide-he calls the Pierce County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Department. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and tells them about the eight hundred boxes of cocaine.

Then he goes to the office and waits for a phone call of his own.

Althea’s driving back from the grocery store the next morning when a strange car starts to follow her. Not even being subtle about it, just getting on her tail and staying there. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s afraid to drive home and get out of the car, and she’s afraid to go anywhere else, so she heads for the DEA office. She’s absolutely terrified-her two kids are in car seats in the back-and she’s three full blocks from the office when the car forces her over and four men with guns get out.

The leader flashes a Jalisco State Police badge.

“Identification, Senora Keller?” he asks.

Her hand shakes as she fumbles for her driver’s license. As she does, he leans through the window, looks in the back and says, “Nice children.”

She feels stupid as she hears herself say, “Thank you.”

She hands him the license.

“Passport?”

“It’s at home.”

“You’re supposed to have it on you.”

“I know, but we’ve been here a long time and-”

“Maybe you’ve been here too long,” the cop says. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.”

“But I have my children with me.”

“I can see that, Senora, but you must come with me.”

Althea finds herself near tears. “But what am I supposed to do with my children?”

The cop excuses himself for a moment and goes back to his car. Althea sits, trying to get herself under control, for long minutes. She fights off the temptation to look in the rearview mirror to see what’s going on, likewise fights the urge to just get out of the car with the kids and start walking. Finally, the cop comes back. Leans through the window and with elaborate courtesy says, “In Mexico we appreciate the meaning of family. Good afternoon.”

Art gets his phone call.

Tim Taylor, phoning to say he’s heard something disturbing and they need to talk about it.

Taylor’s still yapping at him when the shooting starts.

Plan B.

First they hear the roar of a speeding car, then the cacophony of AK-47s going off, then they are all on the floor, crouching behind desks. Art, Ernie and Shag wait for a few minutes after the shooting stops and then go out to look at Art’s car. The Ford Taurus’s windows are all blown out, the tires flat and a few dozen large bullet holes punched into its sides.

Shag says, “I don’t think you’re going to get Blue Book on this, boss.”

The federales are there within moments.

If they weren’t here already, Art thinks.

They take him to the station, where Colonel Vega looks at him with deep concern.

“Thank God you were not in the vehicle,” he says. “Whoever could have done such a thing? Do you have any enemies in the city, Senor Keller?”

“You know goddamn well who did this,” Art snaps. “Your boy, Barrera.”

Vega gives him a look of wide-eyed incredulity. “Miguel Angel Barrera? But why would he want to do such a thing? You yourself told me you are not investigating Don Miguel.”

Vega keeps him in the interview room for three and a half hours, basically interrogating him about his investigations, on the pretext of trying to determine who might have had a motive for the attack.

Ernie’s half-afraid he’s not coming out. He parks himself in the lobby and refuses to leave until his boss comes back out those doors. While Ernie’s camped there, Shag drives over to the Kellers’ house and tells Althea, “Art’s fine, but…”

When Art gets home, Althea is in their bedroom packing.

“I got us on a flight to San Diego tonight,” she says. “We’ll stay with my parents for a while.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was scared today, Art,” she says. She tells him about the interaction with the Jalisco cop, about what it felt like to hear that his car had been shot up and that he was being taken to the federale station. “I’ve never been really scared before, Art. I want out of Mexico.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of.”

She looks at him like he’s nuts. “They shot your car up, Art.”

“They knew I wasn’t in it.”

“So when they bomb the house,” she says, “are they going to know that me and the kids aren’t in it?!”

“They won’t hurt families.”

“What is that,” she asks, “some sort of rule?”

“Yes, it is,” he says. “Anyway, it’s me they’re after. It’s personal.”

“What do you mean, 'it’s personal'?”

When he hasn’t answered after about thirty seconds she says, “Art, what do you mean?!”

He sits her down and tells her about his prior relationship with Tio and Adan Barrera. Tells her about the ambush in Badiraguato, the execution of six prisoners and how he kept his mouth shut about it. How it helped Tio form his Federacion, which is now flooding the streets of America with crack, and how it’s up to him to do something about it.

She looks at him incredulously. “You have all that on your shoulders.”

He nods.

“You must be a pretty powerful guy, Art,” she says. “What were you supposed to have done back then? It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known what Barrera was up to.”

“I think,” Art says, “maybe a part of me knew. And just didn’t want to admit it.”

“So you feel you have to atone for this in some way?” she asks. “By bringing the Barreras down? Even if it costs your life.”

“Something like that.”

She gets up and goes into the bathroom. It seems to him as if she’s in there forever, but it’s really only a few minutes later when she comes out, goes into the closet, grabs his suitcase and tosses it onto the bed. “Come with us.”

“I can’t do that.”

“This crusade of yours is more important to you than your family?” she asks.

“Nothing is more important to me than my family.”

“Prove it,” she says. “Come with us.”

“Althea-”

“You want to stay here and play High Noon, fine,” she says. “If you want to keep your family together, start packing. Just enough for a few days. Tim Taylor said he’d arrange to have the rest of our things packed and shipped.”

“You talked to Tim Taylor about this?!”

“He called,” she says. “Which is more than you did, by the way.”

“I was in an interrogation room!”

“Which is supposed to make me feel better?!”

“Goddamn it, Althie! What do you want from me?!”

“I want you to come with us!”

“I can’t!”

He sits on the bed, his empty suitcase beside him like a piece of evidence that he doesn’t love his family. He does love them-deeply and profoundly-but he just can’t bring himself to do what she’s asking.

Why not? he asks himself. Is Althea right? Do I love this crusade more than my own family?

“Don’t you get it?” she asks. “This isn’t about the Barreras. It’s about you. It’s about you not being able to forgive yourself. It’s not them you’re obsessed with punishing, it’s yourself.”

“Thanks for the dime-store psychotherapy.”

“Fuck you, Art.” She snaps her suitcase shut. “I called a taxi.”

“At least let me take you to the airport.”

“Not unless you’re getting on the plane. It’s too hard on the kids.”

He picks up her bag and carries it downstairs. Stands there with her bag in his hand as she and Josefina exchange hugs and tears. He squats down to hug Cassie and Michael. Michael doesn’t really understand. Cassie’s tears are warm on Art’s cheek.

“Why aren’t you coming, Daddy?” she asks.

“I have some work I have to do,” Art says. “I’ll be along in just a little bit.”

“But I want you to come with us!”

“You’ll have so much fun with Grandpa and Grandma,” he says.

A horn beeps and he carries their bags outside.

The street is crowded with a posada, the local kids dressed as Joseph and Mary and kings and shepherds. The latter bang their staffs, decked out with ribbons and flowers, in time with the music of a little band that follows the procession down the street. Art has to hand the bags over the children to the cab driver.

“Aeropuerto,” Art says.

“Yo se,” the cabbie says.

As the driver puts the luggage in the trunk, Art gets the kids into the backseat. He hugs and kisses them again and keeps a smile on his face as he says good-bye. Althea is standing awkwardly by the front passenger door. Art hugs her and goes to kiss her but she turns to take it on her cheek.

“I love you,” he says.

“Take care of yourself, Art.”

She gets in. Art watches until the cab’s red taillights disappear in the night. Then he turns and makes his way through the posada, hears the singing in the background “Come in, you holy pilgrims Into this humble house It is a poor lodging But it is a gift from the heart-“

He sees the white Bronco still parked down the street and heads for it, bumping into a little boy who asks the ritual question: “A place to stay tonight, Senor? Do you have a room for us?”

“What?”

“A place to stay-”

“No, not tonight.”

He makes it over to the Bronco and knocks on the window. When it slides down, he grabs the cop, pulls him out of the window and hits him with three straight, hard rights before slamming him onto the street. Holding him by the shirtfront, he hits him over and over again, yelling, “I told you not to fuck with my family! I told you not to fuck with my family!”

Two of the local parents pull him off.

He shucks himself out of their grip and starts to walk back to his house. As he does, he sees the cop, still lying on the ground, reach around and pull the pistol from his hip holster.

“Do it,” Art says. “Do it, motherfucker.”

The cop lowers his gun.

Art makes his way through the shocked crowd and goes into his house. He kills two strong scotches, then goes to bed.

Art spends Christmas Day with Ernie and Teresa Hidalgo, at their insistence and over his objections. He gets there late, not wanting to watch Ernesto Jr. and Hugo open their presents, but he arrives with toys in his hands and the boys, already crazed with overstimulation, jump around, screaming, “Tio Arturo! Tio Arturo!”

He feigns an appetite. Teresa has gone to great trouble to make a traditional turkey dinner (traditional for him, not for a Hispanic household), so he forces himself to down a great quantity of turkey and mashed potatoes, which he really doesn’t want. He insists on clearing the table, and it’s in the kitchen that Ernie says to him, “Boss, I’ve been offered a transfer to El Paso.”

“Oh?”

“I’m going to take it.”

“Okay.”

Ernie has tears in his eyes. “It’s Teresa. She’s scared here. For me, for the boys.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Look, I don’t blame you.”

Tio has unleashed his federale dogs to harass the DEA agents in Guadalajara. The federales have come to the office, searching for guns, illegal wiretapping equipment, even drugs. They’ve stopped the agents in their cars two or three times a day on the flimsiest of pretexts. And Tio’s sicarios drive past their houses at night, or park across the street, wave to them in the morning when they come out to get their newspapers.

So Art doesn’t blame Ernie for bugging out. Just because I’ve lost my family, he thinks, doesn’t mean he should lose his. He says, “I think you’re doing the right thing, Ernie.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“Don’t be.”

They share an awkward hug.

When it breaks up, Ernie says, “It’ll be a month or so before the new job opens up, so…”

“Sure. We’ll do some damage before you go.”

Art excuses himself shortly after dessert. He can’t stand the thought of going back to his empty house, so he drives around until he finds an open bar. Sits on a stool and has two drinks that don’t numb him enough to face going home, so instead he drives to the airport.

Sits in his car on the ridge over the airfield and watches the SETCO flight come in. “On Dancer, on Prancer,” he says to himself. “On Donner, on Blitzen.” Santa’s sleigh coming in with goodies for all the good children.

We could seize enough snow to cover a Minnesota winter, he thinks, and the snow would just keep coming. We could seize enough cash to pay off the national debt, and the cash would just keep rolling in. As long as the Mexican Trampoline is still in operation it doesn’t matter. The coke just bounces from Colombia to Honduras to Mexico and then into the States. Gets turned into crack and bounces merrily onto the street.

The white DC-4 sits on the runway.

This coke isn’t meant to be snorted by stockbrokers or starlets. This coke is going to be smoked as crack-sold at ten bucks a rock to the poor, mostly black and Hispanic. This coke ain’t going to Wall Street or Hollywood; it’s going to Harlem and Watts, to South Chicago and East L.A., to Roxbury and Barrio Logan.

Art sits up on the ridge and watches the federales finish loading the coke into trucks. The usual SETCO drill, he thinks, smooth and intocable, and he’s about to go home when something new happens.

The federales start loading something on to the plane. Art watches as they lift crate after crate into the DC-4’s cargo hold.

What the hell? he thinks.

He swings his binocs around and sees Tio supervising the load-in.

What the hell? What could they be loading on to the plane?

He considers it on the drive home.

Okay, he thinks, you have airplanes flying coke out of Colombia. The planes aren’t guided by any radio signals, and they fly under the radar. They stop and refuel in Honduras under the protection of Ramon Mette, whose partner is an old Operation 40 Cuban ex-pat.

The planes then fly to Guadalajara, where they’re off-loaded under Tio’s protection and distributed to one of the three cartels-Gulf, Sonora or Baja. The cartels take the coke across the border to safe houses, then deliver it back to the Colombians at $1,000 a kilo. Then the Mexican cartels pay Tio a percentage of that fee.

It’s the Mexican Trampoline, Art thinks, cocaine bouncing from Medellin to Honduras to Mexico to the States. And the Honduran DEA office is closed, Mexico doesn’t want to do anything about it, and the DEA, the Justice Department and the State Department don’t want to know. See no evil, hear no evil, and for God’s sake speak no evil.

Okay, that’s old news.

What’s different?

What’s different is two-way traffic. Now you have something going back the other way.

But what?

He’s thinking about this as he unlocks the door and goes into his empty house and feels a gun barrel shoved into the back of his head.

“Don’t turn around.”

“I won’t.” Fuckin’ A, I won’t. I’m scared enough just feeling the gun. I don’t need to see it.

“See how fucking easy it is, Art?” the man says. “To get to you?”

It’s an American voice, Art thinks. East Coast. New York. He risks a look down, but all he can see are the tips of the man’s shoes.

Black, shined to a mirror-like gloss.

“I get that, Sal,” Art says.

The subsequent moment of silence tell him he’s right.

“That was really fucking stupid, Art,” Sal says.

He pulls the trigger.

Art hears the dry, metallic click.

“Jesus God,” he says. His knees feel weak, like water, like he’s going to fall down. His heart is racing, his body hot. He feels like he can’t breathe.

“The next chamber ain’t empty, Art.”

“Okay.”

“Knock this shit off,” Sal says. “You don’t know what you’re fucking with.”

Same thing Adan told me, Art thinks. Same words.

“Did Barrera send you?” he asks.

“When you got a gun at my head, you can ask the questions,” Sal says. “I’m telling you, stay away from the airport. Next time-and there’d better not be a next time, Arthur-we won’t be having a 'dialogue.’ You’ll just be alive, and then you won’t. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Sal says. “I’m going to be leaving now. Don’t turn around. And Arthur?”

“Yeah?”

“Cerberus.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” the man says. “Don’t turn around.”

Art doesn’t turn around as he hears Sal walk away. He stands where he is for a full minute, until he hears a car on the street pull away.

Then he sits down and starts shaking. It takes a few minutes and a heavy scotch to get it together, but he tries to think it through.

Stay away from the airport.

So whatever it is they were loading on that plane, Art thinks, they’re very sensitive about it.

And what the hell is Cerberus?

He looks out the window, and there’s another Jalisco cop out there on surveillance. He goes into his study and calls Ernie at home. “I need you to bring a car over here. Come in the other way, and park it two blocks south. Take a cab home.”

He lets himself out the back way, through the kitchen door, then climbs over the back fence into his neighbor’s yard and out onto the back street. He finds Ernie’s car where it’s supposed to be, but there’s a problem.

Ernie’s still in it.

“I told you to take a cab home,” Art says as he slides in.

“I guess I didn’t hear that part.”

“Go home,” Art says. When Ernie doesn’t move, he says, “Look, I don’t want to fuck up your life, too.”

“When are you going to let me in on this?” Ernie asks as he gets out of the car.

“When I know what I’m doing,” Art says.

Like, maybe never.

He gets into Ernie’s car and drives to La Casa del Amor.

What if they’re waiting for me? he thinks as he makes his way over to the wall to retrieve the tape.

You’ll just be alive, and then you won’t.

Click.

Out.

He shakes off his fear and makes his way through the shrubbery to the wall. Takes a quick glance over the top and sees that Tio’s bedroom light is on. Crouching by the wall, he taps his earpiece into the tape recorder so he can listen live.

They say eavesdroppers never hear anything nice about themselves, Art thinks as he listens.

“Did it work?” Tio asks.

“I don’t know.” Sal’s Spanish is pretty good, Art thinks, but it’s definitely the same voice. “I think so, though. The guy seemed pretty scared.”

Yeah, no shit, Art thinks. Let me stick a gun in your neck and see how cool you are.

“Did he know anything about Cerberus?”

“I don’t think so. He didn’t respond at all.”

Relax, Art thinks. I don’t know shit about it. Whatever it is.

Then he hears Tio say, “We can’t take the chance. The next exchange…”

Exchange? Art thinks. What exchange?

“… we’ll do El Norte.”

El Norte, Art thinks.

In the States.

Yeah, Art thinks. Do it, Tio.

Fly it across the border.

Because as soon as you do?

I’m going to reach up and grab that plane right out of the sky.

Borrego Springs, California

January 1985

The plane, any plane really, flies toward a VOR signal. A VOR (Variable Oscillation Radio) signal is kind of like the radio version of a lighthouse, but instead of a beam of light it emits sound waves that register as beeps on a plane’s radio or a pulsing light on its instrument panel. All airports, even small ones, have a VOR.

But a plane full of dope isn’t going to land at an airport in the United States, not even a small one. What it’s going to do is land on a private airstrip bulldozed out of a remote part of the desert. The VOR signals are still crucial because the pilot is going to locate the landing strip by triangulating the location between three VOR signals, in this case, the VORs at Borrego Springs, Ocotillo Wells and Blythe. What happens is that the people on the ground are going to get on the ADF radio and give him that location, cross-referencing it by distance and compass points-called “vectors” in air navigation-from the three known locations of the VORs.

Then they’re going to park at the end of that landing strip, and when they see the plane, they’ll become their own landing tower, if you will, by flashing their headlights. The pilot will line his plane up toward the headlights and bring down the plane, with its valuable cargo.

For security reasons, the guys on the ground aren’t going to give that pilot the landing location until he’s in the air, because once he’s in the air, what could happen?

Well, lots, because the F in ADF stands for “frequency,” and that’s what Art has from listening in on Tio’s conversations, and he’s tuned in on it so he’s going to know the landing location just as soon as the pilot does. But that’s not good enough-Art’s crew can’t wait for him to land and then bust everyone, because they can’t get close enough without being spotted long before the plane gets there.

Once you get out of the little town of Borrego Springs, California, the Anza-Borrego Desert is a million acres of nothing, and if you turn on so much as a flashlight, it’s going to stand out like a spotlight. And it’s quiet out there, so a jeep sounds like an armored column. You’re not going to get close even if you can get there in time once you learn the location.

This is why Art is going in a different direction-instead of trying to chase the plane down and then sneak up on it, he’s just going to land it at his own airstrip.

It’s outrageous, his plan. It’s so out there, so totally crazed, that no one’s going to expect it.

First he needs an airstrip.

Turns out that Shag knows a rancher out there where it takes about a hundred acres to feed a single cow. So Shag’s old buddy has him a few thousand acres and, yes, he has a landing strip because, as Shag explains to Art, “old Wayne flies to Ocotillo to buy his groceries,” and he ain’t kidding. And as old Wayne’s opinion of drug dealers is about the same as his opinion of the federal government, he’s happy to host this little ambush, and even happier to keep his mouth shut about it.

Next thing Art needs is a co-conspirator, because the aforementioned Washington, D.C., would be somewhat less than thrilled to have the Guadalajara RAC conduct a stunt like this several hundred miles away from his assigned territory. What Art needs is someone who can make the necessary arrests and seizures, get it in the press and then start to track the airplane back without any interference from the DEA or the State Department. So that’s why he has Russ Dantzler sitting next to him.

Another thing Art needs to do is jam the pilot’s ADF, switch him over to a new frequency and then talk him down to the party at old Wayne’s ranch.

So the most important thing Art needs is, as old Wayne might put it, one big old shitload of luck.

Adan’s sitting in the front of a Land Rover in the middle of the chingada desert with a few million dollars’ worth of coke in the air and his future in his hands.

And now the chingada radio won’t work.

“What’s wrong with it?” he snaps again.

“I don’t know,” the young technician repeats, fiddling with knobs, dials and switches, trying to get the signal back. “Electrical storm, something on the plane… I’m trying.”

The kid sounds scared. He should-Raul takes out a. 44 and points it at the kid’s head. “Try harder.”

“Put that away,” Adan snaps. “That’s not going to help.”

Raul shrugs and tucks the pistol back into his belt.

But the radio-geek kid’s hand is shaking on the dials now. This isn’t the way it was supposed to go down-he was just supposed to do a little easy work for a little easy coke, and now they’re threatening to blow his brains out if he can’t get the plane on the ADF.

And he can’t.

All he can get is a Led Zeppelin-on-acid kind of guitar-feedback squeal. And his hand is rattling on the dials.

“Relax,” Adan says. “Just get the plane in.”

“I’m trying,” the kid repeats, looking like he’s going to cry.

Adan looks at Raul like, See what you did?

Raul frowns.

Especially when Jimmy Peaches walks over and taps on the window. “The fuck is going on?”

“We’re trying to get the plane on the radio,” Adan says.

“How hard is that?” Peaches asks.

“Harder if you keep bothering us,” Raul says. “Go back, hang in your truck, everything’s cool.”

No, everything isn’t cool, Peaches thinks as he walks back to the truck. First thing that isn’t cool is I’m out here playing Lawrence of Arabia in East Bumfuck, second thing is I’m sitting in a truck chock-fulla felony, third thing is I got major non-returnable investment in the truck that I leveraged with other people’s money, fourth thing is them other people is Johnny Boy Cozzo, Johnny’s brother Gene, and Sal Scachi, none of which is exactly known for his forgiving nature, which brings me to the fifth thing, which is that if Big Paulie ever gets wind we’re dealing dope he’s gonna have us whacked-the “us” starting with “me”-which leads me to the sixth thing, which is that all the coke is now in an airplane somewhere in the sky and these beaners can’t seem to find it.

“Now they can’t find the fucking plane,” he says to Little Peaches as he climbs back into the truck.

“What do you mean?” Little Peaches asks.

“Which word didn’t you fucking understand?”

“Irritable.”

“Fucking A, I’m irritable.”

Drive all the way out to California with a truck full of guns, and not just a few pistols but major freaking weaponry-M-16s, AR-15s, ammo, they even got a couple of LAWs back there, and what the fucking Mexicans need rocket launchers for I’ll never know. But that was the deal-the beaners wanted to get paid in weapons this time, so I get the money from the Cozzos and Sal, add a little secret surcharge to cover my end and haul ass all over the East Coast hustling up this freaking arsenal. Then I drive it all the way across the country, shitting my pants every time I see a state trooper because I got Life in Lewisburg in the back.

Peaches is also irritable because things in the Cimino Family ain’t going so well.

First of all, Big Paulie has his panties in a wad about the Commission Case, what with New York Eastern District D.A. Giuliani threatening to lay about a century each on the heads of the other four families. So Paulie ain’t letting them do nothing to earn a living. No robberies, no hits and, of course, no dope. And when they kick it up the chain that they’re fucking starving here, the answer comes back down that they should have invested their money.

They should have legitimate businesses to fall back on.

Which is bullshit, Peaches thinks. All the fucking hoops you gotta jump through to get made-for what? Sell shoes?

Fuck that.

Fucking Paulie is such a fucking woman.

Peaches has even started calling him the Godmother.

Just the other day on the phone, him and Little Peaches were talking about it.

“Hey,” Peaches says, “you know that maid the Godmother is pronging? You ready for this? I hear he’s got this pump-up dick he uses.”

“How does that work?” Little Peaches asks.

“Nothin’ I want to think about,” Peaches says. “I guess it’s like a flat tire, and you pump it up to get it hard.”

“He’s got, what, like an inner tube in his dick?”

“I guess so,” Peaches says. “Anyway, it’s wrong what he’s doing, tappin’ the maid right there in the house where his wife is living. It’s disrespectful. Thank God Carlo ain’t alive to see it.”

“If Carlo was alive, there’d be nothing to see,” Little Peaches says. “Paulie wouldn’t have the balls, never mind the inflatable dick, to fuck some whore in the house right in front of Carlo’s sister. What Paulie would be is dead, is what.”

“Your lips to God’s ears,” says Peaches. “You want some strange, fine-go get yourself some strange. You want a little something on the side, get it on the side, not in the house. The house is the wife’s home. You respect that. That’s our way.”

“That’s right.”

“It’s all so fuckin’ bad right now,” Big Peaches says. “And when Mr. Neill finally passes… I’m telling you, the underboss job better go to Johnny Boy.”

“Paulie ain’t gonna make John underboss,” Little Peaches says. “He’s too scared of him. The job’s going to Bellavia, you watch.”

“Tommy Bellavia is Paulie’s chauffeur,” Big Peaches snorts. “He’s a cabbie, for chrissakes. I’m not reporting to no fucking chauffeur. I’m telling you, it better be John.”

Little Peaches says, “Anyway, we can’t take no chances on this shipment. We gotta get it and put it out on the street and get some fuckin’ money in here.”

“I hear that.”

Callan’s thinking pretty much the same thing as he sits in the back of the truck in the middle of a cold desert night. Wishes he had more than just his old leather jacket.

“Who knew,” O-Bop says to him, “that it would be cold in the fucking desert?”

“What’s going on?” Callan asks.

He doesn’t like this shit. Doesn’t like being out of New York, doesn’t like being out in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t even like what they’re doing here. He sees what’s going on in the streets, what crack is doing to the neighborhood, to the whole city. He feels bad-it’s not a right way to make a living. The union shit is one thing, the construction shit, the loan-sharking, the gambling-even the contracts-but he don’t really like helping Peaches put crack on the street.

“What are we gonna do?” O-Bop had said when it came up. “Say no?”

“Yeah.”

“This thing fucks up, it’s our ass, too.”

“I know.”

So here they are, sitting in the back of a truck on top of enough weaponry to take a small banana republic, waiting for the plane to come down so they can make the exchange and go home.

Unless the Mexicans get cute, in which case Callan has ten. 22 rounds in the clip and another in the chamber.

“You got an arsenal in here,” O-Bop asks. “What you want with a. 22?”

“It’s enough.”

Fuck yes it is, O-Bop thinks, remembering Eddie Friel.

Fuck yes it is.

“Find out what’s going on,” Callan says.

O-Bop bangs on the wall. “What’s going on?!”

“They can’t find the fucking plane!”

“You’re kidding!”

“Yeah, I’m kidding!” Peaches yells back. “The plane landed, we made the switch and we’re all sitting at Rocco’s eating linguini with clam sauce!”

“How do you lose a whole airplane?” Callan asks.

There’s nothing out here.

That’s the problem. The pilot is eight thousand feet over the desert, looking at nothing but dark down there. He can find Borrego Springs, he can find Ocotillo Wells or Blythe, but unless someone gets on the horn and gives him the landing location, he has as much chance of finding that airstrip as he does of seeing the Cubs win the World Series.

Zip.

It’s a problem because he has only so much fuel, and pretty soon he’s going to have to think about turning around and flying back to El Salvador. He tries the radio again and gets the same metallic squeal. Then he turns it up one half-frequency and hears “Come in, come in.”

“Where the hell you been?” the pilot asks. “You’re on the wrong frequency.”

Says you, Art thinks.

Saint Anthony is the patron saint of hopeless causes, and Art makes a mental note to thank him with a candle and a twenty-dollar bill as Shag says into the radio mike, “You want to bitch or you want to land?”

“I want to land.”

The small knot of men huddled around the radio on this freezing night look at one another and flat-out grin. It warms them up considerably because they’re within moments of landing, literally, a SETCO flight full of cocaine.

Unless it all goes sick and wrong.

As it very well could.

Shag doesn’t care. “My career’s fucked anyway.”

He gives the pilot the landing coordinates.

“Ten minutes,” the pilot says.

“I copy. Out.”

“Ten minutes,” Art says.

“A long ten minutes,” says Dantzler.

A lot can happen in ten minutes. In ten minutes the pilot might get hinky, change his mind and turn the plane around. In ten minutes, the real airstrip might break through Dantzler’s radio jam and make contact with the plane, guiding it to the correct location. In ten minutes, Art thinks, there could be an earthquake that sends a crack down the middle of this airstrip and swallows us all. In ten minutes. ..

He lets out a long sigh.

“No shit,” Dantzler says.

Shag smiles at him.

Adan Barrera isn’t smiling.

His stomach is churning, his jaw is clamped tight. This is the deal that can’t be allowed to go wrong, Tio had warned him. This one has to happen.

For a lot of reasons, Adan thinks.

He’s a married man now. He and Lucia were married in Guadalajara with Father Juan performing the ceremony himself. It had been a wonderful day, and a more wonderful night, after years of frustration finally getting inside Lucia. She had been a surprise in bed, a more-than-willing partner, enthusiastically wriggling and writhing, calling his name, her blond hair splayed on the pillow in unconscious symmetry with her open legs.

So married life is great, but with marriage comes responsibility, especially now that Lucia is pregnant. That, Adan thinks as he sits out in the desert, changes everything. Now you’re playing for keeps. Now you’re about to be a papa, with a family to support, their future in your hands. He’s not unhappy about this-on the contrary, he’s thrilled, he’s excited to be taking on a man’s responsibility, delighted beyond measure by the thought of having a child-but it means that more than ever, this deal cannot be allowed to go wrong.

“Try another frequency,” he tells the technician.

“I’ve tried every-”

He sees Raul touch the butt of the pistol in his belt.

“I’ll try them again,” he says, even though he’s now convinced it’s not the frequency. It’s the equipment, the radio itself. Who knows what might have gotten jarred loose, bouncing around out here? People are always the same, he thinks. They have millions of dollars of coke floating around somewhere up there, but they aren’t willing to spend an extra couple hundred bucks on a radio to bring it in. Instead I have to work with this cheap shit.

He doesn’t offer this critique to his employers, though.

He just keeps twirling the knobs.

Adan stares up into the night sky.

The stars seem so low and so bright he feels like he can almost reach up and pull one down. He wishes he could do the same thing with the airplane.

So does Art.

Because there’s nothing up there, nothing but the stars and a sliver of moon.

He checks his watch.

Heads turn as if he’s pulled a gun.

It’s been ten minutes.

You’ve had your ten minutes, he thinks. You’ve had your endless, nerve-rattling, stomach-turning, heart-pounding ten minutes, so stop playing with us. Stop the torture.

He looks into the sky again.

It’s what they’re all doing, standing in the cold, staring at the sky like some prehistoric tribe, trying to figure out what it all means.

“It’s over,” Art says a minute later. “He must have figured it out.”

“Shiiit,” says Shag.

“Sorry, Art,” Dantzler says.

“Sorry, boss.”

“It’s all right,” Art says. “We gave it a shot.”

But it isn’t all right. They probably won’t ever get another chance to land physical proof that the Mexican Trampoline is real.

And they’ll close the Guadalajara office and bust us up and that will be it.

“We’ll give it another five minutes and then-”

“Shut up,” Shag says.

They all stare at him-it’s uncharacteristically brusque of the cowboy.

“Listen,” he says.

Then they can just make it out.

The sound of an engine.

An airplane engine.

Shag sprints to the truck, fires up the engine and blinks the lights.

The plane’s running lights blink back. In two minutes Art watches the plane come down from the blackness and land smoothly.

The pilot breathes a sigh of relief as he sees a man trot over.

Then the man sticks a gun in his face.

“Surprise, asshole,” Russ Dantzler says. “You have the right to remain silent…”

Silent?

The guy is motherfucking speechless.

Shag isn’t. He’s in the car with Art, doing a cowboy Bundini Brown. “You are the greatest, boss! You have the arms of an orangutan! You are King Kong! You reach into the sky and pull down airplanes!”

Art laughs. Then he sees Dantzler walk over to the car. The San Diego narc is shaking his head, and even in the faint light looks pale.

Shaken.

“Art,” Dantzler begins. “The guy… the pilot… he says.. .”

“What?”

“That he’s working for us.”

Art opens the door to where they have the pilot sitting in the back.

Phil Hansen should be a very nervous guy, but he isn’t. He’s leaning back as if he’s waiting out a traffic ticket that’s going to get fixed anyway. Art would like to slap the smirk off his face.

“Long time no see, Keller,” he says casually, like this is all one big joke.

“What the hell is this about you working for us?”

Hansen looks at him serenely. “Cerberus.”

“What?”

“C'mon. Cerberus? Ilopongo? Hangar Four?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

The smile fades from Hansen’s face. Now he looks alarmed.

“You thought what, you got a pass?” Art asks. “You fly a couple hundred Ks of coke into the United States and you think you get a pass? What makes you think that, asshole?”

“They said you were-”

“They said I was what?”

“Nothing.”

Hansen turns his head and looks out the window.

Art says, “If you have a Get Out of Jail Free card, now is the time to lay it down. Give me a name, Phil. Who do I call?”

“You know who to call.”

“No, I don’t. Tell me.”

“I’m done here.”

He stares out the window.

“Someone fucked you, Phil,” Art says. “I don’t know who told you what, but if you think we’re playing for the same team you’re mistaken. We got you carrying thirty-to-life weight, Phil. You’re going to do fifteen, minimum. But it’s not too late to get on the right side of this. Cooperate with me and if it works out, I’ll see that you get a deal.”

When Hansen turns back to him there are tears in his eyes. He says, “I have a wife and kids in Honduras.”

Ramon Mette, Art thinks. The guy is scared shitless that Mette will retaliate against his family. Tough shit-you should have thought of that before you started flying coke around. “You want to see them before they have kids of their own? Talk to me.”

Art’s seen the look before-he calls it the Skell Scale, the guilty guy weighing his options, realizing to his horror that there is no good option, just a less bad one. He waits for Hansen to work it out.

Hansen shakes his head.

Art slams the car door and walks out into the desert for a minute. He could bust the plane now, but what good would it do? It would prove that SETCO is flying drugs, but he already knows that. And it wouldn’t tell him what’s going back as cargo on the return trip, and to whom.

No, it’s time to take another big chance.

He walks back over to Dantzler. “Let’s play this one different. Let the plane go through.”

“What?!”

“Then we can track it three ways,” Art says. “See where the coke goes, see where the money goes, see what’s on the plane going back.”

Dantzler gets on board with it. What the hell is he going to do? It’s Art fucking Keller asking.

Art nods and gets back into the car.

“Just testing,” he tells Hansen. “You passed. Get going.”

Art watches the plane take off again.

Then he gets on the radio to tell Ernie to expect the return SETCO flight, to photograph it and let it go.

But Ernie doesn’t answer.

Ernie Hidalgo has gone off the radar.