The Border. Don winslow
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by buying a few keys of coke in El Paso or gunning down a few sicarios in El Salvador, you might be too stupid to work here,” Keller says. “But if you want to be in the real war, fly back to Seattle, pack your things, and be here ready to work first thing Monday morning. It’s the best offer you’re going to get, son. I’d take it if I were you.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Good. See you Monday.”
He walks Hugo to the door and thinks, Shit, I just got stood down by Ernie Hidalgo’s kid.
He goes back to the television.
They’ve brought Adán’s body back to Culiacán.
If Ric has to sit there five more minutes, he will blow his brains out.
For sure, this time.
Death would be preferable to sitting on this wooden folding chair staring at a closed coffin full of Adán Barrera’s bones, pretending to be grieving, pretending to be contemplating fond memories of his godfather that he really didn’t have.
The whole thing is gross.
But kind of funny, in a Guillermo del Toro kind of way. The whole concept of a velorio is so people can view the body, but there is no body, not really; they just tossed the skeleton into a coffin that probably cost more than most people’s houses, so it’s kind of like going to a movie where there’s no picture, only sound.
Then there was the whole discussion of what to do with the suit, because you’re supposed to dress the deceased in his best suit so he’s not walking around in the next life looking shabby, but that clearly wasn’t going to work, so what they did was they folded up an Armani they found in one of Adán’s closets and laid it in the coffin.
Even funnier, though, was the dilemma about what else to throw in, because the tradition is you put in stuff that the dead guy liked to do in life, but no one could think of anything that Adán did for fun, anything that he actually liked.
“We could put money in there,” Iván muttered to Ric as they stood on the edge of this conversation. “He sure as shit liked money.”
“Or pussy,” Ric answered.
The word was that his godfather was a major player.
“Yeah, I don’t think they’re going to let you kill some hot bitch and lay her in there with him,” Iván said.
“I dunno,” Ric said. “There’s plenty of room.”
“I’ll give you a thousand bucks to suggest it,” Iván said.
“Not worth it,” Ric said, watching his father and Elena Sánchez in earnest discussion on the topic. No, his dad would not be amused and Elena already didn’t like him. And, anyway, he wouldn’t say anything like that in front of Eva—speaking of hot bitches—who looked … well, hot … in her black dress.
Ric would definitely fuck Eva, who was, after all, his own age, but he wasn’t going to say that, either, not in front of her brother Iván.
“I’d fuck her,” Belinda had said to Ric. “Definitely.”
“You think she goes both ways?”
“Baby,” Belinda said, “with me, they all go both ways. I get anyone I want.”
Ric thought about this for a second. “Not Elena. She has ice down there.”
“I’d melt it,” Belinda said, flicking out her tongue. “And turn it to tears of joy.”
Belinda never lacked for confidence.
Anyway, what they finally decided to put in the coffin was a baseball, because Adán sort of liked baseball—although no one there could remember him going to a single game—an old pair of boxing gloves from Adán’s teenage days as a wannabe boxing promoter, and a photo of the daughter who died so young, which made Ric feel a little bad about wanting to put a dead chick in with him.
So that was that discussion—the more serious debate had been where to hold the velorio in the first place. At first they thought they’d do it at Adán’s mother’s house in his home village of La Tuna, but then they reconsidered that it might be too much on the old lady and also—as Ric’s father had pointed out—“the rural location would present a host of logistical difficulties.”
Okay.
They decided to hold it in Culiacán, where the cemetery was, after all, at someone’s house. The problem was that everyone had a house—actually, houses—in or around the city, so an argument started about whose house they should do it in because it seemed to have some significance.
Elena wanted it at her house—Adán was her brother, after all; Iván wanted it at the Esparza family home—Adán was the son-in-law; Ric’s dad suggested their place in the suburbs of Eldorado, “farther away from prying eyes.”
The fuck difference does it make? Ric wondered, watching the debate get heated. Adán’s not going to care, the guy is dead. But it seemed to matter to them and they really got into it until Eva quietly said, “Adán and I also had a home. We’ll do it there.”
Ric noticed that Iván didn’t look too thrilled about his little sister speaking up. “It’s too much to ask you to host this.”
Why? Ric wondered. It’s not like Adán’s going to be too busy laying out bean dip or something to enjoy his own wake.
“It really is too much, dear,” Elena said.
Ric’s dad nodded. “It’s so far out in the country.”
They finally agree on something, Ric thought.
But Eva said, “We’ll do it there.”
So Ric and everyone else had to drive all the way out to East Buttfuck to Adán’s estancia, up twisting dirt roads, past blockades of state police providing security. Fucking caravans of narcos coming to pay their respects, some out of love, some out of obligation, some out of fear of not being seen there. You got an invitation to Adán Barrera’s velorio and you no-showed, you might be the guest of honor for the next one.
His dad and Elena had made most of the arrangements, so of course it was perfect. Helicopters circling overhead, armed security prowling the grounds, parking valets with nines strapped to their waists.
Guests crowded the sloping front lawn. Tables with white cloths had been set out and were heavy with platters of food, bottles of wine, and pitchers of beer, lemonade, and water. Waiters walked around with trays of hors d’oeuvres.
One of Rudolfo Sánchez’s norteño bands played from a gazebo.
The walkway up to the house was strewn with marigold petals, a tradition in a velorio.
“They really went all out,” Ric’s wife, Karin, said.
“What did you expect?”
Ric had attended the Autonomous University of Sinaloa for all of two semesters, majoring in business, and all he really learned about economics was that a cheap condom can be far more expensive than a good one. When he told his father that Karin was embarazada, Ricardo told him he was going to do the right thing.
Ric knew what that was: get rid of the thing and break up with Karin.
“No,” Núñez said. “You’re going to get married and raise your child.”
Ric Sr. thought the responsibility of having a family would “make a man” out of his son. It sort of did—it made a man who rarely came home and had a mistress who would do everything his wife wouldn’t. Not that he asked her—Karin, while pretty enough, was as dull as Sunday dinner. If he suggested some of the things that Belinda did, she would probably burst out crying and lock herself in the bathroom.