The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow
Adán sits quietly, with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
“You know something, Adán?” Art asks. “You’re the reason I hope there’s a hell.”
“Don’t think this is over,” Adán says. “I still owe you for Raúl.”
Art pulls over, gets out, yanks Adán out of the car and pushes him down on his knees. Art draws the .38 from his holster and enjoys the look of fear that comes into Adán’s eyes. He raises the gun, then smashes it into Adán’s face. The first blow cuts the cheek under his left eye, raising an ugly, bleeding welt. The second one breaks his nose. The third one splits his upper lip and breaks two teeth.
Adán topples over with a groan, spitting blood out of his broken mouth.
“That’s just so you know I’m serious,” Art says. “Fuck with me and I swear to God I’ll beat you to death. You understand me?”
Adán nods.
“Who approached you about setting up Parada?”
“Nobody, it was an—”
Yeah, it was an accident, Art thinks. And it was an accident that Tío walked out of prison, an accident that Antonucci gave you absolution. Everything was a fucking accident. Art jerks him up by the hair and smashes the gun butt against his ear.
“Who approached you to set up Parada?”
What the hell? Adán thinks. It doesn’t matter now.
“It was Scachi,” he says.
Art nods. That’s what I thought, he tells himself.
That’s what I thought.
“Why?”
“He knew it all,” Adán says. “Just like me.”
“He knew about Cerberus?”
“Yes.”
“How about Red Mist?”
“That, too.”
Art hauls him back up, marches him to the car and shoves him back in.
It’s time to go to the bridge.
Callan gets in position.
He takes the heavy sniper rifle from its bag, then attaches the tripod and the infrared scope and screws on the silencer. He lies down in the dead grass and sights in on the bridge.
There ain’t gonna be nothing to it. As soon as Keller hands Barrera over, Sal will look up and nod and Callan will take out Keller.
Then just walk away.
Sal will swing by, pick him up on Park Boulevard and take him to Nora. Get their new passports, go to L.A., get on a plane to Paris.
A new life.
He settles in and gets himself ready to kill Art Keller.
Operation Red Mist comes home.
The Cabrillo Bridge spans Highway 63 where it bisects Balboa Park.
Art parks the car just to the west, by the bowling green where the old people come, dressed all in white, to play their slow game in the afternoon sun. He opens the car door and pulls Adán out by the elbow, shows him the .38 holstered on his hip and says, “Please make a run for it.”
Then he pushes Adán out on the west end of the bridge and they start walking east toward the main part of Balboa Park.
The stone of the bridge glows softly gold under the amber lanterns.
To his right Art sees the downtown office towers and the huge red neon sign that reads HOTEL CORTEZ, which dominates the skyline.
Beyond that are the harbor and the ocean and the Coronado Bridge, rising up like a dream from its base in Chicano Park in Barrio Logan, where he grew up. To his left is the chasm of Palm Canyon, the redwoods and star pines looming above the west side of the highway behind him, the San Diego Zoo to the northeast.
Straight ahead is Balboa Park, with the California Tower rising above two tall palm trees like the top of a wedding cake. The bridge itself runs into the Prado, the long broad walkway between the museums and gardens, and at the end of the Prado a tower of water shoots into the night sky from the Balboa plaza.
He’s taken this walk many times.
So they killed Father Juan as part of Red Mist, Art thinks.
And Hobbs ordered it.
For the first time in a long time, Art has perfect clarity.
He sees it all now.
Callan sights in on Keller’s forehead, then his chest, then his forehead again. Make it a head shot, Scachi had told him. The narcos shoot turncoats in the head.
Art sees headlights swirl ahead of them as a car turns in the big circle in the middle of the Prado and then comes toward them. The car, a black Lincoln, stops at the east end of the bridge.
Art sees Scachi get out and open the back door. Hobbs gets out slowly, leaning heavily on his cane even as Scachi steadies him. Then Scachi walks around the back of the car and opens the other door and Nora gets out of the car gracefully, like a woman who’s used to having doors opened for her.
He feels Adán’s arm tense.
Then someone else gets out of the car and he blinks.
The man has aged. His hair is silver now, and so is his mustache. He’s thinner, but he still carries himself like an Old World gentleman.
Ever gallant, Tío takes Nora by the arm.
Adán sees her and smiles.
She looks lovely, all the more so in the soft light. It’s as if she’s gained her vitality back, her femininity. He tries to run to her but Art holds him back. It doesn’t really matter, though, because she’s coming to him.
Don’t get too close.
Is what Callan’s thinking as Nora crosses the bridge. Just get Barrera and walk back to the car. She don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s no reason to let her know. He hopes she’s back in the car by the time he has to pull the trigger.
She don’t need no more blood splattered on her.
They meet just west of the middle of the bridge.
Scachi walks ahead of the rest, comes up to Art and says, “No offense, Arthur. I need your weapon.”
Art slides his jacket back and Scachi takes his .38 and tucks it into his own belt. Then he turns Art around, makes him lean against the bridge railing and frisks him. Finding nothing, he waves for the others to come ahead.
Art watches Tío come toward him with Nora on his arm. Like he’s walking her down the aisle, Art thinks.
Hobbs lags behind.
Tío looks at Adán’s bleeding, broken face and says to Art, “You haven’t changed any, mi sobrino.”
“I should have put one in your head when I had the chance.”
“You should have,” Tío agrees. “But you didn’t.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came so my nephew would know he was being delivered to safety,” Tío says, “and not to be murdered. It looks as if I’m just in time.”
He hugs Adán, both hands behind his head, being careful not to get blood on his suit. “Mi sobrino, Adán, what have they done to you?”
“Tío, it’s good to see you.”
“Take the handcuffs off him, please,” Tío says.
Art steps behind Adán, takes the cuffs off and nudges him forward.
Hobbs looks at Art and says, “You’re a man of your word, Arthur. You’re a man of honor.”
Art shakes his head. “Not really, no.”
He grabs Hobbs and spins the old man in front of him as a shield, his left hand at Hobbs’ neck, the other behind his head. One twist will kill him.
Scachi pulls his gun but is afraid to shoot.
“Put the guns down, Sal, or I’ll break his fucking neck.”
“You do and I’ll kill you.”
“Okay.”
Sal lays his gun on the bridge.
“Now mine.”
Sal lays Keller’s .38 down beside his. Then he looks up at the ridge behind Keller and nods.
Callan sees it.
He puts the crosshairs squarely on the back of Keller’s head and takes a deep breath.
Change your life.
Art says, “Nora, toss one gun over the bridge and give the other to me.”
Adán laughs.
Until Nora goes and throws one of the guns over.
“What are you doing?!” Adán yells.
She loo
“I was the soplón, Adán. It was always me.”
Adán’s head snaps back. “I loved you.”
“You killed the man I loved,” Nora says. “And I never loved you.”
She hands Art the gun.
Sal looks over his shoulder and yells, “Shoot!”
Art spins to face the shooter.
Scachi pulls a second gun from his waistband and trains it on Art’s back.
Callan puts the bullet square into Scachi’s head.
Sal drops from the scope’s sight.
Tío dives and grabs Scachi’s gun.
Art turns.
Tío raises the gun.
Art puts two shots into his chest.
Tío’s hand reflexively pulls the trigger.
The bullet goes through Hobbs’ hip and into Art’s leg.
They both go down.
Hobbs pulls himself up, grabs his cane and starts to stagger away on the bridge, wobbling crazily like a bad stage drunk.
Callan lays his sights on the man’s frail chest.
Blood blossoms on Hobbs’ back.
His cane clatters on the stone.
Adán crawls to Tío.
He takes the gun from his uncle’s hand.
Callan tries to get a shot, but Nora’s in the way.
Art struggles to his knees, sees Adán kneeling by Tío.
Adán’s gun goes off once, twice, both bullets zinging past Art.
Dizzy, he aims his own gun and fires.
The bullet smacks into Tío’s dead body.
Adán shoots again.
Art’s head snaps back, a ribbon of blood swirls in the air, and he falls back into the bridge railing, his gun dropping to the highway below.
Adán turns his gun on Nora.
“GET DOWN!” Callan yells.
Nora drops to the ground.
So does Adán.
He drops to his stomach and crawls along the bridge, firing behind him as he goes.
Callan can’t get a shot through the railings, can’t even see Adán now. He drops his rifle and runs toward the bridge.
Adán gets up and runs.
The pain is ferocious. Blood flows from the deep cut on Art’s forehead into his eyes so that he can barely see. He sways and fights the tunnel vision that’s shrinking his brain, threatening to black him out. He looks up and can just make out the form of Adán running away. Adán looks like he’s running in a fun house, with the floor slanting this way and that.
Art struggles to his feet, falls, then gets up again.
Then he starts to run.
Adán can hear the footsteps chasing him.
Keep running, he tells himself. He knows he doesn’t have to make it across the border, he just has to get into the barrio and knock on the right door and the doors will open for Adán Barrera and close for Art Keller.
So he runs down the Prado, empty now in the small hours of the morning, the museum buildings looming like the walls of a lost city around him. If he can make it off the Prado and onto Park Boulevard he’ll be all right. There’ll be a thousand places he can duck into darkness, then work his way into the barrio.
He sees the fountain maybe fifty yards in front of him, marking the end of the Prado, its light shining on the tower of silver water.
Art sees it, too.
Knows what it means.
Adán gets past that and he’s gone, probably for good. The Twenty-eighth Street boys will hide him, get him back across the border. He forces his legs to move faster, even though every fall of his foot sends a jolt of pain burning through his leg.
He hears sirens in the distance and wonders if they’re real or in his head.
Adán hears them, too, and keeps running.
A few more yards and he’ll be gone.
He turns to see where Keller is.
Art jumps.
Takes Adán high around the shoulders and drives him over the fountain’s low wall and into the water.
Adán gets up and jams his hand into Art’s face, clawing at his eyes.
Art’s head explodes in pain, but he has a grip on Adán’s shirt and won’t let go. Just hold on, Art tells himself, just hold on. Adán’s shirt rips free and he starts to pull away.
Art throws himself blindly, desperately, and feels Adán’s body land under him and hears Adán grunt as the air is blown out of his lungs. Blood rises in the water where Adán struck his head. Art grabs him by his hair and forces his head under the water.
He lifts him up, hears him gasp and then pushes him down again, screaming over the sound of the fountain’s cascade: “This is for Ernie, motherfucker! This is for Pilar Méndez and her children! This is for Ramos!”
He holds him down, loving the feel of the man’s legs kicking helplessly beneath him, loving the feel of his body quivering, his suffering, his dying.
“This is for El Sauzal!”
Art presses down harder. Adán bucks beneath him, his back arching like it’s going to snap. Art doesn’t see that—he sees a baby dead in his mother’s arms. He feels the power of the dog.
“This is for Father Juan!” Art yells.
He jerks Adán’s head up and out of the water.
The two men kneel in the water, gasping for air, their blood swirling around them, water pouring down over their heads.
Art sees red lights flashing, then cops walking up on them, their guns out. He keeps one hand on Adán’s neck and throws the other in the air.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he yells. “I’m a cop! This is my prisoner! This is my prisoner!”
In the distance, as if in a long tunnel, he sees Nora and Callan walking toward him.
Then he falls back into the water.
It feels cool and clean.
Epilogue
An undisclosed location
May 2004
The poppies are in bloom.
Bright orange, bright red.
Art waters them carefully.
And savors the irony.
They didn’t put him in prison, the judge having decided that the former Border Lord wouldn’t have lasted a day in any federal institution. So it’s been a series of safe houses between rounds of testimony, seemingly endless sessions before endless committees, then back to another refuge where he’s relatively safe.
He’s been at this one for three months now and soon it will be time to move again, but he takes it a day at a time, and today is sunny and warm and he’s enjoying the garden in the enclosed courtyard.
He enjoys the solitude.
YOYO, he thinks as he sets down the watering can, sits on the little bench and leans back against the adobe wall.
But not really.
You have your ghosts.
Nora is gone now. She finished testifying and faded into her new life. Art likes to think that she’s with Callan, who likewise disappeared. It’s a pleasant thought.
Adán is serving twelve consecutive life sentences in a federal hole, also a pleasant thought. Art got to sit in the courtroom and watch him be led away in cuffs and ankle chains as Adán shouted back to tell him that the bounty on his head was still good.
And who knows, Art thinks, maybe someone will collect.
The drugs stopped flowing out of Mexico for about fifteen minutes after Adán’s downfall, then new kids on the block stepped up to take his place. There are more drugs coming into the country than ever.
Based on Art’s testimony, Congress launched an intensive investigation into Operation Cerberus and Red Mist and promised action. So far, nothing has been done. The government spends billions of dollars a year in aid to Colombia for drug interdiction. Most of it goes for helicopters to fight the insurgents. The war drags on.