The Power of the Dog (Power of the Dog, #1)

by Don Winslow

The law of nature, Art supposes—the young lions eventually take on the old.

Mexican fight fans have more respect for what a fighter can take than for what he can dish out. And Art could take it.

He got the lesson, too: YOYO. You’re On Your Own. Which was a good lesson to learn because the DEA just chucked him into Culiacán, virtually on his own. “Just get the lay of the land” is what Taylor told him at the start of a cliché-fest that also included “Get your feet wet,” “Easy does it” and, honest to God, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”

They have a nose for guys like me, Art thought later. The lost, the lonely, the bicultural misfits with a foot in two worlds and a place in neither. And you were perfect for them—smart, street-tough, ambitious. You looked white but you fought brown. All you needed was the polish, and they gave you that. Then came the small errands: “Arturo, there’s a Bolivian professor visiting.

“My name is Adán. That’s my brother, Raúl.” Raúl looked down at Art and nodded. “You didn’t quit, Yanqui. I thought you’d quit.” No “faggot” this time, Art noted. “If I had any brains, I’d have quit,” he said. “You fight like a Mexican,” Raúl said. Ultimate praise.

“We’re going out for some beers,” Adán said. “You want to come?” Yeah, Art thought. Yeah, I do. So he spent the night downing beers in a cafetín with Adán. Years later, Art would have given anything in the world to have just killed Adán Barrera on the spot.

You don’t let them knock you out, you make them knock you out. You make them break their fucking hands knocking you out, you let them know that they’ve been in a fight, you give them something to remember you by every time they look in a mirror.

“Learning to deal with disappointment is part of becoming a man,”

“What we lack in subtlety, we make up for with a lack of subtlety.”

“In America, everything is about systems,” Barrera said. “In Mexico, everything is about personal relationships.”

Condor, Phoenix, what’s the difference? Hell is hell, whatever you name it.

So Navarres is angry, and humiliated, and that makes a proud man a dangerous man.

The chopper is about to take off. The rotors are spinning, kicking dust and pebbles in Art’s face. He jumps out of the Jeep, ducks below the rotors and runs up to the pilot, Phil Hansen. “Phil, what the hell?!” Art shouts. Phil grins at him. “Two birds!” Art recognizes the reference: You take two birds up. One flies, the other sings.

“Who’s in the car, Stevie?” There are four guys in the car. Three more guys standing around outside. Real casual like. Smoking cigs, drinking coffee, shooting the shit. Like a mob announcement to the neighborhood—we’re going to whack somebody here so you might want

Jimmy’s got the knife in him before Matty can say “Gosh and begorra.” Sticks the blade in under the left pectoral and shoves it upward. Rolls the blade around a little to make sure there’ll be no difficult ethical decisions at the hospital.

They take a subway to Queens because O-Bop says he doesn’t want to come out of a happy, successful meeting and get into his car and have it go boom. “Italians don’t do bombs,” Peaches tries to tell him. “That’s Irish shit.”

Act of Contrition. Then Calabrese laughs.

“Not exactly the profile of a drug lord,” Shag says. Shag is a good old boy out of Tucson, a Vietnam vet who found his way from military intelligence into the DEA, and is in his own quiet way as much of a hard-ass as Ernie is. He uses his “aw-shucks” cowboy persona to disguise his smarts, and a number of drug dealers are now in prison because they underestimated Shag Wallace.

But you think you’re safe, don’t you, Tío? And the most dangerous place on earth— Is where you’re safe.

With a proper regard to cop etiquette, Dantzler asks, “What do you want from me?”

Adán walks over, wraps his arms around Art and holds him tightly. Says quietly into his ear, “Arturo, you’re an ungrateful, inflexible, güero-wannabe prick. But you’re still my friend and I love you. So take the money, or don’t take the money, but back off. You don’t know what you’re fucking around with here.” Adán leans back so he’s face-to-face with Art. Their noses are practically touching as he looks him in the eyes and repeats, “You don’t know what you’re fucking around with here.”

“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.”

Ramos says, “Come on, we have to hurry.” Art starts to pull the handcuffs from his belt. “Don’t cuff him,” Ramos says with undisguised irritation. Art blinks. Then he gets it—you don’t shoot a man who’s trying to escape if the man is handcuffed. Ramos asks, “Do you want to do him in here or out there?” That’s what he expects me to do, Art thinks, shoot Barrera. That’s why he thinks I insisted on coming along on the raid, so I could do just that. His head whirls as he realizes that maybe everybody expects him to do that. All the DEA guys, Shag—especially Shag—expect him to enforce the old code that you don’t bring a cop killer back to the house, that a cop killer always dies trying to escape.

I’m careful. I change houses every few days. The Jalisco police protect me. Besides, I have other friends.” “You mean the CIA?” Adán asks. “The Contra war is over. What use are you to them now?” Because loyalty is not an American virtue, Adán thinks, nor is long memory. If you don’t know that, just ask Manuel Noriega in Panama. He had also been a key partner in Cerberus, a touch point on the Mexican Trampoline, and where is he now? Same place as Mette and Álvarez, in an American prison, except it wasn’t Art but Noriega’s old friend George Bush who put him there. Invaded his country, grabbed him and put him away. So if you’re counting on the Americans to repay you with loyalty, Tío, count on the fingers of one hand. I watched Art’s performance on CNN. There is a price for his silence, and the price might be you, might be all of us.