The Cartel (Power of the Dog #2)

by Don Winslow

A few minutes later Marisol sighs. “It’s been a long time.” “Me, too.” “No,” she says, “I meant since I’ve loved someone.” And that’s it—una locura de amor, that’s what they have. A crazy love.

Anyway, the wedding is a target-rich environment, more Sinaloa Tens than you can shake a dick at, at least half of them beauty queens, former or current Miss Whatevers—Miss Guava, Miss Papaya, Miss Methamphetamine… If you can’t get laid at this wedding, Eddie thinks, you are a dickless gnome. That or you got no money—these babes are wearing more gold around their wrists and necks than old Cortés ever found in Mexico, that’s for sure. There’s a lot of cash at this bash.

When the devil comes, he comes on angel’s wings.

It’s amazing, Keller thinks, the human capacity—perhaps born of need—to establish a sense of normalcy in the most abnormal conditions.

They say that love conquers all. They’re wrong, Keller thinks. Hate conquers all. It even conquers hate.

He has no need of God, he decides, and God has no need of him.

“Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea; et a peccato meo munda me.” “What?” “Latin,” Keller says. “A psalm: ‘Wash me throughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin.’ ”

“Be still and know that I am God.”