The Cartel (Power of the Dog #2)

by Don Winslow

La paleta is a Zeta specialty they taught at the training camp. You take a piece of board and hit someone in the lower back. Slowly, rhythmically, again and again. The victim wants to die a long time before he does. Sometimes they stop before they kill him, and then the man is a cripple, barely able to walk, groaning every time he takes a piss. Chuy had seen those guys and laughed at them. Now Esteban steps behind him. Chuy breaks down sobbing. “Bitch,” Esteban says. “You’re nothing but a little bitch after all.” “Bitch,” Gabe chimes in. “Fag.” “You think about it,” Esteban says. “You think about what’s going to happen to you, perrita.” He unties the rope and Chuy falls to the floor. “Forty wants to do it himself,” Esteban says.