The Border

by Don Winslow

  “Don’t fuck it up,” Cirello says.

  “I was pulling hijacks when you were potty training,” Andrea says.

  But Cirello can tell he’s edgy, nervous. He should be, Cirello thinks, he has a couple of mil at stake. “If Darnell makes you for this, I’m not helping you. You’re on your own.”

  “But you still want your taste.”

  “Fuck yes I do,” Cirello says. “You know the risk I’m taking here?”

  “Cops, you eat with both hands,” Andrea says. “Don’t worry, we’ll lay it off in Providence, Darnell will never hook it to us.”

  Cirello knows he’s lying, there’s no way he can lay off twenty kilos of fire in a small town like Providence. They might take some of it there, but they’re going to sell the rest here in New York and think Darnell’s too dumb to figure it out.

  He just hopes the Italians have their shit together. Andrea probably does, he’s an old-school heist guy. But Cozzo? Who knows if he’s ever earned his stripes or is just coasting off the family name. And Stevie DeStefano didn’t impress as exactly tough when Cirello fronted him.

  The other guy Cirello doesn’t know. One of Cozzo’s Bensonhurst crew.

  Cirello hopes he’s good.

  Because Darnell’s people are.

  He goes over it again with Andrea: the parking structure in Castle Village is where Darnell’s people will be most vulnerable, with the bonus of it being out of sight and hearing.

  But they’ll have to hit quick, hard and right, Cirello thinks.

  “And keep your fucking mouths shut,” Cirello says. The Italians will get made the second they say more than a word or two, and Cirello is hoping the rip will get blamed on the Dominicans or rival Mexicans. Darnell’s people are going to get asked some hard questions about what they saw and heard.

  “They can’t say shit if they’re dead,” Andrea says. “That’s the right way to do it, you ask me.”

  “I’m not asking you,” Cirello says. “The rip gets Darnell’s people on our ass, but they can’t go to the cops. A bunch of dead bodies in a parking garage gets NYPD Homicide on us.”

  “They don’t give a shit about dead moolies.”

  “They give a shit about headlines,” Cirello says. He knows how it works—the mayor leans on the commissioner, who leans on the chief of D’s, who leans on the Homicide guys, who have to clear the case or watch their careers spiral down the shitter. “We’re going to do this my way or we’re not going to do it.”

  “It’s your play,” Cozzo says.

  He tells Andrea he doesn’t want anyone killed unless it’s absolutely life-or-death necessary, and if they do it right it shouldn’t be necessary.

  Cirello doesn’t want anyone dead.

  Not even dope slingers.

  It goes smooth in Jersey.

  Same couriers, same routine.

  Cirello and Darnell pick up the suitcases of dope, walk out of the hotel into their separate vans with their crews and take off for Manhattan.

  All good.

  The vans split off when Cirello’s turns off the 9 to get to Castle Village and Darnell’s keeps going north to Dyckman.

  Cirello’s car, a black Lincoln SUV, pulls into the parking structure.

  The Italians are already inside, waiting, gas masks over their faces. DeStefano guns a Ford F-150 pickup—a work car, stolen, clean—from its slot and plows into the Lincoln’s driver’s-side door, smashing it into a pylon.

  It slams Cirello sideways into the front passenger door. He can’t get it open because it’s jammed into the pylon.

  Darnell’s guys go out the other doors.

  Andrea pulls a CS grenade, jerks out the pin and tosses it. He draws his MAC-10 and moves in, yelling, “¡Abajo! ¡Abajo!”

  Fucking idiot, Cirello thinks, trying to use Spanish.

  The driver tries to jam the Lincoln into reverse, but another car, a Caddy, slides, blocking its way. Cozzo gets out of the Caddy, an AR-15 at his shoulder, covering. His guy jumps out of the Ford and does the same. Andrea moves to the driver’s side, jerks the door open, and pulls the driver out. Then he tosses in another grenade.

  Cirello goes down, gagging, gasping for air, his eyes burning.

  Andrea leans in and grabs the case, walks back to the Caddy, tosses it into the back seat and gets in. His two other guys jump in the back.

  “¡Ándale!” Cirello hears.

  Then he hears the car roar out.

  One of Darnell’s guys gets up and tries to shoot, but he’s not going to hit anything.

  Cirello presses buttons on his phone.

  Darnell is on the top floor of the apartment building on West 211th.

  Lays the case full of fire on a table.

  It’s over for him, he thinks.

  His people will lay this off to the gangs and the other retailers, he’ll get his money and be gone. Place upstate maybe, up on the Hudson somewhere close enough to see his kid and his grandma, far enough away from this shit.

  Maybe he’ll get a boat.

  He picks up his phone to call Cirello but the cop don’t answer. Straight to motherfuckin’ voice mail. Tries again, same result.

  Darnell feels a stab of fear go straight up his spine.

  Then he hears feet pounding and yelling.

  “NYPD!”

  A small, dull explosion and the door swings opens like it’s dead.

  Cops in black hoods and body armor, badges on the vests, assault rifles to their shoulders. “On the floor! Down! Down! Down!”

  Their voices hyped. Would shoot a nigger in a heartbeat.

  Darnell lies down face-first, stretches his arms out in front of him, a long way from the gun at his hip. A second later someone grabs his hands, jerks them behind him and cuffs him. Hands pat him down, take his gun.

  Then he hears someone say, “Darius Darnell? Brian Mullen, NYPD. You’re under arrest for possession of heroin with intent to sell.”

  Mullen starts reading him his rights.

  Darnell doesn’t listen.

  I don’t have no rights, he thinks.

  Never did.

  Cirello staggers out of the parking structure onto the street.

  His eyes are red and swollen, his throat parched.

  He dials Andrea.

  The mobster is pumped. “We did it! We did it! Without sacrificing a single Mau!”

  “Where are you?” Cirello asks. “I want my cut.”

  Keller answers the phone.

  “Darnell’s in cuffs,” Mullen says.

  “Congratulations.”

  “There’s a problem,” Mullen says. “We only got twenty keys.”

  “Where are the other twenty?” Keller asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does Cirello say?”

  “He’s not here,” Mullen says.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Mullen says. “I’m scared to fucking death. He’s in the wind.”

  Keller clicks off and calls California.

  Arrest Eddie Ruiz.

  It’s been Eddie’s experience that the hottest women are the worst in bed.

  Maybe, he thinks, because they feel that the bestowal of their beauty is gift enough and they don’t have to put in any effort beyond the makeup and hair.

  Eva Barrera is no exception.

  She looks great.

  A genuine California ten on the looks scale but maybe a three in the skills department. She gives Eddie the obligatory opening blow-job action, but she does it like she’s sucking on a lemon; her face gets this sour look, and her tongue stays on the bench the whole time, just will not get in the game.

  Eddie finally gets tired of it, flips her over and says, “I can’t wait any longer, I’m dying” (of boredom) and prongs her. He’s had more of an enthusiastic reaction from his right hand. Eva makes that babe in V-Ville look like Stormy Daniels, she lies there with this aren’t you lucky look on her face, like some Mayan virgin about to be lobbed into a volcano. Which Eddie woul
d be willing to do, if there were any handy volcanos in Solana Beach.

  It pisses him off.

  He takes pride in his ability to give a woman a good time, his work has received rave reviews from a wide variety of amateurs and professionals, and Eva here is acting like she’s getting a mildly pleasurable pedicure.

  He pulls out, deciding to show her how to give head.

  “What are you doing?” Eva asks.

  “What do you think?”

  “No, I don’t like that. It’s dirty.”

  That’s why I like it, Eddie thinks. He climbs back on top of her, intending now to finish as soon as he can, and he’s working hard at that objective when the bedroom door comes in.

  Eva’s eyes open wide and she screams.

  Sure, now, Eddie thinks.

  “DEA! US Marshals! Down! Get down!”

  Eddie rolls off her onto the floor.

  Eva pulls the sheets up around her.

  Eddie looks up to see Agent Fuentes.

  Motherfucker, Eddie thinks.

  Fuentes asks her, “Who are you?”

  “Eva Barrera.”

  “Two birds,” Fuentes says.

  What the fuck does that mean? Eddie wonders. Then Fuentes says, “Edward Ruiz, you’re under arrest for the trafficking of illegal drugs. Put your hands behind your back.”

  “Come on, man, let me put some clothes on,” Eddie says. They hold guns on him but let him pull on a shirt and jeans. “Jesus, you couldn’t have waited five minutes?”

  “Five minutes?” Fuentes says. “Doesn’t say much for you.”

  Doesn’t say much for her, Eddie thinks.

  They haul him out into the living room.

  “Great view,” Fuentes says.

  “Call your boss,” Eddie says. “Tell him you just busted Eddie Ruiz, see what he says.”

  “Who the hell you think sent us?”

  Keller sent them? Eddie thinks.

  He must be out of his mind.

  Cirello goes home, washes his face and then calls a buddy of his, Bill Garrity, in the 101. “I know it’s late.”

  “Isn’t that the start of some bad old song?” Garrity asks.

  “You might want to find a reason to hit a house at 638 Hunter.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Your career,” Cirello says. “A bump to first grade, easy. But go in heavy. Bring people.”

  “This come out of Narcotics?”

  “That’s where I work.”

  “If it’s so good,” Garrity asks. “Why don’t you take it?”

  Cops, Cirello thinks. They won’t just look a gift horse in the mouth, they’ll come in it. “I have my reasons. I need distance from this.”

  “Can you get me a warrant?”

  “Do I have to wipe your ass, too?” Cirello asks. “Maybe you heard a gunshot in there. You’ll find weapons.”

  “Six-Three-Eight Hunter.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “I guess you’re welcome.”

  He clicks off.

  Fuck Mullen.

  Fuck Keller.

  They got what they wanted, now I get what I want.

  I want dope off the streets.

  All the slingers and mobsters in jail.

  I’m a New York City police officer.

  “What the hell did you do?!” Mullen yells. “What did you do?! Did you tip Cozzo off so he could do a rip? That’s a goddamn felony, Cirello!”

  It’s the next morning and he’s waving a copy of the Daily News in Cirello’s grill. Headline screams about huge heroin bust nabs mob scion.

  John “Jay” Cozzo.

  And Mike Andrea.

  Cirello holds his open hands in innocence. Looks at a photo of Garrity posing with the stacks of smack.

  “Bill got lucky, I guess,” Cirello says.

  “Bill Garrity couldn’t find a hooker in a whorehouse,” Mullen says. “You trying to tell me he answered a gunshot call and tripped across Darnell’s missing heroin shipment?”

  “I’m not trying to tell you anything.”

  “Did you tip him?” Mullen asks.

  Cirello doesn’t answer.

  “Did you?”

  “The fuck you want from me?!”

  “The truth!”

  “Since when?!” Cirello says. “I’ve been living a lie for two years and now you want the truth?! I’m not sure I even know what that is anymore!”

  “Well, you’d goddamn better learn!”

  “You want the truth, here it is,” Cirello says. “I set up the Italians for that rip, because I don’t want them putting any more dope on the street!”

  “And this is your way of doing it?!” Mullen says. “What if someone got killed?!”

  “No one did.”

  “What am I supposed to do with you?!” Mullen asks. “Half the division already thinks you’re dirty.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?!”

  “You don’t think Andrea and Cozzo are singing your name to IAB?!”

  “Then tell IAB it was an undercover,” Cirello says.

  “Nothing in your assignment told you to set up a rip,” Mullen says. “If IAB doesn’t come down on you, the department will. And Keller wants you hanged from the highest tree.”

  “Does this jam you up with him?”

  “Fuck Keller, he’s not my boss,” Mullen says. “Where’s Libby now?”

  “St. Louis, Kansas City . . .”

  “Go see her,” Mullen says. “Spend some time.”

  “Libby thinks maybe she’s spent enough time with me.”

  “Maybe you can fix that.”

  “Maybe.” He doubts it.

  “Go home, Bobby,” Mullen says. “Don’t stay there long. Just pack a few things and go somewhere. Take disability leave, go away, let things quiet down, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I want to see Darnell first.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Bobby.”

  “I want to.”

  “I’d advise against it,” Mullen says. “What’s the point? Guilt? Masochism?”

  Cirello says, “Because I’ll feel like a coward if I don’t.”

  “You just made the biggest heroin case in the department’s history,” Mullen says. “No one thinks you’re a coward, just an asshole. Five minutes. If Darnell says the word lawyer, you walk away.”

  Darnell sits in an interview room, his hands shackled to a metal table.

  He looks up when Cirello comes in. Cirello doesn’t dodge his stare, figures he owes it to the man to look him in the eye.

  “You ate at my grandma house,” Darnell says. “You sat down and ate at my grandma house.”

  “I was always undercover,” Cirello says. “I didn’t betray you.”

  “You just another white man.”

  Cirello sits down across the table. “You can help yourself here. You can cut ten, fifteen years off your time. Maybe you can’t be a father to your son, but you can be a grandfather to his.”

  Darnell doesn’t answer.

  “You once told me these rich white assholes would keep you out of jail,” Cirello says. “Where are they? You see them here? You see their high-price lawyers here? Who is here? Me.”

  “You ain’t asking me to trust you now.”

  “Who else you got?” Cirello asks.

  He lets the silence sit for a minute.

  “They’re going to ask you questions,” Cirello says. “The answers you give them are going to be the difference between you ever getting out of prison again and you dying in there. So when they ask you, ‘Who told you to set up security for those meetings at the hotel?,’ you’re going to want to tell them to go fuck themselves. But that would be the wrong answer. The right answer is ‘Eddie Ruiz.’”

  “We was in V-Ville together,” Darnell says. “He saved my life.”

  “He needed a black guy to sling his dope in the hood,” Cirello says. “Lerner and Claiborne and all those other assholes nee
ded a black guy to sell dope to pay for their big shiny building they’d never let you into except to scrub the toilets. You think Lerner’s going to invite you to the White House? Get you a presidential pardon? You know what you are to these people? J-A-N. Just Another Nigger.”

  “Get outta my face.”

  “I’m not sorry for what I did to you,” Cirello says. “You poison people, you kill people. Prison is what you deserve. I’m not sorry for your grandma, either—she knows where her groceries come from.”

  “Where Libby at?” Darnell asks. “Wherever she is, I can reach out.”

  “There’s the real Darius Darnell. There he is. Thanks for making me feel better.” Cirello leans in. “Now listen to me, motherfucker. I ain’t no Mikey. I’m a New York City gold shield. If I hear that one of your thugs as much as says hello to Libby, I’m going to come to whatever shithole they throw you in and beat you to death. You feel me, brutha?”

  Darnell stares at him.

  “I came here because I thought I owed it to you to look you in the eye,” Cirello says. “But I don’t owe you anything. Do what you want. I’m hoping you do the smart thing, the right thing. But if you want to be just another nigger, that’s your choice. I’m done with you.”

  He walks out the door.

  He’s done with Darnell.

  The UC is over.

  Eddie is in the San Diego federal lockup.

  The former residence of Adán Barrera.

  Eddie doesn’t look at it as a promotion, he sees it as the potential end of life as he knows it. He knows that if he’s ever going to wear anything but a jumpsuit again, he has to be very smart, he has to walk through raindrops.

  He knows he can’t play their game; if he plays their game, he loses, because by strictly legal standards, he’s fucked. Forty kilos of H in the current environment? Back to Florence, for good this time.

  So he can’t let this get to court, he can’t let this get close to court.

  A deal has to get cut long before that. And the deal is clear—either he does business with Keller or he does it with Lerner. Either one has a get-out-of-jail-free card to hand him, and if either one thinks Eddie’s going down alone, he’d better get his head out of his ass.

  In the meantime, all Eddie has to say to anybody are the magic four words: