by Don Winslow
What happened?
You start by trying to create a new world and then you find yourself just wanting to add a bottle to your cellar, a few extra feet to the sunroom, you see yourself aging and wonder if you’ve put enough away for that and suddenly you realize that you’re frightened of the years ahead of you what
Happened?
Watergate Irangate Contragate scandals and corruption all around you and you never think you’ll become corrupt but time corrupts you, corrupts as surely as gravity and erosion, wears you down wears you out I think, son, that the country was like that, just tired, just worn out by assassinations, wars, scandals, by
Ronald Reagan, Bush the First selling cocaine to fund terrorists, a war to protect cheap gas, Bill Clinton and realpolitik and jism on dresses while insane fanatics plotted and Bush the Second and his handlers, a frat boy run by evil old men and then you turn on the TV one morning and those towers are coming down and the war has come home what
Happened?
Afghanistan and Iraq the sheer madness the killing the bombing the missiles the death you are back in Vietnam again and I could blame it all on that but at the end of the day at the end of the day we are responsible for ourselves.
What happened?
We got tired, we got old we gave up our dreams we taught ourselves to scorn ourselves to despise our youthful idealism we sold ourselves cheap we aren’t
Who we wanted to be.
247
Paqu lies on the sofa.
Bottle of gin, bottle of pills on the coffee table.
The effects on her face, in her eyes. She sees O come in and says, “You look uncharacteristically nice.”
“Where’s Four?”
“That’s very amusing,” Paqu says, her words a little slurred. “Four is gone.”
“I went and saw Paul.”
“I told you not to.”
“I know.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“Obviously.”
Paqu sits up, pours the last of the bottle into her glass, and says, “And are you happier now? Did you gain an epiphany? One that might propel you from this perpetual adolescence of yours?”
“He said he wasn’t my father.”
“The man is a liar.”
“I believe him.”
“Of course you do,” Paqu says. “You believed in the tooth fairy until you were eleven. I considered having you tested.”
“Who was he?”
“Who was who?”
“My father,” O says.
Just tell me.
248
He knows his old man.
Knows him in the way that only blood can.
The shared secret code hidden deep in deoxyribonucleic acid.
DNA.
Fathers and sons are really brothers
Twins of the double helix
Fates twisted around each other
Inseparable
Inextricable
He knows his father would not have come unprepared to this feast because he wouldn’t
Knows that his father cannot let it end here
Because he couldn’t
Knows that he now has to do
The one thing
That will cost him more than he can pay
And that he would never do for anyone
Not even himself
But will do
For Ben
Go to his father’s house
And ask
For mercy.
249
INT. PAQU’S LIVING ROOM — NIGHT
PAQU takes a long sip of her drink and looks over the glass at O, who stands there, furious and determined.
PAQU
Look at you, my little girl, all forceful and resolute. You look ridiculous. Do you want your face to freeze that way?
O says nothing, just holds her glare.
PAQU (CONT’D.)
I wish you were this determined to find a job.
Same.
Paqu is really out of it now-the effects of the alcohol and pills have hit her.
PAQU (CONT’D.)
Of course, I should talk. I’ve done absolutely nothing with mine. Nothing. Except give birth to you. And, no offense, please don’t take this personally, but you’re such a… disappointment. Very well. You want to know who your father is? Who he was?
250
Elena sips a sherry and watches the evening news.
A small pleasure before dinner at an empty table, as Magda refuses to come out of her room, leaving Elena to dine with memories and might-have-beens.
She is just finishing her drink when her guards let Lado in.
“I heard there was a slaughter at the Revolucion Club,” she says.
“I heard the same thing.”
“A terrible thing,” she says. “We live in terrible times.”
“Someone whispered a name to me,” Lado says.
“Whispered or screamed?”
She looks out the window into the courtyard, where she still expects Filipo to pull up in his car and twirl her in his arms.
“ Buen viaje, ” she says.
Have a nice trip.
251
“This guy John,” Ben asks. “What did he look like?”
“Why?” Diane asks.
“I need to know.”
She rummages around until she finds a scrapbook. Opens it up and the results are almost comical-his mom and dad as hippies-long hair, leather fringes-almost as if they’re at a costume party.
Diane turns to a picture of a bunch of people on the front steps of an old bookstore and points to a young man, bare-chested and in jeans.
“That’s John,” she says.
“I have to go.”
252
His name was Halliday, Paqu says, and they called him “Doc.”
And when he found out I was pregnant with you he put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and ruined the interior of a very expensive car.
I don’t know if my pregnancy was the… causal factor… but there you are.
Happy now?
O runs out of the house.
253
Ben drives down the canyon and hits Chon’s number.
There’s no answer.
Where the fuck are you? Ben thinks.
Chon was following the line up from Crowe and Hennessy. If he’s succeeded, the line leads to his own father.
Ben can’t let him do it.
He lets the phone ring and ring.
Chon doesn’t answer.
Don Winslow
The Kings Of Cool
254
Chon’s gassed out.
Blood flows freely down his leg as he lumbers up the hill to John’s house.
He stops down the street to catch his breath and recon the scene.
There’s a car parked in the driveway, and he can make out three men inside-two in front, one in the back.
Chon takes three long breaths, drops to his stomach, and crawls across the neighbor’s yard to the back. Then he climbs the fence into John’s yard, tears another strip off his shirt, wraps it around his hand, and punches the bathroom window.
He reaches in, unlocks the window, slides it open, and climbs in.
Walks from the bathroom into the living room.
John is standing there.
Old denim shirt, jeans.
255
“Surprised to see me?” Chon asks.
“I thought you were in Iraq. Someplace like that.” John turns and walks into the step-down living room, walks behind the bar, and starts to make himself a drink. “You want something?”
Chon doesn’t.
“A joint?” John asks. “You want to smoke up?”
“Keep your hands above the bar.”
“You don’t trust your old man?”
“No,” Chon says. “You taught me that, remember? ‘Never trust anybody’?”
“And I was right.”
John takes a sip of his drink and sits he
avily on the sofa. First time Chon notices that he has a gut.
“Sit down.”
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” He leans back into the cushions. “Who gave me up? Crowe?”
He looks almost amused.
“Crowe and Hennessy are both dead.”
“You did us a favor,” John says. “They had to go, anyway.”
“I thought you were out of the business.”
“And I didn’t know you were in it,” John says. He holds a hand up. “Swear to God, son. But I guess the apple don’t fall far from the tree, huh? Though I guess you’re some kind of war hero? Is that true?”
“No.”
John shrugs. “So what brings you here?”
“Believe me, I didn’t want to come here.”
“But here you are.”
256
Ben goes to Chon’s apartment.
He’s not there.
Ben drives the streets-the PCH, the Canyon, Bluebird, Glenneyre, Brooks-Chon is nowhere to be seen.
Of course he is, Ben thinks.
When Chon doesn’t want to be found, he’s not going to be found.
Ben hits his number again and again.
257
INT. JOHN’S HOUSE — NIGHT
SOUND OF CHON’S PHONE RINGING.
He doesn’t answer it.
CHON
I’ve never asked you for anything.
JOHN
But you’re going to now. What do you want?
CHON
A pass for Ben Leonard.
John shakes his head.
JOHN
Walk away from him.
CHON
I’m not that guy.
John laughs.
JOHN
You going to tell me who you are and who you’re not? I know who you are.
CHON
You don’t know a fucking thing about me.
JOHN
Your mother wanted to flush you down a sink. I know that.
CHON
Yeah, she told me.
JOHN
She would. (Beat) I wouldn’t let her do it. I dunno, I was feeling sentimental, I guess.
CHON
I’m supposed to, what, thank you?
JOHN
You’re the one asking for the favor.
CHON
You going to do it, or not?
JOHN
The fuck you owe this Leonard guy, anyway?
CHON
He’s family.
John takes this in-seems to hear the truth of it. He doesn’t have an answer.
CHON (CONT’D)
This isn’t about me and Ben-it’s about me and you. I’m asking you for something. You want to give it to me, great. You don’t…
JOHN
What?
CHON
We go a different route.
JOHN
I can’t do what you’re asking me to do. I don’t mean I “won’t,” I mean I can’t. I can do this for you-I can tell you walk away. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I wish I’d walked away twenty years ago. You still can.
CHON
You go after Ben, you have to come through me.
JOHN
Then we have a problem, kid.
John reaches under the sofa cushion and pulls out a pistol and points it at Chon.
258
“I’m not a kid anymore,” Chon says.
“You never were.”
“I can rip that gun out of your hand and shove it down your throat before you can blink.”
“Yeah, I forgot, you’re Superman,” John says. “You’re a cold enough little prick to kill your own father, I’ll give you that, but you think I’m the top of this thing? You think this is as high as it goes?”
Chon’s tiring. The world starts to dance a little in his eyes.
“Anything happens to me,” John says, “the order is already out. Your buddy Ben is dead.”
Leveling the pistol at Chon, he gets up. “Outside. We’re going someplace.”
He moves Chon out the door.
259
The gunmen come up from Mexico, but they aren’t Mexican.
Schneider and Perez are as American as apple pie, trained veterans of their country’s wars, underemployed and so working for the Berrajanos.
Now they’re on loan-out to John McAlister back at home.
Walking up the beach, hoodies over their heads, they look like druids in the mist.
They’ve come for Ben.
260
They get in the backseat with one of the gunmen.
He looks to Chon like a refrigerator.
Or a cop.
And he says to Chon, “I don’t care whose fucking kid you are. You try anything, I’ll put two in your head.”
“Easy, Boland,” John says.
“Just so he knows,” Boland says.
“Where are we going?” Chon asks. “A ball game? Chuck E. Cheese?”
“Mexico,” John answers.
261
Mexico, Chon thinks.
Because you can only dump so many bodies in South Orange County before the cops really get fed up and come after you.
The OC is very strict on littering.
Mexico?
Not so much.
262
Ben’s doorbell rings.
Please let it be Chon, he thinks.
He goes to the door.
263
Lado is walking across the gravel parking lot to his car when Magda steps out of the shadows and grabs his elbow.
“Lado,” she says, “do something for me, please?”
264
It’s O.
Standing in the rain.
Her hair wet, water running down her neck.
Tears in her blue eyes.
“Can I-”
“Come in,” Ben says.
265
“I don’t have anyplace,” O says.
“It’s okay.”
“I don’t have anyplace to go.”
“It’s all right,” Ben says. “You can be here.”
He pulls her into his arms and holds her.
266
They come to the border.
(Yeah, well, everyone does, sooner or later.)
“Don’t be an asshole,” John says.
A little late for fatherly advice, Chon thinks, but he knows what John means. If there was a moment to make a break for it, this would be it-start yelling at the checkpoint, staffed with heavily armed Border Patrol agents, and there’s not a damn thing John or the two thugs could do about it.
“Your buddy Ben is still alive,” John says. “Get stupid here and he won’t be.”
That’s my dad, Chon thinks.
A real Boy Scout.
Always prepared.
267
O says, “It turns out that Patterson isn’t my father.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, it gets better.” She takes a pull on the joint, holds in the smoke, and exhales with, “My real father was a guy called-you’re going to love this-‘Doc Halliday,’ and-get ready for it-he killed himself while I was baking in the oven.”
“Jesus, O, that’s terri-”
Then he does the math.
His parents said that Halliday committed suicide in 1981, but O couldn’t have been born until “What’s your birthday?”
“August twenty-eighth, why?”
“What year?”
“1986. Ben-”
But he’s already punching the phone.
268
The BP agent asks them why they’re going to Mexico.
“Boys’ night out,” John says.
“Don’t come back with anything,” the agent advises.
“We won’t,” John says.
After they pass through the checkpoint, Chon hears John mumble, “The end of America.”
269
Dennis picks up the phone.
“What do you want?”
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“Have you ever heard of a guy named Doc Halliday?” Ben asks.
“I’m a DEA agent,” Dennis answers. “Have baseball players heard of Babe Ruth? Have gunfighters heard of Wyatt Earp? Of course I’ve heard of Halliday. Why?”
Ben tells him.
270
Looong drive down through Tijuana.
Short on conversation.
What’s there to talk about, really?
Old memories?
Good times?
Chon is more focused on something his father said back at the house. I can’t do what you’re asking me to do. I don’t mean I “won’t,” I mean I can’t.
Why not, Pops?
271
Down the old highway into Baja.
Past Rosarito, Ensenada, the old surfers’ run.
South into the empty country.
Moonlit night.
Sagebrush and the eyes of coyotes glowing green in the headlights.
They could do it anywhere here, Chon thinks, by the side of the road in any ditch.
A seminal fuck and a terminal shot.
Two bursts in the back of the head
The Lord giveth and He taketh away
The old Bill Cosby joke-“I brought you into this world, and I can damn well take you out of it.”
You just disappear and that’s all.
