The Cartel: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  She wriggles her butt into him. He holds her by the shoulders or strokes her hair and moves gently inside her, even when she pushes back as if to demand more. When he finishes, she says, “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “What about you?”

  “Next time. Can you sleep?”

  “I think so.” He’s not sure he wants to. “How about you?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Keller does fall asleep.

  His dreams are bad and bloody.

  Ciudad Juárez

  Autumn 2010

  The blog first appears just before the Day of the Dead.

  It’s a national sensation before New Year’s Eve.

  Pablo first sees Esta Vida when he logs in at the office one morning and calls Ana over. “Have you seen this?”

  This Life has photographs somehow smuggled out of the San Fernando massacre site. It’s grisly, brutal, frank, and asks in red fourteen-point Times New Roman typeface, “Who Are These Zetas and Why Do They Kill Innocent People?”

  “Dios mío,” Ana says. “That’s graphic.”

  It’s nothing a newspaper could or would print, even if they were covering the narco-wars anymore. Skulls, parts of skeletons, bits of clothing sticking up from the red earth. The accompanying article gives details of the mass murder that only the police could have known and is signed “El Niño Salvaje.”

  “The Wild Child?” Pablo asks.

  A new story comes out the next day. Titled “Terror in Tamaulipas,” it’s an in-depth analysis of the war between the CDG and the Zetas.

  “Whoever the Wild Child is,” Pablo says, “he knows his stuff.”

  “It’s the new journalism,” Óscar opines, looking over their shoulder and wincing at the graphic images. “Some call it the democratization of journalism, others might call it anarchy. The problem is, there’s no accountability. Not only are the articles anonymous, but there is no editing process to separate fact from mere rumor. It’s self-serving, but I still think there’s a role for editors in the media.”

  The next article, put out the next day, cuts closer to home.

  “Who Killed Giorgio Valencia?” is classic investigative reporting. There are photos of Giorgio on the job, snapping pictures, other photos of his body at the murder scene, even an image of the grinning skull left on the car outside his funeral.

  “This is offensive,” Pablo says.

  “His murder was offensive,” Ana snaps.

  “Jesus…Ana…”

  “Don’t look at me, kiddo,” she says. “I ain’t no Wild Child.”

  The long article goes on to ask why there has been no investigation into Valencia’s death, excoriates both the state and national government for their “supine neglect” on the issue of murdered journalists, and openly accuses the Zetas of Valencia’s murder, claiming that they had tried to enforce a news blackout on the attack on Marisol Cisneros.

  The next post is harsher than anything seen in even la nota roja, showing a hacked-up, limbless body on a Juárez street. “The Cleansing” talks about the murderous chaos in Juárez, how it now seems to affect only the poor, and wonders out loud if the government really cares, or whether it is standing by and letting “social outcasts and undesirables” be hosed off the street like so much garbage.

  It directly echoes Pablo’s own thoughts on the matter, thoughts that he can no longer write for his own newspaper, thoughts that he has expressed to Ana, who sees the blog and asks him directly, “Are you the Wild Child?”

  “I’m anything but a wild child.”

  It’s been a grim autumn for him. He’s made one trip to Mexico City to see Mateo—an awkward visit that only highlighted their continuing, gradual estrangement—and have the obligatory quarrel with Victoria, which was only sharpened by her announcement that she’s “seeing someone seriously.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s an editor here at the paper.”

  “Has Mateo met him?”

  “Well, I’m not going to keep him a secret, Pablo.”

  “Does he stay with you?”

  “Of course not,” Victoria said.

  “I don’t want Mateo waking up and finding him there.”

  “We’re discreet,” Victoria says, ending the discussion with that thin-lipped frown that used to challenge him sexually and that now he just hates.

  The violence in Juárez has just gone on and on. Attacks on parties seemed to be the popular theme for the autumn of 2010. Six killed at a party, then four, then five more. Pablo dutifully went out to cover them, then wrote bare-bones articles that barely reach paragraph length—the number of dead, the approximate time of the attack, the rough neighborhood. Not the names, not the exact address, and for God’s sake not who did it or why, because that might upset the narcos.

  He’s watched Óscar shrink before his eyes.

  Almost literally—El Búho seems to be getting physically smaller, and certainly slower, more dependent on his cane. More and more he stays in his Chaveña home, rarely coming out for parties or even readings.

  His newspaper keeps churning out dull, dutiful stories.

  Not so Esta Vida.

  Its next post is called “Our New Vocabulary” and gives a glossary, with accompanying photographs, of the words used to describe murder victims now:

  Encajuelados—bodies stuffed in car trunks.

  Encobijados—bodies wrapped in blankets.

  Entambados—bodies stuffed in metal barrels, often with acid or wet concrete.

  Enteipados—bodies wrapped in industrial tape.

  “This is the new vocabulary,” the article goes on to say, “of our journalism, of our nation. We need specific new words to describe the many varieties of slaughter, for our language, our former concepts of death, fail us. The Black Plague gave us ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ as a children’s game; the war on drugs gives us a new chant for children in our colonias—‘encajuelados, encobijados, entambados, enteipados—all fall down.’ ”

  But Esta Vida doesn’t restrict itself to Juárez, or even Chihuahua—it reports on La Familia in Michoacán, the Zetas, it takes on the Sinaloa cartel, the police, the federales, the army, the marines, city, state, and national governments.

  The post “Who Picks the Winner?” causes a national outrage and debate, such as debates exist in the now highly constricted press. Almost blatantly accusing the national government of siding with the Sinaloa cartel to create a “pax narcotica,” it runs a statistical analysis—of some 97,516 arrests by federal authorities, only 1,512 have been associated with the Sinaloa cartel, and many of them were people who had fallen into the bad graces of Adán Barrera and Nacho Esparza.

  Los Pinos responds with fury and indignation in a nationally televised press conference. The president gets on the screen in defense of his federal police and talks about the sacrifices in blood, and how this “cowardly anonymous verbal sniper” has made a mockery of martyrs.

  The result is that thousands of people start logging on to Esta Vida, and the susurro is that it’s the only place where you can get “the real news on the drug war.”

  The next day, Esta Vida runs a story about a woman in Nuevo Laredo whom the Zetas executed for calling the authorities about their extortion business. The accompanying photo shows the woman’s head set between her legs, her skirt pulled up. It’s as obscene as any pornographic snuff film, and what makes it even more so is the narcomensaje left by the body: “We killed this damn old lady because she pointed the police in our direction. This will happen to all careless assholes. Sincerely, the Z Company.”

  A new development happens the next day, and this time it’s Ana who calls Pablo over to her monitor.

  “Check this out.”

  Esta Vida has posted a letter from the Zetas to the Wild Child. “Thank you for doing our public relations work for us. You are helping us spread our message to the world.”

  But the Z Company isn’t so thrilled with the next post, “Eight Zetas Beheaded,” which shows the decapitated bodie
s of eight Zetas in the back of a pickup truck with the message “This is what happens when you support Los Zetas. Here are your halcones, you filthy bastards. Sincerely, the CDG.”

  The blogs start a ferocious debate in the city room.

  “You have to ask yourself,” Óscar lectures, “whether Esta Vida is now reporting on murders or stimulating them. To wit, are the narcos now committing atrocities specifically to have them publicized on this blog? Have we reached the point where murders don’t really exist unless and until they appear on social media? Are we now going to have Facebook murders, Twitter murders?”

  Not for the first time in his career, Óscar is prophetic. All of that comes to pass in the autumn of 2010, but Esta Vida is the star of the Internet, “water cooler talk,” to the extent that there is such a thing anymore. Television reporters and social media followers ask the question “Who Is the Wild Child?” and it becomes a national game.

  And the Wild Child keeps it up.

  Every post graphic, every post provocative.

  “Do the Marines Execute Prisoners?” “Families Abandon Ciudad Mier.” “Don Alejo de Castillo—An Elderly Hero.” “The Women of the Juárez Valley Stand Up to the Cartels.” “Whatever Happened to Crazy Eddie?”

  But then new narcomensajes appear on bridges, monuments, and street corners around the country: WILD CHILD—IF YOU SHOW OUR DEAD AGAIN, YOU WILL BE NEXT—SINCERELY, THE Z COMPANY. WILD CHILD—YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE PLAYING WITH. THE NUEVA GENTE. TAME YOURSELF, WILD CHILD. And, ominously, WILD CHILD, WE’RE TRACKING YOU DOWN AND WE WILL FIND YOU.

  Wild Child doesn’t back down.

  Esta Vida reports that 191 Zetas “disappeared like so many Houdinis” from a Nuevo Laredo prison, and the arrest of 42 guards for “facilitating the escape.” It shows a photo of two men whose faces had been skinned off left outside an Acapulco bar. It tells the story of a Christmas party in Monterrey where gunmen came in and took away four university students, who have not been seen since.

  There’s a New Year’s Eve party at Cafebrería, but Pablo can’t help but observe what a shrunken group they are. Jimena is gone, Giorgio is gone, Óscar diminished, Marisol in pain, Ana in grief, himself in what…malaise? Ennui? Depression?

  The gathering is symbolic of the city.

  In an article that Óscar did let him write, Pablo reported that as of the end of 2010, there have been 7,000 people killed in Juárez, 10,000 businesses closed, 130,000 jobs lost, and 250,000 people “displaced.”

  My city, Pablo thinks.

  My city of ruins.

  And my bleeding country.

  Hard to believe that 2010, the annus horribilis of the Mexican drug war, has finally come to an end.

  The final tally of drug-related deaths in Mexico in 2010 came to 15,273.

  That’s what we count now, Pablo thinks, instead of counting down to midnight.

  We count deaths.

  3

  Each New Morn

  …each new morn

  New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows

  Strike heaven on the face.

  —Shakespeare

  Macbeth, act 4, scene 3

  Acapulco, Guerrero

  2011

  Eddie’s tired.

  Tired of moving, tired of running, tired of fighting.

  The fact that he’s winning almost doesn’t matter.

  Like, winning what? The right to move, run, and fight more?

  I’m a multimillionaire, he thinks as he settles into yet another safe house, this one in Acapulco, and I live like a bum.

  A homeless man with twenty luxury houses.

  Just last week, four decapitated bodies that used to be his guys hung from a Cuernavaca bridge with the message THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE TRAITOR CRAZY EDDIE RUIZ.

  It was signed by Martín Tapia and “the South Pacific cartel.” The cheap motherfucker can’t buy a map? Eddie thinks. How close is Cuernavaca to the Pacific Ocean?

  Eddie feels aggrieved that Martín thinks he’s the informer who betrayed Diego. It’s true, but Martín has no reason to believe it’s true, so it’s not fair. Tapia has this grudge against him, for no good reason at all.

  So do the Zetas, but they have a reason.

  Same reason they’ve always had.

  They want what I have.

  First it was Laredo, now it’s Monterrey, Veracruz, and Acapulco. They also want my head on a stick, and they ain’t gonna get that either.

  He thinks back to, what’s it been, shit, five years now when he sat in a car back in Nuevo Laredo with those sleazy cocksuckers. I should have put a bullet in their heads then, except for I wasn’t carrying a gun.

  Speaking of cocksuckers, he’s pretty sure that Ochoa plays for the other team. I mean, I like to keep it tight, but that guy—the hair, the skin products, the military gear. If “the Executioner” showed up dressed like a construction worker, an Indian chief, a biker, or a cop, I wouldn’t be surprised.

  Well, Heriberto, you can suck my dick.

  Figuratively speaking.

  Acapulco I can hold, no problem.

  Probably Veracruz, too.

  Monterrey, that’s a problem, given Diego’s forward-thinking policy of inviting the Zetas to make themselves at home there. And they did. They have probably hundreds of guns in the city and its burbs now.

  And those FES marines are no joke. If anything, they’ve gotten better since they double-tapped Diego. They even went into Matamoros and took out Gordo Contreras. Biggest battle in Mexico since the Revolution—people in Texas could hear the gunfire. And, thanks a heap, marines, for killing that fat fuck Gordo. Now the Zetas can send more men down here.

  And that low motherfucker Keller is worse than any of them.

  Talk about not giving a shit.

  The jack of spades thing is pretty good, though. Wish I’d thought of something like that—a calling card. Like, have jacks of spades printed up but with my face photoshopped onto it.

  Eddie goes into the kitchen and dumps strawberries, blueberries, protein powder, and water into the blender. The blueberries are full of anti-what-do-you-call-’ems and the protein powder is good for the muscle mass he’s trying to put on.

  The feds have been all over him the past few months, arresting his people, busting his dope, tracking him down. It’s serious, because the last thing in the world that the federales want is to take Eddie Ruiz alive.

  I have too much to say, so if the federales take me out, it’s on a slab.

  Even the DEA has gotten in on the bust-Eddie’s-balls act. A week ago, they seized $49 million of his coke as it went across the border, and last month they charged sixty-nine customs agents—half of them Eddie’s guys—with corruption.

  It’s annoying.

  In response, he’d made his point to the government again in a letter to the newspapers: “You’re always going to have someone selling this stuff, so it might as well be me. I don’t kill women, children, or innocent people. Yours truly, Narco Polo.”

  He’s been using Narco Polo in his signed correspondence, trying to wean them off the Crazy Eddie thing.

  I’m not crazy, he thinks.

  I might be the sanest guy I know.

  Eddie makes himself gulp down the smoothie. You don’t take the time to savor that crap because there’s nothing to savor.

  He owns four nightclubs in three cities and shuts them down from time to time so he can party. Stations his guys all around, invites the hottest women in, picks one or two, does some Ecstasy, and parties. Was dating that soap opera star until she got tired of all the security and her “people” started to worry about her “branding.” Doesn’t matter, she was good while she lasted.

  Polishing off the smoothie, he goes into the home gym and starts to pump some iron. He should have one of his guys spot for him, but it would be too easy, wouldn’t it, for the guy to do an “oops” on a bench press and drop two bills on his throat.

  In this world you can trust yourself and
yourself.

  He’s glad when he hears the doorbell ring downstairs, and after the security screening, Julio comes up.

  “You want a water?” Eddie asks him.

  “I’d take a water.”

  They get the waters and then go out on the deck with the view of the ocean. Now we, he thinks, should be called the Pacific cartel, not that inland yuppie. He looks across the table at Julio and asks, “Are we ready to go to script?”

  “Did you read the treatment?”

  “Was that a treatment or an outline?” Eddie asks. Actually, he read up until about page three and then thumbed through the rest of it. The thing was twenty-seven pages long.

  “Sort of an outline of a treatment,” Julio says. “If you approve the treatment outline, then we’ll go to the full treatment.”

  “Then the script?”

  “Well, a script outline.”

  Eddie loves the movies. The Godfather, of course, and Goodfellas, but also the drug movies. Scarface, Miami Vice…he’d like to make a contribution to the genre. His own story—the realistic, down-and-dirty tale of a real-life drug lord. The way it really is. No one’s ever seen that shit before.

  They’re thinking of calling it Narco Polo, and, get this, the main character, the drug lord, actually plays polo. Eddie’s putting up $100K of his own money and hoping the script will attract investors.

  If he ever gets a script from this guy.

  Writers.

  “Did you like the outline?” Julio asks.

  “I did,” Eddie says. “I think there are some good things in there, some really good things. But you can’t have me getting married twice without getting divorced. It makes me look like a dick.”

  “I think it makes you interesting.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie says. “Priscilla would think it was a little too interesting. You know pregnant women, hormones and shit. And the scene where I escape from the marine raid…I think I leave too early. I think I should shoot my way out. You know…‘meet my little friend.’ ”

  “That’s good, yeah.”

  “And the ending,” Eddie says. “I get killed.”

  “It’s a convention of the genre,” Julio says.