Savages

see it.

What he sees instead is

—himself killing people.

He would like to kill—

Hernan Lauter, and

The fucker who was holding the chain saw, and—

Hernan Lauter again.

Chon would like to start every day by killing Hernan Lauter and in a sense he does because he wakes up from what little sleep he gets by thinking about it. It’s a little tricky to imagine it in detail, as he’s never seen Lauter, but Chon goes with his mental image.

Sometimes Lauter is fat; others, skinny; young, old, jowly, sunken, various shades of brown or white skin, his hair is jet black, it’s white, it’s silver, it’s thick or thin.

The method of killing him never varies, though.

Of course, of course in his fantasy Chon puts a pistol into Lauter’s mouth and pulls the trigger.

Two shots—

—bam bam—

—then he gut-shoots the chain saw fucker, and while he is conveniently bent over Chon lops off his melon and tosses it at O’s feet—

—gallant that he is—

Ever honest, Chon isn’t really sure if his rage emanates more from what Hernan did to him or from what he did to O. Knows it should be the latter but is probably more the former because at the end of the day you really can’t feel someone else’s pain, you can only imagine it.

But he has a sense of what she feels because Lauter showed them both their imminent deaths.

His impotent—he selects the word deliberately—rage.

Because he knows that he can’t actualize (there’s a fucked-up non-word)

He can’t act on

act out

his rage.

No amount of Viagra or Cialis will allow him to actually kill or even get within killing distance of Hernan Lauter. He’s powerless to do it, so

his rage is an internal storm

brewing violently, getting stronger because it is contained

(tempest, teapot)

which, of course,

creates more

rage.

124

Ben walks out onto the deck.

Says, “Maybe you were right.”

“Back when they first sent the threat,” Chon says. “We should have either bugged out right then or killed a bunch of people. That was a clean choice and we didn’t make it.”

“Too late now,” Ben says.

He breaks it down. They have Three Options:

1. Play Along—cooperate with the BC and hope O can stick it out for three years.

2. Find and Rescue—locate where they have O and go in and get her.

3. Pay the $20 mil.

The first option isn’t an option. O could never hack it that long, and besides, sooner or later Paqu will want to know where her baby girl is and then she’ll go milk carton. The police, FBI, the whole nine, and that will just get O killed.

The second option is unlikely. The BC could have O anywhere, literally anywhere in the world. If she’s in Mexico, which is the most likely, there’s no way they’re going to find her, much less go in on some sort of Israeli- type raid and pull her out. Not alive, anyway.

But they decide that they still have to try. One step at a time—try to locate her, but while they’re doing that—

The next option—pay the freaking money.

Yeah, gladly, but they don’t have that kind of cash, not liquid, anyway.

They have merchandise that they have to short-sell to the BC. Ben could sell the house, but who’s buying multimillion-dollar houses these days? And banks are borrowing money, not lending it, and besides, what do you use as collateral—dope? In truth, better security than a lot of other things these days, but nothing you could put down on the loan application.

(You want to thaw the frozen credit freeze? Chon has asked. Make those cocksuckers who took our money and now won’t lend it out again take their fists out of their pockets? Firing squads—you trot a few bank presidents out at halftime during Monday Night Football, machine-gun them on the fifty-yard line, and credit will flow like whiskey at an Irish wake.)

Ben has money—he has accounts in Switzerland, the Caymans, the Cooks. He has some investments that he can liquidate. The problem is, he has a lot of investments that he can’t. Green Is Green. The guy is basically a one-man international aid organization, and he’s put a lot of money where his mouth is. Darfur, Congo, Myanmar. So—

—liquidating everything he can liquidate, he can come up with

$15 million.

A shortfall of $5 million.

To free O.

“Do we know anyone with that kind of money?” Ben asks.

“The Baja Cartel has that kind of money.”

The Baja Cartel does have that kind of money.

125

Where to begin, where to begin?

Ben, still Ben-like in his analysis, says they should start with a review of their mistakes.

“Maoist self-criticism,” Chon offers.

“Something like that,” Ben says, and confesses to the sins of—

Complacency.

Arrogance.

Ignorance.

Two will get you three.

But their complacency is at an end, likewise the arrogance.

Ignorance they’re left with.

“Lauter knows everything about us,” Ben says. “We know very little about him.”

So, first step.

126

The train comes.