Savages

They even let Esteban send out for pizza.

212

It’s a yeeee-had.

Full-out war between Treinte and 94, a surrogate battle shadowing the struggle between Elena and El Azul South of the Border down Mexico way.

It had to happen. Just a matter of time, all the experts say, a little gratified to see their gloomiest prognostications realized. The drug violence in Mexico had to leak across the border. A pool of blood seeping under the fence, an unstoppable toxic tide like the mujados coming across.

Like—

The Swine Flu.

(Except you won’t need a “preexisting medical condition” and there is no vaccine.)

Heche en Mexico.

Drug war.

Treinte strikes back at 94. Then 94 strikes back at Treinte. The bodies start stacking up in the barrios of SoCal. It will only be a matter of time, the grave newscasters warn, before an innocent (white) person gets killed.

“Why is this my problem?” Ben asks Jaime at the “staff meeting,” which takes place in the parking lot at Salt Creek Beach.

“From now on, you deliver your product to us,” Jaime tells Ben.

“No way,” Ben says. “I’m not putting my people at risk.”

“There’s no risk,” Jaime says. “We plugged the leak.”

Yeah. Ben remembers “plugging the leak.” Ben sees it over and over again, his hand pulling the trigger on Alex. Now he says, “I don’t know …”

“There’s no argument,” Jaime says.

Putting a Lid (as it were) on It

That’s our decision.

Well, then—

213

EXT. BEN’S HOUSE – THE DECK – DAY

Ben and Chon stand at the railing and look off at the cerulean blue ocean.

CHON

We’ll know where their stash houses are.

BEN

We will know where their stash houses are, yes.

Ben lights a bowl of dope and takes a hit.

CHON

Lot of money in a stash house.

BEN

Hence the name “stash house.”

CHON

We could kick this to a whole new level. We could make the rest of the money with one big score.

Ben passes the pipe to Chon.

BEN

We could.

CUT TO:

214

Yeah, they could—doesn’t mean they should.

What they probably should do is realize that they’ve been very lucky and gotten away with a whole lot of shit that they shouldn’t have gotten away with, that’s what they probably should do.

They should—doesn’t mean they will.

215

It’s the baditude.

“It will be bloody,” Chon says.

Ben doesn’t care anymore.

One big score.

Irresistible.

It’s been six weeks since they took her, and now they’re one last big score from getting O back. From ending this nightmare. (Sure, but can he end the nightmares? He doesn’t know.) From getting the hell out of the hell and starting a new life.

Pull this off, get away with it, they’re free and clear.

If people get hurt, they get hurt, Ben thinks. And a lot fewer people will probably get hurt if they hit a car than if they hit the house where they have O, even if they can find it. And these motherfuckers? After what they did to those three kids? And Alex? And O? After what they’ve turned me into?

Fuck ’em.

But be honest. You turned yourself into what you are now.

Okay, so fuck me.

216

Fuck ’em.

Okay, but how?

It’s the Wild West out there with the BC Civil War raging north of the border.

So new regs on all shipments—cash, dope, or both.

Lado’s Rules:

Three cars—the cargo car, one in front, one in back. All porcupines, bristling with guns and gunmen.

So how you gonna beat that?

They used to call it “guerrilla warfare,” now they call it something else—“non-symmetrical conflict.”

You gotta love guys who can come up with language like that.

Non-symmetrical conflict.

Different name, same thing.

The small versus the big.

217