tail-draggers, as had his father and grandfather. You fly these planes, they don't fly you, his father liked to say. Oz liked to see how quickly he could stop her, and, of course, how quickly he could get her into the air. He glanced down and smiled at the billowing tan cloud of dust rising alongside him. The cardon cactus that grew tall in this heat-blasted desert flashed past his windows in the evening light. The strip was a private runway owned by Carlos Herredia of the North Baja Cartel, nothing like the busy and clamorous turista facility up in San Felipe.
He taxied to the end of the runway where a small metal building squatted in the dirt. He steered to the side of the building where the tie-downs waited; then he shut down the aircraft and climbed out. He breathed in the warm October air and walked around to the passenger door and let Daisy out.
She leaped down, a thin-bodied, long-legged dog, all black except for a white splash on her chest. She had the high, upright ears topped with short out-flaps common in border mongrels, which gave her a daft expression. The understanding between man and dog was deep and felt to Ozburn like something remembered. Lately, he felt that a lot, that he was remembering things-feelings, ideas, even physical sensations-that he had known and forgotten. For instance, he loved the dog unconditionally but wondered how she'd taste roasted, though he had no intention of cooking her. Where had that thought come from? Daisy bounced high around him as he tied down the plane. A car came toward them from the west, dragging a cloud of dust, Joe Leftwich at the wheel.
An hour later Ozburn sat on the patio of a small restaurant built into the cliffside overlooking the Gulf of California. Daisy lay at his feet. Across from him sat Mateo, dispatched by Carlos Herredia to collect answers from Sean Gravas, whose safe house in Buenavista had proven extremely unsafe. But Ozburn had come here for reasons of his own.
Mateo looked at Ozburn as if he were made of dog shit. One of his gunmen leaned against a new Suburban in the parking area outside; two more loitered near the big beer cooler that stood near the entrance to the indoor dining room and cantina.
Sean explained in good Spanish that, first of all, he wasn't too happy about having his house shot up. He'd heard that there were brains in the kitchen and blood on the living room floor, and that was expensive stuff, that floor, real travertine for fuck's sake. Sorry about the boys, he added. Mateo asked him why such a thing happened in his house, on his property, and didn't happen somewhere else? Mateo spoke in a soft, accusatory rasp. Sean said it was pretty damned obvious why-someone had smelled out the safe house and sent better killers than Herredia's sicarios. In spite of their fancy and expensive Love 32s, the victims were very young for killers, yes? The Gulf Cartel was probably behind it. Gulf Cartel killers are not boys but highly trained military deserters. Zetas. They want Buenavista because TJ is now too hot again. Same with Juarez. Buenavista is three hours from L.A. The Gulf men could have gotten a tip about the house from neighbors. They could have recognized a Herredia hit boy and tailed him home. They could have an informant inside your organization, yes? Maybe it was the conveniently missing Oscar.
Mateo listened, his face hard and blank. He had the chiseled ranchero features and wiry body of the mountain-dwelling Sinaloans, from whom the current crop of cartel heavyweights so often came. Mateo was somewhere in his late forties-old in his profession. At the mention of a leak within his North Baja Cartel, Mateo's dark eyes took on a sleepy peacefulness that Sean recognized as pre-homicidal. Pride ran deep in these men, he thought. Savages all.
Ozburn finished another Pacifico and banged the bottle on the tabletop for more. The German who ran the place looked at him and nodded.
'Y carne para de perro!' he called.
And meat for the dog.
The German brought two more beers and a tortilla topped with machaca scraps for Daisy. She stood wagging her tail and waited for Ozburn to set the tortilla on the floor before snorting up the food. The owner disappeared into the darker confines of the dining room and came back a moment later with dinner.
They talked of futbol and the Mexican soap operas they both enjoyed, of Calderon and Obama. They drank three beers each and most of a bottle of good reposado. Mateo wore one of the short-sleeved plaid shirts of the mountain vaqueros, and a belt with a large oval slab of silver for a buckle, which made him look more like a cowboy than a narco. His hair was cut short and artlessly. But his boots were ostrich and he wore a Rolex with diamonds and a snazzy GPS unit clipped on his belt next to the gigantic buckle, and his sidearm was a gold-plated.45 with etchings of the narco saint Malverde on the grips.
When the dishes were cleared Mateo lit an American Camel and spoke in Spanish.
— Carlos is worried about his houses in San Ysidro and Yuma, Mateo hissed softly.
— My houses.
— He is worried that there was no message from the Zetas. No warning to abandon our hold on Buenavista. No mutilation. Why would the Gulf Cartel assassinate three of our sicarios and not take credit for it?
— Now I am supposed to answer for the Zetas?
— You answer me.
— I'll answer you: The Gulf Cartel has someone inside your organization. That's the only explanation. It's the trouble with any organization. That's why I wasn't so sure about this whole thing when you people first came after me.
Mateo's face was a dark, angular mask, too fixed to read. Ozburn knew that Mateo 'El Gordo' Leya had just last week made the United States's Kingpins list, which put a government price on his head. This of course was a matter of pride among the higher narcos. Maybe it's gone to his head, thought Ozburn: Mateo did seem a bit more scornful than usual.
— We need to know that your houses are safe for our people.
— I need to know that your people are safe for my houses. I paid over two hundred grand each for those dumps!
— Carlos needs to know.
— Mateo, you guys figure it out. And I'll tell you both this: If my houses in San Ysidro or Yuma get hit, I'm out of this business. And you guys have one bigass problem.
— We are not the problem, Mateo said with a tone of finality. He sat back and gave Ozburn that sleepy look again.
Ozburn's anger spiked fast. He'd always had a temper, but for the last couple of months it had been growing steadily worse. The more he tried to contain it, the faster and harder it hit. And the more fun it was to just let it rip.
He looked out at the heaving, gray Pacific and waited for the anger to pass before he spoke again. He had bigger fish to fry than three dead sicarios and a re-grout job on the bloody travertine.
— I want to buy some of those Love 32s your people carry.
Mateo gave him a glassy smile.
— Only Carlos has the Love 32s, he said.
— You told me he'd think about selling me some. Tell him I'm ready. I want one hundred of them.
— Very expensive.
— I've got a lot of money.
— Only Carlos has those guns.
— I heard that he has them made right here in Mexico.
Mateo stared at him blankly.
— By an American gunmaker. Can you imagine that, Mateo? An American gunmaker operating a secret factory south of the border? A factory protected by the North Baja Cartel? I'm in the business of guns. I hear these things, Mateo. I don't make them up.
Ozburn grinned. In fact, he was making part of it up. He knew for a fact that Blowdown had come that close to busting Ron Pace, a young California gunmaker, last year. Sean had worked that operation. But Pace had gotten lucky and his thousand pistols had made their way south to Mexico and into the hands of Herredia's sicarios. He knew also that Pace and his pretty partner in crime had vanished from the U.S.A. So Ozburn wondered if Pace might be under the wing of Herredia, possibly even making guns for him. Guns were more valuable than gold in Mexico because you couldn't get them legally. The fact that Mateo would have this conversation about the possible sale of Love 32s told Ozburn that such a thing was very, very possible.
Mateo cracked a rare smile. His teeth were large and dilapidated and the bicuspids were rimmed with gold.
