cesarean scars. Two other patrons sat at the main bar, old men wearing wide-brimmed hats, thick leather belts, and cowboy boots.
Corrales went to a back table, where he met his friend Johnny Sanchez, a tall, long-haired Hispanic-American screenwriter and reporter who wore tiny glasses and a UC Berkeley college ring. Johnny was the son of Corrales’s godmother, and he’d gone away to the United States and received his education, only to return to contact Corrales because he wanted to write some articles about the drug cartels in Mexico. He’d never accused Corrales of working for the cartels. He’d said only that he guessed Corrales knew a lot about them. And they’d left it at that.
For the past few months, Corrales had been talking to the man, helping him develop a screenplay that would chronicle Corrales’s life. Their lunch meetings were often the best part of Corrales’s day, when he wasn’t having sex with Maria, of course.
With Corrales’s permission, Johnny had just had an article published in the
“The article was very well received,” Johnny said, then took a long pull on his beer.
“You are welcome.”
“It’s a pretty exciting time for me,” he said.
They spoke in Spanish, of course, but once in a while Johnny would break unconsciously into English — like he just did — and he would lose Corrales. Sometimes that would annoy Corrales to the point that he’d bang his fist on the table, and Johnny would blink and apologize.
“What did you say?” Corrales asked.
“Oh, sorry. I received over a hundred e-mails about the article, and the editor would like to turn it into a series.”
Corrales shook his head. “I think you should focus on our movie script.”
“I will. Don’t worry.”
“I’m talking to you because you are my godmother’s son, and because I want you to tell the story of my life, which would make a very good movie. I don’t want you to write any more articles about the cartels. People would become very upset. And I would be afraid for you. Okay?”
Johnny tried to repress his frown. “Okay.”
Corrales smiled. “Good.”
“Is something wrong?”
Corrales traced a finger along the sweat covering his beer bottle, then looked up and said, “I lost some good men today.”
“I didn’t know about it. There was nothing on the news.”
“I hate the news.”
He glanced at the table. The Juarez Cartel had their hands firmly planted on the shoulders of the local media outlets, which sometimes defied them, but the more recent murders of two well-known field reporters who’d been beheaded outside their TV news stations had resulted in some significant “delays” and omissions of stories altogether. Many journalists remained defiant while others feared reporting on anything related to the cartels and cartel violence.
“I want to talk about the day those
Johnny always whipped himself up into a fit of passion as he discussed the film, and Corrales couldn’t help but become infected by the writer’s enthusiasm. He was about to comment on Johnny’s suggestion that he was in fact in a cartel — but Johnny turned his head, focusing on something out near the main bar.
“Get down,” he screamed, as he dove across the table and knocked Corrales onto the floor, just as a gun boomed from that direction, followed by at least a half-dozen more shots that pinged into the table and thumped into the wall behind them. The strippers began hollering, and the bartenders were shouting about no shooting, no shooting.
Then, as Corrales rolled onto the floor, it was Johnny who shocked the hell out of him and returned fire with a Beretta clutched in his right hand.
“Is this what you want?” Johnny screamed in Spanish. “Is this what you want from me?”
And the gunman near the bar spun around and sprinted off as Johnny emptied his clip into the man’s wake.
They sat there, just breathing, looking at each other.
Then Johnny said, “Motherfucker …”
“Where did you get that gun?” Corrales asked.
It took a moment before Johnny answered. “From my cousin in Nogales.”
“Where did you learn to shoot?”
Johnny laughed. “I only shot it once before.”
“Well, it was enough. You saved me.”
“I just saw them first.”
“And if you hadn’t, I’d be dead.”
“We’d both be dead.”
“Yeah,” Corrales said.
“Why do they want to kill you?”
“Because I’m not in the cartel.”
Johnny sighed. “Corrales, we’re like blood. And I don’t believe you.”
He slowly nodded.
“Can’t you tell me the truth?”
“I guess maybe now I owe you that. Okay. I’m the head of the Juarez Cartel,” he lied. “I control the entire operation. And those guys were from the Sinaloa Cartel. We’re at war with them over the border tunnels and their interference with our shipments.”
“I thought you were maybe a
He nodded.
“Then you shouldn’t be out in public like this. It’s foolish.”
“I won’t hide like a coward. Not like the other leaders. I will be out here in the street, so the people can see me. So they can know who their true friend is — not the police or the government but us …”
“But that’s very dangerous,” Johnny said.
Corrales began to laugh. “Maybe this can go in the movie, too?”
Johnny’s expression shifted from a deep frown into his more wide-eyed stare, as though he were already staring through a camera’s lens. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Yeah.”
15 THE BUILDER AND THE MULE
Pedro Romero estimated that within a week they would finish their digging. The home they’d chosen in Calexico, California, was in a densely populated residential district of lower-middle-class families whose breadwinners worked in the nearby retail businesses and industrial parks. The Juarez Cartel had already purchased
