Núñez resigned his position and went back to Sinaloa.
On Christmas night, a helicopter whisked Adán Barrera and Magda Beltrán off the roof and rumors circulated that the “escape” cost more than four million dollars in payments to people in Mexico City.
Part of that was in a numbered account in Grand Cayman for Ricardo Núñez.
Federal investigators came to question Núñez but he knew nothing about the escape. They expressed moral outrage over Adán’s favored treatment in prison and threatened to prosecute Núñez, but nothing came of it. And while Núñez became unemployable as a prosecutor, it no longer mattered—Adán was as good as his word and reached out to him.
Put him into the cocaine business.
Núñez became respected.
Trusted.
And discreet. He wasn’t showy, stayed out of the spotlight and off social media. Flew deliberately under the radar so even SEIDO and DEA—in fact, few people in the cartel—knew just how important he’d become.
El Abogado.
Núñez, in fact, became Adán’s right-hand man.
Ric himself actually spent little time at all with Barrera, so it’s weird sitting there pretending to mourn.
Adán’s coffin is set on an altar built at the end of the great room for the occasion. Piles of fresh flowers are heaped on the altar, along with religious icons and crosses. Unhusked ears of corn, squash, and papel picado hang from a bower of branches constructed above the coffin. Open containers of raw coffee have been set out, another velorio tradition, which Ric suspects had more to do with killing the smell of decomposition.
As a godson, Ric sits in the front row along with Eva, of course, the Esparzas, and Elena and her sons. Adán’s mother, ancient as the land, sits in a rocking chair, clad in black, a black shawl over her head, her shriveled face showing the patient sorrow of the Mexican campesina. God, the things she’s seen, Ric thinks, the losses she’s suffered—both sons, a grandson killed, a granddaughter who died young, so many others.
He knows the expression about cutting the tension with a knife, but you couldn’t cut the tension in this room with a blowtorch. They’re supposed to be sitting there exchanging fond stories about the deceased, except no one can think of any.
Ric has a few ideas—
Hey, how about the time Tío Adán had a whole village slaughtered to make sure he killed the snitch?
Or—
What about that time Tío Adán had his rival’s wife’s head sent to him in a package of dry ice?
Or—
Hey, hey, remember when Tío Adán threw those two little kids off a bridge? What a stitch. What a great, funny guy, huh?
Barrera made billions of dollars, created and ruled a freaking empire, and what does he have to show for it?
A dead child, an ex-wife who doesn’t come to his wake, a young trophy widow, twin sons who will grow up without their father, a baseball, some smelly old boxing gloves and a suit he never wore. And no one, not one of the hundreds of people here, can think of one nice story to tell about him.
And that’s the guy who won.
El Señor. El Patrón. The Godfather.
Ric sees Iván looking at him, touching his nose with his index finger. Iván gets up from his chair.
“I have to piss,” Ric says.
Ric shuts the bathroom door behind him.
Iván is laying out lines on the marble-top vanity. “Fuck, could this get any more tedious?”
“It’s pretty awful.”
Iván rolls up a hundred-dollar bill (of course, Ric thinks), snorts a line of coke, then hands Ric the bill. “None of this shit for me, cuate. When I go, big fucking party, then take me out on a cigarette boat and, bam, Viking funeral.”
Ric leans over and breathes the coke into his nose. “Goddamn, that’s better. What if I go first?”
“I’ll dump your body in an alley.”
“Thanks.”
There’s a soft knock at the door.
“¡Momento!” Iván yells.
“It’s me.”
“Belinda,” Ric says.
He opens the door, she slides in quickly and shuts it behind her. “I knew what you assholes were doing in here. Share.”
Iván takes the vial out of his pocket and hands it to her. “Knock yourself out.”
Belinda pours out a line and snorts it.
Iván leans against the wall. “Guess who I saw the other day? Damien Tapia.”
“No shit,” Ric says. “Where?”
“Starbucks.”
“Christ, what did you say?”
“I said ‘hello,’ what do you think?”
Ric doesn’t know what he thought. Damien had been an Hijo, they were kids together, played together all the time, partied, all that shit. He was as close to Damien as he was to Iván, until Adán and Diego Tapia got into a beef, which turned into a war, and Damien’s father was killed.
They were all just teenagers then, kids.
Adán, of course, won the war, and the Tapia family was thrown out of the fold. Since then they had been forbidden to have any contact with Damien Tapia. Not that he wanted anything to do with them anyway. He was still around town, but running into him was, well, awkward.
“When I take over,” Iván says, “I’m going to bring Damien back in.”
“Yeah?”
“Why not?” Iván says. “The beef was between Adán and Damien’s old man. Adán’s dead, as you might have noticed. I’ll make it right with Damien, it will be like before.”
“Sounds good,” Ric says.
He’s missed Damien.
“That generation,” Iván says, jutting his chin at the door, “we don’t have to inherit their wars. We’re going to move ahead. The Esparzas, you, Rubén and Damien. Like before. Los Hijos, like brothers, right?”
“Like brothers,” Ric says.
They touch knuckles.
“If you guys are done being gay,” Belinda says, “we better get back out there before they figure out what we’re doing. Snorting coke at El Patrón’s velorio? Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
“Coke built this place,” Iván says.
“Selling it, not snorting it,” Belinda says. She looks at Ric. “Wipe your nose, boyfriend. Hey, your wife is cute.”
“You’ve seen her before.”
“Yeah, but she looks cuter today,” Belinda says. “You want to do a threesome, I’ll teach her some things. Come on, let’s go.”
She opens the door and steps out.
Iván grabs Ric by the elbow. “Hey, you know I have to take care of my brothers. But let things settle down for a few days and we’ll talk, okay? About where you fit in?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t worry, ’mano,” Iván says. “I’ll be fair