The son of a fourth-generation Sonora ranching family, Holguin had decided early on that he would break from the family tradition of abject poverty. The most expedient way to do this, of course, was to mule contraband to the north side of the border. After seventeen years in the drug smuggling business, Holguin had established himself, but he made some dangerous decisions that ultimately sealed his fate. The last night of his life, his two partners asked him to join them for drinks at a small table in a tavern called Club Las Vegas in the red-light district of Agua Prieta, Sonora.
The girls working the bar that night took an interest as soon as the three men walked in. The men were well dressed and ordered Presidente and Dos Eqes chasers, and they surveyed the girls with a passing interest, glancing at smooth legs and exposed cleavages, returning the girls’ smiles with a slight nod of their heads. None of the men cared who paid for the drinks, and the money was not an issue. One of them was muy guapo, quite good looking, and the girl named Dora, who had celebrated her twenty-fourth birthday the day before, gave a look around to the others, most of whom were seated along the bar, which said: “Stay away. He’s mine.”
Isedro Leon, the handsome one, had been listening to his friend Jimmy Holguin talk for the last ten minutes, but now was only half hearing as the little auburn-haired girl at the bar with blue eyes and a scatter of freckles across her nose leered intently at him.
“By middle of March, latest, I could have the rest,” Jimmy was telling Leon. “At ten percent interest,” he said, looking down at his beer bottle as he ciphered out the figures, “it will be eighty-two five. I know that isn’t the same amount of return you would expect, but it’s the best I could do.”
Isedro waved his hand as one would shoo away a fly, a gesture that said it was of no consequence, that everything was all right. He glanced over at the girl, still staring at him. The jukebox played an old corrido that Leon recognized from his teenage years, and he felt nostalgic, sentimental enough to take the girl up on her implied offer, even though he knew it would cost him plenty. “If you have fifty right now, it’s fine,” he said to Jimmy. “I wouldn’t have had that money in circulation, anyway.”
The third man, Juan Carlos Roscon, had not said ten words the entire evening. He was a big, squarely built man with Indio features, a large heavy-skinned face, thick hair and a tuft of wispy mustache and goatee. His upper arms were the thickness of most people’s thighs and bore a tangle of green-ink prison tattoos from a coiled snake to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Juan Carlos was the homeliest of the three and paid the most attention to the girls.
“I still can’t believe it,” Jimmy said to Isedro. “We had just crossed and were going down that arroyo with all the trees, and shit, there they were, man, six migra with their pistols pointed right at us.”
“I thought you said there were five.”
“I remember it better now, and I’m sure there were six.”
“Sometimes you have to run,” Leon said.
“I can still hear the bullets, too, man, shit.” Holguin made a pop-ping-whistling noise between his teeth and lower lip. “We couldn’t run with the backpacks on.” Jimmy went quiet, pondered the bottom of his brandy glass. “I was scared, Ise, you know?”
“Shit,” Leon said. “You remember that time with Ochoa, don’t you? When I didn’t even know I had pissed my pants until I got out of the truck?”
Jimmy nodded, still fixed on the brandy glass. “I just want you to believe me.”
“Hey,” Leon said. “Look at me Jimmy.” He pushed his face closer to Holguin’s and jabbed the table with his index finger for emphasis. “You are my best friend. I never question you, even in my heart. What you say is implicitly the truth for me.”
Jimmy smiled at Ise’s words. Leon could take on such a comforting, almost fatherly, tone so quickly. Jimmy put out his hand, and Leon hauled back and clapped his fist around Jimmy’s, loud enough to draw notice. Both men’s eyes had teared up.
“Hermanos,” Ise said, his hand tight around Jimmy’s.
“Hermanos,” Jimmy came back, Ise working his hand so hard his whole upper body shook.
Dora had kept her eye on the handsome man with the gray at his temples and goatee. He had not looked her way in several minutes and seemed more interested in his friend than in her now. She would probably have to make a move soon if she was to have any chance. She lifted her small Naugahide purse, hung from her shoulder on a faux gold chain, and assessed its contents: a little over a thousand pesos and a half gram of cola, about half the money needed for two hours of crib space and enough coke for one more night. Dora snatched out her compact, snapped it open, and quickly checked the makeup around her eyes. For the past year, she’d saved up for the blue-tinted contacts, and she felt sure they made her the prettiest girl in the club.
When she climbed off the barstool and stepped up to their table, both Holguin and Rascon were annoyed, but neither man was surprised. In the fifteen years Jimmy had partnered with Isedro, he’d seen this sort of thing dozens of times: they’re at a bar and some lady asks Ise to dance, or if she could talk to him a minute, or how his sister or mother or brother was, or did he have any cola, or was he going to the quinceañera reception later on, or could she have a ride home. Anything to get closer to him, because, clearly, Isedro had it—the looks, the money, and something more. It wasn’t just the fancy words he used sometimes but the way he looked at you and the way he phrased what you were thinking already, as though to reach inside with a warm hand and gently touch the middle of you. Jimmy Holguin was one of the few who understood it was at that moment that one should be most afraid. A few times, and Jimmy had been there to witness, that warmth meant he (sometimes she) had maybe ten, fifteen seconds to live.
“¿Qué ondas, mija?,” Jimmy said to her. The girl stood between Rascon and Jimmy, directly across from Isedro.
“Hello,” she said, awkwardly trying her English. She had known immediately the men were American.
Ise sat back in his chair, linked his hands behind his head as he looked up at the girl. “¿Le puedo ayudar?” he asked her, may I help you, and his two companions jeered his politeness.
“Hay, ‘¿Le puedo ayudar?,” Jimmy mocked gently.
Dora waited for the chuckling to die. “¿Podemos hablar?” she answered in kind, Can we talk?
“Hey,” Jimmy said, getting Ise’s attention, and speaking English the first time that evening. “Let this be my treat.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Leon said, the English feeling strange, incongruous to the sounds one hears in a Sonora red-light cantina. He nodded toward the girl, now blank-faced amid the garble of Anglo-Saxon schwas and diphthongs. “You pick up the tab on this kind of shit for your little brother, not your partner.”
“Just thought I’d offer,” Jimmy said. “She looks like she wants to give you a discount, anyway.”
“Discount?” Rascon said, breaking a ten-minute silence. “Free, is more like it.”
Isedro spoke again to the girl. “Siéntate,” he said, gesturing at the empty fourth chair.
She moved her head slightly toward the bar. “Pa’ allá,” she said, as though she would have it no other way.
Ise rose and followed her to the bar where she regained what seemed to be a familiar perch on the barstool, and he stepped up close. Her perfume was a midline knock-off but smelled expensive on her young skin.
“¿Presidente?” he asked.
“¿Por qué no?” she said.
Ise held up two fingers, and the bartender was quick to respond, the snifters and smell of