The Power Of The Dog (73 page)

“What?” the major asks. “Do you think I’m Jack Ruby?”

“I’m just making sure you’re not. I want this man to make it to the station alive.”

“We’re taking him to federal police headquarters,” the major says.

“As long as he gets there alive,” Ramos repeats.

The major lowers his pistol and tells his driver, “Let’s go.”

A crowd arrives at Tijuana General before Colosio’s ambulance does. The weeping, praying people have gathered on the front steps, shouting Colosio’s name and holding up his picture. The ambulance brings Colosio around the back and into a waiting operating room. A helicopter has landed on the street, its rotors spinning, ready to fly the wounded man to a special trauma center across the border in San Diego.

It never makes the trip.

Colosio is already dead.

Bobby.

It’s too much like Bobby, Art thinks.

The lone gunman—the alienated, isolated nut. The two wounds, one in the right side, the other on the left.

“How did this Aburto kid do that?” Art asks Shag. “He fires from point-blank range into the right side of Colosio’s head, then shoots him again in the left side of his stomach? How?”

“Just like RFK,” Shag answers. “The victim spins when the first bullet hits.”

Shag demonstrates, snapping his head back and rotating to the left as he falls to the floor.

“That would work,” Art says, “except the trajectory of the bullets have them coming from opposite directions.”

“Oh, here we go.”

“Okay,” Art says. “We bust Güero’s tunnel and it’s connected to the Fuentes brothers, who are big supporters of Colosio. Then Colosio comes to Tijuana, the Barreras’ turf, and gets killed. Call me crazy, Shag.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Shag says. “But I think you have this Barrera obsession, ever since …”

He stops. Stares at the desk.

Art finishes the thought for him. “Ever since they killed Ernie.”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t?”

“I do,” Shag says. “I want to get them all, the Barreras and Méndez. But, boss, at a certain level, I mean … at some point you have to let this go.”

He’s right, Art thinks.

Of course he’s right. And I’d like to let it go. But wanting to and doing are two very different things, and letting go of this “Barrera obsession,” as Shag puts it, is something I just can’t do.

“I’m telling you,” he says, “when all this shakes out, we’re going to find out that the Barreras were behind this.”

No doubt in my mind.

Güero Méndez lies on a gurney at a private hospital, where three of the best plastic surgeons in Mexico are getting ready to give him a new face. A new face, he thinks, dyed hair, a new name, and I can resume my war against the Barreras.

A war he will certainly win, with the new president on his side.

He settles back on his pillow as the nurse preps him.

“Are you ready to go to sleep?” she asks.

He nods. Ready to go to sleep, and wake up a new man.

She takes a syringe, removes the little rubber cap and places the needle against a vein in his arm, then pushes the plunger on the syringe. She strokes his face as the drug starts to take effect, then says softly, “Colosio is dead.”

“What did you say?”

“I have a message from Adán Barrera—your man Colosio is dead.”

Güero tries to get up but his body won’t obey his mind.

“This is called Dormicum,” the nurse says. “A massive dose—call it a ‘lethal injection.’ When your eyes close this time, they’ll never open again.”

He tries to scream, but no sound comes out of his mouth. He fights to stay awake, but he can feel it slipping away from him—his consciousness, his life. He struggles against the restraints, tries to get a hand free to rip off the mask and scream for help, but his muscles won’t respond. Even his neck won’t turn, to shake his head no, no, no, as he feels his life draining out of him.

As if from a tremendous distance he hears the nurse say, “The Barreras say to rot in hell.”

Two guards roll a laundry cart, full of clean sheets and blankets, up to Miguel Ángel Barrera’s suite of cells in Almoloya prison.

Tío climbs in and the guards throw a sheet over him and roll him out of the building, across the yards and out the gate.

That simple, that easy.

As promised.

Miguel Ángel climbs out of the cart and walks to a waiting van.

Twelve hours later he’s living in retirement in Venezuela.

Three days before Christmas, Adán kneels before Cardinal Antonucci in his private study in Mexico City.

“The most wanted man in Mexico” listens to the papal nuncio chant, in Latin, absolution for him and Raúl for their unintentional role in the accidental killing of Cardinal Juan Ocampo Parada.

Antonucci doesn’t give them absolution for the murders of El Verde, Abrego, Colosio and Méndez, Adán thinks, but the government has. In advance—it was all part of the quid pro quo for killing Parada.

If I kill your enemy, Adán had insisted, you must let me kill mine.

So it’s done, Adán thinks. Méndez is dead, the war is over, Tío has been whisked out of prison.

And I am the new patrón.

The Mexican government has just restored the Holy Roman Catholic Church to full legal status. A briefcase full of incriminating information has passed from Adán Barrera to certain government ministers.

Adán leaves the room with an officially shiny-clean new soul.

Quid pro quo.

New Year’s Eve, Nora comes home from a dinner with Haley Saxon. She left even before they popped the corks on the champagne.

She’s just not in a party mood. The holidays have been depressing. It was her first Christmas in nine years that she didn’t spend with Juan.

She slips the key into her door and opens it, and as she steps inside, a hand clamps over her mouth. She digs into her purse and fumbles for the pepper spray but the bag is knocked out of her hand.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Art says. “Don’t scream.”

He slowly takes his hand off her mouth.

She turns and slaps him across the face, then says, “I’m calling the police.”

“I am the police.”

“I’m calling the real police.”

She walks to her phone and starts to dial.

He says, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a …”

She puts the phone down.

“That’s better.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to see something.”

“You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that.”

He takes a videocassette from his jacket pocket. “Do you have a VCR?”

She laughs. “Amateur videos? Swell. Are they of you, to impress me? Or are they of me? First threats, now blackmail. Let me tell you something, honey—I’ve seen a hundred of them, and I look pretty good on tape.”

She opens an armoire and shows him the TV and VCR. “Whatever turns you on.”

He pops in the tape and says, “Sit down.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“I said sit down.”

“Oh, it’s the forceful thing.” She sits on the sofa. “Happy now? Turned on?”

“Watch.”

She’s smirking as the tape starts to run, but she stops as the image of a young priest comes on the screen. He’s sitting in a metal folding chair behind a metal table. A bar is displayed on the bottom of the screen, giving the date and time.

“Who’s this?” she asks.

“Father Esteban Rivera,” Keller answers. “Adán’s parish priest.”

She hears Art’s voice in the background, asking questions.

Feels her heart drop as she listens.

May 24, 1994, do you remember where you were?

Yes.

You were performing a christening, is that right?

Yes.

In your church in Tijuana.

Yes.

Take a look at this document.

Nora sees a hand slide a paper across the table at the priest. He picks it up, looks at it and puts it back on the table.

Do you recognize that?

Yes.

What is it?

Baptismal records.

Adán Barrera is listed as the godfather. Do you see that?

Yes.

That’s your handwriting, isn’t it?

Yes.

You entered Adán Barrera as the godfather and indicated that he was present at the christening, is that right?

I did that, yes.

But that’s not true, is it?

Nora can’t breathe during the long pause as Rivera contemplates his response.

No.

She feels sick to her stomach.

You lied about that.

Yes. I’m ashamed.

Who asked you to say that Adán was there?

He did.

Is that his signature, there?

Yes, it is.

When did he actually sign that?

It was a week before.

Nora leans over and puts her head between her knees.

Do you know where Adán was that day?

No, I don’t.

“But we do, don’t we?” Art says to Nora. He gets up, pops the tape out of the machine and puts it back in his pocket. “Happy New Year, Ms. Hayden.”

She doesn’t look up as he leaves.

New Year’s Day, Art wakes up to the sound of the television and a wicked hangover.

I must have left the damn thing on last night, he thinks. He shuts it off, goes into the bathroom, takes a couple of aspirin and chugs a large glass of water. Then he goes into the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee.

He opens the door to the hallway while it brews and picks up his newspaper. Takes the paper and the coffee to the table in the living space of the sterile condo and sits down. It’s a clear winter day outside, and he can see San Diego Harbor just a few blocks away, and beyond that, Mexico.

Good riddance to 1994, he thinks. A bastard of a year.