The Cartel (25 page)

But the important thing is that he’s in there. Eddie can still smell Chacho’s scorched flesh, see his terror and the anguish in his eyes.

Eddie’s mantra: Segura, Forty, Ochoa.

Three names.

Time to make it two.

Eddie tells the Salvadorans to go in through the back. They’re eager—they have their own to pay back now. And it’s not pistols this time—it’s AKs and AR-15s—they’re not taking a chance on being outgunned.

The Salvadorans move down the alley toward the back. Two minutes later Eddie hears shots and screams. Segura comes out the front door blasting, the girls behind him, wobbling on their high heels, terrified.

They get into the Jeep.

Eddie shoots the tires out.

Segura starts the engine and throws the Jeep into gear but Eddie and Los Negros go Bonnie and Clyde on it.

The Jeep rattles like a jonesing junkie.

Segura screams as the bullets strike him.

“You sound like a girl!” Eddie yells. He inserts a fresh clip into his AR and walks toward the Jeep.

Segura lies halfway out the open door.

“You remember Chacho, you sick fuck?” Eddie asks him. “This is for him.”

Segura reaches for the grenade around his neck and tries to pull the pin but Eddie’s blast severs his hand.

Its lifeless fingers clutch the pin.

The Salvadorans walk up to the Jeep from the other side and look into the backseat.

Two of the girls are wounded, moaning.

The third, blood-spattered, wails.

The Salvadorans open up on the girls. One of the Salvadorans laughs as he shoots. “Look, they’re dancing!”

Eddie makes himself look.

Then he walks away.

Segura, Forty, Ochoa.

One down.

New mantra—Forty, Ochoa.

—

Two nights later, the Zetas find Eddie’s house in Nuevo Laredo and burn it to the ground.

Eddie’s not there.

Neither is his family. Teresa has stayed in the other Laredo. She ain’t coming back, Eddie knows, and it’s the right call, things being what they are.

This is no way for a family to live.

A wanted man—the Zetas have a million-dollar reward on him—he moves from safe house to safe house, from one cheap hotel to another, which he basically turns into barracks with fifteen or twenty Los Negros in each.

Well, in most of them.

The Zetas hit one of the houses in a full military raid, snatch fifteen Los Negros, throw them into trucks, and drive them away.

Eddie knows they ain’t coming back, either.

—

They’re not.

They’re taken to an isolated ranch near the border where Forty tortures them for information—the location of Eddie Ruiz being a prime topic. When they’re drained of everything they know, Forty’s guys drench the bodies with gasoline and burn them.

What Eddie does next sets records for sheer balls, even in the storied annals of narcotics traffickers.

—

What he does is he takes out a full-page ad in
El Norte,
Monterrey’s biggest daily newspaper.

In the form of an open letter to the president of Mexico, Eddie implores him to “intervene to resolve the insecurity, extortion, and terror that exists in the state of Tamaulipas, especially in the city of Nuevo Laredo, carried out by a group of army deserters who call themselves the Zetas.”

The ad goes on, “Seriously, dude, the Mexican army, the
federales,
and the attorney general lack the means and tools to handle these guys? I’m no angel but I take responsibility for what I’ve done.”

And he
signs
it.

“Sincerely, Edward Ruiz.”

The ad gets some attention.

It wins him the nickname “Crazy Eddie.”

Which Eddie don’t really like.

It also earns him even more unwanted attention, so Diego decides that Eddie maybe better cool it for a while and move his command post all the way south and west to Acapulco.

—

Eddie chills out on the beach in a seventh-floor condo overlooking the Pacific. Two bedrooms, Jacuzzi tub, flat-screen television, and PlayStation.

Runs Los Negros from there because it’s too risky for him in the 867, and, dig this, the public relations value of his being killed would be too much a victory for the Zetas. So Eddie shifts from condo to condo, plays tennis and video games, and, like
Call of Duty,
runs his part of the war by remote control.

Acapulco is cool because it’s now Tapia territory. Diego has clubs, brothels, restaurants, and police, and Eddie and Diego are tight now. He has a dozen Los Negros watching his ass, and Diego has the local
federales
on the lookout, too.

So life is weird but life is also good, if you don’t count that he never gets to see his wife and kids because him and Teresa are now officially separated. Separated or no, her and her family are still hooked on the money, so Mom still flies the cash down, which is also weird.

Eddie misses his kids like crazy, but Teresa?

Uhhh…

Fact is, Eddie is getting more pussy than he can shake his dick at, so to speak.

He’s a good-looking guy and there’s tourist pussy in all the bars and the clubs, or just on the beach. The cruise ships offload pussy like it’s cargo, so Eddie has no problem hooking up. Mexican girls, American girls, French, Swedish, Spanish, Brits—they’re all coming for the sun, the sand, the margaritas, and vacation sex.

So when they find a blond, blue-eyed, tight-looking guy who speaks the language, gets them into the VIP rooms, and doesn’t mind spending a few bucks on them, they’re all over it. But if he doesn’t feel like making the effort, he goes to one of Diego’s clubs or whorehouses and just lays down the cash. The pros down here are amazing. These girls can go around the world in twenty minutes.

And cash is no problem.

War or no war, the money just keeps flowing.

Cocaine north, cash south.

So Eddie’s living large in Acapulco.

Misses Chacho, though. Chacho should be here to enjoy this shit. Because what Eddie don’t have is friends. He has flunkies, he has gofers, he has hangers-on, but he don’t have friends. Don’t really want any, because friends just get killed. He sends his flunkies out on errands—get more champagne, bring home some girls. One day he hands to gofers thousands in cash and tells them to buy up every video game they can find and he spends a week alone in his condo slamming those buttons.

Eddie’s chilling out one Sunday in his crib, watching a little football, tossing back a couple of beers, when one of the Acapulco
federales
stops by.

“You wanna beer?” Eddie asks.

The
federal
takes a beer and Eddie asks him what’s up. The guy didn’t just drop by to watch the ’Boys blow a fourth-quarter lead.

“Some men came into Zihuatanejo,” the
federal
says. “Zetas.”

Zihuatanejo is a small beach resort up the coast.

“What do they want?” Eddie asks.

Like he don’t know what they want.

The plaza.

And me, Eddie thinks.

“Where are they?’ Eddie asks.

“They have a safe house down by the beach.”

Yeah, except the house ain’t so safe. The
federales
and city cops hit it just before dawn and scoop up four Zetas. One of these guys apparently thought he was going to mix whacking Eddie with a little vacation, because he brought his wife and two-year-old stepdaughter. The fuck, Eddie thinks, I’m living in Disney World? What am I supposed to do now with the wife and a kid?

He has them all taken to a four-story house he owns not that far from the beach back in Acapulco. Keeps the wife and kid down on the first floor and stores her husband and the other three Zetas on the top floor. Eddie has his guys cut up black plastic garbage bags and tape them to the floor and walls because, well, it’s going to get messy up there and bloodstains on the floor and walls don’t do great things for the resale value.

Then he gets one of his ideas.

If a full-page ad was cool…

He goes upstairs with a Glock and a Sony.

The Zetas are sitting on the black plastic with their backs against the wall (literally) and their hands plastic-tied behind them. They don’t look like elite stud supermen to Eddie—they looked like scared jackoffs. He’d heard that the Zetas were now recruiting civilians and then training them at camps in the desert, and he has to wonder if these guys even made it through basic.

Two of the Zetas look to be in their thirties, the other two look like kids, barely out of their teens. Scraggly mustaches, T-shirts, they look like shit. Of course, they’ve been smacked around pretty good, too.

“Bad idea, guys,” Eddie says to them as he sets the camera on its tripod and sets up his shot, “coming down here.”

He frames the shot so that all four are on camera and then turns it on. “This is like
The Real World,
right? You guys get MTV? No?”

If people think the Zetas are heroes, Eddie thinks, I’m going to show them different. Framing the guy farthest to the left, he asks, “When do you start with the Zetas, and what do you do?”

The guy wears a faded green T-shirt that shows his pot belly (where’d he do his training, Eddie wonders, Popeye’s?), khaki shorts, and tennis shoes with no socks. He looks up at Eddie like, are you kidding? but then he starts talking.

“I have contacts in the army,” he says, “and I warn the Zetas about patrols and operations.”

Eddie moves down to the second guy. Red T-shirt and jeans, bad ’stache, curly black hair. This guy smiles at Eddie, like he’s figured out this is some kind of joke, that they’re all friends here.

“I’m a recruiter,” he says.

“Who do you recruit?”

“You know,” the guy says, “men who need work.”

“Soldiers?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes police. Sometimes just guys.”

Just like us, Eddie thinks. He slides down to the next one. This guy isn’t wearing a shirt, just a pair of old shorts and flip-flops.

“I’m a
halcón,
” he says.

“What’s that?” Eddie asks.

“You know.”

“
I
know,” Eddie says, playing the television host, “but our audience might not.”

“A falcon is sort of a scout,” the guy says. “I keep an eye out on the street. I tell where to find people.”

“Then what?”

“We pick them up.”

“And…” Eddie cues.

“Then the boss tells me whether or not to do
el guiso,
” the guy says.

“What’s
el guiso
?” Eddie asks.

“It’s when they kidnap someone,” the guy says, “and they torture him for information, about moving drugs or money, and then they take him to a ranch or somewhere and execute him. They shoot him in the head and then they throw him in a barrel and burn him with gas or diesel or something.”

“Tell me about the Zetas,” Eddie says. “Tell me about the nasty shit you guys do.”

The guys start talking. It turns into a regular
Jerry Springer Show
as they start talking about murders, kidnappings, rapes. The bare-chested guy talks about killing that woman reporter.

“That radio woman?” Eddie asks.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“She took our money,” the guy says, “but then said bad things about us.”

“What about the reporter whose hands you broke?”

“That was Ochoa.”

“What did that reporter do?” Eddie asks.

“He just made Z-1 mad.”

Eddie steps over beside the fourth guy. Making sure that only the pistol is on camera, but not himself, Eddie asks, “What about you, buddy?”

The Zeta looks up at the gun barrel.

Fuck it, Eddie thinks, and pulls the trigger.

Good thing he put the plastic up.

“Get rid of the rest of these assholes,” Eddie orders. He takes the video camera and goes back downstairs.

The little girl is in the pool, wearing inflatable water wings.

Having a great time.

Eddie goes out, sits next to the wife. “What’s her name?”

“Ina.”

“Cute. What’s
your
name?”

“Norma,” the woman says.

She’s pretty, maybe an eight. Not an Acapulco Eight, where the ratings are inflated, but sort of a national eight.

Eddie’s phone rings.

“Eddie Ruiz?”

“How’d you get this number?” Eddie asks, getting up and walking into the kitchen.

“You think if I can get your number, I can’t get you?”
Forty asks.

“Yeah, how’s that working out for you?”

“I’m warning you,”
Forty says.
“Don’t hurt the family.”

Eddie looks out the window to the girl swimming in the pool and her mother dangling her feet in the water.

“I’m not you,” Eddie says. “I don’t hurt women and children.”

“I’ll tell that to those girls in Matamoros.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“No, it was those jungle bunnies, right?”
Forty asks.

“You running out of Rambos?” Eddie asks. “Because you sent F Troop down here.”

Forty laughs.
“You gotta lay off Nickelodeon, Crazy Eddie.”

“No, I like it.”

“Let the family go.”

Eddie clicks off as Norma and her daughter come in.

“Is she hungry?” Eddie asks. He turns to one of his flunkies. “What we got? For a kid?”

“I don’t know. Cheerios, maybe. A banana?”

“Then give her Cheerios and a banana,” Eddie says. “What are you standing there for?”

The girl sits down at the table and eats hungrily. Eddie watches her. When she’s done, he reaches into his pocket and gives Norma a thousand pesos. “Bus fare. My guys will run you to the station.”

She takes the money.

“What about my husband?” Norma asks.

“He said to tell you that he loves you,” Eddie says.

Actually, he didn’t. Eddie doesn’t even know which one he was, but what the fuck, right? Make the woman feel a little better, something to tell her friends. After they leave, he slips the videocassette into an envelope, addresses it to the
Dallas Morning News,
and has one of his guys drop it off at FedEx.