The Cartel by Don Winslow

“We should talk.”
    —
    They sit in one of the consultation rooms.
    Adán says, “The situation in Tijuana—”
    “I’ve done the best I could.”
    “I know.”
    Elena took charge only because she was the last Barrera sibling not in a grave or a jail. A number of their people would have rebelled just because she was a woman. Some of the others were Teo’s people anyway. Once he broke away, they went with him. So did a number of the police and judges, who no longer had Raúl or Adán to fear.
    The miracle of it is that Elena has held on as long as she did. She’s a good businessperson but not a war leader. Now she says, “I want out, Adanito. I’m tired. Unless you can give me more help on the ground…”
    “I’m in prison, Elena.” They’re in a staredown, as they so often were in childhood. “Do you trust me?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then trust me on this,” Adán says. “It will work out, I promise you. I’ll deal with it. I just need a little time.”
    They stand up and she kisses his cheek.
    —
    Diego interrupts playing with his children to take a phone call.
    He listens and nods.
    The Christmas present is on its way.
    —

    “May I have a word?” Sondra asks Adán.
    Adán suppresses a sigh. He wants to enjoy the party, not endure Sondra’s gloom, but, as the head of the family, he has responsibilities.
    It’s Salvador, she tells him when they retreat to a quiet corner. He’s disrespectful, angry. He stays away for nights at a time, he’s cutting classes. He parties, he drinks, she’s afraid he might be doing drugs.
    “He won’t listen to me,” Sondra says, “and there’s no man at home to set him straight. Will you talk to him, Adán? Will you, please?”
    She sounds like an old lady, Adán thinks. He does his math—Sondra is forty-one.
    Salvador is none too pleased when his uncle comes up and asks to talk with him, but he grudgingly follows Adán back to his cell, sits down, and looks at Adán with a combination of resentment and sullenness that is almost impressive. “My mother asked you to do this, right?”
    “What if she did?” Adán asks.
    “You know what she’s like.”
    Yes, I do, Adán thinks. I truly do. But he’s the head of the family so he asks, “What are you doing, Salvador?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “With your life,” Adán says. “What are you doing with your life ?”
    Salvador shrugs and looks at the floor.
    “Have you dropped out of college?” Adán asks.
    “I’ve stopped going to class.”
    “Why?”
    “Seriously?” Salvador asks. “I’m going to be an architect?”
    It’s so Raúl, Adán almost laughs. “Your father had a medical degree.”
    “And he did a lot with it.”
    Adán gestures to the cell. “Do you want to end up here?”
    “It’s better than where my father ended up, isn’t it?”
    It’s true, Adán thinks, and they both know it. “What do you want, Salvador?”
    “Let me work with Tío Diego,” he says, looking Adán in the eyes for the first time in this conversation. “Or Tío Nacho. Or send me to Tijuana. I can help Tía Elena.”
    He’s so eager, so sincere all of a sudden, it’s almost sad. The boy wants so badly to redeem his father, Adán hurts for him.
    “Your father didn’t want this for you,” Adán says. “He made me promise. His last words to me.”

    It’s a lie. Raúl’s last words were his begging to be put out of his gut-shot misery. He said nothing about Salvador, or Sondra. What he said was Thank you, brother when Adán pointed the pistol at his head.
    “It was good enough for him,” Salvador says.
    “But he didn’t think it was good enough for you, ” Adán insists. “You’re smart, Salvador. You’ve been to the funerals, the prisons…you know what this is. You have money, an education if you want it, connections…You can have a life. ”
    “I want this life,” Salvador says.
    As pigheaded as his father.
    “You can’t have it,” Adán says. “Don’t try. And don’t think of