The Border: The final gripping thriller in the bestselling Cartel trilogy. Don Winslow

that Iván had—albeit grudgingly and bitterly—accepted Núñez’s leadership of the cartel and—grudgingly and bitterly—the transfer of Baja to Rudolfo.

      It must have been some scene, Elena thinks, at least as Ricardo described it. Iván had yelled, cursed, called Elena every name in the book and a few that hadn’t been memorialized yet, had threatened war, promised to fight to the death, but was finally worn down by Ricardo’s steady, monotonous, Chinese-water-torture application of logic and reason.

      “He agreed to a two percent piso,” Ricardo told her.

      “The standard is five.”

      “Elena …”

      “Very well, fine.” She would have agreed to zero, if that’s what it took.

      Ricardo couldn’t help but slip the knife in a little. “And shouldn’t I be having this conversation with Rudolfo?”

      “You phoned me.”

      “So I did,” Ricardo said. “Slip of the speed dial.”

      “I’ll run it past Rudolfo,” she said. “But I’m sure he’ll agree.”

      “Oh, I’m sure he will,” Ricardo said.

      Rudolfo sits beside her in the back seat of the limousine. He had claimed nothing but enthusiasm when she told him that he was the new boss of Baja, but she could tell he was nervous.

      He has reason to be, she thinks.

      There’s hard and uncertain work to be done. Traffickers and gunmen who had once been “Barrera people” had been transferred to the Esparzas and would now be asked to come back. Most will, she knows, eagerly; but others will be reluctant, even rebellious.

      A few examples might have to be made—the first person who vocally objects will have to be killed—and she worries if Rudolfo has it in him to order that. If he ever did—her poor sweet son likes to be liked, a useful trait in the music and club businesses, not so much in la pista secreta.

      Elena has people who will do it, and do it in his name, but sooner rather than later he will need to have his own armed wing. She can and will give him the people, but he will have to command.

      She puts her hand over his.

      “What?” Rudolfo asks.

      “Nothing,” Elena says. “Just that it’s a sad occasion.”

      The car slows as one of Núñez’s people tells them where to park.

      The mausoleum, Elena thinks as she takes her seat next to her mother, is a monument to tasteless excess. Three stories high in classic churrigueresque architecture with a dome roof tiled with mosaic; marble columns; and stone carvings of birds, phoenixes and dragons.

      And it’s air-conditioned.

      I doubt, Elena thinks, that Adán will feel the heat.

      A Dolby sound system is encased in the columns, running a continuous loop of corridos about Adán; inside the crypt, a flat-screen monitor shows videos of the great man and his good works.

      It’s hideous, Elena thinks, but it’s what the people expect.

      And it wouldn’t do to let the people down.

      The priest had actually hesitated to perform the service for “a notorious drug lord.”

      “Look around you, you sanctimonious little prick,” Elena said when they met in his office. “That desk you’re sitting behind? We paid for it. The chair your flabby ass sits in? We paid for it. The sanctuary, the altar, the pews, the new stained-glass windows? All straight from Adán’s pocket. So I’m not asking you, Padre, I’m telling you—you will perform this service. Otherwise—my hand to the Virgin Mary—we will send people in to remove everything from this church, starting with you.”

      So now Father Rivera says some prayers, gives a blessing, then a little homily about Adán’s virtues as a dedicated family man, his generosity toward the church and the community, his deep love of Sinaloa and its people, his faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost and God the Father.

      Adán had faith in money, power and himself, Elena thinks as the priest moves to wrap it up. That was his Holy Trinity, he didn’t believe in God.

      “I do believe in Satan, though,” he had told her once.

      “You can’t believe in one without the other,” she said.

      “Sure you can,” Adán said. “The way I understand it, God and the devil were in a giant battle to rule the world, right?”

      “I suppose.”

      “Right,” Adán said. “Look around you—the devil won.”

      The whole thing is a joke, Ric thinks.

      He’s also thinking about how badly he has to piss and wishes he had before this endless service began, but it’s too late now, he’ll just have to hold it.

      And endure Iván’s stink eye.

      His friend hasn’t stopped glaring at him since it started. Just as he had glared at him when he came out of his meeting with Ricardo Sr. at the velorio, walked up to Ric at the pool, glared down at him and said, “You knew.”

      “Knew what?”

      “That Adán made your father the new boss.”

      “I didn’t know.”

      “Fuck you.”

      “I didn’t.”

      “You father called me a clown,” Iván said.

      “I’m sure he didn’t say that, Iván.”

      “No, that bitch Elena did,” Iván said. “But your father repeated it. And you knew, Ric. You knew. You let me talk, go on and on about what I was going to do, and all the time, you knew.”

      “Come on, Iván, I—”

      “No, you’re the guy now, right?” Iván said. “Your father is the jefe, that makes you what, Mini-Ric, huh?”

      “Still your friend.”

      “No, you’re not,” Iván said. “We’re not friends. Not anymore.”

      He walked away.

      Ric called him, texted him, but got no answers. Nothing. Now Iván sits there staring at him like he hates him.

      Which maybe he does, Ric thinks.

      And maybe I can’t blame him.

      After talking to Iván, his father had called Ric in.

      Ric read the paper that his old man slid across the glass top. “Jesus Christ.”

      “That’s all you have to say?”

      “What do you want me to say?”

      “I was hoping for something more along the lines of ‘Let me know what I can do to help, Dad,’” Núñez said, “or ‘Whatever you need from me, I’m there.’ Or ‘Adán chose wisely, Dad, you’re the man for the job.’”

      “All that goes without saying.”

      “And yet I had to say it.” Núñez leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together, a gesture Ric had hated since he was a child, as it always meant that a lecture was coming. “I need you to step up now, Ric. Take more of an active role, lend a hand.”

      “Iván thought it was going to be him.” Every other word out of Iván’s mouth had been how things were going to be when he took over, and now here was Adán reaching out from the grave to snatch that from him.

      “His happiness is not my concern,” Núñez said. “Or, for that matter, yours.”

      “He’s my friend.”