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

is one of the heroin hot spots. They’re seeing three times the smack they did only two years ago. Used to be the drug was just in the northern, more urban part of the island, where it came on the ferry from Manhattan or over the bridge from Brooklyn, and you found it in the projects.

      Not anymore.

      Now it’s down to the single-family neighborhoods in the central and southern parts of the island, working-class neighborhoods with a lot of cops, firefighters, and city employees.

      And let’s be honest about it, Cirello thinks.

      White neighborhoods.

      Blue-collar neighborhoods.

      Why he’s here now.

      Because he’s white.

      Up in Manhattan and out in Brooklyn, drug trafficking is pretty much a gang thing. The black and Latino gangs dominate the trade in and around the projects and he knows he’s not going to break in with them.

      Not a white cop.

      Not even a dirty white cop.

      But out here the heroin trafficking is different—you have a lot of independent dealers, most of them users themselves, selling dime and even nickel bags they’re buying from wiseguy retailers who buy it from the mills uptown.

      Twenty years ago, maybe even ten, it would be worth your life to deal H to white kids in Staten Island, which is as mobbed up as it is copped up. Shit, Paul Calabrese himself lived out here, and there’s still a mob presence but it’s different. They don’t look out for their own like they used to, and that thing about the mob protecting white kids from dope is a long-gone myth.

      Cirello has heard that John Cozzo’s fucking grandkid is slinging dope out here. Which is really no big surprise when you consider that Cozzo killed Calabrese to clear the way for importing Mexican heroin.

      Anyway, Cirello knows he isn’t going to find his hook in the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Manhattan. He’s going to find it out here in white Staten Island—Heroin Isle—with users like Jacqui here.

      To lead him to the sharks.

      He’s thrown out the chum. Went to Resorts World and dropped three large at the blackjack table, betting stupid. Then he chased it with basketball bets—college and pro—and dropped five more. Then he drove up to Connecticut—Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods—dumped a few grand more and got drunk and loud so the word would get around the northeast OC community that a New York detective was off the leash, gambling heavy, losing heavy, drinking heavy.

      Blood in the water.

      Now he drinks his latte and watches Jacqui work behind the counter. She’s got a smile on her face and does her job but she looks a little shaky, walks a little jumpy, and Cirello knows she has maybe three hours before she needs a get-well fix.

      She has to be what, nineteen? Twenty, tops?

      What a world.

      Young people dropping like it’s World War I out here. Parents burying their kids. It’s unnatural.

      Other than this jacked-up assignment, his new life is pretty good. He’s been seeing Libby for a few weeks now and so far it’s working out. Their schedules match—she’s not available until late night or early in the morning and right now they’re both content with a triweekly late dinner and subsequent sex. She isn’t making any further demands and neither is he.

      It’s easy.

      He finishes his coffee and walks up the block to Zio Toto.

      The bar is empty and he pulls out one of the black stools, sits down and orders a Seven and Coke.

      Angie is late and Cirello knows it’s a power play.

      Make the other guy wait.

      Angie comes in about five minutes later.

      If he’s been a regular at 24 Hour Fitness, he’s hiding it pretty well, Cirello thinks. Angelo Bucci is still the same doughy slob he was when they went to Archbishop Malloy together in Astoria. He has his hair cut short now and wears a Mets jacket with jeans and a pair of loafers.