Read Online The Cartel by Don Winslow - Free Book Online

morning.
    And she’s smart.
    A bit at a time, Magda reveals the extent of her knowledge about the business. She lets drop small bits of information about the cocaine trade, people she’s met—friends, acquaintances, connections. She casually mentions the places she’s been—South America, Europe, Asia, the United States—to show that, while she’s a proud Sinaloan, she’s no mere chuntara, hillbilly, either.
    That she could be an asset to him, and not only in bed.

    Adán doesn’t doubt that, actually.
    It isn’t a matter of doubt, it’s a matter of trust.
    —
    Magda sees the blade.
    A glint in the sunshine.
    “Adán!” she screams.
    He turns as the small, thin man—perhaps in his thirties—steps toward him, knife leveled horizontally and held back at the waist like a professional. The man thrusts the blade, Adán pivots, and the knife slices the small of his back. The attacker pulls back the blade to try again, but two of Los Bateadores are already on him, pin his arms behind him, and start to drag him off the volleyball court.
    “Alive!” Adán yells. “I want him alive!”
    He reaches around and feels the hot, sticky blood seep through his fingers. Francisco grabs him, then Magda, and then he blacks out.
    —
    His would-be assassin doesn’t know who hired him.
    Adán believes him, and didn’t think that he would, actually. Juan Jesús Cabray is a good man with a knife, serving a pair of sixty-year sentences for dispatching two rivals in a Nogales bar with a blade. He did a couple of jobs for the old Sonora cartel back in the day, but that means nothing now. Now he’s tied to a pillar in a basement storage room as Diego lazily shoulders a baseball bat and prepares to swing.
    “Who hired you, cabrón ?”
    Cabray’s head lolls forward like a broken doll, but he manages to shake it feebly and mutter, “I don’t know.”
    Adán sits uncomfortably on a three-legged stool. The seven stitches itch more than hurt, but his side is starting to ache. Whoever hired Cabray used multiple layers of cut-outs to approach him. And they chose a man who had nothing to lose. But what would he have to gain? That his impoverished family would receive a bundle of cash—money that he could no longer provide. So he would keep his silence, use the one resource that God gave to the Mexican campesino—the ability to suffer. Diego could beat this man to death and it wouldn’t matter.
    “Stop.” Adán edges his stool closer, and says softly, “Juan Cabray, you know you’re going to die. And you will die happy, thinking of the money that will go to your wife and family. That’s a good thing, you’re a brave man. But you know…Juan, look at me…”

    Cabray lifts his head.
    “…you know that I can reach out to your family, wherever they are.” Adán says, “Listen to me, Juan Jesús Cabray, I will buy your wife a house, I will get her a job where she doesn’t work hard, I will send your son to school. Is your mother alive?”
    “Yes.”
    “I will see that she is warm in the winter,” Adán says, “and that you have a funeral that will make her proud. So, the only question is, do I take your family under my wing and make them my family, or do I kill them? You decide.”
    “I don’t know who hired me, patrón. ”
    “But someone approached you,” Adán says.
    “Yes.”
    “Who?”
    “One of the guards,” Cabray says. “Navarro.”
    Two of Los Bateadores hustle out.
    “What did he offer you?” Adán asks Cabray.
    “Thirty thousand.”
    Adán leans in and whispers into Cabray’s ear, “Juan Jesús, do you trust me?”
    “Sí, patrón.”
    “Save us time,” Adán says. “Tell me how to find your family.”
    Cabray whispers that they are in a village named Los Elijos, in Durango. His wife’s name is María, his mother is Guadalupe.
    “Father?” Adán asks.
    “Muerto.”
    “He is waiting for you in heaven,” Adán says. Wincing a little as he stands up, he says to Diego, “Make it quick.”
    As