“Tola does the negotiating,” he said. “We’re here to keep things well mannered. If anything less than good manners prevails, get back to the van fast. If you can’t, the desert north of here is passable. Just stick to the riverbed and dodge the rattlesnakes. It’s five hundred yards back to the U.S.A. No wall yet, no troops anymore. They’ll want our phones, so leave them here — they can’t take what we don’t have.”
“They’ll take the whole damned van,” said someone in the dark.
“The van is secure,” said Virgil.
I followed his crooked finger pointing through the windshield and saw the men approaching, three more of Tola’s Strait Shooters from the Julian Nectar Barn.
“It’s going to go smoothly,” said Tola, her voice taut. “It’s going to go exactly how I want it to.”
“Vamos con Dios,” said a voice from behind me.
Tola and I led the way, her boots sharp on the old cobbles, her flowing duster buttoned not quite high enough to hide her plunging neckline. Behind us came the rest, Marcus pushing Archie Strait in his wheelchair, his head braced but bouncing sharply on the bumpy street, his white shirt bright under the streetlamp. His hands were folded on his lap and his face set in a serene expression.
“I can’t get free from seeing Kirby,” she said. “Hanging there in the cottonwoods. All white like the tree trunks. I can separate personal from business, Roland. I’ve always done that. But what about Kirbs? He can’t do anything at all now. They took it all away from him, right down to his right to breathe. From Charity, too. And from three more of my people. I’m having trouble shaking that from my brain.”
“Shake it now, Tola,” I said. “Vengeance later.”
“That’s what Dad said.”
“I didn’t know he could talk.”
“He tightens a finger once for yes and twice for no. It works. It just takes time for complex ideas.”
There seemed to be no end to Strait family surprises.
We were shown into the courtyard restaurant by a solemn gentleman in a black suit. Columned archways ran along all four sides, framing the tiled floor and the heavy wooden chairs and tables. Above and beyond them guest rooms, curtained for privacy, some lit and others not. In the courtyard wrought iron sconces with electric candles threw light on the profusion of potted plants that had surrounded Tola and me on what now seemed to be a very distant evening, never to be repeated.
Six New Generation gangsters took their seats at a spacious table for twelve, their jefe at one head. Virgil took the other head as his five confederates claimed alternating chairs amid the narcotraficantes. The illegals favored urban fashions and street bling, high-end watches, big rings, gold bracelets. Tola’s wannabe legals wore conservative western attire — some in cowboy boots and hats, their weapons purposely ill concealed. Tattoos for all. I stood at the wall with a nervy beat to my pulse, Archie beside me, Tola with her back to us mid-table.
The men stood and introduced themselves gravely, handshakes and fist bumps and an air of guarded conviviality: Leo was the jefe, then Matteo, Domingo, Israel, El Poco, and El Suerte — The Small and The Lucky.
Then the northerners: Virgil, who introduced his granddaughter, his son behind her, then Marcus, Gar, Erik, and Eli.
When the introductions were finished and the players had sat, a waiter pulled back Leo’s chair and El Jefe stood.
“My English no bueno,” he said. “But for to honor you, bonita Nordica, I try. We are having too much blood in your country. The United States is the customer we all need. She is the not-ending source of dollars for us. La plaza última. Can we share? Yes, but only if we share together. Not as guerreros but as friends. As businessmen. We all know this. Sinaloa knows. New Generation knows, Tijuana knows. La Familia knows. All of the politicians in Mexico and los Estados Unidos know this. You know. Many of your businesses are legal but they no can operate. So, only on native land. And the natives know. Billions of dollars grow from los Estados Unidos, like plants. The dollars are reaching up to offer themselves. So, Tola, why do we compete? Why do we not join our people — right here, tonight — a pledge of business and honor? Your brother, he is no more. But maybe we honor him, and those of New Generation, with peace. Peace and cooperation. We have many lawyers. So do you. Too many lawyers. They make the details. But only if we agree, tonight.”
Leo looked down at Tola, then at each of the seated norteños. He turned and nodded at Archie, then sat.
In the awkward silence that followed, an army of waiters marched in, bearing a magnum of wine, pitchers of beer, and trays of liquor bottles crowded tightly as high-rises. They were stoic and formal and served the Mexicans first.
When the last of the waiters exited through the columns of the arcade, Tola stood and raised a beer stein.
“To the future,” she said.
“El futuro!” a few voices rang out, none of them from her own people. It was then that I thought I knew why this strange convention had been called, and what was going to happen.
“And to Kirby Strait,” she added. “One more victim of New Generation greed and stupidity.”
Another silence, this one more loaded.
“Your slaughter on Palomar has done more than break my heart,” she said. “It’s made terrible trouble for us at home. The local police are investigating. The San Diego sheriffs. The Bureau of Cannabis Control. The FBI, the DEA, and the Department of Homeland Security. Our sympathetic representatives and state assembly can’t help us with headlines like the ones that you have created. You have brought all this wrath upon my people in order to what? To bully me into a partnership? If any one of you in this room thinks that I’m weak and foolish enough to give in to your violence, let him raise his hand and be counted right now.”
Their eyes were hard upon Tola, and their faces set in contempt, but not a hand went up.
“Good,” she said. “You’re right, Leo. We can’t bring back Kirby or his woman, or the three fine people I lost on Palomar that day. We can only honor them. With grand words and fading memories of who they were and what they paid.”
Tola upped her stein and took what looked to me, from behind, like a measured swallow.
“With respect, Miss Tola,” said El Poco, standing and opening his hands in the air. He was a huge man with a Zapata mustache and soulful eyes. “Your brother and his amiga were not supposed to die that day. They were collaterals.”
“Which makes his dying even worse,” said Tola. “More wasteful and inept. They shot up his body long after he’d died, Poco. Is there such a thing as collateral mutilation?”
“I will discipline the guilty,” he said.
The silence was Tola’s to break or keep. “I forgive you all. I forgive you, to a man.”
El Jefe stood and raised his glass of wine. “To our friendship and new business relation!”
Tola set down her beer stein. “I said nothing about friendship or business.”
“But…”
“I simply forgave you before saying hello to you from Kirby.”
Beneath the chartreuse satin Tola’s shoulders rolled, and the back of the duster loosened and an orange flash blew Leo off his feet and back into his chair. The Honcho. She turned and shot El Poco in his face as he sat, swung the coach gun down-table to cut down half-risen Matteo. Virgil pistol-shot Israel, seated next to him, point-blank; Eli swept a small knife through El Suerte’s throat; Gar shot drop-jawed Domingo with a small machine pistol; and Marcus swung his pistol left and right through the gun smoke, futilely searching for a living target.