the first thing he does is kill the previous ruler’s cubs. Her own cubs still carry the Barrera name and people will assume that they have ambitions even if they don’t. Rudolfo has a small retinue of bodyguards and a few hangers-on, Luis even fewer. Whether I want to or not, she thinks, I’ll have to take on a certain level of power to protect them.
But the top spot?
There’s never been a female head of a cartel, and she doesn’t want to be the first.
But she’ll have to do something.
Without a power base, the other lions will track down her cubs and kill them.
Looking at her brother’s coffin, she wishes she felt more. Adán was always very good to her, good to her children. She wants to cry, but the tears won’t come and she tells herself that’s because her heart is exhausted, played out from all the loss over the years.
Her mother, perched in her chair like a crow, is virtually catatonic. She’s buried two sons, a grandson and a granddaughter. Elena wishes that she could get her to move to town but she insists on staying in the house that Adán built for her in La Tuna, all by herself if you don’t count the servants and the bodyguards.
But she won’t leave, she’ll die in that house.
If my mother is a crow, Elena thinks, the rest are vultures. Circling, waiting to swoop down to pick my brother’s bones.
Iván Esparza and his two equally cretinous brothers, Adán’s horrible lawyer Núñez, and a flock of smaller players—plaza bosses, cell leaders, gunmen—looking to become bigger players.
She feels tired, all the more so when she sees Núñez walking toward her.
“Elena,” Núñez says, “I wonder if we could have a word. In private.”
She follows him outside to the grand sloping lawn she walked so many times with Adán.
Núñez hands her a piece of paper and says, “This is awkward.”
He waits while she reads.
“This is not a position I relish,” Núñez says, “certainly not one that I wanted. In fact, I prayed that this day would never come about. But I feel—strongly—that your brother’s wishes should be respected.”
It’s Adán’s writing, no question, Elena thinks. And it quite clearly declares that Ricardo Núñez should take over in the event of Adán’s untimely death until his own sons reach the age of responsibility. Christ, the twins are barely two years old. Núñez will have a long regency. Plenty of time to turn the organization over to his own offspring.
“I realize that this might be a surprise,” Núñez says, “and a disappointment. I only hope that there’s no resentment.”
“Why should there be?”
“I could understand that you might think this should have gone to family.”
“Neither of my sons is interested, and Eva—”
“Is a beauty pageant queen,” Núñez says.
“So was Magda Beltrán,” Elena says, although she doesn’t know why she feels a need to argue with him. But it’s true. Adán should have married his magnificent mistress. The beautiful Magda met Adán in prison, became his lover, and then parlayed that and her considerable business acumen into creating her own multimillion-dollar organization.
“And look what happened to her,” Núñez says.
True enough, Elena thinks. The Zetas suffocated her with a plastic bag and then slashed a Z into her chest. And she was carrying Adán’s unborn child. Magda had confided in Elena and now she wonders if Adán ever knew. She hopes not—it would have broken his heart.
“Obviously Eva is not the person to take over,” Elena says.
“Please understand,” Núñez says, “that I believe I hold this position in trust for Adán’s sons. But if you think that you would be the better choice, I am willing to ignore Adán’s wishes and step down.”
“No,” she says.
Letting Núñez take the throne means shoving her own sons aside, but Elena knows that they’re secretly happy to be pushed. And, frankly, if Núñez wants to make himself a target, all the better.
But Iván … Iván is not going to like it.
“You have my support,” Elena says. She sees Núñez nod with a lawyer’s graciousness at having won a settlement. Then she drops the other shoe. “I just have one small request.”
Núñez smiles. “Please.”
“I want Baja back. For Rudolfo.”
“Baja is Iván Esparza’s.”
“And before it was his, it was mine.”
“In all fairness, Elena, you gave it up,” Núñez says. “You wanted to retire.”
It was my uncle, M-1, who sent my brothers to take the Baja plaza from Güero Méndez and Rafael Caro, Elena thinks. That was in 1990, and Adán and Raúl did it. They seduced the rich Tijuana kids and turned them into a trafficking network that co-opted their parents’ power structure on our behalf. They recruited gangs from San Diego to be gunmen, and they beat Méndez, Caro and everyone else to seize that plaza and use it as a base to take the entire country.
We made your Sinaloa cartel what it is, she thinks, so if I want Baja back, you’re going to give it to me. I won’t leave my sons without a power base with which to defend themselves.
“Baja was given to Nacho Esparza,” Ricardo is saying. “And with his death, it passed to Iván.”
“Iván is a clown,” Elena says. They all are, she thinks, all the Hijos, including your son, Ricardo.
“With a legitimate claim and an army to back it up,” Núñez says.
“And you now have Adán’s army,” Elena says, allowing to go unspoken the obvious—if I back you up.
“Iván is already going to be very disappointed that he’s not getting the big chair,” Núñez says. “Elena, I have to leave him with something.”
“And Rudolfo—Adán’s nephew—gets nothing?” Elena asks. “The Esparza brothers have plenty—more money than they can waste in their collective lifetimes. I’m asking for one plaza. And you can keep your domestic sales there.”
Núñez looks surprised.
“Oh, please,” Elena says. “I know young Ric is dealing your drugs all over Baja Sur. It’s fine—I just want the north and the border.”
“Oh, that’s all.” Elena wants one of the most lucrative plazas in the narcotics trade. Baja has a growing narcomenudeo, domestic street sales, but that’s dwarfed by the trasiego, the products that run from Tijuana and Tecate into San Diego and Los Angeles. From there the drugs are distributed all over the United States.
“Is it so much?” Elena asks. “For Adán’s sister to put her blessings on her brother’s last wishes? You need that, Ricardo. Without it …”
“You’re asking me to give you something that’s not mine to give,” Núñez says. “Adán gave the plaza to Esparza. And with all respect, Elena—my domestic business in Cabo is none of yours.”
“Spoken like a lawyer,” Elena says. “Not a patrón. If you’re going to be El Patrón, be El Patrón. Make decisions, give orders. If you want my support, the price is Baja for my son.”
The king is dead, Elena thinks.
Long live the king.
Ric sits out by the pool next to Iván.
“This