Abrego hesitates and then says, "Cops have been getting calls. On their personal cell phones. Or other cops have been approaching them..."

"And saying what?"

"That 'New People' are moving in," Abrego says. "The Sinaloa people, and you'd better get on the bus now."

If he's right, Pablo thinks, at least five guys missed the bus.

"Go away, Pablo," Abrego says. "I have work to do, then I have a funeral to attend."

- Pablo takes a Chihuahua state homicide investigator to lunch.

Comandante Snchez isn't fooled by the social gesture-in Mexico no less than the rest of the world, there is no such thing as a free lunch. So after polishing off a plate of excellent camarones, he looks across the table at Pablo and asks, "Pues?"

"What's going on in Jurez?"

"Why ask me?"

"Did you get a phone call, too?" Pablo asks.

"From whom?"

"The 'New People.'"

"Who told you about that?"

Pablo doesn't answer.

Then Snchez says, "As a matter of fact, I did. On my private phone, and how did they get that number? What we're hearing is they approached division commanders with money. I guess Ledesma didn't take it."

"Would you like another beer? I think I would." Pablo signals the waiter and then turns back to Snchez. "Are we looking at an invasion here?"

"You're so well informed, you tell me."

"Okay," Pablo says, starting to get annoyed with the game. "Is this Adn Barrera putting the empire back together?"

Snchez says, "You were a kid then."

"I heard the stories."

The waiter sets two cold cervezas on the table and then, at a glance from Snchez, steps away.

"Do yourself a favor," Snchez says. "Don't hear stories now."

"What does that mean?"

"You know what it means."

"Oh, come on." The food has helped Pablo's general condition, as has the beer, but he still has a headache and all this silly subterfuge makes it worse. The whole world knows about Adn Barrera-there have been books, novels, movies, television shows. The narcos are a media franchise, for God's sake, this generation's version of the Mafia.

"That was the old days, wasn't it?" Pablo asks. "The cartels, the patrones-they're all dead or locked up. Even Osiel Contreras is in prison."

"But Adn Barrera is out."

Pablo is annoyed and eager to finish up the interview. "So what are you saying? There's going to be a 'war'? Barrera is moving in on Jurez?"

"I'm saying you'd be better off not hearing any more stories," Snchez says. He reaches across the table for the bill.

A new one on Pablo.

He's never seen a cop pick up the check before.

- It takes Pablo three hours to track down Ramn, but he finally finds his old schoolmate at the Kentucky, near the Santa Fe Bridge that crosses into El Paso.

Pablo plops down on the stool beside Ramn. "Que pasa?"

"Nada."

Nothing my ass, Pablo thinks. If Ramn is hanging out by the border there's a reason-he has a shipment going over. And it speaks to another truth about Jurez-everybody knows someone in the drug business.

The Kentucky is classic Old Jurez. It came into being just a few weeks after Prohibition hit the United States as an easy place for gringos to come and get a drink. Sinatra used to hang out here, and Marilyn Monroe, and the legend-although Pablo doesn't believe it-is that Al Capone visited once after making a deal for bootleg whiskey.

But the bar is mostly famous for the birthplace of the margarita.

That's us, Pablo thinks, we're known for other contraband, other countries' movie stars, and fruity drinks.

He orders an Indio.

"Long time no see, 'mano," Ramn says with a trace of resentment in his voice.

It's true, Pablo thinks-in high school they were buddies, hung out all the time, but then their lives took different turns. I got busy with work and other friends and Ramn went to prison.

Got caught jacking cars and did three years in Jurez's deservedly notorious CERESO.

If you wanted to survive there, you joined Los Aztecas.

Ramn wanted to survive.

The gang actually started in American prisons, where it's called Barrio Azteca, but when the U.S. started to deport convicts who were also illegal aliens, the gang quickly spread to Mexican prisons.

Then into the community.

There are roughly six hundred Aztecas in Jurez, but they use kids from a lot of the little gangs, and the word is that they're taking over more and more of the enforcement duties of the Jurez cartel. With La Lnea, they control the drug trade in the northeast part of the city, while Los Mexicles and Los Aristos Asesinos control the southwest.

Pablo's heard the stories about how they exercise control-how they throw big parties and everyone cheers while they beat up a prisoner. Then they dig a hole, fill it with mesquite branches, throw the victim in, and light a match. Pablo doesn't quite believe those stories and doesn't believe that Ramn would do anything like that, but it's a fact that the Jurez cartel gives Los Aztecas a discount on the cocaine that they traffic across the border.

The gang makes a lot of money.

Los Aztecas have a military structure-generals, captain, and lieutenants-and the last time Pablo heard, Ramn was a lieutenant on the way up. He looks like an Azteca-crew cut with a blue bandana, white sleeveless T-shirt, tattoos up his neck.

Ramn looks Pablo up and down. "You look like shit, 'mano."

"Rough night."

"Looks more like a rough month," Ramn says. "You need money?"

"No, thanks."

"How's Mateo?"

"He's good, thanks. Your guys?"

"Isobel's a little bitch on wheels," Ramn answers, "but you already know that. Dolores is almost walking, and Javier, he's playing ftbol now."

"No shit."

"You should come by sometime," Ramn says.

"I will."

"Watch a match on TV or something, burn some steaks..."

"Sounds great."

Ramn signals the bartender for a refill on his whiskey and then asks, "So what brings you here now?"

Pablo says, "A police lieutenant clipped."

"'Clipped,'" Ramn says. "Listen to you, tough guy."

Pablo chuckles at his own pretensions, and then asks, "Who did it?"

Ramn knocks his fresh drink down with one gulp and then asks, "You want to do some blow?"

"I have to pick Mateo up," Pablo says, shaking his head. That's true, but the other truth is that he hasn't done drugs in years. Okay, maybe a hit of yerba from time to time, but even that's getting rare.

"Anyway, walk out back with me," Ramn says. Then he says to the bartender, "Narizazo."

Time to snort up.

Pablo follows him out the back door into the alley. Ramn takes a vial of coke out of his jeans pocket, scoops a little onto his fingernail, and takes a hit. "They say it's bad when you start using your own product. It's just I'm so fucking tired these days, I need a little pick-me-up in the afternoon. So what were you asking me?"

Pablo gets it. Yes, they came out here so Ramn could snort, but also to get away from the ears of the bartender. "These cop killings. Ledesma."

"Wasn't us, 'mano."

Pablo pushes the envelope. "Was Ledesma La Lnea? The others?"

"Doesn't matter," Ramn answers. "Sinaloa wants this plaza, so they have to neutralize the cops. Clean cops, dirty cops, if they don't get on board with Sinaloa, Sinaloa is going to take them off the board."

So there's my story, Pablo thinks. The Sinaloa cartel has launched a systematic invasion and started with a strategic campaign against the Jurez cartel's central strength-La Lnea.

It must have been in the planning for months-the intelligence and infiltration needed to get the officers' phone numbers, their addresses, their daily habits and routes. There had to have been surveillance, phone taps, informants...

Ramn shakes some more coke out on his finger and asks, "You sure?"

"Yeah," Pablo says. "So there's going to be a war."

"Going to be?" Ramn asks. "What do you call those bodies out there? There is a war. It's on."

"Los Aztecas in it?"

"The price we pay, man," Ramn says. "They don't give us the cheap coke because we're pretty. Up until now, it's been taking care of a few malandros, now it's going against Barrera's pros. The big-league batters. But we gotta do what we gotta do, and all that bullshit."

They're quiet for a few seconds, then Ramn adds, "I'm always proud of you, 'mano, every time I see your name in the paper. You did good for yourself."

Pablo doesn't know what to say.

Then Ramn grabs him by the elbow. "Don't get too close to this world, it's not anything you want. You need information, you come to me. Don't go around asking a lot of questions. People don't like it."

They say their goodbyes and talk about getting together maybe next Sunday, but they both know it isn't going to happen. Pablo goes back to the office, writes up the story, and then goes to pick up Mateo.

- Pablo waits out in front of the preschool.

He really thought that Mateo was too young to start school, "pre" or otherwise, but Victoria argued successfully (of course she did; all of Victoria's arguments are successful) that it was never too early to start, especially if they wanted to get him into a decent elementary school.

Pablo suspects that the deeper motive was to free up more of her time for work. As she makes more money than he does, he was close to volunteering to give up the job at the paper, just freelance and be a stay-at-home dad for the next year or so, but some last vestigial trace of his machismo prevented him.

He didn't think that she would have agreed anyway, on the basis that Mateo's days under his father would not have been sufficiently organized. Which would have been true, Pablo thinks as he watches the children burst out of the door. They would have been wonderfully disorganized.

Mateo is the perfect combination of their union.

His jet-black hair, her piercing (ouch) blue eyes. Her keen intelligence, his warmth. The relentless curiosity comes from both of them.

Pablo is prejudiced, of course, but it is simply evident that Mateo is the handsomest child in the school. And the smartest, and the most charming, and doubtless, of course, the best ftbol player. Of course his entire future will be destroyed if he doesn't get into the right elementary school, so Victoria believes.

Mateo runs up and Pablo hugs him. It's amazing, he thinks, that he never gets tired of that sensation.

"How are you, Papi?"

"Very well, m'ijo. And you?"

"We colored zebras."

"Really?" Pablo asks. "Did they hold still for that?"

Mateo squeals with laughter. "Papi!"

"What?"