'Who were you talking to a few minutes ago?' said Nestor.

'My woman,' said Lizardo. 'Her father doesn't want to change his crops. I tried to explain to him, the cartel will provide the fertilizer and the seeds, and a guarantee that what he reaps we will sell. The poppy will give him two crops a year, twice what he'll get from his single crop of coffee beans. And we'll pay his field-workers four times what they earn to harvest the crop.'

'What is the problem?'

'He is a peasant,' said Lizardo. 'That is the problem. He sees the American helicopters, the black Bells with the door gunners, and he is afraid. He sees me, his own son-in-law, and he is afraid. He sees his own shadow, brother, and he is afraid.'

'Farmers,' said Nestor with contempt.

'Yes. I'm only trying to help him, to get my woman off my back. So that maybe then she can get on her back, for a change.'

Nestor understood why Lizardo's woman did not care to sleep with him. Lizardo was often drunk, and when he was drunk he was not a gentleman in bed. When he was so drunk that he couldn't be a man, he hit her with his fists. Nestor believed that it was sometimes necessary to strike a woman, they expected it, even, but women lost their spirit if you struck them all the time.

'Bring him to stay with you in Florida,' said Nestor. 'You can afford it.'

'He doesn't want to come. And I don't want the filthy bastard in my house. He showers, but still he smells like the country.'

'Maybe your woman's brother can help, talk to your father-in-law for you.'

'The priest? Ah! He has trouble helping himself.'

'Is he struggling with his vow of celibacy?'

'He was never celibate. They have a saying in the old village: All the children call the priest father, except for his own children, who call him uncle!'

Nestor and Lizardo shared hearty laughter. Then Nestor hit his turn signal and got into the right lane, making sure his brother followed.

Nestor checked his face in the rearview. His black hair was combed back and set in place with gel, and he wore a neat Vandyke beard. He had shaved the hair that had been between his eyebrows his entire life, so that now he had two separate eyebrows. He wore two gold earrings, one small hoop in each ear. His clothing was neat but not flashy. Nestor studied the pictures in the Esquire and GQ magazines so that he could see the latest styles and the proper way to dress. Then he bought clothing that looked like it did in those pictures but without the fancy labels for which you paid extra. He shopped at the Men's Wearhouse and Today's Man.

A mile down the interstate stood a strip shopping center bordering a field where houses were being constructed. The parking lot was half filled. Nestor found a row of cars with two empty spaces. He pulled into a space and watched his brother pull into the other, situated at the very end of the row. Nestor reached beneath the seat and picked up his gun, a Sig Sauer.9 that held an eight-shot magazine. He slid the Sig into a leather holster inside his jacket.

'You talk to Coleman?' said Lizardo, still holding the phone.

'Not since the last time. I'll call him from Baltimore tonight.'

'Will he take the cocaine on the next run?'

'He said that he buys his cocaine from a supplier in Los Angeles and he doesn't want to change. But I told him, if he wants our manteca, he will have to take the cocaine. I told him that we can no longer sell one without the other. We are selling the manteca to the Boones for a very good price. Even with the bounce the Boones put on it, Coleman knows he cannot buy the heroin any cheaper.'

'What if he refuses?'

'We'll have the Boones sell the manteca to someone else.'

Lizardo reached across the seat, dropped the glove box door, and removed his Davis.32. It was a small gun, good at close range, and it fit neatly in the pocket of his pleated black slacks. He dropped it there and for a moment considered the situation. Nestor never asked for his business advice, but sometimes Lizardo came up with good ideas. He thought he had one now.

'Listen,' said Lizardo. 'We'll go back to selling Coleman direct. It'll be cheaper for him, right? Maybe that will convince him to take the coke as well.'

'You forget why we got the Boones involved to begin with?'

'We didn't. Our cousin Roberto did, when he and the little one were together in the joint.'

'We asked Roberto to find a mule for us, remember?'

'Oh, yeah.'

Nestor exhaled a long breath. He had to remember to be patient with his brother, whose brain worked very slowly.

'Lizardo. Do you want to go into that lousy city, deal with the niggers directly?'

'No.'

'Then we need the Boones. For now, anyway. So leave little Ray alone, understand? You are always trying to get him excited.'

'Fuck,' said Lizardo. It sounded like 'fawk.'

Edna Loomis had the Ford pickup bouncing on the gravel road, doing a real good number on the shocks but not really thinking on it, as she was in a big hurry to get on back to the house. Travis Tritt sang loudly in the cab. She had turned up the volume on the dash radio to keep herself pumped.

The night before, she had made an impression of Ray's key in some special putty she'd picked up at the hardware store, on the advice of a girlfriend of hers who loved to smoke crystal, too. This girlfriend, a big-hair girl named Johanna, got her convinced that Ray would never miss a little here and there if she was to take it, and besides, all the good stuff Edna was giving away to Ray for free, it was owed her to get some of that stash on a regular basis. Edna was Ray's woman, after all, almost a wife, and why should a wife have to ask every time she wanted to get high? After a couple of Courage and Cokes, Edna began to see Johanna's point.

So, the night before, after Ray had gone to sleep, Edna'd slipped the key off that ring of his with the chain attached to it. He woke up in the morning, the key was right where it had been when he'd hung his jeans over the bedroom chair, and Ray was none the wiser. She had taken the putty to this dude Johanna knew, and he'd fixed her up. She had a shiny new key in her pocket now.

Edna pulled the F-150 into the yard between the Taurus and Ray's Shovelhead. Ray's legs were hanging out the open door of the Taurus, his steel toolbox on the ground at his feet. He was always fooling with that car, that or the Harley. He got to his feet and stood, brushing himself off, as Edna came down out of the truck's cab.

'Thought I told you to go out to a movie or somethin',' said Ray. 'You know me and Daddy got business here today.'

'Forgot my tape box,' said Edna. 'Can't be drivin' around all day without my music'

'Well, hurry up and get it, then get gone.'

'Where's Earl?'

'In the house, why you ask that?'

'No reason, just wonderin' where he was. Look, don't worry about me, you just finish up whatever it is you're doin'.'

Ray got back into the car and laid himself down between the bench seat and the gas and brake pedals, wondering why women talked so much about nothin'. He was putting the trapdoor by the steering column back together, having taken it apart and oiled the movable parts. The door had been dropping slow lately, and he couldn't have that. A little WD-40 to finish the job, then put everything back in place. After that, he and his father would be ready to meet the Rodriguez brothers, out by that mall.

Edna walked through the barn to the back of it real quick, running on adrenalin. She put her new key to the lock of the steel door and smiled as the key caught and turned. She went inside the drug room without even looking over her shoulder. Johanna had been right: If you had the guts, it was easy.