Pablo gets it. Yes, they came out here so Ramón 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 Línea? The others?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ramón 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 Juárez cartel’s central strength—La Línea.

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…

Ramón 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?” Ramón 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,” Ramón 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 Ramón 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 Ramón 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 fútbol 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?”

“They were paper zebras!”

“Paper zebras? I never heard of such a thing.”

“Pictures of zebras!”

“I see now.”

“Silly Papi!”

Pablo takes his hand and they start to walk toward the bus stop. This simple, normal activity is an intense relief from the insanity of “narco-world,” as he terms it.

“Am I staying with you tonight?” Mateo asks now.

“Yes.”

“How many sleeps?”

“What? Oh yes, for two sleeps.”

“Yay.” He tightens his grip. Then he asks, “What are we doing?”

“If you’d like,” Pablo says, “I thought we’d go to the park and kick the ball. Then Tío Tomás is reading from his book. Would you like to go to that?”

“Can I bring coloring?”

“Of course,” Pablo says. “Then Tía Ana is having a party. Tía Jimena will be there. Would you like to go to that?”

“Will Tío Giorgio be there?”

“Probably,” Pablo answers.

Everyone loves Giorgio, he thinks.

Me too.

“Maybe he’ll let me take a picture,” Mateo says.

“I’m sure he would,” Pablo says. “And if you get tired, you can fall asleep on Tía Ana’s big bed.”

“Can we go to the zoo?” Mateo asks.

“Saturday?”

“Well, not today.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“What did you color your zebras?” Pablo asks.

“Orange and blue.”

Good, Pablo thinks.

All this narco stuff is foolishness. All that matters is that his son is willing to color zebras in orange and blue.

—

The two rectangular boxes—one yellow, the other terra-cotta—of Cafebrería, sit on José Reyes Estrada Circle, just off the Plaza de las Américas and close to the university, and are the epicenter of the intellectual life of the city.

It represents everything Pablo loves about Juárez.

A coffeehouse, a bookstore, a gallery, a performance spot, a gathering place for everyone who cares about ideas and art and community, Cafebrería is almost literally the heart of the city for him.

He goes there to see friends, meet new people, find interesting ideas, get into discussions and debates (which occasionally turn into arguments but never fights), listen to music, hear readings, buy books that he can neither afford nor resist, not to mention just get an honest strong cup of coffee that doesn’t come from a giant corporate chain, and sit in a quiet spot and read.

Now he sits in a metal folding chair with Mateo at his feet happily coloring (a magenta and turquoise tiger this time) and listens to Tomás read from his latest novel. It’s a beautiful book and a beautiful reading, as one would only expect from Tomás Silva, whom Pablo regards as a national treasure.

One thing that Pablo loves about Tomás’s readings is that there is no sense of irony in them. The author is serious about his work and reads it seriously, his sad eyes glowing from behind his glasses, his strong jaw set as if he’s reconsidering his words as he speaks them.

Ana sits down the row with her eyes closed, shutting off visual stimuli to focus on the sounds of the words. Giorgio stands off to the side, quietly snapping photos of Tomás without the distraction of a flash.

Óscar has his bad leg propped up on the chair beside him, his cane hooked over the chair in front. He and Tomás go back to their university days—close friends still—and Pablo knew that El Búho wouldn’t miss this reading.

Really, most of the Juárez intelligentsia are present for the event—writers, poets, columnists, and a scattering of serious readers who always show up for this kind of thing. Pablo recognizes a few local politicians, there to display that they have a brain and, supposedly, a soul, although he doubts both.

Victoria is not there, even though she loves Tomás, both professionally and personally.

Probably working, Pablo thinks.

Victoria is always working.

The reading ends and Tomás takes questions. There are many—some of them legitimately curious and wanting an answer; others more statements than interrogatives, meant to show off the questioner’s knowledge or express a dogma. Tomás is patient and painstaking with all of them, but is clearly relieved when the Q&A is over.