“Hey.” I felt my cheeks flushing and my temper ratcheting up.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, through the remnants of a laugh. “Couldn’t resist. But I swear, I’ve got the scoop. The guy’s not ‘the Goose Man’; the guy’s name is Guzmán. Spelled G-U-Z-M-A-with-an-accent-N. Pronounced ‘gooz-MAHN’—accent on the second syllable. Leastwise, that’s how they say it south of the border, down Mehico way.”
“He’s Mexican?”
“Sí, se?or. Joaquin Guzmán Loera. Widely known as ‘Chapo,’ which translates as ‘Shorty’—a reference to his shape, which resembles a stout fireplug.”
“But who is he?”
“A badass. One of the very baddest badasses on the planet,” she said, sounding pleased with her discovery, or with the opportunity to apply the colorful label, or with both. “Also one of the very richest badasses on the planet.”
“Do tell.”
“Chapo runs the Sinaloa drug cartel, the biggest drug-smuggling operation in the world. Based in Mexico’s Sinaloa Province, a rural mountainous region that’s apparently perfect for growing marijuana. Also ideal for hiding big cocaine-processing labs. Giant meth labs, too.”
“Giant meth labs? I thought people cooked that stuff in, like, pressure cookers. In trailers in the backwoods of Tennessee.”
“They did,” she said. “Still do, I guess. But these guys—this cartel—is all about supply and demand. Any drug there’s big demand for, they supply. Marijuana, cocaine, heroin, meth: If rich gringos want it, these guys have got it. Take a guess at Shorty’s net worth.”
“I have no idea.” From the way she put the question, I could tell it must be a lot. “Fifty million bucks?”
“Chicken feed. You’re ice-cold.”
“A hundred million?”
“Still frosty.”
“Five hundred million?”
“A cool billion,” she said. “That’s b-b-b-billion. With a b.”
“Get outta here. A billion dollars? Says who?”
“Says Forbes magazine. He’s on their list of the world’s richest people. Has been for years.”
“But . . . how does he keep getting away with it?”
“Easy,” she said. “Mexico’s police and military are owned by guys like this. Bought and paid for. Case in point: Guzmán was arrested at one point, back in 1993—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “You just said he owned the police force.”
“He did. Does. In Mexico. But he was arrested in Guatemala. Once he got caught, Mexico had to pretend to be glad. So they put him in prison. Maximum security, so-called. But guess what? He kept running his drug empire from inside the slammer; kept building it from inside the slammer; kept getting richer. Then, three years ago, in 2001? Uncle Sam started leaning on Mexico to extradite Shorty to the U.S. So what did Shorty do? He walked out of jail.”
“Just like that? Walked right out the front gate?”
“Actually, he rode out the gate,” she said.
“And he’s a billionaire?”
“According to Forbes. And they know a lot about rich people. Apparently he’s got a great business model. Plus his own fleet of boats. Planes, too: Learjets, DC-3s, even 747s. This guy’s even got underground railways—secret tunnels running under the border near Tijuana.”
I was stunned by the scope of Guzmán’s operation. “But I thought we were winning the war on drugs.”
“Define ‘winning,’” she said drily.
“How is it,” I asked, “that America—the richest, mightiest nation on earth—can’t shut down this one guy?”
“Because we love this guy.”
“Love him? He’s the scum of the earth,” I squawked.
“Oh, I agree,” she said. “But Americans—lots of Americans—can’t get enough of the stuff this guy’s selling. ‘The insatiable American nose,’ one Mexican journalist calls it. Even our commander in chief seems to’ve had a taste for cocaine when he was young.”
“George Bush? The president? I don’t believe it.”
“Unconfirmed fire,” she conceded, “but persistent smoke. The point is, Shorty’s a businessman, pure and simple. Well, not so simple, and not pure at all. There’s blood on every line of coke snorted by every snotty, spoiled rich kid in America. But in the end, all Shorty cares about is the bottom line. He only supplies what we demand.”
I wished I could find some fatal flaw in that piece of logic, but I couldn’t. It was clear, compelling, and deeply discouraging. Suddenly the implications of her research hit me like a punch in the gut. “Well, damn,” I said.
“What?”
“I just connected the dots, and I hate the picture.” I sighed. “I should’ve figured this out the minute I heard those guys talking. But my brain’s running in slo-mo; jet-lagged, I reckon, or maybe cooked by the sun.” I hesitated, unsure how much I should reveal. “This stuff’s connected to . . . a case I’m working.”
“The Richard Janus crash.” She didn’t put it as a question.