The backup crew stopped eating and eyed us carefully. Slack chewed intensely and slurped from a giant soft drink.
“Ain’t no such,” he said. “El Verdugo’s an urban legend. And if he ain’t, he’s down in ole Me-he-ko…” His voice didn’t have the same bravado.
“Oh, no,” Peralta said. “He’s up here. I almost wondered if he was coming after your ass, but then I guess he figured Andrew Slack was the name of some plastic surgeon in Scottsdale…”
“What the fuck you saying?” Slack’s voice rose. “El Verdugo? Here? In Phoenix?”
“No, at Disneyland, genius.”
Slack was silent. He desperately wanted to look around him, see who might be lurking, but he wouldn’t let himself. El Verdugo had a reputation.
He pushed away the tray of food and Peralta helped himself to more fries. “Nobody’s been killed down here we don’t know who did the killing,” Slack said.
When he went sullen, Peralta prompted. “But…”
“Look man, we used to own this area.”
“Competition sucks,” Peralta said. “The creative destruction of the underground economy.”
Peralta, the anti-intellectual, channeling the ghost of Joseph Schumpeter. Now that was new.
“All these fucking ‘Cans coming across the border. Bring their gangs with ’em. Keep having babies. What the fuck part of illegal alien don’t they understand? The pie’s only so big. Only so many white motherfuckers with money to buy drugs. ’Specially now. Bloods are American fucking citizens.”
“What about guns?”
Slack hesitated slightly. “You’re not even a fucking cop. Why am I talking to you?”
Peralta picked his teeth. “Because you’re afraid of El Verdugo. To him you’re just another mayate.”
“Fuck no!” He rose halfway up, puffed out his chest, showed the silver-plated pistol in his waistband, and sat back, all conventions satisfied.
He went on in a conversational voice.
“Word on the street is La Familia is moving in from Southern California. They’re taking over some of the foreclosed places out on the west side, using them as safe houses and moving guns for the Gulf Cartel.”
“Now why would the cartel want a bunch of bangers when they can just buy from Anglos with clean records making a trip south now and then?” Peralta almost echoed Amy Preston’s words.
“It’s volume, my man,” Stack said. “Word is, La Fam has a smuggling route where they can get truckloads of guns across into Mexico.”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Peralta said. “Smuggling route, my ass.”
Slack was undeterred. “Word is, they go across the Indian rez. They’ve got some Border Patrol on the payroll. Some say they’re working directly with the Mexican cops.”
