I sat on the porch of the rundown house in a chair older than my grandmother, with my feet kicked up on the rickety railing. I was alone; my boys had taken off an hour ago with the three 55-gallon drums so they could store them at a safer location.

I smoked another cigar as I waited. The tobacco smoke covered the smell of the burned-out meth lab 400 feet away.

The moon was high in the sky when I heard the roar of three motorcycle engines.

As they pulled up in the driveway, I got down off the porch and ambled out to meet them.

Hector Reyes got off his bike first. Loco Sanchez, the fat-as-fuck VP, was next. He had a side car to balance out his 350-pound ass. Rodrigo was in the rear, skulking around and acting sketchier than I would have liked – but luckily Hector was so fucking pissed at me, he wasn’t paying attention to how cagey his Sergeant-at-Arms was being.

“Hector,” I said all friendly-like. “Loco. Rodrigo.”

“What the fuck, cabrón?” Hector snapped. “There better be a damn good reason I came all the fuckin’ way out here to vaca town.”

“There is, there is,” I reassured him. “I’m lookin’ to do a business deal.”

Hector stared at me like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said. “A business deal? A business deal?! You get me to ride out to the middle of fuckin’ nowhere in the middle of the fuckin’ night when you should have come to me, on my time table – for a fuckin’ business deal?”

“You’ll understand why when you hear. Didn’t Rodrigo fill you in?”

Hector turned and stared daggers at his Sergeant-at-Arms. “He said it was a fuckin’ emergency – that was it.” Then he started chewing out his Number Two in Spanish faster than Speedy Gonzalez.

Rodrigo looked pissed, but didn’t say anything back.

“Hold up, Hector,” I said. “Don’t blame Rodrigo – it is an emergency. Time is of the essence.”

“Okay, gringo, I’ll bite. What the fuck is this amazing business deal you got? A blowjob from your puta of a madre?”

He and Loco burst out laughing. Rodrigo didn’t.

I just smiled. “A little bit more than that. One that could net you hombres around, oh, 20 mil.”

That got his attention. “The fuck you talking about?”

I gestured at the burnt-out barn, which was barely visible in the lights from the kitchen windows. “As you can see, I’ve had a little trouble with my operations. I need to unload a thousand pounds of ice ASAP to get back on my feet.”

“Meth?! You fuckin’ dragged me out here to talk about fuckin’ METH?!”

I held out my arms as though I was mystified. “What, is that a forbidden topic?”

“The cartel supplies all my inventory, you pinche pendejo! Why the fuck would I want any of your skank-ass, gringo shit when I got my own supply?!”

“Because the cartel takes 70 percent of your profit, that’s why,” I said. “And I know they don’t supply you jokers with enough to keep up with demand. You got a thousand white trash competitors with no front teeth workin’ out of RVs and rental homes. No way in fuck they’d be able to compete with you unless the market needed more than you could provide.”

He couldn’t argue with anything I’d said – and he was pissed about it, too. “Where the fuck did you get that number, 70 percent?”

“Never you mind. Wouldn’t you rather wipe out the white trash and make 90% profit on your own sideline?”

Hector chuckled and glanced at Loco with a kind of Can you believe this dumbass bullshit? expression before turning back to me. “Okay, first off, the cartel would put me in a shallow grave for pullin’ shit like that behind their back.”

“No reason they have to know.”

“If you really believe that, you stupider than you look.”

“No balls, no billions.”

“Ain’t no fuckin’ billions.”

“Your bosses would disagree. They’re rakin’ in fuckin’ billions.”

“Yeah, well, it ain’t about billions or balls – it’s about brains. And anybody who’d fuck with my bosses ain’t got none.”

“You agree with that, Rodrigo?” I asked as I relit my cigar, calm as could fuckin’ be.

“Yo, why the fuck you talkin’ to him? I’m the one who calls the shots – speakin’ of which, I oughta fuckin’ kill your dumb ass for pullin’ me out here in the middle of the night.”

“So no deal, then?”

“No – no fuckin’ deal, you stupid hio de puta.”

“What about you, fat boy?” I asked Loco. “You of the same mind?”

“Don’t know who you callin’ fat, ese, but you out of your fuckin’ mind if you think I’m’a go against my prez, homes,” Loco sneered.

“Might wanna take that promotion right about now, then,” I said as I tapped the ash off my cigar.

“What?” Hector snapped – right before Rodrigo raised up his pistol and shot Hector in the back of the head.

He fell in a heap on the ground.

“What da FUCK?!” Loco screamed, and turned, pawing at his holster for his gun –

Which gave me the extra second I needed to pull my .357 and shoot him in the temple.

Fat Boy went over like a heifer in a slaughterhouse.

Rodrigo and I regarded each other coolly, both of our guns sending up wisps of smoke in the moonlight.

“I’m taking this to mean you can get the cash together?” I asked.

“Si.”

“3.5 million, like we discussed?”

“Si, si,” he said impatiently.

“How soon?”

“How soon can you make delivery?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Alright. Tomorrow night, eleven o’clock. You got a place?”

“Lemme get back to you on that. I’ll call you an hour before. Look… there’s one more piece of the puzzle we need to discuss.”

“Madre de Dios – ”

“Hold on, hold on.”

“Is it that fuckin’ cop?”

“No, he’s fine. I got him covered, he’ll do exactly what he’s paid to do.”

I needed to handle this exactly right. No good mentioning the DEA – that could spook Rodrigo and torpedo the whole deal. No, generalities were best in this case.

Maybe not even generalities so much as a few well-placed omissions.

“As you know, Jack Pollari’s been a thorn in my ass lately.”

Rodrigo spat on the ground. “Fuck that maricón!”

“Exactly. Well, his ex-wife, Sloane, heads the Bastards out of Phoenix. She clued me in that Jack’s trying to yank the club out from under me.”

Rodrigo jerked his head towards the barn. “He do this?”

“Yeah.”

“You ain’t exactly inspirin’ confidence as a business partner, ese.”

“Sloane’s willing to sell out Jack, and the Bastards will do backup on the deal – but in exchange, Sloane wants a cut of the Santa Muertes’ territory.”

Rodrigo laughed once, a vicious sound. “Then you can tell that puta to go fuck herself.”

“Well, what I was thinking was, we use her until the deal’s concluded – and then we off her.”

Rodrigo frowned. “Won’t the Bastards come after us?”

“Sloane’s running the whole show. If she goes, the Bastards will fold like a house of cards. Just to be safe, we’ll take out the club’s top brass, too. And once that’s done, you can pick up Arizona for yourself. Lots of new territory for you to sell all that meth comin’ your way.”

“Ahhhhh… hahaha,” he chuckled, pointing his finger at me like You sly dog, you. “I like the way you think, cabrón.”

I didn’t feel a thing about selling out Sloane. After all, if she were in the same position, she’d do the same in a heartbeat. I mean, if you’re willing to sell out a man you claimed to still love, who the fuck wouldn’t you sell out?

Plus, in a dog fight, always put your money on the bigger, meaner dog. And the Santa Muertes weren’t dogs, they were rabid wolves.

“I take it your faith is restored in your business partner, then?” I asked.

He looked down at the two bodies lying at our feet. “It is if you can handle this shit.”

“Not a problem. My guys will take care of it. Well, they might have to carve Fat Boy up into pieces, but… question is, what are you going to tell the Cartel about it?”

“That Jack Pollari and his puta of an ex-wife did it,” Rodrigo said. “I’m just gonna need their bodies afterwards… you know, to cement my promotion.”

“It’s a deal… El Presidente,” I said, and we both laughed as I shook his hand.