“What they do there, Carlos, is lock you up alone, around the clock, except for one hour a day, when they let you out of your cell to exercise, alone, in what looks like a dog kennel. You get a shower every other day.”
/> “Sounds like fun. What do you have to do to get sent there?”
“Abrego shot a few DEA agents,” Juan Carlos said. “In the States. Near El Paso. They caught him.”
“He didn’t get the death penalty? I always thought if you killed a cop, you got the electric chair.”
“Well, I’ll explain to you how that works in real life, Carlos. We haven’t had the death penalty in Mexico since 2005. If a Mexican in the States gets the hot seat, that’s bad for our friendly relations. Mexican politicians fall all over themselves rushing up there to save him.
“And we don’t extradite people—neither do the French, by the way—to any place that executes people.
“So the way it works here, if Señor Abrego had shot one of my people and got caught—that happens every once in a while—and he got tried and convicted—that also happens every once in a while—he would have gotten life.
“And in a couple of years, after a lot of money changed hands, he would ‘escape,’ so to speak.”
“Jesus!” Castillo said, hoping he sounded as if he was shocked to the depths of his naïve soul.
Juan Carlos nodded.
“So the way it’s worked out is that your judges sentence Mexicans who deserve the electric chair to life without parole in Florence. That keeps the bad guys off the streets almost as well as the electric chair—nobody has ever escaped from Florence—and keeps Mexican politicians from making members of your Congress unhappy. Getting the picture?”
“I never heard any of this before,” Castillo said.
“I never would have guessed,” Juan Carlos said sarcastically. “Look, Carlos. There is some good news. You don’t fuck with these people, they don’t fuck with you. What I’m saying is there’s not a goddamn thing you can do for your friend the colonel, except get yourself killed. Let whoever deals with things like swapping prisoners—the FBI maybe, or DEA?—try to get him back. You start nosing around, you’re going to get yourself killed, and probably him, too. Can you understand that?”
“Yeah, I guess I can,” Castillo said reluctantly. “But, Juan Carlos, if you could find out anything . . .”
“Sure. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. By mail. I suppose if I sent a letter to . . . 1700 Arizona Boulevard, San Antonio, Texas . . . I remember Doña Alicia’s address; I’ve got a good memory for addresses and numbers, things like that . . . she’d get it to you, right?”
“I’m sure she would.”
“Even with you in Uruguay? Which is really where I hope you’ll be. What’s your address down there, anyway?”
Shit, now what?
I don’t have an address in Uruguay!
Rule One—the First and Great Commandment—in the Uncle Remus List of Rules for the Interrogation of Belligerent Bad Guys: Never ever underestimate the bad guy!
“If you’re going to send a letter to Carlos down there,” Sweaty said, “send it in care of me—Señorita Susanna Barlow, Golf and Polo Country Club, Km 55.5 PanAmericana, Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.”
“Wait, let me write that down.”
He took a notebook and ballpoint from his shirt pocket.
Then he asked, “Argentina? I thought you said Uruguay.”
“We farm in Uruguay,” Sweaty said. “We play polo in Argentina. It’s only half an hour in the plane from Uruguay.”
“Polo, huh? You play polo, Carlos?”
“Frankly,” Sweaty said, “he’s not very good at it. Barlow is spelled B-A-R-L-O-W. You want the phone number? The country code is zero one one—”
“I won’t be calling,” Juan Carlos interrupted. “It probably costs ten dollars a minute to call down there.”
“Closer to seven dollars, actually,” Sweaty said.
Juan Carlos put his notebook back in his shirt pocket.