Free The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez by Jimmy Breslin

the two Mexicans were through the desert and into Arizona, driving on Highway 19 in their 1997 Ford Lobo double-cab pickup, the truck’s windshield smacked up and its rear license plate hammered around, but not enough to obscure its numbers, which had been reported by the stool pigeon. Here was a lone police officer who had just been advised to be on the lookout for a pickup with two men and a lot of cocaine. The policeman needed no surveillance system shooting data to a satellite near the moon and then back to his machine on earth to identify the pickup. Nor did he need a copy of the Constitution to know that he had a right to stop the vehicle; every car is a violation, even parked in the garage—a certificate is pasted in the wrong part of the window, the license plate isn’t attached properly. This vehicle also had over six hundred pounds of cocaine. So a common patrolman with a panting German shepherd in the back pulled the pickup over. The Nogales police had received a phone call about the truck. All the cop had to do was look and press the button for his siren to make them stop.
    The cop came out of the car with the dog. The police said that upon sniffing at the pickup, the dog went insane.
    “Él huele el sandwich,” one of the Mexicans said. He smells the sandwich.
    He could have been right. No matter how well bred, how strictly trained, a dog’s sniff is for fresh liverwurst. Plus, a handler and his dog must be together for some time if they are going to be effective. Smelling is a two-man game. But often you’ll have the handler transferred and a new one taking over, and by the time this one and the dog are familiar with each other, the officer is up for a new post, and the next guy not only is new but hates dogs. That means the police dog isn’t worth the leash he comes on.
    This time, who knows what the dog on the highway outside ofNogales smelled? That didn’t matter because the cop knew that there was cocaine on the truck. There sure was. He tugged and pulled out 607 pounds of cocaine. The two Mexicans in the truck shrugged. They didn’t know what the cop was talking about.
    Usually, figures that police announce as to the value of seized narcotics are fantasy. This time anybody with experience could tell you that in New York you certainly could get $6 million for the packages.
    And it was discovered by a local phone call, which is the technology used in the ancient method of informing, not with any skilled trackers. Which is a sign of the hopelessness of fighting drugs. For if one truck with 607 pounds is found this way, you need no imagination to estimate all the organized smuggling that doesn’t get stopped. Maybe they stopped half a mountainside of cocaine, which was worth millions and millions in a big city. The trouble was, the other half of the mountain came through the border in another pickup truck. Lawmen on the border learned of this some days later.
    On the highways around Nogales, I-92 and I-80, right in the middle of the barren land, suddenly there is a traffic tie-up that seems like the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel in New York. There are cars and trucks sitting on the highway, and finally up ahead are the flashing red lights of law enforcement. The traffic moves slowly. Now traffic cones push the cars and trucks into one lane. There is a small military green tank trailer, which holds water. There are white Border Patrol vans parked, a large van, and a table with agents around it. Out on the road are many Border Patrol agents. One pokes into a car or truck for a few moments, the vehicles move out of the one lane and onto the highway, and he looks into the next in line. Now you are even with the Border Patrol people. Sunglasses, trim mustache, great big gun on his belt, he looks in. No warrant, no discussion. He just looks in. Then he pulls his head out. “Have a nice day.” The hand waves and you drive off.
    Twenty minutes later, the traffic is backed up again. A van fullof Mexicans is