Free The Jaguar by A.T. Grant

couple of the growers - Senor and Senora Barosso, as I recall - proud people, who claim to be Aztec. Everyone seems to be making money. The chief was like an excited child, driving through the dirt in the Range Rover he bought with our money.
    â€œMarcelo told me the product we’re supplying is too good - too strong. Kids keep overdosing and getting us noticed.”
    Paulo paused and took a deep breath. He urgently needed to talk to Luis about Marcelo and Barrio Fuerte. “Alfredo, we don’t need product to get us noticed when you’re around.” He gave him a serious and disapproving stare - not the look of mock disapproval with which Alfredo was comfortably familiar.
    â€œSure,” Paulo mused, “some college kids have died, but it is all part of the plan. A few deaths get us noticed in the right way, because buyers know we’re selling quality goods. It’s a user’s own fault if he’s too stupid not to OD. Anyway, Barrio Fuerte lower the quality for those they know to be hooked. Trash deserves trash and why shouldn’t a few Yankie children die, when our graveyards spill over with a generation of young Mexicans?”
    Paulo sat for a few seconds looking at the floor, frail hands on bony knees, fighting to control his anger. “Sit down please, son. There are important things I need to say.”
    He gestured towards a thin, whitewashed chair standing in a corner of the room. The seat was barely visible beneath a pile of children’s school books. Alfredo paused to assess this inconsequential evidence of normality. Somehow picking up the books and depositing them on a nearby shelf grew, second by second, into a tiny act of humiliation. His father meant business.
    â€œI know Luis thinks he has to look after you because you’re young and you were your mother’s favourite, but for once he’s wrong. You’re not so young anymore and your mother and I both loved Luis at least as much as you. It’s hard for him. He’s the one who has to coordinate everything and this isn’t as easy as it was in my time. There’s too much traffic, too many different drugs and too many players trying to control what can never really be controlled.”
    â€œBut you controlled it, Papa. We’re the biggest family along the border.” Alfredo gave an expansive gesture towards nothing in particular, but the narrow domestic scene made him feel vaguely ridiculous. He dropped his gaze and shuffled uncomfortably on his tiny seat.
    â€œI controlled nothing. It was all a bluff. Luis understands that. You lean on someone here and take a cut there and try to make it look as if you’re the boss, but I’ve spent my whole working life reacting to things I hadn’t planned and didn’t really understand. You just try and make a call that other people think makes sense. Look at the US Government. They know they can never control the drugs trade. It’s part of the fabric of their country. They play the game for the sake of public opinion, winning a battle here and taking an important step there, whilst everywhere else we can do what we want.”
    â€œBut you were strong, Papa.” Alfredo instantly regretted using were , as his father scowled.
    â€œPerhaps, but sometimes that means not making violence. It means not settling a score and not killing a man just because you can. You’ve made too many mistakes. It makes us look desperate. It makes us looks like amateurs, like any of the other street hoodlums that infest this town.”
    Alfredo reflected upon his father’s words. He struck out when he was afraid, but his enemies had only multiplied, and this had spawned an increasing sense of foreboding. There was now an edge of desperation to his violence.
    Paulo continued. “You think our enemies carry guns and make themselves known to us. Those are bums, like the kid you killed yesterday. Yes, we have enemies. We have other families