First Chapters

Three days before the first murder, Sal Garcia said, “You want to go to a riot?”      We were in U-Needa-Bebida, downtown. It was a late Friday afternoon in Tucson’s early spring. A few drinkers hung around in the dim barroom, supposedly waiting for rush hour traffic to thin out. We sat back in worn brown leather chairs at the bar where our fathers had bought each other beers on afternoons like this. I had a Negra Modelo and Sal had a Coors. Norah Jones and Lalo Guerrero took turns on the CD changer.      “What riot?” I asked.      “The riot we’re having on Monday night,” Sal said. “After the game.” Read more of CHOKE POINT

Silent Night, crackling from a loudspeaker across the border, drifted north through the cold, brittle air. Al Avila and I stood on the edge of Nogales Wash, looking along the tunnel toward Mexico. It was our second Christmas Eve on the Border Patrol. Noche de paz.     “Flak jackets would be good,” I said.     Crime was so bad in the tunnels that the Santa Cruz County sheriff sometimes sent his SWAT team down there. Guys in body armor, packing high-powered rifles and night scopes, chasing eleven-year-olds through a sewer. Read more of LOVERS CROSSING