#benjamayo ..?

The ornate, gilded door knocker felt heavy between his fingertips as he rapped a few times and waited, stubbing out his cigarette in the open mouth of one of the lion statues placed on either side of the stairway. He chuckled to himself. If it wasn’t an ashtray before, it was one now. To him it looked like one anyway. The mansion’s pretentious decor always screamed “New Money” to him, no matter how hard the Arellanos tried to bury Sinaloa in their past.

By his count, Mayo had only ever been to Arellano house three times. Once by invitation, another by accident, and a third - the last - by mistake. A mistake he couldn’t muster the good sense to regret no matter how hard he tried.

It never pays to fall for a family man, isn’t that what the girls say? Certainly the ones he’d shared a few fleeting nights with between the sheets, a wad of folded bills on the nightstand, couple packs of cigarettes, and some pillow talk that always told some tale of woe about falling for a family man. But is that what happened? Had he fallen? Or was he just at sea like always? Either way, it made for no less than an interesting ride.

The relief-distorted disappointment when it was Pancho who answered the door should’ve told him something, even if he didn’t care to pay it much mind just now. A matter for tomorrow. Except that’s what he’d told himself the whole time. Shit, that’s how he got into this mess. Surely there’d come a point when tomorrow was today, no?

Pancho smiled, “Qué húbole, compa?” and pulled Mayo in, clapping his back twice in a way that was warm and sincere as much as it was overwhelming. But Pancho was good people. He always liked Pancho. Shit, who didn’t like Pancho.

“Nada mucho, nada más,” Mayo winked, tipping his hat as he crossed the threshold into the foyer of the Arellano mansion.

He smirked to himself at the same private joke he had every time he’d set foot in this house: the place’s grandiosity might be as intimidating as it was meant to be if it weren’t so fucking cartoonish. But he supposed that’s what happened when you let an overgrown manchild, dressed head-to-toe in Versace, stick his gold-dipped cuerno de chiva against the decorator’s temple and threaten to blow them away into semi-automatic oblivion, just for a discount on silk drapes from Rome or wherever-the-fuck.

Mayo's eyes stung a bit, hit with the phantom smell of the cigar smoke that came tumbling out of Benjamín’s mouth when he’d laughed himself nearly to tears telling Mayo that story. It'd been just the two of them seated at the wrought iron table in the backyard, up 'til dawn, smoking and talking. It felt quite the honor just to see the man laugh. He got the feeling Mín didn’t laugh much. That was the second time Mayo had been here.

He shook his head, the image etch-A-sketched away like nothing and followed Pancho through the foyer to the dining room and then the living room. Or rather, one of the living rooms. The house smelled so strongly of floral-scented candles and potpourri, he worried he might get a headache sitting in here for too long. They must’ve just had the place cleaned. It bothered him that he even noticed and it especially bothered him why. That it was because there was no hint of that familiar, faint musk that should’ve been there, expensive without trying too hard, that seemed to trail Mín along with a perpetual cloud of neurotic discontent, everywhere he went.

Even from the beginning Mayo liked that about him. The discontent he wore right on his sleeve. He’d noted it when they’d first met at some meat market in Mazátlan, right around the time he first linked up with the Sinaloa crew, just before they arrested Miguel and the whole Federation got dissolved. Just in Mín's discontent, his raw, kinetic ambition, Mayo saw something of himself, even if the two fo them strove for very different things. He used to think, what a strange little something you are, Benjamín Arellano Félix, the way one would think fondly of a pet they had growing up. He found himself wishing now that Mín felt just a pet to him.

But they belonged to each other in a new way now. Darker, tenuous, and confounding in just exactly how straightforward it was. No implications, no questions to be asked. It said nothing about either of them except that they belonged, if only for and evening. Or the amount of time it takes to smoke a full Montecristo and down a stiff drink of scotch.

He turned to the fish tank and stared at his warped reflection, saying to no one in particular, “Things are changing real fast, huh? The army in Tijuana fucking shit up. Coming after your family, no less. Now Benjamín’s gone. Fucking mess, huh?”

He felt it coming. This meeting. Depending on the outcome, it might signify a breaking point and he’d have to choose between what is and what should never be. The Arellanos got caught flying far too close to the sun and they knew it now. (And everyone wondered why he preferred boats.) It’s what set Mín on the lam, no telling how long he would be out there. Floating around wherever he was. Away.

Shaking his head, “Just hoping it all blows over and Benjamín can come back home,” Pancho spilled a glass of some brown liquor, as he set it down on the beverage cart in front of Mayo.

Amused, Mayo tried mopping it with only his fingers until he gave up, taking a sip. There was still plenty to drink, since Pancho had filled it nearly to the brim, almost as high as his own. Suddenly, it made sense why Pancho wasn’t in charge of the family business despite being the oldest. Hombre couldn’t bluff for shit.

Mayo took the seat by the beverage cart, as Pancho practically melted back onto the giant couch across from him. Doing his best to affect it, almost like an afterthought, Mayo leaned back in the chair and said, “Send him my best, yeah?” He took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pockets, giving them a little jiggle and raising his eyebrows.

Pancho got what he was asking but Dina startled him with an answer before Pancho got the chance. She spoke from behind them, standing at a large window, “Of course, please. Make yourself at home.” She waved her own lit cigarette as if to hammer the point home. “I do it in here all the time. Drives mamá mad. The smell gets in the drapes, she says.”

How long had she been standing there? Her beige suit blended so well with the drapes she spoke about with such indifference. Mayo half wondered if it was some kind of business tactic, camouflaging with the furniture. Better to hear all chisme whispered in these halls by house staff or other scheming subordinates a quien no le gustaba tener una jefa. In truth, he didn’t much like it either. But he hadn’t figured out if it was just because she was a woman or because of the kind of woman she was. He never had much patience for anyone with a chip on their shoulder.

Though he’d certainly made an exception for Mín who’d carted around a chip so heavy, it was a wonder he never tipped over. So, maybe it was the woman thing. Did it much matter? Not really cuando sabía que ella había planeado quitarle sus huevos. All these months later, and that cool twenty mil still burned a hole in their coffers and there was no making eyes at Dina to make it all go away, least of all when they were hurting for the cash. Not that he wouldn’t try. That is after all how he and Benjamín started off doing ... Well, whatever the fuck they did.

He thought of Dina’s wedding, how light and alive, self-assured Benjamín was. In his element. A new look he wore so well that, in Mayo’s estimation, he didn’t get to enjoy for long enough. Now look where they all were.

“So look, Pancho,” he brushed Dina off because if her goal was to blend in with it, well, he was happy to treat her like the furniture. “Amado’s expanded operations. Taken over the port in Peñasco, made it hard for my boats to unload. I was hoping to redirect them through San Ysidro, and not pass them through Tijuana.”

“That would put all your business in our plaza, wouldn’t it?”

The smirk of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar broke across Mayo's face and he dragged on his cigarette, nodding in the affirmative.

“And yet, you refuse to join our organization?”

He offered the answer that seemed to satisfy anyone who challenged his go-it-alone approach. It satisfied Mín well enough when he'd approached Mayo at the wedding. “Es qué, a mí me gusta ser mi propio patrón.”

Nothing less than the truth. In an industry of professional con artists, backstabbers, hustlers, and murderers, maybe like her brother, she’d appreciate it.

“Yes, so you’ve said.” She didn’t.

And she still hadn’t turned around to face them. For people so concerned with blending into high society, the Arellanos weren’t the most well-mannered. Mayo’s working-class manner of dress might, to the untrained eye, indicate that manners weren’t something he cared about. But he did. Even in his blackest moments, twisting his knife in someone’s gut or getting ready to light them on fire, he couldn’t much find a reason not to be at least cordial.

Fighting for a lifeline, he glanced at Pancho who almost looked like he was trying to become one with the couch, drink limp in his hand, as he stared at the All-Knowing Queen in white.

She finally turned to grace them with her full attention, gliding over and resting her hands on the back of the empty couch next to him. “You owe us twenty million dollars. What’s your plan to repay us?”

Back in the days when Miguel held court and favored the Sinaloa faction at the expense of his own family, dicking the Arellanos around as though the petulant kids he’d watched grow up would remain petulant kids forever, Mayo remembered thinking that Mín’s attempts at diplomacy weren’t well-earned by their uncle. And he’d told Mín as much. Even Dina agreed at the time.

But all these years later, with Dina the sharp tip of the lethal spear that was now the Arellano Félix Organization, Mayo wondered if they couldn’t do with some of Benjamín’s trademark diplomacy. Mín liked people. He knew how to talk to them. Dina was trickier to deal with. Though savvy like her brother, she was nothing but prickly, sharp edges. Good for dealing what needed to be dealt to their enemies. Not much for making friends.

Mayo tried his hand at diplomacy, “Money in shrimping, eh … moves slower than I’d like,” but ire crept in anyway when the absence of his— his— of Benjamín was screaming at him. “Benjamín understands that. I pay as it comes.”

Understands, yes. Present tense. He was gone, not dead and even with Dina in charge, he still must’ve been keeping tabs from somewhere. She couldn’t have the final word here. Not really.

Unwilling to follow his lead in diplomacy, she shot back. “How much have you got?”

“Here with me?” Now he was annoyed.

And that was met with a haughty huff from her, along with a scorn-filled smirk, so acrid and bitter he nearly tasted it in the air between them. She had him where she wanted him and it twisted his gut, knowing where this was about to go.

“You aren’t moving anything through this plaza until the tax is paid.”

It was over already and he knew it. That didn’t stop him from trying one final time, “Qué dice, Pancho? Esa es la última palabra de la familia?” like it might speak Benjamín into their living room.

Of course, when it didn’t work, the thought of Mín, knowing what he’d have to resort to next, only served to make his stomach churn more. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. What’s that thing they say about purple elephants? Because before the first don’t, the image of Benjamín’s gentle brown eyes in the moonlit backyard, full of that kinetic ambition, not for success but for something else —belonging— flooded Mayo. The third time he’d been here.

᪣

It had only been a few months since the wedding. A celebration at Roxanne’s gone awry and he’d had to bring Ramón home before he tore the club apart, going after Chapo for some snide comment about what they all knew happened to Rayo. The bad blood between the Arellanos and the Sinaloa crew was so long standing without erupting into an all-out war, it seemed to make sense at the time to at least attempt to avoid tipping it over the edge. In hindsight, the whole shitshow was gripped with such inevitability, it seemed more like going against the will of the gods, now that he thought about it. But you only know what you know when you know it. So, he done the sensible thing, intervened before things got ugly, agreeing against his better judgment to remove Ramón from the equation, by driving the rowdy motherfucker home while he sat in the passenger's seat of his pickup, three sheets to the wind, sprawled out, passed out, and snoring. Despite the fact he’d had no love para el pinshe huevón, there was love in his heart somewhere. And so it was easy to say, “yes” after shucking Ramón off his shoulder onto one of their house staff's, when Mín offered him a cigar and a drink. An opportunity for another of their little chats that they’d come to enjoy whenever they crossed paths. Though Mayo had noticed, in the distinct lack of one, every one of those times happened to be under the unconscious supervision of a crowd. So that when Benjamín complimented him on his business savvy, and said things like, “Fuck, man. You’re better than that,” the grin that spread across his face never got as wide as it wanted to be. They never stood as close as they’d wanted to. They never talked for as long as they wanted to. It was for the best. Because without the safety net of nosy onlookers, talking about life, growing up in Sinaloa, the incessant hustle, the never ending grind to the top, commiserating over the absurdity of this business they’d both come up in, ambition, what all of it even meant? Could they do something else? Should they do something else? Was it really worth it?— they both folded like a pair of cheap suits. And so he didn’t remove it, when Mín’s hand found itself on top of his. The contrast of how smooth, almost manicured it was compared his own, weather-worn, brought to light disparities that extended far beyond the physical and yet didn’t make a bit of difference. The words tumbled from Mín’s lips suddenly. “You know ... I do love my wife.” And that trademark cloud of anxiety that made him think too much came swept over them with a fury. Not long for this world, Mayo waved it away. “I know you do.” “You do?” It was almost funny. Despite the evident affinity they shared in these little chats, Mín’s shock reminded him just how little they really knew each other. How much of a gamble he’d just taken. “You know that I know that this,” Mayo lifted their hands, fingers interlaced together, and placed his lips against one of Mín’s knuckles, “and that,” then bobbed his head toward the house, “can be different but true, at the same time.”

᪣

He sighed and swallowed the memory hard.

“‘Ta bueno, ‘ta bueno,” nodding vigorously because he saw the whole fucking thing coming before he’d set foot in the house. Standing up and putting his hat back on, he muttered cooly, “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time.”

Striding toward the fish tank, he thought of Mín again and turned back around. He met Dina’s eyes in a challenge, you did this but simply tipped his hat, “Patrona,” a gesture of faux respect she was undoubtedly smart enough and petty enough to see for what it was.

On his way out of the house, he was already hard at work, scouring his brain. What was the last number that he had for Amado? Fuck, that shit was months ago. He'd probably have a new one. Oh, well. It'd be worth it. Or ... would it? Well frankly, if he was really honest with himself, he'd probably stopped giving a shit the second the words, "make yourself at home" came out of her mouth.

Stepping out into the midday sun at the top of the steps leading down to the driveway, he caught the carcass of his cigarette laying in the lion's mouth out of the corner of his eye.

Dina would regret this and probably never even know why.

But Benjamín would.

En ese mundo de complicidades y traiciones, un día tu mejor enemigo es tu cómplice y al otro se convierte en tu peor enemigo.

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