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locked the steering and wrapped a chain through the front spokes and anchored it to a metal railing. Lock it or lose it took on a very real meaning in South America.
    The building that housed his friend’s apartment was set back from the road behind a commercial store that sold auto parts. He walked through the darkness to a flight of stairs and took the risers two at a time. The door at the top was thick and heavy, and he rapped the knocker hard against the wood. A second later an eye appeared in the peep hole, and the door opened. A man in his late fifties with a substantial potbelly stood in the doorway. His hair was long and uncombed and two or three days’ growth of beard went unchecked on his heavily lined face. He smiled, revealing uneven yellow teeth, and motioned for Eugene to enter.
    â€œHey, amigo, what brings you down to Porlamar at this time? Julie kick you out for being a good husband?”
    â€œI need to talk with you, Fidel,” Eugene said, closing the door behind him. “You okay to talk?” The odor of marijuana hung in the air.
    â€œSure, Eugene,” his friend said as they moved into the sparsely furnished living room. The television was on, but no one else was present. Fidel picked up the remote control and hit the mute button. The room was quiet but for the distant whine of an air-conditioning unit. Fidel pointed to one of the two threadbare couches and sat in the other one. Numerous beer bottles littered the coffee table and the ashtray was piled high with cigarette butts. “What’s up, my friend?”
    â€œI’ve got a problem, Fidel. A serious problem.” He spent the next five minutes telling him what had happened at his house earlier in the evening. Fidel sipped on a beer and listened as Eugene relayed the visit from Javier Rastano. Then he thought for a minute.
    â€œJavier Rastano,” he said. “You’re sure about that?”
    â€œPositive. Why?”
    â€œHis father is Mario Rastano. As Javier already told you, he was a major player in the Medellín cartel back when Pablo was involved.” Fidel wasn’t much to look at, but he was intelligent and connected. He knew more about the illegal drug industry in South America than the DEA. On rare occasions, he would drink too much and tell Eugene stories about when he had worked with the cartels in both Medellín and Cali, scary stories that always involved violence, and often death. “Javier was only about twenty-two or twenty-three when Search Bloc nailed Pablo, but his father had started him young. He’d been dealing with Pablo and the Ochoa family for two or three years. But it was old man Rastano who was the driving force behind the business partnership with Escobar.”
    â€œSo they moved a lot of cocaine out of Colombia?”
    â€œA shit load. Most of it through Norman’s Cay until Carlos Lehder was out of the picture. After that they used Bimini. But that wasn’t the only corridor. They had another route.”
    â€œThrough Panama?”
    He shook his head. “Not really. Sure, it went overland from Colombia to Panama, but that wasn’t where it left for the United States. Noriega was an absolute bastard to deal with and he screwed the narcos more times than you can imagine. How he survived Pablo’s wrath has always amazed me. Anyway, the Americans were watching Panama and Noriega was a problem, so your cousin and the Rastanos moved the stuff overland to El Salvador before mixing it in with coffee shipments and loading it on boats for California. Not many people knew about the route.”
    â€œHow did you find out?” Eugene asked.
    â€œMy ties were with José Rodríguez Gacha…”
    â€œThe Mexican,” Eugene interrupted.
    â€œYes. The Mexican. Anyway, Gacha needed someone to watch the books in South America. For some reason, he trusted me. Not that I didn’t earn the trust. I never stole from him, and I forwarded