Not that the team was doing much better.

The DEA had been hammering on the Mexican government for two years, trying to get them to move against the gomeros. The agents brought evidence-photos, tapes, witnesses-only to have the federales promise to move right away and then not move, only to hear, “This is Mexico, senores. These things take time.”

While the evidence grew stale, the witnesses got scared and the federales rotated posts so that the Americans had to start all over again with a different federal cop, who told them to bring him solid evidence, bring him witnesses. Who, when they did, looked at them with perfect condescension and told them, “Senores, this is Mexico. These things take time.”

While the heroin flowed down from the hills into Culiacan like mud in a spring thaw, the young gomeros slugged it out with Don Pedro’s forces on a nightly basis until the city sounded to Art like Danang or Saigon, only with a lot more gunfire.

Night after night, Art would lie on the bed in his hotel room, drinking cheap scotch, maybe watching a soccer game or boxing match on TV, pissed off and feeling sorry for himself.

And missing Althie.

God, how he missed Althie.

He had met Althea Patterson on Bruin Walk in his senior year, introducing himself with a lame line: “Aren’t we in the same Poli Sci section?”

Tall, thin and blond, Althea was more angular than curvy; her nose was long and hooked, her mouth a little too wide, and her green eyes set a little too deep to be considered classically pretty, but Althea was beautiful.

And smart-they actually were in the same Poli Sci section, and he’d listened to her talk in class. She argued her viewpoint (a little to the left of Emma Goldman) ferociously, and that turned him on, too.

So they went out for pizza and then they went to her apartment in Westwood. She made espresso and they talked and he found out that she was a rich girl from Santa Barbara, her family Old California Money and her father a very big deal in the state Democratic Party.