He was used to saints. His mother had faithfully dragged him to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Barrio Logan, where he took catechism classes, made his First Communion, was confirmed. He had prayed to saints, lit candles at the statues of saints, sat as a child and looked at paintings of saints.

Actually, Art was a pretty faithful Catholic even during college. He was a regular communicant in Vietnam at first, but his devotion waned and he stopped going to confession. It was like, Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, Forgive me, Father, for I have- Oh, fuck it, what’s the point? Every day I mark men for death, every other week I kill them myself. I’m not going to come in here and tell you that I’m not going to do it again, when it’s on the schedule, regular as Mass.

Sal Scachi, one of the Special Forces guys, used to go to Mass every Sunday he wasn’t out killing people. Art used to marvel how the perceived hypocrisy didn’t faze him. They even talked about it one drunken night, Art and this very Italian guy from New York.

“It don’t bother me,” Scachi said. “Shouldn’t bother you. The VC don’t believe in God, anyway, so fuck 'em.”

They got into a ferocious debate, Art appalled that Scachi actually thought they were “doing God’s work” by assassinating Vietcong. Communists are atheists, Scachi repeated, who want to destroy the Church. So what we’re doing, he explained, is defending the Church, and that isn’t a sin, it’s a duty.

He reached under his shirt and showed Art the Saint Anthony’s medal he kept around his neck on a chain.

“The saint keeps me safe,” he explained. “You should get one.”

Art didn’t.

Now, in Culiacan, he stood and stared into the obsidian eyes of Santo Jesus Malverde. The saint’s plaster skin was stark white and his mustache a sable black, and a garish circle of red had been painted around his neck to remind the pilgrim that the saint had, like all the best saints, been martyred.