Art Keller—Tim Taylor

Art Keller—Tim Taylor is a strained supervisor-subordinate relationship shaped by mutual suspicion, institutional rivalry, and the practical compromises of a drug investigation. Taylor initially treats Art as an outsider whose intelligence background makes him dangerous rather than dependable; Art, isolated under Taylor’s authority, resents being told to act as a team member without being admitted to the team. Their later exchange over Adán Barrera and an injured campesino does not resolve that conflict so much as expose how quickly their opposing interests can produce a temporary bargain.

A Suspicious Welcome

When Art arrives in Culiacán, Tim Taylor, the resident agent in charge, has already examined his credentials. Without looking up from the file, Taylor asks whether Art served in Vietnam, then identifies the Accelerated Pacification Program and the CIA connection behind Art’s record. Art confirms the details but does not answer Taylor’s final declaration that he was CIA. The opening exchange establishes the relationship’s governing imbalance: Taylor has authority over Art’s assignment, but Art’s past is not something he is willing to explain on Taylor’s terms.

Taylor’s suspicion is rooted in his own institutional history. An old BNDD agent who had worked through the agency’s low-budget years, he regards the Drug Enforcement Administration’s expanded resources and influence as gains that should not be surrendered to newcomers. In his view, Art represents precisely that threat: a new arrival carrying the methods and reputation of an intelligence operative into a police operation. Taylor calls such men killers rather than cops and warns Art against acting like a cowboy. His demand that Art be a team player and follow the rules is therefore both an assertion of supervisory control and a statement about the kind of policing he believes should prevail.

Exclusion Under the Rules

Taylor’s language of teamwork does not translate into inclusion. The assignment is to get the lay of the land in Culiacán, but Taylor gives Art little practical support. Taylor and the other law-enforcement officers withhold information, do not introduce him to contacts, exclude him from meetings with local Mexican police, and leave him out of the informal coffee, doughnut, and evening-beer gatherings where useful information circulates. Art is nominally part of the operation while being denied the relationships and access that would make participation possible.

That exclusion sharpens Art’s response to Taylor. Art understands himself as an outsider already: raised in the barrio as the son of an Anglo father and a Mexican mother, he has learned not to expect automatic membership in anyone’s group. The book connects that history to the lesson Art reduces to YOYO, or being on one’s own. Taylor’s treatment in Culiacán makes the lesson immediate. Art is sent into a difficult environment with little institutional backing, while his supervisor retains the power to define the rules and withhold the means to work effectively within them.

The Break Between Them

The antagonism becomes explicit after Art spends a night drinking with Adán. The following morning, Taylor summons him to the office. Art arrives visibly battered, with a swollen jaw and bruised ribs, traces of dried blood beneath his nose, and a pounding head after drinking beer and smoking yerba at an after-hours club. Taylor responds with undisguised disgust, treating the condition of Art’s body as evidence of a night that has gone badly beyond the bounds of the assignment.

When Taylor presses the point, Art says that the operation treats the people it encounters as targets. His judgment is shaped by his experience the previous night: he believes he learned more about how things work locally from that encounter than he had learned during the preceding three months. Taylor answers that Art is not in an undercover role and should work with local law enforcement. Art counters that Taylor has already damaged that possibility by alienating him from those officers. Taylor then says he will get Art out of Culiacán and wants him off the team. The exchange turns their earlier distrust into an open rupture: Taylor sees Art’s conduct as incompatible with his operation, while Art holds Taylor responsible for the very isolation that makes conventional cooperation difficult.

A Tactical Truce

The relationship changes in emphasis when Art brings in Adán, now the major prize of the operation, along with an injured campesino. Taylor smirks, but Art can tell that he is angry. Art’s capture of Adán has shifted their immediate balance: Taylor may resent the circumstances, but, as Art recognizes, he can no longer simply act against him. The achievement gives Art leverage that he did not possess when he was the isolated newcomer under Taylor’s command.

Art does not use that leverage to claim a clean victory. He gestures toward Adán and the injured man and quietly points out that both he and Taylor have things to keep secret. Taylor agrees. The exchange converts their conflict into a limited understanding grounded not in renewed trust, but in mutual exposure and shared self-interest. Art then climbs into the helicopter, begins untying Adán, and apologizes to him. Taylor’s brief assent does not erase the earlier exclusion, lecture, or attempt to remove Art from the team; it shows instead that their relationship can move from command and resistance to tacit accommodation when the circumstances make cooperation useful.