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His two friends are more experienced; they tantalized Les with tales of young women and cheap prices. Les and company don't waste time. They walk straight into Casino El Papagayo, the district's vaunted centerpiece establishment, a bar with connected rooms. But don't bother wishing them good luck. The 4-by-4 block section of Nuevo Laredo has many names, but there's only one reason to go there: legal prostitution.
Mexican law holds that prostitution is in a strict sense legal, but being a pimp or procurer is not. Cities can pass laws that form "zones of tolerance" to focus prostitutes into one area and--in Nuevo Laredo's unique case--wall it off from the rest of town. A two-car-wide entrance is the only gap in the 8-foot-high walls, which are decorated with political posters and other ads.
Inside is a dark and never-ending dynamic of hookers and johns, of wasted nights and frantic coupling, a cycle broken only by the appearance of a blistering sun. You don't drive south on Interstate 35 as much as you fall, like a seed from a lime dropping down the neck of a Corona.
On Friday nights the Texas license plates are as common a sight as taxis. Most border towns in Mexico sport red light districts. None matches the allure of Nuevo Laredo's walled Boys Town. NAFTA has changed the border, but some things remain the same.
