30
760 MILES NORTH of Whittier, the Pelican Bay State Prison consumes 275 acres of pristine real estate just outside of Crescent City, California. Surrounded by forest, the location is near the border of Oregon and only two miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. Built to house 3,319 inmates, the state’s only “supermax” prison opened for business in 1989. It is home to the most violent and dangerous prisoners in the state, many of whom are affiliated with one of the four primary prison gangs: The Mexican mafia (La Eme), Nuestra Familia (NF, or Ene), The Black Guerilla Family (BGF), and the Aryan Brotherhood (AB).
Cellblock C, or C Block, is a designated Special Housing Unit (SHU) reserved for the most dangerous of the prison’s population. Their activities are rigorously monitored as they remain in their cells 22 hours each day, seven days a week. Each day they are allowed access, one or two at a time, to an exercise facility the inmates call the dog run. It is a small, narrow concrete box with walls fifteen feet high. Nearly half of its occupants are serving life sentences; most—or more likely, all—are killers, convicted or not.
Victor Hernandez, also known as “Little Spooky” from Big Hazard, a Hispanic street gang located in East Los Angeles, had been housed in C Block for nearly six years. A known associate of the prison gang, La Eme, Hernandez had killed two gang members from Whittier for failing to pay taxes to the Mexican mafia. It was learned the two victims had taken over drug sales in their neighborhood after several others were sent to prison, the result of gang and drug enforcement sweeps. The two murdered gang members had been counseled twice (they were jumped on two separate occasions, one of which resulted in one of the two being stabbed repeatedly), yet their unwillingness to pay the required taxes had persisted. Spooky, accompanied by three of his fellow Hazard gang enthusiasts, had gone to the home of one of the soon-to-be-victims. They abducted him at gunpoint, drove to the business partner’s home and scooped him up too, and then the three gangsters drove with their two prisoners thirty miles north to the Angeles National Forest. There, the two were taken from the car, placed on their knees, and shot to death with a shotgun, two nine-millimeter pistols, and an AK-47.
One of the accomplices to the murder, Juan “Joker” Torres, had recently become Spooky’s new cellie. The arrangement came as a surprise to Spooky as the four defendants had each been housed separately since their convictions. For the first three days they talked nonstop, like two girls at summer camp. They chatted day and night as they sat or lay on their bunks in the two-man cell, a small concrete enclosure with stacked bunks, a toilet, and a sink. The cells are too small for two men who don’t get along well; one of the two would eventually kill the other if not compatible. But these two gangsters had been friends and homeboys all of their lives, and Spooky was glad for the company. They spent their time catching up on prison gossip and talk of the streets: who had been killed and who was locked up, which homegirls were still down for the hood, providing sexual favors for those on the outside and bringing in dope to the vatos inside. Finally, Joker got to it, asking his codefendant, homie, cellie, and friend, Spooky, “What do you hear about the mob, eh?”
Spooky filled him in, telling him everything he had heard as far as current criminal activities, how they were using some white boys connected with the Irish mafia to do some hits on the outside, how he had heard they were moving in on legitimate businesses now, not just taxing gangsters dealing dope. The goal was to bring in more money. Money equaled power, he was told. Spooky also told him he heard about a woman who was killed and had her head and hands chopped off, and he had heard that Eme might have had something to do with it, but he didn’t know. He asked Joker if he knew, and Joker shook his head. Spooky said he recently heard there was a green light on a hack, a sheriff in Los Angeles, but said he didn’t know what that was all about, either. He said, “I mean, goddamn, talk about bringing the heat, eh?”
When Spooky finished, Joker asked how he knew about all of this when he was locked down so tight. He replied, “All I do is listen to the conversations, man, it’s all I’ve had to do in here till you came, eh. I been kickin’ it up in here by myself for the last what, three or two years, eh.”
In the quiet of the third night, Joker and Spooky were both lying on top of their beds; it was too warm in the SHU to do otherwise. Joker quietly asked his new cellie—old “crimie”—what ever happened to his little girl. He said, “Do you see her, or hear from her?”
Spooky told him no, he didn’t see her or hear from her, and then he told him his ex had kicked him to the curb and was now hooked up with—and he lowered his voice— “That puto, Peanut from Puente, eh, a carnale. He got her wrapped on his leg, eh, and she ain’t got time for me no more. My baby girl is almost grown up now, eh, and I don’t even know her.”
For a few minutes after he said it, neither of them spoke. Finally, Joker said his last words of the night: “You should know better than to fuck with the carnales, homie, La Eme.”
That was it. No reply. Neither said goodnight. Nobody ever said goodnight in prison, unless you were a bitch.
On the morning of the fourth day, long before the 6:00 a.m. wakeup, Joker lay wide awake listening to Spooky sleep soundly above him in the dark. There were dim lights outside of the cell that weakly illuminated the module and provided enough light to move around in the darkened cell as needed. He could tell Spooky was in a deep sleep and would not easily awaken. Joker quietly slid off the bottom bunk, removed the strips of bedding he had prepared days before and concealed beneath his mattress, and climbed carefully onto Spooky’s bunk. He had the strips of cloth wrapped around Spooky’s neck before he awakened. Joker pulled the ligature violently and held tight through a barrage of fists hitting his head. He stayed atop of his cellie who was now bucking his hips and twisting and turning his torso and legs, desperately trying to free himself. There were muffled sounds of grunts and groans and then it was over. It had taken less than a minute, but Joker continued to choke him for another to be safe. Soon he smelled the release of bodily functions and felt the last involuntary convulsions of Spooky’s body.
Joker slid off the bunk. He stood solemnly at the cell’s door in his white boxer shorts, his muscular and tattooed body glistening with sweat. He took a moment to calm himself, to control his breathing, to relax. While doing so, he wiped sweat from his head and body with Spooky’s shower towel; Spooky would no longer be needing it. Joker pushed his face against the bars and called out in the direction of the officer’s booth. “Hey, yo, officer . . . we got a man down on Baker row, man down.”
The familiar voice of a neighbor bounced off the concrete walls, not much more than a whisper in the shadows. “Is it done?”
“Yeah, it’s done,” Joker said softly.
Leonard awoke late Friday morning with a headache. Likely too much Cuervo and too many cigarettes after a long night of watching again and getting nowhere. The cop hadn’t come home. Now Leonard moved about in the quiet room he called home, a worn bed, a couch and table, and a kitchenette. He plopped down on the sofa with a box of donuts and a quart of orange juice he had bought at the corner market from the foreigner who wore a sheet wrapped around his head. His phone vibrated and flashed light against the coffee table. He reached for it and saw the display said Moses. The Marty Feldman of the Irish mob. He ignored the call.
Five minutes later the phone rang again, but Leonard’s head still hurt, and he had no news and no desire to speak with the boss’s boy, Feldman.
When it rang a third time not five minutes later, Leonard gave in. “Hello, fuckface.”
Silence.
“Hello?”
A gravelly voice, one Leonard had never heard on the phone but recognized immediately from his one meeting with the boss. “Excuse me?”
“Sir . . . Mr. McFarland, I didn’t know—”
“Please do not use my name.”
“Sorry, Mr., uh, sir.”
“Why are you not answering your phone when my assistant, Mr. Lomeli calls? He has c
omplained of your attitude on several occasions. Is there a problem between the two of you, something I need to address?”
Leonard pictured the distinguished man, his gray hair slicked back, the jewelry on his wrists and hands. He could see the boss man twisting the emerald ring on his left hand while he waited for the answer. “No sir.”
“Good. Make sure it stays that way. Now, on to business, where are we on the assignment?”
Leonard reached for a cigarette and began searching for a lighter. “Sir, I’ve not had much luck. I’m not so sure he even lives at that address I was given.”
“Why would you say that? Haven’t you seen him there?”
“Yes, twice, but—”
“Then what is the problem?”
“He’s hardly ever there. I’m starting to wonder if it’s a crash pad or something, maybe somewhere he meets his girlfriend.”
“He has a girlfriend, does he?”
“No—I don’t know. I’m just saying, it doesn’t seem he lives there. This isn’t going to be easy with a, um, person like that . . . I need to see his routine in order to have a plan. There’s no routine. The guy’s a fucking weirdo, man—I mean, sir.”
After a brief pause, the boss said, “It’s a good address. It came straight from his departmental records, courtesy of our fed. He lives there, we are certain.”
“Yes sir. Okay, well . . . I’ll continue to wait, and watch. I have three weeks to get it done still.”
“Two.”
These guys and their fucking math. “Yes sir, two weeks. Thank you.”
The phone went silent and Leonard tossed it on the table. He needed something to go with his O.J.; maybe he’d walk down to the corner and buy a bottle of vodka. This working for a living—having a boss telling you what to do and when to do it—wasn’t playing out the way he had hoped it would. In fact, it was a pain in his balls. He pictured Whitey in his cell, maybe lying on his bunk or doing pushups on the concrete floor. At times, Leonard just wanted to go back to Raiford. It was home. The only home he ever knew, really. The only place he had a friend.
I had just collapsed at my desk in the Homicide Bureau, haggard from the night’s work. It had started shortly after Lopes had called in and asked Farris to run a check on the corrections officer. I was still visiting with Farris when Lopes phoned again and said he needed two teams, the crime lab, scent dogs, SWAT, and a lieutenant to respond to Whittier. He provided an address. I could hear Lopes over the phone as he spoke with Rich Farris, and his voice had an urgent tone, though he remained composed. It reminded me of the night Lopes’s partner was shot in Firestone, and Lopes put out a broadcast on the radio. The exigency was there in his voice and tone, but he remained cool under fire and was able to deliver the message methodically. I felt there was a similar urgency in this call.
Farris had scribbled an address onto a pad of scratch paper that sat by the phone, and while Lopes still spoke into the phone, Farris pushed the paper toward his partner and told her to page their lieutenant. I leaned over to see the address upside down, and wrote it on the palm of my hand with a pen.
I said to Farris, “I’m rolling,” and walked away.
Farris’s voice and a sudden increase of phones ringing faded behind me as I hurried toward the rear door. I didn’t know what had happened, and it didn’t matter. Lopes was asking for help and I was ready to roll. With the red light and siren parting the way, I could be there in 10-15 minutes.
My tires squealed and the engine roared as I turned out of the lot and headed east. A box of files sailed across the back seat and crashed against the door. I glanced over my shoulder to see its contents had spilled all over the backseat. It didn’t matter. What mattered was Lopes walked into something. The phone call Lopes had made on his way to pick up his date told me something was on his mind. But what? What had suddenly bothered him about his date? And now, what had he walked into?
A setup had crossed my mind. Lopes lured into a deadly encounter through a pretty girl. It was our weakness, all of us. Mankind. We haven’t really evolved all that much.
I slowed for a red light, looked both ways, and then floored it again. Had he walked into an ambush? Had he dumped some asshole, forced into a shooting situation by falling into a trap? He had asked for the world to roll, as we would call it; send everyone, and someone better pitch three tents because the circus would be coming to town. I hit the brakes and swerved around the front end of an obviously drunk driver’s vehicle which had drifted into my lane of traffic. Again, the backseat contents scrambled.
The address Lopes had provided took me into a quaint, older Whittier neighborhood that had once hummed with the hustle and bustle of families who worked and attended school and pursued the American dream. Now the homes were secured as fortresses and decorated with graffiti. Cars and pickups littered driveways and front yards and crowded the curb space, leaving nowhere to park. I had left my Crown Vic double-parked on the street behind several emergency vehicles, and moved toward the activity two doors ahead.
A uniformed deputy sheriff had stood guarding the front yard that was encircled by crime scene tape. I glanced at the dimly lit front porch while walking up to introduce myself and sign in on the crime scene log. From where I stood, it didn’t look good. There were the telltale signs of a death scene: rubber gloves on the bloodstained concrete, empty packages and containers from medical supplies, personal belongings scattered about, an indication the owner would likely not return. The volume of blood is what told the story; survival of the victim was not likely when most of one’s life blood is spilled onto the ground. There was a purse, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a cell phone that I could see across the lawn. It was a woman who had been shot. She had sat on the porch smoking a cigarette. That was my first impression based on the evidence at hand. I didn’t see shell casings, but I didn’t expect to at that distance and in the relative darkness. I scribbled my name and wrote down the time and “Homicide” next to it. Handing the clipboard back to the deputy, I had asked, “Where’s Lopes?”
He nodded his head toward the back of the house. “He’s inside, sir. There’s a back entrance.”
“Everything’s been cleared?”
“Yes sir. Everything is clear. Suspects are GPA. Just an old lady inside, I think a relative.”
The suspects were gone prior to his arrival. Of course they were. Was it a drive-by? Who was the lady inside? “The old lady, is she a relative of the woman who was shot?”
The deputy seemed surprised. “Yes sir. How did you know it was a woman?”
I had walked away without responding and went in through the back door, announcing my presence as I did. Because the house had been cleared and the suspect—or suspects—were said to be gone prior to arrival, didn’t mean Lopes wouldn’t be on edge.
Lopes had called out in response, “In here, Dickie.”
That’s when I first met Mrs. Maria Guadalupe Lopez Sanchez, the despondent grandmother of Corrections Officer Maria Lopez.
After an interview of the grandmother—or as Lopes had called her, Nana—I accompanied him to the hospital where we spent the rest of the night waiting for the news. That she had not yet expired surprised me, not just from what I saw, but also from what Lopes had told me: she had received multiple gunshot wounds, had lost a lot of blood, and was unresponsive. He had thought she was dead, but the paramedics found signs of life and worked feverishly to keep her alive as they rolled her to the hospital.
When I left the hospital later in the morning, the staff had informed us she was critical. Lopes said he was going to wait; he wanted to be the first to talk to her if she was ever able. I sensed there was more. We didn’t discuss any of it then, but I was confident we’d discuss it when he came back to the office. It would be one of those days—possibly weekends—that all of us went without sleep.
I put my feet up on my desk, removed my hat, and laid my head back. An hour or two would provide all the rest I needed to get through another day. An hour or
two and then a gallon or so of coffee.
31
AN HOUR LATER lights were turned on and low levels of chatter echoed through the chambers of metal desks and stained blue carpet. I glanced at my watch: 7:29. It was Friday, and a few people were getting an early start. My eyes were heavy and the lids fell closed again regardless of the budding activity around me. Nobody would care that I was asleep at my desk, and nobody would find it odd. This was the home of homicide detectives; everyone in the place had, at one time or another, slept at their desks, on the floor near their desks, in their county-issued department sedans, and at times, places where maybe they shouldn’t have.
There is a leather sofa in the ladies’ room at the bureau that makes for a nice bed. Like most men in the bureau, I didn’t know why it was there, but I knew of its existence. Most detectives first learned of it from a senior partner while still new at the bureau. It would happen on an early morning shift, what many call graveyard, when the seasoned detective would inform the newly assigned. For me, it went like this: “Partner, I think you can handle the phones for the next hour or so, I’m going to lie down. There’s a bed in the ladies’ room and that’s where I’ll be if you need me.” Subsequent to new guy status, two partners on the desk would likely take shifts using the room, so to speak. I hadn’t opted for the ladies’ room this morning as it was already too late in the day and I didn’t want to sleep soundly only to be awakened by one of the females of the bureau coming in to use the facility. These women are armed.
After half an hour, I surrendered. The phones were ringing, the chatter about the place seemed more urgent than usual, and detectives were scurrying about. I could sense it all and it kept me from sleeping.
When I passed the front desk headed for coffee, I was glad to see both detectives on phones. I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone until I was properly caffeinated. It was the dayshift now, and these people had presumably just come off of a full night’s sleep. I could not equal their level of awareness, enthusiasm, or willingness to communicate with the world. In fact, it might be said that my disposition at this point rivaled that of a rattlesnake who has been suddenly pulled from his shelter and peaceful sleep.
Hard-Boiled- Box Set Page 54