by C. S. 96
I worked for a man named Tony Geneste, who often went by “Tony Loco Tony” for reasons that quickly became obvious when you met him. My job was to manage all the logistics of our operation—to devise the circuitous, off-the-beaten-path routes we used for transporting the hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of illegal narcotics we were distributing for the Beltrán Cartel in Mexico, all in an effort to circumvent seizures north of the Inland Empire. And I excelled at it, at knowing the police stations, sheriff’s offices, state trooper barracks, checkpoints, hot spots, and speed traps. Through weeks, sometimes months, of reconnaissance and due diligence I even acquired the names and shifts of the cops that worked in most of the precincts and sheriff’s offices my men drove through—the backwater towns and exurbs and suburbs of minor and major cities. Yes, my routes took longer to spirit the material to its final destination—but when they were followed to the letter, they worked.
Finding someone who could follow directions wasn’t as easy as it sounds. The biggest problem Tony and I faced was finding and indoctrinating clean drivers who were fearless and smart, men and women who could think on their feet and not fall apart during a random police check of their car, truck, or person. And our inability to recruit enough good drivers was the reason I was forty miles from home.
As I pulled down the quiet, nondescript cul-de-sac, I noticed Tony walking back and forth in front of the safe house, phone jammed tightly against his ear in what seemed like animated conversation. Odd because Tony never spoke on the phone—he preferred two-way walkie-talkies or medical pagers. After all, his were usually yes-or-no conversations.
The leader of our American cartel, subsidized by the powerful and feared Beltrán Cartel, Tony Geneste looked like a cartel leader straight out of central casting. If you were to see him on the street, or in a nightclub, you’d know this man’s whole life just by looking at him, and he didn’t give a shit that anyone knew because Tony was careful, and very dangerous. He had that aura that read: back away or die.
By the way Tony was pacing, I knew the phone call wasn’t going how he hoped. He was throwing around his fireplug physique in frustration. He had naturally broad shoulders, massive biceps, a hairless barrel chest covered with jailhouse tattoos, and thighs thick as tree trunks. His enormous cinderblock hands—callused and seemingly overworked—were capable of squeezing a man’s head until it popped. He wore a Pancho Villa–like mustache covering both lips and when untrimmed it drooped ridiculously to the bottom of his chin; his receding hairline was always greased back and pulled into a tight ponytail.
Tony was built for the profession he was in, and he had the mind-set—I’d seen him tear men limb from limb with his bare hands. If there was a way to hurt another human being without the help of a weapon, he could do it—Tony was the weapon, every inch of him.
Beyond Tony’s insatiable quest to be the baddest mothafucka on the planet—which in my estimation he was, and believe me it was nothing to be proud of—the man was an oddball of sorts. He had zero taste in clothing. I’d like to say he was a throwback of some kind, but the era to which his taste aspired, to this day, it’s still indecipherable to me. He favored colorful alligator boots, carefully pressed starched black jeans, and colorful silk shirts opened to his breastbone. He wore jewelry that was garish even for a drug lord, thick gold chains affixed with an assortment of diamond crucifixes, a not-so-mini diamond-encrusted AK47, and a gold Christ head the size of an infant’s fist, its thorny crown adorned with seven karats of diamonds and rubies.
Yet despite his bizarre appearance, Tony was never a man who liked to waste time, so I couldn’t help but wonder what he could still need to say to the person on the other end of the phone. Even when he was in prison for seventeen years, he didn’t waste a minute. I’m sure he had plenty of leisure time to do what abnormally strong psychopathic killers do—prey upon the rest of the inmates with shakedowns and contract murders, swing deals with corrupt guards. But Tony didn’t do those things. Instead, while incarcerated, he became a licensed paralegal. And had he not been a predicate felon and convicted killer he could’ve easily passed the bar exam in any state of the country.
I parked the car and walked cautiously to him, and when he snapped the phone closed it sounded like the report of a .25-caliber pistol, business end pointed at my head. Tony didn’t look at me, he just screamed, “Puta pandejo!”
I knew Tony’s moods all too well; it was best to let him vent and not say a word. Waiting for him to catch his breath, I watched as he walked in small tight circles muttering some Cuban Santeria-like hex. I did catch the name of its recipient, Raul. That’s when I knew that the day had gone sideways.
Raul, one of our drivers and the bane of all our existence, was the older brother of Tony’s closest friend and business partner, Hector, and that was the only reason Raul still stood amongst the living, because Raul was a stone-cold crackhead who at times was not above liberating some of Tony’s product for his continuous objective—working the crack pipe four, sometimes five days straight. This, it turned out, was why I was summoned to the suicide king’s safe house that early Sunday morning.
Hector and Tony went back so far that not even Raul’s absurd antics could get between them. Hector had introduced Tony to the heads of the cartel, Abel and Eliseo Beltrán, our benefactors in the drug business who just happened to be savage killers, too. Tony, the more aggressive between himself and Hector, made a good impression on the brothers and he supplanted Hector as their “go-to-guy,” thus becoming the leader of the American distribution arm of the Beltrán Cartel. I knew this was a thorn in Hector’s side and wondered how long it would take for their tense alliance to dissolve. Tony and Hector seemed able to cooperate so long as they were getting paid.
But Hector and his brother Raul were two very different breeds of men. Though Hector didn’t own Tony’s fearsome look, he was as ruthless and dangerous, whereas Raul was a nonconfrontational free spirit, and, as I mentioned, a crackhead.
It was Hector’s job to deal with the Beltrán’s acolytes, making sure the drugs passed through San Diego’s San Ysidro border safely, then were ferried to Los Angeles where the parcels would be secured—without incident—at our safe houses. Once the drugs were secured, it was my job to supervise our workers breaking down the product into manageable packages, sneak them into our refrigerated trucks, and then have them transported across the country to our many clients in the East, mainly New York and Detroit. Upon delivery, I’d fly east, pick up the cash from our clients, make sure the count was right, load the massive amount of cash on pallets, and send it all back to Hector in San Diego via the refrigerated trucks the drugs had been delivered in. Hector would break off what we owed to the Beltráns and deliver them the balance, sending the profits back to our safe houses all over California. A simple operation that netted us tens of millions of dollars a year.
But it never ended up so simple. Originally this was Tony’s job, but he began staying in New York for longer stretches at a time, so he delegated this über-important part of the operation to Hector—which was the biggest operations mistake he’d ever make. At one point, I thought it’d cost us our lives.
When Tony was in San Diego, he’d take over the job of handing off the cash to the cartel couriers, and the consequences of his giving Hector so much latitude hit us in the face on one such trip down there. At this point Tony was dating a beautiful, thirty-something woman, Rosaria, who, unfortunately for us, was also from Sinaloa, the headquarters of the Beltrán brothers’ cartel and a place where everybody knows everybody, especially if you’re in the life. She was the manager of a beautiful boutique hotel—The Sweet Water—situated directly on the beach in San Diego. The Sweet Water wasn’t listed with any travel agents—you needed to have a connection to someone in management to get a room. Needless to say, its array of guests were wealthy Mexicans and South Americans trying to maintain a very low profile while staying in the United States. All, certainly, were friends of the Beltráns, and, I�
�d learn, mostly all in the drug business in one capacity or another. I’d come to learn that The Sweet Water Hotel was financed and built by the Beltráns, but whether they were using it to launder money or as a discreet location—situated very close to the border—to relax undisturbed when they were in town, I would never know.
We thought The Sweet Water was the perfect place for downtime while Tony and I waited for our next shipment of drugs to arrive from Mexico. One early evening, just before heading out for dinner, we were relaxing on the large patio deck watching the sunset over the Pacific. Drinks in hand, we were discussing the potential of new clientele in Miami, Florida, and at the moment life was very good. So good, in fact, we wondered if we really needed more clients. The answer, we decided, was no. We had loyal, very buttoned-up clients who were making us wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. We were wealthy and the business ran with the expedience of any Fortune 500 company, and we were seemingly untouchable.
There was a soft knock on the door. Tony and I looked at each other, perplexed, as a knock on our door at this particular hotel was odd. Odd because there was an understanding between the guests of the hotel and security-conscious management to never send any members of the staff or guests of the patrons to these rooms unless requested, so Tony and I were immediately on guard. We were unarmed, which made the situation worse. I was looking around the room for anything I could use as a weapon just in case this was an attempted kidnap-and-ransom setup—we were in the drug business, after all, and where there are drugs, there is money, and a lot of it.
I quietly made my way to the door, looked through the peephole, and I was shocked when I realized who the two well-dressed men standing outside were—the Beltrán brothers, Eliseo and Abel, the heads of a worldwide drug empire that netted billions of dollars a year thanks to distributors like Tony and myself.
Now it made sense. They were the only two men—without search warrants and a posse full of federal agents—that would be able to circumvent the rules and regulations of their hotel, with a little help from Rosaria of Sinaloa.
I whispered, a little confused and worried, “It’s the brothers.”
Tony stiffened up immediately, smoothing out his shirt and pants; he was excited by the visit. In his mind it must’ve made all the sense in the world: We were making them boatloads of money, always on time with our payments, and our solid client base was steadily increasing their orders. They must’ve been in town, Rosaria gave them our room number, and they wanted to pop by say hello.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t feeling Tony’s warm and fuzzy euphoria. No, a surprise visit from these two, in our world, would be like the mayor of New York City racing over to Macy’s department store to hand over the key to the city to a mall security guard for catching a shoplifter—it just didn’t make sense. Yes, we were making the brothers millions upon millions of dollars a year, but we were one of many. We were clients, and they were gods in the drug business. The Beltrán brothers were a combo of Pablo Escobar, Pol Pot, and Attila the Hun all rolled into one.
Eliseo and Abel entered the room and made small talk. Tony poured drinks for these two ruthless killers responsible for thousands of murders in Mexico and the United States. They were also two of the wealthiest men in the world, though Forbes magazine wouldn’t catch on and add them to their list for a number of years. Two psychotic killers of the same bloodline, billions of dollars in their bloody coffers, with judges, politicians, as well as federal and local Mexican cops on their payroll. They weren’t exactly the ideal bosses you wanted to receive a surprise visit from. The brothers had found the soccer game that Tony had on, and when Eliseo raised his arm to point at something on the screen, I noticed that he was strapped with an intricately designed .45-caliber pistol.
When Tony brought them their drinks, they turned their attention on us. “Let’s get down to business at hand, sí?” Eliseo said. “Apparently there’s a serious problem with our accounting.” Eliseo grinned at Tony, moving his bejeweled hand back and forth, indicating Tony and Eliseo.
I saw Tony’s demeanor change in a flash; he went from cool and somewhat relaxed to twitchy and hot. This wasn’t the president of the company coming down to Earth, bearing goodwill and salutations to his star salesman, it was just the opposite.
Tony was not going to roll over and plead for his life to anyone. It just wasn’t in his nature. He’d rather die fighting than kiss anyone’s ass.
Tony rose up. “What the fuck are you talking about? Accounting? I pay back every dollar I owe,” he said without fear of retribution.
Abel simply shook his head “no.” “You owe us $2,466,000.” Eliseo sat forward now, pulling out his large pistol and laying it down on the glass table in front of him. All eyes turned to the gun. Tony just sneered at Eliseo, almost daring him to reach for the weapon. I felt my heart pounding in my throat. Tony was a badass but he didn’t have wings; if Eliseo decided he was tired of the interrogation he could snap up that .45 in a hot second, killing us both.
Tony turned to look at me in complete shock, wondering if I knew what in the hell they were talking about, which of course I did not. He shook his head, “no.” “There’s a mistake with your accounting. Like I said, we pay back what we owe, what would be the purpose? We’re in business for almost twenty years; we can make that in a couple of weeks. Why would we cheat you on such an insignificant amount of money? There’s got to be a mistake, fuck, man, no way!” He wasn’t talking to them directly: I could see he was trying to work through this: How could we owe these “pandejos” money? My eyes drifted back to the gun on the table.
Abel continued, “Every week it’s another story, you had to pay someone off, you had a confiscated load, some puta didn’t pay you on time, you had a—”
Tony stood up, cutting him off, face now flushed red with anger. Again I looked around for something I could use as a weapon, finding nothing. Tony said, “I don’t know where you got that number from but there’s a mistake…”
Now it was Eliseo who cut Tony off, slamming his hand on the table, jolting all of us back a bit. He said, voice climbing with every word, “Yes! Every fucking week Hector gives our people another story, we’ll catch up next week, and then it’s another week; week after fucking week after week. It ends now. We want the money tonight. Eight months of this back-and-forth bullshit.” He clapped his hands together a number of times to drive home his point. “Time’s up!”
Tony and I were speechless, coming to grips with the fact that Hector, who we’d entrusted with so much, had been skimming from right under our noses. Tony shook his head. “I don’t know anything about this, but we’re going to find out right now what the fuck is going on.”
Tony had to calm himself down for this phone call; the last thing he wanted to do was alert Hector to the fact that the Beltrán brothers were sitting directly in front of him, guns at the ready, claiming we were short a lot of money, because if Hector was skimming and he knew the brothers were confronting Tony, he’d be in the wind—for good. Tony poured a large tumbler of excellent Scotch, drained it, then waited a few more moments before dialing Hector’s number.
Hector picked up the call on the first ring. Tony was calm but added just a little urgency to his voice. Tony told him there was an emergency with a delivery and he had to meet us at The Sweet Water immediately. He didn’t wait for Hector to respond, he clicked the line dead, and we waited.
While we were waiting, the brothers turned back to the Mexican soccer game. They were having fun, feet kicked up on the coffee tables, cheering on the players as if they were in their own living rooms relaxing, as opposed to their true mission, which was to potentially whack three of their distributors for stealing money. The calmer and more boisterous they were watching the game, the further my anxiety spiked. To them, killing us was just one of the many trivial chores they had to do to keep the business running smoothly. They didn’t seem to care who ripped them off; they were here to get their money back and send a message to the rest of their
dealers: This is what happens when you fuck with the Beltrán organization. Three hacked-up bodies found in the trunk of my car on some desolate street would certainly make the evening news, sending a very clear and chilling message to the hundreds of other distributors they were selling to.
Tony was walking back and forth like a caged tiger.
There was a quick series of raps on the door. Tony ran to it, ripping it open. Tony backed into the room as Hector followed him in, not realizing who was sitting just feet from him. I moved behind Hector and closed the door, standing in front of it just in case Hector decided to take off running.
He was confused, asking Tony what the emergency was, when he noticed the two men seated in front of the TV. They were staring at him, zero emotion. And then one of the brothers clicked off the remote. Hector started shaking, his bottom lip was quivering so fast it appeared as though he were either about to start crying or take off in flight.
Tony broke the unbearable silence, keeping his cool until he unearthed the truth. “I’m hearing something for the first time, something very disturbing, and Hector, if you lie to me so help me God…” He didn’t finish the threat, didn’t need to. Hector knew Tony—knew the things that he’d done—better than anyone.
Hector had but one choice: tell the truth and pray that Tony would be the one to kill him, because the Beltráns would make an example out of him, torturing him for weeks before ending his life in a ten-gallon drum of hydrochloric acid. He was now shaking uncontrollably, as if his core body temperature had dropped, nearing hypothermia. Then he broke down crying, stammering, explaining how he needed the money to pay for the child support he owed all over the country but that he was going to pay it all back. It went on and on. I was no longer watching him; I was watching Tony, who dropped his head forward and slumped his shoulders, as if all the air was suddenly sucked out of him.