Confidential Source Ninety-Six

by C. S. 96

  It was put on record that I, too, was arrested and sent away to an undisclosed prison. I still had more of my case to work off, but for the time being I would lay low. Word would hopefully get back to the Beltráns that both Tony and I were locked up in a major sting. But would the Beltráns believe it? Only time would tell.

  II

  The Cartel

  An Unexpected Gift

  Hector was wanted. Wanted by the Beltráns for the egregious amount of money he personally owed to them. Wanted by several law enforcement agencies all clamoring to catch him in order to claim partial credit for the huge arrests and seizures just procured. I wondered who would get him first.

  I never wondered if he’d manage to elude us. He couldn’t. Hector was no Tony—he was no planner, no negotiator. Tony was the brain and the killer, and now Hector was on his own, a man fucked six ways from Sunday.

  But his situation gave me my own reasons to worry. I was the next in line on Tony’s sinking skiff—I was the only other one in the room with the Beltrán brothers not already in prison. Thankfully the Beltráns didn’t know where I lived. But how hard could it be for them to find me?

  So, naturally, I was seeing all sorts of things in my rearview mirror. Now and then a helicopter hovered over my property at dawn and again at dusk. Was it really possible these visitors could all just be delusions of my paranoia?

  Without a doubt the potential killers out there who had me in their scopes were growing in number by the hour. With Tony’s demise and with Hector underground, he had to know I set the whole takedown up—who else would have the information to do it? But the newest concern I had to endure was a caravan of Mexican special forces–type psychos, activated by the Beltrán brothers, to snatch me off the street—or worse, out of my bed, family included. I saw movement and surveillance wherever I went. I also went to great lengths to teach Inez how to use the Mossberg “street sweeper” shotgun I now made her keep in close proximity when she was home alone. Was she happy learning how to skeet shoot? Hell no, but she knew this was just another wrinkle she’d have to endure in the line of work I was pursuing as I worked off my case.

  It’s hard not to be paranoid, of course, knowing the hitters the Beltráns had. They weren’t the type of guys you see—not until you’re in some abandoned factory in Juarez, Mexico, hanging upside down, four Michelin tires fit snugly around your midsection, waking up to gasoline being poured over your head and a guy tossing a lighter from hand to hand.

  One morning in one of those tense days not long after the bust, I was pulling out of my driveway, swiveling my head in all directions to see if anyone was parked in a nearby car, tracking me, and all looked clear, but just as I made it to the corner, a head popped out from behind an old telephone pole. Raul, the only person I knew skinny enough to be completely obscured by a telephone pole and one of the very last people I ever expected to see again.

  I was stunned. Was this a trap set up by Hector, to lull me into some kill box? Had Raul found out that I’d told Tony he was talking to the feds and come here for revenge? I put the car in gear, one foot barely touching the brake, the other foot hovering above the gas pedal. If I saw him pull a weapon, I was ready to mow him down.

  That’s when I saw his face, creased with worry, his eyes scared to death. I could see that this was no trap.

  We eyed each other for a few more seconds before he cautiously approached. He held out his hands, indicating to me that he was clean, and then he lifted up his shirt, and twirled around like a ballerina, showing me he had nothing strapped to him.

  I lowered the window a crack.

  “There’s any number of hitters out here looking to air you the fuck out,” I said. “You do know that all of our spots got taken out by the cops, don’t you?”

  He went stiff.

  “So what do you want? And by the way, not cool coming here because if someone is following you, you just brought them to me and my family’s doorstep.”

  He dropped his head like a scolded child. He said quietly, “Listen, Roma, we need to talk, and being out here in the open I don’t think is very good tactics.”

  I laughed. In a way I was grateful to this bonehead for finally giving me the escape route from my dangerous life that I’d for years been looking for, but I could certainly never reveal that. “Not good tactics? No, driving the wrong way into oncoming traffic on some superhighway median surrounded by cop cars, that’s not good tactics!”

  “We… we need to talk. I’m shelved, can’t even get ’hold a my bro Hector. And I need your help. You’re the only one I trust with this.”

  “You can’t get ahold of Hector because he’s wanted by the feds and probably hiding in Greenland.”

  I told him to get in—it was dangerous to talk here. When he was settled, I stomped on the gas.

  I shot onto the interstate, checking my mirrors for tails. After about a mile, I turned into the emergency vehicle turn-about and, not stopping, I crossed it and started in the other direction, barely missing getting squashed by a parade of cars with understandably pissed-off drivers who had nearly braked to a stop to let in the madman who’d barreled into their lane.

  Throughout this insane maneuver, I was sweating more than I’d ever thought was possible and Raul was shrieking in the pitch of an eight-year-old girl.

  Now, finally, I could calm myself. No one had followed us, and if anyone who had me within sight was crazy enough to try it, I’d spot them as I coasted away.

  I looked at my watch. “You got two minutes,” I told Raul. “Make it count or so help me God I’m tossing you out of this car right here.”

  “Wait a minute. You don’t think I was the one who rolled on the spots, do you? I didn’t even know where’s they was, and you know that!”

  I told him I didn’t know shit, that all I knew was that I had a lawyer on retainer just waiting for the feds and that it had cost me a fortune to make bail. I was rough on this skinny guy. I needed to keep him on the defensive, because harmless as he seemed, if he sat back and thought about the situation for one second, he might realize how few people there were who could have given up our organization and how neatly I, just weeks after our arrest in Utah, fit the description of someone who might.

  “Two minutes,” I said again.

  He began nodding as if with passion. “Okay, two minutes, two minutes. You got it, primo. And by the way, what I’ve got is going to help you pay for that lawyer of yours.”

  The traffic on the street thinned and I began to speed aimlessly, as if to advertise my boredom.

  “But there’s one thing I need from you,” he said. “I need money, money to get out of here. But where I’m a get money without the boys to hook me up?”

  I couldn’t believe him. His bad driving had led to my arrest—what he must have thought was one of the most upsetting events in my lavish life—and he wanted to ask me for money? I laughed.

  “I’m all out of charity, Raul. That little stunt you pulled back in Utah could’ve gotten us both clipped.” He frowned and began to apologize, and I realized this was my chance to crank up the heat on Raul in case Tony had sent him to test my loyalty. I needed to show that all was well between Tony and me. “To roll on me and tell Tony I was the one who flipped,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re lucky I don’t just kill you now to save you from the torture he’s is going to inflict on your sorry ass.” I glanced at my watch. “You’ve got forty-five seconds by the way.”

  Now he was desperate, grabbing handfuls of his greasy hair like a child in the middle of a tantrum. He hadn’t told Tony anything, hadn’t so much as spoken with the man since the trip to Michigan was busted. He was begging me to believe him.

  I did, but him giving me up to Hector was my bigger fear. I pressed him. “I know you didn’t tell Tony, you told Hector, you rat fuck, and Hector told Tony to save your dumb ass.”

  “Roman, man, that’s not true!” His eyes were glistening with tears, and for the first time I felt a pang of guilt for what I
was putting him through. This wild-eyed but innocent man was never a match for substances he got involved in—and all the unsteady figures they attracted.

  “You know what I told Hector? I told him that I tried to get outt’a there by giving the cops something that would show them I was cooperative and maybe they’d let us both out, that maybe they’d think I’d cooperate later too, but once I was out they’d never see my ass again cause I’m in the wind.”

  I stared into his scared eyes. Yes, he was a notorious, routine liar—all junkies are—but what he was saying didn’t sound like something he could’ve come up with on his own, and if this were a trap I’d be dead already. It began to make sense now. Hector came up with the story telling Tony I flipped, not Raul; this would buy Hector time to take the heat off of Raul. But what Hector didn’t anticipate was that Tony, above anyone else, trusted me. My loyalty had been tested for years and not once had I faltered—I was too afraid of what Tony would do to me and my family.

  Tony had underestimated the hell he put me through—put all of us through—and how desperately I’d been searching for a way out.

  I asked Raul point-blank what he wanted from me.

  He said, “Okay. I know you think I’ma fuckup an’ all, but I’m gonna show you that you’re wrong about that. I have a plan that will pay for your bail and help get each of us enough money to disappear for a while: I got a line on some Mexican family in Nasty City who’s got a lotta cocaine to move. They supposedly sitting on like a ton a shit they need to get rid of. And my boy tell me it’s a direct line to Fuentes.”

  I looked at Raul the way I would look at a boy who said he’d spotted a werewolf. It just didn’t seem plausible that anyone from the Fuentes Cartel would look twice at a junkie like Raul, let alone talk any type of drug business with him. Had Raul told me that both Beltrán brothers had suddenly recognized the genius in him and decided to have him replace Tony in the distribution operation, I might have been just as inclined to believe him.

  “The Fuentes coca, you say. As in Queen of Hearts, Lord of the Sky cocaine?” I looked at my watch, “Okay, I gave you an extra minute and a half.” I reached over to open the door and he grabbed hold of my wrist in one last desperate plea. He must’ve noticed the storm gathering in my eyes because he let go instantaneously.

  “Listen, Rome! The woman’s name is Sylvia. I met her son—he knows I’m with Tony and you, and he knows Hector, but he’s a kid, like maybe eighteen, if that, and he seem a little nervous. He asked if I could set up a meet with you.”

  We looked at each other, and I swallowed. Maybe I had this situation all wrong. “I knew how pissed off you were,” Raul said, “so I reached out to my brother but he gone. I can’t go to Tony cause that mafucka locked up”—he made a quick sign of the cross—“so that’s why I thought I come to you. Rome, there’s money in this, and the kid asked for you.”

  They would only have asked for me—and not Tony or Hector—if it had been broadcast all over the street that Tony got taken down.

  I looked into Raul’s eyes, and I saw a man equal parts desperate and dangerous. There was a coldness in him, a fearfulness that made me realize that he knew he was risking everything, and he was really ready to risk all that and more for a big score.

  Here it was: my second undercover case. It was also the first time the guilt and pain associated with taking drug traders off the street really hit me. I never doubted that it would be the right thing to get Raul out of this dirty game—for the people his work would harm and also for him—but somehow, in a way that was never possible with Tony Loco Tony, it was hard not to feel sorry for this guy.

  I cleared my throat. “Okay, Raul. What did you tell this kid?”

  It was as if he were on Death Row and I had just told him that the governor had commuted his sentence and he was going free on some technicality. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. He said that if I made the connect, he’d tell the kid’s mother, this Sylvia, the matriarch of the crew is what he called her. I told him I could make the connect.

  Whatever operation this was that Raul had stumbled upon, I needed to take it out from the top. “Sylvia’s the one I need to meet,” I said. “When can you set that up?”

  “Listen,” he said, “just a heads-up: They into some weird shit, like that Santeria voodoo shit them crazy Mexicans and Cubanos fuck with. I could tell ’cause I seen dudes with the same tattoos, that Santa Muerte shit, back when I was in jail in Havana.”

  This sealed it for me. The Fuentes, like many of the other cartels in Mexico, did in fact practice a form of Santeria that appropriated aspects of other religions and the occult. Tony and I had heard they’d indoctrinate their drivers, all pious to begin with, in elaborate rituals, sometimes using human sacrifices said to provide them with superhuman powers before sending them on deliveries or more dangerous border crossings. These drivers would actually believe that, after drinking another man’s blood or eating his heart, they had mystical powers and were able to become invisible, or at least impervious to arrest. Of course, many of these drivers met ends as quick and tragic as the people they’d slaughtered and cannibalized.

  The next step: I had to be 100 percent sure that the Fuentes did not know about the recent disintegration of my entire organization. “Where are they?” I asked.

  “Here in San Diego, near Ysidro border.” Raul pulled out a sliver of paper and handed it to me. It was an address in National City. I had the urge to drive there that second and scope out the property of the matriarch, try to somehow conquer the house that would come to haunt my dreams. But that could be suicidal, and my colleagues at Alliance would never forgive me for going without warning them, no matter how well it turned out.

  “How much are they sitting on?”

  They had as much as we wanted. Raul said he wasn’t bullshitting me. I’d heard that from him before, but I’d never been so convinced he was serious. They literally had tons.

  It was conceivable. A ton—2,000 pounds—is a lot of powder, but if this family was hooked up with the Fuentes, a ton was a drop in the bucket.

  “And if they’re so heavy, how come they don’t have their own networks set up here already?” I asked. “Why are they giving us, a crew they don’t even know who’s clearly working with their competition, the Beltráns, this great opportunity?”

  It turned out that the kid’s brother-in-law had all the connections in the states and got pinched by the feds. All their usual clients ran from them, thinking maybe they cooperated or something. They feared that one of their buyers set up the husband, so they didn’t much want to deal with their old distributors, either. They needed new buyers to get rid of their excess product, and, in Raul’s words, they knew I was the shit.

  The paranoia associated with this business is astounding, and I understood exactly what this family was going through. A few short weeks ago I was in something like their position, and now Tony and Hector had the pleasure of sitting on that hot seat—one in prison, the other in hiding God knows where.

  “And what if they’ve flipped—the husband got pinched and they’re working with the feds now?” I had to ask the question. It’d be suspicious if I didn’t.

  Raul answered openly: “Well, I don’t know, you might be right, Rome. But ain’t it something you could figure out?”

  I started up my car and pulled out, and Raul relaxed in the seat for the first time. He started fiddling with the windows, up and down, playing with the air vents, changing the radio stations. He was now back in his own world, on his very own asteroid flying through space without a care. His childlike curiosity never ceased to amaze me, and that’s why I suppose I had a soft spot for him. He was like a confused little waif lost in a forest of evil. Raul was not cut out for this work, and rather than recognizing this and committing him to a long-term addiction treatment facility, his asshole brother Hector enabled Raul as he continued to build out his empire. If all the stars aligned and this family was in fact who Raul purported them to be, I was going
to make sure that he got credit for the initial tip. Maybe this case would be the beginning of a new life for him.

  But before bringing this tip to Ramona, I’d need to be certain it was based in truth. I needed to put eyes on these people.

  I parked about a block away from the “Nasty City” home with a clear view of the front and side of the property. I opened up the blinds of the rear tinted window so that I could see out but no one could see in. I flipped one of the captain’s chairs around and grabbed my binoculars.

  The ranch-style home was at the end of a ratty block. It was in a declining part of the National City neighborhood, and most of the homes reflected the neighborhood’s struggles. Cracked sidewalks, junked cars on patchy lawns, old indoor furniture on many of the porches, sneakers tossed over telephone lines, graffiti spray-painted on the sides of some of the homes. But there was one house in particular that stood out from the rest, and it was the house I was there to watch.

  It was in no better shape than any of these other homes, but this home was like a fortress. A newly constructed eight-foot-high metal fence protected the commodious lot the house stood on. It had an electric gate that rolled open to expose a double-space car park on the side of the home, its cement driveway lined with weed-filled cracks. There was a small dirt patch out front that at one time must’ve been the home’s garden or lawn, now scattered with children’s toys. These folks weren’t renting this home for its aesthetic beauty, nor were they interested in landscaping, paint, or, as far as I could decipher through my binoculars, the décor inside. But the most telling detail that made this property stand out from all of those around it was the security system—the high-end cameras built into the two sides of the house, above its front door, and perched in a tree with a clear vantage of the street.