by C. S. 96
Later, I got the kids squared away for the evening and put them to bed.
Then I slipped into bed. Inez was snoring deeply, no doubt making sense of her life’s decision in some far-off dream world. I prayed that she would choose to stay with me—even if the career I was now looking to have as an informant came with its own risks. I hoped that my work with the DEA helped her forgive me for the ten years I’d spent with Tony.
There was no use pretending to sleep any longer, so I got up, grabbed my gun from the fireplace safe, left Inez a note that I was using the van and would be back this afternoon, and I left.
I wondered how many eyes were on me as I pulled out of the neighborhood. What time had they gotten there to put eyes on my house, or had they never left? It was a dreadful feeling knowing we were under surveillance throughout the night by men without souls, men that took sport in killing in the most gruesome ways. Worse still than the thought of one following me was the thought that some would remain stationed at my house in case anything went wrong at this meeting. Images of returning home to a bloody crime scene made to look like a burglary gone horribly wrong descended on me. Electrical synapses fired with these horrible images, an orgy of blood and dismemberment. They were like the murder photos I’d viewed in the Sevier County lockup, though the brutal images I saw now were of my wife, ravaged, cycling in front of me as if on a Kodachrome slide projector.
I had to shake this off. I needed to gain control of my emotions, compartmentalize them somehow, bury them in a part of my unconscious, and lock them away till this was over and done with. If I was going to survive these next few days, or however long it took to wrap this case up, I’d have to become two different people, because the moment I cross-pollinated these two lives, I was going to make a mistake that had no good ending.
I had three and a half hours to kill and I had to assume there were a number of hitters following me, communicating my every move. I didn’t try to shake them or scope them out. What would be the point? I knew they were out there, that my own team was watching them, and that soon enough they’d be hiding from us.
The night before I’d timed down to the second the series of things I now embarked upon again.
I went to the local diner for takeout: I ordered a coffee and buttered roll, picked up the newspaper, paid for everything, then headed back to the van. I parked and casually strolled into a local park with stunning views of a manmade lake filled with swans and ducks and surrounded by magnificent indigenous trees. The severely clear blue sky above was filled with more swans, starlings, and sparrows. Anyone following me was watching a man of leisure, comfortable in his very expensive clothing and jewelry, as he goes about his day. I took my time eating and reading every page of that newspaper. Finished and satisfied, I slowly walked around the park, never once using my phone. I wanted to show them that I was living a good life. That if they wanted to, they could join me.
I continued on with the most mundane chores I could think of. I went to my tailor, paid for the dry cleaning, and slowly and meticulously hung the expensive clothing on one of the hooks inside the van. I drove to the local Quick Lube and had my oil changed. I wondered how those tracking me were doing, all crowded into their smoke-filled jalopies.
After about forty-five minutes of reading every magazine available, I was ready. I drove to IHOP.
To my surprise the parking lot was fairly empty. I searched the entire lot for any suspicious vehicles, or any of the vehicles I’d spied at Miguel’s house while surveilling it—nothing. I checked my watch, twenty-seven minutes after ten; they had three minutes to get there.
Were they spooked? And if they were, was Inez safe?
I needed to calm myself down. I reasoned they were being cautious, as I would be if the circumstances were in the reverse. They must be waiting and watching me to see if I’d brought anyone along to do exactly what they were doing to me. I had, of course, but my guys had been set up and hiding for more than five hours.
And then I saw it—the big black BMW 750, one of the cars at Miguel’s home. It pulled slowly into the lot, avoiding the potholes carved out in the entranceway. The windows were so tinted that I couldn’t see who was in the car. As predicted they rolled directly in front of my family-friendly van, even though I hadn’t told them I’d be driving it.
I covered my mouth as if I were rubbing the bridge of my nose and in a clear voice spoke into the hidden audio recorder the time, car make, plate number, and once the doors to the BMW swung open, who had made the party. It was Miguel, Robbie, and Joaquin.
Miguel was dressed in the identical clothing he wore at our last meeting. Robbie switched it up, wearing off-the-rack brand names and a nice pair of Italian driving loafers. Joaquin wore a steel gray t-shirt underneath what seemed to be a deep ocean blue sharkskin suit and turquoise alligator boots. If Tony ever started a clothing line, Joaquin looked like he’d be the spokesman.
I purposely slipped out of the front seat, stepping into the rear cabin and exiting from the side doors of the van, sure to leave them wide open for all to see.
The men slammed their doors shut and approached. I waited.
“This is quite a step down from your other extravagant choices, no?” Miguel asked. Then he saw the inside and smiled. “Dios mio,” he said.
The other two men stepped to his side and peeked in; I could tell even Joaquin was impressed.
“It’s got an extra gas tank, too,” I said. “Just hit the auxiliary gas button and you can go almost 600 miles without stopping.” I tried to keep them focused on the shine and glitter. “The van was a gift, believe it or not, from my boy Joey Bing,” I continued. “The courier you’re going to meet if the prick is on time. The guy isn’t punctual, but make him a little dough and you’ll find he’s a very generous dude.”
I told them a story about how he’d gotten me the van after I had my third child—it was really for my wife and kids, but I love to play with it and use it for work, given how understated it is on the outside. “Say you’re a cop: Are you going to take the time to stop this soccer-mom van, or someone in say,” I hesitated, looked around the near empty parking lot, finally landing on the pretty 750 drug dealer whip they rolled up in, “that car, for instance?”
Robbie gave a halfhearted nod of his head.
“So where is your partner?” Miguel asked. “Time is money and a luxury we have very little of left, sabe?”
I checked my watch. “If Bing was the marrying kind of guy,” I said, “he’d be late at his own wedding. But he knows this is an important deal. We just have to be a little patient.”
I realized the mistake I’d made the second I’d said it. I hadn’t discussed Bing’s legend in depth with him or the supporting agents. After mentioning the origins of the van, I should have steered the conversation from my partner as quickly as I could. All he had to do was walk in with a wedding band on and I was fucked.
I slid the van door all the way open. “You guys want to look at all the bells and whistles? These things are a blast when you have time to kill.”
Miguel stuck his head in, as did Robbie. Joaquin was preoccupied with the time and where and when my partner was coming. Neither of the men wanted to step into the van first.
So I led the way. I knew their words would be picked up and recorded standing this close to the van, but I wanted it on video, crystal clear for the jury these men would face. I pointed to the two captain’s chairs in direct line of sight of the cameras, and they took their seats. Joaquin decided to stand outside the van. No part of him seemed to suspect that once “Bing” got to the set, Joaquin would be joining us inside, whether he wanted to or not, for a ride to the station.
I made small talk about all the aftermarket toys, but I could tell they were starting to get impatient. As if on cue, I heard the rumble of what sounded like a muscle car from the ’70s. A fire-engine red Ferrari convertible was making its way toward the van. In a precise maneuver, its driver downshifted and peeled into a perfect U-turn parall
el park, stopping just feet from Joaquin, and out walked Joey Bing.
It took him a moment to regain muscular coordination, but Joaquin eventually had the wherewithal to pull open his shiny jacket to reveal the .45-caliber automatic tucked in his waistband.
Without missing a beat, Mike, who had changed his appearance so drastically that I’d have walked right past him on the street, reached under his front seat and in a nonconfrontational way smiled while pulling out a suppressed MAC-10 machine gun with extended clip. “Hey, you got yours and I got mine,” he said. He held it loosely in his hand, fingering the trigger. As Joaquin pulled his jacket shut again, Mike slid his weapon under the car sear, swapping it for a canvas bag. Mike’s transformation was astounding. He was wearing expensive black Persol sunglasses; his thick black hair greased back into a tight ponytail. His form-fitting t-shirt revealed muscles as well as sleeves of tattoos down his arms that I hadn’t noticed before. I checked for a wedding band, and thankfully there was none.
“Bing, my man!” I said. “Late as usual!”
Mike got to the door of the van, standing side-by-side with Joaquin and waiting for him to enter. “Well, we gonna stand out here all day in this Mexican standoff,” he asked, “or are we going to talk business?”
Mike could be very persuasive, and he had raised our optics by tenfold: he looked exactly the part of a dealer that Miguel could identify with. Only later would I learn that Mike was up half the night before this going over photos of known associates of the Fuentes Cartel.
Joaquin looked at Miguel, who tilted his head for him to enter the van. Mike followed him in, sliding the door shut. He took up a bench seat next to me holding onto a bulky weekender bag.
I grabbed him playfully by the shoulder and introduced him like an old friend.
Mike shook each man’s hand quickly. He was playing an act easy to follow—super excited to show me what was in the bag but also to show these men that they were inconsequential to the already huge business enterprise we were running, aloof without being disrespectful.
Mike looked at me and then to the men in the van, then back to me in nonverbal communication: Is it safe to proceed? I nodded. “They’re cool, Bing.”
He smiled and unzipped the bag, pulling it apart wide enough so that every man saw what was in it—piles of street money—mostly twenties wrapped in thick purple rubber bands, the kind that bind broccoli or celery stalks together. I saw in Miguel’s eyes a glazed look of greed that I’d seen thousands of times before and, in the two decades of informant work that I had embarked upon, would see thousands of times again.
I pulled the bag from Mike, zipped it up, and tossed it to the rear of the van like it was par for the course. “Great work, Bing. We’ll whack it up tonight.” I looked at Miguel and continued. “Sorry about the delay. Let’s talk turkey, brother.”
To our complete surprise Miguel did not ask for any paperwork from Mike. Instead, he simply told Mike it was nice to meet him and that I’d said he moves the material in frozen packages.
Mike became serious and thoughtful suddenly, outlining the distribution operation. “We have a warehouse of refrigerated trucks with real manifests so if we’re stopped the paperwork is legit at the weigh stations across the…” Mike stopped and looked at me. “You did explain how this is run, yes?”
“He did, he did,” Miguel said. “What I’m interested to know is…” he searched for the right wording in English, “in these trucks, say one truck for instance, how many bricks can you load without going over your, you know, the load when weighed?” It was a question from someone who had done his homework—every truck after a certain amount of miles traveled on highways had to be checked in at weigh stations for a multitude of reasons, and the weight had to match the manifest on the trucks. Many carriers tried to double their loads, increasing their profits, but if caught they’d be heavily fined and the drivers could lose their classed-up trucking licenses, basically ending their courier careers. Was I underestimating Miguel in thinking Bing and I could fool him?
Mike explained that weight wasn’t the issue for him. His trucks could physically carry as much as ten thousand pounds of goods—and he had the permits to carry that much—but he couldn’t have a truck loaded up with nine thousand pounds of product and a thousand pounds of frozen food. “We need to distribute properly because these guys do root around in these trucks occasionally. It’s usually at a ratio of four to one food versus material.”
“How many trucks do you have?” Miguel asked. When Mike told him—fifty—I could see him working out the math in his head.
I studied Miguel’s partners, who were letting him run the conversation. Joaquin seemed happy to become part of the furniture, but for some reason I felt Robbie was the man at the head of the table ready to stop Miguel at a moment’s notice from continuing the conversation.
“Okay,” Miguel said. “Can you take fifty or more from us this week and we’ll see how it goes?” Now he was looking at Mike, no doubt gauging chain of command. Mike was smart enough not to answer. He sat back, stared at Miguel, and then, like the loyal soldier and friend, looked to me for the answer.
“Sure,” I said in a calm voice. “Let’s start with fifty this week, and if you like the way we do business, we’ll see where this can go.”
We negotiated the terms, much of them the same ones Tony had with the Beltrán brothers: If we got hit and couldn’t produce the money, we would need to bring them the paperwork from the arrest.
Miguel shook my hand and added, “Oh, one last thing, and the most important thing we haven’t even discussed.”
Here it comes, I thought. Mike’s passport or license or blood samples.
“We give you the first load, say, on Monday,” he continued. “How long do you need before you pay us back for that load?”
“Well, our deal with the brothers has always been one month; that’s standard on consignment,” I said.
There was a sudden drop in temperature in the van. Gone were the smiles. Miguel sat back in the chair as if he’d just heard the bank in Paraguay where he kept all his money went under and they had no insurance to cover the losses. He was stunned.
“What’s wrong, Miguel?” I asked.
There was a long silence. “Why do you think I came to you with my business with such reasonable numbers?” he said. “Why do you think we’re giving you people we don’t know a lot of coca on consignment, a sign of trust, yes?” Once he’d begun, he couldn’t stop his momentum. “What did you think this was just a gift because we heard you were a nice guy?” He began shaking his head no. “We came to you because you’re solvent and have the cash flow to move the material quicker. You know our situation and you insult me like this. What the fuck is that all about?”
His eyes bulged, and an angry vein snaked, throbbing, over the top of his forehead.
I had to walk this back delicately without looking too anxious not to blow the deal. So I told him I was sorry if I offended him. “I’m not a pig, Miguel, and I realize these prices are the best we’re going to get. And the fact you trust us without any cash up front, well, what can I say? I just assumed you needed reliable distribution until you plugged up the leak in your organization.”
He shot up in his chair now, pointing his finger at me and raising his voice even louder. “Yes, there’s that but we have loads that we owe the Fuenteses and we’re running out of fucking time. If you can’t do a quicker return, then we’re forced to go elsewhere.” His finger still pointed at me. He was almost panting. I was grateful that he’d given me so much information: He had just implicated the Fuentes Cartel on camera. In that instant, I knew for certain that this dangerous trio of drug pushers would be behind bars soon, and the Fuentes Cartel would find themselves with one less major client. I was so ecstatic and relieved that I worried there was a crazed and suspicious smile plastered across my face.
“Okay,” I said, sitting back in my chair now. “Let’s stop tap dancing around this fucking elephant in the roo
m. You have a backload you have to get rid of, and we have the means of moving a lot more than fifty a week and you know that. Tell me how much you’re sitting on and what your expiration date is on the cocaine.” I wanted to use the word cocaine as opposed to bricks or product or material because I knew in a court of law, depending on how good their lawyers were and how inept the jury was, those lawyers would have them believing we were talking frozen peas and carrots.
Robbie tapped Miguel gently on the knee. In Spanish he told him to calm down lest he have a stroke. He laughed down the tension in the van. “Okay, we need to get rid of 220 kilos in a month,” he said, “paid back in full.”
“So why are we doing fifty here and fifty there? I don’t understand,” I said.
It was a matter of trust, it turned out. They needed to know we had the capacity, that we could do the first run and return the money in two weeks. After that they’d up the quantities.
Now, if this were real life and I was dealing with my organization, we could easily distribute and sell 220 kilos in a month, but I did not know if the government could come up with that kind of buy money when it came time to pay—that is, if they were willing to go further to get the whole 220, a very nice score for a small team of four. This time I looked at Mike because I knew he understood exactly what my dilemma was. “Well, well…” I stammered, and then I saw he was nodding his head. It was the best news he could have given me. If I could pull the whole 220 in one score I knew it’d be enough to send me home free, away from these dangerous men and onto the business of repairing my personal life.
“Okay,” I said, “we’ll get you the eight hundred back two weeks after taking possession of the bricks.” I wondered if I’d just handled the situation so awkwardly as to make them suspicious.
Miguel sat back in the chair, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and swabbing his neck and face much the way I’d done at his dinner party.
They all stood, and only Robbie shook hands with Mike and me. He said, “I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”