by C. S. 96
I was handcuffed once we were a few blocks away from the DEA station in Oxnard. Driving there I was numb, and though Pete Davis wanted to drive me there alone so we could talk—and I suppose bury the hatchet—he did most of the talking, most of it about the cases we could do after we wrapped this up in court.
I wasn’t listening to him, just watching the passing neighborhoods of Oxnard. Watching the gangbangers set up on corners, taking orders from their shot callers; the hookers that would suck, fuck, or kill for a dime of crack. The little kids with soiled diapers, filthy and undernourished, no more than four years old, running in and out of the street. Where were the parents? Up in some drug den banging, huffing, smoking, snorting their miserable lives into oblivion—with my product? I’d been a part of a disease that affects every ghetto in the nation and white America, too.
It was a terrible feeling I had watching the crumbling buildings rolling past me. For a simple seizure of 190 kilos of cocaine and the arrest of a few individuals, all the tiniest of cogs in a much larger machine—I get a pass? That seemed ludicrous.
Pete walked me upstairs in a nondescript building. I was printed and photographed. A wire was placed on me, and it was my turn to stuff batteries into my crotch, as Mike had done. I was briefed to keep him talking, the more he talked the more he’d bury himself.
Once I was wired up, I asked Pete to give me a hard slap across my face—which he happily agreed to. It stung like hell and left the welt I was hoping it would. I tore some buttons off my shirt, as though I’d resisted the arrest. Once the look was complete, I was, not so gently, thrown into the same cell with Robbie.
When Robbie saw me his eyes widened. For a few moments we both stared at one another with accusatory venom. We were both blaming each other for the takedown. Exactly what I wanted.
He said, “What, you looking at me like I was the one that set this up? You think I’m a rat, you scumbag!”
“Hold it, motherfucker. You came to me, I didn’t come to you.”
He stood up, moving very close to me. “Guess who was there when the cuffs went on me, you motherfucking puta. Your boy Joey Bing or whatever his real name is, and that mothafucka wasn’t cuffed, how the fuck do you explain that?”
Now I went into what I hoped would be an Academy Award performance, feigning shock and disbelief. I backed away from him, eyes unfocused, stumbling against a bench, falling heavily into it. I stared into the floor, shaking my head. It seemed that Robbie had simply never heard me call Joey “Mike.”
“He wasn’t arrested with us?” I asked almost to myself. “I watched the guy snort up half of Bolivia. He’s killed people before, I’m sure of it.” I looked up at him in desperation, “You saw a badge? Are you sure he wasn’t collared or turned?”
“I didn’t have to see one.” Robbie banged the concrete floor with his fist. “I didn’t have to see a badge because about fifteen other guys came at me like the pack of dogs they are. And I saw plenty of badges and guns then.” He faced away from me, and bent, sitting cross-legged to the floor like he was practicing yoga. I could only hear him mumbling something.
“He was using me, that motherfucker! For years I’d been moving more dope with him than anyone else and we were both selling it. Why wouldn’t they just arrest me back then?” I swore. “They must have flipped him. I’ve been through too much with him on some major scores, but I went on vacation for a week before you and me were put in touch and wasn’t dealing with Joey.”
“Now that they’ve got me,” Robbie said, “their job is done.”
I let him have his moment in the sun. “Well, you are a top distributor for the Fuentes—maybe they’ll try and flip us, too?”
He scoffed and spit on the floor very close to my feet. “What of my family in Mexico? I mention one word about my organization, family or not, they’ll cut every one of them up, sending me little pieces every other day wherever the fuck I am. And let me tell you something else. Whatever happens to my family or me is going to happen to you and your family. So don’t get any ideas.”
When he seemed calm and a little more lucid, I asked, “Did you get your phone call?”
He nodded. “I called my people here in California. A lawyer is on the way.”
That was good. I knew the phones here had taps on them and recorded not just everything that was said but also the locations the calls were made to. They now had a telephone number and location to Robbie’s number one or number two, and with that number came an address.
But there was one more thing I wanted from Robbie, and it was going to be a dangerous thing to get.
“Robbie,” I said. “This is really fucking bad, but we can solve this. The only one who was privy to any of our talks was Bing. None of those cops saw you with the cocaine.”
“So what’s your point?” Robbie was the type of man who wanted to be in control. He’d see that control in me and by chasing it he’d be placing himself not only in some prison a thousand miles away from California, but rather buried underneath that prison for the rest of his miserable greedy life.
“It’s our word against his. And if this goes to trial I’ll have my lawyer discredit this soon-to-be-dead rat.” In an even lower, more conspiratorial whisper, I said, “You know how easy it’ll be for one of my men to get to this piece of shit. If he’s alive tomorrow, I’d be shocked. And I already made that call. He knows exactly what he’s got to do, and he will because without me this business is over. He knows everything there is to know about Bing—where he lives, girlfriends, safe houses, everything. I’d say there’s a team right now watching every exit of this building and his apartments waiting for him to step outside. Once he’s spotted, he’ll have moments to live. And without him your case goes away, and so will mine.”
Robbie held out his hand to stop me, just as I assumed he would. He began to shake his head. “No, we need to do this right. My lawyer is part of our family. When he gets here, I’ll have him call my uncle up. We have people down here that will do this right. But they’ll need to link up with someone who knows all of this rat’s moves. One of your people.”
And just like that, Robbie had done it. He had committed a crime that carried as much weight as the 190-key case he was looking at: conspiracy to murder a federal informant, or in this case, a federal agent. It was all on tape.
I could all but see the team inside the office right now jumping up and down.
“Fine by me,” I said, clearing my throat, “as long as it gets done soon.”
I agreed to allow him to set up the murder—using that exact word so there would be no misunderstanding about his nefarious intent in court. He was going to get his lawyer to link up with one of my guys to act as a conduit to the hit team that would kill Mike Capella, aka Joey Bing.
Soon, I was moved into the agents’ bullpen, where Tim and Al retrieved me and brought me into an office where they were chatting with a dapper man, whom they introduced as Special Agent in Charge Hutchinson. Hutchinson proceeded to open a file cabinet, pulling out a thick envelope containing $40,000, a total surprise to me. A happy one, I must say. I’d been told I’d be paid for my services, but what I was being paid was a shock to me.
“Ten thousand should help you relocate for the time being,” he said, his voice gruff, but tranquil. “The other $30,000 is a partial payment of the $120,000 we’re paying you for the information and help with this case. I personally want to thank you, and if you ever decide to make this a career”—he handed me an elegantly embossed business card from a gold antique box situated on his neat mahogany desk—“don’t hesitate to call.”
I knew what I should have said—that they’d never see or hear from me again. This dark chapter of my life was finally over. It was time to move on, time to make it right with my family and my God. I thought that’s what Inez expected of me, but I just couldn’t say it.
I’m sure I appeared a little reticent, even circumspect, though I wanted them to know the door was slightly ajar. So I took my first shot at
politicking. “Well, gentlemen, unfortunately that’s a longer conversation I’ll need to have with my wife. Right now my only agenda is to try and make up all that time I lost with my family. Ten years’ worth of time. Though I really want to thank you all for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a second chance at life, but also for your trust and continued belief in me.”
I felt Al’s hand slowly slip off my shoulder, and I believe at that moment he truly understood what I was struggling with—how close I had come to losing it all.
Did I worry about being chased by these two major cases that occupied my wild introduction into CI work? There was little left to worry about, though as a CI you do always worry.
Tony was sentenced to seventeen years, and, knowing him, he was going to die in prison or start adding up more time by the day while there, so I looked at him as a lifer. He was also completely depleted of all his funds, seized by the government, too broke to even pay a hitter to kill me.
Hector was wanted by the feds, gone and probably never resurfacing until he was caught. If he was smart with his money, which was doubtful, he could stay hidden for the rest of his life living in comfort, and if he wasn’t looking to tempt fate twice, stay out of the game for good. But the Beltráns were not going to forget the debt he still owed, and I was sure that would haunt him enough to stay hidden in some spider hole far away.
Raul may have now known who and what I was, but he seemed a minor hazard. I never saw him again, and at times I would wonder if he was alive, clean, or if he’d slipped further into the pit.
Robbie, Miguel, and Joaquin all pled out at twenty years for the drug charges: intent to sell, possession, conspiracy, and a shopping list of other charges. Had they not pled and decided to fight the case, they were all looking at life behind bars without parole. The overwhelming evidence—especially our taped sit-down inside the van—pretty much nailed their coffins closed on the conspiracy charges alone. However, Robbie—the smug overzealous cartel capo—was hit with the bonus charge of conspiring to murder a federal agent, which carried an additional sentence of twenty-five to life.
Sylvia, her son, and that beautiful—I believe innocent—creature, Lourdes, were not charged in the case.
Here’s where it gets interesting, and why no matter the precautions you take tying up your cases, you must always watch your back. Once discovery was made available to all the defendants and they found out Robbie was taped in lockup, there no longer was any question or doubt that I was the confidential informant. Sylvia, true to form, placed a $50,000 hit on me. This was not taped or gleaned from any of her phone conversation—if that were the case she’d be sitting side-by-side with her beloved Miguel as a co-defendant for conspiring to kill a federal agent, me. No, this was strictly knowledge gained from street talk. When my guys from Alliance Group—now doubled in manpower behind their recent uptick in solved cases and large seizures—paid a visit to the tightly wrapped, pulled, and tucked matriarch, they explained to her, both in Spanish and English, so there could be no mistaking their intent, that if anything should happen to Roman Caribe, anything at all, whether by the hand or the will of God, or as they called it force majeure—anything short of a bolt of lightning shooting out of the sky striking me dead—she would end up not inside the prison, but rather underneath it.
I was told that she received the message loud and clear.
Inez and I had ten days alone to talk over what I would do next. If she was dead set against me continuing to work in this capacity, explaining she couldn’t live this life any longer, I was through. We’d move away and start over. I’d apply for our admittance into the witness protection program.
During our ten-day vacation, we headed to Turks and Caicos, and a bungalow and private beachhead on Grand Island with an on-site chef and no one for miles around. It would be the first time we’d been on vacation, totally secluded from the rest of the world, since my daughter was born. After those ten days I was either coming back a civilian or I was coming back a confidential informant working for the United States judicial system.
III
C. S. 96
Game On
For ten perfect days Inez and I did absolutely nothing but lie on the soft white sandy beach of Grand Island, our isolated bungalow just fifty feet from the warm turquoise of the Atlantic Ocean. Every day we slept in, ordered room service, and then walked ten feet onto the beach, where we soaked in the sun until it slipped below the horizon, lighting up the sky in a spectacular explosion of colors.
For the first few days we steered clear of discussing the recent past. Instead, we talked about our children and their future. Where would we raise them, the schools we wanted them to attend, while searching out a location with the best medical care for our special needs daughter. We talked about their individual personalities and how we saw their lives playing out, which inevitably brought us to a topic I wasn’t looking forward to discussing, though one we could not avoid: how and when would we tell them about my past.
My ten years as a major drug smuggler was without question reprehensible. We both knew that, and Inez felt she deserved some of blame for it, though I realize that I always did it against her wishes, even if my intentions weren’t totally selfish. Neither one of us wanted to lie to our children, but we decided they were much too young to understand. You see, from the moment they were able to have simple conversations, I’d preach to them about the devastation of drug addiction, how it ruins not only their lives, but also the lives of everyone around them. It’s an endless cycle of misery, wreaking havoc on so many lives until there is nothing left but a hollowed-out shell of a person, every dream and hope abandoned. The irony and hypocrisy of that is so thick that you could choke on it.
Inez and I agreed that revealing any of my past to our children could only render them broken, dispirited, and also ingrain a lasting imprint of distrust upon them for the rest of their lives, something neither of us could live with. We decided to wait until they were much older to bring up this horrible chapter. But, as it turned out, I would need to tell them before too long.
As we moved toward the end of our vacation, Inez became surprisingly curious about what the job of a CI would entail. Most important, she wondered how I could remain safe as well as keep my family safe from the very bad people I’d be locking away.
I explained everything I knew from working the last two cases, but also how it was explained to me. I’d work on cases in locations far away from our new home, but also a great distance from my old stomping grounds, the Inland Empire, San Diego, and parts of LA and San Bernardino County. The good news was that I could work anywhere in the United States I wanted to, places where no one could possibly know me, which helped alleviate some of Inez’s anxiety. For any case I decided to take, I explained, not only would the case officers vet the bad guys, but I would do the same long before any case was initiated.
I was lit up like a Christmas tree as I recounted what they’d said to me, and Inez knew it. I’m not going to bullshit here, I did want to stay on. For my own sanity, I often felt I needed to continue fighting my past, trying somehow to right some of the wrongs I’d gotten away with. The truth was that beside all the camaraderie, the rush and reward of getting a harmful syndicate off the streets, the real reason I knew I wanted to do CI work is because if I didn’t, I’d feel like I’d gotten away with it all and I’d have nothing to tell God about when I faced Him.
But there was also a part of me—a part that I’d rather pretend didn’t exist—that was hoping Inez would tell me that life was too dangerous for us, that I needed to give it up and relax for once. A part of me was looking for someone to absolve me for all I’d done without asking me to do my time.
Inez turned up toward me, resting her head on a folded towel. “You need to do this,” she said.
Life as C. S. 96
After decimating a large chunk of the Fuentes Cartel, word spread among the government agencies that I had decided to continue working as a confidential informant.
I couldn’t believe how fast the calls came and how many different agencies and municipalities from all over the country not only knew of me, but wanted me to apply my skills to thwarting and combatting the ever-expanding drug problem in their locales.
There was a lot of work out there and I’d dedicated myself to helping eradicate the problems that I was once a major part of. I wanted to get as close to the flame as I could and then snuff it out.
I quickly signed up with Customs, DEA, and the ATF, as well as many state and local municipalities—large and small—joining forces with their narcotics detectives, though remaining nonexclusive to any one of these entities because I wanted the freedom to pick and choose the cases and subjects I worked. This freedom gave me a unique opportunity to go after those I deemed to be the most heinous and reprehensible, but also allowed me to work in areas where I believed I’d have the greatest impact.
I never wavered in my promise to Inez—throughout my career as a CI, I have made our safety the first priority. But even so, this career is not without huge challenges and personal sacrifices from CIs and, more importantly, everyone who is close to them. Somehow, we’ve managed to stick together through all the danger, but there were many times that I’d feared that the life I’d chosen was going to tear us apart. Here are just a few ways we worried it might and how we learned to cope.
Life at Home
After taking out Tony and Robbie, I’d destabilized the operations of two of the major Mexican cartels, and life for my family had to change drastically. For one, this first relocation had a tremendous impact on all of us. My children were each at different, but critically important, stages in their lives, from my oldest, who was nine, to my youngest, just barely five months old. They’d moved into a completely different environment, away from their friends and into a new school—all of which occurred basically overnight. This was even tough on Inez, who spent the most time comforting our children and getting them situated in a new school. She’d had to walk away from a life she was very comfortable and happy with—our dream home, her friends, neighbors, family, and her physician’s assistant program. Not telling anyone why or where we were moving was not only difficult, but embarrassing as well, and there was no walking this back or creating excuses, because for our own safety no one could know where we were.