“You have 17 minutes, this is a go. Please hurry.” The line went dead.
-- -- --
Wiley had everyone nestled into a rock formation on the hill above the school. The tension was thick, the clients coiled like springs. Daylight was only an hour away. No one spoke. The quiet was unnerving. Wiley was frozen in place, looking towards the west, looking for a teal green Chevy Suburban.
-- -- --
Charlie and Denice came upon the Bridge of Sighs at 50 MPH, looking east towards the hill behind the Jacumba Elementary School for any sign of Wiley. Just past the bridge, Charlie flashed his bright lights three times, and out of a pile of boulders, atop the hill, a group of people dashed down in a single file line. Denice opened the door as they hurled themselves into the big green machine.
Charlie looked over his right shoulder and gave a thumbs up to Wiley Coyote standing proud atop a boulder, releasing his charges to the last leg of the Jacumba Connection.
-- -- --
Just past the Shell gas station, you can drive under Highway 8 to go west towards San Diego, or you can turn right on the on-ramp going towards Borrego Springs and the desert floor.
“Turn right,” commanded Denice.
“What?”
“Turn right, now,” she reiterated.
There was a Border Patrol unit a quarter-mile behind them. Charlie took the exit east, accelerated up the ramp and onto the interstate. In this direction, the grade was extremely dangerous. Steep by any standards, it drops over 4,000 feet to the Imperial Valley floor at 16 feet below sea level. The road turns to a two-lane highway with occasional passing lanes and runaway truck ramps. It starts as a long, straight black slash, winding narrowly through gigantic boulders left from a glacier in some long-ago ice age.
The highway turns into a steep drop with switchback turns, weaves in and out of boulders standing like sentinels on each side of the highway. When the road would disappear behind them Charlie would accelerate, putting distance between him and traffic. The big Chevy engine was up to the challenge. Charlie said a silent thanks to Captain Ugly Pants for choosing this particular vehicle.
Everyone was still down on the floor, only Denice was up and turned around backwards, scanning the road behind. At the base of the mountain the Border Patrol pooled in a group of four cars behind a tanker truck. Trucks operate their jake brakes when coming down the steep grade, using engine compression so their brakes don’t catch fire. It helps them descend slowly. At the base of the mountain, Highway 8 is a straight, flat, black ribbon disappearing into a white sand void, with a 70 miles per hour speed limit. By the time the white and green Border Patrol cleared the semi at the bottom of the grade, the teal green Suburban was on vacation and long gone.
That would be their second lucky break in less than an hour.
Denice’s bad feeling about the checkpoint at Kitchen Creek was right on the money. Had they turned left they would’ve found the checkpoint open and swarming with officers working a double shift, and no shortage of attitude.
“Luck certainly was a lady tonight,” mumbled Charlie to no one in particular.
“Okay,” Denice told the cargo, “everyone can sit up now. Please put on your seatbelts.”
The cargo must wear their seatbelts. It’s a nasty enhancement to a trafficking charge if your Mexican nationals are not wearing their seatbelts. Go figure.
“Okay, babe, good job,” complimented Charlie.
“Thanks handsome, that was close.”
“I’m pretty sure he turned off at the Union 76 station by Denny’s,” Charlie said. “He could’ve red-lighted and chased us. Who knows?”
“No, we’re good. He never had a chance at our plate.”
“Right. Don’t have too much time to analyze. Here’s what I’m thinking: We’ll find a Motel 6, or something, and check everyone into a double room. Then we can figure out the best route to L.A. from here.”
“All right, sounds like the best plan. How about Blyth, or maybe Indio?”
Charlie looked in the rearview mirror and noticed a couple of smiling faces. He said, “Anybody speak English back there?”
“I do, señor,” came from a handsome face covered in dirt and sweat.
“Okay. Here’s the deal. We’re trying to get you there, but a little change of plans here. We’re getting a hotel room and slow this roll a bit. Y’all need a shower anyhow.”
“Charlie, don’t be rude,” reprimanded Denice.
The young man replied, “Señora, your man is right. We stink. No one here has had a bath in almost a week. At least not one with soap.”
Charlie nodded toward Denice, “You’re not the only one with ESP.”
“Charlie, being able to smell is not ESP.” Denice rolled her eyes.
-- -- --
The Indio Desert Inn and Travel Lodge was a one story L-shaped motel. Surrounded by Palm and Manzanita trees, it was fronted by a gravel parking lot. The building itself, painted hot pink in the 1950’s, had faded into non-existence. If it weren’t 110° and dry as a bone outside, you’d expect to see a herd of plastic pink flamingos, standing on one leg.
Charlie parked on the blind side of the office that sported a pink neon vacancy sign, entered, and rang the bell on the counter. A woman with more wrinkles than a Shar-Pei promptly answered. With a small cough she barked, “Help you?”
“Need a room. Two beds please.”
“How many occupants?”
“Three,” he lied.
She moved the slim brown cigarette to the right side of her mouth, thus torturing her right eyeball for a bit, and slid the form across the counter, “Fill it out, then sign right here, hon.”
Charlie signed it as James Dean, Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles, CA. License plate number PTE DRPR. He slid the form back, put a Pall Mall to his lips, did his flip-click-flame routine, punctuated by his best James-Dean smile. She glanced at the form, and with that everyone’s-a-clown grin raised her right eye toward Charlie. “That’ll be fifty-nine-seventy.”
Charlie laid three twenties on the counter.
“Room 107.” She handed him a key with a two-by-four piece of framing lumber on it. The number 107 was burned into it.
“Really? Come on, I’ve seen gas station restroom keys smaller than that.”
“Well hon, I’ve seen guest forms with less bullshit on them than that. So I guess that makes us even, Mr. Dean.”
-- -- --
After nonchalantly moving the group from the Suburban to the room, the group instantly broke into hushed conversation. Had either Charlie or Denice spoke Spanish they would’ve heard,
“I’m gonna have a truck like his.”
“I was told we’d have to ride in the trunk of a car.”
“This is a nice room.”
“I’m first in the shower.”
“Good idea, you smell like a goat.”
“And you don’t?”
Charlie and Denice were having their own conversation quietly at the small table in the corner of the room. “We need to explore the roads out of town, look for checkpoints.”
“Next time maybe we should have a, what do you call it?” questioned Denice. “A spotter car?”
I’m not leaving you here with these guys alone and I’m kinda trapped if you take the truck.”
“Okay, first let’s look at the map.”
-- -- --
Always fight your battles on familiar ground. In this game, knowing is the battle. Combat is about time schedules, territory, and the number of opposing forces. Good intel is imperative. If you approach the game in this manner, the chances of collecting your money increase tenfold. That’s the endgame – safe passage through the enemy’s maze to the money.
Step one: Recon your adversary’s position. Find the checkpoints
.
Step two: Learn their schedules and the time factors.
Step three: Misinform the enemy. Assume all communications are penetrated. Use the art of disguise to create subterfuge, buy time and advantage. For example, dress like a tourist, drop a valium, commit to your poker face 100%, and convince yourself you’re not committing a crime. Oh, and have your big-breasted wife wear low cut tops through the checkpoints as a diversion. That works well too.
So now it was just a matter of knowing when the checkpoints were closed.
First trip out, Denice brought back food: carne asada, burritos with sour cream and guacamole, Spanish rice and refried beans with cheese. Even sides of jalapenos and salsa. The meal was met with quiet cheers and much gratitude.
“It’s open,” Denice told Charlie, referring to the border checkpoint. “And it’s in the middle of nowhere. I went right through and drove five miles, turned around and came back to town. Stopped at Casa Del Rio, figuring we’d feed the gang.”
“Dammit.” replied Charlie. “Looks like we’ll be here a while.”
Denice set their meal on the little corner table. The group, all with wet hair and stinky clothes, were using the bed as a dining room table.
After the tasty Mexican food and warm showers everyone was dog-tired. Charlie and Denice had a short pow-wow and decided to wrap it up. They’d try again at daybreak.
And with consideration for the other occupants around them, Charlie and Denice tried to find sleep amongst seven snoring amigos.
As the first rays of sun lit up the little town of Indio, Denice pulled back into the Desert Inn and Travelodge. The big Suburban on unpaved gravel sounded like crackling fire. She opened the door with that Cheshire cat smile, “It’s closed,” she told Charlie. “I backed in. We can load them from the rear. You go out and start the truck while I open the back. Then come to the passenger side, leave the motel door open, and when the coast is clear, everyone into the truck, quick as they can.” Denice looked to the group and asked the English speaker to translate to the others.
The room was a flurry of motion inside. Charlie started casually loading the truck looking at nothing, seeing everything. Denice lined up the group behind the door before heading towards the truck. Charlie got in the driver seat, motor running. Denice opened the back, came around to the passenger rear door, and looked back at Room 107. She then nodded her head, and everyone ran out and piled into the back, laying down or at least out of sight of the windows. Denice closed the back and jumped into the passenger-side front.
Charlie pulled out to the Main Street, Highway 8 business loop, and proceeded through the three stoplights and out into the rolling dunes of Indio towards Palm Springs. Once through the deserted checkpoint, it was clear sailing to Los Angeles. One hundred and twenty miles to Palm Springs, Cabazon, and the Morongo Indian reservation and gaming facility. Through Coachella Valley and up into the San Jancinto mountains, past the ghostly windmill farms. Then down into L.A., via Highway 10 west. Another $3,500.
-- -- --
The silver van meeting them was driven by a handsome and smooth gentleman named Julio Garcia, an old-school retired member of the Latin Kings street gang, reportedly respected and connected. He operated on so many levels you never know if he’d be in a baseball cap or an Armani silk suit.
A trusted family member of Mrs. Ramona Flores, he was the number one face of the Syndicate. He carried two cell phones, one strictly international prepaid with no SIM card, the other, with an AT&T family plan.
“Good to see you again, Mrs. Charlie.”
“Please, call me Dee-Dee, my name is Denice, but my close friends call me Dee.”
Charlie said, “Most of my friends call me lucky or asshole, depending.”
Julio extended his hand and Charlie shook it. “I can see why they call you lucky.” With a wink at Denice and a smile at Charlie, he reached in his pocket, pulled out the wad of cash, and handed it to Charlie. “Inside is a phone number. Program it in. Call it at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. It is a direct line to the boss, Mrs. Ramona. We have concerns about your friend, Larry.”
“Hey, hey, he is just an acquaintance. He approached us. Won’t hurt my feelings at all if he fell off the edge of the earth.”
“We are hearing bad things about his treatment of my people. And I understand you all stayed in a hotel last night?”
“No. It was a motel.”
“And you had carne asada?”
Charlie patted his stomach, “I freakin’ love carne asada. My wife makes the best Spanish rice, and you ain’t lived until you’ve wrapped your lips around her chicken tamales.”
“I can’t tell you, Charlie, how many jokes come to mind,” said Julio with a smile.
“We gotta get drunk sometime,” deadpanned Charlie.
Julio shook his head. This Anglo. He was all right, maybe boss lady made a good decision? “Call at exactly eight, my friend. We will see each other again, I’m sure.” He pointed at the big green Suburban and said, “Rubber side down, amigo.”
“That’s the only way I roll. May good fortune be with you, amigo.”
“Yes. With us all, compadre.”
Charlie did not know that he had just been paid the highest compliment a white man can receive from a retired shot caller in the infamous Los Angeles Latin Kings.
PAULINE PURE HEART
Chapter 11
Valentino looked like Snidely Whiplash without the top hat. Same aquiline face with a hooked nose and beady black eyes above a pencil-thin mustache. He was bald as an egg. He stood nipple high to most women, and believed in his heart they all found him irresistible. He never tied one to a railroad track that anyone was aware of. He lived above Live Oak Springs in a small camping trailer, and he knew just about everyone on the mountain, on and off the reservation.
Valentino had a mentally challenged cousin, named Robert, a.k.a Peg-Legs, currently living in downtown Jacumba.
Valentino can tell you more than you’d ever want to know about Jacumba and its sordid history. He was once the best coyote on the mountain, but found himself in a rather nasty situation, conspiring with Robert, who had gone the wrong direction with a duffle bag full of blow. The owners of the duffle bag ran poor Robert down and broke both of his shins with an aluminum baseball bat.
The duffel bag scenario is, without question, the most dangerous act on the mountain and carries the most time, in terms of criminal penalties. If you have more balls than gray matter, it goes like this: You wait in hiding near the checkpoint until that all-important 15 to 20 minutes of Border Patrol briefing takes place. Then you bonsai it, which means you run for your life, hell-bent for leather down a dirt road out of Jacumba, and head south to the fence near the airstrip. It is not THE fence, but merely a rickety barbed-wire annoyance.
You run to a pre-determined spot with a pickup truck that has a sliding cover over the back. You throw the duffle bag into the back of the truck. It is always an army issue duffle bag, and it’ll always be full of some various narcotics. Then drive the truck back the way you came, out of town and through the open checkpoint in broad daylight.
As you go through, you try to maintain a goofy grin, knowing there’s a 10-year federal narcotics trafficking charge with your name on it in the back of what might be a stolen truck. From a distance, binoculars or naked eyes track your every move as you go through. Then these questionable characters follow you through the checkpoint and into the valley, where you drop off the bag and pick up your $500.
The whole thing from start to finish takes 45 minutes, unless, of course, your poker face fails you. Border Patrol agents are highly trained to recognize tension and nervousness. In that case, it could take you about 10 years to get home.
If you make it to El Cajon and don’t stop at the drop (which is usually some fast food parking lot), like Peg-Legs did one fine after
noon, the bad guys following you will easily outrun you. They have a full tank of gas. Guess what? You don’t. The truck they gave you had less than one-quarter of a tank to start with – just enough to do the deed. Not enough to run away with their precious cargo.
If you’re stupid enough to pull that stunt, you’ll never run again. Literally. Just ask Peg-Legs. Rumor has it that Valentino talked him into trying to make off with the duffle bag. Bad move.
It’s a well-known fact that between Valentino and Peg-Legs you still would not have a complete hypothalamus, the judgment part of the human brain.
Charlie met Valentino working at Live Oak Resort. Val emptied trashcans, swept porches, cleaned the two public restrooms and showers, odd jobs like that. Charlie and Denice invited him to supper one evening while they were staying in the honeymoon cabin. Valentino had a stray dog look about him that made one want to take him in to feed and water him.
While dining from Styrofoam plates, filled with tasty morsels from Ron and Lily’s kitchen, Valentino regaled his audience with stories of Jacumba and days gone by. His memory spanned over 40 years back to the glory days of the mineral spa, Hollywood’s secret love nest. You would not know that there was a large clandestine nudist colony behind the mountain outside of Jacumba. According to Val, it was popular with the swinging couples of the 1960s jet set. Far from the cameras of the true detective stories Paparazzi, celebs living on the edge could land in a small plane, and enjoy a tryst at the spa or intimate moments at the naked bar, toasting each other: To our wives and sweethearts, may they never meet. It seems Jacumba has always been a place of bad behavior.
So when Charlie and Denice were looking for someone to run point, they approached Valentino for some sage advice and possibly a name.
That name was Elwood Tucker.
Shaking hands when they first met, Charlie asked Elwood, “Is that Elwood like in The Blues Brothers or do you just go by Woody...like an erection?”
“I’ve been known to drive through malls, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Jacumba Connection Page 8