by Johnny Shaw
“And that other guy? He security too?”
“He’s necessary. A bit of trouble, but necessary. He serves a present purpose. Watch him long enough, he’ll do something that’ll make you want to kill him.”
“Yet he works for you?”
“I’m an equal opportunity employer. I even hire my enemies when necessary. He’s helpful for what I do.”
“So what is it you do, Tomás?”
The smile left his face. “Pinche cabrón,” he muttered under his breath.
“I didn’t mean to get personal,” I said, seeing something in his eyes that warned of potential violence. Something that I immediately knew I didn’t want to face.
“Is that that white-haired freak, Bob Maves?” he asked.
I looked over my shoulder at Bobby, who was laughing with the stripper on his lap. She had her top comfortably off. They shared a bottle of tequila, passing it back and forth.
“He’s here with me.”
Tomás turned to me. “Talking of trouble. That cabrón’s dangerous. You know he tried to burn down my abuelito’s bar?”
“They worked it all out. He apologized a couple hours ago.”
“Bob likes to fight too much. He’ll get you in trouble.”
“Or get me out of it. You have a hired goon. You should understand,” I said. “Who do you need protection from?”
Ignoring my question, Tomás turned to me. “You know how I wanted to be a businessman? When I was a kid, young, how that’s all I talked about?”
“Yeah, I worried about you a little bit. But if a kid wants to carry a briefcase around, let him, right?”
“But being a kid and all, I didn’t know that being a businessman wasn’t really a job title. That all things were business. That there aren’t any classified ads asking for just ‘businessmen.’” He air-quoted the word. “But that’s what I am. That’s what I’ve become. I’m a businessman. I see opportunities and I take them.”
“Legal or not?”
“This is Mexico, Jimmy. Nothing is illegal—if you have the money.”
Tomás gave a nod to the woman sitting next to him. She slid out of the booth, followed by the other woman. When we were alone, Tomás caught me up.
“The day after I graduated Holtville High, I got on a Greyhound with one hundred and fifty-eight bucks and the worst hangover of my life. Got the hell out. I was in San Diego for two years. At first, working for an uncle at his taquería. But eventually I got a job at this investment firm, Statler & Moore. Mail room, but I was in. I’m smart. Ready to learn. I was taking classes at Grossmont College at night. Learning business, accounting, marketing. But people like you and me, we go into the city, we still have the desert in us. We have the border in us. You ever feel one hundred percent right anywhere else? Even in LA. I mean, completely like you fit? I worked hard, but I saw quick that I wasn’t going to be anything more than ‘the Mexican.’ I could have worked harder, but I couldn’t work whiter.
“When you close your eyes and picture a Mexican, is he wearing a suit?
“I learned what I could’ve guessed. Nine to five is pointless, unless it’s nine at night to five in the morning. I found different businessmen that I could learn from. And they had no problem working with me. It was good money, but I didn’t care about all that gangster, macho bullshit. I wanted to go into business for myself. I wanted money, not some skewed idea of respect. Nothing against them. They have a strong business model, but too much unnecessary violence. Not for me. I’m not a tough guy. I’m more—what did you call it? Upper management.
“When I got back down here, back home, I found any opportunity I could. I did a little smuggling, a little coyoteing, a little pimping. It’s like there was a dollar in the wind and I was chasing it in whatever direction it blew.
“Here’s the most important thing I learned. The harder the government in the North tries to stop something from getting in from Mexico, the more money there is to be made from it. Doesn’t matter what it is. Seems like the demand is always getting bigger and the supply is getting smaller. Makes prices go up. Makes people like me rich.
“Used to be, back in the day, the campesinos, the farmers, ran the heroin trade out of Sinaloa. Steady trade, everybody was happy, everybody made money. Then, boom, Reagan. The War on Drugs happens, and the narco-cowboys take over and turn Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Mexico City into war zones.
“Used to be, being a coyote was a fifty-, hundred-buck-a-head, low-end job. Barely worth it. But now with all the fences and sensors and La Migra agents, fucking Homeland Security. Now you can get two, three grand a head to get someone over. It isn’t inconsequential money anymore. And when there’s real money, there’s real competition. And when there’s money and competition, that’s when the guns finally come out. And that’s not for me either. Although I’ve been known to dabble.
“I knew I wouldn’t last long if I tried to compete with La Eme or the Sinaloans or the Colombians or Mara Salvatrucha. They’re all chainsaw crazy with a serious amount of blood on their hands. I needed my own thing. And I knew that they couldn’t own all the financial opportunities that a guarded, but leaky border provides. I was about to go legit, open up a T-shirt stand or something—steady, not flashy—when I figured out what it was I could do. Had a what-do-you-call-it—epiphany.
“I’m a people person. While I do run some of my own businesses, my strength is as an arranger. I do favors. I make friends. And sometimes, my friends need help from my other friends, and people come to me. I’ve introduced smugglers to border agents. I’ve sold baby urine to the Mexican police. I even helped the Mexicali Zoo acquire a new tiger from a recently incarcerated drug lord’s holdings.
“The businesses make me money, but people give me power. Most gringos don’t think Mexicans are smart enough to work a computer, but there’s a whole new generation down here. There’s tons of kids that can do things on the computer, Web pages, digital shit. Put your face on a bodybuilder’s body, make it look like you’re a muscleman. For real.
“It’s like computers and the Internet were made for one thing. El Porno. All of a sudden, porn from all over the world could be sold anywhere else in the world. No more videotapes, no more copying, no more warehousing, no more shipping. And like religion and drugs, it’s recession-proof. No more borders. It’s all just information. And no taxes to Uncle Sam if production is in Mexico. La mordida is a bargain compared to self-employment tax. Low overhead, high return. And Mexicali has all the talent I need. Fresh talent coming in every day.
“Like Anna, the señorita that was sitting next to you. She speaks no English. Tiny, sweet thing. Same story. She came to Mexicali from some village in the south. Paid her money to some coyote. Probably every dime she earned or stole to get to El Norte. Coyote left her in the desert. La Migra brought her back. Now she’s far from home. In a strange and dangerous city. She has no money. She’s desperate. And that’s where I can help her. She’s got marketable assets, and I got the market. She does some work for me, I help her get to Los Angeles. Between movies, she works here to pay for her room and board. Her own room, instead of some cardboard and tin shack in one of the colonias. Everyone wins.
“I maintain over a dozen Web sites. Credit card orders. New movies every week. I got a director that went to film school at UCLA. He uses lights and sets and everything. Makes it look nice. It’s all about a good name: Spanish Flies, Latin Lessons, Toss My Taco Salad. Most popular site I got is called Brown Bagging. Good, huh? In it, there’s a guy in a Border Patrol uniform, and we shoot it like he just caught the girl, and he tells her that he’ll let her go if she has sex with him. Then they do it, of course. And at the end, he still sends her back to Mexico. The site didn’t get popular until we did the switch ending. It’s like unless the woman is completely used, the customers can’t get off. But it’s all acting anyway, so who cares. Give the people what they want. Even if those people are repellent.
“Makes a good net profit. Only reason Little Piwi
is around is because I like to carry cash and there’s a lot of pinche ladrónes in this city. Lots of bad people with no sense of right and wrong.”
I really didn’t want to hear any more. Hadn’t I just finished talking to Bobby about not wanting to see this kind of shit? I knew that the world could be a fucked place, but to have someone throw it in your face was a little much. Especially with the amount of alcohol I had in me and on me. It seemed that everyone in Mexicali was either predator, prey, or both. I wanted to say something, but I kept reminding myself that I was down here to find a prostitute, so who was I to judge. I wanted to make Pop happy, and right now, more than anything I wanted to crash on that ugly, orange couch back at the house.
“I need to find a prostitute,” I said, not waiting for an opening.
Tomás paused, absorbed what I had said, and then laughed loudly. He said, “You need a girl? That’s why you came to see me? Why didn’t you say so? I’m talking and talking and you just want to get laid. Take your pick. Take a couple.”
“No, that’s not it exactly. I ain’t looking for just any prostitute. I need to find a specific woman. She used to work for you, I think. Your grandfather told me you used to bring girls up to the bar on weekends.”
Tomás laughed nostalgically. “I haven’t done that myself in a long time. One of my early entrepreneurial endeavors. Made a lot of people happy. These days, Alejandro handles the girls directly. They’re scared of him, which is important.”
“You think I could talk to him?”
“We go through girls quickly. Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t remember. A couple of years? That’s a long time. Especially in Mexicali. You know if she’s still here?”
“I got no idea,” I said. It hadn’t occurred to me that she might not be in Mexicali anymore.
“What’s her name?” Tomás sat up, becoming interested.
“Yolanda. I don’t got a last name. She’s about twenty-five. Like five foot eight or nine, so she’s tallish for a Mexican. She has long, black hair and big, brown eyes, but I guess that doesn’t help. And she’s got a mole or birthmark on the left side of her neck. Like about this big,” I said, holding my fingers in a circle about the size of a nickel.
“Yolanda, tall, birthmark, got it. Sounds familiar. Why you want to find her?”
“Why do you think?” I had decided to keep Pop out of it.
Tomás said nothing for ten seconds, just staring at me.
“I ain’t the kid from across the street no more, Jimmy,” Tomás said, his eyes serious but still friendly.
“I kind of got that.” I held his gaze.
“So don’t treat me like a kid is what I’m saying. You come to me, ask a favor, but don’t trust me,” he said, looking almost hurt.
“I just need to find this Yolanda. It’s private. I can use your help. But if you don’t want to, I’ll find another way. I didn’t mean to bother you,” I said, sliding to the edge of the booth.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. I just didn’t want you to think you were getting away with anything. It’s your business. I’ll respect that.”
“Can you find her? I can pay.”
“No money. I’ll ask around. If she’s in town, I’ll find her. Give me your phone number. I’ll call you when she’s found.”
“Let me pay. You’re out your time. Might be a lot of work.”
Tomás smiled. “Does it look like I need money?”
“No, but it looks like you’ll always want more.”
Tomás laughed and waved the girls back to the booth.
Tomás insisted that I stay, have a few drinks, and give the bar girls a go. Even if they weren’t Yolanda. After some back and forth, I was able to convince him that I was done for the night. We finalized our arrangements, Tomás promising to call me as soon as he heard anything about Yolanda.
I slid out of the booth and leaned over the table to shake Tomás’s hand. Walking past Little Piwi, I gave him my toughest glare, which didn’t even warrant a grin. I dragged my simultaneously drunk and hungover ass over to Bobby’s table.
Bobby’s face was buried deep in a two-hundred-pound woman’s ample cleavage. His laughter bubbled almost inaudibly, complemented by the platinum blond-wigged dancer’s seemingly sincere giggling. She squirmed on his lap, grinding into him in a playful, but probably painful way. Bobby gripped her ass with one hand in a constant struggle to maintain balance and leverage.
I stood over the table, waiting for Bobby to look up. He didn’t. I gave him a light kick in the shin. Nothing.
“Time to go,” I yelled over the music.
Bobby answered, his voice muffled by the woman’s flesh. It sounded like, “Candy bee’s inner tube knew French.” But I doubted that’s what he said.
“What?” I yelled, starting to get annoyed.
Bobby leaned back, frustrated. “I said, can’t you see I’m busy entertaining my new friend? Marguerita, Jimmy Vee. Jimmy Vee, Marguerita.”
“Come on, man. I’m spent and I stink.”
“You’re such a crybaby. I ain’t going to be long,” he said, pinching Marguerita’s ass. Her squeal pierced.
I walked to the exit, yelling behind me. “I’ll wait for you at the car.”
“It’s a truck,” Bobby said, knee-jerk defending his Ranchero, and then he returned his attention and face to the woman’s chest.
I lit a cigarette as I hit the street in front of Cachanilla’s. I inhaled deeply, wishing I still got the same light-headed buzz that I had gotten when I first started smoking. Thankfully, the night had turned the desert heat from crushing to pleasant. A warm breeze curled the smoke around my head. The thought of taking a nap in the bed of Bobby’s Ranchero didn’t sound half bad.
Alejandro walked over, giving a chin nod toward the pack of smokes in my hand. The international symbol for “Can I bum one of them there cigarettes?”
I handed him a cigarette and lit it.
“I didn’t know Tomás had friends,” Alejandro said, trying to sound casual, but there was something serious below the surface.
“Sounds like he has a lot of friends to me.”
“He knows everyone, yes. But who he trusts?”
“Okay,” I said.
“I watched you. I watched you talking. He trusts you.”
I didn’t like where this was headed. There was threat spiked in his voice.
Alejandro continued. “I don’t know you. Never seen you. In five years. Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m nobody. An old friend.”
“Nobody,” he repeated. Then he stared at me through the length of his smoke. He tossed it on the ground and crushed it underfoot.
“Gracias,” he said and walked back into Cachanilla’s.
I got my bearings and pointed myself in the direction of the U.S. Immigration Building three blocks away. The top of the modern bunker was visible and out of place among the older, run-down buildings along the border. I headed down the street. The alcohol and exhaustion were catching up to me. I wanted to sit down and take a nap right there.
Ask and you shall receive.
I had just reached the end of the block when something hard crashed into the side of my face. From experience I was pretty sure it was a fist. I turned in time to see that I was correct, as another fist (possibly the same one) hit me square in the mouth. It shoved my lit, now-broken cigarette into my mouth and sent me flying toward the stucco wall behind me. I hit my head hard and scraped the skin off my arm as I slid to the ground. The taste of tobacco, ash, and blood made me nauseous. I caught the sight of two red boots through my blurred vision.
Red Boots stood over me, Green Boots behind him, and three other cowboys behind them. I’m not sure what color their boots were. Serves me right to think I could piss on a guy’s cowboy boots and get away with it. I wondered what he’d do if I puked on them. I owed Bobby a big “I told you so.”
I made a futile attempt to get to my feet and reach for the knife in my boot. But what felt like fifty boot
s came flying at me. And all I could do to stay alive was curl up in a ball and take the punishment, one arm protecting my face, my other hand cupping my balls. It sounded like ten cursing Mexicans hitting bread dough with baseball bats. I made very little sound. It’s hard to yell when you can’t breathe. The pointy boots hit me at all angles. Luckily when the pain is distributed all over one’s body, it’s impossible to concentrate on any single location. Each new pain took my mind off the last one. Either way, the pain only lasted for a short time. Pretty soon I was unconscious. Passed out, knocked out, fainted, or all of the above. It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t feeling any pain.
When I woke up, it took me a long couple seconds to figure out what had happened. Unfortunately, the pain quickly reminded me that I had gotten my ass kicked. It made sense that my whole body would hurt. What I couldn’t figure out was why I was upside-down and moving.
“What the fuck?” came out of my mouth, slurred and drippy.
“Thank fucking God,” was the response I got.
Bobby eased me off his shoulder and set me on the ground. I pressed my face against the cool tile floor. I had never felt anything better in my life. I opened my eyes. I was inside. Somewhere lit by harsh fluorescents. I looked up at Bobby, his nose dripping blood and one eye almost completely swollen shut.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“You should take a look in a mirror,” he said. “You going to live?”
“The tile feels good. It’s cold. Get down here. Put your face on the tile. It feels amazing,” I babbled.
“Great. They kicked you retarded,” Bobby said, trying to get me to my feet. “You never could take a punch.”
I tried to keep my face pressed against the tile, but Bobby pulled me up. I had trouble focusing, but pretty soon I had my weight underneath me. Shaky and swaying, but I was standing.
“What the fuck happened? Where are we?” I asked.
“Second question first. We’re at the border building. About to head back into Calexico. Your first question is more of a story. You okay to walk?”