by Bruce Kading
Miguel had no doubt that Salvador Rico meant what he said. He was looking at a man who had probably killed and would kill again.
“Yes, of course,” said Miguel. “I understand very well.”
* * *
Hayden had chosen a remote section of Lincoln Park for the debriefing—down a winding, tree-lined road to a deserted parking lot. Shortly after leaving El Palacio, Miguel drove into the lot, making sure he wasn’t followed, and joined Hayden and Kane in Nick’s Firebird. It took him only a few minutes to report what had transpired in the meeting with Rico. Though both agents were pleased, Hayden’s reaction was subdued.
The prosecutor with the US Attorney’s Office had requested that an undercover officer accompany Miguel to meetings with Rico, but the agents had explained that trying to involve a person Rico had never met would probably kill the deal before it got started. Fortunately, they had been able to convince him that one large purchase by Miguel would be sufficient, as long as it was tape-recorded.
The agents had provided Miguel with a set of license plates that, if checked, would come back to a “Miguel Luna” at the address of a large apartment building with hundreds of residents. They had also made sure through surveillance that Miguel would find Rico alone in his office at El Palacio. Had his two subordinates been present, it would have been more difficult, if not impossible, for Miguel to establish a personal relationship. Nieto and Pinal would probably be at the next meeting, but the agents thought it was likely that Rico, now apparently comfortable with Miguel, would not allow another awkward search of a man he wanted to hire.
After meeting with the agents, Miguel took the long, slow way home—west to Ashland Avenue, and then south, where he would encounter sluggish traffic and lights at every other corner. It was a pleasant day to take a leisurely drive, and he was working the graveyard shift at the plant, so there was no hurry. He rolled down the window, and a gust of warm air blew in.
Although Miguel had tried to ignore it, a sense of unease was building. He had told Carmen very little, stating vaguely that he would help INS from time to time in their investigations and his identity would be protected. The agents would always be there to make sure he was safe, he’d assured her. Paco knew only that his father was friendly with the agents and that the family was allowed to stay—mainly because of Mr. Hayden.
Rico’s threats came as no surprise to Miguel. In his younger days, before he’d found the Lord and started a family, they wouldn’t have fazed him in the least. But now he was a man with responsibilities, and everything he did had repercussions for his wife and children. In that light, threats from the lips of a person so utterly devoid of conscience were disturbing. His palms grew damp and thoughts of a hasty departure passed through his mind. They could, after all, return to Mexico and enjoy relative peace, if not prosperity. But he knew instantly that this seemingly reasonable thought had sprung out of fear. He could not allow fear to overrule whatever plan the Lord had for his life.
Miguel glanced up at his rearview mirror and noticed a silver-and-black sedan driven by a swarthy man with a black beard. The man seemed to look away as soon as Miguel noticed him. Perhaps Rico was having him followed. Coincidentally, he was on the same stretch of Ashland Avenue where Hayden and Kane had followed him just weeks earlier. Then, abruptly, the suspicious man wheeled into the left lane, roared past him, and turned into the parking lot of a Middle Eastern restaurant, where several yellow cabs were parked and a small group of men had gathered. Miguel slowed and watched the man jump out of his car to greet the others. He was wearing a white sarong that hung like a skirt to his ankles.
Though relieved, Miguel felt foolish. Paranoia, it seemed, was a price he would have to pay to remain in this country.
He continued slowly down Ashland Avenue. People were moving purposefully all around him—workers filling potholes with fresh blacktop, masons tuck-pointing the wall of an apartment building, cab drivers ferrying passengers to their destinations. He enviously imagined their lives as uncomplicated, free of worry—anonymous players in the grind and bustle of a vibrant city. Meanwhile, he was risking everything—leading his family into a potential crisis they knew nothing about, the outcome of which could be disastrous.
Less than an hour earlier he had been cool and unruffled, even while meeting with a man who wouldn’t hesitate to kill. Now his hand was trembling as he pulled it away from the steering wheel. He had never seen his hand shake like that, even in his heavy drinking days.
Miguel had left the North Side and entered an area of public housing—scruffy bars, liquor stores, and abandoned buildings. He drove a bit faster and within minutes was back in the familiar Pilsen neighborhood. He turned onto Francis Street and pulled slowly into the shade of the elm trees in front of his home. Miguel shut off the engine, closed his eyes, and began to pray—asking forgiveness for his imperfect faith.
He believed that only by God’s grace had he and his family found their way here, to this secluded little street that seemed protected—an island of tranquility. He was convinced that he had been led here as part of a divine plan. As Miguel sat quietly, a feeling of deep peace gradually swept over him.
13
Rico drove his Volvo slowly through rows of empty vehicles and pulled in a few spaces away from a black BMW. It was their usual meeting place—the parking lot of a dreary shopping center near Midway Airport. He shut off the engine and watched cars entering and exiting the lot from Cicero Avenue. He’d recently sensed that he was being followed, though he had seen nothing to give credence to his suspicions. So far, it was only a feeling.
Rico left his car and strolled to the BMW. He’d removed his heavy gold chain and expensive clothing and was now wearing gym shoes, baggy pants, and a black T-shirt—a more subdued, working-class look. When he slid into the front passenger seat, Byrd muttered a cool greeting and sat stiff and silent, like a spurned lover.
FBI agent Jerry Byrd wore his hair in a military-style crew cut and was dressed casually in a golf shirt and blue jeans. Although the agent was in his early forties and had been with the bureau for eleven years, to Rico he seemed naive—willing to accept at face value that Rico was no more than an ordinary, law-abiding citizen who held down a dull job as manager of El Palacio. Byrd hadn’t even asked for proof of Rico’s spurious claim to being born in Puerto Rico.
Months earlier Rico had dropped the Bautista drug case into Byrd’s lap, and the seizure of twelve kilos of cocaine had no doubt enhanced the agent’s career and professional reputation, though Byrd had done little more than execute a search warrant. Rico had benefited as well, collecting a ten-thousand-dollar reward, which he promptly invested in a large purchase of counterfeit documents. Now Rico was stringing Byrd along for protection and inside information. But today something seemed to be bothering the agent.
“You haven’t been keeping in touch,” said Byrd irritably. “I didn’t have to give you that much money for Bautista, you know. Part of it was like a down payment. I’ve been waiting to hear more . . . about your new friends.”
Rico was momentarily at a loss. New friends? Then he remembered he’d spoken cryptically in their last meeting of “getting close” to a group of Colombian drug dealers who frequented a bar on Montrose Avenue.
“I been working on this. These guys big,” said Rico. “They no deal five or ten kilos like Bautista. They sell thirty, sometime fifty.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Byrd, his mood brightening.
“They competitors to Cali organization.”
“They have names?”
“I have only nicknames—one is El Flaco. Another El Gato. But no way I get last names yet. They very careful. I try to get license plates.”
“Why are they willing to talk to you?”
A jet roared loudly overhead. Rico, looking at the sky, waited for the noise to pass as he thought it over. Perhaps it was time to take another risk—throw a line in the water to see if Byrd was as indiscreet as he was gullible.
/> “I help them get documents. You know, the fake documents,” said Rico, pausing to observe Byrd’s reaction. “I hope is not problem, OK?”
Byrd didn’t look away or register an unusual reaction. “I’ll cover for you this time,” he said. “But from now on you can’t break the law unless I say it’s OK in advance.”
“I no can be too clean. They don’t trust. I only help them . . . to get close.”
“Don’t worry about it. In the meantime, see if you can get those plate numbers and more information about them.”
Rico decided to probe further. “INS—they have cases on who sell the documents?” he asked, as though the thought had just occurred to him.
Byrd flashed on the image of his occasional drinking buddy Lou Moretti and smiled. “No, those bozos are too busy picking up Mexicans at factories. They may get to it in the next century.”
“I no hear about these things,” said Rico.
“You don’t have to worry about falling into their net because the government doesn’t want a net. They have a few hundred agents scattered around the country to round up millions of illegal aliens. There isn’t time to look into counterfeit documents,” said Byrd, who began to chuckle at what seemed the hopeless absurdity of the INS mission. Rico joined in, amused with the irony of Byrd confiding in him about the immigration mess, and relieved to hear that INS wasn’t even working document cases.
Jerry Byrd was convinced that Rico’s new case would boost his career even more dramatically than the Bautista case had. It was now clear how to proceed. He would ignore Interpol’s request for a better set of prints on Rico. What was to be gained by digging further? If it were found that Rico was wanted in another country or had lied about his place of birth, he’d not only lose a good informant but also the Bautista conviction might be reexamined. The fact that he hadn’t thoroughly vetted Rico before registering him as an informant would tarnish his reputation and career prospects. And now that Rico was promising another high-profile case, there was plenty to lose in discovering anything incriminating from his past.
As it grew darker outside, Byrd and Rico exchanged final pleasantries, neither paying attention to the Camaro with tinted windows at the other end of the lot. At that distance, about a hundred feet away, they couldn’t see the binoculars as Tom Kane lifted them to his eyes.
* * *
Rico lit a cigarette and stared dully across the desk at Felix Pinal, who wore a tan safari jacket with epaulets at the shoulders, black jeans, and cowboy boots. He could have been a photographer covering a foreign war.
A few months earlier, Pinal had come into El Palacio looking for a set of documents, and Rico had hired him on the spot. Pinal had attended university for a time in his native Venezuela and spoke with the smooth articulation of an educated man. He was not large—medium height and slender, clean-shaven, hardly an intimidating physical presence. But he was useful in handling administrative tasks, keeping track of the documents, and making deliveries to vendors—an obedient foot soldier.
On the other side of the room Rosario Nieto was sitting on the sofa against the wall, his muscular arms closed across his chest. He was one of the largest Bolivians Rico had ever seen—well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders tapering to a thin waist. He wore a blue denim jacket, jeans, and sharply pointed, alligator-skin cowboy boots. Nieto had a classic Indian face: the skin a deep bronze, and flat, high cheekbones.
Life’s subtleties glided past Nieto’s lethargic eyes, as though what appeared to the rest of the world in color was to him a dull monochrome. There was an absence of both joy and fear. He’d confided to Rico early on that he’d been involved in the cocaine trade in Bolivia, ended up on the wrong side of a heated drug war, and fled the country. Now he was Rico’s enforcer.
The death of Marcos Ortega had paved the way for Rico’s alliance with a team of flamboyant street vendors. Unlike Marcos, Rico had no benevolent ideas of keeping prices down. He kept his vendors happy by allowing them to charge whatever they could get. What was the point of controlling supply if you weren’t going to take advantage of it?
Once he’d set up shop in a corner of El Palacio, the street traffic gave a huge boost to the bar, which had been on the brink of going broke. Rico’s customers would stop for a beer or two, and word got around. It was no longer just a seedy watering hole for winos to idle away the hours. When the money started rolling in, Rico had paid for a thorough remodeling of the bar.
Rico was dressed in dark colors, his silk shirt opened at the top to reveal several sparkling gold chains around his neck. He told Pinal to get on with the weekly ritual of announcing income figures for the previous week but was distracted and hardly seemed to listen. He puffed hungrily on the cigarette until the ember was burning hot. When Pinal finished, Rico opened a side drawer, pulled out a silver stainless-steel semiautomatic handgun, and placed it on the middle of the desk.
“I want you to start carrying this, at least when you’re around here,” said Rico.
“I thought that’s what he was for,” said Pinal, nodding toward Nieto.
“He’s not always here,” said Rico seriously. “Besides, if somebody tries to take us down, they’re not coming in with just one guy. We need all the protection we can get.”
Pinal picked up the gun and with his thumb pressed the release button that dropped a loaded magazine from the bottom of the handle and into his left hand. He placed the magazine on the desk and pulled back on the slide, sending the one remaining shell flying into the air. He caught the shell with his right hand, looked into the empty chamber, and blew through the cylinder. “This is almost brand new,” he said admiringly.
“Looks like you don’t need Rosario to show you how to use it,” said Rico.
“No, my father had a large gun collection.”
Rico crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and turned toward Nieto. In the dimness of the room Nieto didn’t notice the intensity in Rico’s eyes. “So, how are we doing on Twenty-Sixth Street?” asked Rico.
“People are coming in from Wisconsin and Michigan just to buy documents from these guys,” said Nieto. “There was a gang of farm workers yesterday who came up from southern Illinois. Word has gotten around. It keeps getting better.”
Rico ignored what Nieto thought would please his boss. “I hear your boys are still acting up and drawing a lot of attention. I thought you were going to talk to them about that.”
Nieto stiffened a bit. “I did. They do what they want when I go away. They’re just wild Mexican kids.”
“Those wild kids are supposed to be frightened of you! I hear one of our boys flashed himself to a carload of young girls last week.” Rico paused and glowered at Nieto, who remained silent. “That is the kind of thing that could put us out of business.”
Nieto said nothing. It was the best way to handle Rico’s occasional eruptions.
“Anyway, I might have somebody who can help us down there,” said Rico. “An older Mexican guy.”
Rico waited a moment for some reaction, but Nieto and Pinal remained silent.
“He’s coming back here next week, Thursday morning, to pick up two hundred sets of documents—green cards and social securities,” said Rico. He nodded at Pinal. “Have them ready. And I want both of you here. He might be working with us, so I want you to meet him.”
“What do we know about this guy?” asked Nieto.
“What do we know about any of them?” said Rico indignantly. “I did some business with him a couple of years ago.”
“Did you go to him, or did he come to you?” asked Nieto.
“What’s wrong? You afraid he’s an informant for the government?”
“We have to be careful.”
“Careful?” said Rico, exasperated. “I hired you, didn’t I? Don’t tell me about being careful. Anyway, they aren’t working phony document cases. I have it on good authority. If it makes you feel any better, I checked him for a wire when he was here last week.”
“Maybe we should
check him again Thursday,” said Nieto.
Rico grimaced. He knew Miguel wouldn’t like it. On the other hand, what would it hurt? To hell with him if he didn’t like it. “All right. We can pat him down again.”
After a long silence, Pinal spoke up. “We’ve never discussed exactly what we’d do if somebody tries to rip us off or we find out he’s an informant.”
Nieto began laughing softly and looked toward Rico as if the question were preposterous. Rico’s eyes narrowed and his mouth crinkled into a wry, contemptuous grin. “I didn’t think it was necessary to talk about it.”
14
It was another unseasonably hot day. Warm air that smelled vaguely of mold and sewage was being pumped through vents in the fraud unit. The building maintenance department had been contacted, but didn’t seem in a hurry to address the issue. It made everybody irritable, especially Kane, who was fuming about the latest bizarre decision to come out of the Board of Immigration Appeals—as always, it seemed, destroying what remained of practical enforcement mechanisms in the immigration laws. Cursing loudly, Kane tore a copy of the decision into little pieces and tossed them into the wastebasket. Hayden tried to ignore the tirade. Three other agents in the unit, who knew that when Kane was angry he was like a gorilla on steroids, quietly slipped away. The phone ringing silenced Kane and zapped some of the tension from the room. Kane grabbed the receiver and listened, then nodded toward Hayden. “It’s for you—Interpol.”
Though they had agreed not to put a close tail on Rico, Hayden was pleased that Kane had recognized Jerry Byrd as an FBI agent he’d met in Moretti’s office a few months earlier. Byrd was part of a drug unit the bureau had recently set up, so it was assumed he was using Rico as an informant. Contacting Byrd, they agreed, was out of the question. An FBI agent couldn’t be trusted to do anything but protect his own turf and wouldn’t be above spiriting Rico out of town, or even trying to take over the document case and claim it as his own.