Confessions of a Vigilante

by Manuel Fernandez

  “Prison ain’t so bad if you know what you’re doing. The most disturbing thing I’ve seen is guys getting turned out, being used as sex slaves. Saw this skinny white, rocker lookin’ dude come in. He had the long hair, which made him look like a woman. The second day he was there, a gang of Aryans caught him in a blind spot, raped that boy, and stole his man hood. Of course you got your typical, prostitution ring, but those boys are willin’ to take a dick up the ass.”

  “Are they homosexuals?” asked Megan Baker.

  “Yeah, they get pimped out by the prison gangs, just as female sluts on the outside, it’s all about the Benjamin’s sweetheart. You got the money, you get the goods.”

  “About a year, and some change was left on my sentence. A new warden came in, wanted to change shit up. Some ACLU hippies were making a deal about prisoners’ rights. They got into some politicians ears. Next thing you know the warden is out, half the bulls are fired, fuckin’ new regime man! The new king don’t want me in his palace, but he don’t want no trouble either. I’ve been a model citizen. No fights, no write ups. I’m working the kitchen, making sure the drugs don’t get fucked with. No violence, nada. Still, it don’t matter. ‘Get the fuck out here spick!’ I’m shipped off to Lompoc, a fuckin’ country club. First day on the scene, I see this band playing in the yard, four Italian cats. I turn to the guard and say, ‘I didn’t know we get live bands in here.’ He says, ‘That’s our prison band.’ I’m like, get the fuck out of here. He nudges me and says, ‘See the drummer.’ ‘The old man?’ He says ‘You don’t want to fuck with that guy.’ I laugh. The guys barely 5 ft., he’s bald, skinny; what can he do to me. I mean I’ve been locked up with murderers and rapists, the best of the best. Little did I know that old man was Carlo Giampa, the mob boss. Him and a few other wise guys formed somethin’ called: The Italian Cultural Club. Four wise guys, from New York and Boston. I got to admit I was a little star struck. As a kid the only piece of literature I read was true crime novels: Capone, Luciano, Meyer Lansky. I was obsessed with the mafia. I knew who Carlo was. I followed the Commission Trial. All the bosses of the Five Families got sent up the river, lifetime sentence baby doll, no chance to ever sniff free air. Carlo even acted as his own attorney at the trial, some funny shit.”

  “I’m itchin’ to meet the guy but I don’t want to look like a fool. After all, this still is prison. Ain’t no time to get my panties wet, so I stay away, until one day after lunch he comes up to me, no entourage or nothin’. Not like in Chino where you got ten grizzly bears asking you, ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ He came up to me like a man. He says, ‘Mind if I sit?’ My hearts racing like a hoar in church. I say, ‘Sure Mr. Giampa.’ He shoots back, ‘Call me Carlo. You’re Sergio right?’ Ok, now I’m really shittin’ bricks. I’m not sure how to answer. ‘Yeah,’ I say. He nods his head. ‘My man Lenny says you are smart, reliable.’ I’m like, searching my brain. Who the fuck is Lenny? He turns to me and says in that thick wise-guy ‘forget about it,’ New York accent, ‘You don’t know who the fuck I’m talking about, do you?’

  ‘Sorry Mr. Giampa… I mean Carlo, no sir I don’t.’ He throws his head back and laughs, pattin’ me on the shoulder. ‘Lenny Carbone.’

  “Then it hits me. Lenny was my cell mate in Chino, connected guy, good dude, helped me get out of a few jams with the blacks. I broke him off a piece of the dope, nothin’ big, just enough to get high and pass the time. Seems word got to Carlo that I was on my way to Lompoc. Carlo didn’t ask me for nothin’. Just wanted to shoot the shit. I guess ‘cause I was a friend of a friend, I was alright. I could be trusted. Carlo didn’t give a shit, poor guy was doin’ a life sentence. That first meeting seemed… what do they call it? Surreal. We sat for about three hours and talked shit. He told me how he used to go to the famous Copacabana, different broads each night, drinks until the sun came up, on the house. Frank Sinatra would make a point to say hello before and after each show. Told me about the time he was sittin’ in traffic and this van pulled up alongside of him, pop, pop, pop, he gets shot three times. He doesn’t go to the hospital. He tells his driver to take him home. That’s one tough son of a bitch. I also met this cat Raymond Bruno, who was a part of Carlo’s crew. He was a made guy from Boston. Unlike Carlo, he only had a few years left before he hit the streets. He would play a big part in my life after I got out, but I’m gettin’ ahead of myself.”

  “In Lompoc shit is quiet. You ain’t got to watch your back as much. Majority of the guys are doin’ short stretches. Guys like Carlo, who will never see the streets again don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want to spend the rest of their life pushing hard time, so everybody plays nice. Before I get out, Raymond asks if I would be interested in working for him. I say, thanks but I ain’t movin’ to the East Coast, got arthritis in my shoulder. An old injury from when I got jumped by five dudes at a bar. ‘No problem,’ he says, ‘I got people in San Francisco, don’t sweat it.’ I say ok, what’s the work? Raymond looks me up and down. ‘I heard about those spicks you took out in Chino, making an alliance with the white boys. Smart, very smart, tactical. I wish more of my men thought outside the box instead of actin’ like fuckin’ grease balls. I also hear you got a delicious candy connection.’ (Code word for dope). He throws me a wink and hands me a piece of paper. ‘Call this number and ask for Tony. He’ll hook you up with a place to stay. I got a lot of work for you.’

  “A week later I’m out. I call Tony and he tells me to meet him at this café in the North Beach section of San Francisco. I walk in and this pudgy bald dude, dressed in a funky bowling shirt and a fedora, sucking on a cigar, waves me over to his table. He makes me right away. I guess not many spicks hangin’ out in North Beach unless they goin’ to strip clubs or robbin’ tourists. The place couldn’t have been much bigger than this room. I remember Tony Bennett was playin’ on the juke box in the corner by the bathrooms. The place looked dry, boring, walls are painted dark brown. No flava, shits depressin’. Anyway, he gives me the once over, tryin’ to feel me out. I felt like I was in a Scorsese movie. I look on the walls, Frank Sinatra, Al Pacino, Deniro, all staring at me. He has some gorilla motherfucker check me for sound. Kick back Brutus, ain’t no wire on this vodto. ‘We all set? Good, let’s get down to business.’ I only got two twenty’s and an old bus ticket on me, courtesy of the Department Of Corrections. Tony slips me a piece of paper, my first job. Homeboy was very careful. Never talked business out loud. He asked if I understood the job and if so just nod. Don’t say yes or no, or I’m not sure. I nod. ‘Good,’ he says. He takes the piece of paper, puts a lighter to it. Burn, baby burn. No record. He slides a key over to me, tells me I can take the room upstairs. So, my first job was to take out this dude who owed Tony some money, didn’t know why, didn’t care, I needed to eat, cans of tuna and potato chips weren’t cuttin’ it. Dude owned a bar out in Piedmont. It was a shit hole. Fuckin’ dirty, smelled like piss but, it was always packed from what I heard. Ok, so we go in at ten in the morning. And when I say we, I mean me and the gorilla who patted me down at Tony’s place. His name was Paulie, but everybody called him Kong, you know like King Kong. Big, greasy, tough zip. Paulie tells me to do all the talking, says he don’t like people. Cool. The owner is behind the bar sweeping up. I say, ‘You owe my friend some money.’ He stops sweeping, looks at Paulie, then back at me and laughs, tells me to get the fuck out before he ‘Puts his boot up my ass.’ I know this is gonna be bad. So, now I’m lookin’ at Paulie like, ‘What the fuck now?’ No answer. As soon as I turn to face the owner, a broom whacks me in the face. This fuckin’ guy hit me. He starts spouting off about how he don’t pay Tony, he’s protected by some shine named Jerome. I don’t hesitate. I pull my pistol and shoot homeboy about a half dozen times. I start screaming. ‘You mother fucker, you know who you fuckin’ with?’ I’m trying to make my way behind the bar but Paulie grabs my arm, tells me to stop. He asks me how I feel. I look at him crazy. This ain’t no therapy session you fuckin wop. He tells me to ta
ke a breather and ask again. I say, ‘I want to wake this dude up so I can kill him again.’ He laughs. Then I hear another laugh from behind the counter. The owner gets up, reaches over and pats me on the back. Now, I’m trippin. I just killed dude and now he’s back from the dead, some real zombie shit. Paulie tells me, ‘Relax, Tony wanted to make sure you had the balls to go through with it.’ ‘It’s a fuckin test?’ I ask. Paulie nods his head. I’m pissed. What if somebody heard the gunshots, called the cops? The neighborhood we was in looked like whitey paradise, a bunch of yuppies, hangin’ out drinking coffee, wearing fuckin’ turtlenecks. Paulie tells me the cops are on the payroll, kick back. The owner comes around the bar and says, ‘Now that we’re all friends, let’s get down to business.’ We follow him down some steps to the basement. So we walk down the stairs. The place is freezin’, there’s bottles of beer and meat patties all around. A dead body is lyin’ on the floor, some skinny Mexican dude. In the corner there’s another Mexican dude tied up, duct tape covering his mouth. Homeboys scared shitless, tears dripping down his cheeks. I ask what he did. The owner of the bar, Maury, said, ‘You really are new to this shit aren’t you. Never ask questions my Mexican friend, just do.’

  “I correct him, told him I’m half Mexican. He looks at Paulie and laughs. He says, ‘Ok, my half Mexican friend, these two spicks thought they could stick up my poker game without repercussions. Fuckin’ idiots.’

  “Maury hands me a machete about twenty inches thick. I mean this thing could hack off a cow’s head with a few swings. He tells me to hack off the guys arms. ‘While he’s still alive?’ I ask.

  Maury turns to Paulie. ‘Fucks with all the questions? This guy a fed or something?

  Paulie nods his head. ‘He’s clean.’ Can’t believe this fuckin wop called me a rat. So, I take the machete and chop dudes left arm off first. He’s tryin’ to scream through the tape. I chop his other arm off. Maury walks up and shoots him in the head. He tells Paulie to drop the arms off at the two guys’ houses, send some kind of message. Apparently, these guys were from some crew out of Oakland. Maury wasn’t concerned about retaliation. Half of the Oakland PD came in to his bar for free drinks. The other half he had on his payroll. They would put word out on the street. Don’t fuck with Maury or his place. Damn!! Brand new way of doing things. We chopped up the bodies and took ‘em to a landfill in San Leandro, California.”

  “Not all hits were that grueling. I would go into Tony’s Cafe, he’d slip me a piece of paper, I would read it, then he would burn it and I’d go out and do the hit. Usually I would just walk up to the guy and pop, get back in the car and drive away. This one time, I caught my target coming out of a bar, about two in the morning, some big construction worker. I get out of my car, creep up behind dude and just as I’m about to pull the trigger he turns around and punches me in the face. My ass lands on the ground, he reaches for my gun, thank God I always keep a little 38 around my ankle. I pull that sucker out and shoot him three times in the head. He drops to his knees. I shoot a few more times, to make sure he gone. Gotta tell you that was a close one.”

  “Did you feel any remorse for killing that man?” asked Megan.

  “I saw it as business. If I didn’t do it, someone else would and get paid. Gotta hustle out there baby doll. Money don’t grow on trees.”

  Megan nodded her head and placed her index finger on her cheek.

  “By now,” said Sergio, “I’m making serious scratch, doin’ hits for the mob. I moved out of the dump above Tony’s café and into a nice condo in the city. One day, Tony summons me to meet him at Fisherman Wharf… Ok, now I’m thinking, I know I ain’t done nothin’ wrong, I know he ain’t gonna whack me in front of hundreds of tourists. I meet him. He asks if I still got my dope connection, I say yeah. He wants to get into the drug trade. He said Raymond’s about to get out and wants to make some real money, so I get in touch with my Columbian friend and set everything up. Tony insists he meets with the cat. At first I’m like, I got this bro, don’t trip, but he insists. What am I gonna do? Say no to the guy whose keeping me from starving? I run it by the Columbian cat. He tells me he’s gotta run it by his uncle, he’ll get back to me. He calls me a few days later and says, we all good. Tony didn’t want me to go to the meeting. He comes back happy, and says, “This shit is good, we’re gonna make a lot of money.” He puts me in as his point man. Every week I meet my Columbian contact at the port, thirty keys of pure Columbian, white powder, baby doll. The city’s gonna be filled with zombies tonight. Things are rollin’, everybody’s making money, and I mean big money. I move out of my condo and buy a palace in Nob Hill; Look at me, hangin’ with the rich folks. Shit, my neighbor was a United States Senator, not sure which one.”

  Megan flicked a hair out of her face, set her sights on the notepad, then shifted her attention back to Sergio. “What kind of work did you do for Esperanza Valdez?”

  “Who?” Sergio was busy rubbing his index and thumb together.

  “The drug lord.”

  “Don’t know that name momma.”

  Megan’s fingers tapped on her notepad. “Mr. Ramirez, may I remind you, you signed a contract. The terms of the deal specify you must be truthful and accurate in your description of illegal events. Failure to do so will result in my company relinquishing your advancement of $500,000 dollars and future royalties. So, I ask you again sir.”

  Sergio stared at Megan as if to say, ‘Well played. OK, we’ll dance.’

  “Esperanza had my Columbian contact wacked. Me and Tony think what the fuck? Some bitch think she gonna be in charge? We’re preparing for war. Tony asks around about this broad and it ain’t good. She had a reputation that made Al Capone look like Donny Osmond. Rumor was, one time she took out an entire police department in Mexico. Fuckin’, their families, everything. So Tony’s like, fuck no, can’t be true. He digs deeper. Apparently, she’s like the grim fuckin’ reaper. She’s killed not only rivals, but woman, children, and I’m talking torture. Now Tony’s shittin’ his pants. He don’t want this ride. But she reaches out to Tony. Tells him to send somebody to Mexico City to have a sit-down, make sure everything stays the same. So Tony sends me out there. I’m met at the airport by one of her goons. Cat’s name was Hector Martinez. He liked to dress fancy, custom suit, dark sunglasses, just like you see in the movies. Anyway, he’s driving me to meet Esperanza but he tells me he has to make a stop. So, we pull into this small town somewhere in Mexico. I forgot the name but it was a shit-hole. The houses were run down, beaten up, trash littered everywhere. The people were dirty, like they never heard about a bath. What fucked me up the most was the smell. I’ll never forget it. Awful, like burned flesh. Almost threw up. So we get out of the car in front of this small hut looking house. We walk in and there’s some cop fuckin’ this hooker. Hector grabs homeboy, throws him on the ground, asks him why he’s working for the competition. The cop’s like, I didn’t, I swear, I’m loyal to Esperanza. Hector shoots him in the head. The hooker’s screaming, pleading, Hector shoots her. He gets on the phone. Five minutes later, three guys come in the house, take the cops body. One of them chop off his head. They string up the body across the street in front of some taqueria. Now I’m shittin’ my pants. We get into Mexico City, where Esperanza lives. Her house is a fuckin’ palace, waterfalls outside, manicured lawn. The first moment I laid eyes on her I wanted to fuck her. She looked like one of those soap opera stars on them Tele- whatever programs they have in Mexico. My dick was hard from her blinking her eyes. My motivation for gettin’ a blowjob from her changed within seconds. In her living room there was this older guy, tied up. He was wearing a suit. She comes over, gives me a kiss on the cheek, asks how I’m doin’. Real cordial. Then she turns around, grabs an icepick from the bar in the corner, comes up behind and slices this guy’s face. Dude’s sittin’ there cryin’, screaming. She’s just smiling, almost laughing. It wasn’t just a kill, it was fun, she got off on it. I could tell. Turns out the dude she tore up was some politician who was w
orking for some other cartel. Her men come in, she tells them to string his body up on the overpass. Then she sits down by me, tells me things won’t change, arrangement will be the same, just like the Columbian deal. What, could I say no? She kept her word. Everything was good, money flowing, even more than we made with the Columbian. She liked me. Says I didn’t flinch at the house with Hector or when she sliced that politician up. She told me she could see my dick rising. She was right. Seeing her kill got me aroused. Fuckin’ crazy. Anyway, after that day she used me for jobs, here in the states. Wackin’ drug dealers that worked for rival cartels in Mexico, dealers that wouldn’t pay up. This one time she had me kill this movie producer, some big shot because he was planning on making a movie about her. He was snooping around, trying to get info. She didn’t like it. At first, she sent me to rough dude up. I threw him a beatin’ and told him to forget this bullshit. He came from some entitled big shot family in L.A. He tells daddy that some drug lord beat him up so he calls a few of his hot shot political friends, they make things tough for her dealers here in Cali. Stupid bastard, worst mistake he ever made. He wasn’t dealing with some spick on the corner wearing baggy pants and a beanie, sippin’ forty ounces of St. Ides in front of the corner liquor store. A week later, him, his daddy, mom, daddy’s mistress, who he was fuckin’ at the time, were taken out. I’m talkin’ about dead, straight 187. That’s who Esperanza Valdez was.”

  Megan didn’t flinch. She wasn’t rattled by the information Sergio spit to her.

  “When did you get caught?” she said.

  I was sleepin’ in my crib, it’s six in the morning, all of a sudden a hundred dudes in blue wind breakers rushing me, saying ‘FBI, Freeze.’ One of them grabs me and slams me on the ground. I’m fucked. I know I’m fucked. They know I’m fucked. So I’m sittin’ across from a guy in a federal building being told I can either cooperate or spend the rest of my life in jail. Guy tries to play nice, says, ‘I’ll be honest with you. We don’t want you. We want the cartel and your friend Tony.’ At first I was gonna tell homeboy to fuck off, I ain’t no rat, but then I started thinkin’, didn’t matter if I kept my mouth shut, I was a liability. Either the Cartel or the mob would make sure I don’t ever talk again. I knew too much, so I decided to cooperate, turn rat. I hated doin’ it but what choice did I have? Twenty-four hours later the cops swopped up Tony, his crew, my Columbian contact, his uncle. Shit was goin’ down. Didn’t take long for everyone to figure out who the snitch was, once I stopped answering Tony’s calls. Sorry Tony, it was either you or me.”