by Dan Slater
“If you fall down or lose your rifle in a raid, never fight for the weapon. Your main disadvantage in a raid is unfamiliar territory. You don’t know the surroundings. You don’t know the position of the contras in the house. In the moment of entry, all you know is that one guy knocked you out. He might be the only one you need to neutralize. Or there might be others. You don’t know. But that’s okay. Your brothers are charging in behind you.” Meme shouted: “Listen up! Never wrestle for a loose gun. Instead, pull your cuchillo and put the contra out by hand.”
A new contra was brought in, and told that if he could knock Meme off his feet and wrestle Meme successfully for the AR-15, he’d be set free. When the drill began, Meme lost the rifle on purpose and kicked it toward the contra. As the contra scrambled for the gun, Meme unstrapped his cuchillo from his leg and stabbed the contra’s thighs, stomach, and chest until he was dead. Meme stood up and caught his breath while two recruits dragged the dead contra away. Of the twenty or so remaining recruits, several walked out of the house and joined the others for training in noncombat roles.
Of those recruits who proved they could kill, each was assigned a cuas, a partner. Walking, shooting, eating, shitting—you and your cuas, short for cuate, pal, watched over each other at all times. Gabriel’s cuas was a boy named Israel, whom Gabriel remembered from going to church as a child in Nuevo Laredo, when the Cardonas used to come across on weekends to see extended family. The sicarios gathered near the edge of a forest, thirty feet behind a line chalked on the ground. Beyond, in the woods, two contras were tied to each other at the waist and told that if they made it through the first round, successfully outrunning the gunshots, they’d be let go. With his cuas, Gabriel ran up to the line, eyes focused on the scattering targets. They stopped, put their left foot in front, as taught, twisted slightly at the waist, put their left hand on the barrel grip, raised their left elbow to heart level, aimed the AR-15, and released thirty rounds: prrrrrt. They held position, switched the right thumb of their trigger hand to the right side of the grip, pressed the button above the trigger that released the double-sided clip, and simultaneously extended the four other fingers of their right hand to catch the clip as it released. With clip in hand, they turned their palm outward, thumb down, inserted the other side of the clip into the rifle, and released thirty more rounds—prrrrrt—as targets continued to fall, dumping a total of sixty bullets in ten seconds. They fanned out, and the next two partners came in behind them. That, they were told, was how you held down territory and kept the contra at bay. If a recruit dropped a clip, someone yelled “a mamar!”—“suck it!”—and he and his cuas owed the Company one hundred push-ups while their brothers kept at it, contras dying by the dozen.
Meme’s lessons aside, when it came to the torture and murder taught in the training camp, the Company’s instructors led by example more often than they taught. Instructors threw around a phrase: “You see and do.” And this approach fostered competition. As one recruit remembered: “Everybody wants to outdo the next man. They all want to do the best kind.”
Psychology played a role in Company training, just as it had for the GAFE men schooled in Fort Benning and Fort Bragg. In the ’diestra, isolated for a month and trained to kill by cold method, the instructors reminded recruits of their longing for “riches and bitches.” They had no job, no education, no future. By depriving pissed-off recruits of the world outside—of family and friends and girlfriends, of bedding and clothes—the comandantes encased them in psychic solitude; motivation by humiliation. They were forgotten, far from home. But now they were soldiers. And when they arrived at the plaza, they would arrive with a purpose, and release all their rage.
Finally, toward the end of camp, it came time to kill without any of the weapons they’d been trained in: no corta (handgun), larga (rifle), or cuchillo (knife). This was when the Company gauged your strength of mind, saw whether you could “lose your fear,” and separated the fríos—the coldhearted ones—from those who would be put to other uses. Could you do it and still sleep?
The recruit chose among implements: a shovel, a hoe, a sledgehammer, a machete. By way of example, a comandante selected a machete and beheaded a detainee. Did that man ever kick! If done properly, a hoe took one or two hits; a shovel, several. You tried to hit the contra square in the head so he suffered little.
The tools were then put aside and you killed with your bare hands. To feel the body give out for the first time was, in the words of one recruit, “something else for real.”
11
I’m the True One
With its vertically integrated systems and its young career men who charged up the ranks, the Company—unlike those dead-end, minimum-wage jobs in Laredo, and the even more dismal futures that awaited those from the Mexican side of the border—granted members the conceit that commitment would be recognized in compensation, job security, flexibility, and prestige.
Ranking Company men—the bosses and underbosses known as comandantes—referred to the young hit men, the sicarios, somewhat disparagingly, as soldados, soldiers: brutal errand boys who did what they were told. Officially, the soldados were known as “eles.” Ele—“L” in Spanish—stood for lobo: wolf. Like their young mafiosi brethren in New York, or Naples, the cartel’s Wolf Boys were willing to die not for any religious purpose but for money and power.I
Most Wolf Boys were, in the vernacular of Laredo’s Mexican-American youth, “straight Mexican.” But as the Gulf Cartel and its Zeta enforcers rose as a single corporate unit in eastern Mexico, preparing to battle incursions from the western Sinaloa Cartel, a few American kids joined the ranks of Zeta soldados and became Company Wolf Boys themselves. Gabriel was among those early American recruits. Wences Tovar hadn’t attended the training camp yet. But Wences became a low-ranking Company man in his own right, smuggling guns from Texas to Mexico for Meme Flores.
In the circles that Gabriel and Wences ran in, Company membership was monumental. The musician Beto Quintanilla, king of hard-core norteño music, a kind of Mexican hip-hop set to polka beats, sang hits about the Company’s enforcers, and those songs blasted in the car of every teenager from Reynosa to Piedras Negras.
The money, of course, was a big part of the allure. For sicarios, the weekly salary—or aguinaldo; literally, “bonus”—was $500. Commission missions—solo jobs assigned outside the operativo, the normal patrol—were usually compensated at $10,000 each, possibly more depending on the importance of the target. A high-ranking cop, politician, or cartel rival, for instance, merited a higher bounty—to compensate for the increased difficulty of the job, but also for the risk: The greater the importance of the person killed, the greater the chance of that person’s family or associates taking revenge.
While Gabriel’s American citizenship meant a slightly higher status than his “straight-Mexican” counterparts, the basic qualifications for an effective Wolf Boy were universal. Like Gabriel, the ideal Wolf Boy had no children or serious amorous ties; like Gabriel, he could be in the streets at all times and go anywhere. Unburdened by conscience—whether because of youth, environment, nature, narcotics, or a combination—he was ruthless and free, a heat-seeking missile of black-market capitalism to be deployed against anyone who ran afoul of the Company, threatened its business, degraded its name, or challenged its leaders. Over the next two years, as the Sinaloa Cartel came east and battled the Company for the rights to the Nuevo Laredo–Laredo crossing, Wolf Boys would become plentiful, and life would grow cheap.
Assigned to the Nuevo Laredo plaza in the fall of 2004, Gabriel settled into Company life. He learned the roles and responsibilities, and what it took to rise. He learned the difference between a comandante regional (a state commander), a regular comandante (a plaza boss), a comandante de mando (a midlevel manager), and an encargado de seguridad (chief of security). As a mere sicario, or ele, Gabriel reported to Meme Flores, who was now the encargado de seguridad in Nuevo Laredo. Meme, in turn, reported to Miguel Treviño, the plaza bo
ss. Below Gabriel in the hierarchy were the halcones (hawks, or lookouts) and guardias (patrols), younger boys and females who monitored activity in the plaza, tracked the movements of smugglers, and reported on the comings and goings of police.
The Company also employed a large finance team; each plaza had several accountants. One was in charge of payroll. One oversaw the local tienditas, small “drugstores” that sold narcotics to local Mexican users. Another accountant collected taxes from local businesses such as bars and pharmacies. Within each plaza, one accountant was allocated to each of the Company’s two primary products: marijuana and cocaine. These accountants corresponded with “runners”—transporters—on both sides of the border, and reported to the plaza’s lead accountant.
The comandante regional, state commander, audited the books of every plaza within his state regularly. The lead plaza accountant—responsible to the state commander—checked in periodically. Come over to such-and-such place. Bring the book. If there was a problem with the accounts, all the accountants would get together to see if it could be solved; if it couldn’t, the plaza accountant would be killed by the plaza boss, and the plaza boss might in turn be killed by the comandante regional. It was rumored that once, in Monclava, the books were so dirty that no one showed up when called to a meeting. The entire plaza staff had to be replaced.
IN EARLY JOBS, WHEN ASKED to accompany Meme, or others, on hits or raids in Mexico, Gabriel was nervous. His jaw tightened; an AR-15 rifle felt no heavier than a paperback book. To take his mind off a mission he focused on the function and assembly of the weapon. He rubbed his sweaty hands against his pants until it was time to rush in. For commission missions—those solo jobs assigned outside the operativo, the normal patrol—the local Mexican cops often assisted Gabriel by setting up targets and clearing out locations. In one job, the cops patrolled the territory around a restaurant while Gabriel walked in and shot a contra in the head.
While the act of taking a life became routine, some work put a heavier strain on his mind. A Nuevo Laredo dealer who sold coke in one of the Company-owned tienditas had been underreporting profits. Gabriel and Meme tracked him down in his car. Meme pulled him out, pistol-whipped him, put him in the backseat of Meme’s Jeep Cherokee, and asked Gabriel to restrain the guy while they drove to a house. Inside the house, Meme pulled the guy’s shirt off and taped his eyes, arms, and feet, then threw him on the bed. The dealer kept saying he’d pay but needed time. He just needed some more merca—product—to make up the loss, he said. Meme said Gabriel could leave. The next day, when Gabriel asked Meme what happened, Meme said, “Se lo fumaron, pal guiso.” They killed him in the stew.
Gabriel felt bad for the guy. It was one thing to kill a rival in a war, someone who worked for the other side. The people that they killed in the training camp were all rivals from the Sinaloa Cartel, or at least that’s what the recruits were told. With this dealer, how much dope money could have gone missing if the tiendita he ran was just one of a dozen or more drugstores the Company had in Nuevo Laredo alone? But this stringency, Gabriel figured, showed the seriousness of the organization. Por y sobre la verga was the Company’s motto. Older Company men repeated this phrase constantly; literally, it meant: For and about the “cock” or “dick.” But the intended meaning was closer to: For and about the idea, or principle. The rules were the rules.
An enemy, or contra, typically meant a rival connected to the Sinaloa Cartel, or a cop who took money from the Sinaloans. But the definition of “contra,” Gabriel learned, was flexible; it could also be a Company dealer or smuggler who stole money or drugs, or who underreported profits. A contra could even be someone who dared to date the ex-girlfriend of a ranking Company man. Under Zeta rule, the smallest slight was grounds for death.
THE COMPANY WASN’T ONLY ABOUT work. Partying was a big part of cartel life. When the Nuevo Laredo plaza “heated up”—was raided by the federal police—everyone except the guardias and halcones, who stuck around the plaza to see who divulged information to the government, dispersed for franco, vacation. On franco, many Company men retired to La Zona, or Boystown, a walled city of brothels that employed prostitutes from all over Latin America, some coming from as far as Brazil and Peru. There was a Boystown in Nuevo Laredo, and another in Reynosa, another border town 120 miles southeast of Nuevo Laredo. Both Boystowns were run (or extorted) by the Company, but they were also open to the public, patronized not just by Mexicans but also by busloads of gringos from Houston and Dallas. In the Boystown bars, a prostitute kept each patron company, and offered a palo—a “fuck”; literally, a stick—for between thirty and eighty bucks. There were many beautiful women in Boystown, and Gabriel couldn’t understand why they worked there.
Many of the Mexican Wolf Boys patronized Boystown, but Gabriel could never see paying for sex. He preferred to spend his money in the Nuevo Laredo nightclubs, a few of which were known specifically as “ele clubs,” clubs that catered to Wolf Boys—like Luxor and Eclipse.
At Eclipse, DJ Kuri periodically announced “El Pescadito”: “This is the fish song!” DJ Kuri yelled over the microphone. “Go ahead and fish!”
One night, Gabriel cast his imaginary fishing pole across the dance floor and “reeled in” a fifteen-year-old from Laredo named Christina. She was a freshman at United High, the alma mater of La Barbie, the smuggler who challenged the Company, fled Nuevo Laredo, and aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel. Christina had a lantern jaw and dirty-blond hair. Her nose flared gamely at the nostril. She and Gabriel started seeing each other.
Christina turned out to be a friend of Wences’s girlfriend. Although Christina went to United and lived in the north-side suburbs, the nicer part of Laredo, her family struggled while her father did eight years on a smuggling-related charge. Her uncles and cousins were also in the drug business, as smugglers and money launderers. What Gabriel saw, though, was a beautiful fresa, a preppy who carried her willowy frame in sheer blouses and tight wrap tanks, someone who looked as though she came from the better part of town, and being with her boosted his ego.
Christina’s friends had high expectations for boys; they acted very mamona, stuck up. But Christina just wanted a steady boyfriend, and she made that clear to Gabriel. If Gabriel made her feel secure, she also inspired positive feelings in him. The soldier in him softened in her presence. He said, “People say I’m cold. But with you I’m different.”
SEVERAL MONTHS OF WORK PASSED in Mexico.
Gabriel learned how to pay off Nuevo Laredo cops, get information he could use against Sinaloa enemies, and interact with the Company’s command-and-intelligence center. “You don’t enjoy what you’re doing,” he’d tell his older brother Luis when they spoke about killing people. But as a young man prone to feeling that his life lacked purpose when he wasn’t hustling and making money, Gabriel did love the continuous action. As he tracked targets and kept in close touch with Meme, he liked the sense of having others rely on him. More than anything, he enjoyed giving money to La Gaby and his brothers, and wasting money on entertainment for his friends, the growing circle of hoodies—old partners in small-time crime from Lazteca and Siete Viejo.
For a friend who was now connected to the most respected men from the border underworld, the hoodies were at Gabriel’s beck and call, available to run errands and provide rides whenever he asked for a favor. When Gabriel would take his friends to La Siberia, their favorite lunch spot in Nuevo Laredo, they left their car in the middle of the street. “I’m Meme’s people,” Gabriel would tell the guy at the door. Traffic came to a halt while they ate lunch, but no one honked or complained. A cop simply told drivers to reverse their cars and go around a different way.
In Nuevo Laredo, during Gabriel’s first months of membership in the Company, he didn’t perceive much of a war. The Company appeared to control the area. But now, in the spring of 2005, as the Company and the Sinaloans expanded their ranks, more intense conflict visited the border, and the Company’s grip on Nuevo Laredo was no longer assur
ed. Gabriel discovered that the impunity he once enjoyed diminished a little. On April 1, after being picked up for driving a stolen car and possessing cocaine, he landed in a Nuevo Laredo jail for ten days.
Power and authority can shift quickly in the cartel world. The phrase “I’m Meme’s people” no longer bought Gabriel as much palanca, leverage, as it once had. During his ten days in jail, his status as a member of la gente kept him safe and conferred certain privileges. He got a bunk of his own, albeit roach infested, and money to purchase laundered blankets. He ate fried tacos and beef stew, rather than take scoops from the communal bucket of rancho, a thin soup of rice, potatoes, and beans. He saw how control of the prisons was critical to a cartel’s control of the plaza. In the prisons, criminal networks mingled and joined forces, shared information, found new recruits, and killed enemies who landed inside—which meant the death could be written off as a “prison fight” rather than a murder.
On a Sunday afternoon in May 2005, a month after his release, via bribe, from jail, Gabriel woke up at Meme’s house in Nuevo Laredo, a gaudy mansion known as El Castillo, the Castle, where Gabriel had been spending many nights. On waking, he thought immediately of Christina. She was getting angry. He was either busy working or in jail. A week would pass without communication. When he did finally call, she would threaten: Come see me immediately or forget about our relationship!
“Call Wences,” Meme told Gabriel. “Tell him to come across.”
“I don’t want to come,” Wences told Gabriel over the phone.
“Why not? You don’t have a choice.”
A load of weapons Wences was supposed to cross to Mexico had gone missing, Wences explained, and he feared the consequences. After the incident with Meme and the coke dealer, Gabriel didn’t disbelieve that lost weapons could merit punishment. But he felt confident that Meme would not ask him to set up his own friend.