Triple Crossing

by Sebastian Rotella

“Hey, you drew this?”

  “Uh-huh.” Buffalo sank into an armchair.

  “It’s great.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Nice crib.”

  “My boss gave it to me a while back. Wedding present. Have a seat, Valentín. Oye, you been busy, eh?” Arms folded, Buffalo cracked his piratical, teardrop-decorated smile. “Last night on the beach. Goin’ at it with the CHP today, this and that. To the curb, cabrón.”

  Buffalo’s demeanor had changed. He looked comfortable, the man of the house at home.

  “So in case you wanted to know, that highway patrolman is in intensive care and don’t look like he’s going to make it,” Buffalo announced jovially. “He had your driver’s license in his pocket. Every local, state and federal po-lice in San Diego County is looking for you. Your story checked out fine.”

  “Jesus.”

  As devastating as the news was, Pescatore was chiefly affected by the realization that the change in Buffalo’s manner was due to relief. Pescatore’s story had checked out, so the big man would not have to kill him. Pescatore wondered what turncoat U.S. law enforcement source had relayed the information so fast.

  “What are you gonna do?” Buffalo asked.

  “I don’t know, tell you the truth.”

  “You need a place to hide out,” Buffalo said.” You can stay with us.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s fucked up, Garrison getting popped. But it woulda been a pain in the ass if he turned up en El Otro Lado. Lotta questions, federal heat, this and that. Instead, he disappears. You did us a favor gettin’ here, even if was too late to help ’im. Showed me some heart.”

  “Thanks, Buffalo.”

  The big man’s forearms were interlocked in bands of tendon and muscle and tattoos, the Virgin of Guadalupe obscuring a name that ended in ita.

  “Plus I ain’t forgetting you helped Rufino. But you gotta earn your keep. I know you can handle a cuete. You can do a little work for me.”

  “Really?”

  Buffalo made a laughing sound deep in his chest. “Ordinarily I’d say we, uh, ain’t acceptin’ applications right now. But we’ll find something.”

  “OK. Thanks.” Pescatore wished someone would offer him something to eat.

  “Let’s get you rested. You look torn up.”

  “Want me to bring in my stuff?” Pescatore rose, glancing appreciatively at the circular stairway past the chandelier.

  “What, you think you’re staying here?” Buffalo sounded offended and amused. “Fuck that. This is my crib, ese. You crash next door with the vatos.”

  They returned Pescatore’s duffel bag to him, but not the guns or the phones. Buffalo took him across the driveway to the second house. The living room smelled like a giant ashtray. It looked like a frat house, a crack house and a barracks after a mutiny. The wall-to-wall carpet was a swamp of bottles, pizza boxes, fast-food wrappers, cigarette butts, newspapers, porn magazines. Pelón, Momo, Sniper and two other hard-core gangbanger-looking guys lounged on three couches arranged in front of a giant television in a wall entertainment center. A coffee table held two bongs that were in active use, judging from the aromatic haze of marijuana smoke, as well as a large round mirror.

  “Welcome to the sleazoid dive,” Buffalo growled. “Maybe you’re not a slob like these youngsters. In that case, I feel bad for you. Hey, listen up.”

  The homeboys slowly separated their attention from the television, which was showing a horror movie about underground creatures chasing people in the desert and erupting out of the sand to chomp them. Buffalo made introductions.

  “So this dude was in the Migra, huh?” Pelón said. “La pinche Migra.”

  Pelón stood in front of Pescatore. His hands drummed idly on his whip-tight gut. His glassy-eyed and malicious smile indicated that he had nominated himself to mess with Pescatore, a kind of jailhouse welcoming ritual.

  “Now he’s wanted,” Buffalo said. “He just shot a cop.”

  “No shit.”

  “Cut on the news, you’ll see.”

  Somebody worked the remote. Eventually, the big hair and sloe eyes of a Mexican anchorwoman filled the screen. The volume came up during a succession of images: police vehicles, yellow tape and traffic jams on the freeway. ID photos of the CHP officer, Garrison and Pescatore.

  “That’s him, güey!” Pelón whooped.

  The anchorwoman said the words “armed and dangerous.” They cut to Méndez talking to reporters by an open car door. Méndez needed a shave. He said: “No matter who is protecting these renegade American agents, we will track them down like the killers and cowards they are.”

  You better bring a whole lot of backup, you conceited Mexican jackass, Pescatore thought, feeling a chill of hate.

  There were more howls from the homeboys. Pelón turned back to Pescatore. “Better stay in the house, cabrón. Diogenes is comin’ to getcha!”

  Pelón took a long swig from a beer. His eyebrows angled upward. “Now let me get this straight, güey: You’re in the Migra, right? You’re a cop?”

  “That’s right,” Pescatore said. He adopted the icy tonk-thumping face he had used in confrontations with groups of aliens at the levee.

  “But today, you shot a cop?”

  “Así es.”

  “Chinga.” Pelón surveyed Pescatore and then his audience. “I guess you sure enough joined the other patrol now, eh? Ya entraste en la otra patrulla, güey.”

  The others broke up, whooping and chortling. Buffalo allowed himself a smile. Pescatore wondered what was so fucking funny.

  Buffalo enlightened him.

  “In TJ they got a nickname for us, Valentín,” he said. “I’m surprised you never heard about it. They call us La Patrulla de la Muerte. The Death Patrol.”

  His room was in the servants’ quarters.

  It was on the third floor in the back of the L-shaped mansion. The room was dim and the walls and floor were bare: a near closet made more claustrophobic by the slanted ceiling. But he saw no sign of rodents or insects, and the mattress in the corner was clean.

  The door had no lock. When Rufino left, Pescatore took the lone chair and wedged it under the doorknob. He placed his keys on the edge of the chair so they would fall with a clatter if anyone tried to enter. He sat on the mattress, his back propped on the pillow against the wall. Closing his eyes, he reviewed options.

  Ever since the shoot-out on the beach, he had whirled helplessly among people and events. It was like a merry-go-round cranked out of control. No one would be inclined to show mercy to a rogue Border Patrol agent on a cop-killing beef. Law enforcement and migrant advocates, Anglos and Mexicans and African-Americans, they would be elbowing one another aside to fry him, and the hell with annoying details like the truth. He had to get in touch with Isabel Puente and try to convince her of his innocence. He wanted to figure out his next move with her help. On the other hand, he did not want the Death Patrol thinking he was anything but guilty. He wondered whether Puente would believe him and how much she could do for him.

  Thinking about her was painful. He had a fleeting erotic flashback of Isabel unleashed that night in her apartment: her voice hoarse and urgent in his ear, her brown body coiled around him. Hard to believe it had all been an act. He wanted desperately to think that Garrison had lied to him in order to get him across the border. But what if Garrison’s information on the impending arrests had been accurate? What if that was the very reason he wanted to whack Pescatore? In that case, Isabel had lied about the timing of the arrests for sure. He could only think that meant she had planned to double-cross him and have him arrested too.

  Pescatore got up and went to the narrow window. The walls of the compound below were high and coated with jagged glass. There was at least one sentry he knew about, probably more. If they caught him escaping, he was history. No talking his way out of that shit. If he succeeded, the run to San Diego would be dangerous. He could find the Diogenes Group and surrender to them. But he would have to get
past all the law enforcement agencies in town that were nothing more than branches of the Ruiz Caballero organization. And another problem remained: During his obnoxious little TV appearance, Méndez had called Pescatore a killer and a coward. He had sounded like he really meant it. Like he looked forward to questioning Pescatore, Mexican-style, when he got his hands on him.

  Pescatore flopped facedown onto the bed. He heard faraway music, a bass line throbbing up from the living room. He remembered his first night at the Border Patrol academy in Artesia, New Mexico. The far side of the moon, as far as he was concerned. The dormitory rooms plastered with class schedules and posters of bikini babes draped over Harleys. The legions of trainees from Texas, Arizona, California. There had been Mexican-Americans, Anglos, a few Cubans and Puerto Ricans mixed in. Even a contingent of Portuguese-Americans from Rhode Island and New Jersey. But nobody from Chicago or anywhere near his world. That night had been the most alone he had ever felt in his life. Until now.

  Pescatore fell asleep. He sank in a bottomless black ocean. He dreamt repeatedly about waking up, the doorknob turning, the keys clattering, glass shattering, shots, blood, Garrison’s eyes bulging upside down. But Pescatore slept regardless. He slept and slept and slept.

  * * *

  Over the next couple of days, Pescatore fell into the rhythms of life in the gangster house. He stayed indoors, mainly in the living room in front of the TV, where at least a couple of homeboys could be found watching and partying at all times. Pescatore had rarely smoked marijuana. While working hotel security he had marveled at how the doormen and bellhops he got mixed up with started their mornings with a joint. Reefer didn’t get him going; it submerged him, staggered him. But when Sniper passed him a joint on his second night in the mansion, Pescatore got with the program. He felt anesthetized, the world pushed to a safe distance. He sucked down beers too, hoping to ward off paranoia about the fact that he was hanging out with couchfuls of cholos who were the stuff of every PA’s nightmares. This house was the equivalent of being thrown into an immigration lockup or a county jail. Yet the gangsters accepted him nonchalantly. If Buffalo said he was cool, he was cool. And if Buffalo told them to torture him to death for the sole purpose of seeing him get that look on his face, they would do that too.

  So Pescatore smoked and drank. He sleepwalked in a realm of dread and wonder. He watched himself on television. The Mexican news gave a lot of coverage to the freeway shooting. Pescatore and Garrison were the chief suspects. The news flashed an academy photo of him, heaped abuse on the Border Patrol, and reported that the Diogenes Group and Mexican federal police were hunting all over the state of Baja California. A breakthrough was imminent. Contemplating his clean-shaven smile in the photo, Pescatore decided to grow a Buffalo-style mustache. Next to him, Momo spoke up with unexpected words of support.

  “Don’t even worry about it,” Momo told him, giving Pescatore his raised-chin, slit-eyed stare. “That’s a lotta hype about la federal. Puro pedo. Long as you’re with us, they ain’t gonna sweat you.”

  If Buffalo was the commander of the Death Patrol, Momo was his lieutenant. The stone-faced Momo partied as hard as anyone else, but he was a stern taskmaster. Buffalo rarely visited the house; only Momo and Rufino visited Buffalo. The driveway was a strict border between the houses. Buffalo’s family kept to their side of the line as well. Pescatore glimpsed Buffalo’s wife on the third day, climbing out of an Escalade. Rufino helped her carry fistfuls of shopping bags—Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom—into the house. She was statuesque in a long summer dress, a bit of a belly, sunglasses propped in rich black curls. Her face had the weary beauty of the sketch on her living room wall.

  Sniper and Pelón were the sergeants. The enlisted men were a shifting cast of a dozen youths, mostly gang members from California in their late teens and early twenties. Pescatore got the impression they were an all-star team of prospects recruited from a variety of gangs. They spoke the fractured Spanglish of penitentiaries, jails and juvenile lockups on both sides of the border. Instead of killing each other over street corners, they were killing together and living large. Their days started about noon when they drifted downstairs to the large modern kitchen. They ate steak, eggs and chilaquiles at the kitchen table or hunched on stools around a butcher-block island in the middle of the black-and-white tiled floor. A matronly woman named Doña Marta cooked for them and cleaned up once in a while. Tent-shaped in a brown dress, she moved in her own universe, her flat face wrinkled in disapproval, groaning periodically with exertion. She talked to nobody and saw nothing.

  On the third day, Pescatore felt safe enough to start looking for a telephone he could use to call Isabel. Even if he made just a short call, he wanted her to hear his voice, to let her know he was alive. But he had already determined that the house had no land lines. The only homeboys he saw using cell phones were Momo, Sniper and Pelón. He knew the organization was careful about communications. Isabel had told him they had sophisticated intercept technology and countersurveillance techniques. Once he got his hands on a phone, it would be like carrying a time bomb. He would have to dispose of it or risk somebody finding it on him.

  Pescatore spent the morning sneaking around rooms and hallways in search of a stray cell phone. No juice. He set himself up in front of the TV, hoping a vato might leave a phone unattended while getting wasted. It didn’t happen. The next morning, Momo, Sniper and Pelón left early. That night, the news reported that a Mexican federal prosecutor had been machine-gunned in his driveway after his retirement party; Sniper and Pelón reached over and slapped each other five. The TV news showed a quick image of Méndez walking into a building past cameras. A voice-over explained that the Diogenes Group was on the case.

  “That cabrón right there needs to get got.” Pelón gestured at Méndez, his bald profile making him look like a warrior-monk. “Fuck sending messages. If we’re gonna do ’im, let’s do ’im, homes. Boo-ya, boo-ya”—he pantomimed the recoil of a shotgun with both hands—“y se acabó.”

  Momo took a swig of beer, wiped his mouth, and without looking at Pelón told him to shut the fuck up.

  At breakfast the next day, Buffalo appeared in the kitchen. Without preamble or explanation, he handed Pescatore his Glock. Pescatore nodded, exhilarated but trying to come off like it was all business. Buffalo did not give him back his cell phone or mention it. Pescatore thought fast and made a decision on impulse: If they trusted him enough to give him his gun back, a phone was maybe not that big a deal.

  “Thanks, Buffalo,” he said. “Think I could get my phone too?”

  Buffalo’s expression made him wish he had stayed quiet. “Who you gonna call?”

  “Nobody!” Pescatore looked shocked at the notion. “Nobody. It’s just I had a lotta numbers stored in there for people, family back home, you know.”

  Buffalo’s forehead furrowed. “I don’t think I gotta explain why it’s not a good idea for you to call anybody right now, Valentín.”

  “Yeah, I know, I sure wasn’t—”

  “You’re a fucking fugitive. Murder One. Low profile, silencio radio, this and that.”

  “Sure, you got it, man, of course,” Pescatore said. Now I’m fried if they even catch me looking at a phone, he thought. Nice work, Valentine.

  “Anyway.” Buffalo brightened. “Remember what I said about earning your keep? I got a chamba for you.”

  They drove out to Junior’s ranch on the road to Tecate. Pescatore squinted, unaccustomed to daylight. At the target-shooting range they met a handful of youths, a mix of U.S. gang members and Mexicans. Like motley soldiers, they stood at attention as Buffalo told Pescatore to instruct them in rudimentary pistol technique—loading, cleaning, handling—then lead close-range target practice.

  “Introduction to guns, man, basic basics, like they don’t know a fucking thing,” Buffalo said. “These youngsters, they’re always wavin’ cuetes around, but they’re ignorant. They’re lucky they don’t shoot themselves or each other. M
e, I don’t have the time or the patience.”

  The assignment surprised Pescatore. But he warmed to the task. His pupils were diligent and respectful. He gave the demonstration in Spanish and English, improvising, mimicking his Patrol instructors from the academy days. Buffalo nodded approvingly. During the next week, they came back three more times and Pescatore led more sessions of target practice. Buffalo sat on a picnic table, watching intently. He looked grim.

  About two weeks after Pescatore’s arrival in Tijuana, the house had visitors: Moze and Tchai, the smooth cheerful Brazilians from the night of the arms deal. The word was that they were waiting for a kingpin named Khalid to visit from South America. They sat in lawn chairs by Buffalo’s pool, listening to Brazilian party music on iPods plugged into a little speaker.

  Isabel Puente would be interested in this development, Pescatore thought. He was still undercover, recording details, writing reports in his head. But he was starting to feel cut off. Like the Imperial Beach station, Puente seemed to belong to a remote and improbable previous life. He still thought about her, especially when he was high. But it was as if she were becoming unattainable again: a fantasy as much as a memory.

  That evening, the Death Patrol stood guard at a restaurant. The operation reminded Pescatore of the precautions the U.S. feds took before a visit to the border by the attorney general. At dusk, he walked through the restaurant with Buffalo, Momo, Pelón and Sniper. They checked entrances and bathrooms, frisked waiters and cooks. More gunmen arrived: homeboys, Mexican gangsters, state police detectives in cowboy boots, stiff-legged slacks and leather jackets. They deployed sentries with radios on rooftops and corners, on foot and in cars.

  Buffalo and Momo left. Pescatore waited with Pelón and Sniper in the entrance vestibule. He was excited about the action—and about the fact that they had brought him along. Once he started getting access to the street, an opportunity for escape could develop. At least he might be able to slip off somewhere for a couple of minutes and find a way to call: maybe a pay phone, or he could buy a cell.