Killing Cortez

by A. L. DeNova

  Eduardo preferred the name given him by his mentors in the organization, El Chiño.

  With a Mexican mother and a Chinese father, he was a U.S. citizen officially, as he was born in the El Centro, California community hospital. He was fluent also in three languages, Spanish, English, and Cantonese. He was polite to a fault, and he immediately acknowledged the entrance of Nacho, Jose´, and JC. He did not stand.

  “You made good time,” El Chiño said in Spanish. “Good, we have a lot to accomplish before the sun sets.” Four other men were seated at the table, also very large, bearded, and all Chinese. They sat facing the staircase, their backs to the expansive view of the ocean.

  The largest of these men kicked any empty chair out and gestured to it. He stared at JC, and JC sat down.

  El Chiño spoke again, “You have until Tuesday. Find it.” He then handed JC a business card that read “Judy’s Big Kitchen-The Best Breakfast in San Diego” and on the back in small neat handwriting was a San Diego phone number.

  El Chiño then reached down to a bowl full of whole cooked shrimp and plopped one into his large mustachioed mouth, whole. While still crunching the shrimp tail, El Chiño said, “Call the number.” Punctuated by a long, annoying squeal of metal chair legs on a linoleum floor, El Chiño rose more quickly than JC could have expected.

  Beneath El Chiño’s shiny black leather jacket, JC saw the glint of the Big Man’s Colt Commander, nickel plated, and immaculate. The four enforcers rose from the table, filing behind El Chiño.

  The largest of the men, sighed in genuine regret as he bid a glance of farewell to a full beer bottle and an entire platter of fresh shrimp. Jose´ Contreras turned away from JC and towards the empty table. He sat at the table and poured a glass of beer from a full, untouched bottle. He grabbed a clean plate and eagerly served himself a large plateful of shrimp, rice, and corn tortillas.

  JC’s stomach soured although he had nothing but candy and Coca Cola since breakfast. Five days. He had a name. He had a neighborhood. This was not impossible.

  Finishing the last of his beer, and seafood, Jose´ turned to the silent JC and asked, “Do you need a ride to San Diego. I am going downtown.” This was not a question, but an order. Even so, JC appreciated the bigger man’s subtlety.

  JC looked at the driver, and hesitated. Jose´, not waiting for a response, said “Nacho went with El Chiño, if you did not notice.”

  He smiled at the very irreverent dangerous Freudian slip, amused by his own daring.

  “They are figuring out how to deal with the gap in you know the delivery to L.A. that you created, temporarily? You know, shit just doesn’t run uphill. Except, for the New River.”

  “Yeah?” JC asked.

  Jose´ saw an opportunity to display his erudition to a new victim, “You know the New River in El Centro and the Nile are the only rivers in the World that run from north to south. The point is shit does really run upstream from Mexico into America. Up. With the New River, it’s all the chemical crap the Mexicali maquiladoras dump in the river.”

  “Sure, that’s not the only shit that runs uphill to America? “JC said “but no smoking, and I am rolling down the windows to air that car out.” The bill had been paid for by El Chiño, and the two men went out alone. JC hopped into the seat left vacant by Nacho.

  The night was warm and the car still reeked from the pack of cigarettes smoked on the inbound trip from Tecate. In under ten minutes, they were cruising on Broadway, the main street of the city, lined on both sides by tall office buildings and both the state and federal court houses. Facing the harbor, stood the Naval Headquarters. It was built to resemble a ship and was readily mistaken for such by many a drunken sailor returning from shore leave. Further down the harbor side, JC saw the Star of India, an old re-fitted sailing ship form the 1880s bouncing at anchor.

  JC said, feeling the cool breeze, and seeing the smiling tourists, “Hey Jose´, think of the slums of Tijuana, the dirt, the trash, and then this ten minutes by car, due north It’s like a different planet.” But JC knew better. Violence and greed knew no boundaries, or geographic limits. Neither the border nor conscience stopped los narcos from killing in San Diego, but economic interest did.

  18

  Cheap and Convenient

  Jose´ turned the Impala into a large downtown parking lot, and handed a folded $10.00 bill to the attendant. Overlooking the lot was an ancient six-story brick building with a faded cigarette advertisement from the 1930’s. ‘Smoke! For Health!’ were the only legible words printed in two-foot-long lettering on the San Diego Downtown Hotel. This place had seen better days. Troubled faces looked down from the top floor, once a luxury hotel, now descended to a flop house. It was a place off the street for $20 a day, $100 a week.

  “Cheap, and convenient,” Jose´ said. The two men walked into the lobby. Jose´ said “One room, two twins, ground floor please, one week,” he spoke in Spanish. The hotel clerk took the $200 dollars handed over in $20 bills and said nothing.

  Jose´ looked at JC and said, “I am your new babysitter until we find that Chevelle. You will sleep in the bed next to the bathroom.” The two men spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday night in the flophouse. Jose´ kept the younger man in his sights at all times.

  JC was startled by a Jose´ on Monday morning, who handed him a paper cup of coffee and a cinnamon donut.

  With a big foot to and a push to JC’s rear, Jose´ pushed JC out into the dismal lobby. “Sorry honey, Jose´ joked, “our honeymoon is over.”

  The two men left the small room and walked out into the lobby of the time-worn hotel. “Reagan, you know, their President, let out all the crazy gringos from the mental wards,” Jose´ said, pointing to the people loitering near the San Diego Hotel. Jose´ said “and some of these people, living like this, they use their government payouts, their social security to buy our product.”

  Jose´ glanced at his watch and finally shared with JC the purpose of this field trip to the downtown area. “We’re going to the federal courthouse to make sure they shut up. You are coming as well, don’t talk.” The two men passed through the courthouse security quickly.

  Jose´ and JC streamed through the panel of glass doors with the courthouse tide returning from lunch. JC was pushed by the swarm of office workers. Jose´ elbowed JC, as he recognized familiar probation officers, and I.R.S. Special Agents, along with the nameless, rude court clerks of prior dealings. Some federal workers carried take out with them, returning to the confined cubicles, regulated by time-clocks and rigid regulations. Jose´ explained to JC, that this was the sustenance of the federal bureaucracy. For Jose´, seeing this sorry lot just confirmed his career choice.

  Jose´ led the way, parting the herds of people with his girth and muscle. As they navigated the courthouse hallways, JC realized, he was not just seeing the courthouse, as an afterthought, this was a communication from the organization to him. “No escape from the cartel. Ha-ha,” was the message. JC swallowed. This was no errand, but his very own remedial lesson in loyalty.

  This was a club he could join, but never quit. Not in Mexico, not in America. The cartel will find you anywhere and even watch your very public trial in a United States Federal Court House. The cartel will send enforcers to watch and write down everything said at trial. Everywhere, there will be eyes, ears, and the long arm of the lawless, with a slow, and lingering death for those who think that the cartel could forget that their family could die as well.

  For the last ten years, JC had listened to his cartel bosses and babysitters. He overheard the conversations about the Americans, the Feds, the United States Attorney’s Office, the law, and the prosecutor’s agenda. JC had dared to ask Uncle Ramon this nagging question. “Uncle, are we working together with them, to keep the price of drugs so high?” He got a wry smile as his answer.

  The footsteps of the two men echoed through the polished courthouse hallways. Jose´ walked quickly and with purpose. Not once did he stop to ask for directions.

  It a
ppeared to JC that Jose´ had clearly been in this courthouse before, perhaps, many times before. After a series of turns, they found a bank of elevators. To the right of the elevators, Jose´ scanned his finger on posted calendars for each courtroom. Jose´ paused at the schedule for Courtroom Ten. Jose´ motioned to JC and they rode the elevator up to the top floor. Jose´ whispered, “Courtroom 10.”

  Before the doors could close, a wiry man, in a well-worn dark blue Brook Brothers suit, scanned the two Mexican men slowly. He then gave them both a condescending smile. The three men rode together in silence.

  The blonde man motioned with his hand to permit Jose´ and JC to exit first. The blonde man then followed them, as the elevator door closed with a rickety vibration. Jose´ walked down the broad hallway, with floors waxed to a mirror-like gleam. He arrived at the destination, and read aloud the princely placard etched in six-inch-tall brass letters at the wide entrance to the courtroom:

  “The Honorable McKinley L Mack, United States District Judge, Courtroom Ten.”

  With the blonde man trailing behind them, both Jose´ and JC seated themselves in the courtroom to the immediate right of the entrance doors, in the last row of the courtroom.

  As they quietly filed in, they saw an old man in a black robe, with his entire face distorted by a broad sneer. Jose´ elbowed JC and nodded with his head at the attractive court reporter, a strawberry blonde in a tight sweater. She typed away in the work pit below the judge’s bench. JC could hear the tap-tap-tap of the stenography machine recording every word emitted, like a slightly muffled wood-pecker. JC turned to see the source of another sound, high-pitched and loud coming from a young woman, expensively dressed, blonde and smiling.

  “Oh, your honor, of course my client is inn-o-cent. That is why he has taken this matter to a jury trial. He has proclaimed he is innocent, from my very first meeting with him.”

  “Thank you Miss Vandeweghe, that will be enough!” Judge Mack interjected with a wave of his hand, and an amused look of disbelief. Sitting in front of the two men was a woman in the front row of the audience.

  She had filed in minutes before them, and sat in the precise spot Jo had requested, front seat, directly behind the prosecutor’s table.

  Carmen did not turn around from her place to notice the entry of her wayward boyfriend, JC.

  JC sat impassively on the hard courtroom bench. His uncle words at last made sense in this setting “The foundational myth of America,” Uncle Ramon had said, “is that judges are more wise, knowledgeable and moral.” Sitting in a courtroom for the first time, it occurred to him that he was supposed to pretend that somehow the angry old man on the bench should be respected like the purity of a priest and the erudition of a professor. JC knew better.

  The judge directed a new tirade to the other young woman in the court room, standing near the jury box. JC deduced, by the laws of elimination, she must be the prosecutor.

  “Ms. Gemma, I ass-ume the Government is prepared to proceed immediately,” the old man said.

  In a conservative blue pin-striped suit, and a man-tailored white shirt, the young woman looked anything but feminine. JC searched for the word, and released it from the tip of his tongue, “Androgino” in Spanish. Cool. The girl was so man-tailored she had all except for the tie, and well the dick. The pantsuit prosecutor said,” Your honor, the motion hearing was last week. The defendant was arrested on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17. This is an extremely serious case, with a lot of investigation.”

  Judge Mack shook his head in agreement and then held up his hand. He had heard enough. He was the law. It was time to lay it down. “Ms. Gemma, I have heard the Government’s position. The court is well acquainted with those border busts. Whether it is 50 pounds of marijuana in a car or 2000 kilograms of cocaine in a truck, the evidence, the investigation and the trial are same. I myself have brought a case to trial in 10 days,” Judge Mack said.

  JC saw the pantsuit slump in her chair. He then noticed the lady defense lawyer glide over in her high heels to her client, the prisoner. This was a man, both Jose´ and JC knew as a long-time commercial trucker and employee of their organization. The defense lawyer touched Garuda’s back softly with her well-manicured hand, accentuated by long pink nails, which were visible to JC in the back row of the spectator seating.

  Heidi in Spanish, combined with her Milwaukee accent whispered, “This is good.” Garuda, deliberately did not use a Spanish language interpreter for the most intimate conversations with his lawyer, on her advice. Soon upon meeting, Heidi shared with him her favorite quote by Benjamin Franklin “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. Despite her Midwest roots, Heidi was both discreetly bilingual and even more secretly, bisexual. The interpreter, her highly paid services unneeded, quietly reviewed the New York Times Cross Word Puzzle in ink. Heidi and Garuda exchanged words with no witnesses.

  19

  Border Bust

  Garuda Gordon Cordero shook his head as Heidi talked, looking serious, as Heidi instructed. Both prisoner and judge looked pleased. Judge Mack enjoyed the tranquility of a courtroom moments before the commencement of trial. The crux of democracy, is what Judge Mack was proud to call his courtroom. Garuda Garrett Cordero was comforted to see the familiar faces of his compadres, JC and Jose´. He felt safe, knowing they were there, reassuring his lady lawyer, there was a $100,000 “acquittal” bonus at the end for a job well done.

  Garuda liked ritual. He was familiar with the liturgy of the Catholic Church. “This courtroom,” Heidi advised “was the Church of Justice, complete with the sacraments and splendor of vestments, holy relics, traditions, unassailable authority, recited in an archaic language.” Heidi told him, “instead of the 10 Commandments, the Americans had the 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. They even have a statue of Moses in the Congress.” This made sense to Garuda. It made sense to put faith in a document, in a promise. Garuda enjoyed the services of the curvaceous certified court interpreter, so he could half-listen to the words of the angry old man.

  Judge Mack continued “Counsel, this is a garden variety border bust. As such, there will be no attorney void dire. This is not an opportunity for you to argue your case.” Judge Mack theatrically gestured with his bifocals, that he had momentarily removed from the bridge of his nose. “Ladies, the point of voir dire, or jury selection is to get a fair jury, not charm their pants off.”

  The two female attorneys exchanged smiles, at Judge Mack’s comment.” Heidi took the cue, “Your honor, Miss Gemma has provided I and the defense team with full discovery. Heidi understood any delay meant opportunity for further investigation by the Government. This would be bad as she also knew that Garuda was oh, so guilty.

  Heidi understood the job well. It was to get Garuda off, without losing her law license. Starting trial today would mean an end to the investigation. Federal agents would not get more time to carefully collect circumstantial evidence against her client. This could be achieved through trash runs, mail covers, telephone record searches, and additional interviews with a busload of witnesses. In other trials she had lost, Heidi had cross-examined federal agents who picked through her client’s garbage cans, taped together shredded notes, and intercepted mail deliveries.

  Heidi, a proud graduate of Columbia Law School, had told her clients repeatedly “Don’t throw anything away. If you want to be truly safe, burn it. And talk in person.” Foolishly, many believed that in America nothing happened without a warrant.

  But on the balance, of course, crime paid. Crime paid for her beach front house in La Jolla, her Cadillac, her designer clothes and her positions on charitable boards across San Diego. In public, she voiced her ardor to protect each person’s Constitutional Rights, but when she washed the artifice off her face every night, she was left with affluence and a dirty conscience.

  “May I have a moment your honor, to confer with my client,” Heidi said. Missing nothing, Judge Mack admired Heidi’s trim, stylish figure and shapely, 33- year-old legs. Jo waited si
lently at the prosecutor’s table, the one closet to the jury box. This was the federal court equivalent to the home team dugout in Major League Baseball. The prosecutor was the home team in federal court. They got the table and the side of the courtroom closest to the jury, so they could make eye contact. The prosecutor got the opening statement and the closing argument. The prosecutor got to ask the first questions of the jury. But the defense got Reasonable Doubt.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Jo observed Garuda Gordon staring at her, unabashedly and unapologetically. Or so she thought. Instead, Garuda was looking beyond that table to his friends in the back. Jo followed his gaze, and stared at the blonde man in the Brooks Brothers suit. It was Special Agent Jason Teeter, scion of a rich San Francisco family. Teeter had been upfront about his ambition when they first met on this case. He was perfecting his Spanish, and his knowledge of tequila as a federal agent for a few years, with plans to go back to get his M.B.A. at the Ivy League. His fair complexion, and East Coast suit made him easy to spot in the courtroom.

  With Heidi still speaking to the defendant, Jo approached Teeter. She bent down to speak softly to the special agent, “Jason, double back with all the witnesses on the list and make sure the first five are seated outside this courtroom by 11 a.m. Mack is hell-bent on breaking the land speed record for fastest Border Bust ever tried.” Jo’s sole consolation was her belief she would go to prison following the jury trial.

  Special Agent Teeter looked at her with aquamarine eyes, and Jo did not melt. Jo said, “To be clear, here is a witness list. Make sure they are set tight and sitting here. Of course, Jacobo Sanchez.” “I told them all to show up after lunch, but we can get them here ASAP and their butts will be sitting on those hard courtroom benches within the hour. They are probably on their second cup of coffee at the U.S. Ulysses Hotel across the street and are browsing the Sports Section of the newspaper,” Teeter said. He had no intention of making this a career, so he spoke his mind. Jo dispatched Teeter to shepherd the witnesses. As Teeter pulled open the cumbersome oak door separating the courtroom from the hallway, Jo touched his muscled arm. She ordered,” Tell Jacobo we need the cocaine, all 2000 kilos to put into evidence for the jury.” Teeter sighed and under his breath, and said “Pain in the ass.” “That’s right this is dog n’ pony, shown n’ tell. Those jurors get to play with millions of dollars’ worth of blow, but they must convict our Defendant,” Jo said. “Let’s put on the show,” Jo said.