Cartel Wives

by Mia Flores

  Outside on the streets, things weren’t half that orderly. There were gang emblems, graffiti, and murals on every garage door and corner building. People refused to become immune to the mess, like they had on 26th Street, so they’d buy white paint to cover them all up. But no matter how much our neighbors tried keeping up the neighborhood, it never stopped the gangbangers from writing on the walls the next day. I knew an old Mexican man who was so worried that one of them would see a rival’s graffiti on his house, then do a random drive-by, that he used his hard-earned paycheck to buy paint every single week.

  Believe it or not, though, when I was that young, it didn’t affect me. I was more concerned with how uncomfortable things were in our house than outside of it. I think people stereotype low-income, minority communities like Little Village as being “bad neighborhoods,” where terrible things happen right out in the open and you’re in danger all the time. I didn’t feel that way. When I was little, I didn’t witness anyone shooting up or sniffing lines of coke on the street corners. There weren’t any crackheads stumbling down the street. You just didn’t see those things out in the open. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that people didn’t do drugs, but it just seemed like there was order. My father told me early on that there were rules and laws called “street codes.” He said, “If a gang member’s caught doing hardcore drugs, he’ll get beaten up by other gang members. It’s called ‘a violation.’” Sure, you could see the gang members and dealers from a mile away because of their flashy cars and their gold jewelry, but they still had rules, so to speak.

  Just before I turned ten, my dad started going to the police academy. If there was anyone who was meant to be a cop, it was him. You know when a police officer walks into a room, you can just see their whole aura? That was my dad. My mom had been working for years in the transportation business, and living with my grandparents had allowed them to save some money. My mom was pregnant with my sister, and the thought of having one more person cramped into that house was terrible. It was high time to move.

  I’d been going to a private school on 69th Street, on the South Side, and my parents had been looking around there for a house for years. Finally, they found something they could afford, and we packed up our things and moved. The neighborhood, West Lawn, was only five miles away from my grandparents’ place in Little Village, but it seemed like a different world. This is wonderful, I thought. This is where people with real jobs live. West Lawn was populated by city workers and their families, so it was solidly working class, but everybody wanted to create a better life for their families. And they did; it was basically little kid heaven. You could ride your bike and be outside all day long, like you were in a small town rather than the city. Our neighbors became our good friends, and we looked forward to block parties every summer. Everyone would sit on their front porches and talk to each other while the kids played games on the sidewalk. All my little neighbor friends went to the same Catholic school, and our parents were all living the same life, trying to make the same dreams come true—through honest means.

  Sure, the “bad neighborhoods” were just a few miles away, where my own grandparents still lived and where we visited every weekend, but we felt like we were far from that. Unlike Olivia, I never had to learn to navigate the divisions within that type of neighborhood. Olivia knew the dynamics of gangs and drugs, and how to avoid crossfire by never driving down certain streets. I didn’t have to do that; by the time I moved, I was above the fray. Where Olivia knew boundaries, I just saw streets.

  Because my dad was a cop, though, I’d hear stories. Chicago was sort of a war zone in the early 1990s, and you’d constantly hear about innocent people losing their lives because of violence. When Dad left the house every day, sometimes in the morning and sometimes at night, depending on what hours he’d been assigned, I’d feel a pit in my stomach. Every now and then I’d see on the news about a cop getting shot, and I’d think, Oh, God. That could have been my sweet dad. If he was on the night shift, Mom would sleep maybe three hours all night. This was before cell phones were popular, so when he was on the streets he couldn’t call us. We’d just have to wait for him to get back to his desk or show up at the front door when he got off duty.

  Then he joined a special unit and traded in his blue uniform for street clothes, and the danger he faced every day really started to hit home.

  One Sunday night when I was in middle school my family went out to dinner at one of the nicer Mexican restaurants in Little Village. They had a mariachi band playing, and we were all sitting around the table, my little sister on a booster seat and my baby brother in his high chair. Dad loved mariachi bands—we all did—and we were just happily sitting there listening to them and trying to pick out what to order.

  Suddenly, I saw my dad’s face change from completely sunny and happy to white, like he’d just seen a ghost.

  “What is it, Dad?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Just order.”

  He was trying to play it cool, but his face said it all. He was scared out of his fucking mind. I was facing him, and I turned around and saw a crowd of gang members getting situated at a large table. They were glaring at my dad.

  “Turn around. Don’t look their way. I need to go make a call.” He pushed his chair back and got up.

  We just sat there looking at each other. Probably five minutes went by, and then, finally, my mom broke the ice. Under her breath she whispered, “He put a few of those guys away, and I think one just got out.”

  I wanted to get up and run, but I forced myself to stay seated. The gangbangers kept looking at our table, then one of them would stand up and go outside. He’d return, then another one would get up. Every time they did their chairs would scrape against the floor, making this loud errrrr sound, and I swear to God the mariachi guys would start to sing louder, like they were nervous, too.

  Finally, my dad returned, but he had a uniformed cop in tow.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I stood up and lifted my baby brother out of his high chair, and my dad led us out as fast as he could. As we marched by, all the gang members stood up, in unison.

  That was the last time we ever went to that restaurant.

  We never saw those kinds of people in West Lawn, at least not for many years. At some point when I was in high school, the gangs started to migrate to the neighborhood, just a few people here and there at first, then crowds of them. You’d see them driving around in their jacked-up Chevys with rims, blaring music so loud it trembled through the streets. They wore their colors and their hats tilted to one side to represent whichever gang they belonged to, even though someone could have shot them with just one look at their colors. Maybe they’re proud of who they are, I wondered, and then I realized that it was more than that. They just weren’t afraid. Most of them had teardrops tattooed on their faces, showing everybody how many people they’d killed.

  Every single time I saw them, I hated them. These guys were completely disgusting. They would yell out obscene words to my girlfriends and me while we walked to and from school. At first we just ignored them, then eventually we started yelling back.

  “Leave us the fuck alone!”

  They’d answer, “You stuck-up bitches.”

  Other than yelling, what was I really going to do? Nothing, that’s what. My dad was a police officer putting guys like that away, and our home was safe and normal. Mom and Dad made sure of it. I went to a nice private school right down the road and had had the same best friend since kindergarten. I made good grades and became a cheerleader. I did my homework on the kitchen table. I went to Catholic church on Sunday with my grandma, and like every kid, pretended I was sick one Sunday a month so I could skip it. Other than that, I was as good a daughter as you could ever wish for, and I did it because it was expected of me. Succeeding and making a good life was what people in my neighborhood did. And if I slacked off, I wouldn’t be letting just my parents down, but my little brother and sister as well.

  My m
om had always taken her career seriously, and by the time I was in high school her intelligence and drive had helped her to reach the top. She’d done it without a college education, too. She was happy with what she did—really happy—and after living with my grandparents cramped in a tiny house for so long, she deserved it. “Find something you love, and work at it!” she’d always say to me, and I admired her for it. She put in long hours and traveled all across the Midwest, and with my dad working nights a lot, there was really no one to take care of the house and my little brother and sister. Except me.

  My little brother was just a baby then, and I spent every day after school and all summer babysitting him. If I ever wanted to go out on a weekend, I would do all my chores Monday through Friday. They weren’t even chores; it was deep cleaning. Then I’d start cooking, so by the time my mom got home at seven thirty or eight, we would have dinner together, as a family. That’s what mom wanted, so it’s what she got.

  My responsibilities were never-ending, but today, I’m grateful I had them. I learned the importance of taking care of your family, and while they might have sucked at the time, they served me well in the long run.

  Was I perfect then? Maybe I tried to be, but in the end, who really is? My biggest mistake came when I started dating in high school. During my sophomore year, I met a guy named Mark Jones. He was three years older than me, and his dream in life was to be a cop. Of course, I grew up with police officers, and I worshipped my dad. I knew how hard they all worked, sometimes two or three side jobs to be able to afford Chicago’s sky-high taxes. I liked what those guys stood for, so I was drawn to Mark right away. Soon, I was falling for him in that high school way, when you think you’ve got everything figured out, even though you’re only fifteen. This is exactly the kind of person I should be with, I thought. You grow up with this life, you stick with it.

  I dated him for three years, through his time in the academy and during his first year as a cadet. We broke up when I was eighteen, and I’m so glad I did. He was arrogant, and he was a cheater. He thought he was God’s gift to the world, and after a few years I really started to see him for who he was. I knew he wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be with, and thank God I figured that out because he ended up being a criminal as well as an asshole.

  In 2012, Mark was sentenced to two months in jail after one of the biggest corruption scandals in the Chicago police force’s history. Over the course of his career, he assisted his colleagues in stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from suspected drug dealers during traffic stops and unlawful searches of their homes. From all the good things cops do, like protecting the city and your family, you’d think they’d all be loyal and honest. Nine times out of ten, I think they are. Look at my dad. But there are bad apples in the bunch, like my ex.

  It would take getting to know my future husband and seeing what he went through with the police to show me how true that is.

  CHAPTER 3

  Junior

  Olivia

  After Leo went to prison in 1998, I was done with him, so I filed for divorce. That’s when I hooked up with K.

  Everybody called Kevin Garcia by his nickname, K. He was a high-ranking leader of the Latin Kings and ran Little Village. He didn’t look like your average gangbanger—you didn’t see him on a street corner dressed in black and gold—but he didn’t have to. He was somebody important. I’d seen him around for a while, starting back when I was going to house parties in high school, and I’d always felt an attraction to him. He was so powerful, and I was drawn to that. He had nice cars and iced-out jewelry. He was flashy and flamboyant, which was right up my alley because that’s what I liked: loud. He moved a lot of drugs through Little Village and all over Chicago, but he owned a restaurant, which made him legit on paper.

  Before Leo got arrested, and we had to forfeit everything, I was always in designer clothes. I’d gotten a boob job—back when no one else was getting one—and people called me the “Million-Dollar Bitch.” It was hard not to notice me, and K had—from the first time he saw me one night. He didn’t start to go after me until my husband went to prison, though. The case was all over the news. He started pursuing me because he wanted to be with me, not because I had money. After all, he had plenty of his own.

  He’d come by my mom’s house constantly, trying to seek me out. I never gave in, until finally, one day, I did.

  “Okay, I’ll go out with you.” A big smile spread across his face.

  My dad walked the streets as a cop every day, and he knew trouble when he saw it. He was protective of his little girl, and he hated K on sight.

  “How can you be with someone like that?” he asked. “He’s a punk.”

  Even though I knew he was right, I was so in love that I didn’t give a shit. “He’s not like that anymore,” I said. “Everybody changes.” Then I flipped it on him. “You’re so judgmental.”

  K had a rap sheet a mile long, but, he treated me like gold. He was a ghetto superstar. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him: the Spanish gangs, the black gangs, drug dealers, and people whose names I never learned. Every night, he and I would go to a basketball court downtown named Hoops, and he and all the moneymakers would rent it out starting at midnight. After games, they’d talk business.

  One day in 1999, these two sweet-looking eighteen-year-old identical twins drove up in separate luxury cars. They were baby-faced, handsome, and well dressed, and even though they wore iced-out custom jewelry, designer man bags, and nice, fresh cuts, they seemed humble. I just knew they were somebody from the way everyone gravitated to them.

  “Olivia, these are my little brothers, Peter and Junior,” said K as he pulled them into a big hug.

  One of them put his hand out to shake mine. Get the fuck outta here! I thought. Nobody did that anymore; people usually just stared at my boobs, but these guys looked me straight in the eye and greeted me like a real, proper lady.

  I started talking with Junior, and I didn’t realize he was so much younger than me because he was so mature. He couldn’t have been more of a gentleman, either. K was so flamboyant, with his Gucci and Armani clothes and his big personality. But sometimes, I could see right through him. Junior was just as impressive, but he was genuine and sincere. He seemed so different. I was surprised he was in this life.

  “You’re so sweet. I have to hook you up with one of my girlfriends,” I said after we stopped talking.

  “Sure,” he said. “Just tell K to call me.”

  K told me that night that he’d started working closely with the twins. They were making big moves on the streets, and they were supplying him with quality work from Mexico. K wasn’t a street-level dealer anymore, but he oversaw them, and he was such an opportunist that Peter and Junior had become a big asset to him. In return, he gave them protection and prevented anyone from robbing them.

  Even though they were only eighteen, Peter and Junior were a big deal. They’d developed a sophisticated network of suppliers, stash houses, and workers, and they were selling narcotics to gang leaders like K. They’d made their first drug deal the year before—thirty kilos of cocaine, with a street value of almost a million dollars—and their business had boomed from that day on.

  K and the twins had all grown up in Little Village, but their motivations had been different. The twins didn’t know a life outside of the drug trade; it was something they’d been born into. Their mom had her first baby when she was only twelve, then had six more children. The twins were the youngest. Their dad had grown up in poverty on a farm in Mexico, dropped out of school in the third grade, then moved to Chicago in the 60s and started working as a forklift operator at Brach’s Candy. He made $14,000 a year, which is hard to support seven kids on, so he became what they call a coyote, smuggling illegal immigrants over the border. Then he moved up to cocaine. Pretty soon, he was bringing about thirty-five kilos over the border every month. He bought a two-story house and a new Chevrolet station wagon, living out his version of the American Dream.
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  But just before Junior and Peter were born in 1981, the feds arrested their dad for possession, taking him away while his pregnant wife and kids stood there and watched. He spent the next seven years in prison while his wife suffered, working two jobs to make ends meet, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, raising newborn twins plus five other children, and visiting her husband every chance she could. When Junior and Peter’s dad got out, they were so happy to have him in their lives and were eager to learn from him.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t the best role model. When they were seven, he asked them to put their little hands into gas tanks to fish out bricks of marijuana, then taught them to use a triple-beam scale to separate his drugs into pounds. At eight, they translated drug deals for him. By nine, they were riding in flatbed trucks across the border with him, sitting on top of tarps that covered shipments of drugs. Their dad went on the run when they were twelve, fleeing another drug charge, and their older brother, Adrian, stepped in to help raise them. Unfortunately, he went to prison for drug conspiracy, too, then after five years was deported to Mexico on the day he was released. Peter and Junior had to do something to support their family, so they used the only skill they’d ever known: drug trafficking, using their dad’s connections back in Mexico.

  Unlike K, they weren’t in a gang, and they were peaceful. K had gone to prison for aggravated battery and attempted murder, and the Latin Kings praised him while his enemies feared him. Peter and Junior didn’t even carry weapons. They needed the money; K just wanted it.