By the time summer arrived, CJ showed me another hustle that he had going. We went to Kuhio Avenue and rented a hotel room. Once we had the room, we went up and down the avenue letting all the prostitutes know that we had a room available, where it was, and how much it would cost them to rent from us by the hour. We already knew most of these girls anyway from selling them dope. Now we were sort of providing them with a safe place to turn their tricks. One of us would stand outside the door to make sure that the johns wouldn’t get mean or refuse to pay. We weren’t pimps exactly because they kept all the money they made. They would just pay us ten dollars per trick for the room and whatever safety we could provide. We also sold them and their tricks dope if they wanted any. And it worked great.
As trust developed between us and the girls, they started treating us more like family than business partners. One girl in particular, an absolutely stunning, tall Chinese girl named Rashia, was always after me to “buy” her. She’d come up behind me, put her hand on my crotch, and ask me, “When are you ever gonna spend some money on me, baby?” It’s not that I was still innocent or shy around women, but this girl was so stunning, so traffic-stopping beautiful that just being three feet away from her left me tongue-tied, intimidated, and stuttering like a fool. And the more tongue-tied I got, the bigger the kick she got out of it.
The “trick pad” business we were running took off in a huge way. Pretty soon we were renting two and three hotel rooms at a time. A big part of our success is that we treated the girls right. We didn’t abuse them, shake them down for money, and ask for free sex. It was just a business with us and I knew that if we just kept treating the girls with a certain amount of respect, they’d keep using our trick pads. When it got to the point that we were making $2,000 a night each, we decided to split the chores. One of us would work the trick pads at the hotels and the other would hit the nightclubs and sell dope. We pooled our money to buy the dope and, just like the girls, CJ and I didn’t try to screw each other over. It was straight-up business. With things going from bad to worse between me and Amanda, I moved out of her apartment and moved in with CJ, who had an amazing condo on Kapiolani Boulevard right by the canal. This wasn’t some rathole. It was luxury living for the well-heeled people who could afford it.
It amazed me at the time how quickly I went from wanting to be a Marine, get married, and have a family, to falling back on my evil ways of dealing drugs on the street. I was back in my comfort zone. Whenever I wasn’t too busy, I went to visit my parents. They aren’t fools and they can tell that I’m up to no good. I don’t have a “job,” but I’m driving a new car, wearing great clothes, and seem to have all the money I need. I was a little sheepish going over there, but I really did miss them and my little brothers and sister. In spite of their fears, they let me take my siblings out to eat, to the beach, and spend money on them buying clothes and things they wanted.
On one particular afternoon visiting the family, I ran into Chou on the street. It was an awkward meeting and while I regretted it later, we went to the beach that day and had sex later that evening. But it wasn’t the same. It was more mechanical and completely stripped of the passion we once had for each other. It left me feeling empty. Later I found out from my sister that Chou had hooked up with a girl from Alabama and the two of them had gotten a reputation as a couple of tramps. They banged any Marine that got them drunk and showed them a good time. I felt devastated. I thought of how different it all could have been and it just made me harder.
PART TWO
EDUCATION
10
Big D’s Tickets
I was living the party life and, inevitably, the party has to end. One day CJ told me that he was too wired from the night before to sleep so he was going to the International Market to sell some weed. I told him I was going to sleep and we’d hook up later in the afternoon. I was with a girl named Linda at the time who looked almost like a twin to Valerie Bertinelli. She was frequently approached on the beach or on the street by people wanting to know if she was Valerie and would she give them her autograph. Soon after we fell asleep, there was a loud knock on the door. It was one of the street dealers we knew named Kalani. He said, “CJ just got busted. He had a fanny pack full of coke, weed, and acid. He got busted selling to an undercover cop.”
I woke Linda up and told her to start making some phone calls for me. While she was on the phone, I started throwing everything in the house into a big plastic bag. We had sheets of acid (one hundred hits per sheet), an ounce and a half of cocaine, and about two pounds of weed. Plus, there was about $12,000 in cash in the condo. I took the bag with the cash and lifted up a ceiling tile. I stashed the bag over a heating duct. We also had a .380 semiauto pistol, which I stuck in my waistband. I took the bag with the dope and left the condo.
We were living on the seventh floor. There was a six-feet-three-inch, 350-pound pimp on the sixth floor named Big D. He ran between three and four girls on the street. Big D and I always got along, and a few times in the past, CJ and I got one of his girls out of trouble. Her trick didn’t want to pay, so we stepped in and convinced the guy to pay. Big D even bought all his dope from us. I went to Big D’s apartment and told him the story and that I wanted to stash the dope with him in case the cops came to our apartment. He said no problem and took the dope, except for the coke, which I kept with me. My plan was to get the cash from the apartment and go bail CJ out.
By the time I got upstairs, Linda had found out that CJ was being held at Honolulu PD and they were going to transport him to the county jail on Sand Island. As Linda and I were getting ready to go, the phone rings and it’s CJ. He was already in the county jail and told us that they were holding him for drug trafficking and they set bail at $500,000. He told me to stay put and that he was sending his brother to the condo to pick up his stuff.
I knew CJ’s brother and knew enough about him that I didn’t trust him. He was in the Army, stationed at Fort Shafter. And even though he was a user and occasionally bought some of the girls we knew, there was something about him that made me feel like I needed some backup if he was coming over. Linda had a brother named Tom who was about six feet two inches, a very buff surfer and at the same time he was a heroin user. He was at the point of being addicted and I knew he’d do anything for heroin. I told Linda to tell him we’d give him some dope but he needed to come over right now. The minute he showed up, I took him downtown to Hamburger Mary’s. It was a local gay hangout where I sold a lot of dope, everything except heroin, that is. There was a guy there who sold heroin and we tracked him down. A guy named Scott owned the place and he was forever hitting on me and saying that he’d give me whatever I wanted if I became his boyfriend. Although he was usually kidding, at the same time he wasn’t. It didn’t matter. I knew I was never going there and he knew that I would never switch teams. He knew Linda anyhow and most of that bantering was friendly. Scott would put on an air guitar contest once a week and Linda and another girlfriend of hers had won the contest three separate times in the past. It got to the point that it was cheaper for him to pay Linda and her girlfriend to just host and entertain during the air guitar contest, so he paid the two girls to do just that.
The guy we were looking for was named Spider. We found him, bought our heroin, and went back to the apartment. Within a few minutes, Tom was cooking his fix and had tied off. I hadn’t done heroin in years by this time. Since hitting the island and long before, I kept it to coke, acid, and weed. But watching him made me remember the rush. I asked him if I gave him some coke, could he cook up a speedball—combination heroin and cocaine. He said sure.
I gave him the coke and went into the living room to Linda. She was watching a new channel on TV called MTV. They showed nothing but music videos. I wondered at the time if anybody would ever sit in front of the TV and watch nothing but music videos all day. I guess history proved that people would. A few minutes later, Tom calls me into the bedroom. He asks me, “Are
you sure you done this before?” I told him not to sweat it. I just asked him to help me tie off and find a vein. He was a pro. He found a vein right away and shot about 30 cc of speedball into me. The first thing that hit was the cocaine. I got this mean rush and then my ears started ringing. Then the heroin kicked in and I started staggering. I got dizzy and had to sit down. I’m rushing from the heroin with a warm feeling and then it got ugly and I had to throw up. I run to the bathroom and puke my guts out. I’m floating and at the same time I’m throwing up. Linda comes into the bathroom to see what’s wrong and I told her I was fine. I brushed my teeth and went back to the living room. But by now I’m nodding out. She asks what’s wrong again and I told her I was just a little sick.
• • •
By now it’s three thirty in the afternoon and CJ’s brother hasn’t shown up yet. So we continue chilling out and waiting. Tom is such an idiot that he keeps giving me these knowing smiles and winks. All he was doing, of course, was making Linda more suspicious. He behaved like a teenage girl trying to keep a secret and at the same time doing everything he could to give it away.
It’s almost time to go to work, but I have to wait for CJ’s brother. So I go downstairs to Big D’s apartment and I ask him if he could send one of his girls to rent a room for the night. I gave him a hundred-dollar bill and told him to tell the girl to get a fifty- or sixty-dollar room and for her to keep the change.
A few minutes later, I get a call from CJ again and he says he’s been booked and is going to need money. I tell him there’s no problem with the money and he says that his brother is on his way right now. He tells me to help his brother pack up his stuff. “Are you coming back?” I ask him.
“I don’t think so,” he says. “At least not for a long time.”
I asked him if he wanted me to keep the business going and he said yes. He said his brother would tell me about that.
When his brother showed up shortly after that, he walked in with a giant attitude. I wasn’t having any of it, so I had to verbally check him. Right away he pulls in his horns and pretends nothing happened. We went into CJ’s room and started packing. Then he asked me, “Where’s CJ’s money?”
“You mean me and CJ’s money, right?”
“You wouldn’t have no money if CJ hadn’t put you to work,” he said.
So here it comes, I think to myself. He’s going to try to punk me. I told him to hold on and I’ll go get it. I went into the living room and told Linda to go downstairs and see if he had come with anybody else. I wanted to know if this guy had brought a backup guy with him.
I took Tom back into the bedroom with me and told CJ’s brother, “Me and CJ hustled together to earn that money. I was going to give you his half so he could have it. But now I don’t trust you since you’re trying to punk me for my half. So tell CJ I have his money and I’ll hold it for him until he gets home. So as for you, fuck you. Take his stuff and get the fuck out of here.”
There’s no hiding the fact that I was dead serious. He looked at Tom and then grabs all CJ’s stuff. Tom and I help him. By this time, Linda has come back and tells me that the guy is alone. So we all grab something and take CJ’s stuff to his brother’s car. Before he leaves, CJ’s brother looks at me in what was supposed to be a threatening way and says, “I’ll be back.”
I say that’s cool. “I have no place to go and I’ll be right here.”
After he took off, I told Linda that we were going to stay at her place for a while. She was living with her brother and another roommate. We packed up some of my stuff and got it into the car. I went to Big D’s apartment and asked him for my bag back. He gave it to me and I told him I’d be staying at Linda’s place for a little while. Just to show my gratitude, I broke off some dope and gave it to him as thanks.
When we got to Linda’s place, I met Jay, another California transplant surfer dude. Jennifer, her other roommate, was there too. By this time I’d known Jennifer for a few months. I first met her at Hamburger Mary’s, where Linda and Jennifer would do their sexy air guitar show and just clean house. Jennifer was nineteen, blond, about five feet eight inches, mesmerizing emerald-green eyes, and a body that would qualify her for a Victoria’s Secret catalog or a Sports Illustrated cover shot.
I told Linda that I had to go to work. But first I had to go to my parents’ house way across the island. I told her where the trick pad was that night and she should meet me there later and help me run it. She said okay, but she asked me if I could take Jennifer to a place she needed to get to. It was somebody’s apartment. I said okay but we had to move. Jennifer and I got into the car and she realizes that we’re going back to my apartment. She asked why. I asked her if she could keep a secret. She looked at me a while and said, “That depends.” I told her that I didn’t trust Tom and I didn’t trust Linda not to tell Tom everything she knew about me and my business. I told her I had to go back to my place to get some money.
We went back to the apartment, where I stopped at Big D’s again to get the key for that night’s trick pad. We went to my apartment where, before opening the door, I pulled out my .380 just in case someone was there. I didn’t need to worry. The place was still empty. I pulled out a chair and moved the ceiling tile in the kitchen out of the way and pulled out the ziplock baggy with $12,000 in it. By now, I totally have Jennifer’s undivided attention. I told her I was going to take the money to my parents’ house and asked if she wanted to come along for the drive. She was up for it.
When we got to my parents’ place, I told them I was just there to pick up some clothes. I went to my old room, took $2,000 for walking-around money, and left the remaining $10,000 hidden in the room.
I have to admit that I was attracted to Jennifer from the first day I met her. I mean, who wouldn’t be. She was gorgeous, she had none of the attitude that often comes with great beauty, and she didn’t seem to mind living right at the edge of the illegal world. She knew what I did for a living and I think it actually made me more attractive to her. Later on, after I took her to California with me, my grandmother gave her the nickname of La Muñeca—The Doll.
On the ride back, we start talking and she made the startling admission that she’d always been attracted to me. But because she was a friend of Linda’s, she never let on. I told her I felt the same about her. We went to the trick pad to make sure we were ready for business, but before we hung out the shingle that night, Jennifer and I had sex in the trick pad. Afterward, she said that we should be together. I totally agreed. But right now, things were up in the air. Chances were that I couldn’t go back to my apartment. Linda for sure wouldn’t have us under the same roof. We agreed to keep our secret between us for now and she would try to work something out.
The next few weeks, things limped along as usual. Except now I’m using more and more heroin with Tom and Jay. And I’m sneaking around with Jennifer. Then one night, Tom asked me if I had my pistol with me. By this time, Tom and Jay had been helping me with the trick pad and with selling dope. I asked him why he wanted the pistol. He told me that he was tired of dealing with Spider, his heroin connection at Hamburger Mary’s, and wanted to take him down.
I told Tom I wouldn’t let him have the gun but if he needed help with Spider, I’d like to go along with him. We were all at the mall selling dope, and Linda was there as well. And she piped up and said she wanted to go too. I told Tom to go set it up.
About an hour later, Tom called and said that Linda and I should meet him at her house. When we got there, Jay was also there. Tom set it up with Spider that Spider would come by and take Tom to Spider’s house to buy a quarter ounce of heroin. Tom needed $500 as “show” money that indicated that this was a serious buy. Linda, Jay, and I waited in the car. When Spider showed up to pick up Tom, we followed them at a distance to make sure Spider wouldn’t see us following them.
When they got to Spider’s house, I parked on the street and waited. About ten minut
es later, Tom came out of the house and told us to come in. When we got in the house, we saw that Spider was tied up on the floor, wearing just his underwear. Spider was cursing at us and yelling that we were going to be in trouble if we did this. We searched the whole house, but all we came up with was a little bit of cash, some junk jewelry, and some weed. No big score. Tom grabbed Spider and slapped him around a few times, asking him where the heroin was. Spider held out for maybe ten seconds before he told Tom, “It’s in the kitchen.” A minute later, Tom came out of the kitchen with a chunk of heroin about the size of a baseball. Heroin! A big chunk of it.
We grab the heroin and go back to the trick pad. We break it up equally and we each walk away with a nice payday. Linda and I went back to her apartment while Jay and Tom went off to do whatever they did. About an hour later, Tom calls and tells us that Jay is in the hospital. Somebody beat him up really bad. His face was completely swollen, he had broken ribs and a broken arm. Tom said this was payback for having ripped Spider off for his dope. When we went to see Jay in the hospital, he told us that we’d all be killed if we didn’t give back the dope we stole. Jay and Tom want to give it back. But Linda and I say no. I told them that even if we did give it back, they’d probably still kill us just to teach us a lesson.
The first thing I thought of was getting off the island. I went to Big D and asked him for his advice. He told me he had a couple of airline tickets to California if I wanted them. I told him I did. Linda and Tom said they had an uncle in Waipahu who had some kind of criminal connection and they went to see him to try to straighten the mess. I couldn’t count on that. I needed to leave. I grabbed whatever stuff I had at Linda’s place with the intention of going back to the condo. As luck would have it, Jennifer was at Linda’s place as well. She already knew what happened and she says that if I’m leaving for California, she wanted to come with me. The condo was paid through the end of the month so I still had the key, so we go there to pull together whatever I had left there. While we’re packing, Sherry, one of the girls, came up and told me that Big D had the tickets. Jennifer and I fell asleep because we’d been up all night and we were crashing bad.
Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man Page 9