Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man

by Martin Corona

  I was given that chance of having a lot of prison daddies who guided me and kept me from trouble, so I felt it was my obligation to do the same for the next generation.

  As it turned out, Bugsy was a solid young kid. He was smart. He kept himself in good shape and he showed a real willingness to learn. He also happened to have the heart of a lion. He was serving a triple life sentence for homicide. He got dragged into a triple homicide and the guy who dragged him into it turned around and became a confidential informant for the prosecution. So basically, Bugsy would be spending the rest of his natural life in prison. That’s a tough thing to face for anybody, but for a nineteen-year-old? Bugsy never showed any bitterness.

  Johnny introduced me to Bugsy and I can see right away that he’s shy. I remember having been the same way when I was that age and introduced to guys who I’d only heard about on the streets as men who were bigger than life. So it was sort of amusing to see him being shy. Johnny leaves and I tell Bugsy to walk with me around the track. I have some weed and we smoke it as we walk. By the time we circulated the track the first time, I had put him at ease and I could see some of this kid’s qualities. Of course I knew he was from Logan Heights, one of the ally gangs to my varrio, and I knew a lot of the people he knew.

  But in fact, looking out for him wasn’t that big a job. He’d already been schooled by Johnny and his predecessors and it didn’t hurt that Bugsy had a good head on his shoulders and had a sense of humor. Soon after we met, Bugsy was transferred to Calipatria State Prison deep in the desert of Southern California. The area is brutally hot, dusty, and miserable in the summer and it doesn’t get much better in the winter.

  When he told me he was being transferred, I paid off one of the clerks in the office to get some paperwork started to have me transferred there as well. There are a lot of ways to work the system in prison if you know how and can grease the right people. Soon after Bugsy leaves, I’m on the bus to Calipatria. When I got there, I paid off some more people so that Bugsy and I would be celled up together.

  By this time, I was getting close to being paroled. But Bugsy and I decided that we needed a program. First things first and that was smuggling dope into the prison. So we set up regular visits with people on the outside and we started moving dope. I also decided that I needed some tattoo work done. I never had a chance to actually sit down and figure out what kind of ink I wanted on me. But I found this little homie in Calipatria, Baby Ray from Keystone, who did some great work that I’d seen on people I spent time with in other prisons and figured he was a good guy to do the ink. So Bugsy and I were just doing easy time and trying to fill up days with any activity we could think of. But I knew I was getting “short on the house,” meaning that my parole was coming up and that I’d be leaving.

  Then one day Bugsy told me that David Barron was his brother. Bugsy was David “Popeye” Barron’s little brother. In my world, being asked to take care of Barron’s brother was like being asked to take care of Bill Clinton’s kid. Instantly the job of looking after him had a whole new sense of serious responsibility attached. As well as high visibility with Barron and people at his level in the hierarchy.

  Barron had asked Bugsy to ask me if I wanted to go to work for him in Tijuana. At the time, I knew there was stuff going on in Tijuana (we called it TJ) involving the Mexican Mafia and the cartels, but I didn’t have any details on what was really going on. I asked Bugsy what I’d be doing for David in Tijuana.

  Bugsy said, “Moving big dope.” David Barron was working for the Arellano Félix Cartel and he was recruiting people to work for him. There was a lot of money to be made.

  At that time, the only things I knew about the cartels was what I’d seen in Scarface, Carlito’s Way, and Tequila Sunrise. I was picturing huge mansions, guys in suits driving Ferraris, and fine women scattered around swimming pools. “Where do I sign up?” I asked him, sort of kidding.

  While this notion of working for a cartel was completely alien to me, there seemed to be some possibilities there. By this time, I was twenty-nine years old. I had a wife I’d married between stints in prison who I wasn’t very close with and two kids that I was crazy about. I thought about what I’d be doing once I was paroled, but there was nothing on the horizon that seemed worthwhile. I could hit the streets again and sling dope. Party until I passed out? Then go sling more dope. Get a job somewhere on a loading dock driving a forklift again? The things that got me out of bed in the morning as a younger man—the dope, the women, and the partying—no longer seemed as appealing. I’d be acting like a thirty-year-old teenager.

  So the more I thought about the possibility of joining a big enterprise like a cartel, the more it seemed like a natural evolution. This may be the last opportunity to actually do something bigger with my life than any alternative I could think of. This next phase could be the big payoff and I could make enough to provide for my kids, at least for a long time while they go through school. And—this was crazy thinking on my part—I could finally do something that would make my father proud of me. I figured once I made enough money working for the Mexicans, I could just walk away. Get out of all of it forever and start fresh.

  Needless to say, it was pure fantasy. Wishful, uninformed thinking. What finally steered me toward working for David Barron was the news I soon got from some of my homeboys who were coming through Calipatria. My wife, Tutu, was running around “wide open” all over town. She wasn’t even making an attempt to hide her activities. I wasn’t even important enough to her to keep it from me.

  The day of my release, I was picked up at Calipatria by Bugsy’s wife, Veronica, and one of her girlfriends. They drove me to Logan Heights, where I was told that someone would contact me soon. Around five thirty that afternoon, I was told that the person I was waiting for had just crossed the border from Tijuana and would be there soon.

  I was nervous and a little frightened by this whole deal. But I gathered up the clothes I thought I’d need, swallowed hard, and waited. Eventually, a clean-cut guy about my height shows up. He’s got one of those film noir 1950s pencil mustaches and he’s all business. There was nothing about him that would make you think “cartel” when you saw him. He introduces himself as Marcos but he says that I should call him Pato, like everyone else does. I found out later he was married to David Barron’s sister. He asked me if I was ready and I said I was. Then he asked me if I had any ID on me. I said I just got out of prison, but my California driver’s license was at my mother’s house.

  He seemed a little put off, so he made a phone call. When he finished he said, “Let’s get your ID. But we need to move fast because they’re waiting for us.”

  We shoot over to my mother’s house and by the time we get there, it’s 7:30 P.M. My mom knew I was coming home and she cooked my favorite food—chili Colorado and Spanish rice. I felt awful. She went to all this trouble and here I was running in and out after eighteen months in prison and not even having the time or good manners to eat the food she cooked. I felt like the most ungrateful bastard on earth.

  I told her we had to go and asked her where my license was. She told me it was in her bedroom. So we went in there and she looks at me and says that she has a really bad feeling. There was no hiding anything from her. I felt what she was feeling. There was something not quite right about any of this. She hugged me and then she gave me a blessing. I promised that I’d call her.

  When we got back to the kitchen, Pato said, “Go ahead and eat. They can wait a little longer.” So Pato and I sat down and wolfed down all that good food until we couldn’t eat any more. After we ate, Pato thanks my mother in the nicest way possible and tells her, “Don’t worry, señora. He’ll be okay. I promise you.”

  She thanks him and then she blesses him as well. It’s a Catholic Mexican ritual where the person giving the blessing makes the sign of the cross on your forehead to bless your thoughts, then over your heart to bless your emotions, and they perform the
sign of the cross on your forehead, chest, and both shoulders to symbolize the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It always made me feel better after she did that. It was a brief, fleeting moment of peace. Or grace. Or maybe a reminder of my mother’s love.

  We got to the border in no time at all, but it took a long time to get through customs and the usual checks. By this time, whatever fear I had was replaced by simple excitement and curiosity. I got the feeling this was going to be an adventure that only happens once in a lifetime and I didn’t want to miss anything or forget even the smallest detail of this night.

  Pato and I were getting along so well and speaking so freely that before he realized it, we were at “the office.”

  “Oh, shit,” he said. “I forgot to tell you to agachate de avestruz.” I asked what that meant. He said, “You were supposed to put your head down between your knees for the last few miles so you wouldn’t be able to tell anyone where the house is or how to get there.” I told him not to worry. I couldn’t remember any of this ride, let alone the street names or where we were. “In case they ask, just tell them you did that, okay?”

  He made a call on his cell phone and within a minute a garage door slid open and revealed a large three-car garage and we drive right in. There was a white van and a black Suburban already parked there. As the garage door closes behind us, some guys come into the garage from the back. I recognize a couple of them from jail—Big Smokie and Booboo. The rest are all strangers.

  They start making introductions. I meet Puma, a youngster I’ll be spending a lot of time with in the next few months, Roach, another guy I’ll get to know well, and Big Popeye. Big Popeye should not be confused with Popeye Barron, the boss of this crew and Bugsy’s brother. Out of the three, Big Popeye is the one guy in that group you could guess was an actual gangster. You could tell from a combination of the way he carried himself and this hollowed-out, jaded look in his eyes. They were eyes that said they’d seen a lot and could no longer be concerned about the tiny, inconsequential details of life. You’d need to have something big and important for those eyes to take you with even a grain of interest. There was Cottoro, who I would later see in action in Mexico City, and Gorilla, who would eventually get arrested for the murder of Archbishop Ocampo in Guadalajara.

  And then there was a huge crew, all from Logan Heights in San Diego, who made up the bulk of our crew in that office—Tarzan, Cougar, Zigzag, Little Smokie, yet another guy named Nite Owl, and Cracks. After the introductions, they asked me about Bugsy and how he was doing. He was their homeboy and they all had a fondness for him. He was like everybody’s little brother. As we were talking, Big Popeye’s police radio crackles to life. I found out later this was an actual Tijuana police radio. They could hear everything the Tijuana cops said. The radio message said that Big D was on his way. I knew that meant David Barron. Big Popeye said, “Let’s get this place cleaned up.”

  This particular “office” is actually a five-bedroom house with a second floor, a big three-car garage, a backyard with maid’s quarters that was turned into a gym, and a basement that I got to see later. When they got the word that David was coming, the whole crew ran around cleaning the place up. Barron was a stickler for hygiene and cleanliness and he was always riding this crew because they lived like pigs. I asked Big Popeye if there was anything I could do, but he said to just kick it. These guys made the mess and they should have known better and not have waited until the last minute to clean the place up.

  Big Popeye’s radio crackles again and this time it’s David asking to have the garage door opened.

  Pato, Big Popeye, and I walked out to the garage to greet David. He stepped out of a silver Town Car looking every inch the drug gangster that you see in the movies. He was well dressed, perfectly cut hair, in great physical shape, and had the aura of a guy who was used to being in charge. He was no taller than I am, but he seemed bigger just from the way he carried himself. He smiled and shook my hand and asked me how it felt to be out. I told him it felt great. Then I told him that Bugsy gave me a letter to give him. David took the letter and walked off into a corner to read it. The other guys are talking to me while David is reading and I kept an eye on him to see if he had any reactions. I didn’t know what the letter said. For all I knew, the letter could have said, “Take this dude out.” Not that I had any reason to think that, but I was in a new world . . . I saw David chuckle a few times, and a few times I could see that he actually got emotional.

  When he’s done reading, he walks over to me and says, “Thank you, homie, for taking care of my little brother.” And then he gives me a big hug. He asked me if I had any money and I told him I had the $200 gate money that they give you when you leave a California prison. I asked him if he wanted it. He laughed and pulled out a knot of American dollars and peeled off $2,500 and handed it to me. “Is that enough?” he asked. “Hell, yeah,” I said. “How about pussy? You get any yet?” I told him no. “Not yet.” He told Puma, Zigzag, Roach, and Cougar to be ready when he got back. Then he said to Big Popeye regarding me, “Set him up and explain the rules to him.” Then David looked at me and asked, “You do know why you’re down here, right? What we’re doing?” I told him, “To move big dope.”

  The whole crew was suddenly quiet and I thought I’d said something wrong. It wasn’t actually wrong.

  “Yeah, we’re doing that too. But we’re also taking care of business for the Arellano brothers. Putting in a lot of work. Do you have problems getting dirty?” That was slang. He was asking me if I had any issues with killing people.

  If I’d said I had a problem with that, I would never have left that house. I had stepped into the lion’s den and there was no gracious way of stepping out. Even though I’d only been there an hour, it was already way too long and I already knew way too much. If I didn’t sign on right there, I was a liability. And they don’t like liabilities floating around loose in the world.

  I said, “It’s all good,” smiling as convincingly as I could while my heart was pounding in my chest and throbbing in my ears.

  “Good,” he says. “Glad to hear it.” The tension in the room dropped by about one hundred percent. They started talking again. “Go with Big Popeye and he’ll show you some tools and how to take care of them. I’ll be back later.”

  20

  Bullet Hoses

  After David left, Big Popeye took me into a room and opened a closet door. There were about twenty rifles in there—AK-47s, AR-15s, and M16s. He asked me if I knew how to operate an AK-47 and I told him that I did. He took one AK out of the rack and checked the condition of a 100-round drum magazine. It was fully loaded. He racked the slide, checked the chamber to make sure it was empty, and he handed it to me. He reached farther into the closet and came up with a semiautomatic pistol chambered for .38 Super.

  This is sort of an oddball chambering for that weapon. That weapon is usually chambered for a .45 ACP or sometimes a 9 mm, but I found out later that the cartels and the cops both loved the .38 Super chambering in that gun. One of the reasons is that military-caliber ammunition in Mexico is completely banned. Since the .38 Super is not military ammunition, it’s a legal round under Mexican law. Not that they needed to worry about having illegal guns, but that .38 Super chambering is something of a tradition down there and they all grew up shooting it, so it retained its popularity.

  He checked the magazine on the .38 Super and then racked the slide to make sure he had an empty chamber and handed me the gun. He rummaged around the closet some more and asked me, “Do you want any hand grenades?” I was a little shocked but tried not to show it. He must have noticed.

  “We have a lot of enemies. The Mexican cops. American cops and rival cartels. So you never know when they’re going to hit and you have to be ready to hit them back hard.”

  So I told him I’d take a couple of grenades and he hands me two of them. Later on, he said, he’d show me how to fieldstrip them and clean
my weapons. He also said that they had weapons training once a week and that I always needed to keep my weapons clean and ready to use. “A clean weapon can save your life.”

  He ran the rules down for me. The crew worked for five days straight and then we had two days off. While we were working, we were expected to be at the house twenty-four hours a day waiting for “calls.” We couldn’t leave without permission and we always had to have our mochilla (our bag with the weapons and grenades) ready to go anytime day or night.

  When we were on duty at the house, there was no drinking or doing drugs. When we got our days off, we would use them to take care of whatever personal business we had but we weren’t allowed to go off committing crimes or selling drugs. If we wanted to sell drugs, we had to ask David for permission and he needed to know the who, what, where, why, and how we were selling those drugs. The pay was $500 per week and there were bonuses if the brothers thought that we deserved them. Under no circumstances were we allowed to bring anyone to the office.

  Big Popeye showed me the rest of the house and said that all the beds were taken right now but not everyone sleeps in the same bed all the time. But, he said, no matter where you sleep, “you keep your guns with you all the time. You never know when we could get hit.”

  This was basically my indoctrination to “office” life.

  The crew was running around getting ready to go out—showering, shaving, putting on their fine clothes, and spraying the place up with cologne. Puma came up to me and gave me a bottle of Polo Sport. I sprayed some on me and he said, “Wait ’til you see these bitches. They’re fine. And freaks.”