by Cliff Ryder
Nate kept his hat brim pulled low over his face as he drove through the Segundo Barrio in south-central El Paso. Just a hop and skip away from the border, this was the main territory of the Barrio Aztecas, the predominant Hispanic prison gang in the city. Although there were many other places he’d have rather been at one-thirty in the morning, this was the best place to find the information he needed, and right now every minute counted.
Rubbing grainy eyes, Nate drained the last of his rotgut coffee, crushed the paper cup and tossed it on the Bronco’s floor. He’d been cruising the streets for several hours, shaking down his contacts and confidential informants for any word about Middle Eastern men crossing the border or any other recent suspicious activity. But for all his questions—and subtle threats when necessary—he had come up completely dry.
Normally he would only come here in the daytime, but he knew the clock was ticking, and he needed something solid to get this potential incident taken seriously. That feeling in his gut was growing stronger—something was going to go down, but without evidence, his hands were tied.
The sidewalks were filled with the usual denizens of the barrio—scattered gang members, streetwalkers, wandering homeless and several low riders cruising the streets.
The thump and blare of brassy music echoed off the houses and apartment buildings. He turned left on East Sixth Street, driving toward the north end of Marcos B. Armijo Park, which he would definitely not enter at this time of night. At Ochoa, he turned right and continued down until it ended, with a small cul-de-sac to his right and the street continuing off to his left. Small clusters of Mexicans sat on the porches of several houses along the street, and a few dozen yards away a train rumbled past on tracks running parallel to the border.
Nate took a deep breath and made sure his pistol was near to hand, arranging the tail of his long-sleeved shirt to cover it. The vatos had sentries watching out for trouble, be it a rival gang or the police, and he figured he’d been made already, but he knew the leader of the Aztecas did not like trouble of the “shoot first, ask questions later” kind, and would come down hard on any of their sergeants who acted up without permission. If he did get into trouble and had to shoot his way out, there was no way he’d be able to explain it. But there was no way he was going into the house across the street unarmed. He got out of the Bronco and ambled over, the multiple sets of cold eyes staring at him. The conversations among the stoop sitters had hushed at his approach, and Nate was acutely aware of the click of his boot heels on the pavement.
A tattooed, bare-chested group of Mexicans relaxed on the porch of the house, a rambling, two-story, white stucco building with a bare patch of dirt in front of it. The young men, along with a few women, had been passing bottles around and laughing among themselves. Gang tattoos were visible everywhere.
As Nate approached, the group fell completely silent.
A barrel-chested Mexican in a tank top and baggy, wide-legged denim shorts and black horns tattooed on his forehead lounged on the front steps. He looked at the lanky Texan as he approached, one eyebrow raised. “Bolillo, you better pray you’re not lost. ¿Que chingados quieres? ”
Under the circumstances, the last part, “What the fuck do you want?” was as polite a greeting as Nate could have hoped for. “I need to see Lopez. Tell him Nate is outside,” he answered in fluent Spanish.
The large Mexican rose from his seat, but instead of sending someone inside, he lumbered toward the border agent, who stood his ground, returning the gangbanger’s stare full on. “You should be more careful, cabrón. Coming down here by yourself, this time of night, all sorts of bad things can happen to el rulacho stickin’ his nose where it don’t belong.” As he spoke, the other gang members slowly formed a loose semicircle around the two men. The worst part was that Nate didn’t recognize any of them.
Jesus Christ, just what I need, a guy probably just out of the pen trying to score points, he thought. If I flash my badge here, I’ll never make it out alive. Nate wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then hooked both thumbs into his jeans, his right hand only inches away from the butt of his pistol. “Just tell Lopez that Nate Spencer is here to see him.”
A flash of recognition crossed one of the girl’s faces, and she leaned close to the giant Mexican, whispering rapidly. Nate caught the words “Border Patrol” and “in his pocket,” or words to that effect.
The man-mountain grunted and waved her into the house. “Hold on,” she said.
Nate just stood there, surrounded by members of the most powerful Mexican gang in El Paso. The one overwhelming thought running through his mind was that even though he’d done a lifetime of crazy acts, this had to be the craziest stunt he’d pulled yet. The seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness. At last the screen door slammed, and the girl came back out and whispered in the big guy’s ear. He nodded, then slowly moved aside. “Go right in, pendejo. ”
The others snickered, but Nate didn’t rise to the bait, knowing that even though he had permission to pass, dis-respecting the guy by insulting him back would just get him beaten or maybe killed. Instead, he pretended that he didn’t hear the slur, and walked up to the house, opened the door and entered.
The air inside was thick with blunt smoke and the smell of frying meat. A slow-turning fan in the kitchen did little to clear the haze, just pushed it around. A plump girl was busy at the old stove, and she nodded him toward the next room, where Nate heard the sounds of cursing and laughter, accompanied by the clink of bottles. He strode toward the doorway, steeling himself to take more shit from these lowlifes if it got him the information he was looking for.
A half-dozen men played out a hand of poker around a battered, felt-covered table with a pile of cash and gold jewelry in the middle. There were also two pistols on the green felt, and most likely a half-dozen more were hidden on the various players. Nate swept the table with his gaze, his eyes falling on the man directly across from him. He was covered in tattoos across most of his body, including his entire face, his eyes masked in black. On his bare chest above his heart was a stylized Aztec chief with two feathers in his headdress, signifying his rank—a gang lieutenant.
Everyone else froze when they saw the gringo in the doorway, and the tattooed indio frowned when his eyes rose to see Nate across from him. One of the other members moved his hand toward one of the guns on the table, but their leader held up his hand, stilling the movement.
“Hola, chingado, you got some balls coming in here.
You looking to get shot or what?” Enrique Lopez had risen from a street soldier to a lieutenant in the gang hierarchy after serving most of a dime sentence for armed robbery.
Nate had met him while investigating a human-smuggling ring across the border a year earlier, and had cultivated him as an informant on the activity going on among the various gangs in El Paso. Lopez had a brain, and preferred to solve problems without resorting to violence, but he was just as cold-blooded as the rest of his vatos, and wouldn’t hesitate to cap anyone who crossed him.
“Just need a minute of your time, Lopez, then I’ll be outta your hair,” Nate said.
The wiry gang leader looked at his cards again, then slapped them on the table. “Shit, cards suck tonight anyway. Deal me outta this round, I’ll be right back.” He nodded at Nate to accompany him into a narrow hallway.
“You must have a death wish to stroll in here like you owned the place,” he snarled as soon as they were out of earshot of the others.
“You know I got better things to do that mess with your business right now.” Like most cops, Nate knew cultivat-ing the street was the best way to get the inside score on anything going down. The only problem was that the street always extracted its own price in return.
“Sí, that you do. Hey, any news on that injunction getting renewed?”
A few years earlier, the El Paso Police Department had gotten an injunction taken out on the entire Segundo Barrio neighborhood, making it nearly impossible for gang members to meet,
conduct business or even be seen together in public. Although it had been successful during its two-year term, it had been allowed to expire, and the gang had re-consolidated its hold over the barrio afterward. However, there was always talk at city hall and in the police department of renewing it, something the Aztecas worried about as much as the rival gangs they were currently fighting.
“I haven’t heard anything recently. It’s probably stalled in committee right now anyway, so I doubt you got anything to worry about. Look, you hear about that slaughter near the border?” Nate asked.
“Sure, who hasn’t? Everyone’s talkin’ about that mess.”
“Anyone owning up to it? You hear about any of the other gangs with itchy trigger fingers?”
“Shit, homes, you know how this works. I do you a favor—you do me a favor.”
This was the part Nate hated. “What did you have in mind?” he asked.
“Don’t worry, this’ll even make you look good. There’s a house on the edge of the barrio, corner of Overland and Paisano. It’s owned by some Alices, and they’re making cheese for the schools right next to us. We want them gone.”
Nate knew “cheese” was the latest drug variant to hit the streets, a combination of heroin and over-the-counter cold medicines. Popular among middle-school kids, it was all too prevalent in El Paso and other cities throughout the Southwest. The reference to “Alice” was the Aztecas’ de-rogatory term for the Aryan Brotherhood, a neo-Nazi gang they were fighting with for control of several neighborhoods in the area.
“And you know how it rolls, too—I’ll check it out, and if it’s confirmed, we’ll take them down. Now, what you got for me?”
“Well, I haven’t heard about any bangers shooting their mouths or their thumpers off, definitely not any of chucos around here. Now the peckerwoods might be a different story, but I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
“Jesus, Lopez, this is what you want me to hit a drug-store for? You gotta do better than that,” Nate said.
“All right, but this is some crazy shit, so you gotta raise the stakes a bit. Those same Alices are going to be getting a shipment from down south in six days. Give me a day or so, and I’ll get you the location.”
Nate smelled a huge rat; this was too easy. “What’s in it for you?”
“While you got the cops and border agents swarming all over them, we might be moving some merchandise at the same time, and don’t need any interference—know what I’m sayin’?”
Nate took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair.
He’d skirted the law to make busts before, like the one yesterday, learned from his contacts in the gang underworld.
In return, they were able to conduct their own business unmolested, as long as they kept the violence down. Nate was a realist; he knew the so-called war on drugs would never be won, not with America’s insatiable appetites. The best they could ever do was to unofficially regulate it by allying with certain traffickers, and anyone who got out of hand would be taken down, as well. But while he accepted the arrangement as a necessity of the job, he had never liked it, and this blatant overlooking of product entering the U.S. really rubbed him the wrong way. However, he reminded himself of the consequences of what might happen if they didn’t find the nuclear material. Little fish we let go to catch the big fish, he thought. “The other shipment better be on the level, or I’ll be coming after yours,” he said.
“Trust me, you’ll be hip deep in chiva, no lie.”
“We’d better be. So?”
“So my cousin occasionally connects with these homies that run illegals into the U.S, right? I was chillin’ with him last week, and he mentions that his crew had gotten a line on some salamis that wanted to sneak into the States, and were willing to pay fifty large to a reliable coyote who could guarantee delivery.”
“A reliable coyote? They definitely must have been from out of town,” Nate said.
“Yeah, anyway, their cash backed up the story. They were willing to pay anyone who could get the job done.
Their only request was they wanted a panel van, said they had some stuff they were bringin’ with them. My cuz couldn’t take the job, since he had other things goin’ down, so he passed it on to a couple of friends of his.”
“And?”
“And they’re most likely the two dead vatos who got taken down in your little bloodbath yesterday, along with the rest of the illegals and your two agents.”
Nate jerked as if stung. “How’d you know about that?”
“You ain’t the only one who’s got people that know people, homes. Anyway, the two bodies are Miguel Santos and Jesus Calaveras.”
“That’s nothing the crime lab doesn’t already know.
Come on, Lopez, that’s the best you can do?”
“Look, man, that’s all I got, unless you wanna know one of these guys was an Elton John fan.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My cuz said they was real secretive about the particulars—they wanted to use their own cell phones when they set up the ride. I mean, they sent him a phone to use, then called it. The ringtone on there was that song ‘Rocket Man,’ you know?”
Nate rubbed his forehead. “I can’t believe I came out here at two in the morning for this. If you want that brotherhood taken down a peg, you better come up with something more solid, you hear?”
“Hey, I gave you all I got. What about that cheese factory?”
“I’ll look into it. Meanwhile, pass the word you’re looking for info on the killings, and let me know what you come up with. Otherwise your competition will be re-stocking their shelves quicker than you’d like.” That last part was a blatant lie. Nate would bust the Aryans in a heartbeat; he actively hated them, whereas he simply disliked the rest of the gangs running around the city. “Get back to me sooner rather than later,” he said.
“I’ll see what I can do, but you need to move on that real estate first, then maybe I can scare up some details,”
Lopez said.
Nate shook his head, disgusted at the games he had to play to simply do his job. “Watch the news. I’m gonna head out the back way.” He eased around the banger and opened the door, walking out into the darkness and circling around the house.
As he approached his Bronco, he heard snickers from the group out front, and when he got closer, he saw why.
They had spray painted a big white 5-0 on the hood and sides of the small SUV.
“Hey, homes, looks like someone came along and redecorated your ride,” the big Mexican called out. Nate heard more laughter, along with the distinctive rattle of a spray can.
“Good luck getting out of the neighborhood, cabrón. ”
Nate smiled thinly and glanced back at the big guy, fixing his face in his mind, which wasn’t too difficult.
He’d keep an eye out for him in the future. Getting into the Bronco, he started it up, then headed down Ochoa, aiming toward Highway 10. If he could get to the highway unmolested, he should be all right. What’d you expect, calling the SOBs out on their turf? he thought as he navigated the dark streets, not breathing easy until he swung onto the ramp leading to the highway.
Hauling her carry-on bag behind her, Tracy was only slightly bleary-eyed as she navigated the El Paso airport.
So far, everything had gone relatively well. Her early-morning goodbyes to Paul and Jennifer had been subdued, primarily since Jennifer was still half-asleep. Paul had been grim faced, his lips compressed in a tight line as he had extracted a promise from her to call him every day. The American Airlines flight had been more or less on time, passing her through Houston and into El Paso at 1:50 p.m., only five minutes behind schedule.
She collected her larger suitcase from the luggage carousel, then walked out into the blazing summer heat, hailed a cab and directed the driver to take her to the main U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office. Along the way, she called Paul and let him know she had arrived safely, and would talk to him later that evening. Then
she freshened up as best as she could for having gotten five hours sleep in the past twenty-four, all the while trying to quell the butterflies in her stomach at the thought of coming into this place and taking charge of an ongoing investigation. She had the authority and the required documentation to back her up, but actually doing it was another matter entirely.
The cab pulled up in front of the nondescript offices with the Customs and Border Protection sign and the Department of Homeland Security seal out front. She paid the driver, then walked into the air-conditioned building, hauling her luggage behind her. Inside, the building looked like many other properties used for government work—used to the point of shabbiness. The main room was a beehive of activity, with agents working at their desks, making phone calls and handling the constant blizzard of paperwork that accompanied any government job.
Tracy looked around for the chief border agent’s office, but was distracted by a tall, weather-beaten man who brushed by her.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” He stopped and turned, regarding her from a pair of pale blue eyes set in a tanned face with crow’s feet radiating out from the corners. Instead of making him appear old, they gave him an aura of competent experience, something Tracy was very aware she lacked at the moment. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“I’m here to see the chief border agent, Roy Robertson,” she said.
“Great, so am I.” He nodded toward a door. “Let’s get his attention.” He knocked on the plate glass.
“Yeah?” came a voice from inside.
The tall agent opened the door. “Roy, it’s Nate. I’ve got your two-thirty here.”
“What the—?”
Tracy heard footsteps from inside, and a stocky man, his white shirtsleeves rolled up and rimless reading glasses perched on his head, appeared in the doorway. “Jesus, Nate, you readin’ my mind again? I was gonna call you in here anyway.” Noticing Tracy, Robertson nodded. “Agent Wentworth, I presume?”
