Desert Jade

by C. J. Shane

  ***

  Miles went by, and the town of Ambos Nogales appeared before her. Nogales, Arizona, USA, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico – one town divided by an invisible border made real by the profanity of a high metal wall. “Ambos” translates as “both” and that’s what she was looking at, both of them. The elevation was higher here, and she could tell the temperature had dropped, even though the day was still sunny.

  Letty found a place to park her pickup truck, and she walked across the border at the pedestrians-only crossing. She had every bit of identification she owned: a U.S. passport, a tribal identification card, her old Army ID, her Arizona driver’s license, plus a small plastic card with photo identifying her as a licensed private investigator in the State of Arizona. She also had a card indicating that she would be a tourist during her time in Mexico. Going into Mexico was not a problem. As a U.S. citizen, she didn’t need a visa to enter Mexico this way. Coming home would be a different story. She was dark-skinned with Native American features. She didn’t look “American.” Customs and Border Protection agents would stop her and question her. The irony never escaped her. She was from a tribe that had lived in America long before the whites came. Some anthropologists say that the People had lived in the Sonoran Desert for four thousand years. And yet the Customs agents definitely would want proof that she was a U.S. citizen. She had to prove that she was a “real American.”

  She walked across the border and tried her best to ignore “The Wall.” Down into the town she went, past the big market that attracted tourists, deeper into the little city of Nogales, Sonora, with its hilltops surrounding the downtown area. Occasionally she would pass by some older Americans seeking less expensive dental care or cheaper prescriptions at a Mexican pharmacy. Prices were better on this side of the line. She wandered around a bit, looking into shop windows, and stopped to talk to street merchants. The entire time, she watched. She wanted to make sure no one was following her.

  Eventually Letty walked casually down a side street and slipped into a small restaurant with the sign Café Heroica above the door. The café was the only tenant in a two-story building. She moved casually to pick up a menu at the counter and glanced upward to the balcony above. A narrow staircase led upward. The balcony was wide enough that small tables and chairs could be placed against the wall, making it impossible to see if anyone was seated there. Letty ordered a coffee and when it came, she started up the stairs.

  Sure enough, there was her Uncle Miguel sitting at a table against the wall.

  “Hola, Tío,” Letty said with a big smile. Hello, Uncle. She put her coffee down on his table.

  Miguel stood and gave her a bear hug. Letty couldn’t help but notice that he was watching the door the whole time. They sat down at a table that had two empty beer bottles and a third that was half full. He took a sip.

  “How have you been, Tío?”

  He shifted his substantial girth in the little chair. “Not much to tell. My woman left me, but I found a new one.” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders again. His eyes twinkled with mischief.

  “You are a bad boy, Tío. Treat those women better and maybe one of them will stick around.”

  “Nah, eventually they all want too much money, and when I can’t come up with it, they go. This new one will, too.” He laughed again. “How is your family? Still enjoying your private eye work?”

  “I like the work just fine. The best part is that I’m actually making a living, and so far no one has shot at me.”

  “Heard from your dad?” Letty’s father, Neto Valdez, was Miguel’s little brother. Miguel showed a big brother’s concern.

  “I call him once a month or so. He doesn’t answer. But then in a day or two, he calls back. I guess he’s okay. I don’t know. He never has much to say.”

  “He won’t talk to anyone else in la familia. Why do you think he calls you?”

  “Because I was in Iraq. He and I had a conversation once about it. I’m using the term “conversation” loosely. Not many words came out. He wanted to know what it was like in Iraq. I tried to tell him, but after a few minutes, I just stopped talking. I couldn’t say anything. It’s like my tongue and throat got frozen. He said, ‘I know. I know. Like ‘Nam. It sucked, didn’t it?’ I just said, ‘Yes. It sucked.’ We never talked about it again. He’s got PTSD, Tío, and he’s had it for years. He told me once he thinks I have it, too, and that’s another reason why he talks only to me. I’m the only one who can understand what happened to him in Vietnam.”

  “Do you have PTSD?” Neto asked her softly.

  Letty hesitated. She wasn’t ready to talk about Iraq. She wasn’t ready to talk about Chava.

  “I’m not here now about Iraq or about myself. You asked about my family. We’re in a world of trouble right now, and it looks like it might get worse before it gets better. There are these Chinese dudes who are after a friend of mine. Will got in their way, and one of them dislocated his shoulder. They may have kidnapped the novia of my other brother Eduardo.”

  Miguel frowned. “Chinese?”

  “Yes, Tío. They are real bad guys, a criminal gang from Hong Kong. They are called triads. A Chinese cop showed up here, too. He says he’s here to find out what the triad gang is doing and to stop them. Do you know about the disappearance of Carlos Lopez about a year ago?”

  “Not much. I read about it in the newspapers. Some money disappeared, too. Right?”

  “Yeah, one hundred thousand dollars. We think there may be a connection between that and triad gangsters showing up at his wife’s house looking for something. We don’t know what they are looking for. The money is not there. That’s for sure.”

  Miguel sipped his beer.

  “Then my little brother Will had an encounter with them…well…we don’t know if it was a triad member or not but it seems very likely. My other brother Eduardo came into town looking for a migrant he’d rescued in the desert. He thinks the Chinese may have her as well, but we don’t know. There’s a lot we don’t know. But it seems to have something to do with smuggling – smuggling people or smuggling something else.”

  “So this isn’t just a social visit,” said Miguel quietly.

  “No. You know a lot, Tío. You always know what’s happening on both sides of the border.” Letty didn’t want to get specific about how much she knew about Miguel Valdez and his illegal activities. She was fairly certain that he’d done a fair amount of smuggling himself, primarily marijuana, and an occasional migrant as well.

  Miguel said nothing.

  “So I’m asking, Tío. Do you know anything about these Chinese dudes and what they are doing? I need your help.”

  Miguel fell silent. He stared at the wall opposite the balcony for a long time. So long, in fact, that Letty began to wonder if she’d offended him somehow. She waited.

  Finally after long minutes had passed, he turned toward her and said, “Yeah, I know about them. They are very dangerous, mija.” He used the abbreviated term “my daughter” indicating affection and care.

  Letty sat up straight. “Truth is, Tío, I’m scared for my brothers. And my friend Jade, too. She’s the wife of Carlos Lopez. I don’t want anything to happen to them. I usually can keep my brothers and sister out of my work but not this time.”

  Miguel continued to drink his beer and stare at the wall.

  “The more I know, Tío, the better I’ll be able to deal with whatever they bring.”

  “Okay, but there are limits on how much I know. I figured out pretty quickly that I needed to stay away from them. That’s what you should do, too,” he sighed deeply.

  “I’m trying. I just want my brothers to be safe.”

  Another long pause followed.

  “They showed up here in Nogales a couple of years ago,” Miguel began. “They opened a Chinese restaurant, but we think that was only cover. It became clear pretty quickly that they were moving Chinese migrants in and using them as workers in the restaurant. Then those migrants disappeared and more migr
ants would be brought in to take their place. Almost always the workers were female and fairly young. Teenagers. We believe they brought them into Mexico at the port of Guaymas. I had some reports from someone I know at the port that they were seen there coming and going. We think they transported these girls north to Nogales. We don’t know how, but probably in a big truck. It’s easier to get people and cargo into Mexico at one of the Pacific ports than trying to get them into California ports, so the Chinese are taking the longer but easier way.”

  “At first we didn’t know what the Chinese were doing exactly, but then reports came through that they were moving these girls across the border into Arizona at a crossing west of Nogales in the desert. One of the O’odham men out there told us that the Chinese had been seen moving cargo across the border on more than one occasion. There are so few people out there, and the Border Patrol can’t see everything that goes on. But the O’odham often see even if they don’t say anything. They try to stay away from the smugglers. We don’t know what happened to the girls after that. Took them north, I guess.”

  Letty shook her head in agreement.

  “A couple of smugglers from Altar got in their way. Challenged the Chinese. Big mistake. The Chinese dudes took them out pretty quickly. Shot them both in the head, assassination style.”

  “Then a year or so ago, things changed. The Chinese stopped bringing girls north. Now they’re moving some kind of cargo, but we don’t know what. None of us has the huevos to look inside their trucks to see what it is. But it’s not like the girls going north. Now they are moving the cargo south from inside the U.S. into Mexico, to Guaymas where it is shipped to god knows where.”

  “And I’m guessing that everyone along the way is getting a piece of the action.”

  “Right. These Chinese dudes don’t mind paying a bribe. Just the cost of doing business. If anyone refuses the bribe or crosses them in any way, it doesn’t end well. One Mexican cop who refused a bribe got his arm chopped off. That put an end to anyone going against the Chinese. They pay their bribes, and they go on their way.”

  “Are the cartels involved?”

  “Don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing by now Sinaloa knows about this and is getting its share. Otherwise, there would be a lot more shooting and chopping going on.”

  Letty fell quiet.

  After long minutes, she said, “So we need to figure out what they are smuggling into Mexico and where the shipments are going.”

  “There is this rough dirt road, barely better than a horse trail. You need a 4-wheel drive. This dirt road is a little north of the border road where you see normally see la migra, the Border Patrol. The rough dirt road is higher up on the ridge, and it leads into a wash that goes south across the border. The wash is dry most of the year and has a pretty hard bottom, not real sandy so it’s easier to walk. The road is south of Topawa and west of San Miguel in the Chukut Kuk district. I haven’t been there myself, but as I said, O’odham out there chasing their cattle have seen them coming and going. Not often. Maybe once every three months or so. The one I talked to speculated that they unload the truck and carry the contraband down into the wash, then south across the border. He’s seen truck lights on the other side. No doubt someone is waiting for them. We don’t know where they take the shipments after that or what they are carrying.”

  “I have family in Chukut Kuk district.”

  “Ask someone you trust. The Chinese bribes are hard to resist, and you don’t want them to know you are onto them.”

  Letty nodded gravely. She trusted her Uncle Mando, and he was the person she would ask.

  Miguel sighed. “I think you should turn this over to the Border Patrol. Or better yet, the Shadow Wolves.”

  The Shadow Wolves were a special patrol unit in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known commonly as “ICE.” The Shadow Wolves were experts in tracking smugglers. The Shadow Wolves unit was made up of Native Americans from several tribes, including the O'odham, Yaqui, Navajo, all from Arizona, and non-Arizona tribes Blackfeet, Lakota, and Kiowa. Their name came from their tracking ability – like wild wolves.

  “I’m in over my head,” Letty sighed.

  “Yes, you are. Give this to the feds, mija,” Miguel urged.

  Silence prevailed for a few more minutes.

  “One more thing I know.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “The Chinese have a house on the U.S. side on Ironwood Street. I don’t know if they bought it or if they are renting it. It’s only a few doors down and across the street from where I used to live. You know my old house, right? The one the Chinese have is a white house with red trim, a red door, and a pitched roof. We’re not sure why they have that house on the U.S. side.”

  “Okay. I can check that out, too.”

  “Do you need a gun?”

  “No, I have one,” Letty said. She couldn’t keep the sadness out of her voice.

  Miguel reached out and squeezed her hand.

  After a while, Letty said her goodbyes to her uncle and headed back to Tucson. As she expected, the ten-minute walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico earlier that day took two hours going back north.

  On the drive home, Letty thought about what the Chinese might be smuggling. If they were moving cargo south across the border into Mexico, it wouldn’t be drugs or girls. Zhou mentioned counterfeit money. That’s a possibility, she thought. But far more likely was the possibility that they were running guns. The U.S. was drowning in guns. There were roughly one hundred twelve guns per one hundred residents in the U.S., compared to thirty per one hundred residents in Canada and fifteen per one hundred residents in Mexico. Weapons smuggling had long been a preoccupation of the cartels.

  Letty decided to talk to Zhou about this. Could it be that the weapons were not for Mexico but for a much more distant destination? A destination where there were only five guns per one hundred residents? Where gun ownership among private citizens was illegal? Could the triads be smuggling guns into China?

  Chapter 13

  The morning coffee at Maggie’s home wound down rather quickly after Letty left.

  Jade joined Zhou on the deck. “Okay, Zhou. Let’s go visit Carlos’s mom, Maria. There are usually several family members there on Sundays. We can show them your book of mugshots. Maybe one of them remembers Chong Ma or some other Chinese person."

  “Will you allow me to drive your car?”

  Jade was surprised. “You must have a driver’s license!”

  “I do. I have an International Driver’s Permit and also a Chinese driver’s license. I show you.”

  Zhou pulled two cards from his pocket.

  “This is a first for me. I’ve never seen this international permit. Sure, take the wheel. Where did you learn to drive?”

  “I learned first in China. Then in Europe, I received more training for my police work.”

  “I see.” Jade was smiling broadly again. “You’re such a tough guy.”

  Zhou wasn’t sure what it fully meant to be a “tough guy,” but Jade seemed to like it. And if Jade liked it, then it was fine with Zhou.

  Thirty minutes later they were in the very large backyard of a rambling older home in the Barrio Viejo neighborhood of Tucson. There were nearly thirty people of all ages at the family get-together. Some were eating at a long table filled with food. Others sat in lawn chairs with plates on their laps. People were laughing and talking in both Spanish and English and that unique combination of the two called "Spanglish." One young man, in his early twenties Zhou guessed, was sitting nearby very softly strumming the strings of an acoustic guitar. Children were playing an informal game of soccer in the far back of the spacious yard.

  The entire family affair was presided over by a plump, dark-eyed older woman with long, dark, gray-streaked hair wrapped in a bun on her head. She was seated in a chair under a big olive tree holding a baby in her arms. She smiled constantly.

  "Mija!" Maria Lopez called out when she saw Ja
de enter the backyard with Zhou.

  Jade leaned over her and the two women kissed.

  “Quisiera presentar mi amigo Zhou. I would like to present my friend Zhou." Jade said softly to Maria. She gestured to Zhou who came forward and shook Maria's hand. They exchanged smiles but no words because neither knew the other's language. Maria spoke little English.

  Jade took Zhou around and introduced him to the others, most of whom spoke English. She explained to family members that there was a new lead in the case of Carlos. She told everyone that there was a possible connection to some Chinese criminals. She explained that Zhou was an investigator from Beijing. She asked them all to look at the Zhou’s photo book and tell her if they recognized any of the mug shots.

  Family members passed the book of photos around. Zhou watched carefully to see their reactions, both to when Jade mentioned the possible Chinese connection and to the mugshots in the book.

  Finally Jade took the book of photos to Maria. At the same time, a couple of boys about twelve years old came to stand in front of Zhou. One said with some juvenile bravado, "Hey, are you Chinese? Do you know any kung fu?"

  "Yes," Zhou smiled at the boy who was called Memo.

  "Will you show us some?"

  Zhou looked at Jade. She smiled and nodded her encouragement as she turned again to Maria and the book of photos. Zhou went away from the group of seated family members to a group of children. They quickly gathered around him. He began to show them some of the most basic defensive moves. Soon enough he was throwing the small children, boys and girls alike, in an arc and landing them gently in the grass. They squealed in delight, lining up quickly to be thrown again and again.