Triple Crossing

by Sebastian Rotella

  The restaurant was decorated like a hacienda, long tables, white lace and dark wood, vegetation around an indoor waterfall. A trio strummed guitars in a corner. The place was all fancied up for a Friday night, but bereft of customers. It stayed empty until 10 p.m., when the dignitaries arrived.

  First came Mauro Fernández Rochetti, commander of the Tijuana homicide unit. He looked grayer than on television but easily recognizable: withering stare, strong-boned profile, womanly mouth. He was escorted by a chubby-cheeked bodyguard in a cowboy hat. Then came the Brazilians. They held the doors for Mr. Abbas, their sharp-dressed Arab boss. Abbas hovered in turn around an older Arab in metallic eyeglasses who carried himself like an ambassador. Khalid, Pescatore thought. A nervous maitre d’ in a tuxedo led them to a long table off by itself.

  A few minutes later, the walkie-talkies chattered. Sniper straightened and told Pescatore to look sharp. “El jefe. Aguas, ponte truchas.”

  Momo glided into the vestibule. He held the Tek-9 under a jacket draped over his arm like a Secret Service agent. Buffalo filled the doorway, looking the place over. Pescatore felt a rush of expectation.

  Junior Ruiz Caballero’s swagger verged on a waddle. He was built wide and thick. A two-tone leather jacket exaggerated his shoulders. His brown hair was shaggy, with blondish sun streaks. The word that occurred to Pescatore was “user”: the tanned face had the strained mouth and charged-up grimaces of a cokehead. The features were handsome, almost pretty, a broad nose and sullen lips. But a layer of jowl spread on the sides and below the chin like a balloon inflating. His belly bulged in a shiny silver shirt. Junior was a user, if not an abuser, and getting sloppy.

  Junior’s green eyes glistened. He walked stiff-armed and bowlegged. He swept into the vestibule and gave Sniper, Pelón and Pescatore an unexpected sleepy grin. Pescatore, feeling the same flunky’s smile on his face as on everyone else’s, wondered if the guy knew who the hell he was.

  Junior pointed two fingers at them extended out of a fist, mimicking a gun. He made playful popping sounds, his thumb moving like the hammer of a revolver. Then he went inside.

  10

  THE BISHOP ARRIVED in an ancient Eldorado driven by a slim young priest with wet-combed hair. A nun with goggle-sized spectacles accompanied them.

  Méndez watched from the window of his office. Athos greeted the bishop in the courtyard below. Diogenes Group officers assembled.

  “His Eminence,” Méndez said. “Here to inflict another Ash Wednesday on us.”

  “You do not sound grateful or respectful,” Araceli Aguirre said.

  The bishop’s belly strained in his black soutane. His smile was unctuous. He handed out his trademark laminated cards, decorated with images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, to the officers. There were rumors the bishop would soon leave Tijuana for a big job at the Vatican.

  “The bishop has gotten fat and rich baptizing the children of drug traffickers,” Méndez said, slumping into his chair.

  “All children have a right to be baptized, Leo,” Aguirre said, taking a drag on a cigarette.

  She should stop smoking, she’s too thin, Méndez thought. Her cell phone rang and she answered: a reporter, as usual. The Tijuana correspondent of a national newspaper was on the line, apparently complaining that Aguirre was interfering with his vacation plans. She told the correspondent that he would look like the biggest cretin on the planet if he did not postpone his trip to Mexico City to attend her press conference the next day. She scolded him for daring to ask if she had called the press conference to announce her gubernatorial candidacy and ordered him to keep his frivolous political speculation to himself. The human rights commission was dealing with very grave, very delicate matters that required her full attention.

  “A sneak preview?” she declared. “What do you think this is, a striptease? No special privileges for chilangos. You change your flight and you be there tomorrow like everybody else, my little friend. Have I ever let you down? I’ll make a hero of you yet.”

  Méndez touched the plane ticket in the breast pocket of his sport jacket. He had bought the ticket two days earlier. Instead of locking it in his desk, he realized, he had carried it around with him, even during the predawn drive to Ensenada with a federal police informant who swore that Pescatore was holed up in a hotel near the port. The raid had turned up addicts, whores, two-bit hoodlums, illegal immigrants from China and Bangladesh. But no trace of the fugitive Border Patrol agent.

  Méndez made sure the ticket was secure in the pocket. It was a San Diego–Oakland round trip, departure scheduled for Friday with the return Sunday. He wondered if his failure to remove it from his pocket was Freudian. Maybe the lapse reflected his eagerness to see his wife and son for the first time since November. Or maybe he had a subconscious desire to lose the ticket because he was apprehensive about the reunion.

  Aguirre hung up.

  “I suppose it would be useless to ask you to postpone this a few days,” Méndez said.

  “If it were for you, I would give you all the time you want,” she said. “But it’s the Secretary. You have run out of explanations for his behavior. It’s clear he doesn’t want to do anything. He doesn’t even want to catch these Border Patrol agents.”

  More than two weeks had passed since the Secretary had rejected Méndez’s request to make arrests, forcing the Americans to postpone their operation as well. Convinced that the Secretary had let them down, Araceli had decided to make good on her threat. She was going to hold a press conference to discuss the Colonel’s murder and the circumstances and the individuals behind it.

  “I told the Secretary that finding Pescatore and Garrison would be a perfect way to help the Americans and make them look bad at the same time,” Méndez said. “That seemed to catch his interest. He promised to put the federal police at my disposal, but they are just going through the motions.”

  “Do you think the yanqui informant is alive?” Aguirre said.

  “We heard a rumor that Pescatore was with the pochos and that Garrison is dead. Nothing solid. Isabel thinks Pescatore is alive. She also refuses to believe that he was involved in the killing of the highway policeman. Despite the evidence to the contrary.”

  Aguirre made a derisive noise with her lips. “She acts so high and mighty. Then she has a fling with this little murderer and turns to mush.”

  “I don’t know with certainty they were having a romance, Araceli, I only told you I suspected that,” Méndez said uncomfortably.

  “It seems obvious to me.”

  “Isabel is loyal to her informant, though I won’t defend the wisdom of her personal choices. She got upset when I told her my men have orders not to take chances with him, given that he’s been involved in two killings that we know of. In any case, I think the mafia is hiding Pescatore, dead or alive. He’s not smart enough to stay underground in Mexico on his own.”

  “And there is no way they can give you the yanqui and leave it at that,” Aguirre said. “He opens the whole Pandora’s box: Garrison, the Colonel. No wonder the Secretary won’t take your calls.”

  “He takes my calls. But he says it’s a very delicate political moment and he doesn’t know when he’ll have news.”

  “Have you heard anything more about the South American connection?”

  “No. You’re not going to get into that with the press, are you? I’ve reached the point where I don’t trust them anymore.”

  Isabel Puente had recently passed on a tip: U.S. wiretaps had picked up talk that heavy hitters from the Triple Border had been in town. The intelligence suggested that the South American visitors and Junior had discussed an “operation” targeting Méndez.

  “A traitor to your profession. You’ve really taken this police secrecy thing to heart.”

  “The media in this town have too many agendas. Too many spies. Too many of them working for Junior or terrified to cross him.”

  Aguirre smiled benevolently.

  “No, Leo, I’ll do my best not to compromise
your case. I will focus on the Colonel: He filed a human rights complaint which I investigated. It pointed me at the Ruiz Caballeros, and everything else developed from there. I am going to make it clear that the federal government has a responsibility to do something, to back up people like you. This state has become an empire of impunity.”

  She was rehearsing lines for the news conference. She had a talent for it; she charmed, entertained and browbeat journalists into submission.

  “Araceli, this is going to be a bombshell,” Méndez said.

  “I’m just trying to help,” Aguirre said. “I hope it doesn’t cause you too many problems with the Secretary.”

  “That should be the least of your worries.” Méndez got up, his shoulders hunched in the sport jacket, and looked out the window again.

  Porthos and Athos talked to the bishop in the courtyard. The priest and the nun were organizing objects on the hood of the Eldorado. Athos shaded his eyes, looking up at the second-floor window. He waved at Méndez, holding his arm up a couple of extra seconds to denote urgency. Méndez waved back. They were waiting for him.

  “To be frank, I have done as much as I can do,” Méndez said. “The indictments are ready. My officers are ready. If the Secretary tells me to bring him Junior’s head on a platter, I’ll do it. And if he says it’s time to resign, I’ll say thank you very much, sir. At your orders. With great pleasure.”

  Aguirre blew smoke at the ceiling. “I have trouble imagining that.”

  “I’m serious, Araceli. I am ready to walk away. And it’s basically your fault.”

  “Why?”

  “You kept harping on me to talk to Estela. So we finally talked. For hours; I don’t want to see the phone bill. We talked and talked. About Juancito, us, and frankly, a lot of trivialities. But I can’t wait to see them. I can’t believe how I’ve neglected them.”

  Her dark eyes softened, scrutinizing him. She spoke with a bit of difficulty.

  “How nice, Leo. It turns out you were listening to me.”

  He turned back to the window, collecting himself. “So if your show tomorrow is successful, the Secretary will relent and we go to war with the Ruiz Caballeros. Once and for all. Jihad. If not, you will have saved my family and cost me my job. Either way, it’s your fault.”

  “Leo…”

  “Who knows, maybe I’ll just stay in Berkeley and do nothing. I understand they treat bums very well, even Mexican ones. I could give seminars. The progressive gringos up there can’t get enough of the human rights song and dance.”

  Aguirre looked as if she wished he hadn’t broken the moment so abruptly. But she played along. “What an image, the stern Mr. Méndez on campus. You wouldn’t last a week. You’d miss the violent emotions.”

  “You’d be surprised at my capacity for sloth.”

  “We should go downstairs, the bishop is waiting.”

  “Let the old pervert wait.”

  “Leo, please!”

  It was a perennial point of conflict with them: Except for a few scrappy Jesuits and liberation theology types, Méndez could not stand the church. And he could not understand how Aguirre could be so tolerant of the clergy.

  In the courtyard, the officers of the Diogenes Group had lined up as if they were on parade. Their solemn, absolute engagement in the ritual made Méndez feel ashamed about his snide comments.

  The bishop moved along the row of officers. The nun accompanied him, holding the plate of blessed ashes. The bishop smeared ashes in the shape of a cross on the forehead of each officer and murmured a blessing.

  Aguirre stepped to the end of the line, straightening her jeans jacket and pulling it close over her white blouse. She grinned at Méndez. She gestured at him to join her. He shook his head.

  The bishop reached Aguirre. He marked the cross on her forehead. He blessed her in a resonant tenor he had cultivated on his weekly television show.

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.”

  The bishop hesitated, looking expectantly at Méndez. Aguirre made an insistent face, enjoying Méndez’s discomfort. Now all the officers were looking at Méndez.

  Méndez relented and stepped forward.

  The bishop beamed and reached for the plate held by the nun. The well-manicured fingers made gentle contact with Méndez’s forehead. Méndez gritted his teeth.

  “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.”

  And it was over. The bishop shook hands with Méndez. They murmured pleasantries at each other. The officers milled around, their crucifix-marked foreheads making them look like members of some kind of urban tribe.

  Araceli Aguirre appeared in front of Méndez. Her eyes were bright and amused, her smile half mocking, half tender. She kissed him on the cheek.

  11

  THE MOOD IN THE HOUSE changed after the Brazilians left.

  Momo woke the homeboys up early on Tuesday, banging on doors. He warned them to keep a lid on the partying and be ready to work. They watched TV and waited for orders. The next day they remained at battle stations. The TV showed images of Ash Wednesday Mass. Buffalo visited briefly, glowering, his mood foul. Momo handed out radios, black bulletproof vests with the word POLICíA stenciled on the back, and heavy weapons. Pescatore received an AK-47 to complement his pistol.

  More waiting, television, lassitude. Nobody knew the details, but a big job was in the works.

  It rained that night, pattering on the roof that sloped down just above Pescatore’s bed. Thursday was clear and felt like summer.

  In the morning, Momo ordered Pelón, Sniper, Pescatore and two others to bring their stuff into the driveway, where Rufino sat at the wheel of a brown Chevy van, wearing mirrored sunglasses. They loitered in the shade, weapons piled in the driveway. They gorged themselves on takeout from McDonald’s.

  At about 11 a.m., Buffalo came out of his house carrying a sawed-off shotgun. He wore a black turtleneck under a police flak vest and fingerless leather gloves. He got into the van next to Rufino.

  The others strapped on their body armor and got in back. The interior had been cleared out to leave only a bench seat along each wall, as in a helicopter or a cargo plane. There were no side windows.

  “Right now we’re Plan B,” Momo explained by way of a briefing as the van whizzed east along a highway into the factory district. “We’re backup. But let’s be ready. Everybody stay awake, you understand what I’m sayin’? If we give the word, you jump out and shoot whoever I tell you to shoot.”

  That’s it? Pescatore thought. That’s all the intelligence you’re gonna give up? He was disturbed by the thought that he did not know how he would respond at the moment of truth. Kill for the Death Patrol? Turn his gun on them? He cursed himself: He had not succeeded in making a break or calling Isabel. He had bided his time, playing it slick. Now things were moving too fast.

  Feeling bulky and cramped in the bulletproof vest, the weight of the body armor digging into his thighs, Pescatore leaned forward to look past Sniper at the windshield. He caught glimpses of Otay Mesa, the arid industrial lowland interspersed with shacktowns where the factory workers lived. The van rolled along a ridge between urban valleys formed by the colonias, a low patchwork skyline dominated by homemade television antennas and blue water drums on rooftops.

  The van slowed and turned. They rumbled off cement onto an unpaved, jaw-jarring road that dipped steeply. It was the main entrance to a colonia. Rufino cursed at the mud and rocks, swerving back and forth.

  “Cuidado, Rufi,” Pelón jeered. He sat across from Pescatore, legs akimbo, steadying the butt of an assault rifle on his knee. “They got them Godzilla potholes around here. Eat you alive.”

  The going was slow. Rufino skirted swamps and craters left by the night’s rain. The wheels whined and churned up mud. The windshield acquired a layer of grit. Through it flashed images: an aerial spaghetti of electrical cables. Grocery kiosks with hand-painted signs. Walls of brick, wood, sheet metal, cardboard. Listless dogs, shirtl
ess kids, a white horse pulling a cart. A banner on a peaked red roof proclaimed the arrival of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  The street rose to reveal a smokestack horizon: an industrial complex on a nearby hill. There were Asian insignias on a wall. The van rolled downhill again past a junkyard fence plastered with hubcaps, then snaked among low, closely packed houses.

  The van stopped. Buffalo told Rufino to honk the horn. Buffalo checked his watch.

  “Don’t tell me this lame-ass naco overslept,” Buffalo snapped. “Can you believe that shit?”

  Buffalo and Momo got out. A dog barked shrilly.

  Rufino turned on the radio. Over an opening salvo of drums and horns, a disc jockey declared: “We’re off to Sinaloa.”

  The sliding door of the van rattled open. Momo ushered in a short dark youth wearing a navy-blue canvas windbreaker with a turned-up collar. The kid had slicked-back hair, a smudge of a mustache and an earring. At first he looked to Pescatore like another pocho. But then Pescatore changed his mind: The guy seemed Mexican in the way he shook hands with each passenger, muttering a deferential “Buenos días” with each handshake.

  The newcomer sat next to Pelón, who made a production of clapping his shoulder. Pescatore recognized him. He had been at the shooting sessions that Pescatore had led at the ranch. Pescatore remembered his tense, short-armed stance on the target range. His name was César; somebody had said he was a fugitive. César’s gaze met Pescatore’s, lowered without acknowledgment.

  The van did a U-turn and picked up speed. César leaned his head back against the metal, seemingly unaffected by the bouncing and shaking. His eyes closed, as if he were dozing off. But he chewed gum at a rapid pace. His small fists clenched and unclenched. A cowboy ballad came on the radio, a corrido, and he mouthed the words.

  The ride back to the city center took about twenty minutes. They parked on a tree-lined side street in the Río Zone. Momo told them to get their weapons ready.

  Buffalo turned off the music and produced a walkie-talkie. He talked and listened for a few minutes. He rose and made his way into the back among knees and gun barrels. He hulked in a crouch in front of César, smiling tightly.