Killing Cortez Read online

  Killing Cortez

  A.L. DeNova

  This is a work of fiction. The events depicted in this novel are fictions. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, places and events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

  Copyright © 2017 by A. L. DeNova

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-0-9995666-0-2

  Contents

  Website Link

  1. Mexico in the Mirror

  2. La Linea

  3. No Spare

  4. Dangerous Curves

  5. Call the Samaritan Jo

  6. Fried Tortillas

  7. Show Your ID

  8. A Craftsman Home

  9. Mexican Coke

  10. Behind the Orange Curtain

  11. A Full Tank Of Gas

  12. A Sailor in a Cage

  13. Sink or Swim

  14. Cash on Delivery

  15. Breathe Easy

  16. Don’t Make It a Federal Case

  17. Looking for A Girl

  18. Cheap and Convenient

  19. Border Bust

  20. Life on the Installment Plan

  21. Dress Like a Lady

  22. The AUSA Always Wins

  23. Consequences of Hard Work

  24. A Numbers Game

  25. Too Early

  26. 2000 Kilos of Guilt

  27. Tin Foil Answers

  28. Knockout

  29. Office Obfuscation

  30. Collision

  31. Business First

  32. Dangerous Sushi

  33. Out of Order

  34. Suburban Crimes

  35. Better Than Donuts

  36. The Front Porch

  37. The Trains I Missed

  38. Free Advice

  39. Spare Key

  40. Grand Opening

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For more information please visit: AlDeNovabooks.com

  The Dark, Disturbing Story of Love and Murder by Mexican Organized Crime

  To my wife and children.

  1

  Mexico in the Mirror

  Tecate Port of Entry

  International Boundary

  United States/México

  Date: Thursday July 14, 1988

  Time: 11:30 p.m.

  This was the way they had always done it. JC squeezed Carmen’s hand and pulled her warm, fragrant form to him across the sticky vinyl expanse of the 1966 Chevelle. Long, dark, and sleek, Juan Carlos was aroused just looking at the tight sexuality of the Chevelle. Carmen was fun when he floored her.

  “Cariño,” JC smiled as he touched his warm lips to her perfumed neck, “This is so simple we’ll be swimming on the beach in Coronado in two hours.” He gunned the engine, the roaring V-8 music to his ears. This was a trip he made so many times in his 25 years and even in his mother’s womb. The drive across la frontera, one half mile from the dusty sage brush of Tecate, Mexico, through the Port of Entry at Tecate, United States.

  The ease of border crossing was never wasted on JC. Within the hour he had been in another country with different laws, a different language and a more nuanced morality. Certainly, Mexico had laws. He grew to manhood learning that those laws could be dodged with the suggestive word or a less subtle stack of cash from a well-placed relative. He had many cousins who enforced Mexican laws. These same cousins, through family money and connections ensured such laws did not collide with JC. He lived only in Mexico but was glad he held his citizenship to the north. His parents had been too smart to let an accident of birth limit his future opportunities.

  In the hot July air JC tasted the sage brush, dust and gas fumes. The air itself toasted out temperatures beyond 105°. More fragrant was his passenger for the night, Carmen Sophia Ruiz de Quintana. She was glued to him through her body heat on the gold vinyl car seat. As he approached the border north, he tried to slow his burning chest and racing pulse.

  He rehearsed in his head all that he done so many times before, what Uncle Ramon Aguilar Santiago, “El Gordo” had drilled into his head: “Go through Tecate. At that place only the American casts-offs work there. You have nothing to declare, you are a U.S. citizen visiting your abuelita with your girlfriend and are returning to San Dimas where you live with your cousin. You own the car. Have Carmen flash a smile and show some skin,” Ramon had confided. “You have nothing to worry about.” It was for the family, for their business. They needed the delivery tonight for a deal later in the week. “In Tecate, make a call at the gas station. We’ll give you directions from there. I will be waiting for your call.”

  JC had used those lines to his girlfriends at times, “I’ll be waiting for your call.” JC knew in his bones that Ramon really was waiting for that late-night call and that his own bones could be snapped if the right calls were not made on schedule. Nothing ran on time in Mexico except the drug smuggling.

  Uncle Ramon had provided the encouragement that was needed, “El gringo flojo, the lazy American inspector, will be so much more interested in Carmen than you, the Chevelle, or the 1000 kilos of cocaine in the trunk.” JC was no virgin to this enterprise. Even so, he made sure to tell Ramon that the girl, Carmen, knew nothing of the cocaine. JC watched American TV and he saw the “War on Drugs” commercials with Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy. They told him to, “Just say no.” But the open border, said “Yes.” They had the money and cops, but Americans let drugs pass through by the kilo and the ton.

  JC tuned the radio dial to his favorite English station, slowed the car and pressed his tongue deep between Carmen’s welcoming lips as a preface for what would come later that night. He turned up the volume of the techno chords pulsating through the metal of the muscle car.

  JC had every belief that this was going to be a lucky crossing and a very lucky night in oh so many ways. The yellow international boundary line appeared into his rear-view mirror and he slowed to a stop at the primary inspection booth welcoming JC and Carmen into The United States of America.

  A grizzled ex-Marine, pressed, thin and erect in a blue United States Customs uniform, a cigarette dangling from his lips, greeted JC by stooping at the driver’s window of the Chevelle.

  “Good evening,” the U.S. Customs inspector told JC.

  “Hi,” JC replied, in perfect, unaccented English. JC was not much of a student but his family paid a driver to cross him and his five school age siblings Monday through Friday for thirteen years of public education in Chula Vista, California. The results were now in, he could speak American like the native that he was. And he crossed the border like the professional border crosser that he had been schooled to be.

  “Where you coming from?” asked the inspector.

  “Tecate,” replied JC.

  “Where are you going?”

  “San Dimas.”

  “Who owns the car?” asked the inspector.

  “I do,” responded JC.

  “Let’s see the registration,” demanded the inspector. JC opened up the glove box, pulled out a standard white business-sized envelope and removed the 1988 registration for the inspector. The registration showed an address in San Dimas, California. The inspector handed the registration back. JC could see the inspector’s name on the blue uniform: Stewart. “Inspector Stewart?” asked JC.

  Stewart shook his head, continuing “A
nd what is your citizenship?”

  JC smiled and told the inspector in perfect English, “U.S.”

  “Let’s see your identification,” Inspector Stewart demanded.

  JC unbuckled his seat belt. He bent forward and slid out a nylon surfer’s wallet. He pulled out his smiling California driver’s license which revealed his grey eyes, ruddy complexion, perfect teeth and dark hair that fell to his shoulders.

  Stewart looked at the driver, scanned the photograph on the driver’s license and then glanced up in time to see the young couple kissing. Stewart shrugged, yeah, Mexican passion, typical. Stewart cleared his throat then smiled as he saw a flash of cleavage from the young Latina in the front seat. He nodded to Carmen.

  “Miss, do you have ID?” Carmen opened up her red purse, pulled out a red wallet, found her current California driver’s license depicting a luscious 23-year-old girl (herself) in a halter top, with long dark hair, abundant make-up and irreverent eyes. Stewart wondered about the rest of the body that was not shown in the ID.

  The inspector peered at her license. “Is that you miss?” asked Stewart, in his most passive grumble.

  “Yes,” Carmen nodded.

  “Citizenship?” asked Stewart.

  “USA,” Carmen responded. “Bringing anything in from Mexico?” queried Stewart.

  “No,” said JC. As the driver, he answered for the two of them.

  The routine of the job comforted the inspector after twenty years in the Marines. “Then you kids have a safe drive home.” Stewart winked at JC and waved his hand to permit entry.

  JC fingered his Jesus Malverde pendant underneath his collared cotton shirt. He mouthed the words “gracias,” as he knew gratitude in the thrilling moment of entry.

  Together, they passed through the Tecate Port of Entry, with a smile and an effortless wave into the land of opportunity.

  Another 1,000 kilos of cocaine crossed. That was money in his pocket tonight, at the latest tomorrow. Not bad for one hour of driving. Sweeter still with Carmen by his side.

  2

  La Linea

  “Jesus Malverde.” Again, JC kissed the gold pendant hanging from a 24-carat chain on his lean chest. He thanked his patron saint of smugglers for another successful crossing. He smiled with the easy confidence of a young man who was promised a handsome profit and had a beautiful, willing woman by his side. He had crossed 1,000 kilograms of cocaine in the trunk. He was a made man now with the cartel, with his uncle and with Carmen.

  JC shook his head with the only logical conclusion. Lots of people wanted those drugs, and his family made sure their orders were filled. Metal signs, with the words “International Boundary, United States,” had been scattered across this dry frontier at irregular intervals. These signs were the size of stop signs. They were more like surveyor’s markers than boundaries of sovereignty. JC was not blocked by a barrier of concrete nor a wall of virtue.

  “That was simple,” JC repeated aloud. He squeezed Carmen’s hand. She felt his warm palm moist with sweat.

  “Why is it so easy?” Carmen asked.

  “This is such a joke,” JC declared. “This border, la linea. They never stop us.” Carmen stroked his arm. He felt his blood rise even with her light touch. “Cariño, the answer is clear. They do not mention the obvious here, not in Tecate, Tijuana, San Diego, or Los Angeles.”

  She wanted the relationship and the benefits, so she asked, “Mention, what?” There was no commitment or ring from him.

  “Because they want it this way- we disappear and nobody asks questions,” JC said. Carmen nodded, beginning to connect his words to what she had seen growing up in Tijuana.

  “Just like the bodies that were piled in the trash outside my family’s shop. No questions were asked.”

  “That’s right,” JC said, “We cross our product in trunks, spare tires and engine compartments. Nobody asks questions. There’s just a big profit and no taxes. Those who do ask questions are dumped in your family’s Tijuana trash can.”

  Carmen stared at the black curtain of the desert horizon which was dry and fragrant with sage. The smell was both alluring and untrustworthy like JC. She fought to distinguish the terrain from the sky. She knew she wasn’t missing much even in the dark. “So, anybody who wants to travel north just crosses?”

  JC nodded. “There is nothing from the ocean east through these hillsides and cactus. Nothing. That sign we just passed, I have pissed on it so many times when it’s late and there is nobody is here.”

  JC pulled to the side of the road and shoved the car into park. He jumped out. Deftly, he unzipped his tight designer jeans. He was an expert at undressing anyone including himself. He thanked the United States with a warm flood of gratitude on the boundary sign. He paused to admire his dripping admiration of America. He dashed back to the car and his girlfriend for the trip. He had proved his manhood again.

  JC turned to Carmen and half laughing said: “La migra, they are the joke with their uniforms and questions. They never stop us,” purred JC returning a light stroke to her arm. “$15,000 a kilo, becomes $30,000 a kilo, becomes $150 a gram. 1000 grams in a kilo. That’s a $150,000 per kilo for the family. A profit of $135,000 a kilo.” JC repeated this arithmetic rosary for sustenance.

  This promise was her ultimate aphrodisiac.

  A low white building jutted out of the desert. In faded neon, “Discount Gas” lit up the deep night. Leaving the engine running, he pulled into the closed gas station. “Cariño,” JC offered, “I am calling them, to tell them we are crossed.”

  He left the car door open and dashed over to a solitary pay phone near the gas station office. A flock of cigarette butts punctuated the blacktop. He kicked the white debris with the toe of his running shoes. He then plunged his right hand into his tight jean pocket. He retrieved a fistful of American change. Quickly, he dropped each quarter in the narrow slot. He held his breath, as if he was feeding coins to a slot machine. JC tingled with the thrill of the payout. From memory, he dialed the country code on the black rotary dial, 4-8-4 he repeated to himself. There would be no misdial. No mistakes, not tonight.

  He dumped in 10 US quarters. The dial was sticky with the residue of the region. He never brought a paper with his uncle’s number north with him. He heard the familiar ding and click and a saccharine female voice announcing: “You have $2.50.” He listened for one shrill ring then a second followed by a deep bass voice that said:

  “Bueno.”

  As instructed, JC answered in Spanish: “We are going to the beach. She does not know.”

  The reply was, “The pier at the usual time.” Both parties hung up.

  3

  No Spare

  Uncle Ramon was no dummy. He was a practical businessman. “See here nephew,” Ramon had said while exhaling his cigar, “We are both cheating in our marriage, Mexico and America.” He snapped his thick fingers for emphasis. “We are good Catholics so we understand we will be forgiven. We cross drugs, we cross people. They want both. We only offer what gringos desire. Like any business we are filling a need. The Americans cheat too by letting us in.”

  JC nodded in agreement as Uncle Ramon continued, “They buy what we have, but they lie. They act in secret as if Jesus is blind. But we see. Our mistresses bear us children and come to our funerals. Their girlfriends live in shame. And it is the same here.” Uncle Ramon poured out the tequila and the border cotillion, “Trade one language for another. Spanish, English.” Ramon, swept his left hand. “And one land where laws, lawyers, and judges are bought and paid for- Tecate, Mexico for another country - San Diego, USA. Nephew, the border does not change the desires of men.”

  JC nodded in silence as the smooth tequila lubricated the flow of conversation.

  “It is our connections and our families.” Ramon smiled wider and put a finger to his lips in pantomime. “We are proud of this tradition and heritage.” JC had been told of the illustrious accomplishments of his family, the Santiago family. Border crossing for the Santiagos
was a proud family trade which was perfected over generations.

  Uncle Ramon recounted tales of their great grandfather in the bootleg liquor days and then the marijuana and now the cocaine. Those gringos with their Puritan background were always making some form of sin illegal. The Santiago family stood ready to profit by supplying the banned transgression.

  JC never forgot Uncle Ramon’s words of advice, “Supply and demand. Limit supply and the price rises, be it gin or cocaine.” Those gringos paid dearly for Prohibition, they outlawed booze. Fortunes were made in those years from 1920 to 1933 for the bootleg liquor sold to Americans. They paid dearly for the prized cocaine. The Santiagos stood ready when Americans made fun illegal. With each decade, his family’s landholdings grew as did their influence and their indulgent, night-long carne asadas.

  His whole life, JC had passed anything and everything and anyone through the border. Politicians, prosecutors and judges on both sides of the border joined together to binge on women and alcohol in high end ocean front hotels. Who were they fooling? Not the Santiagos but maybe some gringos on the east coast.