Scout’s Honor: Chapter 13

Las Tumbas

A few blocks north of the hotel, Rosarito’s police station squatted on a dirt road next to a used-car lot. The station was on the ground floor of a white-plastered, two-story building that still looked like a medical clinic. The cars in the lot, junkers to Chryslers, were the bail Americans posted for their freedom. Few were ever reclaimed. 

Manuel Chávez strode into the station’s waiting room. Ignoring the filth, the fading advertisements, and the beaten-down supplicants, he rapped on the sliding glass window that protected the clerk from the outside world. Although Chávez was a slight man, his stature increased the moment he spoke. His voice was deep, scented with education. He chose his words with care and had developed the habit of making the world strain to hear him. 

Señor Chávez confirmed the prisoner’s presence with the clerk and asked to speak with the station’s commanding officer. When the officer appeared, Chávez explained how impossible it would be to conduct his client interview in the station. With a wave of his hand, a whisper of his silk suit, he offered to pay for an officer’s time to accompany attorney and client to the hotel’s bar. The officer said he would bring the prisoner himself, promising to have him there in ten minutes. Chávez strolled out. 

“Now, Mr. Cross. Please tell me again how it came to happen you were smoking a marijuana cigarette in front of this hotel.” With a flick of his thumb, Chávez opened his silver lighter, lit a cigar that dwarfed his small, manicured hand, and glanced around the blue-tiled, whitewashed bar. Chávez was puzzled and thus interested.

Roy tossed his hair from side to side. “I told you, man. I just forgot about it being a big deal. Didn’t see any federales hanging around. That’s cool.”

“But if you did not think it was the big deal, why did you first assure yourself of the authorities’ absence?” Chávez, sipping his gin and tonic, nodded in the direction of the patient officer three tables away, tried to make eye contact with a pair of women sitting at the bar.

“I was just being careful.” Roy followed the lawyer’s gaze, appraised the women in a glance, and grinned. “Not so malo, man.”

“So careful you smoked not one but two marijuana cigarettes at Rosarito’s most busy place?”

“Why don’t you just bail me out and take me to Ramirez? He’s cool.” 

“Let us talk first of the shipment,” said the lawyer.

“Can I get another rum and coke?” 

“Where is it now?” 

“Like I told you, Mr. Lawyer Man, I don’t know where it is right now. Hey, por favor, another bebida.” 

“You must tell me where the shipment is, Mr. Cross. Otherwise, I cannot help you.” Chávez wondered about Cross’s apparent indifference to his plight. Was this golden boy an idiot?

“Somewhere in San Diego. Eddie, my friend, has it in his van. Want me to, like, describe him again?” Roy had hoped to give Ramirez enough details to identify Eddie and his van, but not before Schmidt could get to him. A miscalculation. He had planned on hours before help arrived, but Chávez’s quick appearance and polite questioning was unnerving him.

“Now, it is in San Diego? Please forgive me, but I thought you said it was still in Mexico.”

“Look, man, I don’t know whether it’s here or there, because I’m stuck here talking to you. Bail me out and we’ll meet Eddie at midnight at the hotel in Coronado. He’ll have the shit and everybody goes home happy.”

“Describe the auto again for me please.” Chávez admired a rich-looking American whose bikini was covered with a flimsy wrap.

“Dude, I told you. It’s a beat-to-shit, blue and white VW van; license plate number D-A-B-2-6-4.” He stared at the lazy ceiling fan, telling himself to stay cool, be helpful. 

“Most impressive.” Chávez scanned his monogrammed black leather notebook to check the number against the first one Roy had given him. “I am sorry, but my handwriting is deplorable; you said your own license number was?”

“Let’s see. B, A—no, R—yeah, R, G, and the numbers are 0-6-9.”

He jotted the number down. “I am curious, Mr. Cross. If you were home in San Diego, would you smoke the marijuana on a busy street?”

“Dude, I’m always high, I smoke wherever I’m at. No big deal.”

Perhaps the story was truly one of a dull boy whose need for marijuana overcame the most elementary caution, but Manuel Chávez had become wealthy by discounting nearly everything he was told, especially from clients. He stood and politely excused himself. He called Juan Sierra’s chief lieutenant in Los Angeles. In recounting the arrest and Cross’s casual explanation, the lawyer opined to Héctor Griego how peculiar it was for a young smuggler to almost seek arrest. When one contrasted the youth’s evasions with his specific information about Kawadsky—particularly, his friend’s license plate number—one had to conclude Cross was lying. His small doubt sprang from the young man’s vulgar insouciance. 

“What do you think, Counselor?” An obese man whose weight caused most to underestimate him, Héctor Griego disguised his elation over the arrest with plodding questions, as if fearing the phone in his garden supplies warehouse were tapped. Griego had longed for Juan Sierra’s job from the moment he arrived in California, and now it might be his. The maricón had foolishly—fatally?—entrusted the family’s cocaína to his pretty chico. 

“Perhaps I am too cynical for forty-five years of good fortune on this earth, but I wager this boy has a far more entertaining story than the one he told me. If he were merely a pendejo, why would he describe his friend in such detail?” 

“Will the pendejo be safe in Rosarito?” Griego asked, rubbing a hand through short-cropped black hair. His rubber-topped steel desk was as sloppy as he was, littered with reminders, files, and the remnants of a prodigious lunch.

“They will not keep him here long, Señor. Even the Americans are transferred to La Mesa. You do not need to worry about his escaping, if that is what you mean by safe. But if you are concerned about his welfare, I would advise you to keep him out of La Mesa.” 

Griego bit down on his fat thumb, imagining Sierra’s murderous rampage if it happened that his beloved were guilty only of smoking marijuana, but shipped off to La Mesa with Griego’s acquiescence. He asked Chávez if he could arrange to have the boy watched at Rosarito.

Returning to the bar, Chávez observed Cross with keener interest, wondering why Griego was protective. In his soft voice, Chávez explained to the officer how important this boy was to his most influential client. He opened his leather briefcase and, withdrawing a newspaper, set it on the table, suggesting the officer read the financial section. Chávez said no fortune the boy might promise would be worth the consequences certain to arise from his release, escape, or even minor injury. Tapping the bulging newspaper, he said, “My clients are generous to their friends, Señor, but they are simple men who live by an ancient code. They see everything in black and white, and nothing could be blacker than the boy’s disappearance.”

With his right hand on the paper as if it were a courtroom bible, the officer pledged he and his brother would guard the prisoner round the clock.

Roy fumed when Chávez told him that he would remain in Rosarito pending the midnight delivery. He chased after Chávez into the dirt parking lot, the smiling officer trailing at a distance, clutching his newspaper to his chest. 

“Does Juan Sierra know I’m here?” he demanded.

“Who?” Chávez almost masked his surprise. How could this boy possibly know Juan Sierra? Chavez himself had exchanged no more than the most skeletal of pleasantries with the infamous head of the Trujillo family.

“Juan Sierra. He’s a really good friend of mine. A guy he knows is buds with Ramirez. Juan can do a number with his buds and they can trip with Ramirez. He’ll spring me then. Cool? Can you call Juan?” 

“If you truly know Mr. Sierra, you know that is impossible.” Chávez was flustered by the boy’s request and his incomprehensible slang and, puffing on his cigar, coughed when he accidentally inhaled.

“Why not? I have the number.” 

“I have no more time for your games, young man.” Chávez frowned at the dust on his car. “Your Ramirez and all of his bosses do not sleep until Mr. Sierra says good night, and lawyers lose not only their clients but their heads when they disturb him.” He yanked his door shut, disappeared behind its black-tinted window, and spun off in a spray of dust, powdering an open-mouthed Roy and the officer.

“Fucking lawyers think they know everything.” Roy held a finger to the sky, vowing to spend no more than one night in jail. With the bills he’d stashed beneath his soles, all hundreds, he could walk out in five minutes. 

He had it covered. 

Juan Sierra’s jaw ached from his root canal. He swallowed four aspirin with vodka in his favorite restaurant, a quiet place in Westwood with brick walls, deep, red leather booths, white tablecloths, and respectful waiters. His King must have done it, he told himself. Whatever doubt their clever lawyer had would have vanished had he known this shipment was worth a dozen times his standard delivery. 

“George, please. Another bloody Mary. A double. The celery is not essential.” He nodded at the two stalks in front of him. “Perhaps a cup of bouillon, yes?”

“Of course, sir.”

He mulled Roy’s tale of going to the hotel to call Tommy Mahoney, of his uneasiness, of his wanting to get high before hitchhiking back to the shipment, of looking up and down the street for police and then deciding a quick cigarette was safe. Juan knew how much he smoked, how little caution he displayed. His fury with the boy was tinged with guilt. He’d intended only one stiff drink after the dentist, a soothing vodka to make sense of his numb lip, but the bar afforded other possibilities. His pimpled trick had left him not only depressed but questioning why he had been faithful to Roy, why the act without the youth released only sadness. Denying he might love him, Juan insisted his fidelity was merely the result of a busy schedule.

He sipped his drink and scanned the expensive, crowded restaurant. Griego had been optimistic about recovering the shipment, perhaps even before midnight. Assuming he succeeded, Juan wavered over letting Roy escape with a minor beating, one that would require a mere overnight hospital stay instead of six months in a wheelchair. 

Griego approached Juan’s booth with somber eyes but a step remarkably light for a man of his girth. 

“What news? Sit, please sit.”

“They found the van.” Griego closed his porcine eyes as if in prayer. “Empty.”

“They are certain?”

“Yes, Padrino. It matches Cross’s description. The license plate number is the one he gave us, and two of our kilos were found on the floor.”

“Goddamn him to hell.” Juan ground his fists into the tablecloth. “Goddamn him to hell. He dies the moment we recover our shipment. You promised me we would get that shipment back tonight.”

“We will, we will. Let me explain. I—”

“Explain on the way to the airport.” Juan rose. “Call Pedro to ready the plane and file a flight plan to San Diego.” In a fury, he ordered Griego to repeat the details about the dead policemen and the empty van. “This parking lot where the shooting occurred? Where is it?”

“Pacific Coast Highway. Near the airport.”

The aching from his tooth worsened. “Could this one boy have killed two policemen by himself?” asked Juan. “No. And we know he didn’t walk away with fifty kilos. Someone was waiting in that parking lot. The police must have followed him there, and the shooting happened when they interrupted their exchange.”

“We only know what Valiente heard from his source,” said Griego. Noticing his boss’s grimace, he remembered his root canal and added, “Juan, you are in pain, no? May I offer you a codeine tablet? I take them for my chest pains.”

“No, gracias.” When had Griego last bathed? Juan rolled his window down halfway and leaned his aching jaw against it, blessing the breeze. “This Kawadsky could not have been part of the plan. Cross would never have described him to us if he were.”

“I think the Mexicans must be involved.”

Juan clenched his jaw at Roy’s deceit and winced, his eyes watering. “Hand me that small bottle in the side pocket. Now.” He shook three pills onto his tongue, swallowed them dry. “He will die slowly, but first he will tell me where my cocaína is.”

“Could it be a remote possibility? No—I suppose not.” Certain the maricón would indeed tell Juan everything within minutes of even anticipating pain, Griego had to buy time. If Juan dealt with the boy swiftly and recovered the cocaína, Griego would have no story to tell Medellín, no sure path to a field promotion. He eased off the gas. “May I say something? As a friend, not as a business associate?”

Juan waved a tired hand.

“I know you better than anyone. Yes. You are harder on yourself than anyone else.” He paused, expecting a denial. “You are. I know you have a good friendship with this boy and maybe you identify yourself too much with his mistakes. I am not clever and cannot explain this well, but could you be too hard on him because you like him so much? The boy could be innocent and yet you are planning his death.”

“Innocent? Hah.” But he considered Griego carefully. Because his secret life rendered compliments meaningless, Juan was impervious to flattery, even heartfelt praise. His weakness lay in his children. On his knees he would pray for his sons’ perfection—to be worlds apart from him—and Roy was more than a son to him. Now, in his first conversation ever about Roy, a respected lieutenant was defending him.

“The boy is sitting in jail, two policemen are dead, and he did not—at least personally—steal our shipment. That we know. The rest we must guess, and Chávez said he was so calm he might be telling the truth.” They were nearing the Burbank airport. “What if the other boy saw his opportunity when Cross was arrested and made his own arrangements? Or Cross has been bragging about his business and someone told crooked cops who tried to take the cocaína from this other boy. Maybe this Zawadsky will show up tonight at the hotel with the rest of the shipment. Maybe Cross is innocent. If he is interrogated tonight, he will be hurt badly. See him in a few days when you are no longer so angry. Would you like to hear my plan?” 

Another languid hand wave.

“We have him sent to La Mesa and have Ramirez take care of his cousin Mahoney, the border guard.”

“I wonder if they even are cousins,” Juan mused, distracted. “Perhaps it was all part of a lie to make me entrust our shipments with him. The boy is clever; he knows how we value family.” 

 “Cousin or not, we deliver his cojones to Cross in a jar. That and a few days in a real prison will have him begging to talk to us.” 

“La Mesa.” Juan knew its reputation as the worst prison in North America, doubting his lovely güero would survive even a few days there. Then he laughed aloud, laughing at himself for fretting over his King’s safety while knowing he would strangle the boy himself. 

Griego twisted his ragged knife. “The problem is unless we protect him, we will have nothing to interrogate in a few days. You have heard of Las Tumbas?” All new prisoners started life in the Tombs, he explained, where they slept a dozen to the cell, where the murderers and gang members would assume Roy had money. They would beat him long after he lost consciousness.

“We should keep him out of Las Tumbas, yes?” If Griego could extract a request to protect the boy, he would buy a carraca within the prison, hire a bodyguard, and then inform Medellín how he had been forced to baby Juan’s lover when the maricón should have been sliced open like a spring melon. That would seal Juan Sierra’s death warrant and his own promotion. 

“He would be killed?”

“Let me take you home, Padrino. You need to rest—your tooth is troubling you too much. I will assure his safety and find this friend and the cousin, and I will visit La Mesa to make sure the boy is treated well. But you will personally conduct the interrogation. Yes?” 

Juan heard the words as if from a distance. This prison would be a purgatory in the boy’s descent to hell.

“Yes?”

“Yes, all right.” He rolled down the window again to breathe in the night air as triumph stole across Griego’s pendulous cheeks.

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