The Demands of the Dead (19 page)

This was no
ex
-trafficker.

But if he knew Evelyn, he didn't have much reason to worry. South American dealers probably loved her journalism. Mexicans already knew about their police and how they worked. If Sammy didn't name names, he would see no harm in explaining the corruption to an American audience. But usually men like Sammy didn't talk to journalists until after they were caught. He wanted something in return.

"Fine," Sammy said. He sat on the bed with his feet on the chair where his jacket was. Evelyn sat in the other chair, and I leaned on the kitchen counter.

Evelyn took out her notebook.

"So tell us about Tapachula," she said.

"Tapachula? The cheapest, best coke in Mexico. You want to ship cocaine, you'd better know people here."

"And you?"

"I used to be a Conecte. But I was a user then. I don't use, any more."

"What is a Conecte?"

"A Conecte organizes everything. He sets up the timing of the shipments and sees that everyone gets paid."

"Who is everyone?"

"Everyone who has to get paid, chica. The police agencies, the federal police, the border patrol, the politicians, the prosecutors, the city cops. Most of the city cops are users and petty dealers anyway so that's no problem. The rest are too afraid to take on the cartels here."

Sometimes when I would have difficulty solving a case, I would ask Shawn a hypothetical. He could see angles that I missed. I would be looking at the girl's boyfriend as her killer, Shawn would suggest her employer, and be right. I would be looking for a drug angle, he would suggest that it was a robbery, and be right.
I had been looking for him to ask about what I thought was a professional hit when he made himself scarce. No more picking up his phone, no more answering my calls, no more returning my messages, ignored emails. The Manleys, Walter, Maria, all reported the same. “Maybe he's just busy with work,” Maria tried, not believing her own line. I finally staked him out at his place, caught him as he was coming home, late.

“Shawn!”

He looked at me blankly for a second, then said, irritated. “Come inside.” He poured me a glass of water, ignored my barrage of questions, and then started ranting about police. “I've had it with police, Mark.”

“What is it, exactly? I can help. I can talk to --”

“-- you can't help. You should just go. I don't care what kind of person you are, Mark. If you're a cop, we're enemies.”

“What the hell kind of thing is that to say to me?”

He didn't say anything else. So I left.

"How much money are we talking about, here?"

"We pay about 30% of our gross to officials. We get people to carry one kilo or two, or ten across the border-- and pay $25 US for a kilo. A kilo gets you $40 000 in the US, but we don't see all that, everybody takes their share-- including all your officials in the US."

"So how does it get past all the military and police?"

"Once we've seen to the police, they know who is on the bus and what they've got, at every point. So we'll have a 'pollero', right, he's as high up as a conecte, and the pollero charges $500 US for a Guatemalan to go to the US. The Guatemalan wants to go work there, on a farm or cleaning houses or whatever. So he's the pollo. At all the checkpoints, the pollos, they're allowed off the bus with their bags, first. Then the cops get on the bus and search, then they let the pollos back on.

"We do the same thing with trucks. If you don't pay, they can take your whole truck apart and seize everything. But if you pay, you can get a ton or two of coke across in a single truck."

Evelyn looked at me. I asked:

"What about the conflict zone? Do drugs go through there?"

"A lot less. The Indians are against you there. They won't talk or deal. The army is tough. You need pretty high-level contacts. You can't pay off a low-level officer or soldier. Same with the paras. You have to pay them a lot. Otherwise they'll just seize your stuff and use it or sell it themselves."

"Does that happen often?"

"It's a risk, yes, but like I said, it only happens when you go through the conflict zone. That's not something that's done often."

"What about the state police? The Public Security?"

"That's more like dealing with the army. You have to go high or not bother."

“Base commander high?”

“That's as low as I would go.”

“And you wouldn't deal with anyone lower? No rank and file Public Security?”

“No.”

“Do you have any relationship with the Chief of Public Security? Ever work with any Americans?”

“You know,” he said to Evelyn, ignoring me, “I shouldn't answer these specifics.” He stood up and took his jacket, held out his hand.

“I'll take my pistol now.”

“No Americans?”

“Work with them? Ha...no. My pistol please.”

Maybe they worked on you
, I thought.

I handed it back to him, and as he reloaded it, then re-holstered it, I stood close enough that I would have one hand pinning his gun hand and the other deep in his eyes before he knew what was happening. I stood that close until he was out and the door closed.

After Sammy left, we sat around for a while before we went out. When we did go out, we left separately and wandered a while before meeting at a fast food place. American food. Chicken and French fries.

We got back in the early afternoon. It had been a good hot day and my clothes were dry. I re-packed them.
Time to get wet again
, I thought.

“Ready to go to Tuxtla?” I asked Evelyn.

It was the second worst place for me to be, after San Cristobal, but I needed to get to the Garcias. Cerro Hueco prison, the Hole in the Hill, watched its surroundings from behind a stone wall. After the initial check, at which we both had to hand over our IDs Evelyn parked the Civic in a busy lot full of the cars of prisoners' families. We lined up among all of these for an extensive search, and standard procedure, we had to leave all our stuff at the front gate. Including my passport.

If anyone at the prison had instructions to watch out for me, they would be telling their superiors as we walked in. The superiors would be calling my still unknown enemy – Beltran maybe, or Saltillo - as we asked around about the Garcias. The enemy would be deciding what to do as we found them, and within an hour or two, I would be on the receiving end of whatever he chose to do.

Past the wall, we walked into the prison version of the standard Mexican courtyard, a series of cell block buildings on the outer ring village life in the centre. The Zapatistas had their own block, and Evelyn knew exactly where we were going: a damp, concrete cell with cardboard on the floor and no beds or windows.

In Mexico, the wait for trial was long, but the trial and appeals process was fast. Most of the indigenous prisoners in this cell, like the hundreds outside, had not yet been convicted of anything – they were awaiting trial. Most were lying down. I counted 17, using my peripheral vision, not looking directly. Whatever privacy a person could build in a place like this, I wasn’t going to take away.

Evelyn introduced me to a grey-haired, fifty-something man, thin though not the thinnest in this cell, who was squatting on his haunches against the wall. Paco Barrera wore a pair of black slacks reaching just above his waist: no shirt, no shoes. We squatted with him and Evelyn conducted the interview in a whisper, without any notes or recording devices – the latter wasn't allowed, the former would have brought too much interest from guards and other prisoners.

“What’s your name?”

“Paco Barrera Rincon.”

“Where are you from?”

“Colonia Alfredo Mendez, in Las Margaritas.”

“How old are you?”

“41.”

“Do you have a family?”

“Yes. I have a wife and six children.”

“What is your profession?”

“I am a farmer. I am also a member of the campesino’s organization and the

democratic revolution party, the PRD. I’m also a health promoter in my community. I was trained by the Red Cross and worked in the clinic.”

“When were you arrested, and why?”

“Five years ago, I was arrested. It was shortly after I attended a meeting of the campesino’s organization that two police came to me and arrested me. They said I had drugs in my house.”

“Did you?”

“No. Drugs are not allowed in the Zapatista communities.”

“What happened then?”

“They put me in a truck and tortured me. They used electric shocks on my testicles. They hit me with their fists and drowned me in the water. They tried to get me to sign a confession.”

“Did you sign it?”

“No.”

“What were you sentenced with?”

“I haven’t been sentenced yet.”

“Could you elaborate on how drugs aren’t allowed in your communities?”

“We have driven the cartels off Zapatista territory. Alcohol isn’t allowed in the villages. If someone grows marijuana, they’re punished the first time. The second time, they are expelled from the community.”

“And this works?”

“Yes. We believe it does. Our territories do not have drug problems except when the military is present.”

“Do you mean the military brings drugs into the communities? Did this happen in your village?”

“Yes. The military brought drugs, alcohol, prostitution, many problems we didn’t have before.”

“Do you continue your work, here? Are you able to?”

“Yes. We are organized here as well. We are the responsibility of the community. We know how to organize because of the experiences in our communities. So we agitate for our freedom from here.” When I saw the other cell blocks, later, I realized he was right. This cell block had more order and higher spirits than the others. The Zapatistas had curtained off a room for washing, and everything – food, water, cardboard - was shared.

“So you have information about the other Zapatistas here? You are in touch?”

“Yes, we are, we communicate.”

“And you know if there are more recent arrests of Zapatistas?” Evelyn asked neutrally, professionally.

“Yes. For example, there were two men who were just brought in yesterday morning. They were beaten but are in stable condition. We’ve seen them and spoken to them. They are isolated from the other prisoners but we are able to care for them.”

“And these two men haven’t had a trial or sentencing yet?”

“No.”

“And they are charged for drugs, as well?”

“Yes.”
”Where are they from?”

“They are Antonio and Rodolfo Garcia, from Hatuey.”

I asked: “And you say they’re medically in stable condition?”

“Well, they haven’t seen a doctor, but they can speak, sit up, eat, and walk some. They have been beaten but they are recovering. They are in another block, and we have demanded they be transferred here.”

We left Paco and moved around the prison some more, but we were not allowed into the room where Antonio and Rodolfo were kept in isolation. Which was a shame. I felt I owed them an apology for my carelessness. But I got what I needed: all the other men Evelyn interviewed corroborated what Mario told us about the Garcias. They were here, they were going to make it, and they were in the care of the Zapatistas now.

Evelyn collected testimonies for her story while I listened and watched the clock: I thought we had plenty of time when we heard from the 60-year old indigena, another Zapatista from the PRD, arrested on a bus for planted marijuana. We were still doing okay when we heard from the kid who had drugs slipped into his bag and got 12 years. When we got to the indigenous guy who spoke no Spanish and learned it in jail, still awaiting trial, I murmured to Evelyn that we were running out of time.

But I was too late.

Four men in black T-shirts – the uniform of Cerro Hueco's guards – very politely entered the cell block and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Mr. Brown? Can you come with us?”

“Sure,” I said. And to Evelyn: “Don't worry.”

But she did. And so did I.

The warden had a cell block of his own, the best-guarded of them all, with the sharpest shooters in the towers and the sharpest wires lining the tops of the walls. I walked slowly, controlling my breathing, and did a quick inventory. Their response time had been impressive. I was in prison already, and they had my passport. On the bright side, maybe I was about to learn who in Public Security was trying to stop me, and why. I assumed it would be Beltran again, or his goons, but I couldn't see why they would have come from Hatuey just for this.

I was left, standing, outside the warden's office, for fifteen minutes, without which no bureaucratic game would be complete. Since I had no watch to check the time every few seconds, which I wanted to do, I passed the time looking more dignified than I felt. When the door opened and I was ushered in, though, I'm sure my face showed surprise, at least for a second.

The warden's tastes were spartan – perhaps he didn't want any stray objects that could be used as weapons – and he already had a guest in the only other chair in the office. No chair for me. I would have to stand for my entire meeting with the warden – and with his guest, Chief Saltillo.