Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (87 page)

Some houses may have been occupied by only one family, but it was clear that most had been converted into multi-family boarding homes or mini-apartments by the amount of cars parked on the front yards. The actual apartment buildings were now decaying slums.  A vast number of shabby RVs and trailers parked in driveways had obviously been turned into fulltime stationary housing.  Many homes, RVs and trailers had been enlarged or even connected together with the addition of shack-like extensions.  “Informal” electrical wires crisscrossed between poles, buildings, homes, shacks and RVs, a pervasive overhead spider web of bootlegged electricity being tapped from every power pole.

The sheer number of people on the sidewalks, streets and yards was just staggering.  It seemed as if most of the population of Mexico had been picked up and dropped into the San Diego suburbs.  It was the 4th of July, a Yanqui national holiday, but there was not even one United States flag to be seen.  There were only the tricolor flags of Mexico, proudly proclaiming the de-facto reality of
reconquista
in red, white and green.

In the ‘better’ areas, every house had stout burglar bars over their windows and doors.  Many homes had enclosed front porches resembling cages, or holding cells. Most of the small yards were fenced with chain link, or were enclosed within high cinder block walls, topped with vertical shards of broken glass set into mortar.  More than anything, it reminded Ramos of the barrios around Caracas, Rio, Mexico City or a hundred other Latin American cities.  

The house in Santa Ana where they picked up their van and driver was protected by a ten-foot-high fence made of rusty iron rebar.  The metal bars were spaced six inches apart, and the top of each rod was machine-cut at a wickedly sharp angle, to form an effective spear point.  The vertical bars were haphazardly welded together with random pieces of scrap angle iron.  Ramos reflected that the level of crime must have been enormous, to drive people to take such extreme—and extremely ugly—measures to defend their property.  This made him wonder about local police protection, and he kept an eye out for patrol cars, but he saw none at all.

Their cargo van was sparkling white, with high quality black vinyl graphics on both sides announcing that it was owned by the Magic Chef catering company,
El Cocinero Mágico
, complete with telephone numbers, and a cartoon portrait of a winking chef.  The lettering and the art were being applied to the sides of the van as they arrived.  The extended-length van and the driver who would take them safely into downtown San Diego had been arranged through Chino’s local Mexican Mafia contacts.  The cost to Basilio Ramos was 1.2 ounces of gold per day—after a “
depósito de seguridad
” of fifteen more ounces.  

Their
coyote
driver charged an additional half ounce of gold for taking them past the security controls into downtown.  The motorcycle, the weapons bags, Almeria’s communications gear and the four members of his team went into the back of the van, sitting on the deck.  Ramos sat in the front passenger seat.  The driver had no visible tattoos, no facial piercings and a normal medium-length haircut.  He was dressed in a white caterer’s uniform to play his role.

The house where they picked up the van had a detached two-car garage, which had been converted into a paint-spraying booth.  A dusting of over-spray covered the yard.  More cars that were being taped and papered in preparation for spraying were parked on every square meter of the small property.  

This residential automobile painting operation was not unusual for the area.  On many blocks, every other house had been converted into a business: a beauty parlor, an automobile repair shop, or a mortician.  These homes-turned-businesses were painted in garish yellow, red, purple, and green.

Every block had at least one combination moneychanger, pawn shop and loan shark, with the walls of a former house announcing that they traded dollars, pesos, gold and silver at the very best rates in town.  The universal symbol of these businesses was a large depiction of a balance scale, painted on prominent walls.  The symbol C/S (for “con safos”) was painted by these scales, meaning that these businesses were under gang protection, and hence they were “untouchable.”  In the new San Diego, balance scales stood for anything but justice.

Every intersection supported a contingent of men, women and children walking into the stopped traffic to sell flowers, chewing gum, or small bags of nuts or fruit.  It seemed like every open piece of sidewalk had a hot dog or ice cream vendor selling from a pushcart.  Prime street corner locations were occupied by groups of young men all wearing the matching jerseys of various sports teams, such as the Chargers or Raiders. What they were selling was not in much doubt.

Alleyways and walls were covered with graffiti, murals or gigantic painted-on Mexican flags. ¡FUERA GRINGOS! (Gringos Out!) and¡AZTLAN SÍ, YANQUIS NO! were commonly painted sentiments, but it was obvious to Basilio Ramos that the last gringos had departed years ago. From street to street, the horns and violins of
ranchera
music blasting from cars competed with the thumping base and angry verse of Latino hip-hop.

On every block, there was clear evidence that basic city services had collapsed.  Trash was piled up in car-high mounds, and some of these were being burned, sending clouds of acrid smoke wafting across the neighborhoods.  Sewage backed up from drains, running down the gutters and forming stinking black puddles, not surprising with several families living in every house.  Old refrigerators, gutted washing machines, discarded furniture and mildewed mattresses occupied much of the space between the curbs and the security fences marking the property lines.

Basilio Ramos couldn’t understand Chino and Salazar’s fondness for the place. It must have been their youth—they had no memory of how nice the Santa Ana section of San Diego had been twenty years ago.

***

At nine o’clock, the van was creeping along
in heavy traffic on El Cajon Boulevard.  The Comandante calculated that at this rate, it would be more than an hour before they made it downtown to begin their surveillance. The traffic light above the next intersection wasn’t working, it wasn’t even flashing.  It was just out, swaying but dead.  As a result, traffic in both directions had to just bull through the gridlock, relying on their horns and sheer intimidation.  The lines of cars would move ahead twenty feet, and then stop, providing a captive audience for the armies of street vendors. The slow traffic speed seemed to suit the condition of the asphalt streets, which if anything, were in an even worst state of disrepair than back in
Búrque
, with potholes that could be more accurately described as craters. Many of the holes were connected in long rutted chains, forming small canyons, and the driver had to maneuver to keep two wheels on either side.

On the sidewalk near the intersection, Ramos noticed a flurry of commotion. A group of young men wearing Raiders jerseys, black knee-length shorts, white knee socks and black boots were circling around someone, but it was no friendly football huddle.  The men in the group all had shaved heads, goatees, and were all wearing sunglasses. A single taller man in the center of the group had long chestnut hair, and a short beard.  Between the
cholos
, Ramos could see that the tall white man was wearing, improbably, an old-style desert camouflage uniform.  He was spinning and turning, holding up a fist, but the gang was getting the best of him.  Ramos saw that the
vatos
were tossing a hat between them, a uniform cap that matched the man’s shirt and pants.  While the gringo turned one way, another punk slapped or punched him from behind.  This was the old ‘game’ of bear baiting, which would inevitably result in the man going down to the ground exhausted, to be kicked and stomped senseless or dead beneath their boots.

The van inched forward, and he could see that the man who was being so cruelly taunted had only one arm, and a small paper sign pinned to his chest.  

The sign read: “Iraq War Vet.”

“Stop the van!” barked Ramos, slamming his hand on the dashboard.

“What?” asked his driver, puzzled, since they were finally rolling up toward the intersection.

“You heard me—stop this van, now!”

Before they came to a complete halt, Ramos threw open his door and leaped out, lifting the bottom of his checked shirt with his left hand and drawing his Glock with his right.  To the amazement of the preoccupied gang members, street vendors, passers-by, and other drivers and passengers stuck in traffic, Basilio Ramos seized one of the unaware street punks from behind by a handful of gold chains, jerked him back off balance on his heels, and then snapped him upright.  He jammed his Glock’s muzzle hard into the vato’s right ear, and used him as a human shield.

“
Hijos de putamadre
, give him his hat, or I’ll blow this
pendejo’s
shitty brains back to hell! 
¡Hazlo!
  Do it now!”  Ramos violently shook his hostage for emphasis.

The one-armed Anglo veteran straightened up, his chest heaving, breathing deeply through flaring nostrils.  One of the gang members picked his uniform cap off the ground and handed it to him, while nervously eying the screaming
pistolero loco
.  Ramos was so intently focused on the drama in front of him, that he didn’t notice that Chino, Salazar and Genizaro were now backing him up on either side, their leveled Ingram MAC-10s gaining him vastly greater respect.

Ramos hissed, “Now, get the hell out of here!  Move it!” as he shoved his captive forward almost onto his face.  The cholo staggered and caught his balance, just in time to take off running after his friends.  They were out of sight in seconds.  

The Comandante was shaking, and he calmed himself down with effort. He and the one-armed man were the same height, taller by half a head than the common mestizo street punks he had chased off.  The crippled man was gaunt and hollow-eyed.  There was a small American flag patch sewn onto his left shoulder, above his good arm.  There wasn’t even an amputation stump on the right side, nothing for a prosthetic.  

A sewn-on tag above one uniform pocket said U.S. ARMY, above the other, it said FREMONT.  The man’s thick chestnut hair and trimmed beard partially hid his burn-scarred right cheek and missing ear.  The rest of his weathered face was prematurely aged by war and hunger, two conditions that Basilio Ramos recognized first hand.  He was probably around thirty years old, but looked almost fifty.  In English, he asked the one-armed man, “Where are you going today, soldier?”  

“Downtown.
Back
downtown.  The police kicked me out this morning, but my pack is still there.  I’m going back to get it, if it’s still there—police or no police.”

Ramos stared into the crippled veteran’s steel-gray eyes, thinking.  It was at least seven or eight miles to downtown San Diego.  Then he quietly said, “We’re going that way, we’ll give you a ride.  Get in, if you want.” The veteran shrugged, and glanced around the street as if considering his lack of better options.  He walked over and climbed into the open passenger door of the van, and crouched in the space between the two front seats. The three Zetas returned to the back and slammed the side door shut behind them with a bang. A blue canvas curtain divided the front of the van from the cargo area, concealing their presence.  Given the recent display of automatic weapons, the traffic had magically melted away from the
Cocinero Mágico
van.  They were soon through the intersection and making good progress westbound on El Cajon Boulevard.  Ramos offered the veteran water from a plastic bottle, and he gratefully drank it all. 

“Why did the police kick you out of downtown?” asked Ramos.

The veteran sighed, and whispered, “For…begging.”  He stared straight ahead, just over the dashboard, which he held with his one hand to steady himself.  “They said I can’t ask for money.  I didn’t know that was the law here.  I just hitchhiked here from Arizona.  It took me a week—a hard week.”

“You lost your arm in Iraq?”

“Yeah. Yes. Iraq.”

“A bomb?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you get a pension from your government?”

The veteran huffed a bitter laugh.  “A pension?  No, I don’t get a pension. I was only in for eighteen months before...this.  I get a disability check, but it’s a joke.  They never changed the amount after the money changed to blue bucks.  Once a month, I can buy a few nice meals with the nine hundred dollars I get, or I can eat rice and beans for a couple weeks. But after that, I get nothing.  Not unless I want to stay in a ‘veteran’s center,’ and live worse than a goddamn prisoner of war.  And I just got here, so I can’t pick up my check until Monday, because of the holiday. Maybe not even then.  The VA always screws up the paperwork, when you don’t have a permanent address.”

The van left El Cajon Boulevard and merged onto a highway, driving south in light traffic.  Once again they were in a chute between high concrete walls, which were covered from top to bottom in graffiti, gang slogans and informal business advertisements.  After a few miles their driver exited, heading west on surface streets toward downtown near the base of the Coronado Bridge, which vaulted skyward before them.

The Comandante said, “Listen, I’m sorry, but we can’t take you all the way in.”

“I understand.  It’s okay.  I can walk the rest of the way.”

Their driver pulled over to the curb.  

Ramos stepped out of the van to allow the veteran to climb past his seat. They had stopped in an area of warehouses and industrial businesses, surrounded by high chain link and barbed wire.  None of the businesses seemed to be open, either because of the holiday, or because of the economy.  Trash blew down the sidewalk, and dusty weeds grew from every crack in the cement.  There was no one else on the street.

“Good luck, Fremont,” said Basilio Ramos, as they locked eyes for a few seconds.