Richie spent the next four days watching Alex. Some of the time he spent watching the apartment and sometimes he loosely followed the man to learn his routine. The flashy Cadillac Alex drove made him easy to find, so Richie didn't have to tail him closely at all. Like all of us, Alex Padilla was a creature of habit, so in only a couple of days, Richie knew he'd find the man in one of three or four places.
Besides his apartment, Alex spent most of his time at the Nasty Boyz's club house, a dilapidated adobe bungalow located on a two acre lot in the sparsely populated eastern edge of the barrio. The Boyz liked to cookout, work on their cars, lift weights and party at the bungalow.
One thing that stood out in Alex's schedule was the weeknights that he brought his young girlfriend to his apartment. On those nights, he always took her home about ten-thirty and returned home at eleven to change clothes and go hang out with his home boys. It was very obvious that Alex was in love with his high school hottie, because he was a different man around her.
When Alex departed his apartment to drive his girlfriend home Thursday night, Ty McGuinn slipped on the black balaclava and sprinted across the street. He hid around the back corner of Alex's apartment and waited.
Richie stayed hidden behind the house when Alex Padilla drove into his driveway. When the headlight of the car flashed off, Ty snuck around the corner and edged along the wall. He moved quickly but quietly, being careful to stay hidden behind the ornamental shrub at the front corner of the building. He arrived at the corner and crouched down behind the shrub, just as Padilla stepped onto the side walk that ran in front of the building. When Padilla was past Ty's hiding place, the rancher stood up, reached over the shrub and zapped the gangster in the back with a forty-nine dollar pawnshop stungun. Padilla grunted and dropped to the sidewalk like a sack of cement as 650,000 low amperage volts instantly contracted every muscle in his body.
Ty dragged the limp man behind the bushes and quickly secured his hands and feet with duct tape. Then he slapped on a duct tape blindfold and gag. Once Padilla was initially secured, Ty took his time and trussed the man up tightly. He taped the man's arms to his body, and his legs together at the knees and thighs. When he was sure Padilla was immobilized, he trotted out to the nondescript minivan he'd rented from a Rent-A-Wreck place on the other side of town and pulled it up behind Alex's Caddy. This was the most dangerous part of Ty's plan, but his exposure with the trussed up gang-banger was for fewer than thirty seconds. Thirty second after that, he was on the street, casually driving away as Padilla rolled around helplessly in the back.
Ty headed west on Colorado, then turned north on state road fifty-four. Twenty minutes later and well out of the city, he pulled onto a dirt road leading off into the desert. He turned off the headlights and crept up the dirt track until the highway was out of sight before braking to a stop and killing the engine. Ty hopped out of the driver's seat, walked around the van and yanked open the sliding door. Then he unceremoniously dumped Padilla on the ground, dragged him a few feet away from the van and ripped the tape from his prisoner's mouth.
Alex sputtered and cursed when the tape was removed. When he ran out of things to say, Ty hauled him up into a sitting position leaning against the left rear wheel of the minivan.
"You will die for this Cabrón," Padilla threatened.
Ty chuckled nastily.
"I think you are the one likely to die from this encounter, Alex, unless we can work something out."
Padilla listened to the man's voice with some relief. The man was definitely Anglo, speaking very proper English, so he wasn't a prisoner of a rival gang or worse, the Barrio Aztecas.
"What do we have to work out?" Padilla asked cautiously.
Ty smiled at that, happy Padilla was willing to engage him in conversation. As a trained interrogator, Ty knew that he needed to keep Padilla talking and off balance. He could probably torture the information he wanted out of the man, but the gang members were tough and that might take a while. Finessing what he needed to know was a better idea. Ty didn't answer his question, instead, he countered with another query of his own.
"You seem very in love with the Diaz girl, yet you aren't pushing her to leave home to be with you. Why is that?" Ty asked.
Alex was confuse by the question from out of nowhere, but shrugged and answered it.
"She wants to finish high school first and get married before we move in together. Her whole family is very old-fashioned that way."
Ty could tell by his voice that Alex was indeed in love with Donna Diaz, and thought that might be his opening.
"It must be hard being in love with her and being in the Nasty Boyz. She does not seem like the typical gangster girlfriend."
Despite his predicament, Padilla spoke with some passion.
"She's not a gangsta chica, and we have plans, but it is hard to quit the Boyz once you are in."
Ty changed tacks again.
"She told me the necklace you gave her was in place of an engagement ring. The cross is the nicest I've ever seen. It must have been very expensive."
Alex wondered where the man was getting his information because Donna never mentioned talking about them to some Anglo stranger. Nonetheless, he sat up straighter and nodded proudly.
"Yeah, I had to do this guy a really huge and dangerous favor to get it."
Then the reality of his situation came back to Alex. He frowned at the thought of sitting there bull-shitting with this gringo.
"So what's this about? How do you know so much about me and Donna?"
Ty didn't answer the question. Instead, he headed the conversation towards the questions he really wanted answers to.
"Listen Alex, I brought you out here to get some information from you. My original plan was to torture it out of you. I know you are a tough man, so I figured cutting off your penis, half an inch at a time would work best..."
Ty smiled when the man blanched and squeezed his thighs together.
" ... now I am thinking that might not be necessary. Maybe it would work just as well if I guaranteed you a way out of the gang life, and maybe started you and Donna's life together with a tidy nest egg. Anyway, here's where the questions get tougher, so I'm going to give you a minute to think about which route you want me to take."
Ty left Alex stewing, and retrieved his eighteen-volt angle grinder from the van. The angle grinder was outfitted with a four and a half inch diamond cutting blade. He pulled the trigger on the tool and the blade spun with a high pitched whir. Alex jerked his head up in alarm at the sound.
"I practice with a couple of hot dogs to see if this would work. It sliced through them cleanly and quickly. Now let's get those pants unzipped so I can see what I have to work with," Ty said in a conversational tone.
"WAIT ... WAIT!" Alex yelped.
Ty let go of Alex's zipper and sat back on his heels. Alex took a deep breath and forced his voice back close to normal.
"What's the other thing you mentioned?" he asked his captor.
"If you answer a few questions honestly for me and I like your answers, I'll get you into the national guard for the training you want. If you stick out the training, when you come back, I'll set you and Donna up so you can move into your own house as soon as you are married. But don't try to bullshit me, Padilla, or I'll start whacking off your dick, a half inch at a time, comprende?"
Padilla nodded and Ty asked his first question.
"We'll try an easy question first. Where did you get the necklace you gave Donna?" Ty asked, keeping his voice completely unemotional.
Ty tensed up waiting for the answer. Regardless of anything he'd said previously, if Padilla admitted to being involved with the home invasion at the hacienda, he was a dead man.
"I got it from one of the Barrio Azteca dudes. It was part of the payment for a job I did for him."
"What kind of job?" Ty asked.
Alex thought about not answering, but hell, the Azteca were bad enough to take care of themselves.
"Me and a couple of my homeys helped bring some girls across the border for him. He only used us the one time when his usual crew had to lay low for some reason."
"This guy have a name?" Ty asked casually.
"His name is Javier Ortega, but everyone calls him El Loco. He is a captain in the Aztecas, with a big crew and lots of juice."
The Barrio Aztecas use a military style organization and rank structure. Ranks ran from soldier to sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and general. The general was the top man in the gang. The current general was doing a dime for manslaughter in the West Texas State Prison for Men, over in Fort Stockton.
A few more questions brought Ty all the answers he needed about Javier Ortega and his gang. Padilla was quick to point out that Ortega was a vicious killer.
"El Loco personally took out the leader of the Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos when he refused to buy their drugs from Azteca. He rules the barrio with an iron hand, but stays in the background. He keeps the barrio peaceful so the cops stay out of it."
Ortega was a major importer of cocaine and heroin that he acquired from the Mexican Mafia, and even worse, he trafficked in young women who became virtual sex slaves as soon as they set foot in the United States. According to Padilla, the women were lured into crossing the border with bogus job offers. The women were held in El Paso for two weeks of indoctrination and training as prostitutes, then sold to gangs in the north from Chicago to Boston. Rumor had it that a pretty sixteen year old was worth twenty-five grand.
Ty dropped Alex off a block from his apartment at three in the morning. By the time Padilla unwrapped the duct tape blindfold, Ty and the van were long gone.
Ty had the van back where he rented it from at eight, and Richie Salazar was back in his truck headed towards a job at eight-fifteen. Richie replaced a toilet for an elderly widow and repainted her bathroom before lunch. After a quick meal at El Cid's, he crawled into his bed and took a well-earned siesta.
Richie slept until six, then spent half an hour on the phone with Brittany, giving her a list of leads to run down for him. He had dinner at the El Cid, where Liliana flirted outrageously with him. When she brought him the check, she also handed him a slip of paper with her phone number on it.
"Call me if you want to see if all I do is flirt," she said with a wink.
Richie was back in his room, ready to call it an early night, when his cell phone rang. He didn't recognize the number, so he figured it was for work. He flipped open the phone and answered the call.
"Hello, this is Mister Reliable."
"Hi Richie, this is Veronica O'Dell. Am I calling at a bad time?"
Richie had run into Veronica two more times at Capitan Loco's, and had enjoyed her company as much as he had the first night. She seemed to enjoy his company too, because she always treated him better than any of her other customers. Her voice sounded a little off, but Richie couldn't detect anything bad in it.
"Hey Veronica, nope, you're not bothering me at all. What's up?"
"I need to talk to you. Can we meet up?" She asked.
"Sure, I'll head over to the club now," he replied.
"No, not at the club, can you come get me and take me somewhere out of the barrio?"
There was no mistaking the quaver of fear in her voice now, so he quickly agreed.
"Where are you?" he asked.
She gave him a cross street address about a mile from his room.
"I'll be there in ten minutes," he said, already on his way out the door.
He made it there in seven. She was standing on the corner with a large tote bag and a small suitcase. She snatched open the door and slid onto the seat with her bags in her lap. In the brief few seconds the dome light was on, Richie noticed her face was swollen and bruised, and her lip was split.
As he drove away from the corner, she gave a relieved sigh, reached across the seat and grabbed his hand.
"Thank you," she said in a small frightened voice.
He squeezed her hand reassuringly.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Jose wanted me to sleep with this visiting so-called 'Mexican businessman'. When I said no, he slapped me around and told me if I didn't, I'd find myself in a Juarez whorehouse. It turns out that this Mexican guy was the person who recruits and puts under contract the dancers at the clubs. He wanted a blue-eyed natural blond, and Jose volunteered me. Jose had the nerve to tell me if I loved him, I'd do this so he'd look good to his boss.
"When I said no, Jose slapped me around until I changed my mind," she said bitterly.
Richie nodded sympathetically and squeezed her hand again.
"Do you have a place to go?" he asked.
She shook her head forlornly.
"No," she whispered, "and I only have a few dollars."
Richie frowned, then pulled out his cell phone and hit two on the speed dial. Brittany answered after the first ring.
"Honey, I need some help," Richie said. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes and I've got company."
Stella knew it must have been important, or Ty wouldn't risk blowing his cover by coming to her room.
"Okay, Baby, I'll be waiting," she replied.
It was a quick drive down Colorado Boulevard to the Embassy Suites Hotel off I-10. Veronica heaved a sigh of relief as they entered the El Paso city limits and the barrio disappeared behind them. Veronica O'Dell had been over her head from the day she'd arrived in El Paso three months ago.
Veronica was in El Paso because she'd moved from Florida to be with her fiancé at the time. He was a young second lieutenant tank platoon leader assigned to Fort Bliss. She hadn't told her betrothed she was coming, so she could surprise him. Instead, she was the one surprised when she found him already playing house with a cute señorita. Veronica was almost broke when she arrived, and although a college graduate, her degree was not marketable in El Paso, because she was not bi-lingual.
Since she had danced to pay her way through the University of Central Florida, (and to pay for her perfect breasts) she hit Colorado Avenue looking for a job. Capitan Loco's was the first place she'd applied. She was hired after a short audition, but instead of being a dancer, she was hired as a dance instructor. One of the men interviewing her was one of the assistant managers named Jose Figueroa. Veronica and Figueroa soon fell into a relationship. Tonight's ordeal was the result of being his girlfriend for two months.
Stella let them in when Ty knocked on the door of her room. Ty made introductions, then borrowed Stella's cell phone. He dialed a number from memory and waited patiently for the party at the other end to answer.
"Colon," the other party said.
"Petey, I need some help," Ty said. "I've got a person here who needs a job and a safe place to stay for a while. I need you to come down here to the Embassy Suites off I-10 near the airport and pick her up."
While Ty was talking to Pete, Stella was putting Veronica at ease.
"Have a seat Veronica. I have beer, water and Diet Coke, which would you prefer?"
Veronica opted for a beer, and surreptitiously studied the other woman when Stella went to the mini-fridge to fetch her one. Veronica knew Richie had a girlfriend, but she sure wasn't expecting her to be a green-eyed blonde Amazon.
The big woman was dressed in jeans and a button up long sleeve shirt, and even though she was barefoot, she was seven inches taller than Veronica, who was wearing platform sandals. Her blond hair was medium length and softly curled to surround her pretty face. Her big green eyes were wide-spaced, and her high cheekbones turned them up at the outside corners. Her nose was cutely upturned and there was a dusting of freckles across the bridge of it. She had full lips above a strong chin. Her chin and cheekbones gave her face a heart-like shape. Veronica was impressed, even if she was more than a little jealous that the woman had taken Richie off the market.
Ty ended his call and sat down at the small table across from Veronica. Stella plunked a beer down on the table in front of him and gracefully folded herself into Ty's lap.
"That was a friend of mine I was talking to, Veronica. He's coming to take you somewhere safe. While we're waiting for him, do you mind answering a few questions?"
"Call me Ronnie, okay? I only use Veronica at work. And sure, you can ask me anything, you saved me tonight, Richie."
So Ty filled the hour it took Pete to arrive with skillful questions, the answered to which added greatly to his knowledge of the Barrio Azteca gang.
He learned the man that Ronnie had to favor with her charms was the talent agent who recruited young women in Mexico to dance at the clubs. His name was Rodolfo Beltran, but everyone called him Rudy. Ronnie thought Beltran must recruit prostitutes too, judging by the number of women the man said he was sending that week. She told Ty that the dancers only worked the clubs for a month or two to learn the basics, then their contracts were sold to someone else.
Ronnie knew a little about the Aztecas from her dating Jose Figueroa and working at the club. She said that Capitan Loco's, the largest and nicest of the clubs, was the headquarters of Javier Ortega and his crew. Strangely enough, she said Capitan Loco's was the best run club at which she'd ever worked. Drugs were absolutely forbidden on the premises, IDs were closely scrutinized and the 'no touching' rule was strictly enforced.
Capitan Loco's was located in a three story building that had started life as a furniture store. According to Veronica, the dancers' dressing room plus a few rooms for private parties were on the second floor of the building, while the third floor held the business offices for all the clubs on the street, plus some of Barrio Azteca's other interests. After what had happened at his ranch, Ty figured those other interests were drugs and trafficking in young women. It made him cringe inside to know that the distant cousins he'd rescued from the coyotes might have ended up dancing against there will at Capitan Loco's (or even something worse) if he hadn't stumbled on them that night.
Pete Colon arrived about an hour after Ty called him. Ty took him back outside and briefed him on Ronnie's situation. When he finished with the background, he told Colon what he wanted him to do.
"Petey, put her up in one of the guest bungalows and have Reuben find some work for her. She's bright and educated, so she'd make him an excellent assistant. She might be in some danger, so I want you to personally keep an eye on her. Oh, and one last thing, she doesn't need to know who I really am until this is over, okay?"
Pete had no problem with any of what Ty said, especially the keep an eye on her part. That was going to be easy, because he thought she was about the prettiest woman he'd ever met.
"Sure Boss," he said laconically, "whatever you say."
Back inside the room, Richie introduced Ronnie to his 'cousin' Pete.
"Veronica O'Dell, this is my cousin Pete Colon. Pete runs a big spread east of here. He has a few jobs to fill, and thinks you might be perfect for one of them. There are employee quarters on the ranch, so you'll have a place to live. You'll be safe there until you figure out what you want to do next. Pete can arrange for you to draw against your salary for some work clothes, since you had to leave most of your things at Jose's house."
Ronnie thanked him profusely, Pete grabbed her bags and Richie sent her on her way with a chaste kiss.
As soon as he closed the door, Stella was on him as if she were part of his clothes.
"I've missed you," she moaned as he wrapped his arms around her.
"Who did you miss more, Ty or Richie?" he asked teasingly.
Stella leaned back in his arms and regarded him seriously.
"Actually, I missed you both. Somehow, I don't think being Richie is that big an act for you."
Ty nodded. She was right and they'd talk about that soon, but at the moment, he was too busy falling into her big emerald eyes to even think about that. He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her in place of talking. They were both panting when Ty broke the kiss.
"Let's save that for later, right now we need to talk about what you've found out these last few days," he said.
She gave him a pouty look and replied, "Not unless Richie spends the night."
Ty laughed and nodded.
"I think that can be arranged."
Ty stepped over to the small table and Stella fetched her laptop. Stella took the chair next to Ty and placed the open and running laptop in front of them. She called up a folder off her desktop and started explaining the contents to Ty.
"The strip clubs along Colorado Avenue are owned by a limited partnership called Aztec Associates. There are twelve partners listed, including Javier Ortega. Surprisingly, the managing general partner is a woman named Sylvia Montana. I checked her out and found that she is the mother of Antonio Montana, the head of the El Paso Barrio Azteca gang and a guest at the Texas Department of Corrections over in Fort Stockton. I think Sylvia is the figure head of the company, because the county won't issue a liquor license to a convicted felon.
"Another of the partners is a lawyer name Jeffery Pena. I checked him out also; he started as an immigration and real estate attorney, but now has three other lawyers working for him, one of them specializes in criminal defense, and has represented a number of the Aztecas.
"I ran a search on Aztec Associates and they own some apartment buildings in addition to the clubs. Since they are a partnership, there are no public filing requirements for them, so I can't run any financials. Ditto on tax information, past the fact that they pay their property tax with clockwork precision."
Something jiggled Ty's mind when she mentioned apartment buildings. It took a few seconds for the thought to percolate, then he snapped his fingers.
"You know what I just thought of, even though I've subconsciously noticed it every day? I haven't seen a single hooker on the streets anywhere in the barrio. I haven't seen any in the bars I've visited either. The barmaids and waitresses are older women and they speak excellent English - no young illegals there. So if the Aztecas are running prostitutes, it must be in brothels of some type, and these apartment buildings are a logical location."
Stella gave him a nod and didn't say anything as he worked out things in his mind. It took a few minutes, but he finally leaned forward and told her what he was thinking.
"Okay, so we know this Ortega fellow was involved in killing Abuela and Lupe, because he had Lupe's necklace. I doubt if we'll find who else was directly involved, though, these guys are just too hardened to break easy. We also know that they are trafficking in drugs and young women, and killing a few of those hoodlums isn't going to stop that.
"Then there's the fact that whoever is supplying the drugs is probably also calling the shots, because someone had to help the Aztecas set themselves up so efficiently here."
Stella bobbed her head in agreement.
"Yeah," she said, "this is one diabolically clever operation. It took someone with brains and muscles to not only set them up like this, but to keep them so well disciplined. They run their bars so cleanly to keep down the attention they draw. Having a lower profit margin doesn't matter to them, because they launder drug and prostitution money through the clubs as profit.
"I can't see them getting away with this if they didn't have some folks in the county government and sheriff's office in their pockets. It would be nice if we could expose those people too."
"Good thinking," Ty replied. "Let's put Cassandra and Waldo onto it to see if they can find anything. If they can hack into the IRS, they shouldn't have any trouble with El Paso County's computer system. Ronnie said that Rudy, the talent scout, would be in town for a few more days, so let's do a background check on him, then I'll pay him a little visit before he leaves town."
Business finished, Stella stood up and stretched.
"I'm going to take a quick shower, Baby. Why don't you relax on the bed and I'll join you in a few minutes," she said.
Stella stopped at her suitcase and grabbed a couple of items, then sauntered into the bathroom. Ty turned out the lights, shucked down to his boxer-briefs and slid under the covers. He propped himself up against the headboard and picked up the television remote off the night stand. He had no idea how long Stella would be, so he tuned the TV to the DIY channel and watched a woodworking show.
Fifteen minutes into the how-to show, the bathroom door swung open and Stella stepped into the doorway. Ty's eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw her standing there in a sheer white chemise. She saw his reaction by the light of the TV and gave him a sweet smile.
"I bought this ten years ago, but until now, I never met a man who I thought deserved to see me in it."
He licked his suddenly dry lips as she walked across the room.
"I'm honored," he husked, as she climbed in the bed next to him.
She smiled and nestled herself against his side. He started to take off the glasses that seemed a part of him now, but she stopped him. With the glasses on, he was Richie Salazar, hard-working handyman, and Richie was not shy and reserved like Ty.
"Be Richie tonight," she said huskily.
Richie grinned as he slid down in the bed and took her into his arms.
"Whatever you say, Corazón," he said, just before he captured her lips with his.