This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha Page 22

  Denis’s planning process lasted for a number of days and occupied the better part of at least half a dozen phone calls with Boxer, Filosofo, and Brenda. Once Denis settled on his escape plan, he told Brenda he needed more information and wanted to call Greg. Brenda thought it was a stupid idea, but she gave him the number anyway. Boys will be boys, she thought. Anyway, Greg would talk some sense into him.

  Denis told Filosofo to anonymously call Greg on a three-way call so he could listen on the other line. Denis instructed Filosofo to get information out of Greg by asking random questions about prison breakouts, what the cops would do, and what happens in escape investigations and prosecutions.

  When he called Greg, Filosofo didn’t tell Greg who he was, but Greg correctly assumed it was Denis’s clique member and one of his main connections from prison to the real world. He was curious about why this kid would be calling him and decided to play along.

  As Brenda suspected, Greg thought any idea for a breakout was stupid. There was a thick glass pane in all prison cell windows, and even if someone managed to rope down three stories from the window, he wouldn’t get far from the prison before all the cops in northern Virginia would be out looking for him. It was absurd.

  Denis didn’t care. “Fuck it,” he said in one of his last phone conversations with Brenda. “Yeah, fuck it,” she replied, but it was the gangster in her talking. Despite her words, she grew worried. Brenda knew if he tried to escape, his chances were slim, and after he was captured, it would be impossible for her to see him. She couldn’t let Denis try to escape. Greg could fix it. She called him from her hotel room and told him she had talked to Denis and that he was planning on breaking out. Greg immediately linked her confession with the phone call he had received from Filosofo. He was stupefied. Denis was the last person Brenda should be calling. But Greg kept calm. She may be back in touch with her MS friends, he thought, but at least she was still in Minnesota, a far distance from Virginia.

  When he ran into Detective Rodriguez at court soon after his phone call with Brenda, Greg told him he had credible information on a possible breakout organized by a guy named Joker. Greg didn’t want to mention Denis’s name because he knew it would implicate Brenda. If he simply alerted Rodriguez to an escape plan, then the prison deputies would turn over every cell in the building to figure out who was behind the caper. That was good enough for Greg.

  Any escape plan normally involved knocking out or otherwise harming a policeman. Rodriguez wanted to prevent anyone from being hurt and immediately notified the deputies at the prison that he had information on an escape plan. Rodriguez didn’t think it could be Joker. The only Joker he knew was an MS member who had been released just two days before Rodriguez learned of the escape plan from Greg. He suspected it might have something to do with Brenda, and knew Greg wouldn’t do or say anything to implicate her, so he took Greg’s warning at face value and didn’t press for the truth.

  Rodriguez asked the deputies to look into another inmate named Joker. The deputies asked around and quickly found themselves in Denis’s cell. They searched it and found the map he had drawn indicating his plans for escape. His chances of breaking out were over. Denis was furious. When he got on the phone with Filosofo in mid-May, he was determined to find out if Brenda had tipped the cops to his plans.

  Denis called Filosofo and immediately asked him to call Brenda so he could listen to their conversation without Brenda knowing he was on the line.

  “I will cover the phone now, and you call her now, talk to her for seven minutes,” Denis told Filosofo. He was very specific with Filosofo. There were high stakes here. The woman he had protected for so long might have betrayed him. He didn’t know how much longer Brenda would be at the hotel or room number she had given them, so it was likely a one-time shot to confirm if she ratted on him.

  “Okay,” Filosofo responded, obedient as ever.

  “Seven, eight minutes, but try to get all the information that you can, about the lawyer, everything,” Denis said. He wanted to know if she had spoken with Greg.

  “Okay,” Filosofo responded, taking orders.

  “And chatter with her, throw her some chatter,” Denis suggested. He knew Brenda was talkative. If Filosofo could get her to relax and talk, maybe she would slip and say something wrong.

  Denis instructed Filosofo to relay the message that he was going to break out in two months, since his earlier plans had been foiled. When he broke out, he would come looking for Brenda first.

  Filosofo started dialing Brenda’s number in Minnesota. Denis pressed the palm of his hand against the microphone on his end of the line and listened.

  When the Marriot hotel clerk answered, Filosofo asked for room 111. He hoped Brenda was still in the same room where she had told them she was staying.

  “Hello,” Brenda answered.

  “Hello,” Filosofo began.

  “Wait,” Brenda interrupted.

  When she came back on the line, Filosofo started the chatter.

  “Let’s see, so are you going to send me the money then?” he asked. Brenda had previously agreed to send him money to share with Denis. It was part of the money the marshals had given her as allowance.

  “Yes,” Brenda said.

  “But through Western Union?” Filosofo asked.

  “I don’t know. I will send it somehow,” she responded.

  “So what’s up?” Filosofo asked. His time was running out. And Denis was listening. He needed to get her to say something.

  “Nothing, you say something or put on that song.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one that goes…” And Brenda began singing a love song.

  “I don’t have that one,” Filosofo said, laughing as Brenda continued to sing.

  “Does it remind you of Denis?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she said flippantly

  “And you love him? Do you miss him?” Filosofo pried

  “We hardly even talk,” Brenda lamented.

  “Who, you and him?” Filosofo asked.

  “Yeah. But we used to speak all the time. I miss him,” Brenda admitted.

  “He will be out soon, like in two months,” Filosofo said, delivering Denis’s message.

  “As long as they don’t kill him,” Brenda corrected. She was worried any escape plan might lead to ruin.

  “No, they will not kill him. Who told you that? Did he tell you?” Filosofo asked. Denis was surely interested to know the answer.

  “No, his lawyer and mine,” Brenda stated.

  “They told you he was going to get that? Who knows. But he’s going to get out. He’s going to be looking for you, eh?” Filosofo said, dutifully delivering his boss’s message.

  “Yeah, right.” Brenda wasn’t so sure. “I asked my lawyer a lot of questions, but I didn’t tell him it is for Denis but that it was for another homeboy. And he tells me that others have tried, but they could not [get out]. So, just for trying they give them one year. From Alexandria they have tried and almost got out, but they did not, because the federals are there in the building. In Fairfax when they are there it is a little bit easier because they have docks, where clothes are brought in. Over there [it] is easier, but you have to plan and know the building,” Brenda explained.

  “What a problem. Do you think he will do it now?” Filosofo wanted more information.

  “The thing is that the homeboy…he can do it from anywhere, but that’s because I have a lot of faith. You know what I mean?” Brenda did believe Denis was crazy enough to try an escape. “My lawyer told me, he said: ‘Tell your friend that if he is planning to go back to his country, he better not do it, because when he escapes, then it will be federal, it will be all the police,’” she concluded.

  Hearing all he needed to know, Filosofo told Brenda he had another call and hung up. Back on the line with Denis, Filosofo went over his conversation.

  “Well, she told me all I wanted to know, yeah?” he asked Denis, seeking approval.
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  “More or less, homes, but she is a big, super,” Denis said, using gang slang to describe Brenda as a big traitor, finally beginning to believe that Brenda had betrayed him. “Yeah, homes, she is a big, and I’m a stupid fuck for trusting, homes.” He was seething and felt like Brenda had played him for a fool.

  “Do you think it was her? I think it was her,” Filosofo responded. He believed Brenda ratted out Denis’s plans to Greg.

  “Because, why on earth did she have to tell the lawyer, homes?” Denis asked, clearly frustrated with Brenda.

  “She messed up there,” Filosofo agreed.

  “Stupid fucking bitch, homes.” Denis began cursing and didn’t stop for minutes.

  Denis was convinced Brenda had ruined his best chance to escape. He had other ideas, but the plans he’d been working on for weeks were ruined by the very girl he protected, the girl who he thought loved him and would never betray him. Brenda was now dead to him. She was no longer someone special, and if he could, Denis would kill her.

  CHAPTER 46

  Once the cops were on to Denis’s plans for escape, they gave him special “escape risk” status. The police doubled his guard during all his movements from court to prison, and after his last attempt to soften Denis, Rodriguez completely gave up on him as an informant. He no longer had any chance of escape or reducing his sentence. All he had left on his hands was time. Time to think on his life, time to stew over Brenda’s betrayal. Time to plan her death.

  The calls to Brenda began. During the second week of May, Brenda took a call from Filosofo. It was simply a reminder that Denis was the top dog. It was a veiled threat, but Brenda decided to ignore it. Filosofo was probably just mouthing off.

  The next day, Denis asked Filosofo to call Brenda again, this time to convince her to have an abortion. Through Boxer and Filosofo, word had spread through the MS that Brenda was pregnant. This complicated Denis’s plan.

  “If I arrive one day and I make her like that and both of them leave, it’s better for only one to leave.” Denis was using a thinly veiled code. If he had the chance to kill her himself, he wanted not to have to worry about killing a fetus.

  Once Denis believed that Brenda had ratted about his prison escape plans, larger possibilities loomed. He had to assume that Brenda had told Greg and the police what he had told her about killing Diaz. He was right. But he didn’t know that three of his homies who were there the night he killed Joaquin had also betrayed him. They were all cooperating with the prosecution to reduce their sentences. Nearly everyone involved that night had betrayed Denis, but his focus was Brenda.

  The next day, Denis called Filosofo again.

  “If she wants to play games, then we’ll play games,” Denis told his subordinate.

  “In a park, you know, we have to pisarla, such a big pisada that you won’t even be able to get up after that,” he instructed.

  Filosofo got the message. Denis used the word pisar to veil what he wanted to say: kill.

  CHAPTER 47

  As events unfolded in Virginia, Brenda remained in her own prison in Minnesota. Filosofo stopped calling her, and now the phone never rang. Her only connection to Virginia at the time was dependent on Denis. Brenda never considered that Filosofo had stopped calling because Denis had told him to. Since Denis planned on killing Brenda, the last thing he wanted to do was tip her off. He knew how to rock the cradle as well as any gangster, but he also knew Brenda’s Achilles’ heel. She was at rock bottom in Minnesota, alone and desperate for attention. If he waited long enough, he was sure she would make her own way back to Virginia.

  Days in Minnesota passed into weeks of unbearable solitude. Her belly grew. Her need to see the father of her baby loomed over her. As much as she reasoned through it, Virginia continued to be her best bet for getting back to Philadelphia. Days passed in increments of moments that dragged into unbearable periods of time. By late May, Brenda had resolved to take a chance at reaching out to other friends in Virginia. She used most of the allowance the marshals provided to make regular calls back to her homies with the Centrales clique in Virginia. At least on the phone she could pass the time and forget for a moment the images, emotions, hormones, and boredom that saturated her mind.

  Brenda’s list of phone contacts grew and grew. She called Maria Gomez, the girl who had found the police business cards in the purse that she had lent Brenda. Brenda had tried to get in touch with Araña, the father of Maria’s daughter, and Brenda’s friend from the safe-house days. She had called the clique leader Pantera, the man who embraced her as his girl at the beginning of the year, when she fell back in with the Centrales. And she called Pantera’s little brother, Diablito. He was someone else to chat with. Sometimes, when no one she asked for was home, she simply tried to talk to whoever was on the phone. Brenda was beyond desperate. She was borderline depressed and not thinking clearly. She seriously considered just walking away, leaving witness protection to go out on her own and somehow find her way back to her baby’s father. But it was still cold and rainy in Minnesota—not the best place for her to wander the streets with no place to sleep or eat.

  Long weeks of more hotel time stretched far into her future, beyond the horizon line of her tolerance. She could no longer see those inspirational images of the future when she was back in California with all her family around her, or with her mother and her baby. She was restless and needed to do something to speed up this process. She knew safety was necessary, but it was unbearable.

  CHAPTER 48

  In early June, Brenda called Greg. He was long overdue for some vacation and was on the way to Baltimore-Washington Airport to catch a flight to Russia.

  He spoke with Brenda right up until his flight took off. He went over all the things she needed: an education, tattoo removal, psychological care, prenatal care, protection, and new friends who were not sociopathic felons. She could provide none of these items for herself unless she stayed in witness protection. He tried to reason with her and again help her to see a path to her future. It was a heartfelt conversation, but Greg wasn’t sure he’d gotten through. He hung up with a sigh. Brenda was in trouble and he was on a flight to Russia. He reminded himself that he had done everything he could. She was in the hands of the marshals now.

  Not long after her conversation with Greg, Brenda stared at the phone for a long time before she called Pantera’s little brother, Diablito, and asked if he would come visit her. He hesitated.

  “I’ve got a way for you to earn money up here,” Brenda told him. It was a ruse to get him to visit her. He agreed but didn’t have much money. Brenda made two more phone calls that day to arrange a Western Union wire. With the $150 Brenda sent him, Diablito got in touch with two other Centrales members. One had a car and was willing to make the drive.

  The day Brenda asked them to drive from Virginia to Minnesota was an acute moment in time when she could have said no to herself, but something else inside her won out. She wanted to party and hang out with her friends for a little while, thinking she could lie to them about her current situation like she did when she was at the FBI safe house, and then let them leave. If she was careful, the marshals would never know. It was one precarious step back into the gangster life.

  The day the three members of the Centrales got up to make the fourteen-hour drive to Brenda’s hotel in Rosemount, they told no one and simply headed out. When Brenda eagerly opened the door for her visitors, Diablito’s mouth dropped open.

  “Wow, nice digs,” he said as he entered the room, eyes wide, marveling at the lush furnishings and fancy décor. The three homies walked through, checking out the room and bouncing on the bed, as Brenda chattered excitedly. They were obviously overwhelmed by the hotel’s luxury. It was much nicer than the hotels they usually partied in.

  Brenda’s room was luxurious and obviously expensive. She quickly improvised that her dad paid the bills, building on the lies she had started while living in the safe house. As Diablito made himself at home by stretching out on th
e bed, she told them her dad was a successful drug dealer and had tons of money. And he was around, so they would have to be careful when he came by to visit. Diablito nodded his understanding at this, then held out his arms to Brenda. She gave him that famous smile and fell into his hug, telling him, “As long as you’re quiet when my dad comes by, you can stay a little while.”

  She was thrilled to have people she cared about back with her again. They’d just have to be careful of her “dad”—this time it was her marshal handler, the guy who rarely invested more than a minute or two on Brenda. It shouldn’t be too difficult, she thought.

  Her handler arrived that very day. Brenda hushed the boys and told them to hide, then stepped into the hall to speak to him. It wasn’t a big deal at all. No sweat, she thought. She dispatched him quickly, and after that, every time the marshal came by, Brenda gave the word and they hid.

  Between visits from her “dad,” Brenda and her Centrales homies partied. One of them called El Salvador from the hotel phone with Brenda’s cards. They charged drinks from the hotel bar to the room. They collected hotel bath products in bags to bring home to Virginia. It was a vacation for Diablito and his homies, Brenda thought with a smile. Her ruse had worked. She felt like she was back in the gang life, but more importantly, she had a distraction from the pressing weight of her reality and future. The partying lasted for days, but eventually Brenda’s lies began to crack.