The Fugitive Grandma Lives

Chapter 13 - Selling Lives

Sal Holiday was Chief Deputy in the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, responsible for Field Operations in the desert towns of the Coachella Valley. He was also El Hefe's main fixer, protecting the boss man's enterprises throughout the desert while maintaining a stable of his own crooked businesses on the side.

As a law enforcement official, Sal's controversial practices deeply polarized the people of the desert. You either loved him or hated him depending on how you came down on his extreme approach on the issue of illegal immigration.

He was despised by the County Sheriff and most of the other leaders in state law enforcement. But he had a strange way of hanging on, playing to people's worst instincts, getting away with things that other people would never dare to do, kind of like a cockroach can survive droughts and fires that might kill off more noble species.

Sal had been investigated several times for racial profiling because his officers had a habit of stopping drivers they suspected of being illegal immigrants. He had also been cited for detaining immigrants and suspects in makeshift "tent camps" located on scorching desert sands where temperatures soared of 100 degrees for much of the year.

When a local TV reporter asked Holiday whether his tent camps could be considered cruel and unusual punishment, he replied "That's the point."

This tough cop image masked a massive criminal operation that Holiday ran out of a warehouse in Indio on behalf of El Hefe. This warehouse was where Holiday made his real money selling lives, through the form of human smuggling, fake documents and job placement. Most of the clients were illegal immigrants working for scraps but he also sold his services to fugitives on occasion.

It was a booming business, so many people desperate to trade their past for a fake name and a fresh start. They weren't really like customers per se because he controlled the terms of service. Since he was both the number two cop and the number two crook in the Valley, he held all the cards. He liked to call his clients "buttons" because he felt like he had them under his thumb.

It was evening and Sal was in the back room waiting for a client. A bald, muscled henchman with tattoos of Dr. Seuss characters across his arms hovered in the doorway to Sal's office. He led Sal's next client into the back office. She was a pretty woman with long black hair and bronze-colored skin. Sal hadn't laid eyes on her in a while. He licked his crooked, stained teeth like an underfed reptile.

"Hola Gabriela, como estas?" He asked in badly pronounced Spanish. He spoke in a low, guttural growl that made everything he said sound like an obscene remark. He had known Gabriela and her husband Gus for several years. He had helped place the woman and her family when they first arrived from some gang-infested hellhole in Central America. He supplied jobs and fake documents and they spent years working their way out of his debt.

"My husband needs a new name," she pleaded.

"Of course he does. And new ID cards to go with it. I heard about his accident over at the Golden Palm."

"I have a thousand dollars in cash. I can give you more when he finds another job."

"I don't think that's going to be enough," Sal said.

"How much is enough?" she wondered.

Sal asked his bald henchman, whose name was Duncan Jones, to step out of the room for a second. Sal smiled and touched Gabriela's lustrous hair. She trembled.

"What do you want, Sal?"

He was leaning close to her, his face nearly touching hers.

"Kneel," he commanded. "Take off my shoes and socks."

She did as she was told.

The odor of his grimy feet wafted through the room and he had to hold his own nose to bear it.

"Kiss my feet.'

She leaned over his sweaty, gnarled toes, hesitating ever so slightly to make contact with her lips.

"What did I tell you to do?" Sal thundered. He kicked her in the face, knocking her backwards.

"I am sorry," she said.

"You do what I say, Gabriela. You clear on that?"

"Yes, of course."

Sal was getting annoyed, mainly by the stench of his own feet. He had always been a strange, ugly creature. He tried to avoid looking in mirrors. He tried to find some consolation in the humiliation of those around him but it never seemed to satisfy, the same way a rattlesnake can torment its prey as long as it wants but this doesn't make up for the fact that it has no hands or feet.

"Come back with your money tomorrow and I'll have Gus's new ID. Next time he weeds a fairway he better learn to duck. Ain't nobody going to hold up a game for his illegal ass."

When Gabriela left, Sal put his socks and shoes back on and lit a cigarette to kill the stench in the air. Duncan dragged in the next customer, a white man who arrived in town a year ago and bought identities for his family in cash, paying a premium to make sure there were no questions asked.

The man had heard about Sal's services in Arizona drove to Palm Valley in search of a new name and life, apparently nervous that the cops on the east side of the state line were getting too close. Sal provided the man with the identity of Paul Chase, along with documents for his young son and aging mother.

Now Paul Chase was back, panting scared and desperate just the way Sal liked his buttons. "I need more bank records. Financial statements that help me establish a credit history."

Sal grinned. "Your rate is about to go up."

"What do you mean? What's changed?"

Duncan shut the office door, crossing his arms so that his huge Cat-in-the-Hat biceps bulged, blocking any chance for the button to turn around and hightail it out of the office.

"I'll tell you exactly what's changed," Sal said. "I've figured out who you are. You are Frank Valentine. You're that guy whose mom and kid robbed Great American a couple years back. Your family was all over the news for a while and then suddenly it's all hush, hush."

"You've got it all wrong. I am from Pittsburgh. I told you."

"Shut up," Sal said, smacking Frank. "I put it all together after what happened at the country club. My men were on the scene. They heard the report on that old hag who picked up the wetback and put him on the golf cart. She's Stella Valentine. The great fugitive grandma of Santa Ramona. I went by your apartment and checked her out. Those wigs and eyeglasses she's wearing may be enough to fool my men but they don't fool me. Your family is sitting on a fortune with all that stolen money and medicine."

"We had a deal. I paid a premium."

"Deals are made to be broken. You're my button, Frank Valentine. Your life belongs to me now."