Chapter 62

Calling a man, who is doing three life sentences, in a maximum security prison, should not be easier than calling a doctor's office, but it must have been. Royce was back in five minutes.

"I guess I'm in," he said.

"What made you change your mind?" I asked.

"Your dad convinced me that I would have a better chance to stay out prison by helping you stay out of prison," Royce said.

"I don't understand," I replied.

"If I bail on you, the cops get a tip and search my house, car, or gym bag, inside it they have a couple of ounces of junk. I get violated and I'm back inside with your pissed off old man. That makes it a death sentence. Your old man also thinks with me to help, we can do what needs to be done and keep you on the outside as well as me."

"So, is this Angel Jo here?" I asked.

"I don't know, but your dad gave me a man to contact. He is your dad's main man for this area," Royce said.

"You make it sound like a corporation of some kind," I suggested.

"It is just exactly that. When your old man went inside, he knew he was going in to do the maximum, so he set up a protection racket. It wasn't some half assed strong arm extortion thing. His was the real deal. So there were franchises. The franchise owner here is expecting us to drop by his office this afternoon."

"He will have the information we need?" I asked.

"I would bet your ass, that he is making calls and calling in favors right this minute. He should have all the background we can use by this afternoon." Royce said.

"Surely there is something we can do before we meet with dad's man," I suggested.

"We don't have the kinds of contacts who can shed any light on this," Royce informed me.

"Sure we do. We just don't know who they are right now, but we will." What Royce didn't know was that Jeff had transferred the index link to all my old cases to the file. I could look them up several different ways.

There was also a search engine that allowed me to pull up people from my past. At least ones that Jeff and the kids knew about. All that is to explain how I knew to call Michael, the kid whose girlfriend Jane got me shot.

"Michael," I said into the cell phone. "Tell me something about Angel Jo," I demanded.

"Nice to talk to you again Lucy," he said sarcastically. "She is one bad bitch. She smuggles dope and people here from Mexico. The people bring the drugs in as payment for their passage over the river. Hell the politicians help her with her business. They pols want to illegals to vote for them so they make sure we can't stop them.

The smugglers know that if they get to the US, the system will take care of them. So the mules are lined up on the Mexican side to take a backpack full of dope over the border. She has almost no overhead and collects the heads of the people who try to screw her. Fear, and the desire for a better life, drive the honest people to commit the one crime, then they are gone. If it goes bad, they just disappear."

"How do you know so much?" I asked.

"Every dealer out there has bought some of her product at one time or another. I used to be a dealer, remember?" he asked.

"So does she have a standing army here?" I asked.

"Most of her people are on the Mexican side of the border. She has a distribution network, but it's mostly non violent. It's better to keep a low profile on this side of the border," Michael informed me.

"Well, she fucked up. Someone killed a friend of mine and her son, then set fire to their house. I hear it was Angel Jo," I informed him.

"It wasn't Angel Jo. It was her bastard kid Angelo. The word was that the woman was calling cops and newspapers about Angelo running a child porno ring. I don't know if it was true on not, but word is Angelo did the killing himself."

"Michael, how much of that are you really sure about?" I asked.

"Well I didn't see it, but people tell me he was real proud of it. Wanted Ma'ma to know, and be proud of him. So they say on the street," he informed me.

"If he is that stupid, putting his business on the street, the cops should be all over him," I said.

"They will be for sure," Michael said. "The cop bosses are mostly state cops thanks to you two. They say they are honest, so if they are, Angelo will be in jail by tonight. If he isn't in jail, then they have been paid off again," Michael said.

"Now that should be interesting," I replied. We will just have to wait to form a plan."

"Then we are going to leave it to the cops?" Royce asked.

"Of course we are," I said. I knew, when I said it that I was lying, but I was going to do whatever was necessary to make all it right again.

A hamburger, from the 'talk into the clown place' eaten by the lake was my lunch. I had to wonder what would happen to the hit on me, if Angelo went down for Wilma and Shawn. I doubted that he knew I couldn't testify against him. I was a loose end. Then again so was he.

"So, if it is true that Angelo killed or had Wilma killed are you planning to murder him?" Royce asked.

"I plan to kill his young ass just as many times as I can. He gets to know who and why though, Wilma and Shawn probably didn't know. Angelo thinks he can operate by Mexican rules here. Well he can't." It was quite the speech for me.'