On The Grind

Chapter 7

Club A Fuego was already jumping when I arrived at a little past seven o'clock that evening. I pulled into its huge, half-full parking facility. Out of some sense of caution, I decided not to park in the underlit lot where my car might be tampered with and instead pulled out and parked under a streetlamp by the curb. Then I went inside.

The interior of the club was a big open three-story space, one end of which was occupied by a large dance floor. The other side was the bar area, where most of the crowd had gathered. There was mariachi music blasting over the sound system. It was cranked up way too loud, emitting earsplitting Tijuana Brass. The music managed to cut through the din of the hundred or more people, mostly men, some who were shouting conversations at each other to be heard. A threadbare carpet that had withstood years of careless bar service gave the building a musty smell. Even with the hundred-plus people at the east end of the room, the place still looked almost empty. It was that big. Mexican waitresses in red vests circulated with trays. A few people had sought some privacy from the relentless music and were sitting at the tables around the basketball-court-sized dance floor, nursing drinks and conversing earnestly.

I made my way to the far end and passed into the bar. I could smell fried Mexican food that was being served along with beer and mixed drinks. I found a place at the stick and ordered a Heineken, then looked around at the loud, milling crowd.

A few guys I'd known on the LAPD were scattered around, most in plain clothes. Some were engaged in shouted conversation over the blaring music, others were playing pool on well-worn tables. Spanish was the primary language being spoken by the largely Hispanic patronage. Gangster types in street vines with gang tats talked with older-looking, slightly overdressed jefes in expensive silk suits and mixed with a smattering of off-duty cops in polo shirts and windbreakers. Strange crowd.

I didn't see Alonzo Bell, so I took my beer and began a slow tour of the lounge. At one end of the bar a Mexican soccer match was playing on the digital flat-screen TV. Upholstered booths lined one entire side of the room. I felt a hand grab my arm.

"There you are. I been looking for you, dude." I turned and looked into the big, flat, brown, frying-pan-shaped face of Alonzo Bell. He was in street clothes and his massive weight-lifter's arms bulged the sleeves of his short-sleeve shirt. "I got a table back here, follow me," he shouted into my ear.

He moved us through the room, stopping a few times to introduce me to people I'd never seen before and probably wouldn't remember later. Some were Anglo, some Mexican.

"Meet Shane Scully," he would say. "He's gonna try and catch a ride with us. Shane just came off the big blue zoo downtown."

We finally made it to his table and he slid in. I took the seat opposite him.

"My spot," he shouted. "Nobody takes it when I'm here."

"Interesting place." I raised my voice over the din and motioned to the room. "How many of these guys are cops?"

"The whole day watch and most of the swing shift will be here eventually," he called back. "This is where the real business gets done. That guy over there" — he pointed at a small Mexican man with sharp features — "he's the mayors assistant. Carlos Real. We call him Real Deal Real. Carlos will sell you anything from a gun permit to a stolen baby. He's always on the grind, that guy. We all are." On the grind was street slang for working your hustle.

It went on like that, Alonzo pointing out cops, politicians and 18th Street Locos.

"The Locos run everything down here," he told me. "The main veterano in the Haven Park clique is that guy over there. His name is Ovieto Ortiz."

He pointed out a man in his late thirties who was just moving up to talk with the mayors assistant. Ovieto Ortiz was a wiry, dangerous-looking man with a big black 18 tattooed on the side of his neck.

"His street name is 007 'cause of his double-O initials and 'cause he's got a license to kill. Ovieto is a big piece of the way business gets done down here, so the cops tolerate him. You spell tolerate with a dollar sign in front of it."

"I saw some South Side Crip graffiti here and in Fleetwood," I shouted across the table at him. "If Eighteenth Street Locos run this town, why are Crips tagging walls?"

"The blacks used to run this place till all the illegal aliens moved in and pushed em out. Now they're trying to reclaim their old corners. It could get ugly. We have our orders straight from Mayor Bratano s office to shut these blacks down. We hook em and book 'em, the city court cooks 'em. The idea is to keep Haven Park and Fleetwood safe for Eighteenth Street business."

"You kidding me? You're running this street gang's interference?"

"We got our own culture down here. It's called cafeteria policing. Everything is laid out on a big buffet table, cops get to pass by and just fill their trays. You probably heard that the starting pay scale is low," he yelled, smiling as he said it.

"Yeah. Fifty-five grand."

"Don't let it bother you, dude," Alonzo said with a laugh. "If you're in the cafeteria line, you can make more money than a crooked banker. We got millions of scams. Last month, one of our damn patrol officers who was just a fucking two-striper, took home twenty-five hundred in kickbacks in two weeks. Get in the cafeteria line, brother. Fill your tray. You won't be sorry."

"You're shitting me."

"It's like Mexico. Haven Park's a Third World city with a whore's mentality. Everything that gets paid flows upstream. Everybody gets a taste as it goes by. Crooks kick up to cops, everybody kicks up to city hall and the mayor. Protection, bribery, tow tickets, the works. The two brothers who own A Fuego are Manny and Hector Avila. They also own Blue Light lowing, which has the exclusive tow truck contract for Haven Park and Fleetwood. That contract is worth a fortune."

"What is?" I shouted baek. "Towing ears?"

"The cops boot a car, its a two-hundred-dollar impound. The Avilas give a third of that to the mayor and kick back ten percent to the cop who writes the ticket. If a blue writes ten towing tickets a day, you can get an envelope from the Avilas with two hundred bucks in it at the end of your shift. If you stay on it, at the end of a five-day week its an extra grand. After a year, you got fifty G's. This shit can add up, and that's just the tow truck stuff. There's lots of other ways to make up for the low starting pay."

The mariachi CD ended and for a moment A Fuego quieted down and people stopped shouting at each other. It occurred to me that all the noise would make it impossible to record a conversation in here.

In that momentary lull of the music I asked, "You can get ten cars towed in a day?" It surprised me because it seemed like a lot.

"Depends on how committed you are. Some guys can do it. The dumb bolupos who live down here are mostly undocumented. Haven Park and Fleetwood are full of fruit pickers, scared of their shadows. They pay the two hundred to get their car back or we auction their rust buckets off and get our cut out of the sale. Gardeners and maintenance guys are the best targets 'cause they need their trucks to work. Show me a fucking Chevy pickup with a leaf blower and I'll own the fucker. I towed this one asshole six times in two months. He finally moved. Hated to see that brown boy go." Alonzo took a gulp of his beer and smiled sadly.

Then a new tape started and we were back to screaming at each other. It went on like that. He detailed the scams, explaining the ways a cop could make extra money in Haven Park. He told me about health code and fire department tickets on Mexican restaurants or any other food business. They would threaten to close kitchens or shops unless they got paid cash. There was a protection scam being run in Fleetwood. Gang money came in envelopes distributed by the watch commanders-weekly payoffs for letting 18th Street Locos have their run of both towns.

"But if you put something on your tray you gotta remember to only take half and kick the rest up to the guy above you. A piece of everything else has to end up in Mayor Cecil Bratano's pocket. And you gotta get in with the Avilas," Alonzo told me. "If they want you on the PD, you're on."

"No matter what Ricky Ross says?"

"Ricky's just a lushed-up paper-pusher who Mayor Bratano picked because he can't find his ass with either hand. The real power on the job are Hector and Manny Avila. They kick back big to the mayor. That's why they got the exclusive towing contract. They run the political machine and most of the graft in both cities."

"I'm surprised you can get away with all this," I said. "Especially after all the bad publicity Maywood and Cudahy got in the newspapers for police and government corruption."

"What was going on in Maywood and Cudahy was small-time b. S. compared to this."

He grinned as he looked up and spotted somebody. "Hector and Manny just got here. Lemme bring these guys over. Say the right shit and before you know it, you're gonna be riding in a new Plain Jane, policing the great cities of Haven Park and Fleetwood."