This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha (23 page)

O
nce 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.

A
s 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.

I
n 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 the 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.

One of the last mornings the Centrales members were in Minnesota, Brenda told them they would have to head out to beg for money. Diablito was curious.

“If your dad has so much money, then why do we have to beg for more? We can call room service for food and get drinks from the bar,” he argued.

“My dad is tired of paying for all this partying,” she explained. They needed to go out and get more money if they wanted to party, she said.

Diablito refused. He stayed alone in the room while the rest walked to a nearby mall where they could beg for change. Something didn’t add up. Brenda was acting a little funny, raising Diablito’s suspicions.

As soon as she left, he started rummaging through the dresser drawers. Nothing. Then he attacked the bedside table. Nothing. Running his hand through his hair, he thought, maybe it’s nothing. As he poked aimlessly through her things in the closet, he saw some bags tucked toward the back.

Diablito immediately dragged them out and quickly ripped them open. A blue spiral notebook caught his eye, then a diary and a billfold. Jackpot. Reading through the notebook, he came across references from months ago when Brenda had talked to the police. Holy shit, he thought. His mind raced. He found more of the same information in her diary, and in her billfold he found police business cards.

Diablito didn’t know what to do. He was stunned. Evidence spread out on the floor before him. He looked away and looked back at the floor. It was unbelievable. Here was hard-core proof that Brenda had lied to them for months. She’s a rat! his mind screamed. Smiley’s a traitor! He still couldn’t believe it. She was so cool, so respected. She had fooled all of them, even Denis, maybe even Veto.

Brenda was as good as dead. He was completely shocked. His mind ran through questions. Would they kill Smiley? Everyone loved Smiley. Denis will be furious when he finds out, Diablito thought. He would certainly want to put a
luz verde
on her. That was serious. Diablito didn’t like the thought of Brenda being killed. She was pregnant! His mind raced ahead. There would be meetings, maybe even an investiga
tion. Brenda wasn’t just any low-level homie. As far as he knew, she had backing from Denis and Veto. This was over his head.
Mierda, mierda,
he inwardly cursed.

Diablito didn’t know what to do, so he decided to play it cool. He took a second to think it out, then decided his brother would know what to do. He knew he needed to show the evidence to Pantera and Brenda’s friend Araña. Let them make the decisions. He would be the messenger.

Diablito gathered up the damning evidence and stashed it away deep in his bags, planning on showing it to his brother as soon as he got back to Virginia. He told no one and focused on calming down so he could act normal when Brenda returned to the room. He shook out his hands and took some calming breaths before double-checking to make sure everything looked normal. This was the most important moment in his life as an MS member. He had to act cool and not tip Brenda. She was smart. If he was anything but completely cool, she would know something was up. If he messed up, they wouldn’t just kill Brenda, they’d kill him too.

The next night, Brenda, Diablito, and their two other homies were all kicked out of the hotel. Excessive partying and unruly behavior was to blame. Diablito and the others said they would just leave. They stood in the parking lot near the car and invited her to come with them. Brenda was in the worst possible place imaginable. The last thing she needed was instability and forced decision making. She was not level-headed. After days of partying, a variety show of thoughts, memories, and worries had driven her just short of madness. It was too much for a seventeen-year-old pregnant kid, straddling two worlds: her gang life and her reality as a protected witness who had betrayed the Mara Salvatrucha.

Brenda stood in the hotel parking lot looking at the three MS members. They were silent, packed and ready to go, just waiting for her decision. This is it, she thought. This is my free ride out of here, and a real chance to make it to Philadelphia. She paused a moment to weigh her other option: watch her Centrales homies drive off to Virginia and face the wrath of the marshals in the morning. Without a backward glance, Brenda walked toward the car and closed the door. It was the path of least resistance, despite all the ugly possibilities that awaited her back in Virginia.

For Brenda, there was a strong force pulling her back to the East
Coast that overrode the inherent risks she was taking. For most women her age, pregnancy is something foreign, scary even. Not for Brenda. She had had plenty of time to think in her little hotel room and had grown accustomed to the idea of being a mom. Brenda’s pregnancy made her happy, even ecstatic at times. It was a whole new reason to live and move ahead with her life. If only she could share this joy with the baby’s father, she knew her happiness would be complete. She would be complete. Brenda didn’t think twice in that moment about hopping the ride to Virginia with three MS members. Her sights were set on Philadelphia.

As Brenda rode along silently in the car, she calculated. If she could hang out with the Centrales long enough to pull together the money to get back to Philadelphia, she could track down her baby’s father. It shouldn’t take long. Before anyone knew the truth, she would be gone, and with her new identity in place, she could slip into her new life with her baby and her man. She knew she could do it.