ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (43 page)
Read ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) Online
Authors: Glenn Langohr
I drove the back streets for a few miles and found the freeway. I waited at a street light and saw an onramp to the freeway heading back toward the Orange County beaches and another one heading the other way to Hector’s. I didn’t know which way to go. I felt my arms stinging and looked at them holding the wheel. They were bruised and bleeding from the fences. My body was weary and my mind was exhausted. The light turned green and I still hadn’t decided which freeway I was going to take. I drove past the first on ramp and turned into the second one.
I got to Hector’s house and L’il man opened the door.
“I made it, Bob didn’t. I’ve got to get some sleep.”
Hector’s sister let me take a shower and use Hector’s room to sleep. As soon as I laid down on his floor I was asleep.
I woke up on the floor. I heard the front door open. My throat was so dry I had to choke to get some saliva going. I went to the door to use the bathroom and get some water and heard Hector and L’il man talking.
“Did you bring the chemicals?”
“No. I brought them to the safe house. I got a call and heard that Ricky is telling everyone that B.J. is a federal agent and he’s the reason all the cooks are getting raided.”
Hearing I was being labeled a federal agent didn’t help my dry throat any. I sat on the floor and took the safety of my gun and set it next to me and pulled out my speed.
I watched the bedroom door open and Hector and L’il man come in.
I watched both Hector and L’il man look at my gun next to me and then me right as my phone rang.
“B.J.. It’s Johnny Chamberlain.”
I put the phone on speaker.
“I just left Bob’s right before he got raided.”
I kept my eyes on Hector and L’il man and said into the phone, “I know. I got there right as you were pulling out.”
“Did you see the van that pulled away before us?”
“No.”
“That was one of our partners dropping off that flask of chemicals you and Bob left for us to pick up at Skip’s. Bob put it in his room. If you pulled up right as we were leaving, how did you get away?”
“I jumped through his kitchen window and jumped a few back yard fences to get to my car. I had it parked at the end of his street.”
“Oh… B.J. we found out who the informant is.”
“How?”
“We know someone who works for the Sheriff as a dispatcher. She knows all the details of what goes on within the police force. We traced the number she gave us to an address. The owner of the address is Mark Argenta. Do you know who that is?”
I watched Hector react to the name. “I know who that is. He lives right down the street.”
I watched L’il man think of something. “B.J., who is that you’re talking to?”
“Johnny, let me figure some of this shit out and get back to you. Thanks for the heads up.”
I hung up the phone and didn’t answer L’il man. Silence filled the air in the standoff.
Hector filled it. “Was that one of Bob’s biker associates?”
I nodded my head. “Something like that.”
I watched Hector tell L’il man, “Let me talk to you in private for a second.”
I watched Hector and L’il man walk out of the room and close the door.
Hector looked at L’il man in the living room and said, “Let’s go get the AR15 machine gun out of my garage and see if B.J. will use it to blast Argenta.”
I snorted a nose full of speed and felt my mind racing with images. I remembered meeting Bob on Paul’s boat and telling him I’d be a tool he could utilize to clean up problems in his backyard. Argenta leading the police to him and a bunch of his biker associates qualified as a problem and my word to clean it up was on the line. I saw images of all the other jobs I’d done since meeting Bob on Paul’s boat. They rolled through my mind’s eye like a movie screen. It started with the collection I made for the pot money I was owed. I saw myself loading up the back of my truck with the dryer and fishing poles. Images flashed through my mind of going to Bagel’s house, then Yerga’s, then 420’s, then Dennis’s, my rules and regulations, then Maniac’s, then Ricks… I felt all of that Momentum and felt qualified to take out Argenta.
I heard Hector’s front door open and watched Hector walk in with a machine gun in his hands with L’il man right behind him. I looked at the machine gun and saw something that looked like a net attached from the bottom of the trigger along the bottom of the barrel.
“B.J.. This is our neighborhood’s problem solver. You see this net. It catches the shells that get ejected so there isn’t any for the crime scene detectives to pick up. Come with us and I’ll show you the hill we can climb to check out Argenta’s house.”
I followed Hector and L’il man to the hill above the freeway. The sun was out and I still hadn’t drank any water. I was dry gulching my way up the hill and looked back and saw the police station didn’t have any action. L’il man had said shift change was at 6 P.M., I looked at my watch, 12 noon.
I followed Hector and L’il man to the other side of the hill and stopped out of breath at what looked like the edge.
“B.J.. you see where those houses start down there.”
I looked and saw the first house about a hundred yards away.
I watched Hector reach into his pocket and pull out a small pair of binoculars. He handed them to me.
I looked through them and looked down the lonely street. It looked like it was headed to nowhere. I asked Hector, “Where does the street go?”
“It doesn’t go anywhere. It dead ends a half a mile or so after Argenta’s house. His house is the last of the five. Do you see the black fence in front of his house?”
I looked and found it. There was a wrought iron gate that looked like it was ten feet high. At the top of the gate it looked like pitch forks of black steel pointing toward the sky. I raised the binoculars and looked at the foothill behind Argenta’s house. It looked like it was on fire. I pulled the binoculars away from my eyes to see if they were playing tricks on me. The hillside was a burnt orange and did look like it was on fire.
I looked at my feet to the edge of the hill I was standing on and saw a ledge about ten feet below me. There were a bunch of cigarette butts. I imagined someone sitting there watching the same house I was. I wanted to climb down there but didn’t want to have my back to Hector and L’il man. I thought about it and realized there were too many people involved in this mess, I needed to buy some time.
I realized while I was studying Argenta’s Hector had gotten behind me about ten feet. I looked and saw he had something in his hand. It was a hypodermic needle. He was fixing a shot of speed in a spoon.
He looked up from his task and saw me looking at it. “B.J., You could wait at the end of Argenta’s street until he comes out and opens his gate. We could stay up here and call you to tell you when. You could catch him pulling out and dump the whole clip from the AR15 on him. Do you want this shot of dope to wake all the way up to handle the business?”
I felt that same disgusted feeling under my skin I’d felt at Skip’s. “No I don’t want that shot of dope, and I don’t like your machine gun strategy. I’ve never used one and I can picture spraying it all over the place and hitting those houses.”
I made the mistake of patting my handgun and Hector jumped on it.
“Are you just going to carry that little gun around, or are you ever going to use it?”
I looked at L’il man to see his reaction and he was a statue.
Hector continued, “B.J., I know you can handle this job after all of the other stuff I’ve heard about you. I know you’re not going to let Argenta get away with sending your partner Bob to prison, are you?”
L’il man was still a stoic mask, but he stepped closer to Hector.
Hector continued, “B.J., I know you’re not going to let that Satan worshipper take your operation out, and just let it go.”
“Satan worshipper? What are you talking about?”
“B.J., You can’t tell me that Bob didn’t tell you about Argenta. You didn’t know he used to be a big shot around here in the 80’s and that he got put out of business for getting young girls addicted to heroin and turning them into prostitutes? He got back into business by being a Satanic worshipper and hooked up with El Diablo in Mexico. How did you not know that?”
I looked at L’il man and remembered just telling him a little about Oceanside. It had to look like I knew more about Argenta than I really did.
L’il man said, “B.J., trust and believe that if you don’t take out that evil piece of shit, our neighborhood will. We’re just giving you the first chance since you’re Bob’s partner.”
Hector said, “This is your chance to make a big name for yourself, B.J. Can you handle it?”
I thought about it and struggled to keep my impulse message sender from nodding out of pride. It took all of the strength I had left to articulate something I held as close to the truth as I could recognize.
“All of the jobs I’ve done that were successful in the short term took a lot of planning, my own planning, not someone else’s.”
I stopped myself. I caught what I’d said about my jobs being successful in the short term. Weren’t even those the vines that were strangling me? Even if I handled this, wouldn’t I just end up in similar circumstances again and again in this drug business?
L’il man asked me, “How would you execute Argenta?”
“I’d watch him from up here for as long as it took to cover all of the angles. I’d want to know who lives in that house with him. If he lives alone, I’d look for a way to handle it without a gun because this exit strategy next to the police station sucks for a big bang exit. If he doesn’t live alone, I’d watch him for a few weeks, or however long it took to find out what his schedule is like. Where he goes and when until I could dissect a spot ideal for the job.”
L’il man nodded his head like he could respect what I just said.
Hector shook his head and said, “We don’t have that kind of time. The murder at Mr. G.’s is going to bring a ton of law enforcement heat. It needs to go down quickly. B.J., I’ve got a Ducati speed bike that is legally mine from a salvage yard. I’ll let you use it to go past Argenta’s house and you could park it and do some recon on foot. You could make your way to his backyard and watch his house to see if you see anyone else. If you can climb his fence and get it done your way, it’s a done deal.”
Felipe listened to the conversation about Argenta from just out of view on the ledge below. He heard B.J.’s name and remembered the white guy he met in the canyon who had the Festiva when Ricky mentioned Argenta’s name. He heard B.J. and the other two leaving and climbed back to his perch and lit another cigarette and waited patiently.
An hour later, he watched B.J. ride up and down the street on the speed bike. The third time B.J. went by Felipe used his binoculars to see B.J. park the speed bike well past Argenta’s house. He watched B.J. enter the foothill and struggled to see him through the brush and couldn’t. For two hours Felipe imagined B.J. hopping Argenta’s gate. He expected to hear the report of a gun being fired any time. Instead, he saw Argenta’s front door open. He watched Argenta come through the front door in his wheel chair and saw a little girl behind him. Felipe studied the little girl pretending to push Argenta’s wheel chair and remembered his niece Maria. The little girl looked just like her when she left for California at the age of 11. She had the same brown curly hair and the same smiling face.
I rode the speed bike and felt all of my adrenaline surging. I rode up and down Argenta’s street and imagined an exit strategy. There looked to be enough time to get the job done and race to Hector’s garage to hide the Ducati. As I rode I thought about Argenta. He was in violation of my rules and regulations. I could do this job. I parked a couple hundred yards past Argenta’s and walked into the foothill.
I got to Argenta’s wrought iron gate and looked for signs of a security system. I didn’t see one. He must feel safe with a ten foot high gate. His backyard had a large pool and spa in it and there wasn’t a dog. I looked at the one story house and looked for signs of other people living there. There was a kitchen window I could see in from an angle. With the binoculars I could see two glasses and two plates on the counter. There was a living room window, but the drapes were closed. There was a bedroom window but the drapes were closed. I was getting the feeling that Argenta usually lived alone.
I stayed there for over an hour imagining myself climbing the gate and entering the house. I felt the Momentum of my thoughts at the edge of tipping over into an action. Then images of my grandfather’s face at the airport flashed. I saw his face and heard him telling me, “Nothing good can come of this drug business… Remember, your Mom is up there watching you.”
I imagined my Mom watching and asked, “what do I do?” I pictured her telling me not to do it. Then I pictured just riding the speed bike all the way back to Orange County. Then, I saw Argenta injecting a 15 year old girl with heroin. If my Mom knew that would happen would she want me to do it? I felt my spirit struggling with what was right and what was wrong. Who would I be serving if I killed Argenta? I prayed and asked God, “Do you want me to rid the world of this evil person? Show me a sign so I know what to do!”