The Perk (43 page)

"That a problem, Grady?"

He shook his head. "Gives me hope for our
judicial system."

The black ICE SUVs backed away from the gates, and
the five buses drove out of the plant and past them. Julio searched for his
parents' faces, but did not see them.

"Julio," Beck said, "I'm gonna get
your parents back."

"How?"

"I know people." He turned to Grady.
"You feel like driving to San Antonio?"

Grady checked his watch. "We'll have to
eat dinner there?"

"Yeah."

"I'm in. Anything to avoid my wife's
cooking."

They walked over to Grady's SUV. Julio started
walking down the street toward the barrio.

"Are you going to be okay, Julio?"

Julio wiped his face. "I must find the
children."

Nikki ran after him. "I'll help you."

Beck got into the SUV and pulled out his cell phone.

"You really know people?" Grady asked.

Beck nodded. "One of my partners in Chicago was a former Assistant AG at the Justice Department. He's political. Lots of important
people owe him favors—and he owes me a few. If anyone can get Julio's folks
freed, he can."

"You know, Beck, I'm really starting to
like you."

Beck pointed. "Follow those buses."

When Beck arrived back home that night after he and Grady had
dropped Rafael and Maria Espinoza off at their house in the barrio, the
children were already in bed and asleep. He found J.B. on the back porch
reading the paper.

"You get 'em?"

Beck fell into his rocker. "Yeah, we got
them. They're back home. Friday night, and the barrio looked like a ghost
town."

"Raid made the TV—San Antonio news. Felix
Delgado was interviewed. He was pretty upset. Said it was a tragic
miscarriage of justice."

There was that word again.

"Grady's a good man," J.B. said. "You're
a good man, too, Beck. I'm proud you're my son. I wish I could take the
credit, but you raised yourself."

Beck looked at his father looking at him.

"You get more credit than you know, J.B."

Beck saw his father's eyes well up. J.B. looked
down and said softly, "That means a lot, Beck."

Beck leaned back. "You know, J.B., I don't
want to be the judge. I don't like this town anymore."

"It ain't the town, Beck. It's a few
people in the town. A few old farts like Stutz can't abide the fact the
world's changing—they're still wearing plaid and the rest of the world's
wearing Tommy Bahama. But those old farts are gonna die off soon and young
folks like you and Jodie are gonna take over and lead this town in a better
direction for kids like Meggie and Luke and Libby." His father looked at
him. "If you quit on this town, Beck, you're quitting on them."

"Did they have a good day, the kids?"

"Yep … oh, Gretchen said hi … for
me to say hi … for her to … aw, hell, you know what I mean. Fixed the
kids buffalo burgers, then took them to the ballgame. Goats won, forty-two to
nothing. Slade ran for six touchdowns."

"He
ran
for six touchdowns?"

"Yep. Didn't throw the ball once the whole
night. Kind of odd, too. He'd take the ball and just run, even when he was
supposed to pass. And he didn't run away from the other team. He ran right at
them, like he wanted to hit them. Like he wanted to kill them."

Homicidal rage.

TURKEY PLANT RAIDED
Part of Nationwide Immigration Crackdown
By Mary Alice Mueller
Staff Writer

 
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the
turkey plant Friday. ICE stated that Operation Return to Sender netted 839 illegal
Mexican nationals. The detainees were processed in San Antonio and bused to Laredo for "voluntary departure."

Child Protective Services was attempting to locate all
the children of the detainees, thought to number 2,000. Minors will be offered
transportation to the border to be reunited with their parents. At least 600 children
had not been accounted for at press time.

Local residents Jodie Lee and Janelle Jones went door to
door in the barrio Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday to check on the children
and to provide food. Ms. Lee said, "It's shameful. Taking parents away and
leaving no one to care for the children—that's America? How can the government
just come in and take all those people away without warning?"

Other residents voiced support for the raid. "It's
about time," a local goat rancher said at Tuesday's auction. "They
should've raided the plant twenty years ago. Those Mexicans were here
illegally, they were getting free food stamps and medical care at our hospital,
their kids were getting free education at our schools. We work for a living.
They had their hands out to the government. I sure as hell won't miss them."

An official with the Houston-based owner of the plant said
they were "shocked" to learn that the workers were in the country
illegally. The official had no further comment except to say that the plant, a
Fredericksburg fixture for over thirty years, would likely be closed and the
property sold to an undisclosed buyer. Asked if the workers' final paychecks would
be paid to their children, the official declined comment. ICE said that at
this time no criminal prosecutions against the owner were planned.

U.S. Rep. Merle Fuchs, R-Fredericksburg, talking by cell
phone from Washington on his way to a fundraiser, said, "Our laws must be enforced
and those individuals that violate our laws must face the consequences. And
the illegals are certainly a drain on public resources." Rep. Fuchs added
that he was working "diligently" to restore the mohair incentive in
the next USDA budget.

The economic impact of the raid on Fredericksburg is unclear.
Two Mexican restaurants were forced to close because their entire staffs had
been deported. Local home builders are expected to raise their prices since
they'll have to pay higher wages to legal workers. The only bright spot is
that ICE raided the plant the day before deer hunting season opened, so there
was expected to be no adverse economic impact on hunters.

Ed Huber, with the Turkey Growers Association, said the
plant closing would likely put a dozen local turkey farmers out of business.
And prices for Thanksgiving turkeys would surely increase.

At the primary school, the usual chattering in Spanish
was not heard in the halls. "Most of my students just disappeared," bilingual
kindergarten teacher Gretchen Young said. "I fought for them every day,
but how do you fight the Federal government?"

It was five days later when Beck looked up from the
newspaper to Quentin McQuade standing in his doorway. He had come to gloat.

"Morning, Judge."

"You looked me right in the eye and lied."

"I didn't have my hand on the Bible."
He chuckled. "Judge, did you really think you could blackmail me into spending
three million dollars to fix up the barrio for a bunch of Mexicans?"

"You signed a settlement agreement that expressly
requires you to pave, curb, and gutter specific streets in the barrio.
McQuade, if you don't comply with that agreement, I will haul your ass into
court and hold you in contempt."

"Whoa, Judge—those curbs and gutters are
gonna be built."

"But you just said—"

"I said I wasn't going to spend three
million dollars on the barrio for a bunch of Mexicans." He smiled.
"See, Judge, the barrio is the very definition of urban blight. Dilapidated
homes and trailers and shacks—have you seen how those people lived? Goats and
chickens wandering the streets, and you can't even count all the code violations.
My Austin lawyer says the law allows a city to condemn land that constitutes
urban blight and sell it to a developer who's going to build something new on
that land."

"A developer like you?"

"Exactly like me. In fact, me."

"So your money for the barrio will be spent
on—"

"My development. The barrio will be
condemned, bulldozed, and sold to me. Those streets—Buena Vista, Santa Rosa,
St. Mary's, St. Gerelda—they will be paved with curbs and gutters, just as the
agreement requires. It just won't be the barrio anymore. It'll be second
homes owned by rich people from Houston and Dallas. I'm thinking hacienda-style—what
do you think?"

He was enjoying himself.

"Who's going to pay a lot of money to live
next to the turkey plant?"

"Oh, that plant's history. It'll never
reopen. Too many safety violations, outdated equipment, pollution … I'm
negotiating to buy it. It'll be bulldozed, too."

"There'll be court fights over the
condemnation."

"No, there won't. Most of those shacks are
owned by the Mexicans that just got deported. They won't be around to fight.
Besides, my lawyer also told me there's not a damn thing a state court judge
like yourself can do about it because the United States Supreme Court said it
was perfectly legal."

He smiled.

"Funny how the law works, isn't it, Judge?
You used your legal and political influence to free the boy's parents, Mexicans
here illegally. I used mine to condemn their home, legally." McQuade
shook his head. "Is America a great country or what?"

"That's why you called in the raid, to
steal those people's homes?"

"Yep. And it's all because of you."

"Because of me?"

He nodded. "I would've never thought of it
if you hadn't tried to blackmail me. Hell, I never even knew where the
Mexicans lived. When you put the curbs and gutters in the settlement, I
decided to drive through the barrio and when I did, I saw an opportunity—a
great piece of land just blocks from Main Street shopping. So I owe you a big
thanks, Judge."

McQuade walked to the door then turned back.

"See, Judge, this is all your doing. You got
the turkey plant raided, you put the Mexicans on those buses, you got them
deported and their homes condemned. You did all that—when you tried to use
your judicial power to make their lives better. You thought you could, but you
can't." He sighed. "If you had just let me pay the million to the
boy and be done, none of this would've ever happened."

"McQuade … your day will come."

Quentin McQuade shook his head. "I don't
think so, Judge. There's two hundred million dollars standing between me and
that day."

When Felix Delgado had sat across from Beck in his chambers
that day exactly one month before, he thought he had one year to live. He did
not. He had one month.

After McQuade had
left, Beck took a walk to gather himself. He bought a San Antonio paper, and
he was now sitting on a bench at the Main and Llano intersection. It was sunny
and seventy in November. Fat men in camouflage hunting outfits walked down Main Street, and a pickup with a dead deer strapped across the hood drove down Main Street, no doubt en route to The Butcher Haus, a local deer processor whose motto was
The
Buck Stops Here.

Felix Delgado had died two days before. His
wife told the newspaper reporter that the ICE raid in Fredericksburg had so
upset her husband that he had lost all will to live. His last words to her had
been, "I have failed them."

Beck had failed them, too.

"You okay, Judge?"

Mavis was standing in front of his desk.

"What's on the docket this afternoon?"

"Bail hearings and motions. Criminal and
civil."

They climbed the narrow stairway to the
courtroom above. Beck sat behind the bench. Standing in front of the bench
was Billy Ray Boenker. Beck read the few pages in the red file.

"First day of deer hunting season, and you
killed a cow?"

Billy Ray had mistaken a cow for a deer and had
put a .30-06 round right in the bovine's head. The cow belonged to his
neighbor.

"Looked like a deer," Billy Ray said.

"Were you drinking?"

"I was awake."

"Shooting while intoxicated."

Lawyer Polk—again—said, "Judge, if we
incarcerated every drunk deer hunter in the county, we'd have to add on to the
jail."

"Bail is denied. You're a danger to the
community. You can sit in jail until your case comes to trial or you plead
out."

Deputy Clint led
Billy Ray away. Mavis said, "Bail hearing," and handed Beck another
red folder:
The State of Texas vs. Ignacio Perez.
Lawyer Polk
maintained his position in front of the bench and was joined by the D.A. and a shackled
Latino.

"Told you, Judge," the D.A. said. "They
all come back."

Ignacio Perez had come back, charged with possession
of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. He had been arrested with
ten pounds of ice—crystal meth—on his person.

Beck said to Lawyer Polk, "Have you
mastered Spanish yet?"

"Uh, no, Judge."

"Then how do we converse with Mr.
Perez?"

"Not so good?"

"I can call Inez, the librarian from next
door," Mavis said. "She's bilingual."

"Do it."

Five minutes later, Inez Quintanilla was
standing in front of the bench next to Ignacio Perez. Beck said, "Ask him
why?"

Inez spoke in Spanish to Ignacio. He spoke back;
one word caught Beck's attention:
coyote.

"He says he was arrested in the ICE raid
and deported to Nuevo Laredo," Inez said. "He was very afraid there
due to the
narco-traficantes
. So he tried to come north several times,
but he was stopped at the border crossing. Then he hired a
coyote
to
get him across. But the
coyote
charged him one thousand dollars, which
he did not have. The
coyote
allowed him to earn his way by carrying the
meth up here."

"And what was he supposed to do with it
when he got here?"

Inez and Ignacio conversed in Spanish again.
Then she said, "Someone was to find him in the barrio and take the
meth."