The Voting Machine

Los Empresarios

Juan Ricardo was a member of a very different type of organization than the other jailbirds. He was a part of a deadly, professionally run, multi-national enterprise. They must have put me in this cell because I was a civilian. Therefore, I was unlikely to anger him and become another wrongful death claim to clog the morgue freezer and the civil courts.

An Empresario like Juan Ricardo might easily arrange the execution of a gangbanger as a matter of business, the way Starbucks would try to drive out the local coffee shop. But he would have no incentive to cause trouble with a civilian like me.

My old friend Flytrap told me stories about Los Empresarios, the narcotics empire that started in the Mexican state of Sinaloa and expanded across the Americas. The group was most famous for their signature punishment of dealers who were caught moving product for rival cartels. They would drag disloyal dealers out to the desert, slice off the soles of their bare feet with a shearing knife, then make them run shoeless, leaving a trail of blood through the hot sands of the desert.

"If you're not running shipments for us," they warned, "then you're not going to run them for anyone else."

Most victims died from blood loss or heat stroke. The ones who survived would never run again.

Juan Ricardo saw how my expression changed after I noticed his tattoos.

"You don't need to be afraid," he told me. "I know you're just a citizen. I am sorry you lost a job. Every man needs a job. Without that, he can't feel like a man. I am an entrepreneur. My mission is to create jobs. I came to this country to do business, just like everybody else."

Just then a series of alarms went off. I heard the loud clang of metal gates. The inmates in the pods started roaring and cheering. A loudspeaker announced that the jail was going into lockdown

Half a dozen guards jogged down the corridor to the east wing of the tower, followed by two paramedics. A few minutes later, they returned, carrying the body of an inmate back to the elevator. The man's face was completely smashed in, a bloody puddle in a bed of gray hair. It was an older man, who was probably powerful in his prime, but no longer able to defend himself against younger inmates.

I checked his arms for gang markings underneath the sleeve of his prison scrubs, but all I saw was a faded tattoo that looked like a thin, green serpent crawling up his arm. Small, leaf-like shapes hung off the serpent like fins or webbed feet. It didn't look like any gang sign I'd ever seen. The top of the tattoo was concealed by the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

The image of the dead cellmate was so brutal and ugly that it made my stomach turn. I starting throwing up in the corner of the cell, unable to stop until it was nothing but dry heaves.

My cellmate Juan Ricardo laughed.

"Don't feel sorry for that guy," he told me. "Pago lo que debia. He got what he deserved."

Juan Ricardo's coldness didn't surprise me. Most men learn to become hardened to the violence of the world. But I was never one of those people. Every time I saw someone die, it was like a pair of fingerprints that wouldn't wash off. The image of this dead inmate was burned into my mind forever.

"You going to be in the Towers for long?" he asked me.

"I don't know."

"I hope not," he said. "This isn't the right place for you."

He reached under his sleeve and handed me something.

"Take this," he said. It was a small gold pendant of Santa Muerte. "She can protect you. Death is the most powerful thing in the universe."

I thanked him and pocketed his gift. I was ready to take any help I could get from anyone.