Pipeline (10 page)

"Do
you know who does the hiring for ABP?"

"I
think they use employment agencies. At least that's what I heard."

"I'd
bet twenty bucks all the employment agencies are located in Eagle Pass or Del
Rio with convenient branch offices in San Antonio." I smiled.

"I
don't know anything about that."

"And
this is what you told Kyle?"

"Yes."

"So
where's the story? Just illegals is nothing, Sarita."

"They
be buyin' them employees," Lena jumped in.

I
hadn't noticed her standing at the door until she spoke.

"Eavesdropping
again, Lena?" I asked with a smile.

"Some
of my people worked for ABP two, three years ago. They the ones what got laid
off to make room for them fuckin' illegals."

"If
they've got papers, guess what, ladies, they're not illegals," I said.

"Shit,
Jo, they ain't got no real papers. I can buy you papers today. How many you
want?"

"And
where would you get them?"

"San
Antone. Cost you 'bout five hundred. There a woman who buys Social Security
numbers from real people this side of the border. When you got that, you good
to go."

"If
these illegals are so damn poor, where are they going to get five hundred
dollars?"

"Need
eight to get to Mountain View. Costs another three for transportation. The
company takes it outta their pay off the top."

"Hell,
I can buy a bus ticket for eighty," I said.

"Not
unless you got papers. Don't get no papers 'til San Antone."

"So
I'm an illegal. I come across the border where I pay some coyote three hundred
to drive me to San Antonio. Once I get there, I shell out another five for fake
papers that get me on with no questions asked at ABP."

"You
got the whole enchilada right there," Lena said with a smile.

"I
wonder how many illegals make it to Mountain View through this pipeline,"
I said to myself.

"A
bunch," Lena said. "Maybe fifty a month. Maybe more."

"They
need that many workers?"

"The
old plant only open five days a week with two shifts. ABP open six days a week,
three shifts. Dangerous work so lots of 'em only last a coupla months. They
ain't union, so the company lays 'em off at about six months anyway."

"Why?"
Sarita asked.

"Saves
a fortune on health benefits and pension plans," I said.

Lena
smiled and nodded. "You got that right. My cousin who worked there pulled
in fifteen or sixteen an hour. They bring in these illegals and pay them five
max. A third the pay and no extras to worry 'bout."

"Jesus,"
I said as I grabbed a calculator from a desk drawer and punched in a few
numbers. "If we figure that just one illegal making it to Mountain View
earns around eight hundred a month, before taxes, the company is saving sixteen
hundred on each non-union worker." Entering more numbers and watching the
total grow, I exhaled a low whistle. "On fifty illegals, ABP could be
saving eighty thousand per month for an annual savings of nearly a million
dollars and that doesn't count what they save on benefits and pensions."

"It
might be more than that," Sarita interjected. "I heard Kyle say that
the company was paying someone to find more employees."

"How
much are they paying per employee?" I asked.

"I
don't know," she answered.

Lena
poked Sarita on the shoulder and smiled. "You need to work on that pillow
talk, baby girl. Don't let no fool man fall asleep 'fore he tell you everthin'
he know."

Sarita
blushed again and looked back at me. "Do you think there's really a story
here, Ms. Carlisle?"

"Maybe.
I don't know much about this ABP. We used to sell our beef over at Mountain
View, but that was when the old plant was open. I could look into a few things
and see what turns up, Sarita. It could still be a zero story. But if I was
raking in that kind of money, I might not want it getting out either."

Sarita
picked up a piece of paper and took a pen from her purse. "This is my
phone number at school," she said as she wrote. "I don't want Kyle to
know I talked to you."

I
took the paper from her and put it in my shirt pocket. "You be careful,
too. If someone is watching him, they have to have seen you as well.
Okay?"

She
nodded and stood up. I walked around the desk and escorted her out of the
house. As she drove away, I went back up the steps. Lena was leaning against
the porch railing, smoking what was probably her fiftieth cigarette of the day.

"You
gonna help you kid?" she asked.

"I
said I'd look into it. Maybe I'll drive over to Mountain View tomorrow and poke
around a little."

"Shit!"
she exclaimed through a cloud of blue-gray smoke. "Ain't nobody there
gonna talk to you. You the wrong cultural persuasion."

"Then
I'll just have to find someone of the right persuasion to help me out. I have a
couple of friends in San Antonio who might do it."

"I
do it. But it gonna cost you plenty extra." She smiled.

"You
don't know anything about gathering evidence for an investigation, Lena."

"What
the fuck you gotta know? How to ask some dumbass question? Shit, I got more
questions than you got answers."

"Well,
you're not going to do it. I won't allow it."

"What
you mean you won't allow it? I do whatever I damn please. Lena don't need no
stinkin' permission from you."

"Then
I won't pay you."

"I
do it for nothin'. What you think 'bout that?"

"I
wish you wouldn't, Lena," I said, changing tactics. "You could get
hurt, and I sure as hell wouldn't want that on my conscience."

She
slapped me on the back and laughed. "You like me, Jo. You ain't got no
conscience. 'Sides, them fuckers put some a my people outta work. Make me real
happy to bring 'em a little grief."

"Do
you have a plan, or are you thinking about barging in with both arms
swinging?"

"I
figure I can get me a job where a buncha wetbacks might hang out. Give a man a
few drinks and a nice smile, he tell you anythin'."

"If
I go along with this, I want a report every day, and if I tell you to get out,
you get your ass out, no questions asked. Deal?" I said, sticking out my
hand.

She
grabbed my hand so hard I thought she would break my fingers and pumped it up
and down a couple of times before releasing it. "Deal. You know, that a
real nice girl you kid got. He a dummy like you?"

"God,
I hope not, Lena. I sure hope not," I answered as I flexed circulation
back into my fingers.

Chapter
Twelve

I
DIDN'T KNOW how she did it, but by the following weekend Lena Rubio was
employed as a bar waitress and part-time cook at a Mountain View cantina six
blocks from the ABP plant. You'd never be able to convince me that work was
hard to find when a woman like Lena could just waltz into a place and get hired
on the spot. Perhaps the cantina owner thought he could use her as a bouncer if
he needed to. She was certainly large enough to take down most men I knew. She
began a regular routine of going to work at the cantina in time for the lunch
crowd and leaving around ten at night. The distance between Kerrville and
Mountain View was about forty miles, and I provided Lena with gas money on a
regular basis. She would drop by the ranch on her way to Mountain View and give
me an amazingly detailed, if grammatically flawed, report of what she heard and
saw each day, even arranging to take Wednesdays off from the cantina to clean
my house.

Two
weeks into her new job, Lena came by my house with her usual report. We shared
a cup of coffee, and she somehow managed to chain smoke three or four
cigarettes with it, looking preoccupied as she fidgeted around in her chair.

"Something
wrong, Lena?" I asked.

"Naw.
Think you can come to Mountain View t'night?"

"Sure.
What time?"

"'Bout
ten-thirty. Got somebody for you to talk to."

"You
want to give me a little more to go on, or is it a national secret?"

"There
this man I met. He says he knows plenty 'bout the ABP illegals."

"Do
you trust him?"

"Hell,
he so drunk most times, he might think ABP is how the fuckin' alphabet starts
for all I know. You talk to him and see if he full of shit."

"Okay,
I'll be there. Anything else on your mind? You seem a little jumpy."

"It's
nothin'. Sometimes I get the feelin' somebody watchin' me, but ain't never
nobody around."

"Maybe
it's time for you to find another job and leave town."

"Ain't
found nothin' yet. One more week. Gettin' tired of gettin' pawed by them stupid
wetbacks anyhow."

She
finished her coffee and lit another cigarette as she pushed herself up from the
table. I followed her out of the house and watched her waddle toward her car.

"You
be careful, Lena. Understand?"

"Yeah,
yeah," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

All
day I couldn't shake a nagging feeling that something was wrong. It wasn't like
Lena to worry about anything. Maybe her feeling that someone was watching her
was just the product of an overactive imagination. But then again, maybe it
wasn't. I finally decided not to wait until ten-thirty to arrive in Mountain
View. I needed to get the lay of the land anyway, and if experience served me
right, most little Mexican cantinas usually had pretty good food as long as you
didn't go in the back to personally inspect the kitchen. After checking my camera
and loading it with highspeed ASA 800 film, I elected to forego the comfort of
my Blazer in favor of my father's old ranch truck. No air conditioning or
state-of-the-art stereo system, but it was old and faded enough that I hoped no
one would be tempted to steal it. I hadn't driven it in a couple of months, but
after a little coaxing, the engine finally turned over.

It
had been years since I'd been to Mountain View, and I was surprised at the
visible changes in the town. The city limits sign listed its population at
2,500, but even before I reached the downtown business district I knew they had
undercounted. It was nearly six, and if what Lena had told me was true, one
shift of workers would be leaving ABP in less than ten minutes. It didn't take
a mental giant to find the meatpacking plant. All I had to do was follow my
nose. There wasn't enough money in the world to entice me to inhale that odor
day after day. As a teenager, I had helped my father take cattle to the
Mountain View meatpacking plant, but the smell was stronger now than I
remembered, probably due to the increased numbers of animals going through the
plant.

As I
drove around the perimeter of the plant, I saw that it had been enlarged
considerably. Four large tractor-trailers were backed into a loading dock at
the rear of the building, and as the pathetic bleating of animals going to
slaughter penetrated the late afternoon air a shiver ran up my spine. Circling
the block, I noticed a second loading dock with more trucks, many emblazoned
with the names of large grocery chains on the side. One door in and one door
out. Some of the workers had bragged to Lena about the volume of meat they were
able to turn out on a single shift. Parking a block away from the main entrance
to the plant, I waited for the shift to end. Nearly a hundred men and women
were gathered outside the main gate waiting for the night shift to begin.
Snapping a zoom lens onto my Minolta, I took a few quick shots of the workers.
If the workers were illegals, they wouldn't be happy to know a stranger was
taking their picture.

At
precisely six, an armed guard opened the electric gate at the main entrance. A
mass of men and woman began pouring out of the plant and headed eagerly for the
gate, mingling briefly with the workers waiting to enter. From where I was
sitting, it appeared that well over three-fourths of the workers were Hispanic
and predominantly men. Their clothes looked filthy and were covered with
reminders of their work. Groups of them passed by my car, carrying on animated
conversations in Spanish. Once upon a time I had had a passable knowledge of
street Spanish, but now I could only recall enough to catch an occasional
phrase.

While
I was struggling to pick up what I could, I noticed a white Lincoln Town Car,
with the maximum window tinting allowed by law, pull up to the front gate. The
vehicle nosed through a few workers and stopped, so the driver could speak to
the guard before proceeding to a parking area near the front door of the
building. A large, well-dressed man, who appeared to be Hispanic, got out of
the car and looked around. He yelled something at some of the workers, and they
moved a little more quickly into the plant. The man, still wearing sunglasses
even though the sun had nearly dropped behind the building, proceeded into the
building as I managed to take shots of his car. I would get Pauli to trace it
through DMV for me later after I enlarged the license plate number.