The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara (7 page)

Sal studied his friend before replying. “Okay, partner, now I know you are up on the politics of prison gangs, a topic that I am well versed in. You seem to know a lot, so where do I fit into the overall scheme?”

“I’d like you to get someone on the inside to take out Jefferson and Upton. It could be someone who owes you a favor or maybe just someone who will need one when they get out.”

“Why would I want to do something like that?” Sal asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just thought you’d like to help me set things straight in memory of Jack. He was, after all, one of the few people who ever treated you like a human being when you were a kid,” observed Ryan.

The two men sat in silence for several minutes as they drank. Ryan waited as Sal pondered the proposition he had just been presented with. The gangster thought about it and weighed the risks, tossing around in his mind the fact that there was absolutely nothing in it for him, except maybe the satisfaction of causing the deaths of two deserving black-militant bastards who had killed a kindly mentor from his youth.

Sal was the first to break the silence. “I’ll think it over, brother.”

“When will you let me have your answer?” Ryan asked.

“I won’t. Whatever does or doesn’t go down is no longer your concern. It is out of your hands now and is solely my business. As you know, my business isn’t yours,
capisce
?”

Ryan called the waiter over and the two of them ordered a lobster-and-steak dinner.

They spent the remainder of the evening engaging in small talk and reminiscing about their days with Father O’Rourke at the Dawn of Light.

At nine o’clock they parted company.

“It’s done,” Ryan thought as he watched Sal disappear into the night on his bike.

“
P
inche puto, bendejos
. All those jive asses are good for is talking shit, intimidating the weak, and flexing their muscles. Soon those dumb, ignorant
cabrones
will know what real intimidation is all about.”

Pablo Mendora was the leader of Hijos de Zapata. The focus of his disdain, as he spoke with his lieutenants, was the large gathering of muscular blacks who were pumping iron in their little corner of the exercise yard.

Presiding over the group were Albert Jefferson and Anthony Upton. Jefferson and Upton insisted that their subordinates in the African Guerrilla Brotherhood
engage in daily conditioning. They understood that in order to effectively carry out their enforcement duties, their members needed to be bigger, stronger, and more intimidating than the other cons. The business of murder, extortion, and drug flow required physical strength. Jefferson and Upton practiced what they preached and took an active part in the daily workout sessions. Although both in their mid-fifties, they could still bench over three hundred pounds.

Pablo’s hatred for blacks went back to his days as a kid growing up near the Army Street projects in San Francisco’s lower Mission District. His first encounter with them was as a fourteen-year-old, when he was jumped by six of them and stomped nearly to death as he walked home from school. The last words he remembered as he lay on the pavement being kicked into unconsciousness were “Kill the muthafucka. Kill that little wetback muthafucka!” He still remembered the sadistic laughter of his attackers as their feet pounded his head and thrust into his gut. Yeah, he hated these bastards, and nothing pleased him more than fucking them up whenever an opportunity to do so presented itself.

Pablo often thought back to the time he’d spent in the hospital after the beating. While recovering from a fractured skull, broken jaw, and ruptured spleen, he decided it was time to accept the invitation of his pals to join their street gang.

He’d managed to stay away from gangs and the trouble that came with them up to the day he was put in the hospital. The gang members in the neighborhood had left him alone. They liked him, probably in large part
because the flat on Twenty-Fourth Street where he lived with his parents, Orlando and Inez Mendora, served as a sort of gathering place in the large Latino community that surrounded it. Anyone, especially kids needing a hot meal or a place to crash for the night, could always count on Señora Mendora to have a pot of beans and fresh tortillas waiting for them should they drop in unexpectedly. The generosity and giving nature of the Mendoras reflected their Latino culture.
“Mi casa es su casa”
was the way people were greeted by Orlando and Inez, no matter what their standing in the community. People in need could always depend on
la familia
Mendora.

Orlando worked as a janitor in a downtown high-rise. He was known as the alcalde of Lower Twenty-Fourth Street and was always accompanied by four or five of his amigos when making the rounds of the many bars and restaurants that made his neighborhood, to the east of Mission Street, the hub of social interaction in the barrio.

The elder Mendora mediated local problems, represented his neighbors at police community-relations meetings, and even ventured to city hall on occasion to discuss problems within the Latino community.

Orlando and Inez were not happy when their only child, Pablo, joined Los Hermanos Bandidos. They tried to reason with him. Señor Mendora believed the police would protect him, but Pablo’s reasoning was that the cops couldn’t be everywhere. And besides, they hadn’t done him any good when those bastards from the Army Street projects had almost killed him.

No, he wanted protection and he would have it under the umbrella of Los Hermanos Bandidos. Besides, he
had the added assurance that those responsible for his beating would be harshly dealt with if he became one of them, and he wanted to see the bastards pay.

When he was brought into the gang, the first thing that its president, Rigoberto “The Blade” Uribe, told him was, “Now you’re one of us, ESE. We’re gonna find
los putos
Negros who jumped you and we’re gonna show them what happens to brothas who mess with Chicanos.”

It didn’t take long for Rigoberto’s promise to play out. On a Friday night about a week and a half after Pablo joined, he and a couple of older gang members, Estefan Escobar and Ramon Encinias, were summoned to the gang’s hangout on Folsom Street.

Rigoberto had information from one of his moles in the projects that two of the guys who had jumped Pablo were hanging out in Garfield Square Park, drinking and smoking dope. According to the informant—who was spotted some free grass for the information—they were with a couple of girls.

“We’re gonna go over and slice them up in front of their women. We’re gonna send a message. Any black muthafucka who messes with us is goin’ down. We’re gonna have a little brown-on-black race war. When we’re done with those muthafuckin’
mayates
, they gonna know that this is our turf and that they best stay in that fuckin’ zoo they call a housing project. You with me,
hermanos
?”

“Yeah, we’re with ya, homes. Let’s do it.”

“Good. Estefan, I want you and Ramon to round up the rest of your crews and position them around the park. Put a few over on Treat Street and some on Harrison. Put the rest on Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Sixth. Tell them not to make themselves too obvious. I
want the kid here to have some fun. But if things start going south, I want your guys to move in and cover his back,
comprenden
?”

“
Comprendemos
, jefe.
Cuando
?”

“Yesterday,” Rigoberto replied.

Within half an hour, Rigoberto and his two captains had their gang dispersed inconspicuously around the park. Rigoberto looked at Pablo and asked, “You ready to rumble, little one?”

“Yeah, Blade, let’s do it.”

Rigoberto handed a switchblade to the young gang member and said, “No,
you
do it.
Vamanos
.”

Rigoberto, Estefan, Ramon, and Pablo entered the park and split up into the shadows. Pablo’s mouth was dry and he was shaking. His heart pounded against the inside of his chest as if it were trying to bust out of his body. He hoped his fear didn’t show. This was his initiation into the gang, and what better way to prove himself than to be able to do in someone who had done him harm?

Demetrius Mixon and Tyrone Jackson didn’t notice the approaching Mexicans. High on grass and cheap wine, they were too busy enjoying the company of the two mulatto chicks they’d picked up on Mission Street to notice that their space was about to be invaded.

“Hey,
maricones, como estan
? Where’d you find the hoes?”

Tyrone looked up from the bench. “What’d you say, muthafucka? You talkin’ to me?”

Pablo smiled. He tried to look calm but could feel his lips twitching. “No, I’m talkin’ to yo mama, you ugly black cocksucka.”

Demetrius chimed in as he and Tyrone got up from the bench. “Hey, this be the little greasa we put down a few months back. I guess he wants another ass-whoopin’.”

“Yeah, that him,” Tyrone agreed. “You a little bit outta yo territory, ain’t ya, fool? You must be brain-dead, comin’ here alone, you sawed-off little muthafucka.”

“He’s not alone, spook. He’s with us.” Rigoberto emerged from the shadows behind the bench, followed by Estefan and Ramon.

Demetrius turned around but was struck across the face with a baseball bat before he could react. He fell back and staggered a few feet before falling unconscious to the ground as Estefan and Ramon grabbed Tyrone. The girls began to scream but stopped as soon as Rigoberto put his finger to his lips and shook his head. They were streetwise enough to know that silence would be their salvation.

Rigoberto rolled Demetrius over onto his back and checked his work. “Nose gone, teeth missing, cheeks crushed. Da man has no face.” He laughed as he turned to Tyrone and then glanced over at the girls. “I want you two lovely ladies to be a witness to the first ever sex-change operation to take place in Garfield Square Park. Doctor P here will be the attending physician. It’s his first operation so it might be a little messy. But if you’ll just bear with us, it will all be over with very shortly.”

A crowd began to form and move toward the bench. Ten, maybe fifteen, blacks were edging their way over to see what Tyrone was screaming about. With their focus on him, they failed to notice the twenty-five members of Los Hermanos Bandidos who were enveloping the park
from Twenty-Fifth, Twenty-Sixth, Treat, and Harrison Streets.

Tyrone screeched in pain as Pablo thrust the knife upward into his groin. “You like it, macho Negro? You like being a woman, big man?” He pushed and twisted the knife before pulling it out of what was left of Tyrone’s scrotum.

Estefan and Ramon released their grip and let their victim fall to the ground. His hands turned red with blood as he rolled around on the grass holding his crotch, screaming in pain, and begging to be killed.

Pablo stomped on his head and laughed as he mockingly yelled, “Kill the little wetback muthafucka, huh? Yeah, nigga, you should have!”

“Kill me,” Tyrone pleaded. “Just finish me.”

Pablo laughed. “No way, bitch. You a woman now. Bye-bye,
puta
!”

The crowd of blacks was now running full-out toward the bench, followed by the Mexicans who had closed in on them from the street. Before they could reach Pablo and the others, they were set upon from behind and, in a matter of minutes, those who weren’t lying unconscious on the ground were fleeing in panic toward the projects. From that night on, it would be where they would stay, unless they wanted to wind up in the morgue.

Pablo regretted that he wasn’t able to get the other four who had jumped him. It was rumored that they were hiding out on the hill over in Hunters Point, in the vicinity of West Point and Middle Point. There was no way anyone was going to get to them over there. It was a black stronghold and any attempt to penetrate that area would be like trying to commit suicide. Pablo would just
have to be satisfied that he’d gotten a couple of them. Making Tyrone a eunuch and turning the already brainless idiot Demetrius into a vegetable was good enough for now. Pablo had acquitted himself well and was now a full-fledged member of the gang.

After the Garfield Park incident, Pablo’s reputation in the gang began to grow. By the time he was eighteen years old, he was one of the leaders and ran his own small crew of enforcers whose job it was to make sure that non-affiliated criminals pay protection for the privilege of operating on the gang’s turf. The protection was known as “the tax,” and no one got an exemption.

Things went along smoothly for Pablo until the spring of 2000, when a car thief named Bob Matulski opened a chop shop on Florida Street and let it be known that he wouldn’t be paying any “greaser tax.”

Pablo sent a couple of his boys over to have a talk with Matulski. Bad Bob, as he was known to his underlings, beat up one of the messengers while his pals held the other. They were sent back to Pablo with a message that he’d best “stay the fuck away from my business.”

“I guess we’re gonna have to teach the dumb Polack a lesson,” Pablo seethed to his crew. It was bad enough that a gringo was poaching on the gang’s turf. Now this bastard was beating up his people. This would never do. He would need something more than just a beating. Yes, he would need much, much more than that.

And so, several nights later, accompanied by two of his most brutal enforcers, Oscar Mejia and Antonio Camacho, Pablo exited his car and walked across the street to the shop. It was two o’clock in the morning.

Six men had left the building during the previous half hour. A week’s worth of surveillance had revealed a pattern. Bad Bob Matulski was always the last to leave—usually about an hour after the rest of his crew had departed.

Finding the door unlocked, they entered and crept silently toward an office in the back of the garage, where they saw Matulski through the door. He was on the phone and the conversation he was having indicated that he was getting ready to take in another stolen car. They stayed back until he hung up, then stepped into the room.