The Pretender Page 13

  When the meet concluded and Ortega on his way elsewhere, Alicia laughed and said, “Where did that come from?!”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe from watching Gunga Din over and over again. There’s no way he is going to buy that story. He’s got a few thousand now. We’ll see if he cuts off or comes back for more.” Of course, he could have arranged a “reception committee” for the next meet. The kind that results in a melancholy outcome. I thought this unlikely.

  Two weeks later, back in the Jeep by the Federal Building, Ortega climbs into the front passenger seat, all smiles, no reception committee.

  “I saw some of your friends on TV.”

  For once, I was bewildered.

  “Really? No kidding? What friends?”

  “In Iraq. On CNN. They showed the Legionnaires arriving. Tough guys.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know a lot of those guys who are there now. I miss them, but don’t miss being in Iraq. I’ve had enough of that sort of thing for one lifetime.”

  Ortega thought of himself as a hard case, and he respected other men whom he perceived to be cut of the same tough material. He believed me because he wanted to believe me. He wanted to be dealing with a man on his elevated plane, a fellow denizen of the shadow world of coyotes, mercenaries, and others who are separate from, and superior to, the sheep that make up the bulk of mankind.

  As a rule, all arrests have to be postponed until the end of a case, for the obvious reason: the word of early arrests would spread instantly. The arrest of Ortega did not need to be postponed until the conclusion of RUN-DMV, however, because he had no relation to any of the other subjects, and he had never heard of Alex Perez. There was no possibility of my alias being compromised. In addition to obtaining permanent resident status for myself, alias Colombian drug lord, Ortega had obtained immigration docs for my right-hand man, played by cooperating witness John Sultan. Working with the INS Inspector General’s Office, Dave and Vicki had identified the corrupt immigration officials who had processed the paperwork. Their arrests would soon be forthcoming. But Ortega first. He had parked his late-model BMW in a lot on Broadway, up the block from the Federal Building, in anticipation of a meet where I would be bringing yet another cocaine colleague in need of Immigration assistance. He smiled when he saw me and John Sultan, then stopped smiling when Vicki stepped in front, blocking his path, and Dave tapped him on the shoulder, creds in hand. Very low-key, no guns drawn. On this day, Ortega was escorted to a different floor in the Federal Building from the one he was used to visiting. During processing, he told Dave that he had known I was an FBI agent all along.

  “Right,” Dave replied, “that’s why you took nearly twenty thousand in cash and gave him the docs … Let’s talk.”

  5

  The Daily Grind

  Ortega, Mahmoud Noubani, Nair—all qualify as hard cases, by which I mean they weren’t particular about the means employed to get what they wanted (generally, money), and would not feel any remorse if others needed to get hurt along the way. The final hard case to earn a reference in the annals of RUN-DMV, perhaps the hardest of them all, in fact, was Santiago Kuris. I met him at—where else?—the Yonkers DMV. He was standing in the lobby, talking to a couple of what I took to be thugs—his thugs. A tall, striking figure in a long black leather coat, powerfully built, with spiky black hair and piercing dark eyes, he was laughing quietly as he listened to one of his underlings. Laughing, but with plenty of latent menace and authority. Clearly, this was his posse.

  Julio Dominguez, one of my friends among the runners, a small-time but full-time criminal, leaned toward me. “Be careful with that one, Alex,” he said. “He’s dangerous. Those people who work for him are dangerous.” Kuris was, apparently, into whatever could bring in money—guns, drugs, scams, no-IDs, and so forth. This was 1992, and as it happened Quentin Tarantino had just made Reservoir Dogs, his super-violent movie about a gang of jewel thieves and their botched heist. One of those thieves—Mister Orange—was an undercover agent, played by Tim Roth. I paid close attention to the scene with Roth looking in the mirror, getting dressed, getting into character before his day’s work, which turned out to be fatal. He played it beautifully. I believed him.

  Cut to Roth pulling away from the curb in his covert car.

  Cut to the two surveillance agents following him, one of whom says, “You’ve got to have rocks in your head to do that.”

  He had a point. Do I have rocks in my head? I wasn’t so sure. I had come to believe that Alex Perez could gain the confidence and engage in criminal activity with anybody (any crook, that is). It did not matter what walk of life they came from, their social or economic position in the world, their cultural background. It was a question of identifying and pushing the right buttons. And everyone had buttons. In Kuris’s case, I made a point of not getting an introduction, not talking to him. He would inevitably see me from time to time, eventually would hear chatter about Alex, the formerly Miami-based hood with the lethal fanny pack and the stunning girl by his side. The best possible way for a UC to gain the confidence of a target, for the target to have absolutely no doubt that the UC is a bona fide criminal (and not a lawman, for example) is to ignore him. Show absolutely no interest. To wait for the target to initiate the relationship. Then the roles become reversed: I’m the one who has a right to be suspicious, the one who needs to be reassured that Kuris is who he appears to be, not a potential snitch working off a beef with the law. With Kuris, that would be the real concern another criminal could have. No one would believe in a million years that he could be an undercover cop. He was too evil. But he could be a snitch. As on the dark side, who couldn’t be?

  Usually, Kuris’s lackeys would come to the DMV with a couple of Spanish girls to stand on the line. One day, he made an appearance and had too many pieces for his girls to handle without attracting the suspicion of a supervisor. After an introduction from one of the runners, who assured me that Kuris was a “good guy,” i.e., trustworthy, I agreed to let Alice do a no-ID for him. And we were off! Within a few months, we, Alice and Alex, developed a good rapport with Kuris, who (as planned) saw Alex as a hard-case fugitive from Metro-Dade, someone whose respect and friendship meant something. One day, he was in his car with a henchman when he saw my car and waved me over. Alex, you interested in fake bills? Bills? I thought maybe he was selling bogus Con Ed bills, maybe phone bills, which can be handy for ID purposes. Corroboration. Sure, I said, and he pulled out an envelope stuffed with counterfeit fifties. Counterfeit U.S. currency. I expressed an impressed surprise and great interest in a future purchase, but I would have to ask my people back in Miami, see if there was any interest. Kuris sold me a sample to show “my people.” He could have given me one. I was mildly pissed-off that he didn’t. Looking back, I realize that I was reacting, truly reacting, like Alex. Not like the UC that I was, who should not have cared less whether he sold it to me or gave it to me. Kuris was, after all, taking the game to a whole new level. He understood why I had to show it to my people, to get the okay for a purchase. One of the techniques for success and survival that I developed as Alex, and used for well over a decade, was to always be working, directly or indirectly, for someone else, for a “Mister Big.” Alex, like many actual mid-level career criminals in La Cosa Nostra, La Familia, the Crips—whatever—had a lot going on independently and a lot going on not so independently, and for many reasons—for financing, for protection, for support, and to simply belong. The key advantage for me was that by having a boss, I could defer making decisions, commitments, until I checked with Mister Big, who was back in Miami. And I could do so without losing face and without raising suspicions.

  I said, “I’ll see if he’s interested. See how much he wants, how much he’s willing to pay.”

  And that evening I did indeed show the souvenir to my boss, to Craig Dotlo at the Ramada in New Rochelle. And he in turn immediately called his boss, at Headquarters City in Manhattan. And subsequently, the Secret Service, which investigates counterfeit tende
r. They were very interested—these fifties had recently been showing up at bodegas all over the city, and they had no leads as to the source. But there was an issue: if our sting was a success, Craig wanted assurances that the Secret Service wouldn’t take down Kuris and Co. before we had wrapped up RUN-DMV. They didn’t like this stipulation—they don’t like long-term ops on principle (no surprise, few agencies have the means and the institutional patience)—but they understood the obvious rationale—Alex Perez would be toast all over town if they arrested Santiago Kuris prematurely—and signed off on the operation.

  Somewhat to my surprise, this QUEER FIFTIES investigation turned out to be one of the riskier ones in my career. Which is to say, it felt riskier, beginning one afternoon when Alicia wasn’t around for my meet with Santiago Kuris in the Bronx. On the other hand, I did have the luxury of surveillance: Vicki and Dave were watching from the tinted-window minivan parked down the street. I’ve already noted that backup surveillance may be a day late and a dollar short, even when parked on the next block, but there is some comfort in numbers. When Kuris and I concluded our business and shook hands, Vicki and Dave signed off and drove away. Then Kuris returned and asked which way I was headed. Down into Lower Manhattan, I unwittingly replied. So could I give one of his soldiers a lift to Harlem? The drop-off was on my way, I really had no choice. I had to say yes. To refuse would not only have been out of character; it would simply not have made sense and could have planted some seeds of doubt. When the man appeared, I outwardly smiled and inwardly grimaced: he wore the signature “8-ball” leather jacket, at that time a major status symbol on the street and a screaming advertisement to his world that he was a bad motherfucker. The original bad motherfucker, Jules, whose wallet in Pulp Fiction proclaimed him as such, who shot enemies without compunction, had nothing on this guy. Homicides provoked by the desire to acquire these expensive, bomber-style jacket from the current owner were a common occurrence in certain neighborhoods in the metro area, though the new owners did take care not to perforate or otherwise damage the jacket in the process. (The police refer to these DOAs as “public-service homicides.” That’s cold, but that’s what they’re often called.)

  I was apprehensive. Had Santiago out-foxed me, with that belated request to give his friend a lift? Was this a set-up? Would there be a reception committee? Would they discover my mini-Nagra secreted in its custom crotch carrier, or the remote switch in the right-front pocket of my baggy trousers? If so, it would turn out to be a melancholy day—and my last one. In the car with this guy, I pretended to call my next street appointment to announce that I’d be late and to change the location of the illicit transaction to 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. In fact, I was calling Vicki and Dave, hoping they’d catch on. They would have, but all we had were prototype first-generation “cell phones” (that really didn’t deserve the name), consisting of an old-fashioned hard-line telephone handset attached via a coiled cord to a lunch-box size base unit. (No problem being seen with this thing. Hoods had them, too; they were state of the art.) Coverage was spotty. I couldn’t get through.

  As it turned out, “8-Ball” really did just want a ride and even said thanks when he got out—you can be a hard case and still be polite, Hollywood stereotype notwithstanding—but that was an uncomfortable half hour, and also a lesson learned. I hadn’t given this enough thought: never authorize the surveillance to leave before you do. I should have learned this lesson from Roger Gomez back in San Juan. Prior to joining the Bu, Roger had been with the Illinois State Police, where he did a lot of UC drug work in the Chicago area. He told us the story about the time he and his confidential witness drove to a meet with a fairly significant dealer who owned and operated out of a garage in one of the seedier parts of the city. After an employee announced that the owner wasn’t in, Roger and his associate started to drive off. The surveillance team also broke off and left the scene. Two blocks from the garage, Roger now saw the subject driving toward the garage. The subject gestured for Roger to make a U-turn and follow him back to the garage. When they got there, the dealer asked Roger to come and speak to him privately, behind a Dumpster. Any UC knows—anyone at all knows—that being invited for a chat, alone, behind a Dumpster, at night, is an inauspicious development. And the cavalry wasn’t about to arrive, because they had gone home. Sure enough, the dealer didn’t waste any time. He drew a large revolver and pointed it at Roger’s head, explaining that he knew that Roger was a cop, the second undercover sent by the lieutenant of that particular narcotics unit, and that he ought to blow out Roger’s brains on the spot. The final message was that he would let Roger leave, alive, but that any third UC would not be as fortunate. Roger had not known that another UC had tried and failed to infiltrate this garage operation. When he now found out, he was standing on the wrong side of a pistol barrel. Back in the office, he went … ballistic.

  There was no school for undercover operations in my early days. Later, when there was, I would emphasize this point in my presentations at Quantico: The meet may look like it’s over, but it’s not over until the UC is out of the operational area. And don’t be shy about making this clear each and every time to the surveillance team. In fact, be assertive about setting all necessary ground rules prior to a meet. Because it’s your ass primarily on the line, and surveillance knows it. That is, they know it’s not their ass. Alas, we will see the importance of this rule—all too often disregarded—in several later cases. The UC cannot be too careful.

  * * *

  Kuris maintained an office of sorts, on the second floor of a run-down building in Queens. Early one afternoon, I arrived to discuss a purchase and found only 8-Ball in attendance. This was a couple of months after the ride to Harlem. He now looked up to me—a friend of the boss, a fugitive from Miami, a serious felon.

  “Alex, you interested in buying any Glocks?”

  Bingo! Alex couldn’t take two steps in those days without being invited into a new realm of criminal activity. We didn’t have to hunt for subjects anymore. My Alex persona was so attuned, so finely developed, and so always-around that I had become a magnet for illegal activity.

  “Nine mil?”

  “Yeah. Brand-new.”

  “Sure … depends on the price.”

  He was never able to deliver on the proposed sale. As with many deals, UC and otherwise, it fizzled. But it provided useful intel on the type of characters I was dealing with, and my interest in buying guns—buying anything illegal, if the price was right—strengthened Alex’s criminal persona.

  It turned out that Kuris’s associate in the counterfeiting ring was not 8-Ball, but a guy named Paco, also Dominican, bearded and dark-skinned, shorter and stouter than Kuris, and not particularly chatty. Shortly after Paco joined the party, Vicki learned that he was the target of another investigation, this one by the NYPD, for renting machine guns to thugs for use in one-time robberies and drive-by slaughters. Our strategy with the bogus fifties was to progressively increase the size of the buys until the volume and real cash changing hands reached a threshold. Then I would be in a position to tell Kuris and Paco that “my people” down in Florida insisted that I deal directly with the supplier. The two Dominicans would still get their cut—I had no intention of cutting them out—but my boss wasn’t about to let me hand forty or fifty thousand in real cash to a couple of middle men who may then evaporate with the buy money. This ploy was the only way to find out where the bills were originating and who the principal distributors were. In order to take down the entire network, I would have to identify the key players and deal with them directly.

  I had arranged a new buy, $10,000 real money for $60,000 fake money. Business concluded, I would initiate the discussion to up the ante, paying more real money for more fake money, then bringing up my boss’s stipulations. Kuris and I were scheduled to meet early one fall afternoon on a side street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan just South of Houston Street, by the FDR Drive, next to the East River. A quiet, desolate spot, unlikely to att
ract prying eyes. We had transacted business there once before. Kuris stood by the driver’s-side window while I remained in my Jeep Cherokee eating my hot dog from Katz’s, the famous Jewish deli a few blocks west on Houston. Pumped on adrenaline, I was not the least bit hungry, of course, but eating the dog as we concluded the deal demonstrated my lack of concern, the naturalness of the situation. It was simply business as usual, routine. But if the situation went rapidly south, I would have drawn and fired my 10mm before the dog hit the floorboard.

  I had been driving the Cherokee for some time now. It was a significant upgrade in terms of safety. The Jeep had a transmitter built in, complete with a toggle on-off switch under the dash. Hard-wired to the car battery, and not limited in size like a body transmitter, it could broadcast a couple of blocks in the city, even farther on open road. Installing the electronic hardware was costly, requiring some pitching by Craig to his bosses. My other cars—the Chrysler, the Mercedes—already semi-retired upon arrival of the Jeep, were rendered obsolete by this latest electronic upgrade. Plus there was the elevation factor. One of the reasons I preferred SUVs was that they allowed me to talk comfortably from inside the car, without awkwardness. In particularly hazardous situations, I could draw a pistol unnoticed and place it under my thigh, for immediate access.

  For this new $10,000 buy, hoping to follow Kuris and Paco from the scene and find out where and to whom they took the buy money, an entire squad of Secret Service agents was conducting surveillance, along with Vicki and Dave in their tinted-out minivan. The van was parked on East Houston, facing east, about a block and a half down. The Service G-Rides (their equivalent to BuCars) were roaming, ready to move in any direction at any speed. Everyone was monitoring my built-in upgraded transmitter (the Secret Service using Vicki’s handi-talkie for the day). This was good, but the Service uses a different radio frequency for their own communications, and they had no handi-talkie to loan Vicki and Dave, who therefore could not hear them. This was bad.