man is dead in the eyes, and dark in more ways than his complexion as he sits there slumped down, one leg crossed over the other, cool, his chair pushed back from the table as if he is low riding on his way to hell.
He faces multiple counts of armed robbery, the theft of federal property, as well as possession. He faces twenty-five years on each count if they can prove that he was involved in the actual visa hijacking. He faces ten years on each count of possession for the three visas found in his closet.
We are seated on opposite sides at a steel table in one of the small lawyer-client cubicles in the Metro Detention Center, the white high-rise tomb downtown. There is a guard watching from outside the glass, his eyes constantly on the table between us so that nothing passes without his notice.
The place was a skyscraping joke when it was first put up a few years ago. The contractor stiffed the federal government on the concrete used to build it, so inmates pounding on the walls hard enough could punch holes and shimmy down their bed sheets to the ground outside. Guards were reduced to listening to the hammering from upstairs to pick up the direction in hopes that they could scurry out to the street before the tenants could rappel down their bed covers and hightail it. Since then, the government has hardened the cells, so now inmates would at least need a spoon to chisel their way out.
Espinoza is not impressed that I have come here. He is filled with questions. Streetwise, he is looking at this gift horse as if perhaps there is something in the package that may bite him.
“Why don’ you tell me who hired you, man?”
“I told you. Your wife, Robin.”
“Listen, man. Save the bullshit for your friends. Robin don’ know shit. You think I’m a fool? Robin’s a fuckin’ idiot. Where’s she gonna find a lawyer? She can’t find the fuckin’ phone book. And if she could, she couldn’t read it. Besides, she ain’t got the money to pay you. Look at your fine clothes, your little leather briefcase.” He says this in mocking tones, with the fingers of one hand idly pointed toward my case on the floor next to the table.
“Listen, man.” He sits up at the table, elbows on top, and leans close to me as if he’s about to explain the mysteries of life. “Look at me,” he says. “I ain’t talking to you ’til I know who you are. You got it?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Fine. I hope you like the accommodations.” I get up from my chair, grab my briefcase, and move toward the door.
“Hey, man. Where you goin’?”
“You said you don’t want to talk.”
He glances over his shoulder at the guard who starts to move this way to take him back to his cell.
“Sit down, man.”
“Not unless you want to talk.”
“Fine, man. Fine. We’ll talk. Relax.” He’s back, slumped in the chair, trying not to notice the guard and hoping he will go away.
“Sit down, man.” He taps the stainless steel surface of the table with two fingers, an invitation for me to join him again. Anything is better than the cell inside. “Maybe we can talk about the weather,” he says.
I take a seat, and the guard backs off and returns to his position against the wall outside, watching us.
“You gotta be cool,” he says. “Gimme a minute.” He is thinking, trying to piece together who would hire me and why. “I just wanna know who you are,” he says. “That’s all.”
“I told you.”
“You tol’ me nothin’. Who hired you?”
“What difference does it make as long as we get you out of here?”
His eyes darting around, thinking about this.
“Why would you do that?”
“Call it my civic duty,” I tell him.
His eyes read bullshit, but he’s afraid to say the word for fear I might get up and this time walk.
So instead he says: “Can you do that? Get me out?”
“I don’t know. First you’ll have to trust me. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Can you get me out on bail?”
“It wouldn’t be easy.”
“Then what the fuck good are you?”
“This close to the border and you charged with taking a truckload of U.S. visas, a judge might have a problem giving you bail.”
“What the fuck, you think I’m a flight risk?” He knows more lawyer lingo than half the attorneys I know.
“It’s not what I think that counts.”
“I don’ know nothin’ about it, man. Those fuckin’ passes. I don’t know how they got there.” He is sitting up now in the chair, dropping the detached demeanor, looking at me directly, trying to focus a shimmer of honesty in those dark, beady eyes.
“They were in your apartment. On your closet floor.”
“Only three of ’em, man. Where’s the rest?”
“Maybe they think you’re going to tell them.”
“How do I know? I mean, I don’t know shit.” He’s looking around, shaking his head, palms up and out, extended in the con’s perennial disclaimer, your average honest man filled with disbelief. “I’m sleeping in my bed, man, these assholes come in, fuckin’ flashlights in my eyes, put a shotgun in my face. Next thing I know, they’re pulling this shit out of my closet. I’m telling you, man. You know everything I know. I don’t know how they got there. Maybe somebody put ’em there, man.”
“Obviously. The question is who?”
“How would I know?”
“It’s your apartment.”
“Lots of people come and go,” he says. “Maybe they did it.”
“What people?”
He thinks for a second. You can read it in his eyes. He’s opened this door a crack, and now he wants to close it.
“Them.”
“Who’s them?”
“Fucking Immigration,” he says. “They’re always after me.”
“You’re saying the INS framed you? That they dumped the evidence onto the floor in your closet?”
“How do I know? Anything’s possible, man.”
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
He looks around, the gray cells moving at light speed now, sullen, thinking of new ways to lie to one more lawyer.
I tell him that if this were a state action, he would definitely have something to worry about. “It would be strike three,” I say. “I’ve seen your record. It’s not good. How does a lifetime behind bars sound?”
“But it ain’t no fuckin’ state action.” He takes solace at least in this.
“Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t.”
Espinoza gives me a sideways glance. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It was federal property that went missing. But the fact that some of it turned up in this state, specifically on your closet floor, could make out a case for possession of stolen property.”
“They can’t do that, man. Can they?”
I make a face. Anything’s possible.
He’s up close at the table now. I have his undivided attention. “Tell me, man. Why would they want to do that to me?”
“Why not? You think they’re going to cut you some slack? In case you haven’t figured it out, they want to squeeze you, Miguel. I can call you Miguel, can’t I?”
He nods. “Why?
“Because they think you know something. They want you to roll over on some of your friends.”
“Who sent you?” he says.
“Are we going through that again?”
“I don’ know nothin’.” Just like that he’s back to low riding in the chair, only this time he has a hand up to his mouth, nibbling fingernails. From the tip of his tongue, he spits out the chewed-off remains along with the black
