El Gato warmed up the engine and turned on the windshield wipers before he drove down the narrow Tijuana street. It was 9:00 a.m. and the short drive was the last thing this journalist ever did.
Victoriano Medina Moreno, the man with the binoculars, whispered, “The target is on the move,” over a two-way radio and receiver to his accomplice, Antonio Vera Palestina, who was waiting in ambush mode, a ways down the street. The streets were wet, filled with potholes, and El Gato’s huge car was moving slow. A third accomplice, Emigdio Nevárez, moved his pick-up truck into a position that blocked El Gato’s car. Palestina exited the truck and pointed a high-powered shotgun at El Gato. The first bullets ripped El Gato’s shoulder and neck to pieces. The murderer and his accomplice moved to a point six feet away to shoot El Gato from behind the wheel of his car. The second blast hurled his dead body into the passenger seat and separated much of his head from his torso. The Crown Victoria kept moving downhill before crashing into a house.
A journalist was dead. A message had been sent.
The drivers of the pick-up truck and the Trans Am departed the scene in separate directions. Ten minutes later, they met again at the Agua Caliente racetrack parking lot. The drivers clocked in to work at their jobs in the security office of the racetrack.
The next night, Dino’s telephone rang at 11:00 p.m. and the sound woke him. “What’s up?” he answered. “It’s late.”
It was Amalia. “You have me always checking on that Tijuana newspaper, Zeta…right?…and you said you wanted to know about anything El Gato, that Mexican reporter, who writes about the track and its owner…right?”
“Yeah, of course, of course, thanks…what…?”
“Well, Zeta released today a special edition. El Gato was shot to death, execution style, in broad daylight.”
“Whoa, whoa…are you sure?” As Dino sat up in bed, he said, “That’s the reporter who was writing the bad shit about Jorge Rhon, the track owner, right?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I got a call from a friend of mine who is a librarian down in San Diego. She’s been reading the papers to me when she finds stuff on him. It’s the biggest story in years in Tijuana.”
“What else do you know? Do they have a suspect?”
“That’s it so far, but I’ll call you when I get to work tomorrow and get everything else I can find out,” said Amalia and she hung up.
Dino knew Miami was always up late, so he called and told him the story.
“Shit, Dino! That’s awful about the journalist…and as for Rhon…well, he can’t pay us if he’s in jail.”
Neither Miami nor Dino slept well the rest of that night.
They both went to see Amalia at the end of day on Saturday, at the library. She wore a grave expression and had much more information to share. “Apparently there is a lot of wealth there, mostly by the politicians and the cartels. I don’t really know, but they have big beauty pageants, and championship boxing matches, and big weddings and stuff….”
“So, here’s what we know now,” said Amalia. “El Gato used to be friends with the owner of the track, Rhon, and went to his events and hung out with him. For many years, he wrote about him, and it wasn’t too bad. El Gato sometimes criticized Rhon for being an outsider; the native Tijuanans hated guys that came from Mexico City, but El Gato liked Rhon because Rhon loved Tijuana, and loved his house, his track. Rhon became one of the prominent locals. El Gato also made fun of everyone and wasn’t afraid to call out the mayor, or anyone. Their paper, Zeta, is respected and not afraid of calling out the drug cartels, the corruption, and the politicos. El Gato wrote about torture.”
“Holy shit,” said Miami. “These Zeta newspaper guys are brave dudes. So how is Rhon tied to this at all?”
“People think that Rhon ordered the hit on El Gato, because El Gato was very critical of Rhon. That’s why they also assumed that Rhon ordered his men to use Uzi machine guns on the front of the Zeta newspaper offices last month—to send a message to El Gato and Zeta to back off…‘or else’…and I guess this is the ‘or else’ part. But here is what’s important—guess who they are looking for in the murder of El Gato?”
“Who?” Dino asked.
She grabbed the necklace on her throat, “Rhon’s bodyguard, Antonio Vera Palestina. He works as the head of security for the Agua Caliente racetrack! The guy is missing, along with another track security guard named Moreno.”
The library became even quieter as the three of them tried to process the information. Amalia’s source in San Diego also said that over a dozen journalists had been killed in Mexico over the last six years.
“These guys kill people for just saying bad things about them,” said Miami. “What do they do to the people who win millions?”
In the days after they received news of El Gato’s murder, the discussions between Dino and Miami became heated on the topic of where to watch the Kentucky Derby. Miami wanted to go to Kentucky to have some fun and party.
“Don’t you think that that may be just a wee bit premature?” Dino asked. “She still hasn’t won the Derby, there are like 16 other talented colts that can beat her, and we have the owner of the race book in Mexico having security guards kill people. Look, he’s not going to kill or rob people on the day of the Kentucky Derby, right? Agua Caliente will be packed that day. Even the parking lots will be full. And there will be a ton of other bettors there that bet on her too, mostly on like small $50 tickets. I say we go in person that day and bring a
