Rojas was also careful not to alienate any of his competitors. The Dominican cartels controlled the heroin trade in the state, and their operation was the most professional, so Rojas was scrupulous about buying wholesale from them whenever possible instead of cutting them out entirely and risking reprisals. The Dominicans also had their own meth business, but Rojas had organized a sit-down years before and together they had hammered out an agreement about spheres of influence to which everyone had so far adhered. Cocaine was a relatively open market, and Rojas dealt mainly in crack, which addicts preferred because it was simpler to use. Similarly, illegal pharmaceuticals from Canada represented pretty easy money, and there was a ready market for Viagra, Percocet, Vicodin, and ‘kicker,’ or OxyContin. So: coke and pharmaceuticals were in play for everyone, the Dominicans kept their heroin, Rojas looked after meth and marijuana, and everyone was happy.
Well, nearly everyone. The motorcycle gangs were another matter. Rojas tended to leave them alone. If they wanted to sell meth, or anything else, then God bless them and vaya con Diós, amigos. In Maine, the bikers had a big cut of the marijuana market, so Rojas was careful to sell his product, mainly BC bud, out of state. Screwing with the bikers was time-consuming, dangerous, and ultimately counterproductive. As far as Rojas was concerned, the bikers were crazy, and the only people who argued with crazies were other crazies.
Still, the bikers were a known quantity, and they could be factored into the overall equation so that equilibrium was maintained. Equilibrium was important, and in that he and Jimmy Jewel, whose transport links Rojas had long used, and who was a minority shareholder in some of Rojas’s business ventures, were of one mind. Without it, there was the potential for bloodshed, and for attracting the attention of the law.
Recently, though, Rojas had become concerned about a number of issues, including the prospect of forces beyond his control impacting upon his business. Rojas was linked by blood to the small but ambitious La Familia cartel, and La Familia was currently engaged in an escalating war, not merely with its rival cartels, but with the Mexican government of President Felipe Calderón. It meant a definite end to what had been termed the ‘Pax Mafiosa,’ a gentleman’s agreement between the government and the cartels to desist from actions against one another as long as movement of the product remained unaffected.
Rojas had not become a drug dealer in order to start an insurrection against anyone. He had become a drug dealer to get rich, and his ties by marriage to La Familia, and his status as a naturalized US citizen thanks to his now deceased engineer father, had made him eminently suited to his present role. La Familia ’s main problem, as far as Rojas was concerned, was its spiritual leader, Nazario Moreno González, also known, with some justification, as El Más Loco, or the Craziest One. While quite content to accept some of El Más Loco’s rulings, such as the ban on the sale of drugs within its home territory, which had no effect on his own operations, Rojas was of the opinion that spiritual leaders had no place in drug cartels. El Más Loco required his dealers and killers to refrain from alcohol, to the extent that he had set up a network of rehab centers from which La Familia actively recruited those who managed to abide by its rules. A couple of these converts had even been forced on Rojas, although he had managed to sideline them by sending them to BC to act as liaisons with the Canadian bud growers. Let the Canucks deal with them, and if the young killers suffered an unfortunate accident somewhere along the way, well, Rojas would smooth any ruffled feathers over a couple of beers, for Rojas liked his beer.
El Más Loco also seemed prepared to indulge, even encourage, what was, in Rojas’s opinion, an unfortunate taste for the theatricaclass="underline" in 2006, a member of La Familia had walked into a nightclub in Uruapán and dumped five severed heads on the dance floor. Rojas didn’t approve of theatrics. He had learned from many years in the US that the less attention one attracted, the easier it was to do business. More over, he regarded his cousins in the south as barbarians who had forgotten how to behave like ordinary men, if they had ever truly known how to conduct themselves with discretion. He did his best to avoid visiting Mexico unless it was absolutely necessary, preferring to leave such matters to one of his trusted underlings. By now, he found the sight of los narcos in their big hats and ostrich leather boots absurd, even comical, and their predilection for beheadings and torture belonged to another time. He was also under increasing pressure through his trucking connections to facilitate the movement of weapons, easily acquired in the gun stores of Texas and Arizona, across the border. As far as Rojas was concerned, it could only be a matter of time before he became a target for La Familia ’s rivals or the DEA. Neither eventuality appealed to him.
Rojas’s problems had been compounded by the global financial recession. He had squirreled away a considerable amount of money, both cash to which he was entitled by virtue of his role in La Familia ’s operations, and some to which he was not. Even in the early days, he had invested funds in shell banks in Montserrat, internationally notorious for being almost all entirely fraudulent, and willing and able to launder money. His ‘bankers’ had operated out of a bar in Plymouth, until the FBI began putting pressure on Montserrat’s government, and they had been forced to transfer their operations to Antigua. There it was business as usual under the two Bird administrations, father and son, until the US government again began applying pressure. Unfortunately, Rojas had discovered too late one of the downsides of investing with fraudulent banks: they had a tendency to commit fraud, and their customers were usually the ones who suffered. Rojas’s principal banker was currently languishing in a maximum security prison, and Rojas’s investments, carefully funneled offshore over two decades, were now worth about twenty-five percent of what they should have been. He wanted an out, before he ended up dead or in prison which, for him, would be the same thing, as his life expectancy would be measured in hours once he was behind bars. If his rivals didn’t get him, his own people would kill him to keep him quiet.
He wanted to run, but he needed a big score before he could do so. Now, it seemed, Jimmy Jewel might just have given him that opportunity. He had already spoken with the old smuggler twice that day, initially to inform him of what had been found in the rig, then after Rojas had sent him photographs of the items in question. Neither Rojas nor Jimmy trusted email, as they knew what the feds were capable of when it came to surveillance. The solution they had come up with was to establish a free email account to which only they had the password. Emails would be written, but never sent. Instead, they were stored as drafts, where they could be read by one man or the other without ever attracting the attention of federal snoopers. After viewing the items, Jimmy had counseled caution until they evaluated precisely what they were dealing with. He would make inquiries, Jimmy told Rojas. Just keep the stuff safe.