Killer Year

Ernesto shared a room in a dingy building about a mile from Fields Avenue. When I got there, the normal chaos of a typical Angeles street had been replaced by something much more sinister.

White vans blocked off each end of the street, but it didn’t stop the curious from walking around them to see what was going on. The real action was toward the middle of the block, in front of Ernesto’s building.

Whatever had happened seemed to have just ended. A dozen soldiers stood near the entrance. They were wearing full battle gear and held machine guns at the ready. At first I thought they were all Filipino, but the closer I got, I realize that though they were all wearing identical dark uniforms, most of the men appeared to be either Caucasian or African American.

My immediate thought was Americans.

I moved with the crowd, reaching a spot almost directly across the street from the building’s entrance. I knew enough not to put myself out front, and I held back, allowing others to stand in front of me.

After about ten minutes, two men appeared in the doorway. They were carrying a stretcher, complete with a sheet-draped body on top. By the way everyone was acting, I knew the dead man wasn’t one of theirs. And when Joseph Perdue emerged from the building a few moments later to the backslaps of his colleagues, it was pretty evident who was on the stretcher.

Homeland Security had gotten their man.