Lines and shadows by Joseph Wambaugh Page A

11/20/2009
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    The three cops jumped shivering into the Ford and she drove the residential streets of San Ysidro for several minutes, explaining to them that she was looking for two women and one man from El Salvador whom she had transported from Tijuana to the vicinity of the borderline at the Tijuana airport, where a guide was to bring them through the canyons. The woman had a forged passport which allowed her to cross legally. They were not able to connect with the Salvadorans. They drove instead to a home in San Ysidro where she had to make certain arrangements preparatory to taking them on to Los Angeles. She went into a modest house, leaving her daughter Olivia in the car with the three passengers. Olivia was articulate and spunky. When Manny Lopez asked her if she wasn't afraid to be left alone with three strangers, she smiled prettily. Obviously she was not.
    She told them her life story. They had been smuggling aliens for about five years. She often rode with her mother around Tijuana during alien pickups. Olivia was a third-generation smuggler whose father and grandmother were still at it. Her father was living in Texas on parole for smuggling. Her grandmother was on probation, having been caught with a load of two dozen aliens. And alas, even her mother, now in the house exchanging money with other smugglers, had been the driver in that particular operation and was also caught.
    "Mama must be very careful," she informed them. "The hardest part of the journey to Los Angeles is the San Clemente checkpoint."
    Manny Lopez, Tony Puente and Eddie Cervantes nodded soberly at this revelation and even more so at the next when she revealed more smuggler lore: " La migra and the San Diego police are on constant watch and they beat up prisoners!" She also informed the cops that the resident of the safe house had gotten rich by smuggling and had bought a restaurant, but had squandered his fortune in that business. Lousy restaurateur, good smuggler.
    When the girl's mother returned, the deal was struck. She normally charged $250 a head for O.T.M.'s and $200 for Mexicans. In the spirit of the holidays she offered the boys a ride to Los Angeles for $150 apiece, and she was suddenly very surprised to see the shield of a San Diego police sergeant in the hand of Manny Lopez. Olivia followed in the footsteps of two generations by getting busted.
    Normally, wildcatting arrests were okay for the stats but not worth an officer's report. This one was, because of Olivia and her life story. It was two days until Christmas and the cops were feeling sentimental. And perhaps they were a bit smitten by her looks. She did, after all, have a beautiful smile and eyes like a jackrabbit. And she was just slightly larger than one, this very artful dodger. The littlest smuggler was ten years old. file://C:\Documents and Settings\tim\Desktop\books to read\Wambaugh, Joseph - Lines a... 11/20/2009
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    This particular arrest was at least mildly depressing to one of the Barf squad who put it this way: "I was bummed. I watched Oliver that year on TV and all of a sudden it sucked . I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me till I started thinking about that little smuggler Manny and the guys brought in. I switched off Oliver to Donnie and Marie or something, that's how bummed I was. I kept asking myself what kind a job is this? What's it mean out there on that border? What is this alien business all about? Does it mean something? Is it some kind a weird comedy? Why wasn't I laughing?" There were only six unsensational newspaper stories about BARF during the month of December. They were only two weeks from their ninety-day moratorium. They faced imminent disbanding and at least one of them had said he was more than ready to move back to real police work. The border patrolmen and U.S. Customs officers were gone in any case. Dick Snider needed a sensational bandit arrest. Or a public relations miracle. Something to