The Notebook of Carlos Moore

Today the MDO boogeyman, Juan Carlos Oliveras, showed up at the Cruz house and threatened Solana. This guy is like a ghost. He’s a legendary hitman, and everyone knows it, but no one’s ever been able to pin any hard evidence on him. He’s looking for some book that apparently belong to Solana’s late parents. Teresa sat Solana down and explained that all her her parents’ things have been in storage all these years, and since Solana is 18 they’re hers now. Mercedes took her down to the storage unit to look for the book. I’m a little concerned about how Solana will handle it, what memories it will dredge up and how she’ll handle it.

If there was any way to make a charge stick, I’d try to set the guy up and have my dear friends in the FBI arrest him. They don’t have enough to merit holding him, so even if we tried that he’d be sprung and back on the doorstep within a day. My next option would be to just kill the guy. The urban legends about him don’t bother me, but triggering a war with the MDO does. The best option is probably to just give him the fucking book, but Solana and Mercedes don’t want to, and it does sort of send the message that seven years after the MDO won the drug war against the Gomez family they can still come in and push people around. It doesn’t matter that the drug-dealing Gomezes are all dead.

Now would seem like the time to just go. Leave Tucson, leave Southern Arizona, go someplace with less crime, or at least someplace where the family doesn’t have old ties to crime. Rafael Gomez, the current patriarch of the family, has cancer and won’t be around much longer. I turned all of my notes on all of the cartels and gangs active in the area over to the FBI. Ray just needs to walk away and go back to school. Mercedes could certainly benefit from being separated from her bad influences. Solana could probably get into a school better equipped to help her with her problems than Pima Community College. But Teresa won’t move. She won’t leave that house, let alone leave Tucson. Because she’s staying, I’ll stay and the girls will stay. And because Michael Saavedra is rumored to be coming into town to deal with things Rafael isn’t up to handling, Ray will stay.

On top of Oliveras, there’s still the slaver that wants his property back. Mercedes is putting the guy on a bus or something and getting him out of town, so the slaver is supposed to be coming for Solana instead. Pretty much all of my attention has been on that, and now I have two scumbags to watch for. At least there’s only one target to guard.

I packed all of my clothes and personal stuff up and shoved it into my car. Currently I’m living in a motel while I look for a nice, respectable apartment and buy some furniture. I might look into buying a house, since the housing market has tanked and there are a lot of deals out there. There’s still almost two weeks on the month-to-month lease for the old place, but I had to get out of there after everyone saw it. I feel like an ass. I left all of my cartel and gang org charts on the walls, and one of the computers with all the profiles and data on these people that I’ve gathered. I took the computer that had my personal stuff on it. I gave the keys to the place to Wang and Snodgrass. I know they’ll never do anything with it, too “local” for them, but the point was to give it away and walk away. I’m done. I’m not fighting any more wars that aren’t mine to fight. Since I walked into that crime scene years ago, the Gomez house where Solana’s parents were murdered by the MDO, and I picked that kid up and took her out of there, I haven’t really cared about any other case. I don’t even care about the case any more. I care about the people. I’m holidng a grudge that even the Gomezes don’t seem to bear. Tracking the MDO isn’t the best way I can help Teresa, or Solana, or Mercedes, or Ray, or Rafael. Getting my shit together and doing what I can to actually help them is the best thing I can do. For them and for me.

There is reasonable intelligence that the MDO are buying up hazmat suits and antivenom. It’s being kept under wraps so DHS don’t bust them on terrorist activities, although I don’t see the difference. If they’re working on setting up a superlab in Sonora, best case scenario DHS takes away the toys, makes some arrests, and stops the MDO from setting up the lab. Worst case scenario, the MDO get to keep the gear but know that DHS is watching, which will make them be more careful and put a crimp in their operations. I’ve considered dropping the dime to DHS, but it would mean burning a source. I’m not ready to do that yet, even if it’s a source I don’t entirely trust. Will continue to investigate and see how it plays out.

I know the antivenom can be used to treat meth lab workers who are exposed to toxic chemicals, but part of me wonders if the suits and the pharma aren’t part of a plan to explore the area where the drug mules were found. Hazmat suits would go a long way to mitigate exposure to snakes and scorpions. It’s a hunch, but not a strong enough hunch that I’ll risk going back there soon.