Imperial (147 page)

It was high time for another private detective. I had looked him up in the Tijuana yellow pages, and Terrie had called him, so I already knew how much he would cost. Once I paid him, I’d have forty-three twenty left—if
Playboy
published the story. If not, easy come, easy go. Probably there would be other expenses, not counting Mexican prostitutes, which it was my American duty to keep employed.

What did I really hope to accomplish?—You should stick to the descriptive stuff you’re known for, advised my friend Chuck, first and greatest of all private eyes.—Let’s face it, Bill. Investigative reporting is not really your strong suit. There are only two or three decent investigative journalists left. The problem is that to get to the bottom of any story takes months of work and tens of thousands of dollars in expenses. What magazine’s going to fund that nowadays?

I told Chuck about the results of my various interviews, and he said kindly: To me that sounds more or less like the sort of material you could uncover about any company in this country, too.

Chuck was right, of course. Chuck was usually right. Every now and then I’d hire him to write me another report on another protagonist in the Imperial Valley, and in the mail another envelope would come with an invoice for a couple of hundred dollars and a report on the subject’s properties and convictions, with Chuck’s license number and private-eye star at the top. When I’d thank him, he’d always say: Oh, well, it’s no more than any news bureau could have done, and then I’d sadly think: Then I must not be as good as a news bureau.

But this time I had Mr. D.’s report, which had led me to several factories “with bad reputations,” not that that proved anything at all; I doubt that any manager at Óptica Sola will lose sleep over Mr. D.’s report, which was also noteworthy for its list of contacts all of whose phones were busy or disconnected. What’s a bad reputation but bad gossip? And in further extenuation of Óptica Sola, not to mention a hosanna for the perfect Mexican system of
maquiladora
oversight, I insert another anecdote from Mr. Raskin’s report:
A certain “Subsecretario de Protección al Ambiente” . . . took me into a small conference room with two younger female office workers. One produced a portable tape recorder, and proceeded to record
the esteemed Subsecretario
explaining to me what Mexican law would allow him to do with my request to view files related to our Maquiladoras. I twice hand copied the list for him. He told me that in order to view files, if such existed, it would be necessary to submit a “formal” written request stating who I was, what information I was looking for, and the reason for my interest in reviewing a file. He then clarified that Mexican law protected all parties, and that he would be required to contact the firms we inquired about, and inform them that we wanted to review the contents of a file . . . A company could contest our request and potentially block review of a file.

... Very informally,
the Subsecretario
said he could not “imagine” Óptica Sola caused any water pollution because all they did was “cut glass.”

I had enjoyed Mr. D.’s report, I truly had. But on the principle that the best way to get over an old love affair is to start a new one, I twiddled my thumbs earnestly on my bed in the Scala love hotel, worried about money, sipped from my tequila bottle, and finally knocked at Terrie’s door, at which point I committed myself—not to Terrie, who was no worse a Mormon than ever, but to Señor A., whose real name (unless it was something else) was Señor R. and who was now awaiting us in his office over a shoe store in Centro.

This bored, rumpled-looking man was another of those individuals whose sensational stories lose much luster once the deposit has been paid; but the only way to ascertain that is to pay the deposit. Among other things, he assured me of the following: There’s a lot of trafficking going on by boat near Ensenada, trafficking in Chinese. One Chinese is worth about ten thousand dollars. It’s rumored that some of the Chinese are transported in metal containers. It’s very dangerous. People who live on the coast of Ensenada will say: We see line upon line of Chinese on the beach. Needless to say, government officials never find anything.—So far Señor A. was probably telling the literal truth, but the next thing he said was: I know there is a
maquiladora
here that has connections with the sale of Chinese. Someone has already paid the ten thousand. They work it off. Four or five years ago, it took seven or eight years to work it off, maybe through prostitution. But most of them go to the U.S. What I think is that there are
maquiladoras
with a connection; they bring a Chinese over long enough to train Mexican workers; then he moves.

When I heard this, I thought to myself: Señor A. is my man! And I could already see myself lurking outside some
maquiladora
’s gates at midnight, while my button camera flawlessly recorded the unloading of another truckload of Chinese slaves. Well, well. Where would we be without our illusions? Mr. A.’s final report, printed in giant type to enhance its impressive effect, had no more than this to say about the Chinese angle:
We are informed that in the Tijuana Plaza there only exist Taiwanese plants, which are frequently confused with Chinese due to their similar physical characteristics,
blah, blah, blibbedy-dee; and after investigation,
thorough
investigation no doubt, Señor A. discovered that in Ensenada there were also no Chinese plants, only Taiwanese, this information being based in part on confidential reports from the Mexican government; gee whiz.
²⁷⁸

I have fat, skinny, tall, short employees, he boasted; and I was in awe; I thought: Wait until Chuck hears how wisely I’ve chosen!

PERLA’S FIRST RECONNAISSANCE

Actually, Señor A. proved to be worth his weight in pesos, thanks to the pearl he extracted from his treasurehouse of fat, skinny, tall and short operatives, and she literally
was
a pearl, except when she signed a different name on my receipt.

Bubbly, chunky, her hair dyed orange-red, Perla was a woman of a certain age. She cheerfully sacrificed one of her buttons for the sake of that camera. Then we practiced in Señor A.’s office. I was making pretty good button-camera videos by then, so I felt hopeful again; oh, yes, I was certainly confident. And Perla was, as Mr. W. had advised that my operative be, well endowed. All the same, after various experiments we finally chose to place the digital video receiver and power pack against the small of her back. Terrie would lift up Perla’s shirt and power her on and off, while I would do my part by averting my eyes and Señor A. would gaze boredly into space from behind his desk, which displayed the following items: a huge owl, a Statue of Liberty, a golf ball, a plastic globe and a long lens. I remember that there was another office next to his sanctum; the door was always slightly ajar and on my various visits to Señor A. I would sometimes hear the faint creaking of a swivel chair. Who was this individual? Nobody ever mentioned him in Señor A.’s office, so I confined myself to making postmortem speculations about him with Terrie. How much did he know or see of the wiring-up of Perla? Perhaps I should have hired Señor A. to find out.

For what it is worth, Perla was the first Mexican I ever met who said outright: The
maquiladoras
are bad.

When she was ready, I told Perla that I would make her a
Playboy
centerfold, and she giggled and Señor A. assured me: I’ve had clients even more disgusting than you.

Now, where should we go first?

By then, Señor A. had shown us a movie which he’d filmed especially for us.

Here is a list of all the
maquiladoras
which use chemicals, he began, handing me a sheaf of photocopies.—We found several that are contaminated. In particular, we found a factory called Thomson.

Then he played his videotape. I think his feelings were hurt whenever Terrie yawned; but the sad truth is that industrial videos, even covert ones, are soporific, especially when shot from outside. It may well be that Terrie’s lack of enthusiasm was interpreted by him as a professional challenge, because he kept up a determined flirtation with her by e-mail for weeks afterward. (Speaking as her chaperone, I am proud to tell you that Terrie continued to conduct herself as should a good daughter of the Church of Latter Day Saints.)

The videotape began. White storage tanks stood on a hill.

The wind carries all the contamination away, said Señor A.

Here came more tanks, more factories; Terrie emitted her first yawn.

Here is Baja Imperial.
²⁷⁹
In Baja Imperial they used to have two hours to eat and now it’s been reduced to fifteen or twenty minutes. A person who used to work there I know told me that.

Up on a hill, more chemical tanks stood guard. The private detective said: They pour the chemicals down the hill, with the
colonia
below. The wind always blows the pollution away from the factory.

This is Medimexico.

Another white
maquiladora
stood on a hill. Tons of security, said Señor A. A lot of guards. Only trucks and workers get in. This one is Mexodyne Precision.
²⁸⁰
They have a lot of contamination.

I saw big tanks, white tanks, pale cylindrical tanks, a sign announcing that Mexodyne Precision sought workers.

How do you know they have contamination? I finally asked.

Because the smoke is very black, explained Señor A.

My opinion of poor Señor A. dropped by two more notches.

This is another burned factory, because it destroys all their problems. Then they also don’t have to pay their workers. As you see, a lot of them don’t have names, especially the most contaminated. Okay, this is Thomson. Thomson and Óptica Sola probably contribute about the same amount of contamination. The neighbors complain that at night and in the morning, a smoke comes out of the plant that makes the people feel sick. Thomson is gigantic. There are the chemical compounds, he said, pointing to the drums behind the fence. Thomson has bad luck because they’re in a little bit of a valley, which means that the air doesn’t blow away. All this is Thomson, although it doesn’t say Thomson, just N-3, he said, showing how the fence went on and on. You don’t see a name. They hide the chemical compounds underneath the floor, he opined. You only know it because of the tubes sticking out. That gravel is just a floor covering. There are gravel and little plants but you can see the holes. They must have very big tanks hidden below.

(Reader, what if Thomson lacked subterranean tanks? What if Thomson employed no chemical compounds whatsoever, or if Thomson’s effluvium actually in fact enhanced our entire biosphere? Thomson never did return my phone calls, but like many other insane people I long to be considered “balanced.” What if Señor A. were simply, if you’ll excuse the expression in this context, blowing smoke? I possess no evidence whatsoever that Thomson might have been imperfect.
In my follow-up interview with Cota
(this is my hired detective Mr. Raskin speaking)
he stated that of our subject group Matsushita, Tompson
[
sic
]
and Óptica Sola had most of the labor complaints he handled.
But labor complaints need not have to do with underground tanks; and besides, I don’t know anything about Thomson-related labor complaints, either. Please consider Señor A.’s remarks about Thomson to be the merest local color, devoid of anything but rumors, speculations and Terrie’s yawns.)

Now, this is a duct which stops at the street, he continued, showing a white snake running down a hillside into the green grass at the edge of the street. It’s to throw out their trash. If they throw it away using their plumbing system they would have explosions, so they let it down on the street.—Okay, here’s a very contaminated factory, It’s in Cumbre. It’s extremely contaminated.

How do you know?

Because employees start to cough as soon as they get close to it.

The video showed workers, and indeed I heard them coughing, coughing. But for all I know, Señor A. had paid them to cough. I have never been cheated out of a dollar in my life.

And what’s the name of this
maquiladora
?

Formosa Prosonic México, in Industrial Park Cumbres.

What about Óptica Sola?

The Óptica Sola, we know the schedules of the workers and what chemicals they use inside.

What’s your opinion as to how contaminated Óptica Sola is?

I think if you compare Óptica Sola to Formosa, Formosa would win.

Any chance of getting one of your people inside one of these possibly contaminated places and filming it?

They don’t have the little camera that you have. Where are the dangerous materials, how many people working? They could do a write-up.

What if I sent someone in with the button camera?

Why not?

And you think you could get somebody inside Formosa?

Yes, especially in the production area. I think my employee can get in all things. She’s very smart. It would be very early in the morning, so we have time. Formosa, Matsushita, Óptica Sola, and, if we have time, Thomson or even the battery plant. We can do at least five.

So you think that Formosa is the worst.

Señor A. nodded his weary head; and I remembered something which the dapper reporter had said. I don’t know how many of them are breaking the law actually, he had told me. The Mexican law says you have to work forty-eight hours a week in six days and Sunday is sacred. The
maquiladoras
have a lot of side problems. The bigger ones won’t dare to risk their investments. The little and medium ones are often doing that. The Chinese and Koreans are the worst.

It’s also the circumstances of the ambience, Señor A. continued. Formosa is not on the top of a hill. Neighbors complain about Thomson also because it’s in that little valley. The people who notice it the most are those who are not in good locations. By the way, the people that we asked about contamination, especially those who sell food outside the factories, to protect their clientele they would say everything’s fine even though they’re sick.