Miguel's Gift by Bruce Kading

Author:Bruce Kading
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2017-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

March 1969: Armed Robbery; New York City Police Dept.; no disposition

December 1969: Solicitation of Prostitution; Chicago Police Dept.; dismissed

January 1972: Armed Robbery; Chicago Police Dept.; TOT INS

March 1972: INS warrant for deportation issued; Chicago INS office; no disposition

McCloud had seen countless rap sheets like this one and knew how to read between the lines. INS in New York hadn’t been contacted following Cano’s first arrest, and he skated free on the robbery charge. He came to Chicago, where he got caught in a prostitution sting and was released, the police again not delving into his immigration status. The charge was later dismissed. Then he was arrested for another armed robbery. This time somebody checked his alien status, and he was turned over to INS. The cops would get credit for a felony collar without the paperwork and would hand him over to INS for what they thought would be immediate deportation.

But McCloud knew it didn’t work that way. Prompt removal for non-Mexicans was a relatively unusual event. All they had to do was request a deportation hearing, and soft-hearted judges could be counted on to lower the bond to as little as five hundred dollars, or release the alien on his own recognizance, even if he had an arrest record. Once released, the delays could be endless. A deportation hearing could be scheduled a year or more after the initial arrest, and attorneys could get delays of many months or years after that.

Cano had been released, probably after posting a nominal bond, and hadn’t shown up for his deportation hearing. A warrant would have been issued, and the file would have been sent to investigations to locate and arrest him. There were several large file cabinets in area control containing hundreds of these cases, which were supposed to be worked by agents when they had time between daily field operations. McCloud scratched Cano’s eight-digit file number on a notepad. He’d check on it later.

Beneath the rap sheet, McCloud found another property envelope, this one filled with the investigator’s notes scribbled on the backs of business cards and scraps of paper. The handwriting had a distinctive quality—small, precise lettering with sharpness at the corners that suggested rigidity. It was vaguely familiar. He tried to match the writing with a name, but all he could summon was the unpleasant essence of somebody from the past.

McCloud looked at the pink sheet on the right side of the file. INVESTIGATOR’S REPORT had been stamped across it in large black letters. He flipped past it to the administrative page. There, in the middle of the page, was the author’s typed name: WILLARD SMITH.

“Oh no, not that son of a bitch,” he said aloud.

Willard Smith had come to the Chicago office from Texas in 1967—about the same time as McCloud. They were soon followed by Joe Willis, Buck Tatum, and Sam Payton, among other Border Patrol agents—the agency’s belated response to the presence of vast and growing communities of illegals in America’s big cities. Some, like

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