The Founders' Plot

CARLOS FOUND HE had a talent for salesmanship and a knack for spotting potential customers. Even selling the counterfeit papers part-time, he made $5,000 the first month, $6,000 the next month. And it had been easy, although he twice had to fight off Dominic’s competitors and make up creative stories for Marisol when he came home with bruises and cuts. Selling those papers full-time, he could make maybe $10,000 a month. At that rate, he could stop doing this in five or six months.

So Marisol wouldn’t find out about the money, and how he got it, Carlos rented a safe deposit box to store it, then every month sent money from the safe deposit box to relatives in Mexico to put into a savings account there. When he’d made the money he wanted and was ready to quit, he’d explain everything to Marisol.

The foreman let him take the time off. “All right, Carlos,” the foreman told him. “You’re one of my best workers, you never bitch, and I don’t think you’ve ever taken a day off. So, okay. But be back on time or you might not have a job when you get back.”

Working full-time, Carlos pulled down almost $8,000 in the first three weeks.

But nothing good lasts forever.

One evening, Carlos and two of Dominic’s other people approached workers leaving a factory surrounded by a chain-link fence that was known for employing illegal immigrants. As he talked to two of the workers at the factory gate, he heard someone yell and saw workers scatter, scrambling over the fence or getting into cars in the parking lot. He knew what was happening before he saw the state police and ICE cars approaching from both sides of the block.

Carlos stepped briskly to the other side of the street and walked along the sidewalk in front of apartment buildings across from the factory. He carried good documents—driver’s license, green card, and insurance papers in the glove compartment of his pickup.

The revolving lights on the police cruisers rolled intermittently along the buildings on his right as he reached the end of the block and turned right. He could see his pickup about halfway up the next block in front of him, another 300 feet or so. Another two or three minutes and he’d reach his vehicle.

He relaxed as he approached the end of the block —until a state police cruiser stopped in front of him. Two officers got out of the car. Carlos considered running back into the alley he’d just passed. But he knew one of the police officers would surely follow on foot while the other got back into the patrol car to pursue. Besides, even if he could outrun them, he couldn’t outrun their radios. Other police would be around him in minutes. He continued to walk, pretending nothing was wrong.

The policemen approached, and he stopped. “Something wrong, officers?”

“Just some identification,” one of the policemen said.

Carlos took out his driver license and handed it to the officer, telling himself Dominic’s papers were foolproof.

The officer stared at the driver’s license closely, holding it above him in the light of a streetlamp. He handed it to the other officer, who did the same, then nodded to his partner. The officer put the license in his shirt pocket and looked at Carlos. “You’ll have to come with us.”

“Why?” Carlos asked. “What’s wrong?”

“This is a fake driver’s license,” the policeman said. “You’re under arrest. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

The cuffs locked tightly around his wrists. After reading him his rights, the police put him in the back seat of the patrol car. Carlos’s face was flushed. Perspiration dripped from his forehead and dampened his shirt under the armpits.