Freddy is dragged kicking and screaming into the back of the pickup truck. Three burly policemen shove him over the tailgate and go around to get in the cab. As soon as the car doors close, Freddy sees a chance and takes it. He leaps over the side and takes off, running down the main street. Chubby and unfit, he’s surprisingly swift. At the president’s barked orders, the uniformed policemen give chase. They tackle Freddy to the ground and wrestle him back into the truck. It’s a violent struggle. Spittle flies from Freddy’s lips. The police grunt and pant with the effort. Mompicheros line both sides of the street to witness the impromptu tragi-comedy being played out in the village. The president keeps an eagle eye on the players.
Freddy screams, “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Please, let me go!”
Shirtless and shoeless, he writhes on his back on the filthy flatbed of the truck, held down by two policemen. The third jumps in the driver’s seat and starts the motor. Maruka, Freddy’s older brother, climbs up the side and subdues him.
“You’re my brother! How can you do this to me?” wails Freddy, his hands now firmly tied behind his back.
Freddy has a little habit.
Tears streak his dust-covered face. His dark features contort with rage and fear. His matted hair stands straight up. Maruka stands over his brother, ignoring the gathering onlookers. He mutters a curse under his breath and kicks at Freddy’s feet. The police jump into the cab once more, ready to go. The self-appointed President of Mompiche climbs into the front passenger seat and the car starts down the road.
“Nooooooooo!” shrieks Freddy, kicking at his brother. “Let me goooooooooo!”
“Shut up, you idiot!” shouts the president with all the class and style of a charwoman, leaning out the window of the cab. “It’s your own stupid fault, not ours!”
The car speeds away towards the forested hills, transporting Freddy to Esmeraldas, where his mother, the president, will force him into the rehabilitation center to detox from base; a nasty derivative of cocaine. Maruka stands stiffly in the back, his face frozen. His expression says it all; he’s already buried one younger brother in the local cemetery for his addiction to basuco, and he’s not prepared to carry the coffin of another.
Jonathon is the basuco dealer. He’s the youngest son of one of the corrupt Mompiche Directive’s members, Margarita. She owns a seafood restaurant on the main street. Her oldest son, Arnold, is a fisherman who supplies the restaurant with freshly caught seafood. Jonathon doesn’t do much of anything, his activities mostly reserved for the wee hours when the addicts are looking to score. The whole town knows what Jonathon does for money. The police, the Directive, the storekeepers, everyone in the Restaurants’ Association and the Fishermen’s Cooperative. No one does anything. There’s a strong demand for hard drugs; base, crack, cocaine, acid. Base is the cheapest. Most of the users are men aged between 20 and 30. Jonathon is the main supplier. The addicts are in deep. They’re all penniless and strung out. No one will give them work. That’s why we’re all having problems.
It’s easy to trace a stolen laptop
First, David’s laptop computer vanishes from his car. The thief forgets to take the power cord. Step by step, following the trail and paying for information along the way, David tracks his computer to Manta. He buys it back from the hot goods buyer; no questions asked. He’s happy to have all his files and photos back. No police report is ever made.
“It’s not worth it. They take so long and don’t do anything,” says David, shrugging.
He’s right. The Ecuadorian police force is a shambles.
Tito, La Facha’s owner, is drunk the night his computer walks off the premises; taken by someone who has access to his room key. While there is a list of possible suspects, he has no idea where to start looking. He never reports the crime. He has enough money to buy another computer.
The same night, Christian’s computer is stolen from inside his house while his aged father is sleeping. Christian goes to the police. He makes a report. After a month, nothing has happened. In the village, he hears about two guys trying to sell a hot laptop. There are no secrets in Mompiche.
“A month ago, they were both working for me,” he says.
Mona and Guanchaca are base addicts. They take Christian’s computer to Portete to see if they can offload it there. The programs are in English. There’s a password. They can’t get in. The guy in Portete doesn’t want it; too hard to sell. Guanchaca tries to sell it to a local storekeeper. The storekeeper calls Christian. Between them, they make a vain attempt to buy it back. Guanchaca gets antsy and reneges on the deal. Then, he vanishes. The story going around town is that his family has called him home.
Stolen goods = more drugs
Lying on the floor in the dark, playing with one of my cats, I overhear the conversation between Guanchaca’s wife and her father who live across the street.
“Why would he steal a computer?”
“For the money!”
“It can’t stay here.”
“What should we do?”
“Get it out of here.”
Packed off to his family, with a hot computer in his bag, Guanchaca is exiled. We presume that will be the last we hear about the computer. Christian gets on with his life, makes his insurance claim and begins planting spiky citrus trees around the borders of his property.
A couple of months later, Guanchaca makes a brief appearance in town for a few days and disappears again. A couple of days later, we hear the base dealer has the computer.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” claims Beto. “The idiot couldn’t even use it!”
Word is, Jonathon’s place is loaded with hot goods, stolen and passed to him in exchange for drugs. Later on, they’re taken to Atacames and sold. Christian goes back to the police.
“We know who has it. We know who stole it. We know where it is. Can you get it?”
“Well…” says a policeman, looking Christian up and down, “…it will take us about a month to get a search warrant.”
This is why Mompicheros don’t bother reporting anything stolen. Christian loses hope. Meanwhile, Marco’s laptop is stolen during the night. The next night, Morongo goes to retrieve it. He pays the dealer $70USD to buy it back; the amount the addict-thief received for the pilfered machine. The day after, Marco, a north American biologist in Mompiche on a volunteer reforesting program, goes to Atacames and makes a police report.
By this time, I’m so mad about all the robberies, the protected thieves running around apparently unstoppable, the unwillingness of witnesses to speak up, and the impotence of the police, that I’m ready to go to Jonathon’s house with a baseball bat and kick down the door. My normally non-violent soul is ready to cave in his skull, as well as those of the thieves. I have a laptop too – even if it’s old, decrepit and barely usable – it’s the only way I can make a decent living and I cannot afford to replace it if one of these soulless creeps gets his mollyfogging mitts on it.
It’s not even worth stealing, but the addicts don’t care.
“But, wait a second,” I tell Christian, putting aside my vision of Jonathon’s cell-less brains splattered all over the stolen goods stacked against his walls. “Call this number and see what happens.”
He punches the telephone number of the Provincial Chief of Police into his phone. Right at that moment, there’s no satellite signal. Of course! Ha!
“Six years ago, there were no drug addicts in Mompiche,” Christian says before going home to scrape out the dirt from between his floorboards, getting ready to sand and varnish them, and wait for the police to act.
Enraged, I make the brownies Jana ordered and bake Carmen’s peanut cookies. It passes the time, and takes my mind off the worsening problem of thieving base-addicted Mompicheros. When I go out to make my deliveries, my computer is concealed under a tangle of sheets and pillows on my bed. The power cord is hidden in a plastic bag under my desk and the external hard-drive is in the secret pocket of my handbag. I don’t know if my security measures are adequate. In the current climate of rampant thievery, maybe I should be considering a stainless steel underground vault.
With alarming frequency, I-pods, MP3 players, mobile telephones, cameras and laptops are vanishing from hotel rooms and private residences, tents, restaurant tables and even beach towels.
Locked in your hotel room, it’s still not safe.
“It’s not my fault,” states a beach-front hotel owner. “People should look after their stuff.”
This seems an inappropriate attitude for a concerned citizen with a business based in tourism. Nevertheless, the majority of business owners in Mompiche have the same idea; it’s our fault. We’re all filthy rich foreigners. Too bad if we lose something. We can afford to get another one. It’s not their problem. The non-response of the police and the dawdling corrupt justice system don’t help.
Christian calls me in the afternoon.
“That phone number you gave me is gold. The head honcho kicked butt all over the province. They’re planning to search and arrest the dealer on Friday.”
We hold our breath for two days, hoping Jonathon doesn’t catch wind of what’s going down and offload Christian’s computer. The idea is that he’ll squeal on the thieves hoping for a lesser sentence and they’ll all end up cooling their heels in prison for a while. My computer will be safe again. At least until the next addict runs out of money.
Jonathon’s life takes a turn for the worse when a truck-load of police turn up on his doorstep Friday night. Inside the house when they show up, Serrano bolts into the mangroves to escape, leaving the dealer to cop the rap. Uniformed police empty Jonathon’s house of stolen goods; televisions, blenders, computers, phones, a fridge, and anything else you might care to name, along with a hefty stash of powdery white narcotics. Neighbors look on with interest. Jonathon hides in the roof, but it’s a temporary nest; lasting only until the police figure out how to get him down. The story spreads faster than a bush fire. According to the gossip, Morongo is to blame: it’s his fault the police came sniffing around after he recovered his friend’s computer and they made a police report. Christian and I say nothing. The gold telephone number and the butt-kicking head honcho in Esmeraldas remain a secret. Better to let Morongo shoulder the heat. Apparently there’s more than one way to swing the proverbial baseball bat…
The stolen goods are stolen again – by the police.
But none of it is worth the effort. When Tito and Christian go to inspect the stash of stolen goods to identify their computers, most of the items have already been stolen by the police. Jonathon spends a total of four days locked up. His mother bails him out. There is never a court case against him. He struts around town for three days showing everyone he is free. Not long afterwards, it starts all over again. A telephone here, an i-pod there, a backpack, someone’s passport. Sirena’s laptop was stolen just a few days ago in broad daylight from the fourth floor of her bamboo palace. Of course, like always, no one saw anything. We all know who the thieves are, where they live, and where they sell the stolen goods. The locals don’t care; we’re easy targets. The best I can do is to keep concealing my broken down old laptop every single time I leave my house and hope for the best. If it does go missing, the police will be called to clean up the corpses . . .
Mompiche needs help.
Ya Mismo: Thirty Minutes North of Zero 