EPISODE TWO - OH, THERE'S RONALDO

RENO NEVADA 1996

The young man slowly scoops the Reno Gazette Journal off the room service cart. He's astonished by the headline in the international news section, but hardly surprised. He sits down casually on the bed scratching his head and yawning, reading and smirking at each sentence.

Santo Domingo (CPI)-- A bomb at the corporate headquarters of Santa Maria Sugar Exports LP exploded here yesterday at dawn killing 30 peopl

including Federal agents, U.S. Marines and local law enforcement who were attempting to find and capture reputed Dominican drug lord Ronaldo Dominguez.

Officials say Dominguez and his accomplices rigged the entrance to the villa with explosives moments before the soldiers and agents kicked down the large two front doors of this 25,000 square-foot mansion that sits on a 365- acres sugar cane field.¶
Twenty- year-old Dominguez, who as vice president- the youngest executive in Santa Maria history- alledgedly used the company as a front for an $800 million Cocaine and Heorin empire.

The Drug Enforcement Agency, colloborating with local authorities and an elite group of U.S. Marines were acting on a tip that Dominguez was running a drug network that supplied more than 12 states, mostly along the U.S. gulf coast.

After the smoke cleared, Dominguez was nowhere to be found.

"I promise swift justice," said Dominican President, Julio Cabral yesterday after hearing news of the bombing. "These drug traffickers are the new enemy in a brutal war against terror and we are confident that we will track him down and right this wrong. Meanwhile my heart goes out today to the families of the fallen." ¶
Ten DEA agents, 8 local police, 2 civilians and the ten marines. were all killed by the blast…..

As he reads on, a wicked smiles forces itself across his lips, ironic and dark, drab and hollow, sorrowful -- gallows humor.

Then the smile disappears. He clutches the paper like it was a person's neck.

Chief Executive Officer Felix Caldoron, a renoun businessman was found shot dead with his remains charred. And Enriquillo Ortiz, a Dominican national wanted for questioning about a New York shooting on Valentine's Day last year, was also found dead from multiple gunshot wounds and severe burns.

During the raid, the marines shot dozens of farmers who were believed to be in colusion with the drug lord as well as members of an elusive leftist guerilla group called Los Soldados Negros or The Black Soldiers who are reputed to be mercenaries for drug lords.

Santa Maria, is a subsidiary of the international conglomerate La Hoya Intl Corp., which is currently being audited by the Securities and Exchange Commission and as well as the International Monetary Fund for alleged money laundering activities. La Hoya executives had no comment on the incident or the ongoing investigations.
Meanwhile the search for Dominguez continues. Authorities thus far have found no evidence.

His calm somber mood quickly catapults into fury as he hurles the newspaper across the room, gives his face a hard wipe and heads toward the bathroom.

He's a slim brown man with a precise muscle tone. Around his neck is a platinum necklace with a small medallion in the shape of an Egyptian Ankh—-the symbol for fertility and eternal life. He got it years ago, dipped it in platinum when he started getting major paper. It first belonged to mother, whom he never met, and they'd have to pry it off his dead neck.

Ronaldo clutches the pendant in his hand and takes a long hard look in the mirror. His hair, jet black with tight curls.

Despite his handsome countenance, he detests what he sees. Shower time.

He enjoys the boiling hot water for 20 minutes wishing he could stay there forever. He hops out, grabs a towel - straight to the mini bar - and breaks the seal on a mini-Bacardi bottle. Hot to the chest. Now for the ritual.

Wiping his mouth, he pulls an olive green designer suit out of the closet with his other hand, puts it up against his naked frame and grins without showing teeth. Two sheer black silk socks, a pressed shirt, satin underwear and a $400 tie later, he's ready.

Looking at the perfectly tailored suit he takes out a shinier-than-life .25 caliber revolver with an ivory handle and places it strategically in a small velcro hoster with a plastic lining above his ankle. Thanks to the fine Italian taper his weapon isn't visible. He thinks to himself, that the pants hang "oh so gangsta,"

"El Joven" Spanish for the young man, is what they call him in the streets. The women love him, the dudes secretly worship him. Little kids in his old neighborhood, even to this day still play with toy guns, pretending to be him. The old ladies won't give him up to the police because they thought him to be second grandson. The old men, just play dominos, chug Red Stripe and watch him silently, he has their respect.

But Rafeal Batista, is another story. The Chairman of La Hoya International Corp. wants him dead.

He turns on the TV for a second opinion while snacking on an hours-old breakfast roll from the room service cart. He lounges, propped up by his elbow, CNN cuts from the Presidential Primaries to what he wants to see, as if magically, part of a script or something. The report shows bloody, burned bodies being carted away from a smoldering villa by the sea. "Use to be my villa" is what's going through his head now. He aims at the television with the remote shoots at it like it's a bitter enemy and turns it off getting up to leave.

As he comes out the door, a maid navigating a cleaning cart down the hall smiles at him seductively. Being the person he is, he smiles back charasmatically. She blushes uncontrollably.

Walking pass an adjacent room he pounds on the door without stopping.

"Ceasar! Levantate! Get your punk ass up! let's go!"

He takes the elevator to the lobby floor. The door opens and he strolls out passing a barrage of slot machines, transcends the vestibule heading out to the hotel driveway and looks out into a brisk and misty red horizon. yet another morning he finds himself alive and breathing...

"Reno ain't such a bad place," he muses, feeling something poking him from behind and interrupting his vision of a sublime Sierra landscape. "Chico, damn would you quit playing it's too early for that shit. Is Ceasar coming?"

"Yeah he'll be here man. I caught you slippin', right," Chico snickers.

"Yeah whatever," Joven replies, still looking out at the scenery in deep thought.

Just then a groggy and yawning Ceasar walks up behind them.

"What are you looking at man?" Ceasar asks with his mouth still wide open and arms outstretched. "It's too damn early to be up man. You act like you ain't never seen the damn sun before. But damn," he continues shielding his eyes from the light. “I can't remember it ever being this bright,"

Ceasar stares at Chico maliciously and then joins Joven in gazing at the red sun, which is creeping up over the mountains, making the arrid plains and the street in front of them appear orange.

They pay no attention to yawning bell-hops and college kids coming in from cars after partying through the night.

"NCAA tournament," Joven says without deviating from the view.

"Oh," retorts Ceasar scratching his bald head.

Chico brandishes a giant cigar and lights up walking out to the pavement, sitting down on the curb watching the cars pull into the driveway.

"Where the hell is Black Brown," Joven says without looking at anybody.

"Calm down man," exclaimed Ceasar. "He called me right after yo' stupid ass banged on my door. He said he'd be here a little late. He got pulled over, he said."

Joven frowns. "What?"

Ceasar flails his arms in defense. "It ain't no big deal Papi. You got Nevada red neck cops and this pimp looking black dude in a brand new benz playin' Rick James, you're gonna get pulled over. He said he stuck a benji under his fake drivers license and they said, thank you very much like Elvis or some shit, that nigga's a fool,"
Chico shakes his head in disgust, suddenly he's looking at the mountain, perhaps trying to ciphon Ronaldo's thoughts.

Ceasar and Ronaldo giggle about Black Brown, Rick James and bribing cops for a minute, then the laughing subsides when the reality of what they're about to do sets in.

They're headed to the board meeting, on a suicide mission to kill Rafeal Batista and possibly die themsleves in the process.

Ceasar seems worried, out of it, "What about Don Ortega?"

Joven replies, "What about him?"

Now Ronaldo is thinking that it doesn't matter if his father is there or not. "if he stand in the way, it's either him or me"

That's what he wants to say but he pauses, he's too busy thinking about Chico's treachery, wondering if Chico knows that he knows or more importanly, if Chico knows, that Joven knows Chico knows.

Shit is complicated.

TO BE CONTINUED!