Changing the Zip Codes
Tio Pablo met with Juan several times over the next week. Each time in private. “Try this on and tell me if it fits you,” he’d said, handing Juan a USPS postal worker’s uniform.
Juan didn’t really understand why he was trying on the uniform other than it had to do with the election process. The shirt fit fine, but the trousers were too long. Pablo brought them back a few days later, and they’d been hemmed to a suitable length. Now the uniform fit, but Juan wasn’t sure what his specific role would be.
“Don’t worry about it, nephew,” Pablo had reassured him. “All you need to know right now is that you can’t go out gathering tortillas for me anymore. OK? Just go to work and stay home and out of site as much as possible, OK?”
“OK,” Juan nodded. Sounds like I’m not supposed to do anything now. How is this supposed to help?
Pablo must have seen Juan’s inner conflict playing across his features, but he misinterpreted it. “Look, don’t worry about the money,” he purred, pulling out his fat wad of cash. “There’s plenty to go around. You keep a low profile and your mouth shut, and you’ll get handsomely rewarded, OK?”
Juan was reluctant, but he took the cash. He didn’t count it because that would be rude, but he could tell he was getting a lot of money. More than he’d ever expected. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Don’t do anything yet. Just come back here on Tuesday morning, early when it’s still dark.”
Juan arrived in the alley of the Vos de la Gente headquarters at four-thirty a.m. the following Tuesday. As instructed, he’d brought his USPS postal worker’s uniform. A USPS delivery truck was waiting outside the darkened parking lot.
As he entered the deserted headquarters to change, he spotted his uncle Pablo talking to a mailman, presumably the driver of the delivery truck. Pablo was stripping off hundred-dollar bills while the smoke from the ever-present cigar drifted toward the ceiling. It hung there like the haze of God’s wrath. “There you go, amigo,” Pablo coughed. “Go get a cup of coffee, and you can pick your truck up in an hour.”
The postal worker spoke rapidly for a few minutes. He was complaining about something that Juan couldn’t hear. Finally, Pablo grudgingly handed over three more hundred-dollar bills, and the man disappeared out the door into the darkened alleyway.
Juan was starting to understand what was going on. Once he had changed into his own uniform, he approached his uncle and asked, “Is everything OK?”
Pablo blew a stream of smoke in the direction of the real mailman, “You mean that guy? Don’t worry about him. He thought he could squeeze me for a few more dollars, so I had to humor him. He says he’s afraid of trouble.”
“Trouble?” Juan said timidly.
Pablo wheeled to face him, the sheer bulk of the man generating its own gravitational pull, pulling Juan closer into the orbit of the acrid haze surrounding him. “You’re not having a change of heart, are you, nephew? I thought you were a true believer.”
Juan gulped, and he had to lick his lips before he could speak clearly, “No. No problems, sir. I’m ready. What do you need me to do?”
Pablo smiled and put one enormous hand on Juan’s shoulder. He gently turned him towards the door that led to the alleyway. “It’s nothing, nephew. Nothing. I just want you to drive to this address,” he handed Juan a yellow post-it note with a street address. “There, you will back up to the delivery bay. Tell the man who shows up at the door that Tio Pablo sent you, and he will put a couple of pallets into the back. Then you drive back here. Simple. OK?”
Juan looked at the street address scrawled on the scrap of paper. “Yes, sir. I know where this is.”
Pablo handed him a set of keys.
“That’s it?” Juan asked.
“That’s it,” Pablo answered.
The delivery took less than twenty minutes. Once safely back at the Voz de la Gente headquarters, Juan changed into his street clothes. He returned the USPS uniform to one of Pablo’s assistants just in time to see the real mailman leave Pablo’s office with the keys to his truck.
On the floor were two wire-framed metal pallets stacked with boxes of envelopes. Pablo followed the postal worker to the door, and after admonishing the man to keep his mouth shut, he locked the door.
Juan wondered what he was supposed to do next. It was almost time for him to return to his regular job at the metal fabrication plant. Using body language, he indicated to his uncle that he needed to leave.
But Pablo stopped him. “You did good work, my boy! It’s time for us to celebrate!”
Pablo escorted Juan back to the office, where, after a few minutes of rummaging around his desk, he produced a half-full bottle of Tres Generaciones tequila. Plastic cups were handed around to the small, select crew that Pablo had assembled, and each was given a share. “To my nephew Juan! Salud!” Pablo raised the first toast.
Juan drank. It would have been rude not to. He thought, I’ll need to get some gum or something for my breath before I go back to work.
Looking for all the world like a great smoking bullfrog, Pablo wrapped one fleshy arm around Juan’s shoulders and said, “Look at that! Do you have any idea how much that’s worth?”
Juan looked at the pallets sitting on the floor. He had no idea, so he said nothing.
Pablo lifted his chin towards one of his assistants. It was the skinny, studious-looking one, “How many ballots do you think we have there?”
The man pursed his lips and cocked his head for a moment, “Should be at least ten thousand, more or less.” He raised his glass, smiling with only half of his face in a leering, twisted grin, “Salud!”
“Salud!” the team responded.
Pablo’s rumbling laugh washed over them like a wave. “At two hundred dollars a ballot, that’s a cool two million sitting there for us, amigos!” He turned towards Juan, “Not bad for twenty minutes work, eh, nephew?”
Juan’s jaw gaped, “How?”
The crew laughed.
“So many,” Juan gasped. “But where did they come from?”
“Time for me to let you in on a little ‘family secret’ my boy,” Pablo was clearly reveling in the moment. “I’ve got a guy who can change the zip codes on these absentee ballots before they are sent out.”
“That means they are undeliverable,” said the skinny assistant. He didn’t look so studious now.
Pablo inhaled deeply from his cigar, then blew out a long stream, “Then I only need three things: one man to collect the returned ballots, one man to ‘loan’ me his postal truck, and one man to make the delivery!” He squeezed Juan affectionately, “So easy!”
“Won’t somebody find out?” Juan instantly wished he hadn’t asked that question. Why are they telling me all this?
If Juan’s question caused any concern, no one showed any sign. Pablo seemed to enjoy bragging about the heist they’d just pulled off. “So, some people never get their ballot. They will never know. If they go to vote in person (and most people won’t), they’ll be told, ‘Sorry, you’ve already voted,’ but by then it will be too late.”
The skinny man added, “With months of investigation, you might be able to track a ballot down using the voter history files, but by then the election is long over… and nobody will care anymore.”
Juan laughed along with the rest of the team, but he was frightened by the vast amounts of money involved.
Like a snake, Pablo seemed to smell his fear, “Don’t worry, nephew. We’re breaking the law without breaking the law.”
“So, it’s not illegal?” Again, Juan felt like an idiot for asking the obvious question.
Pablo’s face twitched. It was subtle, but Juan saw it. He was sure some of the other team members did, too.
“We don’t use that term around here,” the skinny man said, maintaining a veneer of enthusiasm.
“This is a business,” Pablo said reassuringly. “A family business. My health is not good, nephew. I’m not going to be around forever. I need to make sure my family is taken care of after I’m gone. Now you’re part of the business too.”
Juan knew at that moment that he’d stepped into the heart of Arizona’s political machinery. From now on, he would be part of the team that really decided who ran this state, perhaps even the country.
What Does Juan Think Will Decide the Election?
Choose Option 1: Biden’s Strong Economic Policies
Choose Option 2: Massive Voter Fraud
Can't wait for the rest of the story, My mother had a lifetime AZ driver's license. I doubt if they still do that now, but it sure was true in her day.