This guy has committed at least a half dozen murders on behalf of Nuestra Familia. He’s in for murder. He might be willing to flip, to turn state’s evidence. He’s already locked down because he’s in a jam with the rank and file members of the Nuestra Familia, a very violent gang. His brother, gangster Mendoza, had contract to murder me because of my involvement in this federal investigation. My son had already been followed home from school in Fresno area.

Joker, an unusually large Hispanic of about six feet, is a weightlifter. He’s got a denim shirt on, which he’s torn the sleeves off like a tank top, denim pants torn off ragged-edged, flip flops, tattoos all over, a very tough looking character.

Entering with me is an officer from the Department of Corrections internal gang unit.

As we introduce ourselves, Joker turns to me and says, “I’ve heard of you. I’ll talk to you. But I won’t talk with this motherfucker in here.”

The guys turns to me and says, “It’s up to you, Byron.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll talk to him by myself.”

The guy says okay, excuses himself and walks out, leaving joker and myself in this very isolated room at the end of a hallway with the door locked from the outside. About ten minutes into the conversation there is a power failure. The lights go out and we’re plunged into total darkness. Dead silence follows.

It seems like hours go by, but it’s probably thirty seconds. For some reason I start laughing. And then in the darkness, he starts laughing . At one point I hear his chair shuffle.

He says, “You know, you’re in deep shit.”

In the darkness I say, “well, you don’t know what’s pointed at you right now.” We’re in a standoff. Then we both laugh again.

I say, “I guess we’re both in deep shit.”

He says, “Yeah.” And we start talking.

In about forty five seconds, which seems like hours, I see rays of light, and hear guards running down the hall, anticipating a scene of total carnage, that joker has ripped me physically limb from limb. They crash through the door, light us both up with the flashlights, and we’re laughing. I’m kicked back with my feet on the table, and joker’s over in another corner with his feet up.

These guys are befuddled. The lights come back on. Joker tells them to get the fuck out of there.

I was in the apartment next door on the phone and he wouldn’t let me talk to her.

About fourteen hours later he said, “Why do you want to talk with her?”

I said, “I just want to make sure she’s alright.”

He said, “Alright.”

She finally got on the phone. I said to her, “This is the police.”

She said, “Yeah?”

I said, “What is wrong with you! Shut up!”

“But he said…”

“I don’t care!” I was screaming. We’re not suposed to lose control like that, but I was screaming at her. “I don’t care what he said! Agree with anything he says! The idea is to get you and your child out of that apartment!”

“But he said…”

When she said that to me, I gott more crazy, and started just screaming at her. Finally, she started crying. It shook me that I lost control there. I backed down.

I said, “I’m sorry. Let’s agree with anything he says, because we’re not going to let him do all this stuff. Just agree so we can get him out.”

He put the gun down and started talking about coming out, saying, “When I get her, I’m going to do this.”

And she’d start, “No you’re not!” And then the fight would start all over again.

I finally talked him into coming out. Coming out came be very dangerous.

I told him that day, “you have to listen to everything I tell you to do. You can’t deviate because there are so many cops out in this hall and they all have guns.”

When they come out they can often seem quite calm, but when they see weapons all over they freak.

She just kept with the mouth. By the time this guy came out 14 hours had passed since it started. When he did I was screaming final instructions. We were in a housing project. -I knew on the phone he was mad at me the whole last hour.