Everybody in the neighborhood knew the Pulido house on Edge Hill Street.

Emilio and Adelaida Pulido , proud immigrants who had fled Cuba for Jamaica Plain in the early 1960s, had three children, Roberto, Alicia, and Tony, well-behaved kids of whom much was expected. But the couple was also known as ``Papi" and ``Ma" to dozens of other neighborhood children looking for a place to hang out or seeking refuge from their own parents.

One of those children was Troy Lozano , Roberto ``Kiko" Pulido's friend from Madison Park High, who often told people he thought of Kiko as his brother.

The neighborhoods around Hyde and Jackson squares were tough. While some children seemed beyond the lure of the streets, others were drawn to the shadows.

Roberto Pulido went one way, eventually buttoning up the blue Boston Police Department uniform his father, a store security guard, had always wanted.

Troy Lozano went another way, embracing thrills and fast money, drugs and violence.

But then, two decades later, the police officer and the career criminal found each other again, forming a bond that drew Pulido deep into the world from which his father had tried to keep him.

Now Pulido, 41, sits in jail facing federal charges that could send him to prison for life. And Lozano, who helped federal authorities catch his childhood friend, has disappeared.

Roberto Pulido was a deferential youth, his friends and relatives say. He kept mostly to himself and delighted in annoying his little sister. He became a father at 16, and the head of the extended family in his early 20s, after Emilio Pulido died of stomach cancer in 1991.

``My brother was the person I looked up to," said Alicia Pulido. ``My brother became my father."

By 21, he had married Karen Soares , whom he had met while driving a cab. At their Roxbury wedding, only sparkling apple and grape juice were served. Roberto Pulido abhorred drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, Karen Pulido said.

He became a father to her three children from a previous relationship, supporting his new family as a carpenter in a local union. He was as firm with her children as his father had been with him, she said, telling them that allowances were to be earned, not bestowed.

Like his father, Pulido had always wanted to wear a uniform. He joined the Marine Reserves in 1988, and the Boston Municipal Police in 1992. After three years in the MBTA Transit Police, he achieved his dream of joining the Boston Police in 1996. His family -- and his community -- were enormously proud of him

``Every time I saw him in that uniform, I felt such a sense of pride because of his father," said Alberto Vasallo , publisher and owner of El Mundo, a Spanish-language weekly in Jamaica Plain.

On the force, Pulido never forgot where he came from. He was not the type to throw his weight around in the old neighborhood, said friends and acquaintances on Centre Street. He kept community leaders in touch with what was happening on the street.

But he had also started using steroids.

In 1997, Pulido became friendly with a man who had been arrested by another officer for having steroids in his car. They shared an interest in bodybuilding, said the man, who did not want to be identified because of his criminal record. They began working out together, and used the drugs to build muscle faster.

Pulido's responsibilities were heavy. He had divorced his first wife in 1993, and married Evelyn ``Reese" Tucker in 1994, and they already had three children together. But he was also in touch with his former wife's children, who still called him ``Dad," sometimes buying them gifts. His second wife, Evelyn, ran a dance studio, but she did not work full time.

He worked as much overtime and as many paid details as he could, said relatives and friends. He did construction on the side. He managed an auto repair shop on Washington Street in Jamaica Plain, and started a barbershop across the street.

``He wants the best for [us]," Evelyn Pulido said in an interview. ``He didn't care if it took sacrifice. [If] he had to work triple time or whatever, he was going to do it for the kids."

He didn't have time to attend church with her on Sundays, though he did read his Bible, she said. Evelyn Pulido often begged her husband to work less, she said, but he always refused.

``I complained a trillion times over," she said. ``And he will always quote from the Bible: `A man who does not work does not eat.' "

But Pulido was finding time for more than work and family.

In April 1999, he tested positive for cocaine in a routine police department drug test on his hair.

``I thought it was a joke," Evelyn Pulido said. ``I said, `Somebody sprinkled it on his head or something.' "

A police officer who worked with him at the time said his colleagues were shocked, because Pulido seemed so obsessed with his health. Under department regulations, officers can appeal by taking a second test at their own expense. Some of his colleagues were so confident in his innocence that they donated money to help Pulido pay for that test, Evelyn Pulido said

According to Boston Police, the second test, administered two weeks after the first, was also positive. Pulido fought the finding with the help of the police officers union. An independent arbitrator upheld the test results: The cocaine had been ingested, records from the hearing show.

Still maintaining his innocence, Pulido accepted a 45-day suspension and entered a drug treatment program.

``He fought it till he couldn't fight any more," Evelyn Pulido said.

Pulido was also seeing other women.

In 2000, he had a daughter with Roslyn Williams of Roxbury and was ordered to pay child support of $150 a week. His fourth child with Evelyn Pulido was born the next year.

To help make ends meet, he started a construction company in 2001 with a friend, Alexandras Kontsas , but the enterprise was short-lived. The money took too long to come in.

``He was always hurting for money," said Kontsas, who owns a South Boston pizzeria. ``The child support, the loan on his car, they were taking so much out of his paychecks. One time he showed me a check and it was for $4."

Pulido's job sustained him, said his friends. He loved being a police officer, always wanted to be the first through the door in dangerous situations.

But in March 2002, danger found him, as he was patrolling alone at a school in Jamaica Plain. Pulido was shot in the chest while wearing his bulletproof vest. He was not seriously injured. His assailant was never found. Years later, police department sources would say the shooting seemed suspicious.

But at the time, her brother was a hero, said Alicia Pulido.

``When my brother got shot, people couldn't keep away from this house," said Alicia Pulido, who now owns the Edge Hill street home where they grew up. ``I didn't sleep for two days because of the all the people who came looking for him."

He faced his first adult charge, in 1982, when he was 18, for gun possession. A string of other convictions followed: possession of an explosive device; trafficking in drugs; armed assault; assault and battery with a dangerous weapon; violating a restraining order.

He married Cassandra Matthews in 1992, and they had twin girls. After divorcing Matthews, he married again in 1999. That marriage also ended in divorce.

On his marriage certificates, Lozano listed his occupations as ``glazier" and ``laborer," but he was also frequently in courts and jails.

Early in 2003, Lozano, who had been spending time in Lancaster, Pa., was caught in a federal sting, after a woman told investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives that she had been purchasing guns on his behalf, according to a federal affidavit. The woman subsequently secretly recorded conversations with Lozano in which he admitted to removing the serial numbers so the guns could not be traced.

In May 2003, he was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was initially ordered jailed without bail, and faced a maximum sentence of 10 years; his prior convictions could have subjected him to an even longer sentence. But after prosecutors filed a flurry of sealed motions, Lozano was released on bail in September 2003, and allowed to return to Boston. The case is pending.

The federal judge presiding over the case sealed Lozano's file this month -- including papers that had previously been public -- after the Globe requested copies of some documents.

Lozano was also involved in an identity theft operation, according to federal authorities, selling fraudulently obtained retail store gift cards at half price to people who used them or resold them at a profit. One of his regular buyers, authorities say, was Pulido. By the time Lozano came to federal authorities' attention in the gun case, he had allegedly sold Pulido $18,000 worth of the cards.

Lozano agreed to help federal authorities build a case against his old friend. According to a federal affidavit, he severed his ties with the identity theft ring, but continued selling Pulido gift cards -- now paid for by the FBI.

Saying he had been looking for him for a long time, Lozano told Pulido that he wanted to repay the kindness Pulido's family had shown him all those years ago, relatives later recounted.

Lozano made sure everybody in the neighborhood knew that the two men were tight, said business owners who worked near Pulido's police station and barbershop. One time, someone insulted Pulido, and Lozano grabbed him by the throat and threw him up against the window of Pulido's barbershop, threatening to kill him, said a witness, who asked not be named on advice of a lawyer.

Lozano called himself Pulido's brother, and told Evelyn Pulido that he was watching over her. He offered to buy gifts for her children.

``He was willing to do anything for Kiko," said Alicia Pulido. ``If they came to my house and I only had Diet Pepsi and Kiko wanted regular Pepsi, Troy ran up the street and got him regular Pepsi."

Alicia Pulido joked that Lozano was so solicitous she sometimes wondered whether he had romantic designs on her brother.

Though it seemed to Pulido's family that Lozano had reappeared from nowhere, federal prosecutors say the two men had already been in contact for some time, though it is unclear exactly when the two friends reconnected.

After Lozano began assisting the FBI, he sold Pulido about $130,000 more in gift cards, prosecutors say. And at some point, the officer began supplying Lozano with the personal details of people he encountered during routine traffic stops to feed what he thought was Lozano's continuing identity theft operation.

Over the next two years, agents recorded Pulido's cellphone conversations and meetings with Lozano in which the police officer allegedly admitted to a host of crimes, including identity theft, police brutality, planting evidence, insurance fraud, buying and trafficking in steroids, and helping to operate regular illegal after-hours parties with drugs and prostitutes in his wife's dance studio in a desolate Hyde Park neighborhood.

The recordings reveal a man given to bravado and brutality, a man quite different from the one friends and relatives knew, prosecutors say.

To his family, Pulido increasingly was showing signs of strain from overwork.

In May 2005, Roslyn Williams won an increase in child support to $260 a week, with the money deducted directly from Pulido's paychecks. Pulido also had two mortgages, on houses in Hyde Park and Florida. He still tried to make sure everybody was provided for, his wife and sister said.

Last summer, at 40, Pulido had a minor stroke, brought on by overwork and stress, his family said.

``His body was deteriorating," said Evelyn Pulido. ``He hardly slept. He told me, `Four hours of sleep, that's all a man needs.' He was working so hard."

Lozano said he had two cousins who needed protection and a venue for the transfer of 40 kilograms of cocaine to out-of-state buyers.

Pulido agreed to the job, according to federal court documents, but told Lozano he didn't want to touch the cocaine. The two traveled to a hotel in Atlantic City to discuss the $20,000 deal with Lozano's two drug-dealer cousins -- undercover FBI agents. The group posed for a picture in a Russian-themed restaurant, dressed up in Soviet army costumes, smiling, vodka shots raised.

Federal prosecutors say the cocaine transfer was made inside Pulido's Jamaica Plain garage in April, while he and another police officer, Nelson Carrasquillo , 35, monitored the area and police radios.

Then in May, Lozano said his cousins were offering an even bigger deal, guarding 100 kilograms of cocaine. Pulido recruited Carrasquillo and another friend and fellow officer, Carlos Pizarro , 36, prosecutors say. The fee, to be shared between the police officers and Lozano, was $50,000.

After that drug transfer was made on June 8, the undercover agents asked Pulido, Lozano, Pizarro, and Carrasquillo to come to Miami to celebrate and collect their payments.

Just before that trip, on June 24, Lozano remarried his former wife, Cassandra Matthews.

Pulido was best man at the wedding. Lozano was short on cash, Evelyn Pulido said, so Roberto Pulido paid for the photographer, the cake, and part of the couple's honeymoon on the Cape.

On July 19, Pulido, Lozano, their wives, and their other associates were in Miami. Prosecutors say the men went to collect their payments, celebrate their deal, and plan more jobs. Evelyn Pulido said she thought the trip was a celebration of her birthday and Lozano's marriage. In a videotape of one meeting, a voice prosecutors say is Pulido's agreed to a new deal: 500 kilograms of cocaine and heroin.

Pulido, Pizarro, and Carrasquillo were arrested the next day in Miami.

Pulido had told his wife, who spent the afternoon on the beach, that he would pick her up in their room for a birthday dinner. But when he didn't return from the outing with his friends , she became desperate, she said. Left alone with no cash in the Miami hotel, she frantically tried to find Lozano's wife so they could track down their husbands. Lozano and his wife had checked out, she was told.

Lozano, 41, has not been seen since.

Pulido, Pizarro, and Carrasquillo face federal charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 100 kilograms of cocaine, and prosecutors say they could face additional charges.

``The person they're describing, we don't know him," Evelyn Pulido said. ``That's my husband. That's the father of my four children. Now they call him a kingpin? If he's kingpin, he's a kingpin of working his behind off."

Donovan Slack and Matt Viser of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Ari Bloomekatz contributed to this report.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/08/20/in_officers_fall_a_tale_of_two_friends/?page=1