The Boat (5 page)

You sure you have done the recon? I ask Luis.

Fuck you, he says. Maybe I have no office job but I am no child.

And the target is not protected?

Listen to you and your fancy language, says Eduardo. Is the
target
not
protected
?

Under the darkening sky, everything melts into shapes of brown and gray. We pass buildings made of brick, of cement blocks, of wood and plastic. Faces of people merge back into the material of their houses. Street kids scavenge for food by the roadside, some of them inhaling the pale yellow
sacol
from supermarket bags - their eyes half-open and animal and unblinking. We pass unattended stalls, half-filled wheelbarrows, hot pillow joints, then there are no more houses and we reach an abandoned railway line running along the edge of a cliff. We cross the tracks and look down. The road dips steeply into a gorge jumbled full of bamboo poles and torn tarpaulin sheets and hundreds upon hundreds of boxes. It is our destination. The
tigurio
: the city of cardboard.

The few inhabitants we see do not interfere. We walk through dimly lit trenches, toward the northeast corner. Shadows of faces move behind candles and gas lamps. Luis lifts his fingers to his lips and points to a shack at the end of an alley. He creeps forward. Yellow gaslight glows from behind the gaps in the cardboard. Coming closer, I see a black man on his back chewing a sugared red donut. Luis goes in and grabs him by the hair and flips him onto his stomach. If it is the right person, Luis has done his recon excellently. The target looks older than all of us –even Claudia, who has sixteen years. His skin is a darker black than mine, and burnished with sweat in the gaslight. His mouth is still crusted with little sugar bits. Luis rests his boot on the side of the target's face as he reaches inside his pants to pull out the rifle. He frowns as the magazine gets stuck in the elastic of his waistband-this is a common hazard with the G3 – a beginner's mistake. Eduardo has dropped to his knees, pinning the target's legs down.

Who is the son of a bitch now? Luis says. His voice is light and breathy as it is when he is excited.

You are,
puto
, squeaks the target. His lips strain to spit, and fail.

Claudia comes in and crouches down; there is not enough room to stand. We all sweat from the heat of the gas lamp. Luis succeeds at last in removing his rifle from his trousers and jams the barrel into the target's eye socket.

Do I kill him fast? he says. He is looking at me. Claudia and Eduardo are looking at me too. Pedro stands watch at the edge of the
tigurio
.

For a moment I am taken aback. Killing has never been the business of the
gallada
, unless things have changed with that too, in the four months I have been away. Maybe they are seeking to impress me, now that I have my office job. Or maybe that is why they asked me to come with them.

Do I kill him fast? Luis says again. His voice is tight - it sounds as though he is really asking for my answer.

What is his crime?

 
Luis falls silent. He lifts his gun and paces two steps this way, two steps the other way, stooped underneath the cardboard roof. The target twists his head up from the dirt and looks around for the first time. He sees Eduardo, who is holding his legs, and Claudia, and then Luis. He sees Luis's hand, trembling on the trigger guard.

He has many crimes, says Luis. But he called my mother the offspring of a dog.

I don't even know you, the target says. He swings around in my direction. And I am protected. Ask anyone.

I glance quickly at Luis, who opens his mouth.

The target follows my gaze and turns back toward Luis. When he speaks his voice is low and sly. What are you doing? he murmurs. His face is shiny in the gaslight. We both know you are no
sicario
.

Breathing hard, Luis grabs the G3 with both hands and jams the barrel into the target's mouth. I can hear the metal muzzle clatter against his teeth.

Ask him who is the offspring of a dog now, I say. I find myself thinking of four days ago, the calm face in front of my Glock. Ask if he will tell you that. Saliva starts to run from the target's mouth, quickly turning pink.

I will tell you, the target croaks out, whatever you want me to! He is not a tough anymore; no soldado, that is for certain. His words are slurred because his mouth is forced half open-it moves like the mouth of Claudia's demented mother. Please, he says.

Don't you get it? Luis shouts. The fringes of his hair drip with sweat.

From the ground, mouth ajar, the target shakes his head. I'm sorry, he groans.

Why are you sorry? I don't want you to say what I want you to say!

We all watch Luis.

I want you to want to say it.

Okay, man.

Okay?

Okay, man.

What are you going to do? He removes the gun from the target's mouth and presses it into his cheek.

I'm going to say what you want –

Luis's frown deepens.

I mean, I'm going to want to say it, I'm going to –

What are you? Luis breaks in.

It takes a second for the target to comprehend. I am the son of a dog, he says.

What kind of dog?

A dog. A bitch. A dirty, flea-bitten, whore of a bitch.

What else?

I am a dog that is ugly, that is an imbecile, that looks like a disease-ridden rat, that smells like shit...

You eat your own shit, too, don't you?

For a moment Luis sounds like a gangster in an American movie I recently saw in the city. His face even carries the same sneer.

Yes, yes. The target reaches for a piece of donut next to his face, rubs it into the dirt before stuffing it in his mouth. Claudia turns away. It is strange the things a girl will tolerate and will not.

From a distance comes the sound of ringing bells. I move to a gap in the cardboard to check with Pedro. After a moment he shakes his head and calls out in his high voice, Gasoline trucks.

Luis says, What else?

His mouth full of dirt, the target says, I am a dog that eats its own shit, and drinks its own piss, and, and –

But he cannot fully untangle his mess of words because at that moment Luis lifts his G3, flips it around and smashes the aluminum butt into the target's head. I think I hear a soft crack. For a brief moment Luis looks surprised, then he waves one finger from side to side in the manner of a parent scolding a child.

You are lucky,
puto
, he says, that my friends here are full of compassion. He spits on the ground next to the bleeding head. But they will not be so full next time.

You broke his head, says Claudia. He cannot hear you. She half-stands and shuffles over to the target – I think at first she is bending over to examine his wound-then she does something startling: she leans back and kicks him, hard, in the chest. Eduardo gets up from his knees and copies her. We know the target is still alive because his feet dance in response.

Luis gestures at the target with his G3, then says to me, Are you sure?

They all look at me. Their faces are flushed and full in the warm yellow light. It is strange, I think – their readiness to kill – for as far as I know, none of them has ever committed the act. This business was personal.

As we leave, Luis picks up a plastic bag that contains two donuts. The icing on them is green and yellow. For Pedro, he explains gruffly. He likes this sort of shit.

Outside it has turned into night. At the bus stop I ask Luis again what was the man's crime.

A shipment of
basuco
, he says. Or marijuana. I forget.

I thought you said a game of poker, says Eduardo.

Shut up, says Luis. Shut up, you fat punk.

***

MY NAME IS JUAN PABLO MERENDEZ, and I have been hiding at my mother's place for four days. People call me Ron because of the time when I was a child and, on a dare, finished a medio of Ron de Medellin and then another, and did not vomit.

I am a
sicario
, a hit man, an assassin. I have been a sicario for four months, although my agent, El Padre, says that in truth I am a
soldado
, fighting for a cause. It is no cause, however, but my own hands that have brought death to fourteen people for certain, and perhaps another two. For this El Padre offers me a safe house in the barrio, where I live alone, and pays me 800,000 pesos a month and another 300,000 for each hit. Of this at least 400,000 pesos a month goes to my mother, who prays to her God about my
delincuencia
but takes the money for her medicines and her clothes and her cable TV and asks no questions.

They call it an office job, as the
sicario
is waiting always by the phone. In
Medellin
, it is a prized thing to have an office job.

My agent is named Xavier – I do not know his last name, for everywhere he is known as El Padre. I have never met him. They say he is a large, light-skinned man with perhaps twenty-five years. They say he is the only agent in
Medellin
who is permitted a personal army. I am not sure who he works for, but it is clear from the pattern of hits he has ordered that he is connected with drugs.

El Padre has a powerful reputation. They say, when he had only six years, he was under the bed where the guerrillas came at night and killed his father, then raped his mother and stabbed her to death. The story goes that he memorized the killers' feet and their voices and their smell and tracked them down and made his revenge, one by one. The story goes that he allowed them each one final prayer and then, when they were only halfway finished, took his knife and opened their throats from behind. For this element of prayer they named him El Padre.

But the better story is that he was present, ten years ago, when his friend assassinated defenseman Escobar for the horrible sin of scoring a goal against his own country in the World Cup. This story goes that some time later he killed this friend over a spilled drink. It is something to murder a
sicario
of such reputation, but to do it over such a small failure of respect – an eyebrow revenge – that is a formidable thing. They say he now has hundreds of deaths to his name.

I have worked for El Padre for four months and have been a good
sicario
, a loyal
soldado
, never failing him until four days ago. Four days ago I was assigned a hit and did not make this hit. Of course, he is not interested in my reasons.

According to our usual practice, he called me on my cell phone the following day to confirm the hit.

Bueno
, I said, getting up and walking outside so that my mother could not listen in. On the street I said to him, I could not find the target.

The phone line went quiet. You could not find the target, he said. His voice was soft, like he was recovering from a cold: Maybe the information was incorrect. Sometimes it is that way... the information is incorrect.

It had been a whole day and still I could not think of a better excuse.

I said, Maybe it is best to wait until Sunday. We both knew that Sunday is the best day to do the business as the target is usually at home.

You were ordered to do it yesterday.

I could not find the target, I lied again. Maybe he will be there on Sunday.

We have never met, have we, Ron?

No, sir.

You have been a good
soldado
, he said. I think it is time we met. This week, I think.

Yes, sir.

I will call you with the details.

Yes, sir.

I am no child, wet behind the ears. I have now fourteen years and two months. I know how things work. That there is not supposed to be contact between a
sicario
and his agent. I know that I have been summoned.

*
  
*
   
*

WHEN I RETURN FROM THE BUSINESS with Luis and the others, my mother is sitting in her dark room watching an American soap show. I quickly scan the street as I close the front door.

I switch a lamp on for her. In the yellow flood of light I see she is still wearing her makeup and her going-out clothes. For a moment I watch her as she watches the screen. She does not blink. The concentration of her face is calming.

Your friend called, she says, not turning her head from the TV. It is a large, forty-inch Sony model and was in almost new condition when Carlos sold it to us.

Claudia?

I wrote it all down, she says and gestures vaguely. On the screen a white woman with large lips is hugging her elbows and crying. I catch my mother's hand and make a show of kissing it gallantly, like I see in the old movies. It smells of fish and nail polish.

Oh darling! I say in high-voiced English. Come back to me for I am ...
embarazada
... with your secret love child! I say this last part in Spanish so she will understand.

She shushes me and waves me away, then, as the commercials come on, she half turns and says, Do you think I should dye my hair more blonde?