“Listen, Nando, I like you. You work hard and don’t run around flashing your cash and drawing attention to yourself. You show up on time and don’t let those pills you take interfere with your work. We’ve never had any problems and you always deliver your money untouched. But this is fucking ridiculous. I can’t just pick up the phone and tell my brother to send some reinforcements because some gangbangers scared the shit out of you last night. Austin belongs to the Zetas and you know that. Everyone knows that. If these guys that picked you and Nestor up last night don’t know that, they’re bound to find out soon enough. They’d be crazy to mess with us if they knew, and once they know, they’ll disappear and move to California or something. The Salvatrucha packs a mighty punch south of the border, but here, they’re nothing. They’re idiots who apparently don’t mind getting killed for a few bucks and nothing more. That’s why La Eme sends them on suicide missions; they’re fools who like violence but never cover their asses. I’ve never had to worry about them and I don’t really think I should start doing it now.”
Guillermo stopped and looked at me in silence for a few seconds. Every time he blinked, it looked like he had to fight to lift his párpados again.
“I know los Zetas are in control here and I know no mareros should be crazy enough to come fuck with us, but they did. Indio is not like other mareros I’ve met, man. It’s like he enjoys being evil. He was smiling while he cut Nestor’s head off. He’s crazy enough to kill me and then come after you. I wouldn’t lie to you, Guillermo. You know I wouldn’t. This is not about a couple of newbie gangbangers talking big game. These dudes had all kinds of ink on them. They’ve all done hard time.”
“Do you really think these motherfuckers are gonna cause trouble again?”
I wanted to tell Guillermo about Indio’s eyes. I wanted to make him understand that there was something at the bottom of that bucket and that it ate Nestor’s severed fingers. However, every combination of words, every explanation my brain came up with sounded loco.
“Listen, Guillermo, they fucking chopped Nestor’s head off …”
“Okay,” he interrupted, “You think it’s serious. I’m gonna give Neal a call and tell him to go looking for some dudes with tattooed faces running around town. They’re probably new, so they have to be out and about, getting booze, drugs, and pussy somewhere in town. Neal will talk to them.”
Neal was a mountain of a man who used to play football for UT. A teammate found some gay pornography in his car and started cracking jokes. Neal beat him all the way to death’s door, raped him, and left him there, spitting teeth and shitting blood. He was kicked out of the university and never played football again. He didn’t serve time because the guy he left for dead refused to press charges. Neal had been working as hired muscle ever since. Usually he didn’t even have to hit people because of his size, which is why many businesses used him as a collector. However, he was not the man for this job. The size of Neal’s arms wouldn’t really matter to the kind of men who had kidnapped me.
“You send Neal their way and, if he can find them, you’ll be responsible for Neal’s death. And they’re probably going to be pissed that you tried to scare them off with a fucking gorilla and then come looking for you.”
Guillermo was not the kind of guy who took it lightly when someone disagreed with him, so I expected him to start screaming. Instead he sighed, rubbed his left arm, and looked at the guayabera on the chair. He spoke again, his voice calmer than I expected.
“So you want me to call my brother and tell him to send El Príncipe? That crazy motherfucker will flaunt his guns around and scare everyone in sight if he doesn’t shoot himself in the dick first.”
El Príncipe was a guy Raúl, Guillermo’s brother, had on his team and brought along whenever he traveled. He was born in Puerto Rico to a wealthy family and started selling drugs because a friend told him having street cred was the only way to get his career as a reggaetón singer off the ground. He was in a few mixtapes and sang a big game, always rapping about selling kilos, making tons of paper, shooting people, and getting pussy. Then another singer, a man who went by Killa or some shit like that, was released from prison. Killa had done a few years on a weapons possession charge that fell on top of the drug charges that were already hanging over him. Soon after he was released, he dropped a tiraera song calling El Príncipe a rich kid with less street cred than Ja Rule. The song didn’t sit well with El Príncipe, so he went looking for the guy and popped him two times en la cara. Then he left Puerto Rico for Florida and somehow ended up becoming a hired gun instead of an artist. How he went from gangbanging in Florida to killing people for money in Dallas is a mystery to me.
“No,” I said. “El Príncipe es my ruidoso. He’s too obvious, too damn loud. He doesn’t know how to handle really dangerous people. He thinks every situation is one of his songs. That guy belongs inside a video game, not on the streets.”
“So what do you want me to do, put together an army and go after them? To kick every bush and storm into every shitty house on the east side until we find some guys with MS inked on their mugs? We can’t have that kind of noise in this town, man. This isn’t New Orleans or Detroit. We don’t do things that way here, Nando, and you know that,” said Guillermo, his face twisted like he’d just smelled putrid meat.
“No, don’t put together an army, just give The Russian a call and tell him to look for four mareros covered in black ink who are living or working out of the east side and drive a huge blue car with ridiculous rims.”
“The Russian? Are you kidding me? You think these gangbangers are that much of a threat?”
The Russian was an average looking middle-aged man with a thick accent who told folks he worked with plants for a living. In reality, he was a shadow made of razors, a fantasma who no one saw coming until it was too late. Anyone who had ever worked with him was satisfied, and no one dared speak ill of him because he seemed to have eyes and ears all over. If you wanted someone to disappear forever without a trace, you called The Russian. He was worth every damn penny. And he worked really cheap.
“Don’t think for a second you’ll be wasting money on this by calling him, Guillermo. I’m telling you these guys are for real. You weren’t there. I was.”
I stopped talking because I realized something was going to come out of my mouth that I didn’t even know was in my head: that if he refused to call someone like The Russian, the only option I’d be left with would be to pack up all my stuff and disappear forever, just like last time.
“I’ll tell you what, Nando, I’m gonna trust you on this. If you say these guys are the real deal and have bad intentions, I’ll give you ten long ones to call the Russian. That’s a lot of money, but if this is serious, then I guess it’s worth it. When you call him, tell him to pick up the dough with Sandra, like last time. And you make it happen. Leave me out of it. Just let me know when it’s done. I don’t want this to come back and bite me in the ass. And I’ll call my brother, ask him a few questions. Maybe he knows something or knows someone who has heard of these guys. If this is some trick or these guys are fucking nobodies with no history and no connections, I’ll make you pay me back the ten thousand. You better pray you’re right.”
“Gracias, Guillermo.”
“Call him today. I don’t want this shit to interfere with your work. Are you going to the club tonight?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Did they really stuff you in a trunk?”
“Yeah, they hit me with something and threw me in the trunk.”
I instinctively raised my hand and gently touched the bump in the back of my skull.
“Your head okay?”
“Yeah. Nestor’s isn’t.”
“Good. Nothing we can do about Nestor now. Let the Russian handle it. Let me know when this has been taken care of.”
“You got it, Guillermo.”
“Was Consuelo cooking something when you came in?”
The question threw me off. I had to think for a second. I hadn’t smelled anything, and if Consuelo was cooking, you could smell her magic before you entered the house.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Call me.”
Guillermo looked at the TV again. The two black ladies were gone. Two talking heads in blue suits were discussing something with creepy smiles on their faces. Probably something about building una pared en la frontera. I stood up, mumbled a goodbye mixed with a thanks and walked out of the room, craving some tamales for the second time that day.
Consuelo was waiting for me in the kitchen. She still had the egg in her hand.
“Siéntate, mijo, esto es rápido.”
I walked into the kitchen and sat down. Kahlúa was looking at me with her human eyes. Something in them spoke of calm and comfort, but there was also worry in there. And fear. I almost jumped when Consuelo’s hand brushed against my head.
She was saying a prayer under her breath while she rubbed my head, chest, back, shoulders with the egg. Kahlúa came over, placed her head on my right thigh, and whimpered. A second later, two more heads plopped down on my left thigh. It felt good.
After a few minutes, Consuelo stopped. She had looked well when I came in, but now she looked like she hadn’t slept in three days. She grabbed my hand and placed the egg in it.
“Take this outside with you and throw it away. Don’t do it in front of the house and don’t get any of it on you. Piensa en las cosas malas que viste cuando lo tires. This won’t take care of everything, but at least you will walk out of here with less weight on your shoulders. Ah, y reza esta novena. Get nine white candles for la Santa Muerte y pónselas a sus pies. Te va a ayudar. La Niña Blanca no defrauda a nadie.”
She gave me a few pieces of paper torn from a notebook. Her handwriting was easily legible. I’d have to do the prayers for nine consecutive days, and there was a lot written. The thought crossed my mind that it was impossible for her to write so much down in the time it took me to tell Guillermo everything.
I stood up, folded the sheets, and stuffed them in my pocket.
“Gracias, Consuelo.”
“De nada, mijo. Ven a verme pronto.”
The way she asked me to come back and see her soon was odd, full of an urgency I’d never perceived before. I smiled at her, feeling a bit better after la limpia, and looked at the dogs crowded around her legs.
“Te quieren mucho esos chingos, Consuelo.”
“Y yo a ellos, mijo, son almas viejas pagando sus penas a cuatro patas. A lot of us have to go through that process in our transition. I’m just happy to be able to help them.”
I had no idea what she meant by that, but I was afraid to ask because the look on her face spoke of a deep pain. I gave her a quick hug, turned around, and left.
Once outside the house, I looked at the egg in my hand. It hadn’t been out of the fridge for that long, but it felt warm, as if it’d just been pulled out of the microwave. I walked down the sidewalk for a bit because I didn’t want to leave that mess in front of Guillermo’s house and Consuelo had been clear about getting rid of it elsewhere.
Three or four houses later, I stopped, brought my hand up, and dropped the egg. It cracked on the sidewalk and a thick black fluid that looked like overused oil oozed out. The sun hit the inky mess and something appeared to move within it. I bent over to get a better look and saw a few thin worms squirming around in the blackness. A shiver ran down my back. It was time to go home and start my prayers.
5
White candles
Manto sagrado – The Russian
Ved’ma Nursery - Tatuirovannyye litsa
Pinche culero
One of the reasons I managed to adapt so quickly to life in Austin is that, while there are a lot of blancos moving around, you don’t have to scratch the surface too hard for the city’s Mexican blood to flow. Menudo, chicharrón, tequila, and totopos are as easily available here as they are on the other side of la frontera, and then there are radio stations that play nothing but música norteña, tiendas that only sell Mexican products, iglesias that offer mass in Spanish every day of the week, and many other things that make it feel like a home away from home. Another benefit of having our cultura so clavada here is that you can find candles everywhere, including the grocery store.
With the nine velas blancas set up in front of la Santa Muerte, I pulled the papers Consuelo had given me out of my pocket. I wanted to call the Russian and get everything squared with him right away, but something was telling me that praying before calling him was a good idea. I lit one of the velas and read, noticing Consuelo had left a blank space in the prayers where I was supposed to ask for my favors.
Novena a la Santa Muerte
Día 1
Santísima Muerte los favores que me tienes que conceder lograrán que venza todas las dificultades, que derrote a todos mis enemigos, y que para mi nada resulte imposible. No encontraré obstáculos insalvables en
mi camino ni me toparé con enemigos que me dañen. Todos serán mis amigos y yo seré el vencedor en todas las empresas y asuntos que realice. Mi casa se llenará de bonanza con tu protección y virtudes.
Santísima Muerte, te hago esta novena para pedirte el favor de que me protejas de Indio y los hombres que trabajan para el y que sus balas y malas intenciones no me encuentren a mi antes de que tu afilada guadaña los encuentre a ellos y los elimine de mi camino. Por favor espero me concedas esta petición si es de tu placer.
Que
así sea.
¡Oh
, Muerte Sagrada, Reliquia de Dios, sácame de penas y peligros! Que tu ansia infinita por hacer el bien sea siempre conmigo. Desde tu esfera celeste nos cobije siempre tu Manto Sagrado, Santísima Muerte.
I was supposed to pray three Padre Nuestros on top of that, but I decided to skip them. No need to talk to that guy when I had mi querida Niña Blanca protecting my back. The vela would eventually burn out, but hopefully not too long before I could come back and pray the second day’s prayer.
I sat on the sofa and pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed the Russian.
It only rang twice.
“Ved’ma Nursery, how may I help you?”
“Hey, man, it’s Fernando,” I said, suddenly short of breath and far more nervous than I thought I’d be.
“Nando, it is good to hear from you.”
The Russian pronounced it “jir,” just like a Mexican would, which always struck me as funny.
“It’s good to talk to you, man. How are you doing?”
“Life is okay, Nando. We are all tied to it and it drags us along. Mine is not going too fast at the moment, so there is no pain. How can I help you, drugh?”
This was it, the moment of truth.
“There are some men who want to hurt me and Guillermo. They want to take over the city and kick the Zetas out. They killed someone I knew, a good guy who had kids and a wife at home. I…I want them gone.”
“This is no problem, this is something we can make happen. Who are these idioty and where can they be found?”
“I only know the name of one, Indio. There are probably four or five of them. They’re mareros, gangbangers, and their bodies and faces are covered with tattoos. The night I met them they were driving a big, old blue car with huge shiny rims. I’m pretty sure they’re spending time on the east side.”
“Tatuirovannyye litsa? A lot of tattoos?” he asked.
“Yeah, a lot. The one they call Indio basically has a black face by now. He’s easy to spot.”
“This is a good thing. This will make finding them easy. Guillermo say anything about money to you or are you paying me?”
“Yeah, Guillermo said you can pick up the dough with Sandra.”
“If you pay, I give you discount, but if Guillermo pay, I will accept it all. That zhir ublyudok is too lazy for a discount, he has to pay full price. And you should have brought me the money to some place. Last time, it was nice talking to you. I enjoyed learning about your saint and your trip across the border. This city is full of people from other places. This is something I like. It makes us invisible.”
The Russian chuckled and then coughed. Payment had been discussed and I’d given him everything I had on the mareros. Now I only had to wait until this nightmare was officially over.
“Thanks. Please let me know when…you’ve taken care of things.”
“This I will do.”
The Russian hung up. He didn’t ask for my number or tell me how long he thought it would take. However, having someone like him gunning for Indio made me feel better. Ese pinche culero no le iva a cortar la cabeza a nadie más. Soon those tattooed monkeys would be nothing more than a bad memory. The Russian was going to make them disappear forever. The death of someone else had never made me feel so good.
I texted Guillermo saying I made the call and then stuck the phone back in my pocket. Then I sat there in silence, staring at the deep darkness in Santa Muerte’s eyes. For those of us who were on her good side, that darkness was welcoming, like a place to hide in a violent storm. For those who were on her bad side, that darkness was a promise of death that brought destruction of the soul as well as of the flesh. The thought almost made me smile.