Both Sides

by Gabino Iglesias

  “Gracias.” Luis answered with no mirth in his voice, he was still stone cold.

  “¿Quieres unas chelas?” Martin asked.

  Luis nodded, and put his father’s gun back in the back of his pants. The two in the front seat chattered like birds about the changing times and how Kiki demanded they start carrying beepers, how el patrón even owned a mobile phone now. Luis was lost in his own mind, in a conversation with a man he hadn’t spoken with in almost five months, and not seen in person in eight years—not since his fifteenth birthday—a man he knew was dead and buried somewhere in a forgotten grave.

  Estoy muy orgulloso de ti, mijo. Como tu papá, eres un asesino, un hombre de verdad.

  Luis felt his throat tighten and his heart hurt hearing his father’s voice. The adrenaline that had rushed through him before stepping into Alfonso’s truck, which intensified when Luis sent him to el otro lado, was fading away. He could almost hear his mother crying, like she had many times at the foot of his bed as he grew into a reckless young man, begging him to stay away from his father’s line of work. She screamed at Pancho who came to deliver a severance package from Kiki in the form of billete packed into a duffle bag when Güero never returned. She didn’t want their blood money, she would provide for her son all on her own, but it meant a life of struggle, one not fit for the son of Alacrán. Luis tried to appease her, pero con dinero baila perro y sin dinero bailas como perro. He hated feeling powerless and penniless and so he had called Pancho.

  “¿Oiga, pendejo, estás dormido o qué?”

  Luis shook his head and the voices left him, he looked to Martín who was leaning into the window of the car. Pancho was already standing on the sidewalk beside him, and both looked confused and a little annoyed.

  “¡Venga, muchacho!”

  Luis hurried out of the car and was surprised to see they were already at Pancho’s place, his canton was at the edge of the city, a large house in a decent neighborhood. Pancho liked to be inconspicuous, he kept the outward appearance of an average upper middle-class gentleman. He claimed it was better to spend his money on booze and women than outward luxuries, it kept the chota away. As they stepped through the front door, Martin began his usual line of chismes, mocking Pancho’s sense of style.

  “¡Qué naco!”

  He pointed to the bold paint job in the living room of turquoise and gold and then the heavy wooden coffee table made of polished wagon wheels and oak with statues of roosters made of stained glass posed in mid-fight in its center. The crystal shelving lined with bottles of liquor and shot glasses, and a cowhide sofa, it was tacky but spoke to Luis of the life he longed to live for too many years.

  “Cállate, chilango marica.” Pancho responded and went directly into the kitchen.

  Luis could hear him as he called el patrón, declaring Luis to be igual que el Papa. It made the young man smile proudly, his insides trembled just knowing how close he was to becoming someone, and no gringo would ever make him clean up after them again.

  Pancho came back holding three ice-cold beers. They twisted off the caps and clanked them together, salud.

  “El patrón estará muy contento.”

  “¿Yo estoy adentro?”

  “Kiki necesita un trabajo más de ti.”

  Luis sighed, he had already suspected this first job wouldn’t be enough to get immediate approval from el mero-mero. He thought for a second of walking away, of his mother’s disappointment, but he could envision himself mopping floors at the Mercado again, and walking home at night with his stomach empty so he nodded and said, “Dígame.”

  Pancho grinned and sipped his beer before speaking a name: “Buitre.”

  He mopped the sweat from his balding head with a dingy pañuelo, then blew a wad of snot into it from his prominent nose, su narizota had drawn many teasing smirks as a child, but those looks of disgust were replaced with the wide-eyed stare of terror as he became a man, one with blood on his hands and an important person in the eyes of the cartel. Buitre’s nickname came from more than just his bird-like nariz, it came from his profession, and how he flew along behind death like a vulture to pick to pieces the dead he came in contact with. He was christened with his new name by the only woman he ever cared for, his abuela, ella era igual que el esta, podrido por dentro. She had made him into the beast he was, assisted him in his duties before she died, and watched countless corpses disappear in barrels of putrid human soup, sopa de pendejos, she called it, and would laugh until she wheezed.

  His gut hung over his belt, bloated and rock-hard from years of stuffing it full of gristle and warm mescal. The rest of his body was thin, his skin dry and pockmarked from his years of being around the barrels full of toxic chemicals as the man who made people disappear. Buitre was more than just a pozolero, though. He took pleasure in his work and employed a multitude of ways to dispose of corpses besides vats of acid. His father and grandfather were carniceros, he took the skills they taught him of butchering pigs and cows and used them on human swine and soplones. He lived in the darkness, a monster among men, and no one, not even Kiki knew him personally. If they had, they would have either ran far away from him or called the Catholic church to do battle with the devil in the flesh.

  Buitre encendio el fósforo. He dropped it out before his feet and watched fire spring up and race across a line of gasoline before it ran up the sides of the shack he worked out of for decades. Kiki hadn’t gone as far as sick la tira on him yet, it was against narco códigos until he got concrete proof Buitre was a threat to his organization, but Buitre knew los perros del patrón were already hunting him, seeking proof by any means necessary. He had been told so and his source had no reason to lie, he was already dead. He left the house of death smoldering in the desert on the outskirts of Culiacan, Kiki’s territory, and headed for la frontera, for the gringo side of Nogales. There, in the land of güeros, he thought he could disappear, then head farther north and open up shop as a true butcher, the kind who skinned pigs and not men. He only had one more stop to make, one to secure his financial future en el gabacho. He had a drive ahead of him, but he didn’t plan to make it alone.

  Beside him on the front seat of the van sat a weathered, dirty sack, una bolsa de oro, the treasure inside was worth more than a thousand black brief cases given to him by Kiki’s perros. Buitre put his hand on the sack and felt it move, he grinned as it writhed under his calloused fingers.

  “Dime tus secretos.”

  Luis felt as if he could drink a river dry, a cruda muy fuerte kept him from opening the curtains and looking out onto the sunny street where the barking of a dog woke him from a restless sleep. His dreams were tormented by memories of his father, of the night Luis felt like he failed Güero completely.

  Luis had been media pedo, his father had brought him a bottle of tequila for his birthday and they drank it on the sidewalk around the corner from his house because his mother wouldn’t allow it in her home. Güero brought Pancho along with him para celebra su único hijo su cumpleaños, un dia especial, su hijo se estaba convirtiendo en un hombre. Güero planned to get his boy drunk and buy him a woman, a birthday fit for his mano derecha. The young man’s memories were still blurred, muddled together and for many years he didn’t understand what truly happened, only that he looked away and his finger couldn’t pull the trigger, and the vision of it played over and over in his mind como una mala película. Un fresito gringo, who was clearly out of his element, stumbled down the sidewalk. Too much booze made the gringo feel ten foot tall and bulletproof when he came across the three Mexican men.

  “Get outta my way, wetbacks.”

  Pancho shoved the gringo back, “Vete a la verga.”

  “Don’t get tough, old man. You want me to call la migra?”

  Su película aceleró y el gringo culero estaba de rodillas en la calle. Luis sostuvo un fierro. Le temblaba el brazo como un rama en la viento.

  “Hazlo, hijo.”

  The gringo’s eyes were running te
ars and bloody snot hung from his busted nose and lips. Pancho’s fists were as hard and as heavy as steel and the American’s soft and pampered flesh hadn’t known the sort of violence they were tempered in.

  “Please, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m a little drunk…”

  “No escuches, mijo. Los muertos son unos mentirosos.” His father spoke close to his ear.

  Luis felt his arm shaking, he closed his eyes.

  “Es fácil, aprieta el gatillo.” Güero’s voice was calm, but Luis felt the urgency in the instructions.

  “¡Hazlo antes que la chota venga!” Pancho said.

  The seconds were an eternity for Luis who couldn’t pull the trigger. He felt his father’s calloused hand remove the pistol form his own, and in a heartbeat a shot rang out. His head had hurt the following morning, but the agony of letting his father down was more painful than anything he had ever experienced. Güero and Pancho took the corpse to the desert and left Luis with his mother. It was a secret Luis kept locked in the tomb of his heart, he just hoped killing Alfonso proved to Pancho he was no longer a frightened kid, he could look a man in the eye and take a life, just like his father.

  Luis pulled his clothes on and then wandered to the guest bathroom to piss. He always dreamed he would see a new man in the mirror after his first kill, a stronger man, but all he saw was the hollow look of a man who had too much wiskicito, and not enough sleep. The night before was a blur of alcohol, coca y putas, the third, Pancho kicked out onto the street long before dawn, but the first two continued to dance with the three men until the sky turned gray with the approaching sun and they stumbled to their beds. Luis could hear Pancho calling to him from the hallway outside of his room, the old man sounded more than a little hungover, but Luis knew they would be heading out soon, no time for menudo or chiliquiles, just una cerveza to kill the deathly feeling churning his guts to an acid soup and to calm his thrumming nerves.

  “Abre la puerta. Es hora.” Pancho said.

  “Voy.” Luis answered but hesitated to splash a couple of handfuls of cold water on his face from the bathroom sink.

  He pulled the door open to see Pancho running his hands through his greying hair, the older man sounded worse than he looked. He was already dressed, and had a gun tucked into his pants, its handle embellished with a gaudy crucifix. He had become accustomed to a lifestyle of constant movement, of doling out punishment, of answering to the orders of men like Kiki. Luis hoped to live as long as Pancho, but knew in his new line of employment is wasn’t likely. His father never got to see his fiftieth birthday—he’d simply disappeared—but Luis knew men just didn’t vanish, they were erased. He promised his father’s memory he would avenge him, and with the help of Kiki’s cartel he would find the hijo de puta who had ended his father’s life.

  “¿Listo?” Pancho asked as Luis followed him downstairs to the kitchen.

  “Simón.”

  Martín sat at the kitchen table, a tortilla in his hand. He shoved it in his mouth and washed it down with half a glass of whisky, the last of the hard booze from the night before. He looked to Luis and nodded as the young man opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. He cracked it open and took a drink before holding the cold bottle against his forehead.

  “Desayuno de los reyes,” Martín laughed.

  He stood and went to the stove, the comal was already heated up, so he tossed two tortillas de maíz onto it and threw cheese on top of them, it didn’t even have a chance to melt completely before he moved them onto a plate and handed it to Luis.

  “Buen provecho.”

  Luis shoveled the food into his mouth and drank the rest of his beer as Pancho talked on the phone. The nuevo vato could tell by the tone of Pancho’s voice he spoke to el mero-mero, el patrón. Kiki was relaying the latest information on the whereabouts of Buitre and from what Luis could hear, he didn’t know much, only that the pozolero was suspected to be headed for gringolandia. Kiki’s orders were to capture Buitre, beat any useful information out of him and then kill him.

  The voice of Luis’ father ran through his mind, Los Perros muertos no muerden.

  “El muchacho y yo venimos a buscar al Buitre, tu nos esperas aquí.” Pancho said to Martín.

  Luis felt a rush of adrenaline as he followed Pancho to the car, he was so close to being one of them, un hombre de negocios. Martín would gather more men and be ready for Pancho to call him. Luis and Pancho were informed their target was moving towards the border, right to their waiting pistols. They would put an end to the living legend named Buitre and seal his role as the nuevo vato in Kiki’s cartel. He was still confused as to how they would locate Buitre, but Pancho walked with the confidence of a man who had hunted many soplones, he would be un gran maestro in the arts of making a man que suelta la sopa. Luis couldn’t fail, he couldn’t turn back, he had to live up to the notoriety of the man who’s gun he kept tucked in the back of his pants, he, too, had to become un alacrán.

  Buitre had a lead on Kiki’s banks in the desert, el patrón’s secret stashes of money he had yet to launder. Buitre had already helped himself to a chunk of change from one in order to test Fransisco’s knowledge, and with the help of Fransisco he meant to withdraw an even larger bonus for himself, a pension plan of sorts. He could outrun Kiki’s perros if he worked fast and kept driving. He laughed to himself, they would never have a clue as to how he obtained the knowledge because they believed their secrets disappeared along with the corpses of the men who kept them. If only they knew the truth.

  They already sought Buitre’s blood for killing a local puerco, una rata who had it coming. Buitre didn’t often hunt, he didn’t need to with all the carne that passed through his house of death on a weekly basis, but el tirra pansón had gotten too cocky with the pozolero, even tried to get a cut of his pay from Kiki to keep his mouth shut. So Buitre went hunting, and found him in un prostíbulo. Buitre had cut his throat open and watched him bleed out on the feet of two cheap teiboleras. Kiki was enraged when he linked Buitre to the murder, the pansón was Kiki’s eyes and ears within the local police department, an important element to evading capture. El patrón figured Buitre was tipped off to the inside man’s location by Fransisco, who Kiki promptly beheaded, but his lips only wagged after his heart stopped and not a second before. Buitre knew Fransisco while he lived, and sought out his corpse after he was killed—as any vulture would, by following the scent of death. Fransisco had been left in a shallow grave, a thin blanket of dirt in his open eyes, his head severed from his neck and tossed in the grave on top of his battered corpse. Buitre took the head, he knew death wasn’t the silencer Kiki believed, his abuela had taught him so. Fransisco told Buitre all the secrets he knew from working for Kiki for so many years, including how many secret stashes of lana he kept buried.

  “¡Dime, pendejo!” Buitre commanded.

  The dirty sack wiggled and a harsh whisper issued from beneath its filthy folds.

  “Malverde.”

  Buitre lit a cigarette and exhaled a throatful of smoke out into the van and then reached into his shirt pocket and fished out a finger. Its flesh a pale grey, the pallor of death. He held it up to his nariz and inhaled the aroma of decay, his mouth watered como pero de taquería, his gut churned with hunger. He stuck it in the side of his mouth and chewed on it, savoring it like a stick of beef jerky. He drove with is knees, alternating gnawing on the finger like a chicken wing with one hand while the other brought the cigarette to his lips. The sack beside of him moaned softly, a single plea, one Buitre had heard countless times and ignored. Por favor. He wouldn’t give in until he had what he wanted, maybe after he filled his pockets he would release the pitiful thing from being bound to him.

  They sat in the car, a quick dinner of tacos de canasta was more than a way to fill their empty stomachs. Pancho was awaiting word from Kiki’s other perros, of any clue as to the whereabouts of Buitre. After a day of hitting the streets of Nogales on both sides of the border, they sti
ll had no word on the pozolero but Pancho was still confident they’d locate him. The vendedor pedaled away on his bicycle before Pancho spoke.

  “Pinche Buitre. El no es un fantasma. Lo atraparemos.”

  “¿Por qué está marcado el Buitre?”

  “El sabe demasiado, y el rompio las reglas.”

  “¿Qué reglas?”

  “El mato un güey importante.”

  Luis nodded and ate in silence. The pozolero had killed an inside man, something he knew would be punishable by death. It made his mind stray to his father, and he wondered what he could have done to become invisible, what deed left him marked to die?

  Tuve que quebrarlo, era el o yo.

  Luis froze, he felt a sickness twist his gut, a cold sinking into his bones. He looked to Pancho who shoved half a taco in his mouth, its grease running down his chin. Did he hear it? After years of only hearing reverberations from past conversations, Güero seemed to be answering the questions running through his brain. Or was Luis losing his mind?

  ¿Y cómo me lo pagaron?

  Pancho glanced at the nuevo vato, talking over a mouthful of food. Luis was wide-eyed, his skin pale and clammy, his mouth half-open.

  “¿Te gusto o qué?”

  Luis shook his head, he needed to keep it together. He was looking like un pendejo in front of Pancho, yet he couldn’t shake the chill his father’s voice filled him with.

  “No, no, tengo que cagar.”

  Pancho laughed, “¡Como ya te hicistes, muchacho!”

  Luis got out of Pancho’s car, laughter chasing him across the street as he entered a small tienda. He made his way to the restrooms and checked the stalls, he was alone.

  “¿Papá, estas ahí?”

  He stared at himself in the mirror, and watch his face filled with a strange, sickening hope, droop into a look of emptiness. There was no reply, only silence, like the months of not receiving a single phone call from güero güero.

  Luis washed his face and went back to work. Pancho was waiting for him, sitting on the hood of his car, smoking a cigarette.