Colombiano

by Rusty Young

  But the sun was overhead now, casting everyone beneath the market roof into shadow. Furthermore, Zorrillo was surrounded by hundreds of hardworking campesino farmers and women shopping. Children of all ages darted about. From that distance, I didn’t trust my own marksmanship. For a bullet that needs to travel over a hundred metres in a light wind like the one that was currently rippling the river’s surface, even a millimetre’s inaccuracy as it leaves the barrel can multiply out to a metre’s deviation at the target.

  With so many innocent people nearby, I couldn’t fire. Nevertheless, I held my position with the safety switch off and my index finger poised against the trigger, hoping Zorrillo would move clear of the civilians. He only had to step two metres to the left and I could take a clean shot. I glanced at my watch. It was almost midday. Camila would be calling my cell phone, worried. When I didn’t answer, she’d probably phone the hotel receptionist and ask him to bang on my door.

  Finally, Zorrillo pocketed his pen, slapped his accounting notebook closed and signalled to his driver.

  As he moved into the light, out of the protective circle of his bodyguards, I lined him up and slowly curled my finger, feeling the trigger digging lightly into the soft skin below my fingertip. Suddenly, a woman walked in front of him carrying a baby. I straightened my finger and drew breath. But when the woman had passed, the moment had also. Zorrillo was once more surrounded by guards.

  Seething, I watched him re-enter his SUV. It had been a busy day and the vacuna takings must have been good. After slipping a few banknotes to the two men closest to him, Zorrillo farewelled half his bodyguards, laughing and waving like a visiting dignitary. Although it was illogical, I felt it was me he was laughing at.

  Four months earlier I might have switched the Galil to full automatic and sprayed the departing vehicle with fire, hoping a lucky ricochet would kill him. But I resisted the childish impulse and afterwards was proud of my self-discipline and patience.

  Five minutes later, rowing hastily upstream with the Galil at my feet, I was even gladder of my decision. As I drew level with the wharf, I had a direct view into Puerto Galán plaza. Uniformed guerrilleros were stationed on every street corner, stopping vehicles and searching shoppers. And on the opposite bank, only two hundred metres north of where I’d been, I saw a Guerrilla squad resting among the trees. If I’d taken the shot, I’d never have gotten away. The Guerrilla had survived for over thirty years. How could I have thought they wouldn’t cover both sides of the river?

  I had failed yet again. I’d been so close – I’d had Zorrillo in my sights – but that only made it worse. Deep down I knew the crowded public markets were no place for an ambush.

  I needed to lure Zorrillo away from civilians to a remote location where he had less protection. And for that I would need outside help – someone I could trust; someone who had regular contact with the Guerrilla, but someone who hated them nonetheless.

  My first approach would be to Don Mauricio.

  80

  I REACHED MY hotel reception at 3 pm, two hours later than agreed, expecting to find Camila and her father pacing in the lobby impatiently They weren’t. I checked my phone. My luck was in. Camila had left three nearly identical messages: her mother wasn’t feeling well. Could we make it dinner instead of lunch?

  Señor Muñoz picked me up that evening at 5.30 pm. He was in a cheerful mood, and since Camila hadn’t accompanied him, I was forced to make future-son-in-law conversation. He thanked me for giving Camila a cell phone.

  ‘It gives me peace of mind to know where she is during the day and when to expect her home, although I wish the signal worked south of Garbanzos.’

  I half expected a fatherly lecture from Señor Muñoz on the security situation. But, unlike Uncle Leo, he treated me as an adult. We spoke man to man, and he was even open about his reason for coming early – dinner wasn’t until seven o’clock, but it was safer to travel during daylight hours.

  At least, he said, we didn’t have to worry about passing through the Guerrilla roadblock because it was located four kilometres south of his house, at the northern entrance to Llorona.

  ‘But my brother, who lives in Cali, told me that in his region the Guerrilla sometimes erect surprise roadblocks on lonely stretches of highway to kidnap rich people for ransom. Of course I’m sure that won’t happen here, especially with the peace talks, but I’d rather you stay the night.’ Señor Muñoz turned his head and winked at me. ‘In the spare bed, of course.’

  I was surprised at how relaxed he was. It seemed he’d become accustomed to the Guerrilla’s proximity, even enough to have me in his car despite knowing that I’d defied their ban on burying Papá. I enjoyed him sharing these confidences with me – security issues weren’t something to discuss with women.

  Dinner with Camila’s brothers and mother went smoothly. I talked about Ñoño and Coca-Cola as though they were work colleagues, and I even managed to crack a few jokes. When Señora Muñoz talked excitedly about the upcoming Díaz family fiesta, I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wouldn’t attend.

  After dessert, I agreed to stay the night on the fold-out cot beside Camila’s eldest brother, Sebastián, in order to show Señor Muñoz that I, too, was cautious about safety.

  When her brother was asleep, Camila pushed the door open slightly and signalled to me from the corridor. Placing her fingertip to her lips, she led me outside and under the house using a small flashlight.

  The floorboards were thin and we had to whisper so as not to wake her parents. At first, I was expecting an illicit midnight tryst. Instead, she led me to a corner and handed me two pieces of wood.

  ‘I thought you might like to see this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  She twisted one piece so it was perpendicular to the other. I drew breath, recognising my father’s cross.

  I ran my hands along the splintered wood. My fingertips found the bullet holes and memories flooded back: making the cross from the scarecrow on the day they executed Papá; returning to the finca to find it bullet-riddled under the oak tree; driving it back into the ground before setting off to kill Ratón.

  ‘Thank you for rescuing this,’ I said, although Camila removing it to protect me hadn’t changed anything – according to Uncle Leo, everyone knew I was the one who’d written the pro-Autodefensa graffiti on our finca.

  I looked up and saw that Camila’s arms were folded.

  ‘I don’t want you going back to the finca. It’s not safe. Promise me you won’t.’

  ‘Bien.’ I shrugged, since I had no intention of visiting our finca. ‘I promise.’

  ‘And promise that you aren’t going after Zorrillo or your father’s other killers.’

  ‘What?’ The space beneath the house suddenly shrank. I felt claustrophobic, hemmed in by the overhead floorboards and nearby concrete support columns.

  ‘Pedro, please! I’m worried about you. I know you. You’re planning something. I can feel it. I want you to promise me on your father’s cross.’

  ‘Promise you what?’ I hoped she wouldn’t mention Zorrillo again – that was a promise I could never make.

  ‘That you won’t do anything stupid like last time.’

  I took her in my arms and hugged her tightly. ‘I promise, baby. I won’t take any unnecessary risks.’

  The next morning I accompanied Camila to school on the colectivo. I kissed her goodbye at the school gates and waited until she had passed inside the cyclone wire fence, turned to wave goodbye and passed out of sight.

  Then I took out my cell phone and prepared to make a call. I’d told Camila the truth – I wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks. But that wouldn’t stop me from taking the necessary ones.

  81

  DON MAURICIO TORRES, owner of the Puerto Galán cattle markets, had been a friend of Papa’s, and I knew him to be a direct man. However, after observing him the previous day through binoculars, I also knew he was a frightened man. So when I phoned him, I didn’t dare mention that I
’d been present at yesterday’s markets or my true purpose. Instead, I said I needed to talk to him about a problem we had in common. I’d be happy to explain the details if he could meet me at my hotel.

  I remembered Mauricio as a tall and proud father of four – a happy, successful businessman whose leathery skin spoke of a lifetime of hard outdoor work. However, the man who knocked on my door looked tired and stooped. He was also as skittish as a horse before a thunderstorm. To make him feel safer, I partially drew the curtains. But once we’d shaken hands, he sat on the very edge of his chair as though ready to bolt.

  After a few formalities – Don Mauricio enquiring after my mother and asking how long I’d be in town – I approached my subject circuitously, saying I’d heard what Zorrillo had been doing at the cattle market and about the way he’d levied a fifty per cent tax on the sale of Mamá’s cattle. Things had deteriorated significantly since Zorrillo’s arrival in the region, I argued, and surely a lot of people would be better off if he weren’t around.

  ‘The whole world would be,’ he responded. ‘Is that what you meant by a common problem?’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  His expression didn’t change. ‘I’m listening.’

  I described how Zorrillo was behind the recent increase in kidnapping and extortion, and detailed every incident I knew involving him. ‘Something needs to be done,’ I concluded, before inching my chair closer to Don Mauricio. ‘He has to go.’

  Mauricio leaned back and folded his arms. ‘And how does this involve me?’

  ‘I know he’s robbing you blind. I was there yesterday.’

  Don Mauricio’s eyes widened. ‘Doing what?’

  I lifted the sports bag onto my lap and unzipped it to reveal the folded Galil. ‘I couldn’t get a clear shot. There were too many civilians. I need someone to help set up a meeting with Zorrillo at a remote location. I’ll do the rest.’

  Finally, Mauricio must have realised that it was his help I wanted.

  He shot to his feet. ‘They told me the graffiti was yours, but I didn’t believe it. This conversation is over.’

  ‘Wait!’ I stood and clutched his elbow as he turned to leave. ‘At least hear me out. No one would know it was you.’

  Don Mauricio stared into my eyes pityingly. ‘Twenty years ago, when I was younger and braver, I might have said yes. But I’ll tell you the same thing I told Colonel Buitrago a year ago when he asked me to set up an ambush: I have a family.’

  ‘All the more reason to remove Zorrillo.’

  ‘You don’t understand. Three weeks ago, when I couldn’t pay Zorrillo, they kidnapped my daughter, Cecilia. She’s only thirteen, still a child. It was that blond boy you might have seen – Buitre they call him. He stopped her bus on the way back from colegio. A man phoned that night and spoke to my wife. He told her the price. He said if we called the police, they’d kill her. Every day that I didn’t pay, the ransom would go up.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I rang everyone I knew, borrowed the money and paid immediately. I handed the cash to a young boy on a motorbike wearing a helmet. I’d given them everything, but I wasn’t even sure Buitre would release her. It was three more days before he did – the worst three days of our lives. The police found her at midnight by the side of the Villavicencio highway, dirty, sobbing and still in her school uniform. I’ve sent Cecilia, my wife and my other children to stay with my sister in Medellín. But I can’t join them yet. I’m now in debt and I’d lose my business.’

  I was truly shocked by this news. At the transport terminal, Mamá had mentioned a girl being kidnapped. I hadn’t known it was Don Mauricio’s daughter.

  ‘I had no idea,’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  Don Mauricio’s expression softened. He patted my shoulder and mumbled something about being sorry for my family too; we’d all suffered. ‘Believe me, I’d do anything to get back at the men who did this – anything except risk my children growing up without a father. Tell me, Pedro, do you still believe in God like your father did?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then remember that our lives are not our own to sacrifice. Rather, we must live humbly in service to others. The Guerrilla have a long memory. You of all people should know that.’

  As Mauricio let himself out I pondered his words. In seeking justice for Papá, was I going against the values he had instilled in me? The previous day, when I should have been praying beside my mother in church, I’d been training a rifle on a man, itching to squeeze the trigger. I chased after Mauricio, catching hold of his arm at the top of the staircase.

  ‘Wait! There must be someone else you can suggest.’

  Mauricio shook his head – I was incorrigible. ‘Try Javier Díaz. Or his brother, Fabián. I hear they’re being squeezed hard on every one of their business fronts.’

  ‘Anyone else?’ I followed him as he hurried down the stairs.

  Mauricio waited until we reached the wooden hotel door. His fingers touched the handle, but he didn’t turn it. He must have been afraid of being seen with me in public.

  ‘Don Felix Velasquez,’ he said finally. ‘Last week, when he couldn’t pay the Guerrilla vacuna, they torched one of his buses.’

  82

  BACK IN MY ROOM, I lifted the loose floorboard under which I’d hidden the intelligence files and started flipping through them. ‘Buitre’ was the name Mauricio had mentioned as belonging to the blond boy who’d kidnapped his daughter. I had no doubt it was the same blue-eyed guerrillero who’d knelt on my head and forced me to watch my father’s execution. Feverishly, I paged through the personnel dossiers on Guerrilla commanders to ‘B’, but there was no mention of Buitre – not surprisingly, because the files were arranged by real name, not alias. However, that didn’t stop me. I spent the next two hours scanning every page and still came up with nothing; the name ‘Buitre’ wasn’t there.

  That night Palillo phoned. I told him that I’d handed his mother the cash as promised, although I agonised over whether to inform him about her bruises. He was on vacation, enjoying the throes of new love with Piolín, so I decided against it.

  I explained the weekday routine I was beginning to establish and would more or less follow for the rest of my leave – having lunch with Mamá at the hotel restaurant, waiting for Camila to visit after school and escorting her home on the colectivo, then spending my nights alone.

  However, I wondered whether Palillo had spoken to Camila when he said, ‘I hope you’re keeping your promise. I’m not coming to save you again.’

  Of course I lied, omitting my intention to visit Don Felix Velasquez, the owner of Rápido Velasquez – the only bus company still operating out of the Garbanzos transport terminal aside from Transportadores Díaz.

  Originally a cattle rancher, Don Felix had started a transport company with a small fleet of chivas – the colourful, open-air buses used by campesinos. The company had grown rapidly, and, until recently, had been the region’s biggest. Three years before, Don Felix had even run for mayor.

  The following day at midday I went to the terminal and peered through the glass-fronted ticket office, ignoring the disapproving glance of the female ticket clerk who sat at the sales window.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  I didn’t ask for Don Felix, even though I could see him seated at his desk inside a small office off to the side. He was in his mid-fifties, with a full head of dark, curly hair, a moustache and a fedora that never left his head. I figured if there were no witnesses, he’d be more likely to agree to my plan.

  I waited half an hour until the clerk closed the ticket booth and left, having placed a sign in the window that read: AT LUNCH UNTIL 2PM.

  Having circled around behind the row of ticket booths, I easily found the back entrance. I knocked then tried the handle, expecting to find Don Felix alone.

  The door opened, a hand shot out and grabbed my collar, and a pistol was pointed in my face. I hadn’t counted on bodyguards. One held me while the
other frisked me.

  ‘Where’s the usual kid?’ the first bodyguard demanded. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘The bravest man in town,’ said Don Felix, emerging from his tiny side office. ‘Pedro Gutiérrez González. The question is: what does he want?’

  ‘A private meeting with you, Don Felix.’

  He nodded for his bodyguards to wait outside and invited me into his office, indicating that I should take one of the seats in front of his desk.

  ‘I heard how you buried your father,’ he said. ‘That Autodefensa graffiti was also yours?’

  I nodded. Nothing was to be gained by lying or prevaricating.

  ‘I need your help, Don Felix, and you need mine. I heard what Zorrillo did to your bus. If he’s allowed to continue, every business in the region will go bankrupt.’

  ‘Not every business,’ Felix said coyly, nodding towards the neighbouring office belonging to Transportadores Díaz. ‘Certain people will benefit from my closure.’

  ‘But surely they pay more vacunas than anyone. How do they survive?’

  ‘Survive? They’re expanding. As to how …’ Don Felix shrugged cynically, ‘you tell me.’

  I knew there was no love lost between Don Felix and the Díaz clan. Aside from being business competitors, Felix and Humberto Díaz had been political rivals in the same local elections three years earlier, until Felix withdrew as a candidate suddenly and without explanation.

  ‘You must hate the Guerrilla.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  Don Felix explained that when he’d fallen behind in his vacuna payments to the Guerrilla, they’d banned his buses from the routes south of Llorona. Felix defied the ban – how else could he repay them if he couldn’t work? – and in response they torched his colectivo. Felix had vehicle insurance, but it didn’t cover Force Majeure or Acts of Terrorism. The loss of that one vehicle was catastrophic enough. Another would be fatal to his business. He wanted to sell up and leave but couldn’t. While the Guerrilla controlled the highways, he couldn’t even sell his remaining fleet – fifteen of his chivas and colectivos were locked in a yard in Puerto Princesa. Assuming he could persuade fifteen drivers to risk their lives by defying the ban, how would they drive them out? As soon as the ignitions started and Felix opened the gates, Zorrillo’s lookouts would know. In other parts of the county, the army set up security convoys to escort long lines of cars from town to town. But in our region, the army no longer ventured that far south.