by Leylah Attar
“For my parents,” said the boy, before turning around.
Damian caught a glimpse of a bloody ‘C’ carved on the dead man’s forehead.
“El Charro!” He heard someone say as he followed the boy out.
They got in the car, and the boy wiped his stained, red hands on his shirt. No one said a word on the way back.
“Damian,” said El Charro, when they returned to the safe house. “Take him inside. He will be working for me.”
“What’s his name?” asked Damian, as the boy opened the door and let himself out.
“Rafael. He is Juan Pablo and Camila’s son.”
“I didn’t know they had any children.”
“They kept him away from the cantina.”
For my parents, Rafael had said.
Damian nodded. “So the funeral was for . . .”
“Someone from Los Zetas, a rival cartel—the man who shot Rafael’s parents, the man who tried to kill me.”
The man I killed instead, thought Damian.
El Charro had dumped Alfredo Ruben Zamora’s decapitated body outside his home, and had his head delivered during his funeral. In one move, El Charro had brought Rafael into the world of crime and violence, and ensured that Damian witnessed the funeral of the man he’d killed, recognized the consequences of his actions. There was no turning back for the two boys now. They were like flies trapped in El Charro’s web.
“You see this?” El Charro uncapped the gold tip from his walking cane. On the bottom was a retractable blade in the shape of the letter ‘C’. “This is how I like to send a message. Mess with me and your dead body shows up with my mark, the mark of El Charro—the horseman. I wasn’t always capo, you know. I started off as a horse rancher. I branded animals then, and I brand animals now.” He screwed the tip back on. “Tomorrow we attend another church, another funeral.”
Juan Pablo and Camila were laid to rest like heroes, surrounded by flowers and candles and long lines of well-wishers who kissed Rafael on the cheeks after the ceremony. As far as they knew, Juan Pablo had saved El Charro’s life and taken a bullet in the process. Camila had died by his side.
Damian and Rafael stood by their coffins when the last footsteps echoed out of the church.
“I know it was you,” said Rafael. It was the first time Damian had heard him speak.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the man shoot my parents. I was in the bathroom, but I was too scared to come out. I just stood there. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything.” Rafael looked at his shoes. He was wearing a coat even though it was hot inside, because he had not been able to get Alfredo Ruben Zamora’s blood out of his shirt.
“Hey.” Damian took his hand. It was cold and damp. “You did a good thing. You have nothing to be ashamed of. He would have shot you too.”
“I want to be like you,” said Rafael. “Will you teach me to be brave and shoot the bad guys?”
Damian thought of the man he’d killed, of the family he’d left bereaved. He should have shot El Charro instead. He wondered what he would have done if Juan Pablo had intervened, if Juan Pablo had not been his friend.
“It’s all fucked up, Rafael. There are no good guys or bad guys. Everyone has a reason.”
Juan Pablo had said that to him, on the steps of La Sombra. Everyone has a reason. Damian had no idea then that he would be standing by his coffin weeks later, repeating the same words to his son.
DAMIAN AND RAFAEL WERE YOUNG, but they weren’t as young as some of the other kids the cartel used to serve its purposes—kids who smuggled heroin and cocaine across the border, who served as disposable diversions or inconspicuous messengers. Some of them did it willingly, seduced by the lure of money and power. Others were forced into it. Their parents had been killed or kidnapped, or they were destitute and desperate. They gave each other nicknames that gave them a sense of belonging, of being strong and invincible in a big, bad world: Slim Luis, Teflon Marco, Eddie the Lamb, Two Scars.
The first time they called Damian ‘One Eye Damie’, because he slept with one eye open, he gave them a look so chilling that they backed off. Damian was fierce, a lone wolf that no one dared to cross or disturb. There was no downtime for Damian. While the rest of them sang along to boastful lyrics over oomph-oomph narco music, Damian lined up pop cans and target-practiced with a slingshot. If the comandante made them do a dozen pull-ups at the training camp, Damian came home and did three dozen more.
The only one who wasn’t afraid of Damian’s dark, relentless intensity was Rafael. He trailed Damian around, content to watch, accepting the silences. He didn’t ask Damian about the cigarette box that Damian held on to every night, or the newspaper clipping he pulled out to read when he thought no one was looking.
Every day, new recruits came. The girls and women were taken to the third storey, the rough, hardened men occupied the ground floor, and the second floor was assigned to boys and young males. Every day, some left and never made it back. The ones who had been personally recruited by El Charro had one thing in common. They had all been screwed over by someone: family, friends, their boss, their boyfriend, society or someone more powerful than them. They lacked opportunity. They were angry and uneducated, with no prospect of a job or a future. They were the ones who were most pissed off at everyone.
Regardless of how they got there, everyone had a role to play. Damian, Rafael, and some of the other boys were training to be sicarios—hitmen. Sicarios were the foot soldiers of the cartel, responsible for carrying out assassinations, kidnappings, theft, extortion, and defending the territory from rival groups and Mexican militia.
Caboras was the perfect ground for the temporary training camps that the cartel set up, in dust-whipped squatter’s domains, scattered among the urban sprawl of concrete and metal. Here, young men and women practiced in live firing ranges and combat training courses, that were then abandoned or used intermittently. An elite few, who showed promise and had a steady hand, progressed to special facilities where they learned how to work with explosives. Damian fit the criteria perfectly. Years of folding paper into the sharpest creases, and creating intricate shapes and forms, made him a natural for making and diffusing bombs. He learned the difference between C-4 and TNT and gunpowder and fireworks; he learned about blast radius and circuit boards and timers and triggers.
Damian took some of the questions home with him. He was wrestling with the calculations when Rafael found him.
“I’ll be right back,” said Damian.
When he returned with the calculator, Rafael had filled in all the numbers. Damian double-checked.
“How the hell did you do that?” he asked. Every single one was correct.
“In my head.”
Damian looked at him incredulously.
“I like math,” Rafael replied. “It kept me busy when my parents were at the cantina.”
“How about this one?” Damian pointed to another question.
Rafael smiled. He was happy there was something he could do to impress Damian. The two boys put their heads together and worked through the rest of the calculations.
The recruits started getting real-life tasks to complete: follow an informer, steal a car, rob a store. Every time they succeeded, they were rewarded with money, drugs, alcohol, clothes and weapons. Those who got caught were carted to prison, became victims of vigilante justice, or ended up bleeding in the gutters. If they made it back, they were shamed.
Damian knew the real test would come when they were summoned to El Charro’s ranch, in a desolate location near the mountains. That was where the men were separated from the boys, where El Charro either allowed you into his inner circle, or cut you off. While everyone carried on like there was no tomorrow, Damian prepared for that day. He had to get into that inner circle, destroy El Charro and then get out. On his days off, Damian disappeared. He bought a panga and a fishing rod, and spent hours on the water; he learned how to tie knots and how to read the sky and the water. Damian love
d the solitude of the ocean. It was vast and endless and merciless—like the hole where his heart used to beat. Sometimes when he closed his eyes and lay back in his small canoe, he could hear the sound of MaMaLu’s voice in the wind and the waves.
One day, when Damian returned from his trip, he found Rafael curled up in a corner. Damian felt his blood boil at the sight of his beaten and bruised body. Rafael was not like the other boys. The memory of his parents’ death still terrorized him. It instilled in him a deep fear of firearms. He flinched every time he heard a gunshot, and he hated himself for it. The other boys bullied and ridiculed him, calling him a faggot and a coward.
“Who did this?” Damian asked Manuel, the little boy who sat with Rafael, trying to make him feel better.
“It doesn’t matter.” Rafael refused to name the boys who had beaten him up, but after that, wherever Damian went, he took Rafael with him. If someone wanted to get to Rafael, they had to go through Damian.
The comandante was not happy when he found out that Damian was taking Rafael on his assignments, and accompanying Rafael on his. He was Comandante 19. Eighteen comandantes had died before him. Twice he warned Damian. When Damian persisted, he pulled out his gun and confronted him. Damian walked up to Comandante 19’s gun and butted his forehead against the barrel.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Make my day.”
Everyone stopped to witness the face-off. Everyone knew the comandante always won. If you don’t listen, you don’t live. They held their breath.
“Dirty Harry,” said Comandante 19. “The fucker is quoting Dirty Harry.” He started laughing and looked around. “Are you kidding me?” he said when no one responded. “My favorite gringo movie and this loser’s the only one who’s seen it?”
He waved them away and subjected Damian to extra drills until the sun came up. After that, everyone left Damian and Rafael alone. Damian suspected El Charro had something to do with it. He either had a soft spot for Damian, or he was grooming him for something bigger.
The call to El Charro’s ranch came a year later. By then, only a handful of the original recruits remained. Comandante 19 put them all in a pick-up truck and drove them to the mountains at dawn. Damian knew it wasn’t just a ranch—it was also an execution site where El Charro disposed of his enemies.
The boys were corralled into a sweltering, hot room with bare walls and a cement floor. The stench was nauseating. A dozen men and women were being held captive: members of rival gangs, informers, deserters, people who had stolen from the cartel or owed money and couldn’t pay back. Some had been kidnapped and were being held for ransom. They all reeked of fear and blood and sweat.
“Who is going to be the next sicario?” El Charro greeted the recruits who had just got off the truck.
“You?” He put his gun under a boy’s chin and forced it up.
“You?” He walked over to the next one. “Or are you going to end up in there today?” He pointed to the black garbage bags that had been placed by each recruit’s feet. “Let’s see, shall we?”
He put a shiny blade in the boy’s hand and pointed to one of the prisoners. “Bring me his ear, Eduardo.”
Eduardo walked up to the man, who was tied to a chair. His face was pock-marked with cigarette burns that were still healing over.
“What are you waiting for?” El Charro waved his gun.
“Which one do you want?” asked Eduardo. “The left ear or the right?”
El Charro’s laughter mingled with the man’s whimpers. “I like you, Eduardo.” He surveyed the prisoner, tilting his head one way then another. “I’ll take the left one.”
Eduardo delivered. El Charro held up the man’s ear while his screams filled the room. “And that’s how it’s done.” he said, parading the mutilated ear before the rest of the boys. Eduardo took a seat beside Comandante 19.
One by one, El Charro tested the recruits. He gave them hammers to smash knees, acid to burn skin, buckets and rags for water torture. For those two hours, the small gray room in the isolated mountains turned into a hellish initiation ceremony. El Charro stole the souls of each and every one of those boys. He was the devil and he was forging them in fire and blood and brimstone.
When he got to the boy standing next to Rafael, he handed him a loaded gun.
“That one.” He pointed to a woman who was curled up on the floor, terrorized by the wailing and screaming around her.
The boy pointed the gun, but couldn’t bring himself to shoot. He tried again as she squirmed on the ground, her wrists tied behind her back.
“El Charro—” said the boy.
Before he could say another word, El Charro shot him point blank in the chest. He tumbled sideways and fell on the woman. El Charro walked over to the body, removed the tip of his cane and stamped a blood red ‘C’ on him. Comandante 19 dragged his body away and stuffed it into a garbage bag.
“You.” El Charro handed the gun to Rafael. It was still warm from the other boy’s fingers. “Finish her off.”
Rafael stepped forward.
“Por favor,” the woman pleaded.
Rafael raised the gun and took aim. Beads of sweat formed on his brow.
Damian clenched his fists. He knew Rafael was reliving the horror of Juan Pablo and Camila’s deaths. He knew there was no protecting Rafael from this one.
“I can’t.” Rafael lowered the gun.
Damian was torn. A part of him wanted Rafael to shoot, to save his own life, and the other part was relieved. Rafael had stood up to the darkness. El Charro had not been able to corrupt him.
“Damian.” El Charro took the gun from Rafael and gave it to him. “Shoot the boy.” He waved his cane at Rafael.
Damian went deathly still.
“Didn’t you hear what I said? Chingatelo—fuck him over!”
Damian realized that he had gotten away with protecting Rafael all this time because El Charro had allowed it, because this was the test El Charro had set up for him—to kill Rafael, the only person he’d grown close to in the whole group. El Charro wanted to empty him of all emotions, all entanglements. He didn’t want his sicarios to flinch or hesitate or question his orders. If Damian did this now, if he killed Rafael, he would prove himself to El Charro. He would get close enough to avenge MaMaLu. And that was the only thing that had kept Damian going so far.
Damian raised the gun. Tears were streaming down Rafael’s face, but he held his ground. He knew Damian had no choice. If he didn’t do as El Charro commanded, they would both lose their lives.
“Rafael.” Damian stared down the barrel of the gun. “How many grams of cocaine can I get for a thousand pesos?”
Rafael looked at him, confused.
“Answer the question,” said Damian.
Rafael quoted a number.
“And how many grams for a thousand U.S. dollars?”
Again, Rafael answered.
Damian repeated the question for euros, yens, rubles, rupees . . .
Each time, Rafael shot back with a figure.
“Is that right?” El Charro asked Comandante 19.
“I don’t know. Let me check.” Comandante 19 got out his phone and started punching numbers. His jaw dropped open. “He got them all right, El Charro.”
“Well, what do you know?” said El Charro. “The boy is no sicario, but he has a knack for numbers. We can use someone like him.” El Charro lowered Damian’s hand. “Well done, Damian. You managed to save your friend and impress me. Sicarios!” He turned to the boys who had made it, his arm still around Damian. “You too, my little whiz kid,” he said to Rafael. “Congratulations! This is the beginning of a new chapter. Come. Let us celebrate.”
Damian followed El Charro out, the horrific images of black garbage bags, and mangled body parts, and blood-splattered walls etched forever in his mind.
Yes. This is the beginning of a new chapter, El Charro. The beginning of your end, he thought. Because I won’t stop until I have destroyed both you and Warren Sedgewick.
; DESTROYING EL CHARRO TOOK TIME and careful deliberation. Damian knew he would only get one chance, so he had to make it count. Even if he managed to kill El Charro, the other members of the cartel would come after him, and Damian wasn’t ready to call it quits without taking Warren Sedgewick down. Not only did Damian have to plan his attack, he also had to put together an escape plan.
Two things worked in Damian’s favor. The first was that El Charro kept him clean. After Comandante 19 perished in a shoot-out, Damian slowly took over as the explosives expert, too valuable to waste on the streets. El Charro consulted him when he needed to obliterate rival safe houses, evidence, bodies—Damian had El Charro’s complete trust. The second thing Damian was grateful for was that El Charro sent Rafael to a private school outside of Caboras. El Charro needed more than muscle to run his organization. He saw the value of investing in young professionals, early on in their careers. Damian knew that Rafael would have to work for El Charro, but he intended to finish the capo off long before it was time to collect.
Over the next few years, Damian saved his money—and there was a lot of it. By the time he was sixteen, he had moved into an apartment facing the ocean and traded in his panga for a secondhand yacht. When he saw the fishermen coming in, their boats heavy with the day’s catch, Damian went down and bought fresh fish and crabs and shrimp. He loaned them money to repair their tired trawlers and fishing nets. In turn, they invited him on their voyages and shared their secrets of the sea with him. If they noticed the looks their daughters gave Damian when they took him home for dinner, they didn’t say anything.
Damian didn’t just work with explosives, he was a slow, burning fuse, waiting to detonate. The bad-ass vibe that surrounded him both thrilled and intimidated the girls. The fact that he was removed—unattainable and uninterested—only spurred their desire for him. But Damian steered clear of romantic liaisons, the heady flush of first love, the sweaty palms and stuttered words, the sweet, painful yearning for a lover’s kiss. He remembered his first kiss, the night of the initiation ceremony, but not the lips or the face. El Charro had thrown a party in honor of the new sicarios. Food and booze and drugs and women. Damian had been introduced to the world of sex, and it suited him to keep his involvement limited to women who were paid to please him. Relationships were a weakness he did not allow himself.