The Painted Gun

by Bradley Spinelli

  I finished my drink. “It’s hard to believe.”

  “Believe it, brother.” He fixed me to the wall with a hard stare, and pointed a gnarled, craggy finger in my face. “Materialism is a fucking spiritual jail.”

  I went back to my cell and lay for a long time, staring at the ceiling fan.

  * * *

  The Hotel del Norte was a relic, a dilapidated, faded building that utterly failed to convey any of its former glory. Strictly ghost-town, and even the ghosts were on vacation. One had to look closely to imagine the boys’ club it had once been.

  The grounds included a small courtyard centered by a fountain—not working, half-filled with fecund green water—decorated with fish; an outdoor pool table with faded green felt, covered by a rickety awning; a kiddie pool with a slide, clearly a later addition; and to the side, the main swimming pool, very small, with Hotel del Norte inscribed in the bottom. The pool faced the main dining room of the hotel, separated by screened windows and a battered screen door. The old bar was wooden and still beautiful, but made ridiculous by tables topped with red-and-white-checkered plastic tablecloths and cheap plastic chairs.

  A plump, middle-aged woman came to the screen door. She smiled sweetly.

  “Qué busca usted?”

  “Disculpe, estoy buscando el Hombre Viejo.”

  Her smile evaporated, and I wondered if I had come all this way for nothing. Perhaps the Old Man was already dead. The woman shifted her weight, wiped her hands on her apron, and gave me a disquieting look. “Un momentito,” she said, and was gone. In a few minutes she reappeared and opened the screen door.

  “Pase adelante.” She sat me at a table. I felt small and alone in the large, darkened room.

  “Quiere algo a tomar?”

  “Una Coca, por favor.” It was still early and I was already sweating in the fierce, piercing heat. The woman brought my soda and a cheap tin ashtray and disappeared again.

  I sipped my Coke. I brushed off a passing thought that I was about to be killed. It was too hot, and I was too tired to give it much worry. It wasn’t long before I was joined by an old man, midsixties, heavyset, and Guatemalan, although with very fair skin. He was wrinkled and paunchy, but carried his girth with an assured importance. He sat down across from me without speaking. I said nothing.

  “It was different,” he began, his English clear and his voice sturdy, a man who was accustomed to being listened to without needing to raise his voice. “It was different, before, in the old days. Then, we were fighting for our lives, for our livelihood, for our families. Fighting was normal, regular. It was the price of doing business. We had to choose a side. On one side, Jacobo Árbenz, and his empty promises of a socialist society. On the other side, United Fruit, who gave us homes, work, money, and the possibility of prosperity. You can see, for a young man, how one could be seduced by such a possibility. When one is young, it is easy to imagine a future. When one becomes old, one realizes that future . . . is an illusion. There is only the memory of a past that, perhaps, did not occur as one remembers. And the now. After now, there is nothing.”

  I nodded. If there was ever any question that he knew who I was, it had been erased by his opening speech. It was as though he’d been expecting me. He pulled out a cigar and lit it somberly with a match, took a couple puffs, and laid it in the ashtray.

  “After the CIA, after Árbenz was removed . . . another choice. Politics and business, or the other thing. And all was military—you could not be a politician without the military. You could not be in business without the military. And so the other thing became more attractive to many of us. It was the only way to have freedom, to remain on the outside. To work for yourself, to decide, Today I work, tomorrow I rest. To be free from politics and business. And there was much work. Yes, we assassinated Castillo Armas in ’57. He had become an embarrassment. In the sixties, we were very busy. Frank Wisner, a former friend, in ’65. Everyone believed he was a suicide. Before that, in ’61, Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic. Even Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the same year. Our first job out of Central America. Eisenhower, Dulles—it was a crazy time, entiendes? Your congress investigates, sometimes, and discovers that the CIA is not involved.” He laughed, a bruiser’s infectious chortle. “Every political assassination in the world in the last fifty years, the CIA was involved. One way or the other, verdad?

  “In 1971, when Árbenz drowned in his bathtub in DF”—he pronounced it Day Effay—“that was one of us, yes, but it was a personal vendetta. His daughter”—he waved his hand—“that was a true suicide. We had nothing to do with that. But the seventies were difficult. El Pulpo was suffering. Eli Black, the company president, he made so much trouble,” he chuckled dryly, “we finally had to push him out a window in New York. They called that a suicide also. But the investigation . . . the world was changing, and we needed to expand our business. We could no longer rely on United Fruit, on the politicians who allowed civil war to go on for so very long. We wanted to grow out of Central America, and our connections . . . the Dulles brothers were gone.” He picked up his cigar and realized it had gone out. “Do you remember Dan White?”

  It was like a shock from another world. “From San Francisco?” I realized it was the first time I had spoken. He nodded. “You were behind Harvey Milk?”

  “No.” He smiled as if addressing a child. “But we could have. Moscone, that could be good money for us. This was when I realized that we must have more . . . cómo se dice . . . huellas?”

  “Tracks? Footprints?”

  “Like this,” he smiled. “We must have more footprints in more places. You see, 1976, your President Ford made illegal any political assassination. But for the CIA, to tell them not to kill is to tell a fish not to breathe water. This is what they know. This is what they are. And we, like them, unable to evolve, to crawl onto dry land and breathe air, we become more removed. One step away. Fish, todavía, but fish in a glass aquarium.” He relit his cigar, shook out the match, and flicked it to the floor. “This is business. But,” he puffed, “only God knows what can become now. When I think of your paisano, Michael DeVine, conoces? The American murdered here for nothing?” He shook his head. “It makes me sick in my stomach. This kind of behavior . . . the attention it brings . . .” He fell off, tapped his cigar, and left it in the ashtray. “I am boring you. You did not come here for a history lesson. You want to know about Balam.”

  I finished my Coke and, through a series of hand gestures, he asked if I wanted another and signaled the woman to bring it. While we waited for her return I fumbled for my pack of Rubios—the local cigarettes I had bought that morning—lit one, and said nothing. I wondered why he was being so cordial. It was like a meeting with the Godfather—I couldn’t be sure if he was about to grant a favor or bash my head in with a baseball bat.

  My fresh Coke sweated on the table as he continued: “Balam’s father was a refugee of the civil war. He worked in acupuncture, and he performed it on prisoners of war. But he did terrible things, entiendes? To disrupt the flow of chi, all the terrible things you can do to a person—and it appears you are helping them. And so, there becomes a hit on Balam’s father and on all his family. They become refugees, they go to Canada. Balam learns English. He becomes strong. But he doesn’t like the life, and he returns to Guatemala City. Imagine, in school, with teenagers, there are lockers for guns. The students are permitted to bring their guns to school. Balam’s father gives him a gun and tells him, Look after yourself. I will not pay your ransom. Because, you see, in the eighties—now, todavía—kidnapping is very common in Guatemala. This is a way that people can get money. You kidnap a child, you ask for ransom. If the parents don’t pay, maybe you kill the child. Maybe you bury the child alive. This happened many, many times. This is the environment. This is normal.” He drew on his cigar. “But more important for Balam . . . very soon before he came to me, he was with friends in Antigua. Maybe they are sixteen, seventeen years old. You know the Parque
Central in Antigua? The fountain?”

  I nodded.

  “They climb on top of the fountain. Children, you understand, playing, verdad? The police come, they take the children off the fountain, the children begin to fight back, they are punching the police, hitting them. The police place Balam and his friends in the jail. They beat Balam, many times. He will not tell them his name, so they keep him in the jail, with no toilet and no food, for three, maybe four days. Balam will not tell them his name. Finally, he is let go. And after that, Balam does not want to go to school. He does not want to go back to Canada. He does not want a job. He wants only to kill. Entiendes? This is how one makes a revolutionary. Balam would have been an asset in my time. But now, the civil war is ending. Balam does not want to be a guerilla. He is angry, but no one has taught him how to channel his anger. He does not believe in a cause.”

  He took a long puff from his cigar and tapped the ash. With his free hand, he laid an index finger across his lip, talking through it, pulling the finger away to punctuate his words. “And this is how Balam came to me. I taught him to focus his anger. I taught him how to be a man. I taught him how to make a very good living, to see the world and to—I do not know this word in English—to aprovechar, everything that this world has to offer. To take the good and the bad. And I tell you, for two years Balam does very good work for me. He is like a ghost, verdad? He is gone. No one sees him and lives to speak of him. He is very good.” The Old Man gave me a serious, studied look. His eyes were piercing, drilling into me, as if pondering the answer to a question I had not dared to pose.

  “Yes . . . there was a problem. He is psychotic, no? He likes the killing—too much. In my day, it was something that we had to do. But Balam . . . he chose this path. His family, they are not poor. His father is still in Canada—he could return, have another life. His mother lives a quiet life in the highlands. The rest of his family is in the capital, very successful, many businesses. This is a young man with many choices. But he likes to kill, very much. And this,” he waved his hand in the air, “this is not good. All of this, all this business. To go to el Norte and kill so many people, so many who are no threat to us. So many unnecessary killings, this is not what I come from. And to kill an agent of the CIA—this is very, very stupid. You and I can agree on this, I am certain.”

  He looked to me for a response. I nodded again.

  “And to try to kill a woman? Because she rejected him? Una vergüenza. And the girl Ashley? I worked too hard to protect her to have her thrown away like this.”

  The name was like a bullet, a hollow-point. “You protected Ashley? I don’t understand.”

  He took a deep breath. “El Canche.” He thumped the table with a closed fist, just loud enough. “You call him McCaffrey. We call him El Canche, the blond. You know the Deh Eme Effe, of course.”

  It took me a second. He slurred it together, DehEmeEffe—DMF. The Death Master File. It sounded even more sinister in Spanish. “Claro.”

  “In the past, we used the DMF to remove the trace of an asset. We have people in the Social Security. One . . . golpe de teclado?” He mimed tapping a keyboard.

  “Keystroke.”

  “Ahorita, you are dead. It was useful. You get a new identity, you work for us, there is nothing of your old life. But now, in the modern day, with computers and credit cards, there is much fear of ‘identity theft.’ Too many people are looking. To be on the DMF—it is like an advertisement. Now, one of my associates has some ideas. Use the DMF for a target. Perhaps after a contract—bang, you are not, and punto, you never were. Or perhaps, because to be on the DMF is so upsetting when you yet live, it becomes a tool to disassemble the life of a target. Punto, you are dead on paper. Entonces, in the chaos—now you are dead, en serio.”

  He puffed on his cigar, turning it, getting the orange glow going. “It was only a discussion. Nothing decided, nothing—actionable.” He punctuated his words with the cigar. “El Canche learns that we have this tool, this leverage. He is una oportunista—he doesn’t think. As he found you—because his DAUGHTER died—” he squeezed his face in disgust, “he takes the first person who comes along. Ashley. He wants her help—someone already in trouble, someone disposable—and he has her added to the DMF. When I learned she was his family . . . I was furious. You do not do this. You do not expose your blood. It is like I told you, it is an advertisement, verdad? We also have enemies. He put her at great risk. THAT is why I insisted El Canche bring her in. Protect her. For her own safety. THAT is why I would not take her off of the DMF—that name cannot be hers ever again. THAT is why I had El Canche killed.”

  “That was you.”

  “Sí, pues. Balam was to kill him with his own gun, blame you. But we were forced to make other arrangements. I told El Canche two years ago I would kill him if anything happened to Ashley. The girl was an innocent.” He pointed the cigar at me. “We agree, you and I. There is a way to live, and there are many ways not to live. My profession is unusual, yes, but my view of the world is no different from yours. One does not expose an innocent to misfortune without reason. One does not kill a woman. And even in my practice, one does not confuse the surgery of a tumor with the removal of the entire limb. So—” he put his cigar down and shifted in his seat so that we were directly eye to eye, “I think that you have come here for something, Mr. David Crane.” He pronounced it Da-veed. “I think that you want something from me. And I am ready to listen. But you must be very careful what you ask of me. This is why I want you to know me, to know who I am, what we are. We are not El Pulpo. We are not the CIA. We are a small business that has survived many decades, and we will continue to survive. Not me,” he laughed bombastically, truly amused, “I will be dead very soon. But I do not like heroes, Mr. Crane. I killed too many in my youth. Heroes are always a—what is the word—a disappointment. You cannot stop the world, my friend. You cannot stop history, verdad? And the future—it is as I said. There is no future. Now,” he smiled benignly, “what can I do for you?”

  I cleared my throat and took a long pull off my now-tepid Coke. “I want Balam.”

  “Mmmm . . .” He tilted his head and looked at me, sizing me up. “Of course. You love the girl very much, verdad?”

  “I do. I came for her.”

  “You understand, we have no interest in the girl. What is done is done. And you, also, David Crane. You were of great use to us, but no longer. You cannot help us while alive, but . . .” he shrugged his bushy eyebrows, “you are also no use to us dead. In this way, both you and your woman are safe.”

  “Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “But it is interesting to me, my friend. You have come here for love.” He reached out and slapped me on the shoulder and began to laugh again. “Very stupid, no? You come to this place, to a strange country. Your friends, your police cannot help you—you don’t know if I will kill you. You come to my city, where I own the police, you come to my home, knowing that I know you.” He was laughing with full force now and spoke through it. “And you come to me? For love?” He laughed for a long time and fell into a coughing fit, a choking rattle that left him gasping.

  The señora appeared with a glass of water and slapped him on the back until he regained control.

  He sipped at the water, blinked a tear from his eye, and sent the woman away. He looked at me with a sudden fierceness. “You want to kill him.” It wasn’t a question.

  I blinked. “I want to take him back alive.”

  “That, I cannot allow. Even if I wanted to, entiendes? Balam knows very much about our organization. If you were able to capture him, you would never leave this country alive. No one would consult me for a decision. Because you see—ahorita, I am primarily a consultant. Every day, decisions are made beneath me. And that is beneath me. They will not know you. They know only that this is Balam, in handcuffs, with a gringo who is not the CIA and—bang! Bang!” He pounded the table and my heart palpitated. “The FBI is looking for him also, verdad? And the
CIA.”

  “But they haven’t found him.”

  He worked his eyebrows. “In this moment, we are helping him still. He is in the capital. He waits.”

  “Waits for what?”

  “He waits for me. To tell him what he will do next. He knows he has made me unhappy, verdad? Now I must begin again. Our operation in California is finished. Almost everyone is dead. The survivors are wounded, deported. Do you know what trouble you and your woman have caused? What trouble Balam has caused? You—I understand. You must fight for your life, and you must fight for your love. But Balam was my apprentice—like a son to me. And this . . .” He wrinkled up his face in disgust. “He has become a liability. And I cannot let the FBI have him alive. And I would prefer the CIA not have him at all. They will kill him, yes, but they will torture him first. He is still my blood. I do not want him to suffer.”

  I had no idea what to say. I just sat there, drinking my Coke like a twelve-year-old boy enduring the ramblings of his grandfather. The Old Man grabbed his cigar from the ashtray and stood up, pushing his chair back and making it squeak on the stone floor. He tapped the tabletop.

  “Bien. It is decided. You will go to Lago de Atitlán, in the highlands. You will wait. It is nice there, you will like it. Find a quiet place and wait. Someone will contact you when Balam will come, and where. Do you have a weapon?”

  I must have flinched. After now, there is nothing. As the Old Man’s portentous now fell across me, my lack of a future like a cold draft, I must have flinched. The Old Man leaned in, his ham-hock fists on the table, eyes boring into mine.

  “What did you think, David? I would leave you alive for no reason? Out of the goodness of my heart?” He smiled, and it reminded me there were crocodiles in this corner of the world. He gestured in the direction the señora had gone. “I might give you to María, let her keep you in the kitchen and feed you to the dogs—little by little. You don’t know her past.” He looked suddenly younger. “Or do it with my bare hands, just to feel the blood in my heart again.” I held his gaze, but it wasn’t easy. “You are alive but for the grace of me,” he said, thumping his chest, “and grace is never free.”