Necropolis

by Santiago Gamboa

  He read the report several times in quick succession, one after the other, and one word surged up inside him: Revenge . . . Revenge!

  Religion says that we should forgive, but Ramón was not ready for that. Let the bastards beg for forgiveness! If they come to me humbly I may forgive them, but first I want my revenge. He was overcome with rage and something unexpected: a strange happiness within the rage, a dizziness that gave him a tingling in his fingers. In losing his illusions, he had become free. He drank the rest of the bottle and wept, of course, but also felt a kind of pleasure in imagining how it would be when he had taken his revenge. He did not feel up to looking at the photographs yet. He would leave them for later.

  The next day he wrote to the detective:

  Excellent work. Now I need you to find out a few more little things. Firstly, what is a paramilitary known as Dagoberto doing now, tell me if he is still operating in the area or if he is cooperating with the authorities. Tell me when you think you will be able to give me that information and how much it will cost. I will send you the money wherever you tell me to, without asking questions. Secondly, I need to know what connection there was between Jacinto Gómez and that Dagoberto and when it started. Thirdly, I want to know if Soraya Mora was already involved with Jacinto before his divorce, and when that started too. I need dates. I want you to find out how long Soraya had known Dagoberto and why she did what she did and in return for what. Fourthly, find out what happened to that ex-partner, Ramón Melo García, if it is known where he is, and since when Jacinto has been a partner in those repair shops.

  The next day the detective replied:

  Oh, my friend, what you are asking me is definitely going to cost a bit more, especially as asking questions about the paras in this region is more dangerous than shaving your testicles with a knife when you’re drunk, ha ha, sorry, I joke about everything. This is embarrassing, but I need to ask you for three million pesos, friend’s rate, of course. Send it to me by Western Union, made out to the Agency, and addressed to our office in the central market in Villavicencio. As soon as I receive the money, I’ll get down to work, boss, over and out, and one last thing, I know this is all very hush-hush, so I want to assure you, now that I’m on the case, you can trust me absolutely. Best wishes, XY.

  He sent the money from a numbered account and waited, more taciturn than ever before, brooding on his plans, completely given over to his one obsession: revenge, revenge. He was gradually putting it together, one element at a time, like a bird building a nest branch by branch with its beak, confined to his apartment and his office, supervising his workers almost without speaking to them, without calling Daisy at all, given over body and soul to the task of hating, feeling anger, knowing that very soon he was going to feel that thunderclap that meant his revenge was complete.

  Until he read the next report:

  What I am able to tell you is that Dagoberto gave himself up to the authorities seven months ago as part of the new government accords; they have in him in custody in the prison of Cómbita, Boyacá. He admitted to six murders in La Cascada, Puerto Lleras, and Lejanías, which weren’t massacres, but said, in order to avoid being put on the list for extradition, that neither he nor his group had ever been involved in drug trafficking. Of course, there are witnesses in the town who say that the man was indeed a trafficker and was smuggling cocaine to Venezuela; that there are a number of mass graves filled with his victims and that he’s a major criminal. He’s represented by a very good lawyer here in Villavicencio who is advising him to stay and do his time in Colombia. They’re plea bargaining for a lenient sentence, six years maximum, which means he’ll be able to keep the business going through front men while he’s inside and reestablish himself in no time at all when he gets out.

  Jacinto met Dagoberto through Soraya Mora’s brother Hernán Mora. It’s important to note that Jacinto was already having an affair with Soraya while married to his former wife, Araceli, and that was how he got to know Hernán Mora. Her boyfriend, Ramón Melo García, was a good friend of Jacinto’s, and the rumor in town is that the FARC took him away to protect him, because he was a Communist, but as he was also a small businessman and owned auto repair shops in La Cascada they ended up extorting money from him and then killing him. Jacinto was a good friend of the family and took over the shops, but then Ramón Melo García’s mother died, so that Jacinto was left with everything, in partnership with Arnulfo, Ramón Melo García’s chief mechanic. That’s the official version, boss, but as I’m good at my job I dug a bit deeper to find what really happened, and it’s this: Jacinto was giving it to Soraya Mora every time Ramón Melo went off to Villavicencio to buy equipment for his shops, and through that relationship he became friends with Hernán Mora, who had just come back from Medellín and had contacts with the paras. As soon as he got back to La Cascada, Hernán Mora starting working for Dagoberto, and one fine day, after both of them had been drinking aguardiente, Jacinto told Hernán he loved his sister Soraya and the one thing stopping them becoming brothers-in-law was that Communist Ramón Melo García, who had been a Communist since he was small because his dad had fought with the guerrillas in the Plains, and so Hernán Mora said, don’t worry, I’ll talk to my sister and then we’ll ask Dagoberto to get that Communist bastard off our backs, Jacinto, I’ll take care of everything, the bastard deserves what’s coming to him.

  Jacinto talked with Arnulfo, the man who managed Ramón Melo’s shops, and asked him to let him know about Ramón Melo’s calls and movements, and told him that if he didn’t they might kill him too, because his boss was a Communist and hated Colombia and our president and that was why they were keeping an eye on the people he worked with. Arnulfo Solano let himself be won over, partly out of fear, and partly because if he did what they asked him they told him they would make him a partner in the shops. He said yes without thinking twice.

  With Soraya Mora, from what I’ve been able to establish, things were more difficult, because she was in love with Ramón Melo and they had to work on her a bit more. Obviously she was also in love with Jacinto and that was why she let him have sex with her, but although I’m not a student of character or anything, I do think women feel attracted to their boyfriends’ friends, and so the woman ended up sharing herself between the two of them at the same time, although she was officialy involved with Ramón Melo García. Hernán Mora won her over by telling her that Ramón was a member of the FARC, but they themselves were patriots so it was better if she forgot him. It took him a week to win her over.

  Ramón was reading and weeping at the same time. They had all betrayed him. Not just one of them, all of them. His head was seething. He took a bottle of rum and went out onto the balcony of his apartment and looked at the lights of the bay and racked his brain for memories. He remembered one time when he had asked Soraya to come with him to Villavicencio, and she had said, no, Ramón, it’s better if I stay here and chat for a while with a friend on Facebook and then I’ll go to see my mother, it’s better if you go alone and come back quickly. He had given her a goodbye kiss–she was still wearing the uniform from La Maporita–and he had set off, listening to songs by Carlos Vives; he imagined her fucking Jacinto, an hour later, as he was driving along the highway. He heard the voice of the man known as Dagoberto saying to him, someone else is banging her, Ramoncho, they all like a bit of cock, what can we do?

  His revenge should not be ordinary. No bullets in the back of the neck, no throwing bodies off a cliff. He would do things properly. He would not get his hands dirty: they were not worth it. He would lift the curtain and make the whole horrible affair visible to everyone. That was what he had to do. First he would deal with Dagoberto, then with Jacinto and Soraya, and finally with Arnulfo, his rat of an assistant, who was now part owner of his auto repair shop.

  He wrote to the detective as follows:

  Things are getting more and more complicated, but your fees will rise in proportion. This time you will need to hire people you trust. I want you to
locate a farmhouse belonging to Dagoberto, an old house about four hours’ drive from La Cascada and another four hours from Puerto Lleras. They killed people in that house. I don’t know what it looks like from the outside, but it has a cellar with a number of rooms and stone walls, and a kind of kitchen with big concrete and tile counters where they tortured and killed people and cut up the bodies. If you find that farm for me, take some photographs of it, send them to me and I’ll recognize the place, your payment will go up to 10,000,000 pesos, how does that grab you? I also need you to find a connection between Jacinto and Dagoberto, a photocopy of a check, a signature, anything that shows that they were together, that they had a common interest, that they were protecting each other.

  Three weeks passed before the detective sent his next message, which said:

  Well, friend, let me tell you I have really good news. Brace yourself, because it really is good. It’s better than good, it’s brilliant. Get a grip on yourself before you download the photographs I’m sending you, because they show Dagoberto’s house, the one where people were killed. Don’t just take my word for it, have a look. It’s near Lejanías in a village called Palestina. It’s abandoned now, or rather, with a peasant looking after it with orders not to let anyone in, only this guy is hungrier than a piranha in a glass of water and doesn’t give a damn about orders. As soon as my colleague gave him a whiff of a fifty thousand peso bill, he opened his legs, or rather, he opened the doors wide and said, I’ll give you half an hour, I’m not responsible for what you find inside, I don’t know anything and I never saw anything. My colleague took some really artistic photographs. There’s a cellar just as you described it, with bloodstains. Take a good look at photograph number three. But the best of all is in another of the rooms: some metal trays and some drawers full of chemicals, enough to make a mountain of cocaine, how does that grab you? And there’s more, boss, pure gold: my colleague found a drawer with a padlock on it. He opened it and, to his surprise, there was a small laptop inside, clearly those guys hotfooted it out of there very quickly, or maybe just took the bigger things, in any case I have the machine here and on it there are names and photographs and everything, really sweet. My partner, who always has his eyes open for his big chance, says we could sell it for fifty million, but I told him that as you’re a friend we should let you have it for twenty million, because all the information you’re looking for is in it, and don’t faint dead away when you hear this: there are even photographs of Señor Jacinto and Señora Soraya actually in the act, a real delight, I can tell you. Those guys must be really depraved, to go around taking photographs like that and then keeping them, or maybe they were taken with a hidden camera. Well, friend, I await your reply, because what my partner wants to do is sell the computer to Dagoberto, but I keep telling him no, that’s not the way to proceed, which is why the best thing to do is for you to answer me quickly and leave the matter settled, and for my partner, who’s really short of money and whose daughter is getting married, to stop getting ideas like that.

  Ramón read and reread the message. Then he decided to look at the photographs, and recognized the corridor and the narrow walls. It was the house, there was no doubt about it. The detective was really good, how had he managed it? had he bribed a former paramilitary? It was possible. Seeing those images, he remembered Father Cubillos and the confidence with which he had said to him, “we’re both going to get out of here, it’s God’s will,” and in fact they had both gotten out. There was no more room for doubt. He had to buy that computer because in it lay his revenge, which would now have to include them all. Maybe Father Cubillos was still helping him from on high. Only when it was over would he be able to feel clean and dignified again.

  My friend, I congratulate you. You are one of the most professional people I have ever met, and I mean that. The photographs are good, that is the place. I really can’t imagine what you did to find it, but it’s better if you don’t tell me. There are things it’s better not to know. Now, let’s talk about money. I’ll give you the twenty million you’re asking, and five more if you let me have a signed paper assuring me that you did not make any copies of the material you’re handing over to me and that you will not be using any of it in the future. If you send me that, I’ll immediately send the twenty-five million, and I’ll send somebody to pick up the computer, placed carefully in a case and locked. But let’s take things one at a time.

  Less than two hours later the detective’s answer arrived.

  Ah, my friend, I already knew the name Poor Friend was a metaphor, and that you were a gentleman. Well, everything is confirmed, boss. You can send me the money and I will hand over the things. How could you even think I’d keep hold of any of it? And I’m sending you the paper you ask for, scanned, so that you can be reassured, my friend, and I’m already starting to feel sad that when our contract comes to an end so will our friendship, because I don’t mind telling you I’ve really gotten to like you.

  That same night he called Daisy and said, well now, sweetheart, how would you like to go back to Colombia? Sure, darling, just tell me when. First thing tomorrow, to make sure everything’s fine, I’ll send for you now and we’ll leave together. Oh, that’s really wonderful, and are we going somewhere hot or somewhere cold? The same place as last time, you told me you liked it.

  The next day, after transferring the detective’s money, they took the first plane and by noon they were once again at the Hotel del Llano in Villavicencio. Ramón told Daisy: now then, darling, I need you to do me a favor. I’m going to dial a number, I want you to say you’re calling on behalf of Poor Friend and you want them to hand over the package, which they should leave, addressed to Daisy, at the reception desk in the Hotel del Llano, O.K.? O.K., darling, as long as you swear to me it isn’t dangerous. I swear, and anyway we’re going to Bogotá today and after that if you like I’ll send you to Medellín, at my expense, for a few days, O.K.? Now then, dial the number, and say it’s from Poor Friend.

  Ramón dialed the detective’s number and Daisy said exactly what he had told her to say. She asked the detective to bring the package in a case to the hotel before three that afternoon. The detective said O.K. and they hung up. Ramón started pacing the room nervously. Daisy called reception and said that someone was going to bring a case in her name, and would they please let her know, and they sat down and waited. Ramón hired a taxi and asked the driver to wait outside. At 2:40 the telephone rang. The package was downstairs. Ramón went down to the street, got in the taxi and made sure that there was nobody or nothing unusual. Daisy came down a few minutes later, picked up the package and walked out of the hotel. She joined Ramón in the taxi and they set off for the airport. That evening they were in Bogotá, at the Hotel Suites Jones in Chapinero Alto.

  Daisy said: as you can see, darling, I make a good trafficker. That isn’t what this is, sweetheart, I already told you a dozen times. Oh really? why all the mystery, then? Because it’s something important. Remember what I said, no questions, now do you want to go to Medellín? Daisy said of course and the next day, very early, Ramón sent her by taxi to catch the shuttle with a ticket and two million pesos in cash.

  As soon as Daisy had left, Ramón went downstairs, paid the bill, and changed hotels. This time he went to the Bogotá Plaza, on Calle Cien, near the freeway. As soon as he had settled in, he sat down and switched on the computer. It was only then that it occurred to him that he should have checked everything in Villavicencio. He had been concentrating so much on his security measures that he had forgotten the most important thing, but anyway, he would soon see. Once he had switched on, he had direct access to all the files, but there were others that were encrypted. He looked at the photographs and saw things that filled him with horror: Soraya naked, with Jacinto taking her from behind, Soraya giving Jacinto a blowjob, Jacinto sticking his finger into her anus, who had taken these photographs? He saw that they were all from the same angle and he assumed there must have been a camera hidden in the room, maybe the
paras used the photographs for blackmail. In the other files, there were hundreds of photographs of other naked people, even others of Jacinto with a woman who was a friend of Soraya’s and worked in the same internet café, clearly he had been screwing both of them.

  He kept looking at the photographs, his heart on the verge of breaking, and then opened another file that really knocked him sideways: Soraya and himself, naked in the motel, ten, twenty, thirty photographs, all from the same angle. He huddled on the floor, in a fetal position, and wept bitterly. He did not want to see any more and shut down the computer. He took a quarter bottle of aguardiente from the minibar and started drinking slowly. Outside, night was falling but he did not feel any desire to go out. He was alone and felt like shit, with a hatred in him that kept him awake, like a glass of cold water thrown in his face. He called room service, ordered a chicken sandwich and a Diet Coke, and waited, sitting on the floor. Then he got in the bathtub and filled it with hot water. The sandwich was good. They had all deceived him and now the Grim Reaper was coming for them. The next day he would think about what to do and see what else was on that damn laptop.

  He spent two days looking at files and found many things that filled him with ideas. There were Excel pages containing details of drug consignments, drugs, prices, weights, and routes, the dates were recent, after Dagoberto had supposedly volunteered for the demobilization process. There were photographs of a grave with nine bodies, with faces taken from close up so that they could be recognized, and other photographs showing corpses being cut up to make them unrecognizable.