by Chanel Smith
“He must recognize you. Maybe someone with whom you had a conflict?”
“That includes 90% of Colombia and half of the U.S.,” Popeye responded. “What do I do?”
“Try again,” Ellen directed. “Stay confident and commanding and ask him to reveal himself.”
“Oh great,” Popeye muttered. “Piss him off some more.”
“It will be okay,” Ellen said.
“Who are you?” Popeye asked using a more commanding tone than before. “Reveal yourself!”
At Popeye’s second command, the same spectral form that we had seen the night before appeared and charge forward at Popeye.
“Jesus!” Popeye exclaimed as he scrambled backward away from the specter, but refused to turn away. “It’s you!”
“Popeye!” the specter screeched. “Que haces aqui!”
Scrambling backward and stumbling over his feet, Escobar’s former bodyguard fell on his back screaming and holding out his hands in a protective gesture.
The specter laughed hysterically in a high pitched tone and then, just like the night before, zipped away in a flash of light.
I looked at the wide-eyed expression of Ariel, who, though he hadn’t been the target that night, was still pretty shaken by another appearance of the ghost. I moved toward Popeye, who was sitting up, but had his head tucked under his forearms, which were resting on his drawn up knees.
“You alright, Buddy?” I asked.
He shook his head back and forth several times, but did not speak.
“Do you know who it was?” I asked.
Ellen moved up beside me and held a finger to her lips. “Don’t push him,” she whispered. “Give him a few minutes.”
It had been a while since I’d experienced what Popeye had just gone through, so I had lost a great deal of my sensitivity to it. I’d gotten to the point where I was all business and ready to get the case solved. That sort of approach had been a normal part of my earlier career. Though I’d acquire some tact, thanks to Ellen, I still tended to have the interrogator/cop mentality when I was in the zone on a case.
After several minutes, Popeye raised his head from under his arms and looked up at us. “That scared the shit out of me.”
I was tempted to mock him because of his earlier comments, but thought better of it.
“Did you recognize him?” Ellen asked softly.
“I’ll say I did,” he responded with wide eyes. “And he recognized me too. I never expected that from him.”
“Never expect what from who?” I prodded.
“I never expected Juan David to come at me like that.”
Chapter Fifteen
“When you said Juan David...” I started to ask after helping Popeye to his feet and escorting him along the corridor. “Were you referring to Juan David Ochoa, the co-founder of the Medellin cartel?”
“The very same one,” Popeye responded. “I’d recognize him anywhere and anytime.”
“Well, at least we have an identity now, but why did he get so angry?” I pressed. “The temperature dropped to another record when he recognized you.”
“He’s probably upset about some things that I said,” Popeye admitted.
“It must have been some pretty bad things that you said,” Ellen joined in. “His rage went through the roof when he saw you, though I have to admit that the laughter when he departed was a little bit out of tune with the rage.”
“Juanito was always doing crap like that to me, ever since I was a kid and he was a bigger kid,” Popeye responded.
“You were around him when you were a kid?” Ellen asked. “Not just in the cartel?”
“No,” Popeye answered. “All of my life. We are—were—cousins.”
“You said that you didn’t expect him to come at you like that,” I asked. “How come?”
“I guess that when I recognized him and he recognized me that being family would make a difference. You know, ‘put the past in the past’ and that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, well, evidently he still carries a grudge,” I pointed out sarcastically.
“You think?” Popeye responded.
“Why is he angry with you?” Ellen asked. “What did you say?”
“Both brothers, Juan David and Jorge Luis were knee deep in everything that the Medellin cartel carried out. In fact, long before Pablo came along and created the alliance that became the cartel, the Ochoa family had been trafficking narcotics. They were already moving product in the mid-seventies and Escobar didn’t bring them all together until 1981. I came along later than that. Anyway, when, in 1991, they turned themselves in, they only got five years and I got 22. I brought that out several times and even talked about the fact that Jorge Luis was the one who had really founded the narco-terrorism that went along with the cartel operations. He was the one who trained our people in the use of UR-DEDs.” He looked up at Ellen. “That stands for Utility Remote Detonation Device.”
I’d heard similar stories among criminals before. They always believed that they were being punished too much for their crimes and that other people who had committed much worse crimes had gotten off easy. In nearly every case, I’d had little to no sympathy for their complaints, but in the case that Popeye had just presented, the two Ochoa brothers really had gotten off much too easy. Though in my opinion, Popeye’s sentence was about 80 years too short if the punishment was to fit the crime.
“I guess I could have gotten what Pablo got, or Fabio or Don Berna,” Popeye admitted. “I didn’t serve half of what I deserved for all that I did.”
There was a long silence. Neither Ellen nor I wanted to interrupt it. We waited for Popeye to continue.
“I got a chance to set things right again with Jorge Luis, but Juan David had already died before I got out,” he said. “Juan David had a heart attack in 2013 and I didn’t get out until 2014.”
“That doesn’t seem like much to hold a grudge for?” Ellen commented.
“Yeah, well, that wasn’t all that I said,” Popeye replied. “A lot of the other things that I said probably contributed to their little brother Fabio’s conviction and extradition to the U.S.”
“Yeah, that is probably more likely,” I agreed.
“Like I said before, I made things right with Jorge Luis, but never with Juan David.”
Popeye was quiet again for several minutes and then he looked from me to Ellen and back again. “Did all of that really happen? I mean, we talked to my dead cousin, he charged at me and screamed and then went away, right?”
“It happened,” I smiled.
“It’s kind of hard to believe, now that it’s all behind me.”
“They told me that I’d get used to it,” Ariel joined in. He had mostly been forgotten in the moment, but he’d stood by and listened to the conversation. “You don’t get used to it.”
“I’d just as soon not do it enough to get used to it,” Popeye responded.
“I said that the first few times myself,” I grinned.
“By the way, Don Monty,” Ariel continued, “no one on your list was a donor to El Castillo. I meant to tell you that earlier, but we were focused on getting Popeye here and everything else.”
“Can you think of any connection between Juan David and El Castillo?” Ellen asked. “Why would he pick this place to haunt?”
“I can’t think of any connection, but Juan David had a tendency to wander off and do things on his own at times. Don’t get me wrong, he was a team player and he never went against the cartel, but he had other ventures. He was a horse trainer, and a good one, too. It helped him to isolate himself against things a little bit. He had a raging temper and about the only think that helped him get it under control was to go off on his own. We just let him go and never thought anything of it. He might have taken an interest in this place and kept it to himself.”
“If he wasn’t a donor, then what?” I asked.
“It’s anyone’s guess,” Popeye shrugged.
“Well, let’s get out of here,
” Ellen suggested. “Not much point in hanging around now.”
From Popeye, Ellen and I were able to get a better understanding of the history not only of Juan David, but we gained an even greater understanding of the Medellin cartel and its operations.
It was actually Juan David’s brother, Jorge Luis, who got the Ochoa brothers involved in the business. Jorge had gone to the U.S. and happened across someone who was interested in purchasing some product from Colombia. Jorge decided to fill the order. Juan David made a few buys in Bogotá and before he knew it, he and his two brothers were in it in a big way.
Cocoa paste was bought from either Peru or Bolivia, brought into Colombia and processed. From there, it was either shipped by air or in boats to the U.S. The distribution chain in the U.S. was mostly handled by Jorge, since he had the connections, but Fabio got into it later. That, of course, didn’t stop for Fabio, even after the cartel was broken up in 1992.
Sometime in the late seventies, Escobar, who was already a millionaire from other business interests, bought his first cocoa paste in Peru, processed it and turned a significant profit. Like any other businessman, oblivious to the fact that he was dealing in an illegal substance, he began to invest in more cocoa paste, processing locations and equipment, and modes of distribution. In 1981, Escobar approached Juan David who was an acquaintance of Escobar and also living in the Medellin suburb Envigado. With Juan David’s influence, they put together an agreement with several other businessmen who were dealing in the same narcotics trade and the cartel was born.
What set Escobar apart and made him the boss of the cartel was his fearless tenacity and aggressive means of dealing with anyone who got in his way. His plata o plomo policy was an extension of that aggressive attitude and he had the balls to enforce it. Initially, it was Jorge Luis who carried out a lot of the dirty work, especially training Escobar’s security team and introducing the remote detonation devices. Popeye didn’t come on board until 1986 and the cartel was already firmly established.
With the Medellin cartel becoming stronger in both money and influence among politicians, the Cali cartel, to the south, was beginning to feel like it was being pushed out of business. The Cali cartel struck back, which opened up the drug war that would rage throughout Colombia for more than a decade.
Chapter Sixteen
Listening to the gurgling of the stone fountain in the gardens of El Castillo, Ellen and I were stretched out on a blanket, having just enjoyed a picnic lunch provided by El Castillo. With the castle looming behind us, we looked out across the valley that stretched out below us. The city and its neighboring municipalities were spread out throughout the valley and up both sides. In spite of the steep slopes, the Paisa people had established their homes and businesses, carving most of it out of the surrounding mountains.
“I heard someone make the comment on the plane that most of Medellin stood on edge,” I chuckled. “I can certainly see what he meant.”
The pleasant, spring-like breeze that gently brushed Ellen’s hair back from her face was refreshed and I watched her soaking in the sun while lifting her chin slightly to feel the cool wind on her face. “The City of Eternal Spring,” she murmured. “It is almost impossible to believe that this was a place of untold terrors not much more than 20 years ago.”
“The greedy and twisted minds of men have a way of spoiling creation, don’t they?” I observed.
“How does a person take that first step into something like this?” she mused. “One day, you’re a legitimate businessman and then a new opportunity arises, you buy in, remain oblivious to the damage that what you are doing does to other people and then, suddenly, you are a drug kingpin and head of an international cartel that seems to have no problem with taking the lives of whoever gets in your way. I just don’t get it.”
“The mindset, at least from my understanding, is one of pure selfishness. Yeah, your criminal builds alliances that benefit and offer him protection, but, ultimately, he’d eliminate those with whom he is allied if they no longer serve their purpose. They aren’t a great deal unlike politicians, really.”
“Well, now, Monty,” Ellen laughed. “That was quite a jump. I mean, nobody trusts a politician, but criminal? Sure, there have and are a few that deal in questionable ventures, but is that really an accurate comparison?”
“Hear me out on this, Babe,” I replied. “The mindset that I am trying to get to is the one that both politicians and criminals have; have to have. It is, essentially, a type of arrogance that the end justifies the means and ethics be damned.”
“That is a good point,” she agreed. “I guess that sort of answers my earlier question, then. Escobar saw the cocaine trade as a means for accumulating wealth; ethics be damned.”
“Exactly,” I replied. It was interesting to me that the entire focus of the case that we were working on was completely different than the others. Where before, we were dealing, almost entirely in Ellen’s world, our case at El Castillo was much more like my old world. The supernatural and paranormal were present, but the puzzle that needed to be solved wasn’t as much in that realm as it was in our natural one. “Does this case seem strange to you?”
“It’s a little bit different than I’m used to, why?”
“It feels more like a criminal investigation to me,” I replied, voicing my thoughts.
“That could be because we’re dealing with a spirit who was part of a notorious crime syndicate,” she smiled.
“Yeah, but we assumed that from the beginning. We don’t usually do that?”
“I don’t usually get leered at and slapped the first time that I meet a ghost.”
“But we started in this direction because of my preconceived ideas about Medellin. When you mentioned arrogance, anger and violence, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that we were dealing with the cartel.”
“Actually, you didn’t arrive at that conclusion until after we heard him scream ‘plata o plomo,’” she reminded me. “It was good that you went in the direction you did or we’d still be trying to figure this out. Without Popeye, we wouldn’t have a whisper of a chance at figuring this out.”
“We’re a long way from there still,” I commented.
“But we are much, much further along.”
“Thank you for suggesting that I try to get in contact with Popeye,” I said. “I have to admit that I really didn’t think that there was any chance that he would help us out.”
“Chance smiles on those who dare,” she smiled.
Chance did smile on those who dared. What they received was always in proportion to what they dared as well. If one dared to cross the line of ethics and right, eventually, chance would deliver to him the rewards for daring to do so. In the case of the Ochoa brothers, Escobar and Popeye, who had all had a hand in dealing out death and destruction, those rewards had been very unevenly distributed. I understood Popeye’s anger at the injustice of it all, but I had also noted that he had accepted it and put it behind him. Maybe a man really could be reformed. Maybe he could change, if he was motivated to do so.
“What did you make of Popeye?” I asked. “Do you believe that he really did change?”
“I do,” she said. “I’m sensing that your skepticism has been in full force again?”
“It’s a habit that I learned in my last job,” I chuckled. “It’s just hard for me to believe that someone who killed or ordered the killing of so many people could really change. I have to admit that having him around you has been a little unnerving.”
“Let me help out with your skepticism from a spiritual perspective. Though my gift is stronger when dealing in the realm of the paranormal, I can also get a sense of a living person’s aura as well. Popeye is at peace, but he still carries a healthy fear of his past.”
“A healthy fear of his past?”
“He doesn’t want to go back and he is very conscious of it. It’s a poor example, but it is similar to a truly formed alcoholic who has that same fear of taking just one drink.�
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“So, you think he’s changed.”
“In my opinion, that single characteristic in a person is a pretty strong indicator of change.”
Ellen was pretty smart when it came to those sorts of things and I’d learned to trust her opinion when it came to them. She had studied a great deal of psychology, and even trained for a career in clinical psychotherapy, though because of her gift, she never hung out her therapist shingle. It satisfied me somehow, knowing that she didn’t see Popeye as a threat. It was hard not to like the guy; something that surprised me, given my history with criminals. Besides all of that, he’d provided us with a huge break in our case. I started to think about the case again.
“So, boss,” I asked. “What do we do next? We’re running out of time, so we kind of have to get the most bang out of our buck, you know?”
“I was just thinking about that,” she replied. “We’ve got to get to his problem so that we can get it solved. So far, he’s been pretty standoffish about communication, but I think Popeye is a breakthrough, if we can use him properly.”
“You want to bring Popeye back?” I asked, coming to attention. “He didn’t do particularly well at handling things last night. You sure he can do it?”
“He has to,” she replied. “It will not only help break the case, but will be good for Popeye to make peace with Juan David too.”
“This isn’t psychology, Ellen,” I replied.
“Isn’t it?” she countered.
I had no argument.
“What did you have in mind?”
“It’s going to take a lot of mental preparation for Popeye… What is his real name, by the way? Calling him Popeye all of the time doesn’t seem right. That’s like his gangster nickname. We should call him by his given name.”
“His name is Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vasquez,” I replied. “The maternal name, which is the last one, is usually left off, but, in this case, that’s how he is related to the Ochoa brothers. Juan David is Juan David Ochoa Vasquez.”
