“Finally, the day came when another recruit and I were ordered to deliver a shipment of drugs to a rival gang and return with payment. We met the rival boss’s son and two henchmen at a remote desert location. I knew that doing business with rival gangs would never be easy. So it was no surprise when the son started threatening us. ‘Tell your boss that his last batch of drugs was shit. And if he sells me shit, he ain’t gonna be paid shit. I know you motherfuckers are schoolboys, so give me the shipment and tell your boss that he’ll be paid after we test it. Not before.’ I saw the henchmen slide their hands inside their jackets. I sensed that the son was going to take advantage of us newbies and try to impress his father by returning with both the drugs and the money. There would never be any payment. The stomach of my partner was growling so loudly that he was obviously shaking with fear and on the verge of shitting his pants.
“What do I do now? I knew that if we returned without the drugs and the money both my life and my career would be over. I also remembered a lesson taught to me by Tio Julio. ‘To make it in this business you have to command respect. And to command respect, others have to know that you are willing to kill when necessary.’
“My partner and I looked at each other and I shrugged. The son, with a smirk on his face, directed his men to fetch the drugs from our vehicle. As they started to walk toward us I noticed one drop an empty hand from his jacket. At that instant, I quickly pulled my gun and shot them both through the forehead—first the one still holding his gun and then the second one as he reached for his gun. As their bodies fell, I trained my pistol on the son, whose smirk had been replaced by a look of shock and fear. ‘We came here to do business and that is what we’ll do,’ I told him. I then ordered my partner to put the drugs in the son’s car and take the cash. While he shuffled back to our car with the money bag, I frisked and disarmed the boss’s son. ‘Tell Papa that it’s always a pleasure to do business with him.’ With that, we drove off, leaving the son standing alone with two corpses.”
I find myself staring. “Honor among thieves?”
Culebra raises his shoulders. “Have you heard enough?”
“No. I want to hear it all.” I just need another drink. I take the bottle back from Max, who had just refilled his own glass, and top mine off. “Go on.”
“News of the drug transaction quickly spread through the organization. The boss realized that he had a talented recruit and complemented Julio, telling him he trained his new student well. He doubled my salary and made me a captain. ‘Captain Badass’ I called myself.”
Max chuckles. I shake my head. Culebra continues.
“Over time, I proved my worth. I came to command the respect that Julio told me was so important in the business. I earned good money. I was able to afford a nice house and car and had found success beyond my father’s dreams. I could now afford to support a family and decided it was time to marry. I found a young woman with pleasant looks, but not a great beauty. I prized loyalty and childbearing ability above a pretty face. In time we had two children, a boy and girl and, to my surprise, I became a devoted father. My wife never knew about my shape-shifting ability and I hoped that I didn’t pass this trait to my offspring. I wanted them to live normal lives, attend good schools and be socially accepted, not be outcasts as I had been.
“But I wanted more. I wanted to move up the ladder. To become a man of importance, one to be reckoned with, one who would be accepted in social circles I never could have entered before. I read avidly to gain more knowledge about the world. This made me somewhat of a black sheep among my compatriots, but I knew they were losers. I had bigger plans than the next score. I also knew book learning wasn’t enough. It took money—big money—and with no formal education or skills beyond drug running, what could I do to earn more and become more?
“I asked Julio what prospects I had. Julio gave me a stern look: ‘If you want to make more money, you will have to do what few are capable of and what few can live with—you will have to become an assassin. You will be paid handsomely to kill targets on command from the boss, but you will have to learn to live with the knowledge that you kill others for a living. These targets are not scumbags who threaten your life during a drug deal. You sometimes have to kill scumbags because they threaten to kill you. You justify it as an act of self-defense. But an assassin kills victims that the boss wants eliminated because they interfere with business. You don’t know them and they don’t know you. This is not killing in self-defense. This is deliberate stalking and murder for money—big money. Don’t overestimate your ability to sleep well. You will struggle with your conscience. This is not a profession that you can walk away from if you decide you’ve had enough. You know too much. Assassins who try to retire don’t live too long. As far as a boss is concerned, dead is dead and dead men don’t talk.’
“Julio went on, ‘I have seen you work. You have the skills and temperament to be a professional killer. But you now have a family and you are a devoted father. Do you really think you could do this? Take my advice. Be satisfied with your present position. You are a captain. You make a good living. Be content with what you have. Don’t be like Icarus and reach for the sun.’
“I respected Julio and I considered his advice, but the success I’d achieved made me arrogant. I thought I could handle anything. Money would buy me respect and the social position I craved. So what if I killed a few people? They probably deserved it anyway. If they interfered with the business of a gang boss, they were likely guilty of crimes themselves but were too well connected to be charged with anything. Hell, I was doing society a favor by eliminating them.”
“Nice rationalization.”
Culebra releases a breath. “You wanted to know.”
I nod. “So you started your life as an assassin. How does one do that, exactly?”
“The boss sent me to a school in the Dominican Republic.”
I choke on a mouthful of whiskey. “There’s a school for assassins?”
Culebra smiles grimly. “A training camp established during the Trujillo regime ostensibly for ‘advanced military training.’ Bullshit. It was a school for assassins. Dictators and gang bosses need such services. They don’t negotiate with the opposition, they eliminate the opposition. Service rendered, problem solved, hands clean.” He brushes his hands together as if brushing away dirt.
“I learned to use explosives and poison and kill silently at close range. I learned how to stalk my victims and how to judge the best time to strike. Then it was time to go home and put my education to use.
“At first, my targets were corrupt, politically connected types who tried to extort more money from the boss. One worked for the treasury and ran a money laundry on the side. His fee for service was always rising. If the boss suggested taking his business elsewhere, the finance guy would hint that he had friends in high places and that they would be interested to know what the boss was up to. The fool never realized that his threats made him a target. I remember him because I used Julio’s favorite technique to do the job. He lived on a crowded street, so the kill had to be silent. I entered his home when I knew he was alone and snuck up behind him when he was standing at the refrigerator. I grabbed him by the forehead and shoved an ice pick into the back of his skull. He fell to his knees while I rocked it back and forth to mince the brain tissue.” Culebra claps his hands and holds them palms up. “Tio Julio was right—no muss, no fuss.”
Culebra is watching my face. Gauging my reaction. When I don’t react, he continues.
“Jobs were not so frequent as they are now so I had more time to spend at home. I found that I enjoyed watching my children grow. I got to know my wife more intimately and even helped her plant a garden. The money was great. I bought a bigger house for my family and a nicer car for myself. We lived in a fancier neighborhood among a better class of people. My children attended a private school and my wife wore finer clothes. Life was good. Little did I realize what a charade this was. Devoted family man by day and killer by n
ight. It couldn’t last. And it didn’t.
“The end came when the boss’s son fell for a pretty, young woman from a notable family. She refused his advances and bruised his ego. The son became depressed when he learned that she had accepted a marriage proposal from another young man, a judge’s son. The boss was angry that his son ‘wasn’t good enough for this bitch.’ So he decided to show what happens when people disrespect him or his family. He gave me the job to ensure that the young woman would never reach the altar on her wedding day. She had to die on her way to the church.
“When I got the order I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. There was no way I could kill an innocent young woman on her wedding day. I would spend the rest of my life seeing her face in my daughter’s eyes. The boss wanted me to plant a bomb under the car her family would use to drive to the ceremony and detonate it by remote control when they approached the church. But I couldn’t go through with it and didn’t. The marriage ceremony went off without a hitch. I knew the boss would come after me for failing to carry out an order, but I would deal with that. Strangely, I never thought that my family would be involved. After all, this was a business matter and they were civilians. How wrong I was.”
CHAPTER 3
CULEBRA’S EXPRESSION GROWS DARK, AS IF HE’S now speaking of things that fill him with more than pain and guilt. Remorse is there, too.
My own emotions are conflicted. His story is not a new one. It’s the story of every gangster who thinks himself above the law. But this is Culebra. My friend. Reconciling the man I know now with the man he describes has my head spinning.
I feel his eyes on me.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“I want you to tell me what happened to your family,” I reply softly. “How you could have thought for a moment that your family would be spared and only you would have suffered the consequences of disobeying your boss? Your job was getting rid of those who did just that. How could you not have known better?”
“I was arrogant,” he snaps back, not defensively, but with anger obviously turned back on himself. “Stupid. I believed I was so goddamned important that the boss would see how valuable an asset I was. I’d hide out. Buy time to let him cool off. So I dropped out of sight and made no effort to contact my wife or go near the house. After a few days, I snuck into the house after midnight, making sure I hadn’t been followed. I planned to gather up my wife and kids and take them to a safe place until I could arrange to make things right with the boss. How I would explain all of this to my family never entered my mind. My first thought was to get us to safety. But when I passed through the front door, the smell of blood filled my nostrils. There was blood on the carpet in the children’s room and on the walls of my bedroom. There were no bodies. But I knew what had happened. The scene in that house has never left my mind.”
Culebra’s breath catches again. He composes himself quickly. “I was filled with an intense rage that I had never felt before. I didn’t care what happened to me. If that motherfucker could kill my family for disobeying one order after all the years I was faithful to him, I was going to exact vengeance on him, his worthless son, and anyone else who got in my way. I was going to descend on his house like the angel of death. My first order of business was to drive out to a hideaway in a remote part of the desert where I stored my cache of guns, explosives and equipment. I would be armed to the teeth when I paid the boss a visit.
“I drove out to my desert ordnance dump. But I was angry—and careless. I didn’t notice the black Escalade in my rearview mirror until it was too late. I recognized the boss’s men almost immediately. They may have been waiting for me somewhere near my house. Letting me go inside and see what they had done. To realize what my disobedience had cost. Now it was my turn to experience the boss’s revenge. I stepped on the gas to speed away, but just then the gunfire started. It ripped through my rear window and knocked out my front windshield. One of the bullets grazed my head.” His hand goes to his forehead and he rubs at his temples reflexively. “There was so much blood.
“I lost control of my car and it tumbled into a ravine. I was thrown from the vehicle and landed in a gully while the car continued to tumble on over a patch of rocks. The rocks punctured the fuel tank and created sparks and the vehicle exploded into a fireball. I heard the Escalade stop on the road above. The men got out to watch the fireworks. My body must have been hidden from view in the gully because they didn’t come searching for me. They assumed that I died in the explosion and after a few minutes, they returned to the Escalade, turned around and drove off.
“When I felt it was clear, I crawled out of the gully and onto the roadbed. I stood up and staggered, light-headed from the loss of blood. Besides the head wound, I had been shot in each arm, bruised and cut from being thrown around in the car. I was probably about twenty miles from Ciudad Juárez, in the middle of the desert, with no car and no water. The only thing I could do was start walking north toward the border. I took off my undershirt, tore it into strips to make bandages. I wrapped one strip around my head to try and stop or at least slow the bleeding and others to fashion tourniquets for my arms. I started walking. After some time, I don’t know how long, I passed out. The next thing I knew I was lying in a bed in an El Paso hospital surrounded by DEA agents.”
He looks up at Max.
Max had just raised his glass to his lips. Whatever he sees in Culebra’s eyes makes him lower the glass. He takes up the story.
“We were on a routine border patrol when we found Culebra. We thought he was an illegal who had been attacked by coyotes. He’d almost made it to the border. It was a miracle he made it at all. The gunshot wasn’t serious, but he was dehydrated and exhausted. He’d lost a lot of blood.”
Max watches Culebra as he tells the story. Culebra, for his part, keeps his head down, his eyes on the glass clasped between his hands.
“He was near death for three weeks. We found papers on him—Mexican and American passports in different names. One we recognized. The name connecting him to the Sinaloa Cartel. As soon as he was well enough, we moved him to a safe house for questioning.” A cold smile. “He was a tough nut to crack. Wouldn’t tell us what happened. Wouldn’t name his shooter.”
“So how did you convince him to talk?”
“We found the bodies of his family. Buried in a shallow grave not far from where we found him. It was a fluke. We’d gotten a tip about the location of a cartel body dump. His family happened to be among the dead we were able to identify. Ballistics matched the bullet that we took from him to the ones that killed his family. Seeing their bodies, knowing they were killed by his own people reminded him of what he wanted most. Revenge.
“Culebra has been of great help to us. We captured Gallardo with information he supplied. We’ve taken a lot of drugs off the street and closed some major supply routes. He’s more than made up for what he was.”
“But the drugs keep flowing and the gangs get stronger.” I don’t realize how angry and disappointed I’d become until that anger turns my blood to fire. I round on Culebra. “Do you really think you can ever make up for what you were? A killer. An assassin for a drug dealer. Do you know how many deaths you are responsible for? Thousands. On both sides of the border. Your family—” The words spill out, forced from a roiling gut. “I don’t understand how you could have allowed yourself to be involved in such a thing. You risked your life not long ago to save a young girl—a stranger—from Belinda Burke. That’s the Culebra I know. The one you are describing now is someone I don’t recognize.”
Culebra makes no attempt to explain or excuse. Anger overcomes disappointment. Bile burns the back of my throat. His silence lights the fuse and trips an explosion of invective.
“Of all the people I’ve come to depend on in my life, I thought you were the purest of heart. You came here and offered refuge to worldly and otherworldly creatures seeking safe haven. You are a protector. Never would I have suspected you capable of being a cold-blooded kil
ler.”
Max breaks in. “This place was Culebra’s idea. You know the good he does. He still helps us when he can, but basically he is left alone to help whoever—or whatever—he chooses.”
The last is said with an inflection as sharp as a pointed stake. He’s not looking at me. Learning I was vampire was what broke us up. I thought we had gotten past that. Especially since he came to me not long ago for help with a rogue vampire. A rogue I took care of. Maybe the booze is stirring up feelings of betrayal in him the way Culebra’s story is stirring up feelings of betrayal in me. Irrational maybe, but real just the same.
In a muddle of alcohol-fueled emotion, I’d not shielded my thoughts. Culebra’s intrusion into my head is as soft as a whisper. I can’t undo what I was, what I did.
The weight of his sadness and regret is heavy. I know the toll past mistakes can exact. I’ve also seen firsthand the misery narcos inflict. Max and I have both been victims.
I push the chair away. It’s better I go before I say or think something that might irreparably harm my relationship with Culebra. Neither man says anything when I stand up.
As I leave, I see the shadow of shame in Culebra’s eyes.
It’s not enough.
CHAPTER 4
THE SUN COMING THROUGH THE GLASS DOOR AND right into my eyes is a painful wake-up call. I have to force myself to sit up, blocking the sun with a hand. It’s Christmas Day. My pounding head reminds me of last night. Bits of Culebra’s story insinuate themselves into my consciousness, stinging like wasp bites. Then there’s the aftertaste of all that whiskey. My throat burns. My tongue feels like I’ve been licking the insides of those oak barrels the stuff was aged in. I roll my head in my hands and groan.
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