Narcos

by Jeff Mariotte

  After following the Mercedes for a couple of miles, Montoya switched on the lights and siren. The vehicles between them and the Mercedes gradually pulled out of the way, and finally the Mercedes slowed and stopped in an open space beside the road. Montoya and Aguilar got out and approached it, one on either side.

  The driver exited the Mercedes before they reached it. He was tall, sturdy, and he led with a prominent, uptilted chin, as if to show that he was afraid of nothing. Montoya was on that side, Aguilar on the other.

  “Have a problem, officers?” the driver said. “Do you know who my passenger is?”

  “We do,” Montoya said. “That’s why we’re here. Why don’t you take a walk?”

  “A walk?” the driver repeated, outrage in his tone. “He’s in my charge! I—”

  Montoya yanked his pistol from its holster and pushed the barrel against that massive chin. “Your choice,” Montoya said. “Take a walk, or your loved ones can pick up pieces of your skull from the gutter.”

  The driver looked like there were many things he wanted to say, but he didn’t dare. Instead he turned quickly and started walking.

  The passenger in the Mercedes watched his driver go, confusion and fear warring on his face. Aguilar pulled open the back door and slid inside.

  “See here!” the old man said. “This is my car! That’s my driver! And—”

  “We know who you are, Judge Molina. Don’t worry, you and your driver won’t be hurt, as long as you cooperate.”

  “Cooperate? You’re wearing a police uniform. Driving a police car! Are you working for the Medellín Cartel?”

  Aguilar had seen the words bandied about in the newspapers, but it was the first time anyone had spoken them to his face. Medellín Cartel. It had a businesslike ring to it, he thought.

  He chose to ignore the question. “You’re overseeing a case against a man named Alejandro Costa. He’s innocent.”

  “Guilty or innocent is not for me to decide,” the judge countered. “It’s for the jury.”

  “Perhaps usually,” Aguilar said. “Not this time.”

  The door on the other side of Judge Molina opened, and Montoya got in. The judge scooted to the center, to avoid touching either of the men. Aguilar could see his driver, almost a block away already and still walking. “We’re not asking, Judge Molina,” Montoya said. “We’re explaining to you how it will be. Must be.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “You see how easily we can get to you,” Aguilar said. “Obviously, we know where you work. We know where you live. We know where your wife Sylvia shops. We know where your daughters go to school. We know where your mistress’s apartment is.”

  “If I were you,” Montoya added, “I wouldn’t refuse.”

  “That would be a very bad idea,” Aguilar said. “And expensive for you.”

  “Expensive?”

  “Making the right decision here could be financially lucrative. Wrong decision, people get hurt. Right one, people get rich. It’s not complicated.”

  “You criminals think you can order decent, law-abiding people around. Well, I won’t stand for it! I…” He let the sentence trail off. Probably, Aguilar thought, he was working through what they’d told him about his private life: his wife and daughters, his mistress. If they knew about those things, then he truly was safe nowhere. He was probably also thinking about the money.

  “Innocent,” Aguilar said again. “The evidence is lacking, the witnesses flawed.”

  “To be honest, the prosecution has done a poor job presenting its case,” Molina said.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Aguilar said. He hadn’t been present for any of the trial, or heard any reports about it. But he wanted to encourage the judge.

  Alejandro Costa was a banker who had conducted several real-estate transactions for Escobar. Officially, the properties were very valuable, having been bought for considerably more than they were worth. Unofficially, much of the purchase price was refunded to Escobar as soon as the deal was completed. Later, the properties would be sold, again for an inflated price, making Escobar’s “profits” clean, legal money. Costa had foolishly confided in a junior member of his banking staff, who had gone straight to the authorities. The prosecutor, a politically ambitious young man from an elite Colombian family, wanted to press for the severest possible penalty, in hopes of persuading Costa to turn on Escobar. So far, he hadn’t, and Aguilar and Montoya had been charged to see that he didn’t.

  “I could probably arrange that verdict,” Molina said.

  “That would be best,” Montoya agreed. “For everybody. Especially for you.”

  “And you should do it quickly,” Aguilar added. Costa was growing more worried by the day. “One week. No more.”

  Molina nodded. They had him. Aguilar and Montoya both got out of the Mercedes at once, almost as if they’d rehearsed it.

  “Wait!” Molina cried. “How do I… how do I get home from here? You’ve sent my driver away!”

  “You don’t know how to drive?” Aguilar asked.

  “No,” Molina said. “I’ve never had to.”

  “I guess it’s time to learn,” Montoya said. He and Aguilar walked back to the Nissan, laughing. The judge exited his back seat on unsteady legs, and climbed awkwardly behind the steering wheel. He was still sitting there, looking forlorn, as they drove away.

  * * *

  “You have any money on you?” Montoya asked. The question seemed to have come out of nowhere. They’d been driving aimlessly ever since the confrontation with Judge Molina.

  “Some.”

  “How much?”

  “Maybe thirty thousand pesos,” Aguilar said. A short time ago, he could only have dreamed of having that much money at any one time. Now it was walking-around money.

  “Good,” Montoya said. He made a right turn, seemingly with a destination in mind for a change. “Let’s go shopping.”

  “Shopping?”

  “Have you ever had enemies, Jose? I mean real enemies, the kind who would kill you or somebody you love, without hesitation.”

  Aguilar didn’t have to think about it for long. “Not really. Fights in school, but nothing serious.”

  “You do now. You might not know them yet, and they might not know you. But the work we’ve been doing… some people will resent it. Dangerous people. How do you keep Luisa safe?”

  “I’ve never had to worry about it,” Aguilar replied. “I have my sidearm. A knife.”

  “A knife?”

  “Swiss Army. It has a blade for everything.”

  “It’s not very good for killing.”

  “I just like to carry a knife.”

  “Why? Do you do a lot of woodcarving? Open wine bottles? What’s it for?”

  Aguilar pondered for a few moments. Montoya was driving into a neighborhood he wasn’t familiar with. The blocks were packed with small houses, their yards thick with flowering trees. “When I was a boy, we couldn’t afford a television. But sometimes my father took me to a friend’s house to watch Tarzan. He grew up in the forest, my father. He always loved Tarzan stories, so when the North American TV show came along, he wanted me to see his hero. I still remember the actor’s name, Ron Ely. He always carried a knife; that was his main weapon. So after that, I always carried a knife, too.”

  “Because of Tarzan,” Montoya said.

  “That’s right. He was my father’s hero, and my father was my hero. It made sense to me then.”

  “Can you use it?”

  “I once killed a rat with it. It was in the house, scaring my mother. I cut its throat before it could bite or scratch me.” He shivered at the memory. “Blood everywhere.”

  “All right, I’m sure we can get you a knife, too. But I want you to have some serious protection. You don’t want anyone to hurt Luisa, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then it’s settled.” Montoya made a final left, and came to a stop in front of a house that looked like all the others in the
area.

  “This doesn’t look like a store,” Aguilar said.

  “Then it’s just what we need. Come on.”

  Montoya led him up to the house’s front door. It was wood, painted bright red, with polished brass hardware. Aguilar noticed that the yard was well kept, the adobe walls clean. Montoya knocked twice, then paused, then twice more.

  A young woman opened the door, beaming a smile at them. She was attractive, Aguilar thought, long-haired and bright-eyed, with a sturdy, muscular body packed into a tank-top and snug blue jeans. She threw her arms around Montoya’s neck. “Alberto!” she cried. “So lovely to see you!”

  “Good to see you, too, Juliana,” he said, returning her embrace. After she released him, he said, “This is my friend Jose. Juliana will be able to provide everything we need.”

  “Can I get you some wine? Or yerba?”

  Yerba mate sounded good to Aguilar; the adrenaline from stopping Molina had passed through his system, leaving him feeling tired, his senses dulled. But Montoya said, “Oh no, we can’t stay long. We just need to pick up a few items.”

  Juliana frowned, but let them inside. The front room looked like one that could be found in almost any house: chairs, a couch, a low table, bookcases. But she led them through that into what looked like a bedroom.

  From the outside.

  Inside, it looked like an armory.

  Gun racks had been mounted on every wall, and they displayed rifles and machine guns of every size and variety. Tables held RPG launchers, pistols, submachine guns, knives, swords, axes, and more. Most of one table was given over to hand grenades and other explosive devices. A bazooka leaned against the wall in one corner. The smell of gun oil was almost overpowering.

  “Look around,” Juliana said. “Let me know if you see anything you like.”

  “I see something I like,” Montoya said, grabbing Juliana’s ass.

  She gave a laughing squeal and spun away from his grasp. “You could have it,” she said. “But I don’t think you can afford it.”

  “Really, Jose’s the one looking. For guns, anyway.”

  “Any special type?” she asked. “I can order others, if there’s something special.”

  “No,” Aguilar said. “I didn’t even know we were coming. Montoya surprised me.”

  “He does that,” Juliana said. “He’s surprised me plenty of times.”

  He studied the walls. He recognized a Remington shotgun, an Uzi, an HK. Others he recognized by type, even if he didn’t know the brands. He wasn’t sure what Montoya thought he would need at home. The bazooka would intimidate attackers, but he didn’t think Luisa would stand for it.

  “Take your time,” Montoya said.

  Aguilar did. He picked up weapons, feeling their heft, holding them to his shoulder and sighting down them. Some felt too heavy, some too light, others unwieldy or too seemingly flimsy.

  Finally, he settled on a MAC-10 machine pistol with a thirty-round magazine. At the last minute, he added a 23.5-centimeter Bowie knife. It was North American-made, a thing of almost indescribable beauty. The top edge of the blade was serrated until the last seven centimeters, when it curved down to a wickedly sharp point. The curved part was honed as sharp as the blade. The upper cross-guard bent forward, toward the point, and the lower bent back to protect the hand. In his fist, it felt like it had been made just for him. It came with a leather sheath that had a snap pocket with a sharpening stone inside. The leather was browned with age, sturdy enough to hold the knife but soft enough to feel like a lover’s caress.

  “And this,” he said, putting it with the MAC-10.

  “He likes knives,” Montoya said. “Because of Tarzan.”

  “He has good taste,” Juliana said. “Just those two, then?”

  “And eight boxes of ammunition for the MAC,” Montoya replied.

  Aguilar blushed. He’d almost forgotten about that. The gun wouldn’t be much good without it. The knife, though—it could hold its own.

  He hated to blush in front of strangers, because his peculiar spotted skin didn’t blush evenly. The white areas, scar tissue from the burn, never turned pink. The fleshy areas did, so it accentuated his disfigurement.

  Juliana gave no sign of noticing. She did math in her head, then named a price. Aguilar looked at Montoya, who nodded. It was well within the thirty thousand he carried, so he counted out the bills and handed them to Juliana.

  When she walked them to the door, she hugged Montoya again. Then, to his surprise, she turned to Aguilar and drew him into a tight embrace. She surprised him further by planting a kiss on his cheek. “Come back any time, Jose,” she said. “I’m always getting in new merchandise.”

  Back in the Nissan, Montoya shot Aguilar a wide grin. “You’re all set now, brother. That knife is better than Tarzan’s.”

  “Thanks for taking me there,” Aguilar said. “She was nice.”

  “Very nice indeed,” Montoya agreed. Then, his face suddenly serious, he added, “Be sure you teach Luisa how to use that.”

  “The MAC?”

  “Yes. You’re not always home, you know. She needs to be able to defend herself.”

  He drove away from Juliana’s. Aguilar was lost in thought, wondering how to explain to Luisa that she needed to learn to handle an automatic weapon. He barely heard Montoya say, “Your life has changed, Aguilar. More than you know. It will be better than you ever imagined. But more dangerous, too. Often, the two go hand in hand.”

  9

  ONE WEEK LATER, Alejandro Costa’s trial was over, and he was a free man.

  That night—really the next morning, after two—Montoya called Aguilar at home. “You have to get dressed and meet me,” he said. “There’s a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  Montoya named a street corner. “Twenty minutes,” he said. “I’ll explain when I see you.”

  Aguilar explained to Luisa, who greeted the news with a pout. “I don’t like this part,” she said.

  “I have to do it. When there’s business, I have to take care of it. You like the money, right?”

  “Not if it takes you out of our bed.” She stood up, put her hands on his shoulders, and tried to pull him back down. Her body was warm and yielding, her hair tousled, her face adorable. “Please, Jose, stay with me.”

  “I can’t, baby. You know that.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I would if I could. I’ll be back soon. You’ll be fine. Just go back to sleep.”

  “I can’t sleep when you have to go out at night. What about that time you were gone for five days? I worry about you.”

  “It won’t be that long, I promise.” He knew, even as he spoke the words, that it was a promise he couldn’t hope to keep. How could he? He had no idea what was going on.

  Over her objections, he dressed, strapped the knife to his ankle, put the MAC-10 in a gym bag, and was out of the apartment in a few minutes. He made it to the intersection before Montoya. There were some shops there with a small parking lot on the side, so he sat in his Patrol and waited. Montoya was five minutes late. When he got out of his vehicle, he was smoking, and he looked bleary-eyed. Drunk, maybe. He had been drinking a lot lately. Sometimes Aguilar joined him.

  “What’s going on?” Aguilar asked. “What’s the big crisis?”

  “He’s been kidnapped,” Montoya said.

  “Who? Kidnapped? What are you talking about?”

  “Costa.”

  “Costa who?” Aguilar asked. Then it dawned on him. “The banker?”

  “His mother called a couple of hours ago. After he got out of court, he went to the apartment his parents are staying in since they sold their house. A little while later, some men came to the door. They shot her husband, knocked her around, and took Costa.”

  “What are we supposed to do about it? You didn’t tell me to put on my uniform.”

  “It’s not a police matter,” Montoya snapped. “We’re going to get him back.”
/>   “How?”

  “Don Pablo has eyes everywhere. We know who took him, and where they have him. We just need some men.”

  “Us?”

  “And others. They’ll be here soon, and we’ll all go together.”

  “Who kidnapped him?”

  “Some guys who work for a man named Carlos Rodrigo Muñoz. He wants to cut into Escobar’s business. He wants to know what Costa knows about it. We have to get Costa back before he talks.”

  “Or kill him?” Aguilar asked.

  “What?”

  “Get him back, or kill him before he talks. That’s what you mean, right?”

  “Listen, man, I don’t give the orders. I follow them.”

  “That’s always the excuse, isn’t it?”

  Montoya shrugged. “Look, if you don’t want to be a part of this, you don’t have to. You can always walk away. I’m not sure how Don Pablo would react, but it’s your decision.”

  Aguilar thought he knew how Escobar would react. He would consider it treason. That, Aguilar had realized, was the real cost of taking Escobar’s money. Once you were on the inside, indebted to El Patrón, you had to stay inside. To do otherwise was to put your life in danger, as well as the lives of everyone you cared about.

  Anyway, he had been raised in poverty. Indebtedness was all he knew. At least this way, he had something to show for it.

  “I didn’t say I wanted out,” he said. “I just want us to be clear about what it is we’re doing.”

  “I think we’re clear,” Montoya said.

  They waited in Montoya’s SUV until the others arrived. They came in six vehicles. Aguilar recognized Poison, Blackie, Trigger, Pancho, Shorty, and Snake-eyes, sicarios he had already met. The other men were strangers. Most were young, in their teens or barely out of them. They looked like street kids who’d come into some money and spent it on gaudy clothes and stylish haircuts, but didn’t know what else to do with it.