Narcos

by Jeff Mariotte

  “And also,” Escobar added, “Rodrigo had to pay. I hope he suffered.”

  “I think he was still alive, Don Pablo,” Montoya said, “when I started to cut.”

  Escobar grinned. “Too bad you didn’t get pictures of that.”

  * * *

  After receiving their reward—each got a third of the three hundred thousand pesos, and Escobar kept his own third—Aguilar and Montoya were invited out to party with some of Escobar’s men. They drove in a convoy back to Medellín and hit the clubs, drinking and smoking pot and dancing with the local girls for most of the night. Finally, with the sun just breaking the horizon, Aguilar dragged himself home. He was almost afraid to walk in the door, and did so sheepishly, half-hoping Luisa would be sound asleep.

  She wasn’t.

  She sat at the kitchen table, with a mug steaming in front of her. She wore a bathrobe over fuzzy cotton pajamas with rabbits on them. Her hair was down and her jaw was set, thrust slightly forward, and her expression bordered on ferocious. “Good morning,” she said without a trace of warmth.

  “Hi, baby.”

  “How long have you been back in Medellín?”

  He hesitated, trying to figure out how to answer the question while causing the least amount of damage, and also because the floor seemed to be moving underneath him. He held onto the arched opening between the kitchen and dining room and waited for it to pass. “We got back from Cartagena yesterday, but had to drop something off at Hacienda Nápoles. Then some of the guys wanted us to go out with them.”

  “I was at the window for a while, when you drove up. I was so excited to see you, but you drove like a crazy person, and when you parked I was afraid you were going to hit the building. Then you sat there for so long I got bored and made some tea.”

  “I kind of fell asleep for a few minutes, I guess.”

  “More like twenty or thirty. You smell like a liquor store after an earthquake. There’s lipstick on your shirt collar and glitter in your hair.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. The guys wanted to go to these clubs. I drank and I danced with some girls, but that’s all, I swear.”

  “You danced.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the lipstick?”

  “I guess somebody must have put her head on my shoulder. When we were dancing.”

  “I guess. Jose, I need to be able to trust you. Our baby needs a good father. But this…” She blinked back tears, and Aguilar felt like something people would scrape off their shoes.

  “Baby, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to go out, but Alberto did, and everybody insisted. I didn’t really know what they meant when they said they wanted to party. Some of the guys got with girls, but I didn’t, except for a few dances. I swear. I would never be unfaithful to you. I love you too much.”

  “You have a funny way of showing it,” she said. “You’ve been away for days. I thought you would want to hurry home.”

  “I did want to. But the guys—they’re not the kind of people you can say no to, you know?”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t be hanging around them.”

  That reminded him of the bag of cash he had in the car. At least, he hoped it was in the car. He was pretty sure it was. “Luisa, I know it’s awful, but I’m just doing what I have to for our futures. For you and our baby. We need to start looking for a house to buy this week—I don’t want our son to grow up in this apartment.”

  “Or our daughter, you mean. Anyway, we can’t buy a house yet,” she said.

  “We can! Baby, I have money—it’s in the car; I forgot to bring it in, but I’ll go get it. We have more than enough to start paying for a house. I’ve made so much in the last couple of weeks. You can quit your job, like we’ve been talking about, and just rest up and get ready for when the baby comes. After, you’ll be able to stay home and just be a mother. No more waiting tables.”

  “What did you have to do for that money?” she asked.

  Again, Aguilar paused, trying to think through the fog of liquor and dope. “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do, though. I really do.”

  “No, baby. You don’t. Not only that, but you can’t. The less you know, the better for all of us. You just have to trust me, that’s all. I’m looking out for us. I’m going to make sure our child grows up with all the things we never had. Whatever I do—everything I do—it’s for you. For our family. Everything I do is because I love you.”

  At that, finally, her face softened. She pushed back from the table, her tea forgotten, and took him in her arms, drawing him close. He could feel the bump at her belly, where their child was growing. “Just remember that the thing our family needs the most is you,” she said. “The money’s nice, but we need you. I need you. I need you to be here, with me.”

  “There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” Aguilar said. He buried his face against the spot where her neck and shoulders met, inhaled her scent, kissed her. Working his way up to her lips, he kissed them and said, “Make love to me.”

  She put her fingers against his chin, pushed him away. “First, take a shower. Then brush your teeth. If you’re still conscious after that, then we’ll see.”

  He was.

  16

  THE DEATH OF Carlos Rodrigo Muñoz didn’t mean the end of the Cartagena smuggling operation. It merely delayed shipments for a few weeks, while three of Rodrigo’s lieutenants went to war over who would succeed him. Most of Rodrigo’s men remained loyal to one of them, but another controlled the docks, and therefore the shipping process. The third, Mateo Quiroga, had been in Medellín since the botched Costa kidnapping. He was quietly trying to amass an army so that when the first two killed each other, or sufficiently weakened each other through combat and attrition, he could swoop in and take over.

  To that end, he approached some of Pablo Escobar’s sicarios, offering half again what Escobar paid them.

  Don Pablo didn’t appreciate that. To make things worse, when he approached Quiroga with an offer to work for him, to run Cartagena on behalf of Medellín, giving Escobar easy access to the port for shipping as well as for receiving shipments of the precursor chemicals necessary to make cocaine in large quantities, Quiroga turned him down.

  Aguilar learned of all this from Montoya. They were working a swing shift, each in his own vehicle, and had met for a quick drink about eight o’clock. Sitting at the bar, Montoya explained what had been happening, and what Escobar’s response would be.

  “We’re going to hit that bastard,” he said. “Don Pablo’s had a couple of guys watching him. As soon as they know where he’ll be, someplace vulnerable, they’ll put out the word, and we’ll move in. He won’t live through the night.”

  “You’ll let me know, right?” Aguilar asked. There would undoubtedly be some cash in it for all participants, with a bonus for whoever actually killed Quiroga.

  “As soon as I find out,” Montoya said. “Keep your radio on.”

  After, Aguilar buzzed with tension. He wanted the money—needed it, because in the last few days he and Luisa had been looking at houses, and the ones she liked were invariably the larger and more expensive ones. To be honest, those were the ones he liked, too, but he told himself that the most important thing was to satisfy her.

  But he also knew that if Quiroga had indeed raised a force of men, it could turn into a firefight. He’d survived the one at the market and the smaller one at the hotel in Cartagena. How long could his luck hold out? As Luisa never tired of telling him, what she needed even more than money was her husband, her baby’s father.

  That was easy for her to say. Aguilar thought if she had enough money, she could live without him. But without money, Aguilar would just be a nuisance, another mouth to feed.

  So, he’d made Montoya promise to radio him the moment he found out where it would go down. Two hours later, he got the call.

  “He’s having dinner at Café Parilla Fresco,” Montoya said. “Isn’t that where your wife worked?”

 
; “She still does,” Aguilar said. “She’s working tonight! Tomorrow’s her last day.”

  “I thought she was already at home.”

  “No, tomorrow! You have to stop it!”

  “I can’t stop it, Jose. The guys are already on their way.”

  “But she’s in there!” He felt panic rising in his gorge. He was forty minutes away. Thirty, if he used lights and siren and broke every law. He didn’t know how much time he had, but probably not that much.

  “Get her out.”

  “I can’t! I’m all the way in Pedregal!”

  “Call her, then. I wish I could do something, Jose. I just found out myself.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Calle 67, at the hospital.”

  He meant the Hospital Universitario San Vicente de Paul, Aguilar knew. “That’s in Prado. You’re closer than I am!”

  “I’m leaving now, Jose. I’ll try, okay? Just do what you can to get her out of there.”

  “I’ll try, man. But hurry.”

  To minimize Luisa’s danger, Aguilar had never let her meet Montoya. She’d heard stories—those he felt comfortable telling her—and she’d seen a picture of him once. He’d seen the three pictures of Luisa that Aguilar kept in his wallet, too, but had never seen her in person. Who knew if he would even recognize her, at work with her hair up and the restaurant’s required dress?

  He’d been on his way to answer a call when Montoya had radioed him. It was a vagrancy call; a store owner complaining about a man sleeping on the sidewalk in front of his shop and urinating in the doorway. It wasn’t something he felt bad about ignoring.

  The guy probably just had too much to drink, or maybe he had a mental problem. Either way, he was down on his luck, maybe homeless like so many others throughout the city. The best Aguilar could do would be to put him in jail for the night, and someone else would take his place. And it wouldn’t do anything to solve the man’s problems. Or the shopkeeper’s, for that matter.

  He turned around and flipped on his lights and siren, watching for a phone booth from which he could call the restaurant. He didn’t know this area that well yet. Finally, he spotted one and pulled in at an angle, blocking part of the nearest lane. He left his lights on but killed the siren, and fed some coins into the slot.

  The phone rang and rang. Finally, someone answered, but over the din from the restaurant he couldn’t hear what they said, couldn’t even tell if the voice was male or female. “I need to speak to Luisa!” he shouted.

  “What?”

  “Luisa! Please, it’s important! This is her husband!”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t—”

  “This is the police! Put Luisa on!”

  “I can’t hear you,” the voice said. “Try again later.”

  The line went dead. He dropped the receiver, letting it dangle on its cord, and raced back to the car.

  He’d wasted precious minutes on that. He flipped the siren on, backed away from the curb, and started out again. He could look for another phone, but with no guarantee that the results would be any better. And each time he stopped would slow down his arrival there.

  Instead he weaved through traffic, driving one-handed and using his other to key the radio and call dispatch. “Call the Café Parilla Fresco,” he said when he got through. “Tell my wife Luisa that she needs to go home at once. It’s an emergency!”

  He’d debated how much to tell dispatch. Even with cooperation from the police commanders, he could hardly warn the department about an attack at a restaurant. They would swarm the place, and Escobar would be furious if his intended target escaped with his life. He just had to hope the message got through.

  Then he focused on driving, tearing down the city streets faster than he ever had. People screeched their brakes trying to avoid him; pedestrians lunged for safety. After about fifteen minutes, he tried Montoya on the radio again, but got no answer. He passed another pay phone and considered stopping, but didn’t.

  When he reached the restaurant, the shooting had not yet begun.

  Café Parilla Fresco stood in the middle of a block. A meter-tall brick wall was topped by a large window that let passersby watch the diners inside, and let them watch the people on the street. A green awning with the restaurant’s name printed on it in gold letters provided shade for the lunch crowd. Inside, Aguilar knew, wide-bladed ceiling fans joined by rubber belts cooled the air.

  As Aguilar rounded the corner, La Quica and Big Badmouth were just going in the front door, guns in hand. Other guys stood outside, including Montoya, Jairo, and some Aguilar didn’t know. Montoya wore his police uniform, with a bandanna covering his nose and mouth. Someone in the restaurant had spotted them; he could see people screaming, ducking behind tables and one another.

  Aguilar abandoned his SUV in the middle of the street and sprinted for the sidewalk, shouting, “No, wait!”

  He couldn’t know for sure who fired first. He saw the distinctive glow of a muzzle flash through the window, just before all hell broke loose. Then Montoya and the others started shooting in through the window, and someone inside was shooting back at them. The glass shattered, raining onto the sidewalk and into the restaurant. People were screaming.

  Getting closer, Aguilar saw individual faces inside, frozen in terror.

  One of them belonged to Luisa.

  She stood between tables, holding a tray full of dishes. As Aguilar watched, seeing it as if in slow motion, she lost her grip on the tray. It tilted and the plates slid off, landing on the diners, who in their panic were barely aware of it. No tip for her, he thought, and for an instant he looked forward to being able to laugh about it with her, after the horror had worn off.

  Then he saw the man behind her, shooting over her shoulder toward the street.

  Saw Montoya shooting at him, the recoil of his submachine gun twitching it to the left with every round it fired.

  Saw two of those rounds hit Luisa, pulverizing her head in a pinkish mist.

  He screamed her name, slammed into Montoya from behind, hurtled past him and through the open window, ignoring the shards of glass jutting from the edges. Inside, he knocked over tables and chairs. Bullets whistled past him.

  He found her on the floor, lying in spilled food and drink and so much blood.

  She was alive, but barely. Her fingers twitched and her heels tapped against the floor and her lips moved. Aguilar thought she was trying to say something, and he gathered her close to him and tried to hear over the gunfire and the wails of the hurt and dying.

  Then she was still. He felt the life leave her body, like a released breath, and he knew she was gone.

  He stayed there, holding her. The gunfight ended, and Montoya showed up, that bandanna still across his face. “Come on, man,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Then he seemed to realize what Aguilar was doing. His eyes softened. “Oh no, is that her?”

  “Yes, damn it,” Aguilar said through his tears. “It’s her. What’s left of her.”

  “Oh, shit, what happened?”

  “You know what happened.”

  “Man, that sucks,” Montoya said. He didn’t seem to know—or wasn’t showing it, if he did—that he’d killed her. Nor did he seem to care.

  Aguilar wanted to tell him. He wanted to pull a gun and blow Montoya’s brains out, like his partner had done to Luisa. He almost did it, but that would mean releasing her, and he wasn’t ready to do that.

  Sitting on the restaurant floor, with wine and coffee and never-to-be-eaten meals soaking through his pants, drenched in Luisa’s blood, he decided that Montoya would have to pay for what he’d done. Whether he had been aware of it in the moment or not, Montoya had killed Aguilar’s wife, his love, and his unborn child—had killed the only part of him that really mattered.

  But not right now. Not while Luisa was still warm.

  As Aguilar held her, he could feel that warmth fading and with it, the last link to whatever was good in him being severed. He could feel his he
art hardening in his chest.

  And he liked it.

  17

  PABLO ESCOBAR PAID all the funeral expenses for Luisa, and he even spoke at her graveside, though he had never met her. He bought new clothes for the entire funeral party, and arranged for the city to shut down the streets between the church and the cemetery. He bought a marble monument a meter tall, shaped like an obelisk. He put her parents and sisters up in Medellín’s nicest hotel and covered their meals for a week. Finally, he bought the block where the restaurant had stood, razed the buildings, and built a grassy park called Parque Luisa. Aguilar received a bonus of half a million pesos.

  It didn’t come close to making up for his loss.

  He made it through the closed-casket wake, the vigil service, and the funeral Mass, alternately weeping or numb. The hugs, handshakes, and back-pats of friends and family members went almost unnoticed. People brought food by the truckload; he picked at it, with no appetite. Others brought liquor or pot; those he consumed greedily. Christmas came and went. He didn’t attend Christmas Mass, for the first time in his life.

  Two weeks later, he went to Hacienda Nápoles by himself, and met with Don Pablo. They sat alone in Escobar’s formal dining room. Escobar’s expression was somber, his forehead furrowed, and he picked at his mustache. Aguilar folded his hands on the table, ignoring the glass of wine placed there for him. Escobar hadn’t touched his, either.

  “Don Pablo,” he said. “I want to thank you for your generosity and your understanding, these past couple of weeks. It’s been hard for me, as I’m sure you understand, but you made it easier through your many kindnesses.”

  “The least I could do,” Escobar said. “I gave the order to hit Quiroga. I feel partly responsible.”

  Aguilar silently agreed, having thought that from the beginning, but at least Escobar had made an effort to atone.