Narcos

by Jeff Mariotte

  “Well, you’ll take one of the Land Cruisers for this trip. I’ll be following, about two kilometers behind. You’ll have a radiotelephone, so if there’s any sign of trouble, you’ll be able to let me know.”

  “Anything you say, Patrón. Are we leaving now?”

  “Soon.”

  “Can I bring the book with me? It was on a shelf downstairs.”

  “Of course. Just remember where it came from, and bring it back next time we’re here.”

  Aguilar was surprised by that. Escobar was casual about so many things—like murder—but particular about others.

  But then, he was learning that El Patrón was a complicated man, with layers upon layers to him. Just when he thought he had the man figured out, he learned something new and unexpected.

  He guessed Escobar cultivated that, to keep people off guard. At least, he figured, it was probably what he would want to do, if most people in the world wanted to either kill him, arrest him, or take his money. Better Pablo’s problem than mine, he thought. He was already making more money than he had ever expected to, but he would never have Escobar’s kind of wealth. That was fine with him. From where he sat, being rich was far too much trouble.

  * * *

  Tata sat in the front passenger seat, with Juan Pablo and Hermilda in the back.

  Aguilar knew the city well from his police work, but before they’d gone four blocks, Tata said, “Turn left up here, then right two streets down.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Hermilda said, poking Aguilar’s shoulder with her glasses. “Turn right up here.”

  “I know my way around Medellín, Hermilda.”

  “You never even left Envigado until you married Pablo. I’ve lived all over Antioquia—El Tablazo, Titiribí, Girardota, Rionegro, and different neighborhoods all over Medellín. I think I know my way around.”

  “Yes, but you still think of the city as it used to be. It’s changed, and there’s construction work ahead, and—”

  Exasperated, Aguilar cut in. “I just need to know which way I’m supposed to turn. Otherwise, I’m going straight for another two kilometers, then cutting over to Calle 44.”

  “That will work, too,” Hermilda said.

  “Fine,” Tata added.

  He went straight.

  After that, there were some strained attempts at small talk, then an uncomfortable silence, broken only by Hermilda correcting Juan Pablo’s behavior. “Sit up straight!” “Don’t pick your nose!” “Keep your hands away from your mouth!” “Sit still!”

  Aguilar wondered how someone born to a woman so obsessed with appropriate behavior could have become a famous criminal and murderer. After a while, Juan Pablo fell asleep, and so did she.

  Then Tata started asking questions, keeping her voice low so those in back couldn’t hear. “I wonder what you must think of me,” she said. “A woman like me being married to someone like Pablo.”

  “He’s a good man,” Aguilar said.

  “He’s a gangster. So are you, I suppose. But you know what he’s like, what he does. What does that say about me?”

  Aguilar kept his eyes on the unspooling blacktop ahead. “That you love him, I guess. I know he loves you. He talks about it all the time.”

  “Does he?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But he also has affairs. If he loved me like you say, wouldn’t he be faithful?”

  “I don’t know about that.” He didn’t want to share what Snake-eyes had said about prostitutes.

  “Was your father faithful to your mother?”

  “I think so,” Aguilar said. “I don’t know for sure. I suppose if he had affairs, he hid them from the whole family.”

  “Pablo doesn’t do much to hide his. He pretends to hide them, but I always know.”

  “I’m not really comfortable talking about that, Señora.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it awkward for you.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Tell me about you, Jose,” she said. “You’re not like the others. Most of his men are unschooled, barely out of their teens if they are at all. I’ve seen you at work, seen you reading books. You’re intelligent.”

  Aguilar hoped the flush he felt wasn’t visible. “Thank you.”

  “Did you go to school?”

  “I finished upper secondary,” he said. “At first I was on the technical track, but then I changed to the academic.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to be able to get a good job, so I thought the technical track would be best. But one of my teachers told me that having a rounded education offered more flexibility, which would be appealing to different kinds of employers.” He paused, wondering what that teacher would think of his current livelihood. “But then I became a police officer, which doesn’t require that much rounding.”

  “But flexibility helps, I would think, in police work.”

  “Sure. There weren’t many opportunities to discuss philosophy or literature with the people I arrested, though.”

  She laughed. “Probably not working for Pablo, either. He values those things in others, but he’s never had time for them. To him, everything is about making money. His goal was to earn a million pesos by the time he was thirty.”

  “And he did, right?”

  “More than. He had several million United States dollars before he reached thirty. Now I don’t think he even knows how rich he is. He has money cached at most of his properties. He buries it in the ground, hides it in the walls, stores it in warehouses. Sometimes the rats eat it, or rain gets in and makes it moldy. Can you imagine having so much money that you could just throw it away when it goes bad?”

  “It’s never lasted long enough to go bad, for me.”

  “It never did for me, until Pablo.”

  “Do you like it? Being rich?”

  “It’s nice to not have to go without. To wear good clothes, to buy jewelry or art when I see something lovely. I don’t need as much as he has—neither does he, or he wouldn’t have to worry about where to store it—but he won’t stop making more. We’ve all asked him to retire; he couldn’t spend what he already has if he lived to be a thousand. But he worries about the future, about his parents, about Juan Pablo, and me. He wants to make sure all our needs are always met, and those of any descendants. He never wants there to be another poor Escobar.”

  “And he likes to give it away,” Aguilar said. “To do things for the community. All the housing he builds, and the parks, the athletic fields and so on.”

  “He’s very generous that way. He sees the rich sitting on their money, hoarding it, and the poor going without. He doesn’t mind hoarding it, but he doesn’t want the poor to need what they can’t ever have. If there’s a problem and money can fix it, he’s willing to spend that money.”

  “Like I said, he’s a good man.”

  “He’s a good man, and a drug dealer, and worse,” Tata said. “I love him, but it’s not always easy. He’s complicated.”

  “Everybody’s complicated.”

  “True. But not like him. There aren’t many like him.”

  “From what I’ve seen,” Aguilar said, “there aren’t any like him. There’s only one Pablo Escobar.”

  Tata chuckled again. “The world couldn’t stand two of them.”

  22

  ESCOBAR’S DISTINGUISHED NORTH American visitor was Kyle Caldwell, who La Quica said had distributed at least ninety million dollars’ worth of Escobar’s cocaine in the Miami area. He and Escobar had met in person a couple of times, and enjoyed each other’s company as well as having business interests in common, but this was his first trip to Colombia. Escobar wanted Caldwell to have a good time—whatever that took.

  Gaviria took three of the guys and picked Caldwell up at the airport in Bogotá, then drove him to Nápoles. Aguilar was in the main house when they came in. Caldwell was tall and rangy, and he wore a silk shirt with a floral print, open to the fourth button, a brown leather blazer, jeans, and loafe
rs with no socks. He had thick brown hair and a bushy mustache. Beneath sky-blue eyes was a nose that had been broken once or twice—the only flaw Aguilar could see in what was otherwise the most handsome man he’d ever met. Then he turned a little, and Aguilar noticed his left ear. Most of it was gone; he had a little flap left, but it was otherwise open to the elements. Aguilar wondered if that interfered with his hearing, or enhanced it.

  When Gaviria introduced them, Caldwell said, “Great to meet you, Jaguar. I’ve heard about your knife work. We should compare notes later; I bet you could teach me a thing or two.” Aguilar had taken English all through secondary school, and learned more from watching North American television shows. He was glad for the opportunity to practice.

  “I don’t know anything special,” Aguilar said. “I just cut.”

  “Whatever works, man. It ain’t about being fancy, it’s being alive at the end that counts.”

  “Kyle,” Gaviria cut in. “Sorry, Don Pablo is waiting.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Caldwell said. “Catch you later, man,” he added to Aguilar.

  * * *

  Because the finca was too far from the city to drive in just to party, the party was brought to Nápoles. Sure Shot and Poison drove up in trucks carrying dozens of prostitutes. A helicopter landed and Colombian musicians spilled out; a second one brought their instruments and gear. More trucks showed up with food and liquor. Plenty of grass was already on hand.

  A huge tent was set up outside one of the estate’s additional houses, far from the main house. The word went out—no wives were invited to this bash; it was men only, except for the imported professionals.

  Aguilar wasn’t sure what to expect when he rode down in a Land Cruiser with some of the other sicarios. Everyone had dressed in their best clothes and splashed on too much cologne. Aguilar cracked his window a little, hoping that the rush of fresh air would dissipate the cloying stink.

  They arrived a little before midnight, and the party appeared to be in full swing—they could see a glow from behind the hills, and hear the music before the house came into view. Then they rounded a corner and there it was. Light gleamed through the tent walls and from torches on poles set all around it. Every light in the house seemed to be on, and the doors were open, with people coming and going between house and tent. As they got closer, Aguilar saw couples having sex beside the road, on the front steps of the house, and framed by some of the windows. Men were shouting and singing along with the band and occasionally firing guns into the air.

  Inside was more of the same. Aguilar instantly felt out of place. He had a few beers, which helped a little, and he admired some of the nude or half-naked women. But he wasn’t interested in being with them, and the guys were, for the most part, either completely hammered, stoned out of their minds, or busy chasing after them.

  After a while, he saw Kyle Caldwell coming out of the house. His shirt was torn, shirttails out. He’d ditched the leather blazer somewhere, or lost it. He was grinning, his face flushed, but when he saw Aguilar the smile widened.

  “My man Jaguar! What’s the haps, brother?”

  Aguilar wasn’t sure what that meant, but he took it for a friendly greeting. “Hello, Kyle. Are you having fun?”

  “So much fun you wouldn’t believe it. These women, man, I’m telling you.”

  None of his English classes had covered material like this. Again, he got the gist, so he nodded and said, “I’m glad. Don Pablo will be glad, too. This is all in your honor.”

  “He’s quite the motherfucking host, old Pablo,” Caldwell said. “You like working for him?”

  “Yes. I used to be a police officer, in Medellín, but—”

  Caldwell cut him off. “A cop? Righteous, brother.” He threw an arm across Aguilar’s shoulders. “Come on, let me buy you a drink.”

  “Don Pablo already paid for all the liquor,” Aguilar said.

  “Even better!” Caldwell laughed, and Aguilar joined him. The party had just gotten considerably more interesting.

  * * *

  Escobar never got up before noon. Sometimes he slept considerably later than that, then spent time smoking pot, reading newspapers, and brushing his teeth—he was notorious for the time and attention he lavished on those. Many of his crew had adjusted their own sleep schedules accordingly, but Aguilar had always been an early riser, unless he’d worked a night shift.

  This day, he slept late because of the party, but by eleven he was up and in search of some breakfast. He scrounged a cup of coffee and some food in the kitchen, then was surprised to find Caldwell sitting at the dining room table in the main house, with an empty plate in front of him. Aguilar felt like he’d been dragged around by a truck, but Caldwell looked like he’d had a full eight hours of sleep.

  “Morning, Jaguar!” he said.

  “Good morning, Kyle,” Aguilar said. He almost couldn’t even find the words in Spanish, but he managed to pull out the English just in time.

  “You have a good time last night?”

  “Yes.” He put down his plate and cup and scraped back a chair. “And you?”

  “Those local señoritas are más sexy, brother.”

  Aguilar thought Caldwell had been with at least three of them during the party. He should have been exhausted and drained. “Colombians make beautiful women,” he said.

  “Fucking A,” Caldwell said. “Your English is really good, man. Way better than my Spanish, anyway.”

  “I studied English all through secondary school.”

  “Is that like what we call high school, in America?”

  “High school, yes. But this is also America.”

  “South America, though.”

  “Right, South America. And the United States, it’s in North America.”

  “Back home we just think of it as America,” Caldwell said.

  “What about Mexico and Canada? They are also in North America.”

  Caldwell rubbed his chin, considering. “I guess. We sort of think of them as second tier, you know? They don’t really count.”

  “Second tier?” Aguilar didn’t understand the phrase.

  “Never mind, man. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about your knife work,” Caldwell said, suddenly changing the subject. “You have some free time?”

  “Yes.” Aguilar forked some eggs into his mouth, chased them with a sip of strong coffee. “As soon as I finish this.”

  “I’ll be outside,” Caldwell said. “Catching some rays. Join me when you’re done.”

  Aguilar didn’t know what “catching some rays” meant. When he had polished off the breakfast and drained a second cup of coffee, he went out into a grassy yard behind the house and found Caldwell, shirt off and eyes closed, soaking up sunshine.

  Caldwell’s eyes snapped open at his approach. “You got your knife?”

  Aguilar tapped his leg. “Always.”

  “Can I see it?”

  Was it an honest request, or a trick? Aguilar wasn’t sure. What if Caldwell’s first lesson turned out to be “Never give anyone your knife”?

  But he trusted the North American. For some reason, the man had seemed to take an immediate liking to him, and Aguilar returned the feeling.

  He freed it from the sheath and handed it over. Caldwell held it by the grip, made a couple of stabbing moves with it, then balanced it on a finger. “Nice piece,” he said. “You keep it sharp.”

  “I try to. I work it every few days with a stone.”

  “A whetstone?”

  “Right,” Aguilar said with a chuckle. He hadn’t been able to remember the English word.

  “Do you have a tapered sharpening rod, for the serrations?” Caldwell asked. He demonstrated with his fingers, until Aguilar grasped what he meant.

  “No.”

  “You need one.” He thumbed across the serrated section. “These can dull, too. Get a rod that tapers to a point and figure out where it fits the serrations just right. And always use a good wax on the knife, not oil.”


  “No oil on the stone?”

  “No. With a good whetstone, you won’t need a lubricant. Get a good hard wax, not a liquid, like car wax. Wax your sheath once in a while, too. And use two stones, a coarse grit and a fine grit, on the blade.”

  “Where did you learn so much about knives?”

  “I got some of it when I was a U.S. Marine in Vietnam,” Caldwell said. He tapped his ruined left ear. “That’s where this happened, too. Fucking VC who was faster with his knife than I was.”

  “Looks like it hurts,” Aguilar said.

  “It did, at the time. Now I pretty much forget about it, except when some foxy broad sees it and she gets that ‘eww, gross!’ expression.

  “Anyway, I met a guy there—an old Special Ops hand, who was in country back in the late fifties, before anybody was officially there. His job was winning hearts and minds, and he mostly did it by cutting out hearts and scaring people out of their minds.”

  He gave Aguilar back the knife. “Show me a stab move.”

  Aguilar spread his legs for balance, held the blade vertical to the ground, and thrust it forward, putting his back and shoulder into it.

  “Not bad,” Caldwell said.

  “Thanks.”

  Caldwell held out his hand. “May I?”

  Aguilar handed the knife back. Caldwell took it, held it the same way Aguilar had, then gave his wrist a quarter-turn to the left. “In the Marines, they taught us to always stab with the blade parallel to the ground, not perpendicular to it.” He demonstrated, making a move much like Aguilar’s but with the blade striking its imaginary target horizontally instead of vertically.

  “Then,” he continued, “you give it a good twist, like so.” He turned his wrist back to the original position, so the blade was once again vertical. “And then you cut down and across—left to right, or right to left—as much as you can before you pull it out.”

  He demonstrated slashing across an opponent’s body. Aguilar saw at once how much more damage could be done using that technique, as opposed to stab-withdraw-stab again. “I understand,” he said.

  Caldwell gave the knife back, and Aguilar tried a couple of stabs using his technique. It felt awkward, but the advantage was clear. “This would slide between the ribs better, too.”