Cartagena

Nam Le was born in Vietnam and raised in Australia. His work has appeared in
Zoetrope
,
A Public Space
,
One Story
,
Conjunctions
, and the Pushcart Prize and Best American Nonrequired Reading anthologies. Currently the fiction editor of the
Harvard Review
, he divides his time between Australia and the United States.

www.namleonline.com

Cartagena

from
The Boat

Nam Le

A Vintage Short

Vintage Books

A Division of Penguin Random House LLC

New York

Cartagena

 

IN CARTAGENA, LUIS SAYS
, the beach is gray at dawn. He points to the barrel of his G3 when he says this,
steel gray
, he says. He smiles. The sand is white, he says, this color, tapping his teeth. And when the sun comes up on your right, man, it is a slow-motion explosion like in the movies, a big kerosene flash and then the water is sparkling gray and orange and red. Luis is full of shit, of course, but he can talk and it is true that he is the only one of our
gallada
who has seen the Caribbean. Who has been to Cartagena.

And the girls? Eduardo asks.

Luis tosses back his greasy black hair. He knows we will wait for his answer. He is the oldest of us (except for Claudia, who doesn't count because she is a girl), and he has told this story many times with pleasure.

The girls, he says. He looks at me and it is proper, he is showing respect. Together we smirk at the immaturity of Eduardo.

No, says Claudia. The fishermen. Tell us the part—

The girls, Luis says, speaking over Claudia, they are the best in all of Colombia. They wear skirts up to here, like on MTV, and boots up to here, and it is not like the country, where the
autodefensas
will shoot them for it. They are taller and whiter and have beautiful teeth and can talk about real things. Nothing like here.

He pauses. Luis has grown a mustache that looks like it has been drawn on with wet charcoal, and now he strokes it with his thumb and finger. I remember a line from a movie.

With that mustache, I say, you look like a shit-eating faggot. Eduardo laughs happily. And it is you who would be shot for your long hair.

Luis ignores me. He says, speaking slowly, In Cartagena, everything is nothing like here.

We are five, including Claudia, and we are going downtown to do some business on behalf of Luis. Apart from me and Luis and Claudia and Eduardo, there is little Pedro, who walks behind the group with his hands in his torn pants pockets in order to fondle his testicles. It is not even funny anymore.

I have not seen any of them, except for Claudia, in the last four months. Claudia—the only one who knows where I have been staying—told me yesterday about this business. I did not want to come but she told me how strongly Luis had insisted.

They look younger than I remember. Only Pedro has grown—he looks like he has been seized by a fistful of hair and stretched up two inches. I wait for him to reach me and say to him,
Ay
, you are almost a man now!

Ask him if he has any hair on his
pipí
, says Eduardo.

Pedro keeps his hands in his pockets and does not react.

See, even now he is molesting it!

Come on, says Luis. He sounds distracted. Claudia is smiling to herself. I look away from her.

To do this business there would usually be more of us, but our old
gallada
, the core of it anyway, is three short. Carlos was shot in the throat outside the Parque del Poblado: it was night and he was selling
basuco
to the crackheads when the rich kids came in their yellow jeep and cleansed him. Salésio joined his elder brother in the local militia, where he sent back a photo of himself in a balaclava, holding an Uzi sub and a Beretta .45. You could see the shape of his stupid smile through the black cotton.

And then there is Hernando. I do not want to think about Hernando now.

We stop at the border of our barrio, in a dump at the bottom of a ridge. A thin ditch of water runs through the debris. Without a word, Pedro and Claudia take lookout positions. Luis and Eduardo straddle the sludge, one foot on either bank, and clear away the moldering cardboard and plastic junk. Soon they uncover the nylon three-seater that we stole, months ago, from a public bus. They tip it forward to reveal the large concrete tunnel into which the water runs. I stand sentinel as they crawl, one by one, into the hole.

This is one of our old
mocós
. Only the five of us know its location. It is a runoff from the main storm sewer, but smells like a sewage pipe. I am glad it is dark.

Over there, I say.

Eduardo and Pedro go where I point, navigating by the blue light of their cell phones. At a waist-high ledge they peel back a thick, water-resistant cover, and Pedro lets out a whoop, then muffles his mouth. The sound echoes against the wet concrete.

Luis grins. You come back after four months, he says, and already you think you are the dog's balls. He is grinning widely. These are yours?

On trust, I say.

Handheld grenades, he says, picking them up, weighing them in his palm like they are pieces of fruit. A new AR-15. And these?

Glock nine millimeters. You can throw away your thirty-eights now.

I heard the forty-fives are better.

They look like toy guns, Claudia murmurs from the darkness.

Well, Luis says to me, still grinning. Well, well. El Padre is a generous man.

Aside from Luis's G3, we take one of the Colts and the two pistols. As this is Luis's mission, I do not ask whether this is too much or too little firepower. Pedro is a child and will carry the
bullet bag. He insists on bringing a couple of grenades. Just in case, he says.

In case what? jeers Eduardo. In case the target is hiding inside a FARC tank?

It is getting dark when we finally arrive in the correct neighborhood. We are on foreign turf and I am uneasy because it is the worst time of day to identify a target. I am also pissed off at Luis because he made a detour to check his emails. Luis is pissed off at me because I told him we could take a
chiva
bus and he replied, No,
puto
, they don't go that way, and just now a green one came by and almost ran us over on the narrow street. And we are all pissed off at Eduardo, who failed to dodge a pile of warm dog turd.

You sure you have done the recon? I ask Luis.

Fuck you, he says. Maybe I have no office job but I am no child.

And the target is not protected?

Listen to you and your fancy language, says Eduardo. Is the
target
not
protected
?

Under the darkening sky, everything melts into shapes of brown and gray. We pass buildings made of brick, of cement blocks, of wood and plastic. Faces of people merge back into the material of their houses. Street kids scavenge for food by the roadside, some of them inhaling the pale yellow
sacol
from super-market bags—their eyes half-open and animal and unblinking. We pass unattended stalls, half-filled wheelbarrows, hot pillow joints, then there are no more houses and we reach an abandoned railway line running along the edge of a cliff. We cross the tracks and look down. The road dips steeply into a gorge jumbled full of bamboo poles and torn tarpaulin sheets and hundreds upon hundreds of boxes. It is our destination. The
tugurio
: the city of cardboard.

The few inhabitants we see do not interfere. We walk through dimly lit trenches, toward the northeast corner. Shadows of faces
move behind candles and gas lamps. Luis lifts his fingers to his lips and points to a shack at the end of an alley. He creeps forward. Yellow gaslight glows from behind the gaps in the cardboard. Coming closer, I see a black man on his back chewing a sugared red donut. Luis goes in and grabs him by the hair and flips him onto his stomach. If it is the right person, Luis has done his recon excellently. The target looks older than all of us—even Claudia, who has sixteen years. His skin is a darker black than mine, and burnished with sweat in the gaslight. His mouth is still crusted with little sugar bits. Luis rests his boot on the side of the target's face as he reaches inside his pants to pull out the rifle. He frowns as the magazine gets stuck in the elastic of his waistband—this is a common hazard with the G3—a beginner's mistake. Eduardo has dropped to his knees, pinning the target's legs down.

Who is the son of a bitch now? Luis says. His voice is light and breathy as it is when he is excited.

You are,
puto
, squeaks the target. His lips strain to spit, and fail.

Claudia comes in and crouches down; there is not enough room to stand. We all sweat from the heat of the gas lamp. Luis succeeds at last in removing his rifle from his trousers and jams the barrel into the target's eye socket.

Do I kill him fast? he says. He is looking at me. Claudia and Eduardo are looking at me too. Pedro stands watch at the edge of the
tugurio
.

For a moment I am taken aback. Killing has never been the business of the
gallada
, unless things have changed with that too, in the four months I have been away. Maybe they are seeking to impress me, now that I have my office job. Or maybe that is why they asked me to come with them.

Do I kill him fast? Luis says again. His voice is tight—it sounds as though he is really asking for my answer.

What is his crime?

Luis falls silent. He lifts his gun and paces two steps this way, two steps the other way, stooped underneath the cardboard roof. The target twists his head up from the dirt and looks around for the first time. He sees Eduardo, who is holding his legs, and Claudia, and then Luis. He sees Luis's hand, trembling on the trigger guard.

He has many crimes, says Luis. But he called my mother the offspring of a dog.

I don't even know you, the target says. He swings around in my direction. And I am protected. Ask anyone.

I glance quickly at Luis, who opens his mouth.

The target follows my gaze and turns back toward Luis. When he speaks his voice is low and sly. What are you doing? he murmurs. His face is shiny in the gaslight. We both know you are no
sicario
.

Breathing hard, Luis grabs the G3 with both hands and jams the barrel into the target's mouth. I can hear the metal muzzle clatter against his teeth.

Ask him who is the offspring of a dog now, I say. I find myself thinking of four days ago, the calm face in front of my Glock. Ask if he will tell you that. Saliva starts to run from the target's mouth, quickly turning pink.

I will tell you, the target croaks out, whatever you want me to! He is not a tough anymore; no
soldado
, that is for certain. His words are slurred because his mouth is forced half open—it moves like the mouth of Claudia's demented mother. Please, he says.

Don't you get it? Luis shouts. The fringes of his hair drip with sweat.

From the ground, mouth ajar, the target shakes his head. I'm sorry, he groans.

Why are you sorry? I don't want you to say what I want you to say!

We all watch Luis.

I want you to
want
to say it.

Okay, man.

Okay?

Okay, man.

What are you going to do? He removes the gun from the target's mouth and presses it into his cheek.

I'm going to say what you want—

Luis's frown deepens.

I mean, I'm going to want to say it, I'm going to—

What are you? Luis breaks in.

It takes a second for the target to comprehend. I am the son of a dog, he says.

What kind of dog?

A dog. A bitch. A dirty, flea-bitten, whore of a bitch.

What else?

I am a dog that is ugly, that is an imbecile, that looks like a disease-ridden rat, that smells like shit…

You eat your own shit, too, don't you?

For a moment Luis sounds like a gangster in an American movie I recently saw in the city. His face even carries the same sneer.

Yes, yes. The target reaches for a piece of donut next to his face, rubs it into the dirt before stuffing it in his mouth. Claudia turns away. It is strange the things a girl will tolerate and will not.

From a distance comes the sound of ringing bells. I move to a gap in the cardboard to check with Pedro. After a moment he shakes his head and calls out in his high voice, Gasoline trucks.

Luis says, What else?

His mouth full of dirt, the target says, I am a dog that eats its own shit, and drinks its own piss, and, and—

But he cannot fully untangle his mess of words because at that
moment Luis lifts his G3, flips it around and smashes the aluminum butt into the target's head. I think I hear a soft crack. For a brief moment Luis looks surprised, then he waves one finger from side to side in the manner of a parent scolding a child.

You are lucky,
puto
, he says, that my friends here are full of compassion. He spits on the ground next to the bleeding head. But they will not be so full next time.

You broke his head, says Claudia. He cannot hear you. She half-stands and shuffles over to the target—I think at first she is bending over to examine his wound—then she does something startling: she leans back and kicks him, hard, in the chest. Eduardo gets up from his knees and copies her. We know the target is still alive because his feet dance in response.

Luis gestures at the target with his G3, then says to me, Are you sure?

They all look at me. Their faces are flushed and full in the warm yellow light. It is strange, I think—their readiness to kill—for as far as I know, none of them has ever committed the act. This business was personal.

As we leave, Luis picks up a plastic bag that contains two donuts. The icing on them is green and yellow. For Pedro, he explains gruffly. He likes this sort of shit.

Outside it has turned into night. At the bus stop I ask Luis again what was the man's crime.

A shipment of
basuco
, he says. Or marijuana. I forget.

I thought you said a game of poker, says Eduardo.

Shut up, says Luis. Shut up, you fat punk.

MY NAME IS JUAN PABLO MERENDEZ
, and I have been hiding at my mother's place for four days. People call me Ron because of the time when I was a child and, on a dare, finished a
medio
of Ron de Medellín and then another, and did not vomit.

I am a
sicario
, a hit man, an assassin. I have been a
sicario
for four months, although my agent, El Padre, says that in truth I am a
soldado
, fighting for a cause. It is no cause, however, but my own hands that have brought death to fourteen people for certain, and perhaps another two. For this El Padre offers me a safe house in the barrio, where I live alone, and pays me 800,000 pesos a month and another 300,000 for each hit. Of this at least 400,000 pesos a month goes to my mother, who prays to her God about my
delincuencia
but takes the money for her medicines and her clothes and her cable TV and asks no questions.