Nam Le - The Boat

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 Medellin 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.

They call it an office job, as the sicario is waiting always by the phone. In Medellin, it is a prized thing to have an office job.

My agent is named Xavier — I do not know his last name, for everywhere he is known as El Padre. I have never met him. They say he is a large, light-skinned man with perhaps twenty-five years. They say he is the only agent in Medellin who is permitted a personal army. I am not sure who he works for, but it is clear from the pattern of hits he has ordered that he is connected with drugs.

El Padre has a powerful reputation. They say, when he had only six years, he was under the bed where the guerrillas came at night and killed his father, then raped his mother and stabbed her to death. The story goes that he memorized the killers' feet and their voices and their smell and tracked them down and made his revenge, one by one. The story goes that he allowed them each one final prayer and then, when they were only halfway finished, took his knife and opened their throats from behind. For this element of prayer they named him El Padre.

But the better story is that he was present, ten years ago, when his friend assassinated defenseman Escobar for the horrible sin of scoring a goal against his own country in the World Cup. This story goes that some time later he killed this friend over a spilled drink. It is something to murder a sicario of such reputation, but to do it over such a small failure of respect — an eyebrow revenge — that is a formidable thing. They say he now has hundreds of deaths to his name.

I have worked for El Padre for four months and have been a good sicario , a loyal soldado , never failing him until four days ago. Four days ago I was assigned a hit and did not make this hit. Of course, he is not interested in my reasons.

According to our usual practice, he called me on my cell phone the following day to confirm the hit.

Bueno , I said, getting up and walking outside so that my mother could not listen in. On the street I said to him, I could not find the target.

The phone line went quiet. You could not find the target, he said. His voice was soft, like he was recovering from a cold: Maybe the information was incorrect. Sometimes it is that way… the information is incorrect.

It had been a whole day and still I could not think of a better excuse.

I said, Maybe it is best to wait until Sunday. We both knew that Sunday is the best day to do the business as the target is usually at home.

You were ordered to do it yesterday.

I could not find the target, I lied again. Maybe he will be there on Sunday.

We have never met, have we, Ron?

No, sir.

You have been a good soldado , he said. I think it is time we met. This week, I think.

Yes, sir.

I will call you with the details.

Yes, sir.

I am no child, wet behind the ears. I have now fourteen years and two months. I know how things work. That there is not supposed to be contact between a sicario and his agent. I know that I have been summoned.

* * *

WHEN I RETURN FROM THE BUSINESS with Luis and the others, my mother is sitting in her dark room watching an American soap show. I quickly scan the street as I close the front door.

I switch a lamp on for her. In the yellow flood of light I see she is still wearing her makeup and her going-out clothes. For a moment I watch her as she watches the screen. She does not blink. The concentration of her face is calming.

Your friend called, she says, not turning her head from the TV. It is a large, forty-inch Sony model and was in almost new condition when Carlos sold it to us.

Claudia?

I wrote it all down, she says and gestures vaguely. On the screen a white woman with large lips is hugging her elbows and crying. I catch my mother's hand and make a show of kissing it gallantly, like I see in the old movies. It smells of fish and nail polish.

Oh darling! I say in high-voiced English. Come back to me for I am… embarazada … with your secret love child! I say this last part in Spanish so she will understand.