Santiago Gamboa - Necropolis

Ramón was reading and weeping at the same time. They had all betrayed him. Not just one of them, all of them. His head was seething. He took a bottle of rum and went out onto the balcony of his apartment and looked at the lights of the bay and racked his brain for memories. He remembered one time when he had asked Soraya to come with him to Villavicencio, and she had said, no, Ramón, it’s better if I stay here and chat for a while with a friend on Facebook and then I’ll go to see my mother, it’s better if you go alone and come back quickly. He had given her a goodbye kiss — she was still wearing the uniform from La Maporita — and he had set off, listening to songs by Carlos Vives; he imagined her fucking Jacinto, an hour later, as he was driving along the highway. He heard the voice of the man known as Dagoberto saying to him, someone else is banging her, Ramoncho, they all like a bit of cock, what can we do?

His revenge should not be ordinary. No bullets in the back of the neck, no throwing bodies off a cliff. He would do things properly. He would not get his hands dirty: they were not worth it. He would lift the curtain and make the whole horrible affair visible to everyone. That was what he had to do. First he would deal with Dagoberto, then with Jacinto and Soraya, and finally with Arnulfo, his rat of an assistant, who was now part owner of his auto repair shop.

He wrote to the detective as follows:

Things are getting more and more complicated, but your fees will rise in proportion. This time you will need to hire people you trust. I want you to locate a farmhouse belonging to Dagoberto, an old house about four hours’ drive from La Cascada and another four hours from Puerto Lleras. They killed people in that house. I don’t know what it looks like from the outside, but it has a cellar with a number of rooms and stone walls, and a kind of kitchen with big concrete and tile counters where they tortured and killed people and cut up the bodies. If you find that farm for me, take some photographs of it, send them to me and I’ll recognize the place, your payment will go up to 10,000,000 pesos, how does that grab you? I also need you to find a connection between Jacinto and Dagoberto, a photocopy of a check, a signature, anything that shows that they were together, that they had a common interest, that they were protecting each other.

Three weeks passed before the detective sent his next message, which said:

Well, friend, let me tell you I have really good news. Brace yourself, because it really is good. It’s better than good, it’s brilliant. Get a grip on yourself before you download the photographs I’m sending you, because they show Dagoberto’s house, the one where people were killed. Don’t just take my word for it, have a look. It’s near Lejanías in a village called Palestina. It’s abandoned now, or rather, with a peasant looking after it with orders not to let anyone in, only this guy is hungrier than a piranha in a glass of water and doesn’t give a damn about orders. As soon as my colleague gave him a whiff of a fifty thousand peso bill, he opened his legs, or rather, he opened the doors wide and said, I’ll give you half an hour, I’m not responsible for what you find inside, I don’t know anything and I never saw anything. My colleague took some really artistic photographs. There’s a cellar just as you described it, with bloodstains. Take a good look at photograph number three. But the best of all is in another of the rooms: some metal trays and some drawers full of chemicals, enough to make a mountain of cocaine, how does that grab you? And there’s more, boss, pure gold: my colleague found a drawer with a padlock on it. He opened it and, to his surprise, there was a small laptop inside, clearly those guys hotfooted it out of there very quickly, or maybe just took the bigger things, in any case I have the machine here and on it there are names and photographs and everything, really sweet. My partner, who always has his eyes open for his big chance, says we could sell it for fifty million, but I told him that as you’re a friend we should let you have it for twenty million, because all the information you’re looking for is in it, and don’t faint dead away when you hear this: there are even photographs of Señor Jacinto and Señora Soraya actually in the act, a real delight, I can tell you. Those guys must be really depraved, to go around taking photographs like that and then keeping them, or maybe they were taken with a hidden camera. Well, friend, I await your reply, because what my partner wants to do is sell the computer to Dagoberto, but I keep telling him no, that’s not the way to proceed, which is why the best thing to do is for you to answer me quickly and leave the matter settled, and for my partner, who’s really short of money and whose daughter is getting married, to stop getting ideas like that.

Ramón read and reread the message. Then he decided to look at the photographs, and recognized the corridor and the narrow walls. It was the house, there was no doubt about it. The detective was really good, how had he managed it? had he bribed a former paramilitary? It was possible. Seeing those images, he remembered Father Cubillos and the confidence with which he had said to him, “we’re both going to get out of here, it’s God’s will,” and in fact they had both gotten out. There was no more room for doubt. He had to buy that computer because in it lay his revenge, which would now have to include them all. Maybe Father Cubillos was still helping him from on high. Only when it was over would he be able to feel clean and dignified again.

My friend, I congratulate you. You are one of the most professional people I have ever met, and I mean that. The photographs are good, that is the place. I really can’t imagine what you did to find it, but it’s better if you don’t tell me. There are things it’s better not to know. Now, let’s talk about money. I’ll give you the twenty million you’re asking, and five more if you let me have a signed paper assuring me that you did not make any copies of the material you’re handing over to me and that you will not be using any of it in the future. If you send me that, I’ll immediately send the twenty-five million, and I’ll send somebody to pick up the computer, placed carefully in a case and locked. But let’s take things one at a time.

Less than two hours later the detective’s answer arrived.

Ah, my friend, I already knew the name Poor Friend was a metaphor, and that you were a gentleman. Well, everything is confirmed, boss. You can send me the money and I will hand over the things. How could you even think I’d keep hold of any of it? And I’m sending you the paper you ask for, scanned, so that you can be reassured, my friend, and I’m already starting to feel sad that when our contract comes to an end so will our friendship, because I don’t mind telling you I’ve really gotten to like you.

That same night he called Daisy and said, well now, sweetheart, how would you like to go back to Colombia? Sure, darling, just tell me when. First thing tomorrow, to make sure everything’s fine, I’ll send for you now and we’ll leave together. Oh, that’s really wonderful, and are we going somewhere hot or somewhere cold? The same place as last time, you told me you liked it.

The next day, after transferring the detective’s money, they took the first plane and by noon they were once again at the Hotel del Llano in Villavicencio. Ramón told Daisy: now then, darling, I need you to do me a favor. I’m going to dial a number, I want you to say you’re calling on behalf of Poor Friend and you want them to hand over the package, which they should leave, addressed to Daisy, at the reception desk in the Hotel del Llano, O.K.? O.K., darling, as long as you swear to me it isn’t dangerous. I swear, and anyway we’re going to Bogotá today and after that if you like I’ll send you to Medellín, at my expense, for a few days, O.K.? Now then, dial the number, and say it’s from Poor Friend.