A King's ransom

“This was not the deal, damn you!”

“It’s the deal now.”

“Then there’s no deal!”

“Come on-”

“No, it’s over! This guy has been trouble from the beginning. That was my fifteen-year-old cousin that got shot and killed by his Nicaraguan piece-of-trash crewman in Cartagena. I’ve had to watch him constantly, feed him, clothe him, put up with his disrespect. I couldn’t get a fair price from FARC, couldn’t get half a fair price from ELN, and now you want to shortchange me? Forget it. I’m done. We’re done. He’s done.”

“Wait,” Alex said, but the line clicked.

I’d heard it all, my ear practically pressed against hers. I pulled away slowly, the sound of dead air from the telephone humming between us.

70

Matthew heard footsteps in the hallway, then shouting outside his closed door. He recognized the voices, the wild tempers. Evidently drugs were as plentiful here as in the mountains. As the lock on the door rattled open, he braced himself for the worst.

“?Gringo!” Joaquin shouted.

The light switched on, but the sudden brightness was an assault on his eyes. He felt snow-blind to his surroundings as he sat up and shaded his eyes with chained hands. His vision was just beginning to return when, seemingly out of nowhere, a callused hand slapped him across the head and knocked him to the floor.

“Get up!”

Matthew lay motionless. Joaquin grabbed him by the collar and threw him against the wall. Matthew was like a dog on a short leash, his body jerking in midair as the chains went taut.

The fall had hurt his shoulder, and he heard himself groan. He heard laughter, too, and as his sight returned, he saw Cerdo and another guard standing in the doorway. It had been the same way in the mountains, when they’d thrown him in the hole. Punishment of the prisoners was the guerrillas’ chief source of entertainment. Cerdo and his buddy were passing a bottle of rum between the two of them as Joaquin ran the show.

“How much was your policy worth?” shouted Joaquin.

“What policy?”

He kicked him in the groin. Matthew nearly blacked out, then struggled through it.

“Don’t lie to me! I know about Quality Insurance Company. How much was it?”

Matthew could barely breathe, let alone answer. But if Joaquin knew the company name, there was no sense in playing totally dumb. “A couple hundred thousand.”

Joaquin kicked him again, this time in the kidney. The pain shot in all directions. Another kick like that and Matthew feared it would kill him.

“It’s three million!” said Joaquin.

“Whatever you say.”

He grabbed Matthew by the hair-long, greasy locks that sorely needed shampoo. “It’s not whatever I say. It’s three million!”

Matthew didn’t answer.

Joaquin seized his prisoner by the jaw, forcing him to look him in the eye. “I should kill you now,” he said, snarling.

Matthew stared right back, more than matching the contempt of his captor. Joaquin shoved him down to the floor.

“Unchain him.”

On command, Cerdo rushed over with the keys. He was staggering, too much to drink. He rested the near-empty bottle of rum on the bed, then knelt down to unlock the cuffs.

Matthew’s mind raced, sorting through his limited options. This seemed to be the end of the line. After that speech from Cerdo the other day, he was certain that they were going to take him out to some alley, pump a dozen bullets into his face, and dump his body in the street. His fate seemed to be a pauper’s grave, an unidentified corpse. He could go peaceably, or he could make good on the promise he’d made to himself when they’d left the mountains, when Cerdo had called out to Nisho, taunting the woman he and his buddies had gang-raped, “Nishooooooo, I love you!”

Nothing would have been better than to take out Cerdo and Joaquin. But this might be his only opportunity. He’d settle for just Cerdo.

The moment the chains loosened he shook free and grabbed the bottle of rum. In a blur, he slammed it against Cerdo’s skull and burrowed the jagged glass into his neck, pushing down hard, twisting and turning the razor-sharp edges, gouging right at the carotid artery until his hands were covered in red.

Cerdo squirmed and screamed in pain, blood gushing from his neck like a fountain. Joaquin slammed Matthew across the side of the head and knocked him to the floor. Cerdo rolled to one side, grabbing his throat, but the bleeding was unstoppable. The blood ran through his fingers and soaked his shirt. A huge crimson puddle covered the floor.

“The blood, stop the blood!” he cried in a panic.

The other guard grabbed a dirty white bedsheet and shoved it against his neck. In seconds it had soaked through, bright red. Cerdo got up on one knee, shook his fist weakly at Matthew, then fell to the floor. He lay motionless in his own blood.

No one moved. Matthew stared at the lifeless body, then turned his gaze to Joaquin, certain that he was about to be executed.

Joaquin stepped around the pool of blood to face Matthew directly. He drew his nine-millimeter pistol from his holster and aimed at the prisoner’s forehead. Matthew stared down the barrel of the gun, looking straight into the dark, narrow tunnel of death. It hardly seemed a fair trade, his life for trash as worthless as Cerdo. But it was the closest thing to justice that a prisoner could hope for.

“Go ahead,” he said defiantly. “Shoot me.”

The gun was shaking, Joaquin was so angry. His finger tensed on the trigger, but he didn’t pull it. “Lock him up!” he shouted.

Cerdo’s buddy looked confused and horrified, but Joaquin shouted the order again. “Lock him up!”

This time the guard obeyed, and Matthew didn’t resist. When the cuffs were in place, Joaquin came to him, put the gun to Matthew’s temple, and said, “I promise, I will shoot you. Right before your son’s eyes.”

71

Alex brought dinner back to the apartment, but I didn’t touch the food. As much as she’d assured me that the negotiations weren’t really over, that Joaquin would cool down, it was hard not to take his outburst as final. My mind was already at my father’s funeral, or perhaps memorial service was a more appropriate term, as I was certain that we’d never recover the body.

We sat at opposite sides of the kitchen table, saying little. Another tearful bolero of lost love was playing on the evening program of Radio Recuerdo. The Holy Infant and Our Lady of Perpetual Help were watching us from framed pictures on the wall. Alex kept apologizing for eating in the face of my total loss of appetite, but I was caught up in my own thoughts.