Necropolis (30 page)

With Soraya Mora, from what I've been able to establish, things were more difficult, because she was in love with Ramón Melo and they had to work on her a bit more. Obviously she was also in love with Jacinto and that was why she let him have sex with her, but although I'm not a student of character or anything, I do think women feel attracted to their boyfriends' friends, and so the woman ended up sharing herself between the two of them at the same time, although she was officialy involved with Ramón Melo García. Hernán Mora won her over by telling her that Ramón was a member of the FARC, but they themselves were patriots so it was better if she forgot him. It took him a week to win her over.

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.

Ramón dialed the detective's number and Daisy said exactly what he had told her to say. She asked the detective to bring the package in a case to the hotel before three that afternoon. The detective said O.K. and they hung up. Ramón started pacing the room nervously. Daisy called reception and said that someone was going to bring a case in her name, and would they please let her know, and they sat down and waited. Ramón hired a taxi and asked the driver to wait outside. At 2:40 the telephone rang. The package was downstairs. Ramón went down to the street, got in the taxi and made sure that there was nobody or nothing unusual. Daisy came down a few minutes later, picked up the package and walked out of the hotel. She joined Ramón in the taxi and they set off for the airport. That evening they were in Bogotá, at the Hotel Suites Jones in Chapinero Alto.

Daisy said: as you can see, darling, I make a good trafficker. That isn't what this is, sweetheart, I already told you a dozen times. Oh really? why all the mystery, then? Because it's something important. Remember what I said, no questions, now do you want to go to Medellín? Daisy said of course and the next day, very early, Ramón sent her by taxi to catch the shuttle with a ticket and two million pesos in cash.

As soon as Daisy had left, Ramón went downstairs, paid the bill, and changed hotels. This time he went to the Bogotá Plaza, on Calle Cien, near the freeway. As soon as he had settled in, he sat down and switched on the computer. It was only then that it occurred to him that he should have checked everything in Villavicencio. He had been concentrating so much on his security measures that he had forgotten the most important thing, but anyway, he would soon see. Once he had switched on, he had direct access to all the files, but there were others that were encrypted. He looked at the photographs and saw things that filled him with horror: Soraya naked, with Jacinto taking her from behind, Soraya giving Jacinto a blowjob, Jacinto sticking his finger into her anus, who had taken these photographs? He saw that they were all from the same angle and he assumed there must have been a camera hidden in the room, maybe the paras used the photographs for blackmail. In the other files, there were hundreds of photographs of other naked people, even others of Jacinto with a woman who was a friend of Soraya's and worked in the same internet café, clearly he had been screwing both of them.

He kept looking at the photographs, his heart on the verge of breaking, and then opened another file that really knocked him sideways: Soraya and himself, naked in the motel, ten, twenty, thirty photographs, all from the same angle. He huddled on the floor, in a fetal position, and wept bitterly. He did not want to see any more and shut down the computer. He took a quarter bottle of aguardiente from the minibar and started drinking slowly. Outside, night was falling but he did not feel any desire to go out. He was alone and felt like shit, with a hatred in him that kept him awake, like a glass of cold water thrown in his face. He called room service, ordered a chicken sandwich and a Diet Coke, and waited, sitting on the floor. Then he got in the bathtub and filled it with hot water. The sandwich was good. They had all deceived him and now the Grim Reaper was coming for them. The next day he would think about what to do and see what else was on that damn laptop.

He spent two days looking at files and found many things that filled him with ideas. There were Excel pages containing details of drug consignments, drugs, prices, weights, and routes, the dates were recent, after Dagoberto had supposedly volunteered for the demobilization process. There were photographs of a grave with nine bodies, with faces taken from close up so that they could be recognized, and other photographs showing corpses being cut up to make them unrecognizable.

And there was the connection with his friend Jacinto. He had been buying, at a knockdown price, the cattle the paramilitaries had confiscated from other farms. Then, when Jacinto had become a major auto repair shop owner—with his shops—he had become the one who fixed the cars for them, cleaning off the blood and human remains. After every job Dagoberto handed the vehicles over to Jacinto and he handed them back as good as new, repainted, and with new plates. Jacinto never invoiced him, but in the accounts there were all the payments to his shop, each with a description: Toyota van, seven bullet holes and traces of bodies. Fixing, repainting, and cleaning of traces. 1,500,000 pesos to Jacinto, or Chevrolet Suburban after Operation Mayor of Fresno. Chassis cleaned and repainted. 1,200,000 pesos. Jacinto. And there was a file of more than a hundred and twenty pages, with invoices attached, which demonstrated that the cocaine was cut on Jacinto's farm!

Another file detailed the cleansing operations by area, such as: 32 executed by Hernán Mora in Operation Lejanías. Buried in seven pits, cut up, does not count as massacre. List: followed by the names and the approximate ages. This Hernán was the brother of Soraya, so they were all there. The only one missing was Soraya, how could he take his revenge on her? It was Soraya he felt angriest at because nobody had forced her, she had done it even though she loved him. The photographs of her and Jacinto in the motel and the fact that she had married him, even though he would never have asked her mother for her hand: all that was more than sufficient proof that she was involved in the thing right from the start. All of them had been against him, and what had he done to them? Nothing, nothing. He had loved her, and he had loved Jacinto, who had been his friend since they were children. They had paid him back for that love and friendship with death and ruin. As he thought this, his breathing grew heavier and hatred filled his bloodstream, giving him even more strength. He would destroy them, that was clear.