Boy Kills Man (11 page)

‘There wouldn't be enough to go round,' I told Jairo, and saluted him with a big swig. The hit lifted me on to my feet, just as a volley of fireworks screamed for the stars outside. It was enough to make my uncle start muttering and mumbling again, and I didn't like the sound of that one bit. Without thinking I turned up the stereo, and amazingly he settled back again. It seemed old Jairo preferred to party alone than celebrate with real people.

There were two rival teams in this city, but from my window it looked like all the fans had come together for a good time. I peered down, hoping to spot some familiar faces I could hang out with, only to see a young woman drift into the street dressed all in white. She seemed divine to my eyes, almost glowing from the inside out as she cut across the crowd. Even before she stopped and turned her pale face up to me, I felt like I had just ignored a visit from one of God's own messengers.

I had already made a fool of myself in front of Alberto's sister that day. After the way I had behaved when she broke down about her brother, I didn't think she'd want anything more to do with me. Now it seemed she had been good enough to call at my door, and this was how I behaved! I flinched from the window, unsure if she had seen me, but quickly decided I needed to make up for my stupidity. Alberto had caused us
both
a lot of grief, I thought. Maybe we could help each other.

‘Beatriz!'
I crashed out into the crowded street, and tried to cross just as she had. It wasn't so easy for me, however, and I found myself getting shoved and snarled at and told to take it easy. I turned a couple of times, hoping to catch a glimpse of that flowing white dress she was wearing, but it just made me feel giddy and breathless. What was the point of drinking, I thought, if it made you feel sick as well as sorry? I dug in my heels as best I could, and called her name again. I would've carried on until I heard her voice, but a string of firecrackers went off like a dog fight just behind me. The crowd around it scattered, and I found myself caught up in the push. When I got some space again, I realised I could hear my beat box over all the laughter and the singing. I looked around and spotted our building. Then I saw Jairo at the window. He was leaning out with his drink in one hand, yelling for me to haul my ass back inside. I figured he must've woken as I scrambled to leave the apartment, having left my stereo blazing and the lid off the bottle. I couldn't go back now, at least not without my mother around, and realised that meant I was facing a very long night indeed. Still, with so many people having the time of their lives out here, swapping backslaps, cigarettes and songs, I decided to just go with the flow.

Which was how I wound up outside the stadium when the sun came up next morning, with five thousand pesos in my pocket, a strained wrist and a swollen lip.

The money would buy me a McDonald's meal at most. At any other time, it would've been a stretch, but this had cost me a beating, as well as my appetite. I had nobody else to blame for that, and decided it was time I grew up a bit. After turning my back on the apartment, I had hooked up with some kids from the
barrio.
They were just babies really: eight and nine-year-olds who earned a living selling fake lottery tickets at the traffic lights three blocks south. I even heard they pulled off a carjack some days before, and didn't doubt it. They certainly looked like they could shape up into a gang, with their bandanas and the switchblades that came out when I asked them how they'd persuaded three men from the petroleum company to part with their Chevrolet. The way they acted out the scene made me hoot with laughter, and I wished I had been there to see a dozen oily scraps cram into the car and then bicker about who would do the driving. It was clear to me they lacked a leader, and amid the celebrations I had gone a little wild with them.

‘Show us what you're made of,' they had said, and that was how it started. ‘We never hung with the brother of a
sicario.
'

What money I went on to make had come out of a purse: the result of a dare gone wrong. I was feeling drunk and headstrong at the time, and keen that they remember me. I didn't have a gun like Alberto, but I wanted the same kind of respect and attention.
Watch me,
I had said, and taken a book of tickets into the traffic. In this city, you drove with the doors locked and never wound down your windows. Unless, of course, you were stuck at the lights and a boy like me was pretending to sell you the winning slip. It had taken a little longer than I hoped, however, and I guess I panicked. The kids had begun to make jokes at my expense.
Shifting tickets is child's play!
That's what they had called across when I made my second sale, so I just went for it: I waited for the next car to stop for me, put my hand up under my shirt, as if reaching for a holster, and made out I was packing a piece. The woman in the driving seat had freaked out completely, which startled me almost as much. I should've fled as soon as she flung her purse at me. Instead, I just stood there with my prize. I was utterly amazed at what I had done, and only came to my senses when some college jocks from the car behind leapt out to her rescue.

The kids had fled into the night just as soon as they saw that I was in trouble. Alberto would never have abandoned me like that. I only had to think of the lesson he taught my uncle to remind me of his courage. He may have walked away when I needed him that afternoon, but nobody had been threatening to squash me into the tarmac at the time. Had my friend been around when those jocks caught up with me, I doubt I would've taken yet another beating. When I finally slipped from their clutches, with my t-shirt torn and my head in a daze, I realised how much I missed him.

Without Alberto, it seemed I would never be anything more than a victim. When I caught up with him, I decided, I would make sure he never left my side again.

He might as well have been with me when I found myself outside the stadium, because nobody tried to shake me down. It had seemed like the only place in this city where I felt at home, even if it was the middle of the night and as dangerous as the jungle. There were plenty of shadowy figures drifting around, also drunks and diehard fans waiting for the ticket office to open the next morning, but nobody paid any attention to the boy with the bloody lip and the distant stare. I guess it helped that I looked robbed already, and I was in no mood to make my presence known. I just took myself to the spot where Alberto and I had knocked so many balls about whenever a match was on, and that's where I settled down. I didn't move when dawn broke, all curled up with my hands under my cheek, and only got to my feet again when the space around me began to shrink. I grew thirsty too, with no escape from the strengthening sun, but I worried that I'd miss my friend if I moved from the crowd. At times I had to shove and push to stay standing, but the crush I was in just melted when the gates finally opened.

Towards kick-off, the space I had claimed was almost my own again when some more kids showed up with a ball. They knocked it about for a bit, and then started their own match when a roar from the stadium marked the real kick-off. Using t-shirts for goalposts, they put in their own ninety minutes with all the passion and guts of the players on the pitch itself. Throughout I just stood there with two tickets in my hand and a heart slowly dying in my chest. I even missed the result, but by then I had finally woken up to what I had lost.

Alberto was gone. I knew that I would never see my blood brother again or discover what had happened to him. That much was clear to me just as soon as he had left me in the square, and maybe it was clear to him too. Perhaps neither of us wanted to face up to that last goodbye, but now the final whistle had blown and I was alone in this city. Old Jairo never had a good word to say about me, even when my mother was around, and I didn't dare think about Beatriz now. With nobody watching over me, my only hope was to own a gun.

I also knew exactly how I could earn one.

La Gloria, Medellín:

The old Dodge Dart speeds towards the compound, sweeping up dust as it fishtails out of every corner. Sunlight detonates from the windshield every now and then, especially when the car passes over a pothole. The boy in the back seat looks straight ahead, tapping out some imaginary rhythm on his knees. On the final turn, his driver jabs the horn three times –a signal for the guard to open the gate. The Dodge accelerates, forcing the guard to hurry and curse, and then slides to a halt inside using the handbrake only. Manu likes to make an entrance, especially when returning from a job well done.

The compound is made up of a number of single storey buildings, three of which look out on to a courtyard. The walls are whitewashed, with sloping red-tiled roofs and a covered porch. Geraniums hang in pots from the eaves, offering yet more escape from the sun. A group of men are drinking coffee round a table in the shade here, while the two white mastiffs that have been basking on the steps come to life as the car doors swing open. These are attack dogs, with slathering jaws and muscular bodies. When the boy drops out he
is
almost knocked off his feet, and yet he seems unfazed by the attention.

‘Hey, girls, did you think I wasn't coming back?' He ruffles one dog behind the ears, and then grabs the other in a headlock. He's no match for these beasts, should they choose to turn on him, but the pistol grip sticking out of his pants suggests he knows how to handle himself. If anything, he looks pleased to have found some playmates at last, and relieved to be out in the fresh air again. The comedown from the injection Manu had given him was bad enough. It helped him see a job through, but as the calming effects wore off so the bad guts and the twitchy feet kicked in, not to mention the ringing ears
–
even from a single shot. The last thing he wants after a hit is to be cooped up in a car that reeks of freshener. What he really needs is a little space to work off the churn and slosh going on inside his stomach. That'll come later, however. First he has to speak to the individual waiting for him inside the building.
El Fantasma
only left his quarters when it was absolutely necessary, which boiled down to business and soccer.

The boy stops fooling with the dogs and looks around for Manu, his driver these last few weeks. He's with the others now, pouring himself a coffee and talking with a cigarette pinched between his lips.

‘Hey,' the boy calls out to him. ‘Where's my picture?'

‘Passenger seat.' Manu grins at one of the men. ‘I'm thinking I shall become a portrait photographer.'

The boy finds what he's looking for: a Polaroid taken by his driver when he collected him from the scene. It was all part of the deal. The proof before he got paid, maybe something more. He holds the picture in the palm of his hand, buckling it slightly, and wonders if the widow will clean and press the suit her husband died in. Every time he hopes to avoid making a mess, but it isn't easy. At his height, and at such close range, it's hard to carry out a simple headshot. Knowing the boss as he does, it means that season ticket he's been promised as a bonus might just have to wait.

‘Adios, senor,'
he whispers, and braces himself for an audience with
El Fantasma.
‘Alberto will take care of you now.'

I never went looking for the work. Manu claims I couldn't wait to talk to him, but if that's true then why did I keep seeing his cab around the
barrio?
In the week that followed Alberto's disappearance, I would look over my shoulder and there it was – like a dog who wouldn't go home.

‘Still ready to ride, huh?' This was the first thing he said when I finally turned and talked to him. I nodded, said I understood. ‘What's your name, brother?'

‘Sonny,' I told him.

‘Sounds like Shorty.' He picked at his teeth, gave up waiting for me to smile and invited me to get in.

I felt no fear, that day. As we swept through narrow streets and market squares, I realised that I hadn't actually felt much at all since the big match. I'd spent my time steering clear of people and places that might have made me cry.

Sometimes it seemed as if everyone in my building and
barrio
was grieving for Alberto, which made it hard for me to be alone. I thought about him constantly, of course. I would see things through his eyes, and was aware of the empty space at my side wherever I went, but that was all. I didn't howl or lose any sleep, and when the police came to ask some questions I just shrugged like they expected.

It was only when I climbed into the cab that I stopped feeling so numb. By the time we pulled up outside a warehouse on the south side, I felt almost human again. Manu didn't believe me when I said I knew what was expected of me. It turned out he was right, because he reached for a box in his glove compartment and insisted I take a jab.

‘You kids can get a little excitable at times,' he explained, and picked out the syringe with his fingers. I watched him squeeze a little fluid from the needle. ‘What you have to understand is that it isn't just for your own good, but all the grown-ups depending on you. Now, lean forward, Sonny. Give me your arm, that's it. All you have to do is think of your special place.'

‘I haven't got one.'

‘Everyone has a special place,' he assured me, like I only had to think a little harder. At the same time, he wrapped an old leather shoelace around my arm and instructed me to hold it with my free hand.

‘Does it have to be an injection?' I asked, knowing what was coming.

‘The hit is instant, Shorty. Trust me, it's worth it because you don't want to go in there with any doubts.'

I sensed goosebumps rising when Manu turned my arm, and wondered if there was anything more that Alberto hadn't told me. I made myself watch what he was doing, from the moment the needle seemed to melt into my skin. I didn't think it would look good if I closed my eyes or glanced away. By the time he had finished with the jab, however, I felt no need to even pretend that I was ready. My skin had stopped prickling and my thoughts no longer raced ahead of me. I had come here for a reason, and now I was locked and loaded. Manu opened the car door for me, and I stepped out on to the parking lot. It was bright outside, but I didn't squint or shield my eyes. In fact, I was struck by how crystal clear the sky seemed.