White Tombs (29 page)

“I spoke to the police earlier today,” he said. “They will do nothing.”

Ofir sat facing him in a rocker, her long white hair shimmering in the darkness like a beacon on a treacherous sea. “The police are afraid.”

“But I am not.”

“You would be if you knew who they were.”

“Tell me.”

“They are evil. This is not the first time they have taken a life.”

“Why, Ofir? Why did they murder my mother?”

“Because your mother could not save theirs.”

“I do not understand.”

“A woman was brought to the emergency room after falling from her horse. Your mother was attending physician. She tried to save this woman’s life, but there were complications. Her sons hold your mother responsible. Now they want you to suffer as they have.”

It was pointless to ask Ofir how she knew of these men. In all the years Santana had known her, he had come to believe that it was more important to understand what she knew rather than how she knew it.

“If I had not gone to the
galeria
to find fresh fruit and vegetables,” she said.

“It’s all right, Ofir.”

“You know, in the supermarket, the fruit and vegetables are so bad.”

“You could not have done anything,” he said. “Just tell me who these men are.”

“So you can kill them?”

“Yes.”

“Your mother would want me to protect you.”

“There is nothing to protect me from.”

“But yourself.”

Santana sat forward in the chair. He could smell the scent of rose water lotion on her and see the faint outline of her wrinkled face. Outside
chicharras
buzzed in the night.

“You worked in this house for over thirty years, Ofir. You loved my mother. She loved you. These men raped her before they killed her. Help me to avenge her death. Please.”

“Killing them will not be easy,” she said. “And once you do this, you must leave the country and never return.”

“You told me of my destiny a long time ago, Ofir.”

“Sometimes,” she said, and her voice broke, “you hope the dream is not true.”

D
ust motes floated like a swarm of insects in the afternoon rays of sunlight that shone through the stained glass windows and suffused the interior of the small chapel at the Gemelli School with gold light. The chapel was located inside a small, square brick building that served as guest quarters for visiting priests. It sat on a hill overlooking the metal and concrete barrack-like buildings of the school.

“I want you to promise me, Father Gallego, that you will look out for my sister,” Santana said. “Always.”

The Franciscan priest’s kind, hazel eyes settled on Santana, searching for answers to the questions he dared not ask. The air was heavy with the smell of incense and candle wax.

“Remember, Juan, the end does not justify the means. Let God judge those who do harm to others.”

“A drunk driver killed my father and my mother was murdered for trying to save a life,” Santana said. “I will not wait until eternity for God’s judgment — if there even is a God.”

Father Gallego shifted his weight in the pew, obviously uncomfortable with what Santana had said. He wore his ash-brown hair long and the traditional simple brown robe with a rope around his waist. Because of his well-trimmed light beard, everyone in the school called him Father
Chivas,
short for
chivera
.

“Faith means believing without proof,” he said. “Trusting without reservation. You must not lose your faith and let evil prevail. You must look to God for understanding.”

“What is there to understand?”

The priest let out a deep sigh like a dying man exhaling his last breath. “Given the tragic deaths of your parents, Juan, I realize how difficult it must be to understand God’s plan. Perhaps there is another way. One that involves mercy and forgiveness.”

Santana knew there would be no mercy or forgiveness for the men who had murdered his mother. Not if he had anything to say about it. But he remained silent and let the priest continue.

“You have always been an intelligent, studious boy who wished to become a doctor like his mother, a person who saved lives. You can do so many wonderful things with your life, Juan. I am afraid that what you are seeking to do will only harden your heart and tarnish your soul forever.”

They were alone in the small chapel, and in the silence, that was as still as a tomb, Santana could hear the beating of his heart.

“You are my favorite teacher, Father. I have learned much from you. I am not asking you for your blessing or even your understanding. All I am asking is that you promise me you will protect Natalia.”

“I will make sure your sister is safe. But what about you?”

“It is better that you do not know.”

The priest’s reluctant nod indicated he knew that it was useless to debate the issue further.

“Your mother told me after your father’s death that if anything happened to her, I should handle the estate. Your family was not rich, but there is a considerable amount of money put away for you. You will need it to continue your life. You will have to let me know where you go so I can get the money to you.”

“These men who killed my mother are very dangerous. If they find out you know where I am, Father, they will make you tell them.”

Father Gallego gave a reassuring smile. “There is only one other person besides me who will know where you are, Juan. And that is God.”

“T
his is
escopolamina,
” Ofir said. “On the streets it is known as
burundanga
.” She held up a small vial containing a finely ground powder in her wrinkled hand. “You can put it in a drink or in food. It is odorless, colorless and tasteless. But you must be careful not to use too little or too much.”

The kitchen was filled with the aroma of
mondongo
brewing on the stove, a stew made of potatoes and the stomach of a slaughtered pig. Out the window behind Ofir, the setting sun flamed the sky, left the horizon blood red.

Santana had heard stories about the drug that had been used by Colombian Indians since before the Spanish conquest. The
borrachero
or get-you-drunk tree grew wild in the countryside. Its orange and white flowers looked like long, thin bells hanging beneath the green leaves. His mother had once explained to him that the alkaloid from the tree was used in medicines to treat motion sickness and tremors from Parkinson’s disease. But she had also warned him that eating the seeds could be deadly. In small doses men became so docile that they would help thieves empty their bank accounts. Women had been drugged and then gang-raped or rented out as prostitutes. And because
escopolamina
blocked the formation of memories, it was impossible for victims to identify the perpetrators. Still, Santana wondered if the stories were true.

“I have heard of it,” he said. “But it might be difficult to put the drug in a drink or in food these men will take.”

“There is another way,” she said. Her round copper eyes were clear and brilliant, nearly orange in color, like those of a cat, and seemed to bore into his skin.

“What will these men do when I give it to them?”

“Whatever you want them to.”

T
he
El Cerro de Oro
nightclub sat on the crest of the hill high above the eastern edge of the city. From here Santana could look across all of Manizales and see the water tower atop the hill in the
Chipre Barrio
where he lived and the city below, encircled by the towering Andes. The land was green and rolling and covered with rubber trees, wax palms and the red flowers of the
cambulo
trees. Houses for the four hundred thousand inhabitants were tightly packed together and spilled out across the valley floor all the way to the base of the mountains. The spire of the
Cathedral de Manizales
rose like a statue from the center of the city.

Santana would often go to the nightclub with his friends around 11:00 p.m. on weekends to dance and listen to American music. There was no drinking age limit in Colombia, and he and his friends often ordered
media de aguardiente
or
media de ron
, a half bottle of rum, to mix with the Cokes they drank while they danced. Afterward, at 4:00 a.m. when the dancing ended, they would buy hot dogs from the vendor outside the club before heading home.

Inside the club was a dimly lit lower level with a bar in the corner surrounded by stools. Across from the bar a large picture window looked out on the lights of the city far below. Walking into the club was like entering a movie theater after the feature had started, and it always took a moment for the eyes to adjust to the darkness. Tables encircled a small dance floor while a rotating disco ball in the ceiling dappled the faces of the crowd with lasers of light as a disk jockey played
salsa
,
merengue
,
paso doble
and American rock, usually in blocks of six songs. On the second floor was the
la Taverna Mexicana
where they played
Rancheras
.

Santana had waited in the parking lot of
El Cerro de Oro
on three consecutive weekends charting the times Enrique and Emilio Estrada arrived and left the club, looking for any consistent patterns of behavior. The Estradas were easy to spot in their new, black Ford Ranger pickup with the smoked-glass windows.

They were the twin sons of Alejandro Estrada, head of the Cali cartel. Estrada was known as “
la Piraña
” in the drug trade because of his practice of feeding those who opposed him to the piranhas he kept in a large water tank on his farm outside Cali. He had tried to keep his sons away from the drug business by sending them to exclusive private schools. But no amount of education could change the fact that his twenty-year-old sons were raging sociopaths.

At 12:20 a.m. the brothers drove through the archway into the lot in front of the club, angle-parked along the
guadua
fence and stepped out of the pickup. They were nearly identical in appearance, just under six feet, hard and lean, with dark, razor cut hair. Each of them wore a skin-tight black pullover and pants, thick gold chains and watches, and gold rings with large emeralds on their fingers.

One of them took a package of Derby’s out of his breast pocket. Put a cigarette between his perfectly white teeth and lit it with a gold-plated lighter. Then they walked across the asphalt lot jammed with cars, past the two heavy-set bouncers at the entrance and in the door of the club.

Santana could see small groups of teenagers lingering near the front entrance and around the hot dog stand. The night pulsated with the rhythm of
salsa
music, the ground beneath his feet quivered with tremors, as if there was a quake. Car tires hummed along the asphalt and a full moon left a bright hole in the black curtain of sky.

Santana had learned from his previous weekend visits to the club that the Estradas were creatures of habit. They usually arrived after midnight and left by 3:00 a.m. Putting
escopolamina
in their drinks would be easy in the dimly lit club, but getting both of them outside and into a car without arousing suspicion would be difficult.

He had another plan.

At 3:10 a.m., the brothers exited the club. Strutting with rum-induced self-confidence toward their Ford Ranger.

Santana opened the jar of Vaseline he had carried with him and rubbed a thin layer of gel around his nostrils and over his lips and mouth, coating his breathing passages in order to catch any drifting particles. He placed the Vaseline back in the car. Put on a pair of his mother’s surgical gloves. Checked to make sure he had his father’s .38-caliber revolver in a jacket pocket. Removing the vial of
escopolamina
from another pocket, he poured half the powder in each hand. Then he followed the Estradas to their pickup.

“Do you have a light?” Santana asked as he approached them.

He could feel his heart thudding in his chest. Hear the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

The Estradas turned and glared at Santana as though he were a bloodstain on their shirts. Their dark eyes were flat and soulless and looked like they belonged in a corpse.

“Go to hell,
malparido
,” one of them said and they both laughed.

Santana imagined them laughing as they raped his mother and then looped the rope around her neck and pulled the chair out from under her feet. He saw himself wrapping his arms around his mother’s bare legs as he tried to lift her up in a desperate attempt to ease the tension in the rope, thinking between sobs that if he could only get some slack in the rope she would breathe again and everything would be as it was the moment before he had entered the house, when hope and truth and beauty still existed in the world.

He flung handfuls of powdered
escopolamina
in their faces and stepped back, taking care not to inhale.

“Hey,” one of them said, as they tried to brush away the light powder clinging to their dark shirts. Then both their heads tilted back, their mouths fell open and their jaws went slack.

Santana hesitated for a long moment, uncertain if the drug had actually taken effect, before he told them to follow him to his car. Despite what he had heard about the power of the drug, it surprised him when they complied without question.

He ordered one of the Estradas into the back of his mother’s Suzuki jeep and the other into the passenger side. He stripped off the gloves, climbed into the driver’s seat. Like most teenagers in Colombia, Santana had been driving legally since he was thirteen and was confident in his ability to handle the red jeep with a five-speed gearshift mounted on the floor.

He drove out of the lot, past the eucalyptus trees and the farmhouses and up into the mountains where the night air blowing through the open canopy of the jeep was ripe with the rich scent of coffee beans and ozone from an approaching storm. He kept looking nervously at each of the Estradas seated to his right and behind him, fearing that the drug would wear off before he could get them both safely away from the city. But the brothers sat quietly with arms down at their sides, faces staring straight ahead, as if in a trance.