CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After the first few viewings of the kidnapping scene, the television was turned way down. Lorena made coffee and sandwiches. As word of the kidnapping spread, a few friends called to express their condolences but were discouraged from coming to the house.

I was starting to feel like I was in the home of a Mafia family that had gone to mattresses. The household had all the tensions of a Cosa Nostra hideout. I half expected James Caan—Sonny—to come striding in.

That didn’t happen. But an hour later, the kidnappers made contact.

Amateurs might have laid low a good while in order to deepen the despair of the victim’s family and to make them part with more money. But Colombians didn’t need to be worked that way. They already knew what could happen to their loved ones. Also, the longer kidnappers delayed the entire process, the greater chance police had to find them.

But the demand wasn’t delivered the way I or anyone else in the house had expected. It didn’t come by phone. Instead, just before sunset, a delivery man appeared at the door from a Miami florist. One of Saban’s men, parked outside, stopped briefly, but they waved him on.

Manuel, still on guard inside the front gate, detained the delivery man and summoned Cósimo. The long, rectangular white box, tied with a bright red ribbon was addressed to Doña Carmen. Cósimo slipped the ribbon off the box and found inside a dozen long-stemmed red roses. They were very beautiful. Tucked among them was a small white envelope, which turned out not to be so beautiful.

Cósimo opened the envelope and removed a holy card, the kind Catholic churches print when a parishioner kicks the bucket. It bore the figure of the white-robed Christ, illuminated by the golden light of heaven and included a short prayer for the dead. Beneath it, where the name of the deceased was usually printed, someone had typed: “Catalina Cordero. $2 million U.S. in 72 hours.”

In other words, if they didn’t receive two million dollars in three days, Catalina would be sleeping with the shellfish.

Cósimo read it and stared. “These kidnappers are crazy,” he muttered.

The delivery man, a small, pale fellow in a plaid shirt, held his ground, apparently unaware of what the card said and patiently awaiting a tip. He didn’t get one. What he got was Cósimo’s right hand suddenly clenched around his larynx, as if he would rip the man’s Adam’s apple right out of his throat.

“Where did you get this?”

The little man was on his tiptoes, terrified and unable to speak due to the fact he was being strangled.

I tried to pull Cósimo away, but the cousin insisted on shaking the little man by the throat a few moments more before finally slamming him against the white stucco wall, pulling out his handgun and holding it to the man’s left temple. Given the angle of the wall, the cops outside couldn’t see us, which was a damn good thing.

Cósimo waved the prayer card in the driver’s face. “Where did you get this?”

The delivery man’s voice quaked. “It was in the box when they gave it to me. All I do is deliver. I swear.”

Within moments, I found the number of the florist on the box and punched it into my cell phone. I got the owner of the store, a guy named Durán. I very briefly explained his driver’s dangerous situation.

He uttered a fine, florid curse in Spanish. “A guy came in just as I was closing,” Durán said. “I told him I could take the order, but we couldn’t deliver until tomorrow. He produced a roll of money and offered to pay me three times what I usually charge if the delivery was made today. I told the driver I’d pay him overtime, and we closed the deal. The customer handed me cash.”

“Did he give you a name?”

“No.”

“And the card?”

“He waited until the flowers were ready, and then he stuck the card in there. He brought it with him.”

“You didn’t see it?”

“No, we don’t read people’s private statements.”

I asked him for a description of the sneaky customer.

“He looked like anybody—middle-sized, a bit dark—and spoke with an accent,” which, in Miami, meant he sounded like anybody too.

I hung up. Cósimo still had the gun pressed to the driver’s head. The delivery man’s eyes were as big as sunflowers. He had come to deliver roses and was being treated as if he’d had a machine gun in that box.

I calmly explained to Cósimo what the manager had told me and managed to insinuate myself between the two of them. Cósimo took his fingers from the delivery man’s throat and shoved the gun back into his belt. I slipped the guy a couple of bucks. I wasn’t sure what the proper tip was after almost scaring a driver to death. I allowed him to slip out of the gate. He sprinted to his truck and sped away.

By then Don Carlos, Doña Carmen and José were outside and reading the card. The name of the church was La Virgen de María Auxiliadora—Virgin Mary Mother of Help—but that wasn’t what José called it.

“It comes from the Virgin of the Sicarios,” he said.

I knew sicarios was what Colombians called paid assassins. Many had worked for the Colombian drug cartels over the years.

“This is the church just outside Medellín where the assassins go to pray for success before they go to kill someone,” José explained to me. “They say the Virgin is on their side.”

I stared at the card. If hired killers could count on divine help, I was in bigger trouble than I’d thought.