Downtown Cali is noisy, clashing, full of casinos and street stalls that block pedestrians’ paths. A feral kingdom where no law seems to hold sway. Next to a civil notary’s office is a steamy fried-food vendor and then a medical laboratory. There are used bookstores, corner shops, lottery ticket sellers, copy centers, cheap hotels.
Entering the maelstrom, Jutsiñamuy saw people selling cell phone covers, USB chargers, fake designer watches, CBD creams for arthritis, hair tonics, libido supplements, plus vendors hawking tools and magnifying glasses, wafer cookies, fresh-squeezed juices, peach palm fruits, lulada in plastic cups, and the pre-Hispanic drink said to be a favorite of the dead, known in Cauca as champús, all amid pirated copies of movies, documentaries, and concerts from all over the world. On the working-class streets of central Cali, as in Bogotá and Medellín—and all over the country, in fact—another common sight was the woeful human contingent so typical of developing countries, made up of rock-bottom addicts who sleep off their coca-paste highs under sheets of plastic; toothless, filthy glue sniffers; women near collapse who stretch out scrawny arms begging for coins; and battalions of the crippled and mutilated, especially around churches or next to café entrances.
Survivors of a silent, secret catastrophe.
Cancino and Laiseca trailed behind Jutsiñamuy, panting. It was too hot for their dark uniforms and Bogotá neckties. Over eighty-five degrees. But Jutsiñamuy, who wasn’t much affected by temperature, decided they’d better go on foot rather than in the over-air-conditioned vehicles of the local prosecutor’s office. With the streets crowded with traffic and people, it would take them forever to get there by car.
There it was at the end of the street: Almacenes Sí.
Kind of like Tía, Jutsiñamuy thought, recalling a Bogotá department store of yesteryear. The uniform department was on the third floor, and as they went up they had to pass through several other sections via a complicated system of unconnected escalators, evidence that the store had annexed adjacent properties as it grew.
They got lost a few times and had to ask the way. The fifth person they stopped stared at them with hostility: a group of three men dressed in dark clothing and looking for the school uniform department was a bizarre sight. At last they found the place, a huge room full of clothing racks, organized in alphabetical order by school name.
They squinted at each of the female employees in the department, trying to guess which one was Luz Dary Patiño. The lover. Given the widow’s words and the hatred in her eyes, they had pictured a woman with surgically enhanced lips and a prominent bosom. When the wife said she was “not even that pretty,” they pictured a voluptuous woman with a piercing gaze and a round posterior.
The prosecutor went up to one of the cashiers, a young black man with a horizontal scar on his eyebrow.
“I’m looking for Ms. Luz Dary Patiño.”
The cashier asked him to wait a moment, picked up a microphone, and said, “Luz Dary to register 2, Luz Dary to register 2.”
The three men, four counting the employee, stood waiting, but the customers buffeted them like a sea swell. Some standing in line, making sure nobody cut in. Others poking their heads in from the sides with questions.
“Where can I find the uniforms for the Virgin of the Consolation of Martyrs School?”
“Second row in the back,” the young man replied, unfazed.
“Are the Carolus Ponciano uniforms on sale too, sir?”
“Eight percent with a Comfandi loyalty card and five percent on checked or polyester skirts in medium,” he said.
“Can I help you?”
Jutsiñamuy turned to find a short woman with a round face and almond-shaped eyes, her skin discolored by vitiligo.
“Did you call me? I’m Luz Dary Patiño. What do you need?”
They’d never pictured someone like this.
She limped as she came closer, courtesy of the orthopedic apparatus on her left leg. Polio.
“Nice to meet you, I’m a prosecutor and I’ve come all the way from Bogotá to talk to you, miss,” he said. “Is there someplace quiet? These are my agents.”
Luz Dary stepped back, or rather aside, leaning on the rod of her apparatus. She looked over at her boss, somewhat nervous, and he nodded his permission. They walked to the rear of the department. The young woman opened a door, and they entered a small room with a table and three chairs. Hangers and boxes of T-shirts in various sizes were piled up in the corners.
“All right, how can I help you?” she said again, looking wary.
“We know that you were in a relationship with Mr. Óscar Luis Pedraza,” Jutsiñamuy said, “and we’re here because . . . well, I assume you know already.”
A look of surprise appeared on the woman’s face. What was going on?
The prosecutor decided to continue. “Óscar Luis Pedraza was found dead last Friday, miss, on the road to Popayán.”
“What?” was all she managed to say; she supported herself on the table with one hand and brought the other to her forehead. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” Jutsiñamuy said. “I’m sorry to have to tell you like this, out of the blue.”
The woman closed her eyes, and when she opened them again they were damp and bloodshot. Two black rivulets, like watercolor paint, rolled down her cheeks to the corners of her mouth.
“What . . . happened to him?” she asked. “Are you sure it’s not . . . a mistake?”
“That’s what we’re looking into, miss,” Laiseca said. “But unfortunately it is him, no question.”
Suddenly the woman stared at them in distress. “And am I a suspect or something?”
“Not at all,” Jutsiñamuy said, grasping her arm. “Quite the opposite. The first thing we want to do is offer our condolences.”
“Oh, it’s just that your agent’s tone . . .”
Jutsiñamuy looked at Laiseca sternly. “Agent, apologize to the young woman and offer her your condolences right now!”
“Please forgive me if I was inadvertently rude to you,” Laiseca said. “And please accept my apology and my sincerest condolences.”
Luz Dary looked at him through a haze of tears, sniffled, and said, “Thank you, there’s no need to apologize. Life is life.”
“As somebody once said,” Jutsiñamuy added, “life isn’t worth a thing.”
“That’s a José Alfredo Jiménez song, boss,” Laiseca said, “if you’ll excuse me.”
“Of course I know it’s a song, dumbass,” the prosecutor said, irritated. “I’m trying to be friendly. Understood?”
Luz Dary kept staring at the floor as if in a trance. Abruptly, she said, “Óscar can’t be dead!”
Jutsiñamuy put his arm around her. From the other side of the glass, the store customers started eyeing them curiously.
“You don’t know how much I’d like to tell you it’s not true,” the prosecutor said, “but unfortunately it is. We found him by the side of the road with two other bodies.”
“For your information,” Cancino stepped in, “he was shot three times, I’m sorry.”
“Three?” She started crying again. “Who did it? Who would do that? He didn’t have any enemies.”
“As far as we know, he worked in security,” Jutsiñamuy said. “Even if he didn’t have enemies, his boss may have.”
“And who are the other two bodies?” Luz Dary asked.
“One hasn’t been identified yet,” Jutsiñamuy said. “The other is named Nadio Becerra.”
“Nadio? Oh, don’t tell me that . . .” She sobbed again, covering her eyes with her hand. “They were such good friends. Was Nadio shot three times too?”
“No, miss,” Cancino said. “He was shot six times.”
“Six?! So he had it even worse. Poor guy.”
Jutsiñamuy took her affectionately by the shoulders and said, “You can help us, Luz Dary. Please concentrate and be completely honest with us. But first I want to make it clear that nothing you say will be used against you in any way, not now or later—do you understand? You can be absolutely open.” Having said that, he pulled out his identification badge from the prosecutor’s office and signaled to his agents to do the same.
Luz Dary took the three badges and scrutinized them as if they’d handed her a credit card for payment at her cash register. After confirming that they belonged to each of them, she gave them back.
“All right,” she said. Then, lowering her voice, she said to the prosecutor, “I’ll help you, but it’s kind of an intimate subject, so it makes me uncomfortable being closed up in here with three men, you know?”
Jutsiñamuy looked over at his agents.
“Whatever makes you comfortable, ma’am,” Laiseca said.
“You can record me if you want,” Luz Dary said, “but I can’t talk in front of three men.”
The agents left. Jutsiñamuy sat down across from her.
“You can already guess what I need to know,” he said. “How you met Óscar, what you knew about his work, and when you last saw him. Take your time and tell me everything that comes to mind; any information, however minor, could be crucial. I’m listening.”
I started working at Almacenes Sí seven years back, soon after I graduated in accounting. I don’t have connections or benefactors—I’m from a poor family, so I started at the bottom. And I’m still there, as you can see. My appearance doesn’t help, of course. I’ve had this condition since I was a kid, and though it was a mild case, it caused muscular atrophy in one leg, and the depression messed up my skin, though that comes and goes. It’s actually quite an achievement that I’ve made it as far as the cash register, and I imagine I’ll be there till I die.
I met Óscar here.
He came in looking for uniforms for his kids and was very sweet and kind. At first I thought it was weird he was asking for so much advice about shirt sizes, since they’re one-size-fits-all, but he was actually trying to chat me up. I could hardly believe it. Men haven’t exactly chased after me, sir, and when I saw how attentive and interested he was, I kept talking to him. After two hours he asked what time I got off work and whether I’d have coffee with him. I said yes. He told me how to get to a little place around the corner from here and said to meet him at seven. I agreed, convinced he wouldn’t show. But there he was, all romantic.
That very night, I was his.
We started seeing each other regularly, when I got off work. I was wild with happiness. I didn’t care that it had to be in secret or that he sometimes called his wife in front of me. One day I asked him what he did for work. “I’m in security, honey.” That’s what he said. So you go around with a gun in your pants? And he said, “Well, yeah, I do, and if things get ugly I take it out and shoot, that’s my job.” Whenever I got worried, he’d say, “Don’t worry, honey, life expectancy in this country is improving.” I thought he was going to keep me hidden, but he started taking me out with his friends, though all the other men brought their girlfriends or second wives, who obviously were much prettier and more elegant than me.
Do I remember his friends’ names? Of course. Let’s see, there was Nadio, Ferney, Nacho, and Colachito—he’s from Antioquia. I remember Mario and a guy named Carlitos, who was the driver. And there was this one guy they called Dim Bulb, maybe his name was Germán. And the girls—there was Yeni, Estéphanny, Clara, Selmira, Cruz Marcela. Some of them were Venezuelan . . .
They all snorted that stuff and drank loads of aguardiente. I didn’t like it, and luckily Óscar didn’t either, so we were the squares of the group. The nerds. The men all worked together, I think. If one of them said anything about work, the others would all give him a hard time. “Shut up, man, we’re here to have a good time. Or would you rather we head back to the office?”
He was working security for somebody associated with an evangelical church. He was always having to go to other cities, and sometimes he’d take me with him. The first time was to Barranquilla. I wanted to go to the church, but he said no, it stressed him out to think about having me there at his work. I understood and didn’t push it. There was a problem that time, I remember, because there was a casino at the hotel where we were staying, and one night after they finished work he suggested we go down for a bit. I’d never been to a casino. We sat at the roulette table and he had me call the numbers. He made bet after bet, but he never won, and at first I thought it was funny; then he bought a huge bundle of chips and started putting piles of them on all the numbers. He just kept losing. At one point his friends said we should leave, but he said no, he was losing a lot of money and needed to stay and win it back. He kept buying chips on his credit card and betting great stacks. One time he won and they gave him a big pile back, but those didn’t last long. I fell asleep in my chair, and when I woke up the sun had already risen. He was still at the table. He said he’d won some back, but he was still down. He asked me if I had money; I said I had a little and went to get it. That’s what I was doing when his buddies came back and said, “Come on, man, what are you doing here still, they’re calling us in,” but he said no, he was losing. They dragged him out of there, and I don’t know how he did it, but he worked all day. I started to worry, because in Cali he wasn’t like that.
I never saw the boss. The famous pastor. They used to call him Mr. F. No idea what his real name was. It always seemed weird to me that a pastor would have bodyguards. I didn’t realize they had so much money.
I’m a believer, sir, but I’m Catholic; I go to La Ermita in Cali. It’s not like they’re poor, but priests don’t look like drug kingpins.
As for the Jamundí Inn, that was their place. It was like a resort without the ocean. We used to go a lot, though I didn’t like getting in the water. With this vitiligo, I’m not supposed to get a lot of sun, but I did it anyway. I never understood the deal with that place. Always with Carlitos and Nacho. Sometimes with Nadio and a young girl he’d snagged; she was from Pasto, but she was sharp. What always struck me was how they helped themselves to anything they wanted, like they owned the place. I went maybe ten times. We’d stay in these really nice bungalows, with a living room and deck. The best ones, on the back part of the property. We’d spend the day there, me sitting at a table, listening to music or reading magazines, and them drinking and horsing around in the water or doing swim races with the girls at the pool, who preferred sunbathing and posing to show off their butts. In the afternoons the dancing would start, and Óscar would dance with me. I may be crippled, but I’ve got rhythm.
Almost three years went by like that, sir. The last time I saw Óscar was more than a month ago. He told me he was going on a job out of the country. He sent me several text messages with photos, but he never said anything else. That was the last I heard from him. Who knows what he was up to.
His tattoos? Of course I know them. He definitely didn’t have that one with the hand and the weird phrase, “We are healed.” Maybe he had it done during the time I didn’t see him. He liked getting tattoos while he was on trips. He said that when he was far away he would remember something or miss somebody, and he’d go out and get a tattoo of the image or name. He had ones of his kids, Cali, things he liked. He was like a kid that way. No impulse control. If he liked something, he had to have it right away. He spent money on gifts and doodads. This is for my son, this is for my little girl, or my old man, who’s a total grouch but I love him, he’d say. And that’s it, sir. I don’t know what else I can tell you.
He walked with her to the cash register, offered his condolences again, and thanked her. He pulled out a business card and handed it to her.
“If you remember anything else, miss, please give me a call. Could I take your number?”
The young woman wrote it down on a promotional flier for the Legionnaires of the Black Christ School in Buga. They parted ways.
“What do you think, boss?” Laiseca asked.
“She’s being honest,” the prosecutor said. “It’s weird that neither the widow nor the mistress knew that Mr. F’s name was Fabinho Henriquez. That makes him more suspicious, don’t you think? I’ve got the guy’s name underlined three times—let’s follow that up.”
“Aye aye, boss,” Laiseca said.
“We should start at the famous Jamundí Inn, right?” Jutsiñamuy said. “I’ll see if I can find a woman to go there with me.”
He thought of Wendy, but figured she must be starting the process of infiltrating the church and decided not to bother her. He called his secretary and told her he’d be staying in Cali another day.
“Anything new on that end?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, you got a call from Cafesalud, something about a mix-up with a doctor’s visit payment. And the University of El Rosario called to confirm whether you’ll be coming to give a talk about fighting corruption.”
“Piedrahíta didn’t call?”
“No, sir. But if you want, I can put him in touch.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll call him in a bit. I’m heading to the hotel. Forward any calls to me there.”
“Of course, sir. Have a good night.”
It was getting dark now, so he hailed a cab. Before getting in, he said to his two agents, “Go hard after intel on that Brazilian pastor. I want to know everything—what brand of underwear he wears, every ache and pain, what kind of suppositories he uses, understood?”
“Understood, boss.”
“I bet he wears pink Punto Blanco boxers, but I’ll get back to you on that tomorrow,” Cancino said.
Jutsiñamuy looked at him, his face expressionless. “Hilarious.”
He climbed into the taxi.
When he got to the hotel, the prosecutor took off his black suit jacket, shirt, and tie. He smoothed them with his hand and hung them in the closet. Then he pulled an alternative outfit out of his suitcase: sweatpants, a knockoff Lacoste polo shirt, manufactured in Paraguay and purchased in San Andresito for eighty thousand pesos, and Adidas sneakers, also from Paraguay, that matched the shirt. It was his warm-weather uniform. He lay back on the bed and lifted his legs against the wall. Seven minutes on the nose, mind empty, and he was set, feeling like new. Transformed, he grabbed his computer and went up to the roof terrace. He snagged a table with a diagonal view of the river and fired up his laptop to check his email.
“It’s like she heard me,” he thought when he saw the new message: from Wendy, his undercover agent, with her first report.
Confidential Report #1
Agent KWK622
Place: Cali
Operation: Holy Spirit
Date: Date of email sent
A. Place: Pastor Fritz Almayer’s New Jerusalem Church is in a prime location: on the highway between Menga and Yumbo, outside the reach of Cali municipal ordinances and under the jurisdiction of Yumbo, the headquarters for a great number of corporations and which therefore enjoys a steady stream of laborers, middle management, and service personnel. Because it’s on the northern edge of the city and close to the Buenaventura highway, there’s a lot of traffic, not just private vehicles but also trucks, tractor trailers, and buses, so there are a lot of vendors selling their goods on the side of the road. Because of all the traffic, there are gas stations with body shops, carwashes, and tire shops. The working-class people who provide those services are the target demographic of New Jerusalem Church, which has adjusted the schedule for its “lectures” (what they call their mass) to take place before and after the workers’ shifts and during their breaks. Nevertheless, the massive parking lots at the church suggest that people also come from other parts of the city.
To complete the description of the highway, this report notes that, due to its proximity to the city and to a number of nightclubs with all-night permits, it also boasts many no-tell establishments, motels of every level of quality, especially midrange and high-end places, with names that are blatant about their purpose: Moonlight, Kamasutra, Motel California, Eros. They also provide lunch, either included in the room’s hourly rate or as an affordable add-on, because lunchtime is when most clients manage to arrive to take advantage of those services. This report does not conclude what percentage of patrons of such establishments could be considered targets of New Jerusalem Church.
B. Facilities: The church grounds occupy a lot of at least a hectare, next to the Terpel gas station and the driveway to the Abracadabra Motel. It has a main building with a semicircular self-supporting roof (see photos 1, 2, and 3). It looks like an airport hangar; there’s a twelve-foot wall all the way around it, and watchtowers with windows made of tinted (and probably bulletproof) glass. You enter via two lines that usher attendees through three checkpoints. At the final one, men and women are separated and searched thoroughly, then subjected to wand scanners and a walk-through metal detector. The guards are armed with automatic weapons and wear VigiValle uniforms. These measures seem excessive compared to those taken by other churches. Inside the building there’s an elevated stage with huge screens, professional lighting, sound equipment, and special effects that create light and shadow. Above the stage is a cross, reflected on the ceiling and side walls; the large space is full of rows of pews that rise in a semicircle around the stage. I’d estimate it can hold about five thousand people. There’s an administrative area behind the stage that I was unable to access. It also has rooms along the sides that serve as chapels, where people go to talk about their problems. They are attended there by the church staff (yet to be investigated) and sometimes the pastor himself. There’s a sort of office where people who need help can provide their personal information, sign up using their IDs, and present a pay stub that will determine their monthly contribution to the church.
C. Congregation: As I mentioned in section A, these are people from the working classes. Because I arrived on Sunday afternoon, I was too late to attend the large noon “lecture,” which brings together people from all over Cali and is always the most crowded. Instead, I went to a smaller one this Monday at noon. It talked about generosity in forgiving those who have hurt us and the love we must show to those who abandon us. It emphasized that the only way not to be alone in the world is to be aware of how close we are to the “intangible.”
D. Pastor Fritz Almayer: First impression: charismatic, strong, pleasant voice, athletic build. People laugh at his jokes, but they also listen carefully to what he says. They idolize him. One young woman fainted during Monday’s noon lecture. A woman dressed in black accompanied him on stage, like a sort of priestess. She handed him the Bible and turned his pages as he read. The audience clearly knows her already, since he didn’t introduce her. The pastor is an intelligent, well-educated man, difficult to sum up quickly. We will continue to assess him.
E. Operational Activities: After attending two of the lectures, I went to the office to talk to the people known as “companions” or “pilgrims.” I said I was coming to the church because I hoped Jesus would help me overcome my (fake, obviously) drug addiction and asked if I could have a private conversation with the pastor. They told me that before getting to him I would need to pass through various “purifying” stages with other missionaries, but that I would always be under his care. Before I could begin to seek this spiritual aid, they gave me a list of the documents I’d need to sign up. I therefore submitted a request to Special Operations for a certificate of income as an aesthetician at a salon in Bogotá, which they’ll send me first thing tomorrow. While I was waiting in line, I established contact with another woman who said she’s been sober for two years—no drugs, alcohol, or prostitution—thanks to the voice of Jesus, which came to her via Pastor Fritz. The woman, whose name is Yeni Sepúlveda, was holding a four-year-old boy and told me she could offer me some advice if I wanted it. We left together and walked to the café at the Terpel gas station, where we consumed two beef empanadas with mango juice, followed by coffee.
When I asked about the father of the boy (Jeison), the informant claimed not to know who he was, as she’d become pregnant during the worst part of her coca-paste addiction, when she was also consuming aguardiente and amphetamines. She said she hadn’t sought an abortion because at the time she couldn’t spend money on anything besides her addiction. She said that the church had started out paying for drugs and treatment at an addiction clinic, and afterward they’d told her she could pay back their investment by doing some work for them and especially by staying clean. When I asked her what kind of work, she explained that she did some cleaning at the church and visited with and assisted women who were sex workers or addicted to drugs. She wanted to know if I was in a similar situation, and I said I wasn’t. I explained that I was hooked on cocaine, driven by a desire to maximize my productivity and effectiveness at work, completely unrelated to partying. I said I didn’t drink alcohol or use other drugs. Weirdly, she said I was a “dry addict,” a term I’ll have to look into, which was why I didn’t have the scruffy look of a coca-paste addict. I asked if the church had a preference for people with those problems, and she said not particularly. It was enough for a lot of them to find a new path and the desire to be good people, upstanding and respectable. She said the pastor’s teachings were always about respect and love, and that it was common during the weekly lectures for a violent husband, in the middle of the event, to beg his wife for forgiveness, or an attacker his victim, or an abuser the abused—in short, the sort of ritual that ends in tears and hugs, to great applause from the audience. Then we said goodbye. She gave me her number and said she’d love to help me if I needed it, any time of day or night.
Jutsiñamuy, drinking a chamomile tea with lemon and enjoying the breeze off the mountains, read the report twice more. Then he wrote Wendy a note: “Very good. This informant offers an opportunity for access to the inner workings of the church. Perfect choice. Keep telling me how great things are going. And give lots of details—I like your reporting style.” Then he pulled out his laptop. He put in his earbuds and lay down on the sofa to listen to a bit of music. But he hadn’t even gotten to choose a song when his phone lit up. What time was it? After nine. If it was Laiseca, he’d better have something good. But when he looked at the screen he saw it was Julieta.
He had to answer.
After eating lunch at El Escudo del Quijote, a restaurant near her hotel that someone in Bogotá had recommended, and rounding out her meal with a gin on the rocks, Julieta went up to rest in her room. She was incredibly confused. Despite the defensive barriers she had erected against priests, gurus, and soothsayers, whom she fiercely despised, Pastor Fritz had managed to worm his way deep into her head and, quite frankly, unsettle her. As she thought back on their conversation, the memory of his gaze evoked both revulsion and delight; she was seduced by his voice and his words, even though she knew that they were calculated, fraudulent, aimed at bending her will.
Even so, there was a suspicion, a small flame that told her: there’s more to it, there’s more to it. But what? She curled into the fetal position on the bed and let slip a few freeing tears, but then, imagining the boy in the park, she started crying hard, disconsolate, as if she herself had been abandoned or, worse still, it was her sons there on that lonely bench as night fell, waiting for a parent to return. She opened the minibar, took out a little bottle of gin, and poured it into the plastic cup from the bathroom, without ice or lemon.
She returned to the bed, looked at herself in the mirror, and balked in shock: her face blotchy, her hair wild, her eyes bloodshot, her shirt wrinkled. Why was she in such a state? She didn’t know. Not being able to find the words made her cry even harder. She felt fragile. In some sense, abandoned. The pastor had somehow passed on his orphan’s abandonment to her. And where was Fritz’s mother? A boy left unprotected grows up into a cruel man. The shock of becoming an orphan taints him over the years, and someone hard emerges. She recalled a sentence from Fritz’s story: “Bodies that suffer and cannot understand why they must experience such pain.”
Not understanding. Not understanding. Life is a constant process of loss, she mused, a loss of purity and joy.
She was startled by a sudden vibrating.
It was her cell phone. A new message.
“You said Franklin Vanegas? I’m told there’s nobody here by that name.”
Her heart started beating wildly, like a washing machine in the spin cycle. It was Pastor Fritz! Had he sensed she was thinking about him? She was afraid his incredible genius had told him even from a distance that she was in bad shape. Get a grip, she thought. The gin must be distorting her reality.
She wrote, “That’s impossible. I saw him with my own eyes at your church. Maybe he’s using a different name.”
After sending the message she kept staring at it: one white checkmark, two . . . She waited a bit and looked again. They were still white—why wasn’t he reading her message? The wait was driving her crazy. She felt like a teenager, one of the silly girls her sons hung out with. She put her phone face down on the edge of the bed, but she couldn’t calm down. She felt like she was stirring a dense liquid with an enormous spoon—all her contradictions, her perversity. Now with an additional element of unease: why wasn’t Fritz reading her message and responding?
She kept sobbing until she felt something on the bed. She snatched up the phone and looked at the screen. New message. But it wasn’t from Fritz—it was from a dumb group chat. The message was a moronic joke. She was tempted to hurl the phone at the wall when she felt it vibrate in her hand. This time it was the pastor.
“There are several new boys, but they come and go. Others come only on Sundays. I’ll keep looking.”
Julieta wrote back. “If you let me into your church, I could recognize him.”
She hit Send and stared at the phone. Two white checkmarks again. She punched the mattress in a fury. It was going to happen again, and she didn’t think she could take it. But then her soul thudded back into place: on the screen she saw the words “Pastor F is typing . . .”
“Should I pick you up now?”
She froze. Now? She wasn’t ready, but a pleasant thrill ran through her body. She set the phone down on the bed and returned to the mirror. Now her reaction was not a recoil but a litany: her eyes were still red, but less swollen; her mascara, smeared; her hair, the disheveled mop of a broken old doll; her skin pale . . .
She was a fright!
She turned on the cold water and splashed it on her cheeks. She grabbed her brush and tried to get the wild thatch of frizzy hair under control. She felt agitated. It must be the gin. The idea of seeing him brought up conflicting emotions: panic and euphoria, attraction and revulsion.
That goddamn pastor drugged me, she thought. He gave me burundanga or something. How long had she been at the mirror? She leaped back toward the bed and grabbed her phone, but there were no new messages. It was her turn to reply. It was almost four in the afternoon—should she tell Johana? Of course. Should they go together? She didn’t think so. This seemed to be between her and the pastor. She touched the screen of her Samsung and went to her messages.
“All right, let me know,” she wrote.
The checkmarks turned blue and the reply arrived.
“Go out onto the street, then, please.”
Julieta didn’t understand. “Why?”
“I’m waiting for you out front in a black SUV, but take your time.”
He’d come to pick her up himself? She didn’t recall having told him she was at this hotel—or had she? It didn’t matter now. She needed to hurry! Maybe he’d been at the InterContinental still—that was the only explanation.
She went back to the mirror and opened her toiletry bag. Foundation, eyeshadow, lightly red lips. Her heart was pounding. It’s not about looking good for that bastard, it’s about taking pride in myself. She secured her computer in the safe, an old habit acquired after an incident in Cartagena, and ran downstairs. Out on the street, she saw three parked SUVs. She went over to the black one. The door opened.
“I didn’t figure I’d see you again so soon,” Pastor Fritz said, holding out his hand. “This could be the start of a great friendship.”
Julieta shook. “Seems unlikely, but thanks for coming. Shall we go?”
As they drove, Julieta didn’t say much. He did most of the talking.
“People are excited about our work,” Fritz said. “More join us all the time. I can’t say no to people who come to us looking for help.”
“You said you hadn’t found him,” Julieta said.
“The people who work with us, both volunteers and employees, are listed in a database. His name doesn’t appear there. We’re going to confirm that now.”
“I know I saw him at your church.”
“Why are you so interested in this boy?” Fritz asked.
“He’s an indigenous boy, a Nasa. His father is dead and maybe his mother too—I haven’t figured that out yet. I talked to him in Tierradentro. And he disappeared a week ago.”
Inside, Julieta was squirming. What was she doing? She should shut her mouth and ask tough questions that would force him to confirm her theory. Regardless of the boy’s fate, they both knew that Fritz was the survivor of the roadside shoot-out, and that event had set all of this in motion.
“I’ll always try to help an orphan,” Fritz said. “I’ll do everything within my power.”
“The kid has to turn up,” Julieta said.
She thought about the man who’d been following them on the motorcycle, but she didn’t dare mention it. It was best he believe she didn’t know about certain things, though now that she thought about it, she figured that if the motorcyclist worked for Fritz, he’d have already told the pastor she’d spotted him and knew they were being followed.
She decided not to say anything. But she needed to keep on her toes this time.
The motorcade crossed the Cali River, drove around the far end of Jairo Varela Park, and headed up 6th to the Chipichape shopping center. It kept going, passing the La Flora neighborhood on the right, and soon reached Menga. Outside, the heat was stifling. At every traffic light, people came up to beg for money, usually carrying young children. Most were poor Venezuelan families, as well as a number of internal refugees who hadn’t found a way to return to their homelands. And a third group of modern youngsters, hippie-ish and lavishly tattooed, who, after a brief tumbling act, passed their hat at the drivers’ windows. Argentine acrobats.
The pastor smiled, and she again felt a flutter in her belly. Something must have changed on her face, because he said, “We’ll find him, don’t worry. If he’s been with our church, he’ll turn up. I promise I’ll see to it myself that he’s taken back to his grandparents.”
Pastor Fritz was wearing the same clothes as that morning, but Julieta figured he must have multiple changes, because he seemed fresh and like he’d just gotten dressed. His pants were still neatly creased from ironing. He wasn’t wearing cologne, but he gave off a pleasant scent.
Finally they arrived at the church. The SUVs reversed and drove through some automatic doors located at the rear of the complex. The garage was partly underground, and Julieta saw other more discreet cars. There were also several motorcycles, but she didn’t spot the one that had been on her trail.
The pastor climbed out, hurried around the SUV, and opened her door. It had been ages since someone had done that for her. Actually, never. It reminded her that in a way, despite appearances, she was in a position of strength with Fritz. He was trying to charm her, to win her over.
“Let’s go upstairs,” the pastor said. “I asked everyone to gather in the auditorium.”
They climbed a spiral staircase to some offices. Fritz offered her something to drink. Julieta looked at him indifferently and said, “No thanks. I doubt you’ve got any hard stuff.”
The pastor looked at her with surprise. “Follow me.”
He opened a set of wooden double doors and they entered a luxurious office. He led her to one of the corners, to a large cabinet. There Julieta saw dozens of bottles of liquor.
“Choose whatever you like. I’ll fetch a glass and some ice.”
“Won’t you be joining me?”
“Not this early in the day, Julieta.”
She saw bottles of Lagavulin, Knockando, and Springbank whisky, which were difficult to come by in Colombia. She pulled down a bottle of Hendrick’s gin and poured herself a generous splash, more out of anger than real desire.
“I love this gin,” she said. “It’s the best digestive after a good lunch.”
“I agree.”
“I didn’t know pastors had such fancy, well-stocked bars.”
Fritz looked sideways at her, his eyes gleaming under his dense brows and long lashes. “Jesus turned water into wine and associated drunkenness with a desire for elevation. Liquors help us find the crack where we can peek through and see the world from another angle. They offer us the possibility, however risky, of submerging ourselves in something that gives us pleasure. Pleasure and pain in a single nerve.”
Julieta took another sip of her drink. She liked his answers. He was sharp and sophisticated. “What’s the worst thing you’ve done in life, Fritz?”
The pastor picked up a slice of lemon and raised it to his mouth. “The worst thing . . . I’ve believed in myself too passionately, since I’m the only thing I truly possess. But sometimes it’s like a chicken skin, old and greenish—a skin full of stagnant water that I’m forced to carry around with me—or like a soldier who comes home with a dying comrade on his back.”
Julieta took another sip. She felt a little dizzy, but also strong. “Where were you, Fritz, before you went to Inzá for the Alliance gathering?”
The pastor bit into the lemon slice again. “In San Agustín. I led a religious ceremony with demobilized guerrilla fighters and victims and we made a peace offering to the Magdalena River.”
“Very symbolic,” Julieta said.
“Believing and naming alters reality. That’s how we’re able to change things, don’t you think? Language creates the world. You must have experienced that.”
“I might have, maybe unwittingly.”
“Have you ever been in love? Fully, I mean?”
A voice inside Julieta told her, No more, get out of this conversation, walk to the door and say you want to go to the auditorium. You can’t keep handing him arrows to shoot at you!
“Of course, a few times.”
“So you know what it means to talk to yourself, to yearn for something, to want reality to change.”
“I guess so, though maybe not in those words,” Julieta said.
“That’s what we all want, Christians too: for the torrid air of this country to fill up with matter. For humanity to be the measure of human love, invoking Jesus, who came to stay by our side and show us the measure of all things.”
Julieta listened somewhat haughtily. She let him finish and then said abruptly, “To travel from San Agustín to Inzá by road, you have to go through Tierradentro. Whoever tried to kill you knew the road well and decided to lie in ambush near the village of San Andrés de Pisimbalá. But they weren’t counting on your bodyguards or the firepower of the men in your helicopter.”
Pastor Fritz dropped onto the sofa, looking drained. Julieta kept talking.
“You had heavily armed bodyguards. You knew you might be attacked.”
She moved into his eyeline, but saw that he had his eyes closed.
“My question,” she continued, “is quite simple: who wants to kill you and why?”
The pastor got up from the sofa and walked to the door. He opened it and gestured for Julieta to go through. As she walked past him, he whispered, “It’s a great story, very exciting, but I’m sorry to say it wasn’t me. I don’t know that road.”
“So why do you have so many bodyguards?” she asked. “Why all the security here?”
“Don’t forget, this country is unique in the world: it produces both upstanding people and their killers. A person needs protection. The real land of Cain wasn’t the kingdom of Nod. It’s Colombia. Of course, that doesn’t mean I think I’m special.”
Julieta stared back at him defiantly, but she didn’t say anything. She thanked him for the gin. In the auditorium, about forty people were sitting in the first row. Pastor Fritz, Julieta, and two other collaborators settled into the armchairs onstage.
“Please, brothers and sisters,” the pastor said, “let’s go around in order and have everybody stand and introduce themselves. But first I’d like to introduce a friend of the church, Ms. Julieta Lezama, journalist. She’s here because she wants to know if anybody has met or heard about a Nasa boy named Franklin Vanegas.”
A microphone went around.
A plump young woman in a sweatsuit and flipflops spoke first. “I’m Lorena Berrío, I’ve been at the church seven months. I didn’t meet the boy. I don’t know that word—Nasa?”
The pastor explained affectionately, as if she were his daughter.
Next came a teenage boy, his cheeks still marred by acne. “I’m Wilmer Manrique. I’ve been here five months. I don’t know the boy either.”
A woman in trendily ripped and frayed jeans, with tattoos and piercings in her belly button, eyebrows, and nose: “I’m Yeni Sepúlveda, I’ve been here three years. That name doesn’t sound familiar.”
One by one, they all spoke. Nobody knew him.
Julieta had been watching a woman sitting in the back rows. She looked different from the others. She was tall, strong, and slender, even a bit masculine, with toned arms, visible muscles, and triangular tattoos with images Julieta didn’t recognize. Julieta guessed she was in her early forties. She had light brown, almost blond hair. A few streaks of gray, which she carried off elegantly. A strange darkness on her eyelids, as if her eyes were staring out from two caves, and a somewhat untamed allure. When it was her turn, she said, “Egiswanda Sanders. Been here for many years. I haven’t seen the boy.”
Her Spanish was good, but Julieta could tell she was Brazilian.
When the introductions were over, a young man who introduced himself as Ariosto Roldán, the church’s administrative director, took the microphone and said, “All of us are permanent staff. Sometimes other people come in to help, but they come and go. And there are the cleaning staff—some of them are day laborers. If we had a photo of the boy, it would help.”
Pastor Fritz turned to Julieta. “So, you’ve met my little family, which isn’t actually so little. Like I said, the boy isn’t with us.”
“I saw him on Sunday, I’m sure of it. Isn’t there anyone else who works for you?”
“The security people are at their posts—they’re private guards sent by a company. That’s why I didn’t call them in.”
“He must be one of the day laborers.”
“We would have found him by name,” Fritz said, and then called to his director: “Ariosto, come here a minute.”
“Yes, Father?”
“The young lady thinks the boy could have come in as a day laborer on Sunday. Do we have a list?”
“Of course, and we reviewed it already. He’s not on it.” Turning to Julieta, he added, “We keep track of everyone who comes. We write down their names and ID numbers.”
“How much do you pay?” Julieta asked.
“Thirty thousand pesos plus lunch,” the director said. “They help us clean up the auditorium and the halls. You can’t imagine the state they’re in after a lecture.”
They went back up to the second floor.
Julieta saw that the Brazilian woman was following behind them; when they reached the management offices, she disappeared into one of them and shut the door.
“Can I give you a lift anywhere?” Pastor Fritz asked.
“Just to my hotel.”
One of the pastor’s men came over in response to a signal from him.
“Please give the young lady a ride.”
They said goodbye.
“I hope I’ve cleared up your doubts, Julieta.”
“Some, but not the biggest one,” she said, making sure to hold his gaze.
Fritz stared at her, his face serious. Suddenly he smiled, and Julieta’s stomach did a somersault. “Reality is a wild forest full of snake eyes, glittering in the darkness before they attack their prey. But most dangerous of all is love that dries up. The kind that couldn’t escape its tree trunk and has coiled up on itself to sink its fangs into its own heart.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Julieta said. “Remember, I’m not one of your followers, it’s pointless to talk to me like that. I hate symbolism.”
“Just commit those words to memory. Maybe you’ll come to understand them later. I appreciate your visit, and like I said, anything you need, whatever the hour, you can reach out. Consider me a friend.”
“One more thing, Fritz.”
“Yes?”
“You can tell your motorcycle spy to leave me alone. If you need to know something about me or what I’m doing, just ask.”
The pastor looked at her in surprise. “Motorcycle spy?”
“We’ve laid our cards out on the table already,” Julieta said. “It makes no sense to make me explain.”
“Somebody’s following you?”
This time the pastor’s eyes changed. For a fleeting moment, Julieta saw a wild animal.
“Yes,” she said. “Up from Tierradentro. Don’t tell me it’s not you.”
The pastor called his men over and instructed them to listen closely. “You say it’s a motorcycle? Did you see the person following you?”
He was very agitated. Two droplets of sweat appeared on his upper lip.
“He wears a black helmet.”
“Do you know anything else? Where did you see him? Here in Cali?”
“On the west side, yesterday.”
“Yesterday Sunday?”
“Yes, after I came to your lecture,” Julieta said.
“Could you recognize the motorcycle?” one of the security guards asked.
“I’m not an expert. It wasn’t a big motorcycle. Normal size.”
“When we were on our way here, did you see it?”
“No, not since yesterday.”
The pastor gripped Julieta’s arm. “It’s not us, believe me, but I’m going to find out what’s happening. Go back to your hotel now and don’t worry about this. When I figure out what’s going on, I’ll call you. Will you be staying in Cali long?”
“That depends. We’ll see.”
“In any case, you’ll hear from me,” Fritz said. “Go back to your hotel and rest, but avoid going out.”
Now he was acting like a boss, not a pastor. Maybe the mysterious motorcycle was with Fritz’s enemies.
“Why are you so concerned?” Julieta asked.
“Sometimes I’m still haunted by the jungle, but then it passes. All of this is just words. Go rest now—we’ll talk soon.”
He nodded at her, went into his office, and shut the door.
As she walked out through the vestibule, Julieta stared at the door the Brazilian woman had gone into.
But the door wasn’t marked and it remained closed.
When she left for the hotel it was almost seven at night.
Cali’s traffic wasn’t quite as heavy as Bogotá’s, but close. If they didn’t move fast, they’d be trapped in its streets forever. The slow pace gave her time to think. She was struck by the change she’d seen in Fritz, how anxious he’d gotten when he learned she was being followed. She looked all around. The guard riding shotgun was on high alert and every once in a while he stuck his hand in his jacket pocket, fondly checking on his weapon.
Where had the kid gotten off to? Concentrating, she pictured him clearly on the steps on the side of the building. It was him. He’d figured out a way to work with the pastor without revealing himself. Without having to say he was a minor. Maybe he passed himself off as older, under another name, so he could go in as a day laborer. Or he had a friend who registered his name and they split the work between them.
Anything was possible.
She watched the traffic in case the motorcycle reappeared. What should she do if it did? The pastor was still denying that he was the survivor, but for all intents and purposes he’d acceded. Tenuously speaking between the lines, or so she thought. All those metaphors! What were they intended to achieve? The worst part was that she’d memorized them, just like he said, or at least she had no trouble remembering them. They were there, as if she’d written them down and was now reading them out.
“Reality is a wild forest full of snake eyes, glittering in the darkness before they attack their prey. But most dangerous of all is love that dries up. The kind that couldn’t escape its tree trunk and has coiled up on itself to sink its fangs into its own heart.”
Anyone who talks like that, like he’s the new Jesus Christ, is an arrogant dumbass, she thought. What love had dried up? Was he in love? I bet he’s doing the Brazilian woman. She would have sworn to it. The Brazilian had a nice body. Colombian men love Brazilian women. They’ve got that fantasy cliché in their heads of the girl from Ipanema and round, chocolate-colored asses. The land of the thong bikini. And plastic surgery. Ivo Pitanguy, the Picasso of the tummy tuck and breast implant. This woman—Egiswanda, was it? She seemed like she was about Julieta’s age, but she looked a lot better. Better legs and a better ass. Judging by those muscles, she probably spent half her day at the gym. Did she live with him? Where was her house? Did she have kids? “The kind that couldn’t escape its tree trunk and has coiled up on itself,” Fritz had said. He couldn’t have been referring to the Brazilian. Maybe he was thinking about somebody else or, since he’s a pastor, about the love we should have for God, and how some people don’t feel it. Was that what he’d meant by “coiled up on itself”? Or was he talking about the person who’d attacked him on the road? They might seem friendly and polite, but his people had been involved in a bloody gunfight. The fact that it was self-defense raised even more questions about who he truly was.
Suddenly she remembered Johana. Was she at the hotel?
“Hi,” she said into her phone. “Are you at the hotel?”
“Yes, boss. I’ve been here all afternoon, waiting in case you needed me. I was reading. Did you go out wandering?”
“I’ve got a bunch of stories for you. I’m almost there. Let’s meet in the café.”
“All right.”
When Johana arrived, Julieta told her everything, writing notes about it all at the same time. It had been a rough day emotionally, so she ordered a fresh-squeezed lemonade with ice rather than her usual tonic.
Johana ordered a Fanta and said, “And you believed him about the guy on the motorcycle?”
“Yeah, it really did make him nervous. But we’ll see. It was like he was linked somehow to his enemy, the guy who attacked him.”
“If the pastor thinks that, he must be afraid the attacker is looking for something through us. Sounds dangerous, don’t you think?”
Julieta drained half her glass in one go and said, “Dangerous for him, definitely.”
“And for us. If he’s an enemy spy, he must know you spent the afternoon at the church,” Johana said.
“True, but what can he do?”
“Use us to get to him, take us hostage. Torture us.”
“All right,” Julieta said, “let’s not go overboard. And to think I believed that the war was over in this country!”
“A lot of people believe that,” Johana said, “but with a rightwing government trying to drag us back to the 1990s, things are going to blow up again fast.”
As they talked, the brake lights of passing cars gleamed in the gentle drizzle.
Suddenly Julieta got up. “I don’t know if we’re in danger, but let’s go up to my room to make some calls. I haven’t spoken to the prosecutor in a while. What time is it?”
“After nine,” Johana said.
“Not too late. Come on.”
They went upstairs. As soon as they entered, Johana went over to the window to scan the street. She scrutinized the neighboring buildings to see if anyone could see them. It wasn’t likely. She closed the curtains anyway.
Julieta picked up her cell phone and dialed the number.
“Prosecutor Jutsiñamuy? Sorry for calling so late.”
“No problem, Julieta. Any big news?”
“Well, I wanted to tell you some things. Is this phone line secure?”
“No worries about that.”
She described in detail her two meetings with Pastor Fritz. She talked about the Nasa boy, who hadn’t shown up among the people working at the church, but she was sure he was there in some way she didn’t yet understand. And finally about the motorcycle.
“Do you think you two could be in danger?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“Not really,” Julieta said. “If they wanted to do something to us, they’ve had plenty of time. Judging by the pastor’s behavior, the people watching us could be his enemies, the same ones who attacked him.”
“It would make sense,” Jutsiñamuy said.
“What do you advise?”
“Go back to Bogotá.”
“That’s an option,” she said, “but not right now. How did things go with identifying the bodies?”
“We’re working on it. We can meet up tomorrow if you want. What hotel are you in?”
“El Peñón.”
“Oh, I’m really close by. At the Dann Carlton. Come over and we can have lunch here. There’s a good restaurant, and that way we can be sure nobody’s watching us. Do you know the place?”
“Of course, thank you so much. See you then.”
Julieta was still tipsy from the gin. She decided to have another drink to even things out and went over to her minibar. She offered one to Johana.
“Do you want anything?”
“No, boss, thanks. You know I’m a lightweight. Three sips and I’m done for. If you don’t need me, I’ll go to my room.”
“Go ahead,” Julieta said. “I’m going to put my notes in order.”
Johana paused at the door on her way out. “I don’t mean to butt in, but be careful with the alcohol, boss. You’ve been drinking a lot.”
Julieta looked at her, startled. “I drink when I’m on edge, but it just means the investigation’s going well, don’t worry. But thanks for mentioning it.”
“Good night,” Johana said.
Once she was alone, Julieta took two long sips, one right after the other, and felt her soul being restored to her body. Johana was right about the drinking, but that’s how she’d always been. She was compulsive—what could she do? At least she wasn’t into coke or other drugs.
She went to look in the mirror. She couldn’t deny that the pastor had affected her. There was something special about him. She glanced at the messages they’d exchanged, and a voice deep down made her wish he’d text her right that moment. She looked at the screen and wondered if she dared send him a message now. She imagined what she’d say: “I’m drinking gin at the hotel, alone.” How would he respond? Plenty of sinister criminals have been charismatic, entertaining, intelligent people.
She needed to be careful.
She kept staring at the silent screen. Could she go to a bar for a drink? She was tempted, but she looked at her notebook and remembered that she needed to work. She peered out the window and saw the lights of the neighborhood, the lively cafés, and, higher up, the three illuminated crosses on top of the hill. She imagined all the young, strong men she could meet with just a bit of effort, but told herself no, maybe another day. Right now she was wedded to that notebook. She opened the minifridge and took out a Coca-Cola before sitting down to work.