After lunch with the prosecutors, Julieta and Johana went in search of a pleasant terrace where they could decide what to do, whether to return to Bogotá the next day on a morning flight or wait in Cali a little longer. After a short stroll they sat down at the coffee shop El Remanso, one street over from the hotel. Julieta wasn’t sure what her next move should be, but she sensed that it was here, in this steamy city, that the important elements of the story were brewing. At the same time she recognized that the information she needed wasn’t actually available to her, since she had to wait for the investigations of the prosecutor and his men to bear fruit. Most fascinating to her for now was the relationship between Fritz and the Brazilian pastor. Fabinho Henriquez. Her intuition told her that was the way to go.
They ordered two berry teas and disappeared into their telephones.
At the time of the incident—3:46 P.M., to be precise—the terrace wasn’t particularly full, just five tables. Some employees were taking orders at the counter, charging and handing out numbers, while others ran the food, mostly mid-afternoon platters of cassava cheese bread and oat drink or milky coffee. The Colombian palette isn’t terribly varied in such things. A few patrons ordered hot chocolate instead of coffee or a plate of fresh fruit.
But that’s all.
Everything happened very quickly and chaotically.
The motorcycle stopped on the street, just before the corner. The sicario was perched on the back, behind the driver. His face still hidden behind a helmet, he climbed the nine steps to the terrace and headed to the counter like he was about to place an order. Somewhere in her mind Julieta, already paranoid about motorcycles, registered him. Johana found it odd that the man hadn’t removed his helmet, and perhaps for that reason she watched him. And so she saw him loop around the far end of the room and approach a man from behind who was sitting at one of the tables against the wall. Her intuition told her, Alert, alert! and she tensed; a moment later, the sicario pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the back of the target’s head.
Johana grabbed Julieta’s arm and yanked her down onto the floor as five gunshots went off. Five booms that echoed in that tranquil environment, sowing confusion, shouts. The patrons from other tables also threw themselves on the floor, terrified. There was running and the crash of breaking glasses and mugs. The victim toppled over, lying on his left arm. The first and second shots had struck him in the head. The other three, probably unnecessary, in the chest.
The killer stopped and looked around, still holding the pistol, as if to confirm something. Nobody dared meet his gaze. Johana watched him from the floor, not moving. She was just five meters from the sicario, who stepped toward them, not to threaten them but to see the dead man’s head from another angle. The bullets had done the job. They’d entered from behind and gone out through the forehead, opening a hole in what had been his face.
The murdered man looked to be in his forties, Johana thought, but he seemed young and robust. If he hadn’t been stopped by the man settling scores with bullets, he would have lasted several more decades. Time is elastic in moments of panic, and remembering it in words seems longer than the event itself. Such was the case with the eight or ten seconds when Johana was staring at the killer’s feet, which were shod in blue Reeboks with dirty white soles. She guessed they weren’t the real thing. Paraguayan knockoffs purchased in San Nicolás. She could feel people’s breathing, their panic. A little knot of humanity suddenly assaulted by reality. Dense seconds. Fear of death upon seeing it close up.
Johana recognized the pistol: a nine-millimeter, fast, light.
Suddenly, as if reality had been set back into motion, the sicario strode across the terrace, leaped down the steps to the street, and climbed onto the motorcycle. The driver revved the engine and sped off going the wrong way, toward the river and Colombia Avenue.
What happens after a crime?
It depends—sometimes nothing.
Johana helped Julieta up. Everybody else gradually stood too, one by one. A few women were sobbing and saying, “Oh God, what just happened?” The terrace floor was slanted slightly so rainwater would run off, and the blood was already trickling down the drains. Death is a strange thing. Not just blood but also lumps of bread had fallen from the dead man’s mouth; he’d been chewing and about to swallow. Most people left without looking at him, but two of the employees came over to see if he was alive and exclaimed, “Don Alvarito!”
They crossed themselves.
Still dazed from the gunfire and the horror, Julieta couldn’t move. Johana went to talk to one of the employees.
“Who was this guy?” she asked.
“Don Álvaro Esguerra. He used to come in for breakfast or afternoon coffee.”
“A friend of the owner?” Johana persisted.
In the distance, they could hear a siren, which turned out to be an ambulance. Soon a team from the prosecutor general’s technical investigation unit would arrive. She didn’t have much time to question the woman.
“No, Don Alvarito was a good customer,” the employee said, wiping her tears. “He was a big tipper. To think he just got out of the army last year . . . He used to say the military had become a ladies club now that we were in peacetime, and now look at him!”
The body, doubled over with the arms pinned underneath, looked fragile and exposed.
Three police motorcycles arrived and six officers swarmed the terrace, cordoning it off and organizing people to record them as witnesses.
Julieta called Jutsiñamuy, but she got his voicemail. She made a second attempt, and a third. No dice. Suddenly her cell phone buzzed, and it was him.
“You’ll never guess what happened!” she said.
“Oh no, Julieta, don’t tell me . . .”
Julieta didn’t know where to begin. “A sicario . . . shot a guy five times right in front of us, in a coffee shop . . .”
Jutsiñamuy remained ever calm, even in moments like this one. “OK, Julieta, but which murder are you talking about?”
She was silent a moment, uncomprehending. “Which one? The one right here!”
Julieta explained that she was still in El Peñón, very close to the hotel.
“The thing is,” Jutsiñamuy said, “there were just several of these crimes all at the same time. Seems like there were four. I’m headed to meet Laiseca right now at one in the south part of the city, in Ciudad Jardín, which was at a café too. I’d already left when I learned about the one in El Peñón, but I had no idea you two were there! There was a third one at the Unicentro mall, and another at a no-tell motel. The sicarios were busy today!”
He paused briefly to think. “Go back to the hotel and don’t budge until we figure out what’s going on, OK? I’ll let you know when I’m back, and we can meet up.”
The second crime had taken place in the southern part of the city, at La Suprema sandwich shop and café in the Ciudad Jardín neighborhood. According to the employees’ accounts, a man with a coarse complexion and dark skin entered the room, his face hidden by the hood of a windbreaker and a pair of sunglasses. He sat at a table in the back and ordered a cold oat drink with cassava cheese rolls. The victim, Edgardo Castillejo, thirty-eight years old, arrived some ten minutes later, sat near the entrance, and ordered coffee, a Coke, and a ham-and-cheese sandwich.
Apparently the sicario drank half of his glass and ate two knots of cassava cheese bread before getting up and, looking as if he was on his way out, moved beside the victim, pulled out his gun, aimed it at his temple, and let off three shots. Then he put the pistol away and fled, bumping into a group of people as they entered. He ran to the corner and climbed on the back of a motorcycle that swiftly disappeared into traffic.
The emergency medical units from the Fundación Valle del Lili hospital arrived exactly twelve minutes later and noted that Castillejo was still alive; or rather, that he still had vital signs. He’d been bowled over by the force of the gunshots and fallen under the neighboring table, which fortunately had been unoccupied. Two of the bullets remained lodged in his body, and the third had embedded itself in the baseboard, right in an outlet where someone had plugged in a cell phone charger.
The shots had come from a nine-millimeter.
The café customers, hearing the gunshots, had flung themselves to the floor. Sixty-three-year-old Bertha Ruiz de Poveda had banged her forehead on the edge of her table, where she’d been having tea and cookies while waiting for her husband, who arrived a few minutes later and got the fright of his life when he learned what had happened and that his wife was being treated for her injury.
Edgardo Castillejo died before reaching the hospital, caught in a traffic jam on Cañasgordas Avenue.
The initial theory was that the third gunshot had punctured a lung, filling it with blood and causing him to suffocate to death. The gunshots to the head had caused major injuries, but he could have survived them. Castillejo was the owner of three casinos in the downtown area and several motels in Menga. In reviewing his criminal record, the prosecutor’s office found two investigations for money laundering and an arrest for gun running in the early nineties. But he wasn’t a well-known figure in Valle del Cauca’s mafia world. A sleeping but not entirely invisible cell, according to Agent René Laiseca.
The third crime took place at the Condoricosas motel, located at the intersection of 8th Avenue and 24th Street; besides hosting secret trysts, it is a monument to Latin American genius, as its decor features images from the Chilean cartoonist Pepo’s comic strip Condorito. This double murder seemed to have been premeditated as well, since the sicario entered the motel accompanied by a woman to avoid arousing suspicion. Given the discretion such places generally provide their clientele, it is likely that an employee conspired by informing the sicario which room the victim was in. This discretion would also make it more difficult to identify the killer and his companion or accomplice.
The events, according to security cameras and the few witnesses, unfolded as follows: At 3:08 P.M. a Mazda with (stolen) Cali AXY 634 plates arrived and entered the motel’s front parking lot. The couple walked inside and requested a VIP suite, located on the fourth floor (next to the Presidential Suite), and there they settled in to wait; it is unknown whether they made use of any of the erotic accoutrements provided to customers in such rooms. Twenty-two minutes later the victim, Ferney Alejandro Garrido, thirty-six, arrived, accompanied by Karen Dávila, twenty-four, of Venezuelan nationality, a professional capillary reengineer; they requested the Presidential Suite and ordered a KissMe charcuterie platter for two along with a bottle of Viejo de Caldas rum and Coca-Cola Light. It is not known who informed the sicarios of Ferney Alejandro’s arrival, whether an inside or outside accomplice, but eighteen minutes later they burst into the suite, armed with an Ingram M-10 and silencer. From the naked bodies’ locations, it can be deduced that the victims were in the middle of sexual intercourse, in the position popularly known as doggy-style. There were a total of thirty-six gunshots, which impacted the victims at various vital points from the gluteal area up to the head. Most of the bullets passed through the man’s body before hitting the Venezuelan woman, causing her death. From the large quantity of gunshots that penetrated the wall, damaging the decorative image of a naked Yayita—Condorito’s girlfriend—investigators concluded that the sicario was not well trained in the use of a semiautomatic pistol, which, when fired in long bursts, tends to rise in a semicircle.
Ferney Alejandro Garrido, whose briefcase was found to contain an unlicensed Remington pistol, had priors for arms smuggling in 2011 and 2012. He had been in the army until 2009. He left with the rank of sergeant and was involved in a “false positive” murder case that, after two years in the courts, failed to result in a conviction. After that he disappeared. Ms. Karen Dávila, born in the city of Barquisimeto, had entered Colombia from Caracas in September 2017 via Bogotá’s El Dorado Airport, from which she then traveled to the city of Pereira to be reunited with her father’s family. Though her father was Colombian, Ms. Dávila did not have Colombian citizenship, for which the paperwork was in progress. The Venezuelan embassy has been informed of their compatriot’s death.
The fourth murder victim was Víctor Herrera Garcés, thirty-six, born in Toribío. He was shot at 3:51 P.M. inside his car, a 1996 Chevrolet Sprint with Cali plate VMH 472, on 5th Avenue near Unicentro, where he’d just been shopping. Eighteen bullet holes were found in his vehicle. Herrera died from a round that entered his temple and split open his skull, like a melon struck by a hammer. He fell into the space between the two seats, and when they lifted him up, the forensics unit made two macabre discoveries: first, under the body was a dead cat, which had been struck by several bullets; it was unclear whether Herrera had flung himself on top of it to protect it, in a moving and noble, if futile, gesture toward his animal companion, or whether the sicarios had opened fire indiscriminately and the cat had been collateral damage. In light of the events, investigators agreed that the sicarios’ fate was sealed, since popular wisdom leaves no doubt that killing a cat results in seven years of bad luck.
The second find, equally macabre, was that when they removed the deceased’s shirt to perform a preliminary analysis of the gunshot entry wounds, they discovered that he was already healing from three additional rather large bullet wounds, two in the abdomen and one in the chest. He still had stitches and gauze bandages. What other gunfight were they from?
He had his documents with him, so they looked into his background, finding a police record of three car thefts and two arrests for the use of restricted army material, such as camouflage jackets and pants. He had been in prison twice for extortion, and his most recent rap sheet linked him to the Gaitainista Self-Defense Forces of Valle del Cauca.
“Now the good part is going to be organizing all of this,” Jutsiñamuy said.
“If that’s even possible,” Laiseca noted.
They were at La Suprema, the café where Edgardo Castillejo had been killed. Jutsiñamuy was sipping his ever-present tea. Laiseca and Cancino, after assisting the agents from the Cali prosecutor’s office in their investigations, had gotten the boss’s permission to order a Poker beer.
“Goddamn it,” Jutsiñamuy protested. “I’d been planning to go back to Bogotá first thing tomorrow morning. I miss watching the sunrise from my office.”
“For real, boss,” Laiseca said, grasping the bottle by the neck. “And those guys didn’t even know we were here. They went all out today.”
“The people here are taking care of it,” Jutsiñamuy said, “but what I’m interested in, the reason I’m looking into the Cali guys, is in case this spate of bodies has something to do with our investigation.”
“It wouldn’t be a surprise,” Laiseca said. “Every time I hear mention that somebody worked in private security, I prick up my ears.”
“What do you think, Cancino?” the prosecutor asked. “Why so quiet?”
The agent moved his head down and up again, like a bobblehead toy, and said, “The thing is, boss, this Ullucos River investigation is opening up still other lines of inquiry. But if you think about it, everything that happens every day in this country is suspect, and it could all be tied to a single case.”
Laiseca took a swig and mused, “Well stated, Cancino. It’s one massive case: we’re a nation of ignorant, violent, resentful people.”
“Jeez, Laiseca, tell us what you really think,” Jutsiñamuy said. “Don’t forget, we public servants have a constitutional obligation to love this country.”
“No, I do love the country, boss,” Laiseca said. “The mountains and the plains and you and my blessed mother. But everybody else who lives here is a dangerous bunch.”
Jutsiñamuy set down his cup of tea on the saucer and said, “All right, the national opinion session’s over. Shall we get to work?”
“The Cali prosecutor’s office is already looking into the details of who these guys are and what they were up to,” Laiseca said. “Let’s wait till tomorrow to see what they find out. They don’t know about our investigation.”
“That’s important,” Jutsiñamuy emphasized. “It’s better for now if they don’t know what we’re looking for. The only people we’ve shared this with are Julieta and Johana.” The prosecutor tapped his forehead with his index finger. “By the way, Laiseca, Julieta is waiting for you to send her contact information for the Brazilian pastor, Fabinho Henriquez.”
“With these murders, I haven’t had the chance to tell you, boss,” Laiseca said. “I’ve got a number of juicy tidbits.”
“Is that right? Well, let’s hear them.”
“Hang on, let me get my notes.”
This is what Agent René Nicolás Laiseca reported:
Well, boss, the Jamundí Inn hotel and restaurant is a real grab-bag of surprises. Doña Guillermina’s office at headquarters gave me a rundown of the legal status of the property’s business activity and ownership. It belongs to a corporation, Bethlehem Investments, which turns out to be a Panama-based mixed consortium whose primary shareholder is something called Alliance Cooperative, which in turn belongs to the gold-mining company Ouro Amazónico, from French Guiana, based in Cayenne, which is owned by Fabinho Henriquez. The other two firms that serve as shareholders have only five percent each, so we think they belong to Ouro Amazónico too.
From there we started looking into Ouro Amazónico; the people at headquarters are on that. In the meantime, I went to visit the Jamundí Inn, pretending to be interested in arranging a honeymoon there. I explored the place and befriended one of the waiters at the terrace bar, Beilys David Moncada, an Afro-Colombian of twenty-two, who told me he always looks after the people who rent the larger bungalows.
When I asked what kind of clientele they attract, he said all sorts; when I then asked, “Foreigners too?” he said, “Yes, sir, especially Brazilians, Americans, sometimes Ecuadorians or Mexicans”; he also recalled a Chinese guest. I asked, “Do you remember the last time there was a Brazilian guest?” He looked wary and said, “Hey, mister, are these the kind of questions everybody who’s about to get married asks?” So I had to show my cards. “Look, young man,” I said, “I’ve got a proposal for you—you could earn some good money in exchange for information.” Opening his eyes wide, he said, “Like how much?” And I said, “Well, you tell me, how much is the information you’ve got worth?” The kid thought a minute and said, “Depends what you’re looking for.” Well, after some negotiations we agreed to meet at the end of his shift at a place he chose, a café called La Panificadora near the road to Santander de Quilichao.
I found him there later, now out of his Jamundí Inn uniform, looking like your typical Afro-Colombian kid from the area: tank top, baseball cap, jeans, and knockoff Reeboks. He told me I could ask him whatever I wanted, but first I had to pay 600,000 pesos in cash, in advance, which I proceeded to do, taking a photo of the handover and immediately sending it to headquarters as an official record of the expense. Then he told me what he remembered: the last meeting of VIPs had been about two months back; a group of people had come in from Brazil, including one man who seemed to be the boss. Even the manager of the Jamundí Inn had been incredibly deferential and called him sir all the time, and the man spoke Spanish well but with a noticeable singsong Brazilian accent. He would have been about fifty, more or less, and what Beilys David noticed was it was an unusual meeting, with lots of people from here in Cali and around Colombia, men only, and he found it odd because they never requested liquor or cocaine, and not even professional female companions. For three days he served them soft drinks, and all they did was talk and look at maps, and when I asked if he remembered what kind of maps he said no, he hadn’t looked because the people made him nervous, they fell silent when he entered and watched him serve each person, so he always tried to get out of there quickly, but he did notice that they were working on maps spread out on the table because he saw they’d marked them with a yellow highlighter; I asked if any name had caught his eye and he said yes, one of the words highlighted was Popayán, and when I asked why he’d noticed that word he said something very typically adolescent, “I had a girl there who broke my heart, you know?” and then added, “plus the y looks like a pussy, right?” thus confirming that the maps were of Cauca Department, where Tierradentro is located. I asked if he’d seen any of those people before, and he said some of them yes, that they came fairly regularly, and here comes the good part, boss, because I showed him the photos of our stiffs, Nadio Becerra and Óscar Luis Pedraza, and he recognized them immediately, said of course, they both went to the Jamundí Inn a lot, and he also recognized the third guy, the one we think might be named Carlos, and said he was there a lot too, though sometimes he didn’t stay, and he worked for the other guys, and then, boss, I started putting together the theory that Beilys David’s meeting might have been preparations for the Tierradentro attack, and with that in mind I asked the informant some final questions: “Would you say the Colombians with the big boss were soldiers, or looked like soldiers?” and he said, “I don’t really know, sir, but they were definitely beefy and strong,” so I asked, “And did you happen to see any weapons at that or any other meeting?” And he said, “No, I didn’t see anything, but I knew they had them, you could tell they were packing a mile off.” That was enough for me, so I dismissed the young informant, though not before identifying myself as an agent from the prosecutor general’s office, which he didn’t believe at first, saying, “You’re really an agent? I thought you were paramilitary.”
My informant’s morals and habits seem to be very disordered, so I told him that from that moment forth he would be under the monitoring and guidance of the authorities, and recommended that he not tell anyone about our chat, which he promised by making the sign of the cross (“I swear on my blessed mother,” he said). He also agreed to cooperate on further identifications and promised to keep an eye out in case those people returned to the hotel or he heard anything about them from the other staff and waiters.
After that I called headquarters to analyze the calls that had gone in and out from the Jamundí Inn’s offices, and what a treasure trove, boss. Just imagine, three calls from a number in Cayenne! It’s pretty much certain that Pastor Fabinho is Mr. F, and that he planned the attack with his henchmen at the Jamundí Inn. And that the bodies dumped by the side of the road, with the Assembly of God tattoos, are from his group. It’s the part tying Fabinho to Pastor Fritz that’s the weak bit; the only link could be the Nasa boy who talked to Julieta, but we don’t have an official statement from him, especially now that he’s disappeared. We’ll also have whatever theories come out of Wendy’s undercover operation, but so far, as I understand it, she hasn’t turned up concrete proof that the combat in Tierradentro was between those two pastors.
After this report, Jutsiñamuy drained his second cup of tea and told his agents, “Come on, let’s go see the girls. They’re freaked out—they were in the café where the sicario took out . . . what’s the guy’s name from El Peñón?”
“Álvaro Esguerra,” Cancino said, reading from his notepad.
“That’s the one,” Jutsiñamuy confirmed.
“Seriously, boss? They were there when everything went down?” Cancino asked, surprised. “So they’re eyewitnesses. We could question them.”
“They’re working with me,” the prosecutor said, “and right now I’m more interested in getting their help on the other case. I still haven’t been able to figure out who’s covering up or tried to cover up the combat in Tierradentro, but I know it’s somebody from the police. Orders from above.”
“So who’s looking into that?” Laiseca asked.
“I’m doing it myself,” Jutsiñamuy said. “But it’s slow going because I haven’t had a free moment. It would be great if Julieta reached out to the Brazilian pastor and was able to talk to him—that would be key. He wouldn’t suspect anything, and she’s good at wangling information out of people.”
“We’d have to confirm that the person who was attacked was Pastor Fritz,” Cancino said. “That would change everything.”
The prosecutor scratched his chin with his index finger. “The problem here is we can’t confirm anything until the attacker turns up. It’s a bifurcated case: two suspects, two confirmations. We won’t get one without the other.”
“Two Christian pastors beating the hell out of each other,” Laiseca said. “If that’s what happened, what would poor Christ say?”
“He’d probably laugh,” Cancino said.
The sound of a cell phone interrupted the conversation. It was the Cali prosecutor’s office, calling to inform Jutsiñamuy of the day’s four murders.
“I’m waiting for criminal records that will allow us to connect the dots with other ongoing investigations. But thanks for the heads-up. What’s your theory?”
On the other end of the line, a prosecutor said, “Same one as always: score settling between criminal gangs. The problem is finding a connection—hopefully we pull it off. There’s no way it’s a coincidence, right?”
After the shooting, her nerves completely on edge, Julieta opened the minibar, took out a tiny bottle of gin, and downed it. Bottoms up. Feeling a warmth spreading pleasantly through her body, she lay down on the bed.
Was she really in danger?
She thought back to her motorcycle tail. Had he observed the crime? Was he involved in some way? It wasn’t the first time she’d witnessed a hail of bullets. In her career she’d seen bodies wrecked by high-caliber ammunition. Skin is too fragile; the blood comes pouring out. She recalled something a farming boy had said about one massacre: “It’s not the bullet that kills you, but the terrific speed it’s traveling at.” The shattered bones, the awful sound they make as they break inside the body. And yet she’d been unnerved by the gunfire. Nobody who hears a gunshot can shake the thought that the next bullet will fly right into their head. Fear of death? Of course. Fear of pain, of disability. Johana was probably in her room, but it was different for her. Childless people are fearless and, in some sense, freer.
They were waiting for a signal from Jutsiñamuy to go downstairs.
Johana was looking into Pastor Fabinho, but Julieta opened her computer anyway and typed his name into the search engine. She clicked from page to page and was supremely annoyed to discover a huge number of men with the same name, from car salesmen in São Paulo to doctors in Brasília and Curitiba to even a professional model in Belo Horizonte. Out of patience, she called Johana.
“Did you find anything about the Brazilian?”
“I’m working on it,” Johana said. “I found the Assembly of God, but there are several contacts shared with a French Guiana corporation called Ouro Amazónico—is that the one?”
“I’m sure it is. Look for their emails so we can write to them.”
“All right, boss, as soon as I’ve got them I’ll call you.”
Johana was a whiz with computers. But as she waited for the information, Julieta had an idea and started composing a message:
Dear Mr. Henriquez,
I am an independent journalist interested in the gold-mining industry in South America. I am writing a book on gold extraction methods, from their pre-Hispanic origins into the present day, and I have found countless references to your company that have convinced me you will be a vital source for my work. The idea would be to create a biographical profile of you that will serve as an example of someone who managed to establish and grow a major company in the Amazon, with all the challenges that entails. A person needs heroism and faith to get as far as you have. Because of that—because I see you as a true pioneer—I wish to make special mention of you in my book, and so I am hoping you will grant me an interview. I am happy to travel to Cayenne to speak to you on any date that works for you, ideally as soon as possible. I am sending you copies of some of my articles for different press organizations around the world to give you an idea of my work.
I await your kind response.
All my best,
Julieta Lezama
The idea was simple: try to get to him through his gold-mining company to avoid rousing suspicion. It could work. Just as she finished this initial draft, her cell phone rang. It was Jutsiñamuy.
“I’m on my way to your hotel, Julieta. I’m with Cancino and Laiseca. What do you say we meet in the café in ten minutes?”
“Absolutely, I’ll be here.”
She reviewed the text for the thousandth time. It was fine. The important thing was to touch (or should she say: massage, kiss, lick) the egotistical fiber that every successful businessman, even one who’s a pastor or priest, has inside him. The buzz of the room phone shook her out of her thoughts.
It was Johana. “Boss, I found an email address on a Facebook page with the name of that company, but I don’t know if it’s current. The page doesn’t have any recent activity. The address is ouro.amazonicodirec@yahoo.fr, and there are some phone numbers too.”
“Excellent!” Julieta exclaimed, copying the email address directly into her Gmail. “I’ll send them a message right away. And get ready to go. Jutsiñamuy is on his way.”
When they arrived, the agents inspected the café and then sat down near the window. Jutsiñamuy kept glancing outside. It was raining.
It was amazing how many things could happen in such a short time.
“What do you think of today’s little surprises?” he asked Julieta. “Are you two all right? Are you over the scare? I imagine Johana must be better accustomed to it.”
“No way, sir,” Johana said. “You never get used to seeing someone shot right in front of you.”
“This country will be the end of us,” Jutsiñamuy said. “I don’t know where we’re going to end up.”
“And yet the government claims there’s no conflict here,” Julieta pointed out sarcastically.
“Well, this kind of thing has always happened,” Jutsiñamuy said. “Four assassinations in less than an hour!”
“Do you think they’re connected?” Julieta asked.
“That’s what the Cali prosecutor’s office is looking into,” he said. “For now there have been no arrests, and there’s no clear motive. We can announce that all of the murders are settling scores or unpaid blackmail. The Cali guys are looking into the victims’ records, but all they’ve found are vague factors that don’t establish a clear link: their ages, for example. They’re all between thirty-five and forty, and they all have some kind of military training from the army. But that’s something they have in common with most of the criminals in this country.”
“Why do you say that’s vague?” Julieta asked. “It sounds pretty specific to me.”
Jutsiñamuy took the beer he’d ordered and poured it into his glass. Laiseca and Cancino drank from the bottle.
“All Colombian men from the middle and working classes,” Jutsiñamuy said, “have done military service. The rich pay to get out of it, but for everybody else it was obligatory. I went through it. I know what I’m talking about. Save a very few exceptions, you don’t see rich kids in the army. When the 38th Battalion was still around, a few joined up from bilingual schools, but not many; most were sent to the Sinai as a gesture of international cooperation. Julieta, you know there’s nothing more shameful than being poor, but being poor in Colombia is the worst.”
“Well,” she said, “being poor in Africa is up there too. Anyway, what else do we know about the Brazilian, Fabinho Henriquez?”
At a signal from Jutsiñamuy, Laiseca brought them up to date on everything, especially the suspicion, practically confirmed, that Henriquez had held a meeting at the Jamundí Inn to plan the ambush in Tierradentro. The three roadside corpses had worked for him.
“At any rate,” Laiseca said, “this is all a house of cards that depends on confirmation that it was those two shooting at each other at the Ullucos River. By which I mean Pastor Fritz and the Brazilian. Otherwise, all we’d have is the bodies from the roadside identified by a hotel employee.”
“That’s why it’s so important to talk to Henriquez,” Jutsiñamuy said. “But you understand, Julieta, that the prosecutor general’s office can’t interfere or call for an investigation until we have something concrete. Which is practically impossible from here.”
“I’m interested, too, for my feature,” she said. “The problem is tracking him down. I wrote to an email address Johana found, but we don’t know if it’s current; the page looks old and it doesn’t have a date.”
“Did you find anything, Laiseca?” the prosecutor asked his agent.
“I have the phone numbers,” Laiseca said, pursing his lips. “But you can’t get an email address from that. I failed there, boss, I forgot that detail. Hang on a second and I’ll call Bogotá and have them look.”
Laiseca walked over to the window, holding his cell phone to his ear.
Julieta felt her own phone vibrate. She read the message.
“There’s no need to look anymore,” she said.
She handed her phone to Jutsiñamuy, who read on the screen,
Dear journalist, thank you much for your interest on our company and our boss’s testimony. Monsieur Fabinho Henriquez will be delighted to receive you any day in the afternoon next week. Thank you for confirm the date that works best for you once you have arranged your travel and your stay in the city.
Amicably,
Thérèse Denticat
Sécretaire PDG
Ouro Amazónico, Inc., Trade.
Cayenne, Guyane
“It’s like he heard us,” Jutsiñamuy said. “Though this secretary could use a couple of Spanish lessons.”
“They speak French there, boss,” Laiseca said, “and judging by her last name, I’d guess she’s from Haiti.”
Jutsiñamuy looked at him with surprise. “Damn, so now we’re Haiti experts too? Don’t be a tease, Laiseca—how many PhDs have you got?”
“Only the ones life gave me, boss,” the agent replied. “A divorce with no kids, the public library, and an impoverished childhood.”
The prosecutor slapped him on the shoulder. “Well, hell, don’t get glum on me,” he said. “That’s the best PhD this country offers, and the one most of us have.” Then he looked at Julieta. “So, you’re going to French Guiana?”
“I have to look at schedules, get a few things in order,” Julieta said. “But yes. I’ll go immediately. Johana? Get me a ticket for the first flight out.” She pondered a moment. “How the hell do you get there, anyway? It’s on the other side of Venezuela, right? Do you go through Brazil?”
“Maybe via the Caribbean,” Laiseca said, “possibly Aruba or Curaçao.”
Johana opened several browser pages and searched for a while. “There aren’t any direct flights,” she said eventually, “not even ones with just one layover. Or, well, there is one, actually: you fly to Paris first and then come back from there. That’s the only one I see.”
“Julieta,” Jutsiñamuy said, “if I can help in any way, let me know. And go back to Bogotá as soon as possible. With everything that went down today, this city makes me a little nervous.”
“Don’t worry, I’m on the first flight tomorrow.”
They said goodbye. The prosecutor said he’d be going back to Bogotá tomorrow too, leaving Laiseca and Cancino in Cali to take care of things.
They’d be in touch.
Once she was alone, Julieta sent a quick message to Zamarripa, her editor: “Daniel, there were just four more assassinations in Cali, one right in front of my nose, in a coffee shop. All related to the evangelical churches here and maybe in Brazil. To untangle all this, I’m going to have to travel to French Guiana; there’s a pastor there who may have the key.”
Response from Zamarripa: “Sounds exciting. How much are we talking, more or less?”
Julieta: “I figure about a thousand dollars. If it’s more, I’ll cover it myself.”
Zamarripa: “All right, go ahead, but now it really does have to be something big. Incendiary. Front-page material. Save your receipts. And don’t get shot, please.”