Salty Sky Page 3

  Francisco’s Tío Pablo once provided the bean pickers with doctors and employment. While to the government, he was El Capo del Mal, to the people, Tío Pablo was simply El Capo. He provided a zoo for entertainment—with statues, popcorn, and carousels to accompany the hippos, elephants, gorillas, and tigers. After El Capo’s assassination in 1993, the zoo’s equipment was neglected. The ignored animals escaped. Many of the animals, separated from their protectors, were shot or starved. Some went into hiding, living well or barely subsisting in the city or the surrounding mountains.

  Francisco found that the zoo animals’ fates paralleled those of El Capo’s men after his death. A crate of machine guns didn’t protect a lone wolf; some flourished, and some perished on their own. Francisco, himself, had been less directly confrontational toward those who could, with a sacrifice, reach him. He had done what was needed for survival—not just for his own but also for that of his family and the hundreds of countrymen whom he supported. He appeared to wear his Tío’s mantle effortlessly, but the responsibilities went to bed with him each evening.

  Neither the government nor the rebels deserved or would receive the people’s loyalty. Speeches of idealism and acts of corruption would be their legacy until the fighting began again. El Capo’s discipline and largesse were extreme and rewarded him with bountiful loyalty. Francisco had idolized Pablo since birth, and Pablo, in turn, had taken Francisco into his fold at an early age. Francisco learned how to exploit mankind’s wanton core and to nurture its neediest victims.

  Pablo desensitized Francisco to the emotional effects of both murder and exacting discipline within the ranks early on. When Francisco was fourteen, Pablo had summoned him to a meeting.

  “FRANCISCO, HAVE YOU been at the refinery, learning from Miguel how to turn the paste into powder?”

  “Sí, Tío Pablo. Miguel has shown me all the steps of the process, from inspecting the paste when it arrives to processing it into powder and packaging it for shipment.”

  “Do you enjoy your time with Miguel?”

  “He is a Panamanian and has so many degrees from the big university. I think that makes him stand a little apart from the rest of us at the refinery, but he has become my great friend. I have learned so much from him, and I am very grateful to him for that.” Francisco hurriedly added, “And to you as well, of course, Tío.”

  Pablo nodded in understanding. “De nada. Francisco, I paid Miguel one million dollars in American money last year. Knowing that, do you think Miguel is satisfactorily rewarded for his work?”

  “Tío, you are always very generous. Miguel would not make a million dollars in ten years running a Panamanian factory.”

  “So you agree that I am fair to Miguel?”

  Francisco nodded, not knowing where this was leading but feeling a slight unease.

  “Tell me, has Miguel taught you how many kilos of powder you can make from a kilo of paste?”

  “Each kilo of paste makes a half kilo of powder, because it loses the weight of the water during the refinement.”

  “Excellent. So when I had one hundred kilos of paste delivered last time, I should have expected fifty kilos of powder in return. Do you agree?”

  “Sí, Tío.”

  “But I received only forty kilos. Has there been any unusual waste at the refinery—big spills or batches going bad?”

  “No, Tío. Miguel runs a very clean operation. He is always telling people to be careful with your inventory. That is what he calls it, ‘El Capo’s inventory.’”

  “So if there is no waste of my inventory, what am I to conclude?”

  “One of the workers is stealing from you? Not Miguel. Miguel is too …”

  But his voice trailed off. It had to be Miguel. The workers operated naked in the refinery, so they left with nothing. Miguel controlled the keys, the guns, and the guards.

  Francisco wondered how he had not seen it. This was his first lesson in how friendship can blind others to your actions and how you can be blinded if you allow yourself to be.

  Pablo watched the waves of recognition ripple across Francisco’s face and felt a swelling of pride. Pablo handed Francisco a pistol.

  “A fish rots from its head. Miguel is the head of the refinery, and if this rot continues, it will eat us alive. Take care of him and whoever you think is helping him. Better to kill too many than too few.” Pablo then nodded to a bodyguard, who would drive Francisco back to the refinery.

  The ride to the refinery took an hour bouncing across unpaved trails. Francisco thought about his risks in the confrontation. Who was helping Miguel? There was one other Panamanian in the operation, a guard who Francisco had noticed talking animatedly, yet in hushed tones, with Miguel on more than one occasion; he had thought nothing of it at the time. Now, he decided the guard was the accomplice and would have to die with Miguel.

  At the refinery, Francisco found the guard on duty. He walked straight up to him and put a bullet in the side of his head before anyone realized he was carrying a pistol. When Miguel ran into the room to investigate the sound, he found Francisco kneeling beside his bleeding confidant. He ran and kneeled beside Francisco.

  “Oh no. Francisco, there is so much blood. Do you know what happened?”

  Miguel looked frantically into Francisco’s eyes and, seeing the determination, backed away. But not fast or far enough. The pistol kicked in Francisco’s teenage hands as he unloaded the cartridge into his friend.

  IT WAS HARD for Francisco to believe so much time had passed. Pablo had been dead for over twenty years. Francisco’s older brother a few months longer. In El Capo’s death, a Colombian pulled the trigger, but the norteamericanos told him where to stand. The circumstances around his brother’s death, long a mystery, were recently illuminated to show that a norteamericano actually pulled that trigger.

  How to use this new information weighed greatly on Francisco’s mind. He, like the leader of the country, had blood on his own hands and had killed many people’s brothers and uncles. Blood followed power and wealth. Now, with the treaty’s new freedoms, opportunities were opening, there would be new alignments with new partners and, inevitably, new pursuers. A message from a timeless memory of the wrongs they suffered would serve his family well. Exacting revenge against the norteamericanos in their homes was no longer a daydream but a bloody message to deliver that would provide protection.

  Today, as always, Francisco wore linen pants and a white guayabera and moved briskly and gracefully. By sight, those observing him could intuit half of his life accurately. Strong swimmer. Amateur car racer. Playboy. Although the government officials claimed to never know his location, he was often photographed with young starlets, whose gowns seemed on the verge of dropping to the floor. If those observing him only heard his name, they would know the other half of his life. Most then averted their eyes to not catch his notice. Even the young thrill seekers filled with machismo treaded silently. There was a saying in Cartagena and Bogotá: “Si los de Medellín aman tanto a los Escobar, el resto del mundo les tiene miedo.” The fear the Escobars inspired outside Medellín provided a level of safety that Francisco appreciated. His trip to the United States should write the next chapter in his family’s mythology.

  Francisco’s peers were mostly dead, victims of either the war against the state or the norteamericanos’ war on drugs. Francisco was accompanied by a man near sixty; his young men stayed in the hillsides because their English was inadequate for the trip. They would be joined later in the trip by a young American immigrant from Cuba for whom Francisco had elevated expectations.

  “Alberto, me gustaría un Heineken, por favor.”

  “Sí, señor Escobar. Un momento,” replied the older man as he went to order the drink.

  Upon his return, Alberto handed Francisco a stemmed pint glass with a handle, a half inch of foam at the top, and a napkin under the base.

  Francisco said, “Thank you, Alberto. Let me ask, have you practiced your English lately?”

  “Yes, Mr.
Escobar. I watched the TV satellite to practice.”

  “The satellite TV, Alberto. Very good. We all are a little in need of oiling.”

  Francisco felt progress’s buzz ripple through his emotions. He’d begun undoing the damage to his family’s operations. Outside South America, his family’s role in the trade was severely diminished, displaced by half-breed Mexicans and medieval Afghanis, both lacking in artistry. Their assets were violence, numbers, and a willingness to prey on and then discard the weak. Francisco followed Pablo’s blueprint of elevating the weak, giving them strength when they accepted his patronage, and removing them when they did not. Using the new passports, Francisco would expedite the resumption of meaningful trade in Europe and the United States. That, plus exploiting the new legalized marijuana rules sweeping the globe, would provide Francisco the opportunity to promote his lieutenants into colonels and his colonels into generals. His men were of better stock than their competitors and would rise above them once again. He needed to spend some time assessing his operation’s assets and evaluating the risks of running a legal, regulated business.

  Looking at his competition, he bemoaned the trade’s current lack of romance. How had it fallen so far? Planes no longer dropped bales at designated coordinates that boats with overhauled engines gaffed and raced to shore. No longer did they use submarines to smuggle kilos under the waves. It was now brute force. Coyotes forced fence jumpers to carry backpacks full of product. Now, eighteen-wheelers were half filled with legitimate goods and half filled with cocaine. They pushed so many through the border that they tolerated the loss of a third of their product to confiscation.

  The proud norteamericanos who murdered and marginalized his family deserved punishment. Perhaps they were already being punished. The arbitrary violence of the new suppliers had ruined their southern playground. A vacation on the cheap in a Mexican paradise just over the border now risked more than bad water.

  Nancy Reagan, her “Just Say No” campaign, and her long, skinny finger pointing at Colombia; the first Bush and his This Is Your Brain on Drugs ads; the womanizer-in-chief—these worthy targets were too guarded for him to personally eliminate. So Francisco ignored them and sponsored dissent in the Mexican cartels. This could help him gain traction as they accelerated the rate at which their triggers were pulled on each other.

  Francisco and his comrades carried no luggage to the airport; all their necessities waited in the States. The security guard gruffly requested Francisco’s ticket and passport. Francisco was in a conversation with Alberto and did not respond immediately.

  The guard raised his voice. “Señor, su atención! Necessito un pasaporte aquí. Ándale ya.”

  Francisco’s eyebrow arched as he turned to the barking poodle. He handed over his ticket. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his new passport. The guard worked to hold the fold on the stiff passport open; this was the passport’s first use, and it did not bend open easily. The guard began the process of matching identification and ticket.

  Then the name clicked. His eyes widened. Involuntarily, he looked up at its owner. He quickly looked back at the forms in his hands. With trembling hands, he stamped the paper, his scribble illegible over the official stamp. He handed the documents back. He mumbled, “Gracias, señor,” and bowed his head.

  Francisco never missed an opportunity to capitalize on fear. This man’s revelation of his own fear would save his life after his rudeness. Francisco reached over the guard’s stand and grabbed the guard’s name tag. He tilted it and studied it for a moment. Without emotion he said, “Muchas gracias, Rodrigo Villaramos. Buenos días.”

  The airport experience was new. He had never flown commercial. So many lines. So much waiting. His air force, mostly helicopters, was unequipped for traveling the distance to Miami without stopping several times to refuel. The family’s Boeing 747 was impounded by the government twenty years prior. He would check into it; the government should give it back. If they didn’t, certain officials might start to dream of explosions once again.

  In the United States, Francisco and Alberto would find an untraceable car waiting in the parking lot. They’d use it to enjoy Miami before driving to Savannah. There, he would upgrade his air fleet. Three Gulfstream Vs awaited his review. Forty-five million dollars, wired via a Caymans account this morning, sat with the escrow agent. Once he selected the G5, he would board it and seek out what America’s War on Terror referred to as soft targets.

  Revenge. A degree of personal satisfaction. More important, an advance reminder to his soon-to-be business associates of his timeless memory. With his revenge complete, he’d then return to Savannah, drive back to Miami, and fly commercial to Bogotá. The G5 would travel from Savannah to Bogotá directly, with his new crew and any luggage aboard.

  Francisco very much looked forward to the week ahead. He could not help but wonder whether a long-ignored arsonist and pilot foolishly did as well.

  5

  IT’S A WONDERFUL Life was wrong. The George Baileys didn’t trash their lives when disaster struck the savings and loan. The Potters didn’t either. (The Potters chose a different path anyway.) It’s those somewhere between Bailey and Potter who fell apart.

  Three good actions: picking up litter, putting the neighbor’s dog back in its yard, and listening to a homeless man’s story. One bad action: not stopping to help the old woman with the flat tire in the rain. Or one small deception, initiated or accepted.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t …”

  For pride. Convenience. Fear. Each of us our own faults. A run on the savings and loan brought the best out of old George. For the rest of us … flip a coin.

  A profound thought? Maybe, but as Cale switched from dreaming to being semiawake, he lost it. He could still see George holding his little girl. Was that confetti in the air, and if so, where did it come from? A bell rang for Clarence. Was George laughing or crying? The memory wasn’t clear. If he’d kept the thought, he was sure it would change things. Silver bullet, that improved it all. Could even get his knees back to where he could dunk a basketball. How proud he was of that at fifteen. How he took it for granted at twenty-five. With fifty in the windshield closer than forty in the mirror, he’d like to do it again.

  CALE FELT THE sunlight through the screens, heard gulls, smelled marsh, and intuitively knew he was at home but not in bed. Each heartbeat resonated in his temples. A cheek stuck to the hardwood floor, the tingle of pins and needles in a leg. He shook the leg. Something was wrong. Adrenaline stoked by the fears of men with long memories from his earlier life woke him.

  Oh, right. Jimmy’s head was on his calf. He pivoted his leg from the hip. Jimmy stood, circled, and laid his spine against Cale’s.

  Cale heard SportsCenter. Dun-na-nunt, dun-na-nunt. His friends laughing on the den furniture behind him were traveling between drunk and hungover. Cale skipped the “between” part and awoke hungover. SportsCenter was the white noise behind every morning he’d felt like this. Chris Berman’s voice made him shiver.

  It had seemed to Cale like a fun idea to fly old friends for a change. Peeling his face from the hardwoods, he reconsidered and found himself wondering whether they would reimburse him for the jet fuel.

  The prior night’s worship of golden calves and the omnipresent drumline felt like déjà vu. But Cale had married so young and had been so wrapped up in work and family that he couldn’t remember from when. And Maggie, bless her heart, had been merciless on him when he indulged.

  Once, when his twins were two, he dragged home from a guys’ weekend on a red-eye. Maggie met him in the driveway. She was radiant, and his loins stirred despite exhaustion’s fog. She was smiling, and he put on his bravest no-way-I’m-hungover-and-tired face and hoped to hide the scratchiness in his voice and the smell of smoke embedded in his clothes.

  “How was Las Vegas … honey?” she asked.

  Wariness should have crept into his mind with the pause before the word honey. He grabbed a long hug before replying.


  “It was a lot of fun. The undercards on Holyfield’s match were better than the main event. The tickets were expensive, but at least I lost all my bets.”

  The lame joke wasn’t acknowledged. “Sweetheart, I’m glad you had fun,” she said.

  The switch to a different term of endearment was another missed warning. Cale obliviously plowed ahead with a request for quiet time where they could catch up. The request was politely rebuffed, and he was referred to as sugar. Maggie steered the conversation to the week’s logistics—who needs to be where doing what on which day. Cale felt the sunshine in every dehydrated cell in his body. He daydreamed of getting into his cool, dark house. Finally, he said, “Mags, I’m beat. You mind if I go catch a nap?”

  He caught the word actually. Something about adults not complaining about hangovers. Then she was gone, and it was a long daddy day for Cale and not the most rewarding one for his girls. Maggie’s eyes laughed as the whip tore flesh from his back.

  Anyway, tomorrow Cale could return to his pattern of two cold ones a night (preceded by a day or two of detox). Today, he’d take the Whaler to the beach and hope the sand and salt would wear his friends out. Could their livers keep up this pace for a full seventy-two hours?

  Going vertical, Cale became slightly dizzy. He procured ibuprofen, antacids, and lemon-lime Gatorade for triage. More dun-na-nunt, dun-na-nunt in the background. The lemon-lime tasted like sweat.

  Sweat was something Cale knew. Twenty-five years ago, August meant college football preseason. Two-a-days. Eat, heat, stretch, practice, ice, eat, nap, heat, stretch, practice, ice, eat, and sleep. The pizza guy showed up at nine o’clock to give everybody their large pizza for dessert before bedtime. That was two hours after a pasta and hot wings dinner. He didn’t remember vegetables, but he did remember lots of bananas at practice.