Resurrecting Midnight (41 page)

He held his hand out, said he wanted five pesos or he would blow my brains out.

He barked
, “Usted tiene que pagar para venir aquí. Igual como usted paga para ir a Palermo. Me pagás. O me das paco. O te voy a disparar.”

The little fuck told me that I had to pay to come into the
villa
, just like I would have to pay to go to a club in Palermo. He told me to pay cash, give him drugs, or get shot.

I had a gun, my partner held a shotgun, and the young boy demanded five pesos like we were two foreign ships moving through his sacred waters. Five pesos was the price of coming into his
villa
. That was the price for him not to shoot me in my head and walk away. I had put men in the ground all over the world, and now a boy who had rotten teeth was extorting me.

A monster clawed its way from my heart to my gun hand.

Rage made my finger tighten on the trigger.

I imagined that case-hardened boy with a hole where his ignorance used to be.

Being with Shotgun kept me grounded.

I kept the monster inside of me on its chains, growling, barking.

That boy was lucky.

I’d let that monster go, I’d let the monster inside me free, but not right now.

I handed the boy a five-dollar bill, the equivalent of more than fifteen pesos.

The wind kicked up the stench from dank sewage, an amalgamation of overwhelming funk that dangled in the air like invisible smoke, like perfume smells at the entrance to Macy’s.

I breathed though my mouth as I put supressors on my guns.

Shotgun did the same.

We had an audience. The young fuck who extorted me hadn’t left.

The ruffian used the palm of his dirty hand to wipe his runny nose, looked at Shotgun, grabbed his crotch, and with a hard-core sneer said, “Suck my dick, Sha-keel O’Neal. Sha-keel O’Neal, suck my dick, you summer bitch.”

Shotgun frowned.

The feral drug-addicted boy was as bold as a Somali pirate. And he was as dangerous as a member of the Triad demanding extortion money. He was bone-thin and laughed like he was the young runt destined to run the slums. He scratched his neck, frowned and scratched harder, pulled up his sleeve and scratched his arm hard enough to break the skin. Both places where he dug his filthy nails had circular red rashes. I noticed spots on his neck. The boy had some sort of bacterial illness.

I asked him how long he had been itching and scratching.

He said two years. Maybe longer.

I asked him why he didn’t go to the clinic and get it checked out.

He said the clinics were too crowded. And the doctors were always on vacation or on strike, said they did nothing for the people. I nodded. He smiled and I saw his rotten teeth.

I told Shotgun, “Ignore the shit the kid says. But don’t take your eyes off him.”

“I’m about to snatch that gun out of his hand and slap a brand-new taste in his mouth.”

The boy turned to me, asked me if I wanted to buy some time with the
chica
.

I told him no.

The boy laughed and looked at Shotgun again. “Suck my dick, Sha-keel O’Neal. Sha-keel O’Neal, suck my dick.”

Shotgun checked his extra ammo as he asked me, “What’s his problem?”

“Drugs.”

“I can tell that. What’s that boy on?”

“It’s called
paco
. Low-grade and toxic.”

“What’s in it?”

“Shit’s mixed with sulfuric acid, kerosene, rat poison, and crushed glass.”

“No wonder he’s so stupid.”

“Yeah, damn. Get on that shit, you’ll wish you were addicted to crack. This time next month, if he doesn’t get help, that kid will have brain damage.”

The boy who had just finished sullying the young girl came over, gun in one hand, the other hand extended like he was from the local collection agency. More extortion. Another gun-toting case-hardened pervert with a filthy face and a mouth filled with rotten teeth. I handed him a five-dollar bill. He turned and ran back to his amigos, holding a gun the way he should’ve been holding a schoolbook. I doubted if either of the boys was thirteen years old. Down here, in a world that had more children than adults, they thought they were men.

I told Shotgun, “We have to hurry.”

“Lead the way.”

As rain chilled us down to our bones, and our breath fogged in front of our faces, we crept into a South American hell that was hotter than any heat the Devil could bear.

If this were summertime, or if the rain weren’t falling in sheets, the streets would be crowded. Everyone would be out on stoops. People would be grilling on the streets. If we moved quickly, we’d look like nothing more than shadows floating by dirty windows.

Walkways were congested with pushcarts full of bottles and paper. That was the recyclable refuse of the
cartoneros
, the foragers who worked all night collecting recyclables and made four dollars for eight hours of labor. We squeezed by that fire hazard and struggled into a precarious situation, moved in the world of the undesirable, the stench of urine and bad diets strong as we sloshed across murky ground and trash, passed by dozens of passive dogs, crept down a narrow passageway that was barely shoulder-wide, came out in a section where people lived outside underneath tents, moved on, found a section that had ragged concrete, and moved deeper into the
villa
. Then we made our way through a section where the sewer line had overflowed and shit floated in the streets like tall ships heading out to sea.

Shotgun jumped like The Four Horsemen were on top of us.

But it was a different kind of vermin.

Rats swam by us like they were on the Olympic team for synchronized swimmers.

I asked, “You okay?”

“What they feeding these rats?”

The same pollution we walked through was the contamination that was tracked into homes. Rats, roaches, insects, bugs, ants, all of that was squatting in front of the squatters’ homes, waiting to slip inside as soon as a door or window was opened. Smells burned the hair in my nostrils. We moved by people, normal people, people who saw us, then ignored us as we passed. Men smoking cigarettes and drinking beers, men playing cards. Young girls with babies. All around us, from every other window, Spanish music was loud. Every country played its own music. The loudest music was called
cumbia villera
. Songs with powerful music and vulgar lyrics, the kind that would make Snoop Dogg C-walk, hold his nut sac and pump his fist.

Every culture had thugs and pimps, every culture had its own version of gangsta rap. The music was loud, but not loud enough to muffle the thunder of a dozen rapid gunshots.

We stood, weapons drawn, waited to be fired upon by The Horsemen, anticipated their rabid charge, knowing that at this point in the game, we were outgunned. Heard shouts. Screams. Then more gunshots. Followed by more horrifying screams.

A group of hooligans sprinted through filthy water, firing wild shots behind them.

They were Bolivians screaming vulgarities in Spanish.

A group of Chilean thugs chased them, guns in hand, firing away.

They were like Crips and Bloods going at it in the streets of South Central Los Angeles.

We moved away from the tribal warfare.

Yards away we saw a body in the middle of the muddied road. People stood around him, but no one helped. He was dead. The end result of the two groups we’d just seen.

Shotgun asked, “What was that all about?”

“Lot of social problems down here. Lot of internal conflict.”

“Thought you said the people on the other side of the walls were the enemy.”

“Look at the bars on the windows and doors. Their neighbors are their enemies too.”

We kept moving. The gear we had was heavy, our clothes weighted down by rain.

We had to hurry.

We clung to the shadows as cars passed by, headlights illuminating our surroundings. It reminded me of the photos of Berlin after the fall back in the early forties. We moved through a section of the slum that was so fucked up that the level of poverty was impossible to absorb.

We paused in front of a red door that led to a small business that sold pizza, sodas, and beer. I got down low, looked at the sensor. Heard a beep. Six seconds passed. Then I heard another beep. Five long seconds later, there was another beep.

We were getting close, heading the right way.

We spaced out, put a few feet between us, and headed toward the heart of the
villa
.

We passed a section that didn’t have running water, saw people lined up with old pans, plastic cups, metal bowls, anything that could catch fresh rainwater.

There were more gunshots in the distance, beyond my range of hearing. Gunshots and fast-spinning tires moving frantically across the blacktop lanes and being forced off the
autopista
.

I couldn’t hear Arizona’s screams, couldn’t hear Scamz’s curses, couldn’t hear Konstantin’s panic, or Sierra’s frantic breathing as her brother yelled to speed up and get them off the fucking
autopista
.

I didn’t know what was going on outside of this world. All I knew as we walked through filth and past graffiti-filled walls, five minutes down here had to feel like five hours in Vietnam. My focus was here, with the other team. Rain came down harder. The smells had wrecked one sense, and the coarse, vulgar, and loud
cumbia villera
music kicked in and damn near numbed my other senses. I had to focus and was on battle sensory overload. The sounds were so loud, it would be impossible to hear someone behind us until it was too late.

Shotgun kicked at something, then drew his double-barreled weapon down on the problem.

Another rat had run across his boot.

He cursed, inhaled the numbing stench, then let out a nervous laugh.

Shotgun whispered, “Close?”

“Damn close.”

We stopped. Took out our night goggles, looked around.

There was a five-story dilapidated structure set in the center of that block of misery. The door was covered with a frayed and wrinkled bright-yellow Daffy Duck poster. Six men were outside, all at ground level. They weren’t The Four Horsemen plus two. But they all had guns. Big guns. Small guns. Revolvers. Nines. One held an AK-47.

I shoved the sensor into my back pocket, dug around the ground. Found an empty Quilmes bottle. Then I took off my coat. And my shirts. Freezing rain poured down on me as I reached to the ground and smeared mud and filth across my chest and shoulders.

With hand signals, I directed Shotgun, had him move to my right, get into position.

I stepped out of the darkness, staggering, chanting like I was at a soccer game, standing in the risers at La Bombonera
,
yelling and dancing like I had an invisible partner.

“
Yo te sigo a toda parte. Y cada vez te quiero más
.”

Six guns rose up at me, but lowered when they saw I had on no shirt. I looked like a member of
los descamisados
, the shirtless ones, what they called the poor people who had supported Perón. I chanted a chant for Boca Juniors, the team every
villa
rooted for.

“
Boca, mi buen amigo. Esta campaña volveremos a estar contigo
.”

The guards waved fists and chanted along like it was the national anthem.

“
Te alentaremos de corazón. Esta es tu hinchada y te quiere ver campeón. No me importa le que digan. Lo que digan los demás. Yo te sigo a toda parte. Y cada vez te quiero más
.”

I danced a drunken dance, cursed the rival soccer team, River Plate. “River,
hijos de puta
.”

The guards applauded.

I stumbled, went down on one knee, empty bottle in my left hand.

They called me an idiot. Laughed and told each other that I was a drunken fool.

They relaxed, waved me away like I was a poor man begging on the streets of Recoleta.

Down on one knee, I dropped the bottle and pulled out my weapon.

Surprise brightened their eyes.

I dropped two. The one with the AK-47 was my first target. He suffered a quick head shot and so did the man standing to his left. Both toppled facedown into puddles, souls evicted from their bodies before they realized what was going on.

The others started to fall back, mouths opened to scream as they brought their guns up.

Four guns were coming up against my one.

Shotgun had moved through the rain and, while they had watched me dance my drunken dance, he had positioned himself behind them and to their left.

Shotgun took over, and three went down in what sounded like Thor’s thunder.

A thunder that would wake up the
villa
.

He gave them an ugly death, left those men dead with gravel, shit, and mud in their guts.

I raced toward the building the men had guarded, a nine in my right hand. Shotgun’s weapon was aimed up, moved from window to wall, searched for trouble as he watched my back.

My filthy body was cold, my adrenaline high.

The beeps accelerated. Its cadence stressed like my own heartbeat.

Filth covered my skin, and I was aware of my own mortality.

Gunshots came from upstairs, came out of the dwelling that was decorated with the bright yellow Daffy Duck poster. A boy came to the window, fired down at us and screamed for help, said to stop us from getting up there. Now we knew which dwelling the men were guarding.

The package was there behind a goddamn Looney Tunes character.

Before I made it to the bottom of the stairs, gunshots rang out from behind me.

Then more gunshots rang out from both sides.

Six assassins were charging at us from three directions, guns blazing.

I was focused and unaware that, while me and Shotgun found ourselves trapped in a shoot-out and had to fight for our lives, my friends were in the streets struggling to stay alive.