The door opens, then closes.
I remember clearly that I closed the windows and the curtains.
Okay, good, I thought, that gets rid of a lot of the light. Well, there is still enough light.
“Hey!” I called to my buddies. “Come on in. Bring the guy in here. It’s secure.”
They came in. We locked the door. The boys were kicking him around.
“Quiet. Calm down. Turn off the light.”
And I turned it off.
“Hey! Look. Get down on your knees right there. Kneel down! Listen!”
When he was finally on his knees, I talked to him.
“We are not going to hurt you. We are going to put you in handcuffs. We are going to gag you and blindfold you. This is for your own good and for our benefit also. Put your hands behind you.”
So he put his hands behind his back, and I put the handcuffs on him.
“The order is not to hurt you. The only thing that you are going to do, what we want you to do, is pay back the money that you spent. The money that did not belong to you. So, one way or another, you are going to do it. Right now, we are going to wait for orders. And you are going to do whatever we tell you to do.
“Understand? Now, stand up.”
He struggled. So we stood him up. And we brought him into the bathroom and ran the water. He might have thought he was going to be comfortable, but no. We put him in the bathtub.
“That is where you will stay. If we hear noise or if you make the least little noise, things are going to go bad for you. And you know what it means when we say things will be bad.... We want you calm. We are going to wait for orders. You understand?”
He just moved his head. He could not talk. We closed the door.
I told the other guys: “Hey, turn on the TV. Let’s listen to some music. Turn it up loud, so if he makes any noise, no one will hear it.
“Bring some beer. Get out the cocaine, el perico, some cigarettes. Everything is okay.”
I remember that the boys went out and got some beer.
Ten or fifteen minutes go by. The phone rings.
“Yes, sir, what are your orders? Is everything all right? Yes, sir, everything is fine. He is here and safe. What should we do with him? Yes, sir. Fine. He will call.”
So they bring the secure telephone. He is going to make the call. We go and talk to him in the bathroom, we get him out of the tub.
“Hey! Stand up. Stand up.”
We bring him over here and sit him on the bed.
“You are going to make a call to your family, and you are going to tell them you are okay. You will tell them that they will get a call and they will be given instructions about where to bring the money, and what’s more important, you will let them know they have to pay attention, because if they don’t, things are going to be bad. But if everything goes okay, if they deliver what they are supposed to deliver, nothing will happen to you. Talk to them and tell them that you are all right.
“Okay? You understand? I’m going to let you go now.”
I cuff his hands in front instead of behind his back, dial the number, and give him the phone.
Instead of talking, he starts to laugh.
I hang up.
“Hey. He doesn’t seem to get it,” I tell the other guys. “He doesn’t want to understand. Look at him laughing.”
They say, “Really?”
I tell him, “So is this what you want?”
Then I turn on the water. We fill the tub about half full of water and give him a little therapy.
“Come over here. Are you gonna talk?”
We dunk his head.
“Ugh. Ugh.”
“Are you gonna talk?”
After three times under the water, he decided he would make the call. He sat down, I dialed the number for him. And he did what he was told to do. Okay. And after that, he lay back down in the tub, and we turned off the water. Told him not to make noise, and we closed the door.
And so, while we were waiting for more instructions, we stayed there another whole day, sitting around, drinking.... Sometimes it was necessary to go into the bathroom, but we were always really careful to keep things very quiet, not to make any noise. We left the door closed because any noise could be heard from inside the bathroom. We had to be very attentive, very careful. The next morning, when the maid came to clean the room, we met her outside the door and just gave her some money. “Don’t worry. We will clean the room ourselves. We don’t need anything.”
The next morning we knew that we had to give this guy a reason to trust us, to build up his confidence. Make him trust us a little. So we went into the bathroom.
“So, hey, good morning. How are you feeling? Okay? So, how do you like your eggs? Well, all we brought you are boiled eggs. Here. Stand up. Have something to eat.”
We put his hands in front, gave him an egg to eat and a glass of water. I brought him over—he was kind of limping from the roughing up we gave him—and I sat with him for a few minutes here in front of the mirror. He was handcuffed.
He sighs and his voice gets soft.
He asked me: “Did they deliver the money?”
“I think so.”
“Is everything all right? Are you gonna let me go?”
“Yes, yes, if everything comes out okay, we are going to let you go. You did a bad thing to spend money that did not belong to you. It was a mistake to try to make a fool out of the boss. You know that no one, no one can outsmart the boss.”
“But I’m going to pay. I’m going to pay.”
“Well, better to say that your family is going to pay. That’s more like it. I sure hope that they do not go to the police. Remember, remember, you know the boss finds out everything. Everything. If they go to the police, things will turn out very, very bad for you.”
“No, no, they will not tell anyone. They know what will happen to me if they do.”
“Okay, you want to lie down here on the bed for a while?”
“Yes, if you will let me.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
I brought him over, and he slept there for two or three hours, over here on this side. And we kept on having our little pachanga, our little party, with the booze and coke. When he woke up, he moved too quickly and made noise and startled us when he jumped up. We had to knock him around a little.
“Who told you to get up? Now, you lie there and shut up, or we will have to put you back in the bathroom!”
“No, no, no!”
So we put the gag back on him. And while we were doing this we got another call.
The guy who answers tells me, “Here, they want to talk to you,” and hands me the phone.
“Yes, what happened? What are the orders, sir? How are we doing? Yes, yes, Okay, I understand. Everything is all right. No, no, no. He’s recovering. He’s fine. He’s okay. Don’t worry. Okay.”
I tell the guys to bring the phone over here. And I talk to the guy again.
“Look, your family is trying to be smart. They only delivered half the money. We need you to turn over all of the money. We know that there is no more money in your bank accounts, but we know that you have some property—some ranches with land and some houses. We need you to call and while you are here in the room with us you will arrange to put these properties in the hands of another person, a real estate agent, and he is going to sell the property while you are here, and once the money is delivered, then we will let you go.”
“But you aren’t going to do anything to me?”
“Look, just deliver all the money. You understand? We are not kidding.”
Then we beat him.
“Look! Why didn’t your family turn over all of the money if you had it in the bank?”
“No, no, I don’t have it. I spent it. . . .”
“Give him a good kicking. Beat him. ... No, no, never mind. Let him recover. Look, I am going to let you rest on the bed. Trust me.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you. You are such a good person. When I get out of here I am going to give you a car. You are behaving really kindly toward me.”
“Come on over here. Lie down, make yourself comfortable. Would you like a beer?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Ha! Are you crazy? You think I’m going to give you a beer? As if. I’m going to give you a glass of water. Here, you want a glass of water?”
“Yes.”
“Water is all you are going to get. You want another egg?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all you are gonna get to eat.
“Okay, now lie down. If you want to get up, you have to let us know. The way to let us know is like this, quietly and calmly: ‘Sir, may I get up now?’ You ask, and then you wait for my order, to give you permission. If you insist on making noise and getting up again so abruptly, the boys are gonna put you back in the water!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay.”
He managed to get through that day.
At night: “Get up, please. You are going to be able to rest again in your bed. Stay there. Do not make any noise. They have not called, it seems everything is all right. We are going to wait some more.”
The other guys start to ask: “What’s happening?”
“Nothing, they haven’t called.”
“Why don’t you find out? Are we going to have to pay another day in this hotel or what?”
“Okay. Give me the phone, I’ll call.”
“Sir—what shall we do? What are the orders? ... Okay, we will wait another day.”
The next morning we are sitting here, very early, about seven forty-five in the morning, I remember. Just a few minutes before eight. The phone rings, and it is the boss’s telephone number.
“Yes, what are the orders? Yes, sir. Everything is fine. He is here, he is all right. No, no, no. Everything is okay. Where do you want him? ... Immediately. Yes, sir. In just a little while. We are close to the bridge. Very close. Okay.”
So I tell the other guys: “We are going to let him go. We are going to let him bathe and dress and change and get straightened up. We have to deliver him to the other side. We have to take him over there.”
So I told him: “Now everything is okay. Get ready. I’m going to take off the handcuffs. What size shoes do you need? Size nine? Okay.”
I tell the guys, “So go get him some pants and a new sweatshirt. Get a razor. Some tennis shoes, size nine. Make sure to bring him that razor too.”
“We are going to let you go now. And we want you to look good and feel good. So take a shower and clean yourself up.”
They brought the pants, shoes—size nine, the razor. And the guy bathed really quickly, shaved, dressed, and straightened himself up.
The guy was really happy. He didn’t look bad, no swelling. The thing with the water was nothing really. The beating he got wasn’t so bad.
“Let’s go.”
We let him feel safe. What did we do? We put him in the backseat of the car. I got in on his right side, he sat in the middle, and another guy on the left side and another guy driving. And we crossed the bridge, and we delivered him to some coworkers there. And from that moment, I never knew anything more about him. And that never mattered to me. It never interested me.
Once the package was delivered, I never tried to find out what happened. That was not my job. My job was done when the package was delivered. You see, once I delivered the package, that was the end of it. That is what I did, and like I told you, I always did a good job. If something bad happened after that, it was because of some mistake the man had made.
And he would have to pay.
