a loaded piece,â I cut in. âA kid like you, just like that? Câmon!â
âI swear it on my life, Sonny! I feel like a
bandido,
man. The real deal.â
I frowned, wishing he would wise up, but still couldnât help thinking he shouldâve waited for me. I had been helping Uncle Jairo all morning, acting like his second walking stick while we shopped for groceries. Alberto didnât have the same kind of ties. His mother pretty much lived in the textile factory where she worked several shifts from dawn to dusk, while his sister spent her days at college. He never really talked about any other family, but then I was only interested in the one I sometimes saw clutching text books to her breast.
Beatriz was sixteen, four years older than Alberto and the familyâs shining star. She had the brains where he had the brawn, and everyone said that one day she would be a doctor. Their father passed away many years earlier. His death had been slow and certain, a cancer of the blood that reached his liver. He had insisted that Beatriz did not abandon her studies for him, and so it fell upon her little brother to nurse him during the day so his mother could continue to provide. It meant the two of them were confined to a house that felt more like a waiting-room. With time on their hands, Albertoâs father chose to fill it by schooling him in something, even if it was just stories.
In particular, Alberto loved to hear about the
bandidos,
and I wasnât surprised that the gun had reminded him of them. These were outlaws who had become folk heroes â men such as Sangranegra, Desquite and Guadalupe Salcedo â all of whom had earned their reputation during
La Violencia.
Each commanded a band of thieves â ruthless renegades who ran rings around what was left of the establishment and stole a place in the hearts of the poor. As his fatherâs end drew near, however, Alberto confided in me that he was beginning to suspect some of the tales he heard seemed so rich in feeling and finish that they had to be confessions. I told him, donât be dumb. His papa wouldâve been a kid our age when these guys roamed the hills, but Alberto seemed to cling to the belief that he was the son of someone very special.
My mother once told me this had been Albertoâs way of coping with the loss when it finally came, so I never raised the subject again. I figured heâd grown out of it, but now I saw how alive he looked with a gun in his hand. It was as if he had found his calling somehow, a chance to follow in his fatherâs footsteps â even though his old man had conjured up that path from his deathbed.
âAlberto,â I said finally, and waited until I had his full attention. âDo you know what youâre getting into here? This isnât like the old days. We donât have heroes any more, apart from on the pitch.â
âListen to you,
Senor
Sensible.â
âI just canât believe some guy paid you to take his gun.â
âWhy not? He didnât ask me to use it. Iâm just minding it for him, I guess.â
âWhy couldnât he stash it, same as any gangster?â
âWho says heâs a gangster, and anyway what would
you
have done, huh? Câmon, Sonny, I didnât have much choice. I showed up at Galánâs like Iâd been told, got shown into the back room and there he was. Sitting at the table with a coffee and the early edition of
El Colombiano.
I was only in there for a minute or so. He asked if I wanted to make some easy money, and just came right out with the gun before I could answer. He told me all I had to do was prove I could be trusted to look after it. I couldnât exactly walk away, but then I didnât have a problem with staying. I just see the fifty bucks he lays down next to the piece, already Iâm thinking about how I can spend it.â
âEl Fantasma,â
I said to myself, chewing on