Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar Read online

  “Because if there are no police in the booth, I don’t pay. I only respect authority when it’s armed!” he cries triumphantly, in the tone of a schoolteacher giving a lesson to his little students.

  The Ochoas are renowned breeders and exporters of champion horses; thousands of them can be found in La Loma, their hacienda near Medellín that’s run by their father, Fabio. This ranch, La Veracruz, is dedicated to breeding fighting bulls. Although the size of their property and its zoo can’t compare with Nápoles, the house is beautifully decorated, and everywhere I see those little electric Ferraris and Mercedeses, red and yellow, that so many children dream of. The oldest of the three Ochoa brothers is Jorge Luis—his friends call him El Gordo—an affable man the same age as Pablo. He’s married to a tall, pretty woman, María Lía Posada, cousin of the soon-to-be minister of communications, Noemí Sanín Posada. While Jorge doesn’t display the same magnetic quality as Escobar when he sets out to have fun, it’s clear the two men share a great affection and deep respect, born of loyalty that has been repeatedly put to the test over the years.

  After a day spent eating and touring the grounds, we said good-bye, and I told Jorge that I wish I could see his famous champion horses. With his wide smile, he promises to plan something special very soon, and that I won’t be disappointed.

  We go back to Medellín in another of Escobar’s planes. Though his efforts to win over Angelita have again been fruitless, the two of them seem to have become good friends. Medellín is the City of Eternal Spring, and for the paisas, its proud inhabitants, it is the capital of the Antioquia department—the name given to states in Colombia—as well as the country’s industrial capital and the capital of the world. We stay at the Intercontinental, located in the beautiful El Poblado neighborhood and near Pablo and his cousin Gustavo’s mansion-office, a property that belongs to the manager of the Medellín Metro, a great friend of theirs. That part of the city is characterized by an infinite number of streets that curve between hills covered in exuberant, semitropical vegetation. For visitors like us, used to Bogotá’s flat streets, which are numbered like New York’s, they are a true maze. The paisas, though, drive at top speed as they go up and down through the residential neighborhoods, lined with trees and gardens, and through the noisy city center.

  “Since today is Sunday and everyone goes to bed early, at midnight I’m going to take you on a thrill ride in James Bond’s car,” announces Pablo.

  When he presents us with the jewel of his collection, we’re terribly disappointed. Still, though it’s no Aston Martin and it boasts only a supreme dose of automobile anonymity, the dashboard is covered in buttons. He sees our faces lit up by curiosity, and in his pride of ownership he begins to reel off the characteristics of a car that could only have been designed with the police in mind:

  “This button lets out a cloud of smoke that throws off anyone chasing you; this other one releases tear gas that leaves them coughing and desperate for water; that one pours oil so they slide in a zigzag and go off a cliff; this one drops hundreds of tacks and nails to puncture their tires; this is a flamethrower that you activate after this one that sprays gasoline; that one sets off the explosives, and on either side are the machine guns, though today we’ve removed them in case the car falls into the hands of some vengeful panther. Oh! And if all that fails to work, this last button emits a frequency that destroys the eardrum. We’re going to give a demonstration of the practical utility of my treasure; unfortunately, though, only the ladies fit in Bond’s car. Ángela will be my copilot. The men…and Virginia…will go in the cars behind.”

  And he pulls away very slowly, while we get in the other car and take off at top speed. After several minutes, we see him coming up behind us like a bat out of hell; we don’t know if he’s flown right over us, but somehow, seconds later he’s in front of us. Again and again we try to pass him, but just as we’re about to do it, he careens off and vanishes around the curves of El Poblado’s deserted streets, only to reappear when we’re least expecting it. I implore God to let no other vehicle cross his path, because it would surely tumble off the road or be flattened on the asphalt like a stamp. The game draws out for almost an hour, and while we pause to catch our breath, Escobar comes out from the shadows, tires squealing, and leaves us floating in a sea of smoke that forces us to stop. It takes us several minutes to find our way, and when we finally do, he passes us in a flash and we’re wrapped in clouds of gas that seem to multiply and grow more inflamed as the seconds pass. We feel like the sulfuric acid is burning our throats and going up our noses to cloud our vision and invade every fold of our brains. We cough, and with every mouthful of poisoned air we breathe, the burning is multiplied by ten. We hear the bodyguards groaning behind us, and in the distance we can hear the occupants of James Bond’s car laughing as they flee the place at 125 miles per hour.

  Somehow, at the side of the road, we find a spigot. Escobar’s boys get out of the car at a run, cursing and bumping into one another while they fight for a sip of liquid. When I see them crying, I stand to one side, and to set an example, I get in the back of the line. Then, with my hands on my hips and in the little voice I have left, I yell at them with all the contempt I can muster, “Act like men, dammit! From what I can see, the only brave one around here is me: a woman! Aren’t you ashamed? Have a little dignity; you’re like little girls!”

  Once Pablo and his accomplices reach us, they burst out laughing. Over and over he swears to us that his copilot is to blame, because he only authorized her to throw out the curtain of smoke. And that evil witch, who can’t stop laughing, admits, “I pushed the tear gas button by mistake!”

  Then, in a militaristic tone, he orders his men: “Have some dignity! You really do look like little girls. And let the lady through!”

  Coughing and swallowing my tears, I say I’ll let the “señoritas” go ahead, and I’ll drink water when we get to the hotel, two minutes away. Then I add that his bucket of bolts is nothing but a stinking skunk, and I leave.

  *

  —

  ON ANOTHER OF OUR TRIPS to Medellín in the second half of 1982, Aníbal introduces me to a drug trafficker named Joaquín Builes who is quite different from Pablo and his partners. “Joaco” looks exactly like Pancho Villa, and his family are relatives of Monsignor Builes. He is very rich and friendly, and he also boasts that he is very evil—“but really evil, not like Pablito”—and that he and his cousin Miguel Ángel have ordered hundreds and hundreds of people murdered, so many they could be the entire population of an Antioquian town. Neither Aníbal nor I believe a word, but Builes cackles and swears it’s true.

  “The truth is that Joaco is harmless,” I’ll hear Pablo say later. “But he’s so, so stingy! He’d rather waste an entire afternoon trying to sell you a Persian rug for $1,000 than invest that same time and effort in dispatching five hundred kilos of coke, which would earn enough to set up ten warehouses full of rugs!”

  In that entertaining gathering with Joaco, Aníbal, and the Singer, I find out that as a teenager, Pablo started his successful political career as a cemetery gravestone thief. He would file off the names of the deceased, and then he and his partners sold them as new. And not just once, but several times. I find the story hilarious, because I imagine all those tightfisted old paisas turning over in their graves when they find out their heirs paid a fortune for a headstone that wasn’t even secondhand but third-or fourth-. I also hear them talk admiringly about Escobar’s inarguable and very laudable talent for “deboning” stolen cars of any make in just a few hours and selling them off in pieces as “discount parts.” I conclude that it was the rookie congressman’s encyclopedic knowledge of automobile mechanics that allowed him to order that “exclusive, unique, and absolutely handmade” product that is James Bond’s car.

  Someone mentions that our new friend was also a kind of gatillero, or trigger man, during the Marlboro Wars. When I ask what that means, no one wants to clue me in and everyone rushes to c
hange the subject. I imagine it must be something like stealing thousands of packs of contraband Marlboro cigarettes that, certainly, weigh less than a gravestone. And I conclude that Pablito’s life has much in common with the Virginia Slims slogan: “You’ve come a long way, baby!”

  *

  —

  SOME DAYS LATER, we receive an invitation from Jorge Ochoa to travel to Cartagena. Awaiting us there is one of the most unforgettable nights I’ve ever experienced. We stay in the presidential suite of the Cartagena Hilton, and after dining at the city’s finest restaurant, we prepare for the outing Jorge and his family planned after the promise he’d made me: a trip through the city streets—the old and new parts—in carriages drawn by horses they’ve had brought in from La Loma.

  The scene seems straight out of One Thousand and One Nights, planned by an Arabian sheikh for his only daughter’s wedding or produced by a Hollywood art director with the pomp of some celebration on a nineteenth-century Mexican hacienda.

  The horse-drawn carriages are a far cry from the ones in Cartagena or New York or even a Spanish grandee’s at the Fair of Seville. Like those, they have two lights silhouetting an impeccably uniformed driver, but each of the four coaches is pulled by six champion Percheron horses, white as snow, harnessed, chests puffed like the horses pulling Cinderella’s carriage, pleased as can be at their own size and splendid beauty. Stepping with the intense, sensual exactitude of twenty-four flamenco dancers, they parade through those historic streets as though synchronized. Pablo informs us that each team is worth a million dollars, but for me, my sublime enjoyment is worth all the gold in the world. The vision leaves a wake of astonishment behind: people emerge onto the old city’s white balconies; tourists are enchanted; poor Cartagena coachmen watch openmouthed as the display of magnificent ostentation passes by.

  I don’t know if the whole performance is an act of generosity on Jorge’s part or if Pablo planned it as a subtle attempt to seduce Angelita with something so romantic and unique. Or maybe it’s the Ochoa family expressing their gratitude to Escobar, who had bravely orchestrated the successful return of Jorge’s sister after she was kidnapped a year earlier. All I know is that none of the great Colombian magnates I’ve met will ever be able to coordinate their daughters’ weddings with such irrefutable style.

  On another long weekend we travel to Santa Marta, located on the Caribbean Sea in the cradle of the legendary Samarian Gold. There we meet the Dávilas, the kings of marijuana. Unlike the coke kings, who with few exceptions—like the Ochoas—are of poor or lower-middle-class extraction, the Dávilas belong to the old landowning aristocracy of the Atlantic coast. And in contrast to the coqueros, who for the most part aren’t very attractive—or, as Aníbal would say, “a bit thickset”—almost all of these men are tall and handsome, though ordinary. Some of the Dávila women have married such notable people as President López Pumarejo, or President Turbay’s son, or Julio Mario Santo Domingo, the richest man in Colombia.

  Aníbal tells me that the Santa Marta airport closes at six in the evening, but the Dávilas are so powerful that it reopens at night just for them. That’s how they can quietly dispatch planes loaded with what is famed as the world’s best marijuana. I ask him how they do it, and he replies that they grease everyone’s palms: the control tower, the police, and here and there a navy officer. Since at this point I already know many of his most “newly rich” friends, I comment, “I thought all these narcos had their own runways at their haciendas….”

  “Noooo, my love. That’s only the big ones! Weed doesn’t pay enough, and there’s a lot of competition coming from Hawaii. Don’t get the idea that’s in everyone’s reach, because you need a million permits for a private landing strip. You know how much paperwork is involved in putting the plates on a car in this country, right? Multiply that by a hundred, and you can register a plane; now multiply that by another hundred, and you get the license for a private landing strip.”

  I ask how Pablo manages, then, to have his own landing strip and a fleet of planes, ship tons of coke, bring giraffes and elephants from Africa, and smuggle in Rolligons and six-foot-tall boats.

  “It’s because his business has no competition. And he’s the richest of all because Pablito, my love, is a jumbo: he has a key contact at the Civil Aviation Agency, a young guy who’s the son of one of the first narcos…an Uribe, cousin of the Ochoas…Álvaro Uribe, I think. Why do you suppose all these people end up financing the campaigns of the two presidential candidates? Don’t be naive!”

  “That’s some position the kid’s got for himself! All these guys must be lining up.”

  “That’s life, my love: the bad name goes away, but the money stays at home!”

  *

  —

  THOSE ARE THE DAYS of wine and roses, honey and laughter, and enchanting friendships. But nothing lasts forever, and one fine day that captivating song stops playing just as suddenly as it had started.

  Aníbal’s addiction is growing with every rock Pablo gives him, and as it grows, the most absurd and embarrassing scenes of jealousy come to replace declarations of love and expressions of tenderness. Whereas before those scenes had been reserved for strangers, now they are directed at our mutual friends and even my fans. After every argument comes a two-day separation, and Aníbal seeks consolation from an ex-girlfriend, a couple of mud wrestlers, or three flamenco dancers. On the third day, he’ll call and beg me to take him back. Hours of pleading, dozens of roses, and an artful tear overcome my resistance…and the cycle starts all over again.

  One night, while we are chatting with the group in an elegant bar, my boyfriend takes out a gun and aims it at two fans who only wanted my autograph. When our friends manage to disarm him nearly an hour later, I beg them to take me home. And this time, when Aníbal calls to try to explain away what happened, I tell him, “If you quit coke today, I will take care of you and make you happy for the rest of your life. If not, I am leaving you this instant.”

  “But, my love…you have to understand that I can’t live without ‘Snow White,’ and I’m never going to leave her!”

  “Then I no longer love you. It’s over.”

  And like that, in the blink of an eye, in the first week of January 1983, we say good-bye forever.

  *

  —

  IN 1983, there are still no private television channels in Colombia. Each new government leases off airtime to private production companies called programadoras, and TV Impacto—the company I started with the well-known hard-line journalist Margot Ricci—has received several spaces in the AA and B time slots. But Colombia is going through a recession, and the large companies are only advertising in AAA or prime time, 7:00 to 9:30 p.m. We are only a year into the project, and our profits aren’t enough to cover the costs of the National Institute of Radio and Television; practically all the small producers like us are broke.

  *

  —

  MARGOT ASKS ME for a meeting so we can decide what to do, but when I arrive at the office on Monday, the first thing she says is “Did Aníbal really shoot you on Friday?”

  I reply that if he had, I’d be in the cemetery or the hospital, and not the office.

  “But that’s what all of Bogotá is saying!” she exclaims, in a tone that says other people’s words take precedence over what’s right before her eyes.

  I reply that I can’t change reality just to please all of Bogotá. But I also say that, while it is false that Aníbal fired the gun, I’d left him for good and I haven’t stopped crying in three days.

  “You finally left him? What a relief; I’m so glad! Now, get ready to cry for real, because we’re $100,000 in debt. At the rate we’re going, in a few weeks I’ll have to sell my apartment, my car, and my son! Of course, before I sell my son, I’ll sell you to the bedouin with five camels, because I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this!”

  Eight months earlier, Margot and I had traveled to Israel on an invitation from the gov
ernment, and then we visited Egypt to see the pyramids. While we were in the Cairo bazaar haggling over a turquoise necklace, a scrawny, toothless bedouin some seventy years old, carrying a shepherd’s crook and smelling of goat, had leered at me lasciviously. He circled us nervously and tried to catch the attention of the stand’s owner. After exchanging some words with the old man, the merchant gave Margot a brilliant smile and addressed her in English: “The rich gentleman wishes to give the necklace to the young lady as a gift. And that’s not all: he wishes to marry her and negotiate the dowry now. He is willing to offer five camels for her!”

  Offended by the figure, but quite entertained by the unbelievable proposal, I told Margot to ask for at least thirty camels for me, and while she was at it to tell that mummy from the Fourth Dynasty that the young lady was not a virgin: she’d been married, and not just once, but twice.

  Exclaiming that only a sheikh had thirty camels, the old man, alarmed, asked Margot if I had buried my two husbands.

  After smiling with compassion at the man seeking my hand in marriage, Margot warned me to get ready to run and turned to the merchant with a triumphant expression: “Tell the rich gentleman that she didn’t bury them: this young thirty-two-year-old lady already kicked two husbands to the curb, both twenty years younger than him, twenty times better-looking, and twenty times richer!”

  And we ran off to disappear in the market while the old man chased us, howling in Arabic and waving his crook furiously in the air. We didn’t stop laughing until we reached the hotel and were happily looking out from our room at the legendary Nile River, jade-colored and shining under the stars.

  Margot’s mention of the bedouin brings to mind a dromedary collector who is not yet septuagenarian, nor is he cantankerous, fetid, or toothless. And I say to Margot, “I know someone with more than five camels who once saved my life, and who could maybe save this company, too.”