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                         D E A D L Y  F R I E N D
                                  
                                   by

                            Ricardo M. Ruiz
****************************************************************************

   Anybody who reads a newspaper is familiar with the violent aspect
of Colombia. Violent and beauty is so closely intertwined in that South
America country that one tends to feed on the other. Nearly 29,000 victims
of violent crime are buried annually. Colombia has more criminals per
population than any other country in the world. Most of them operate with
a great degree of impunity. Such was the case of the main character of
the story that follows. Names are fictitious, the event is no big deal
in a country where this time of story is not consider uncommon.

   The year is 1980. A friend I had invited over for a chat and a few
drinks arrived in my apartment in Medellin in the company of a woman
by the name Graciela. 

   Graciela had an attractive face that could easily draw men to her.
She looked clean, and was dressed like an ordinary housewife. She wore
a kerchief tied around her hair and sunglasses propped on top of
her head. Her clothes were baggy, intended to conceal her extra weight.
It was her eyes that betrayed her. They looked cold and frozen, somewhat
conquerors. In looking at those big black eyes it wasn't hard to believe
she was as deadly as she was beautiful. Rumors persisted that she was
responsible for the assassination of scores of people.

   My wife and Graciela hit it quite well. She had heard about Graciela
reign of crime, but Graciela was a good actress. She could had won an
Oscar if she had chosen acting as a career. She could con an Indian
Cobra. She surely conned me and my wife to the extend that she had both
of use telling the world she was the best friend a person could have.
But underneath that charm was a person who enjoyed to see blood drip
from the heart of her enemies. Around her a person lived as long as
she liked you, but once that liking was blemished by something said or
done, your life bordered on death. She was as sincere to her friends
as she was lethal. Your enemies were her enemies, but she had no
tolerance for gossip. She once told me that her first act of violence
was triggered by a neighbor that "couldn't keep her mouth shut about
other people's affairs."

   "I killed her with a machete...chopped her to pieces...didn't want
to use a gun, a bullet was too good for her."

   As time passed, Graciela began to spent more time in my house. She
became my wife's best friend. She had something about driving and
every time she needed to go shopping, or to the Beauty Parlor, she
would called on my wife to go with her. Not too far behind, of course,
trailed her three well armed bodyguards.

   To learned what made Graciela what she was, one must go back to
her root. She was born in one of the most depressing area of Medellin.
That area slaps you right in the face like a smelly, dirty sock. It 
extend some twenty square blocks of solid squalor, deep, depressing
poverty. In comparison, that area makes South Bronx look like Park
Avenue. Is a community totally without money and much despair. Is
like a city within a city of tar-paper shacks, tin roofs, no windows
or screens. The air in and out of that place is polluted with the
smell of urine and feces put out by the open latrines. The people
of that place main worries is their ever-growling stomachs. The God
conscious people of this area only ask of Him to let them survive so
they can see another dawn. Graciela was a product of that environment,
and it explains Graciela to me more than any word found in the 
dictionary. It is an area abandoned by God that had drained the humanity
out of its residents. People are found dead every morning in its alleys
as sun edge up over the horizon, marking the beginning of a new day. It
was here where Graciela as a child saw her father come home in tears
over the loss of his job after 15 years of service. He was terminated
for asking for a raise in pay after working all that time for the
same salary. It was this type of injustice that implanted into Graciela's
the idea of someday leading a group of gunmen for hire. 

   While serving time for the machete killing of her neighbor, Graciela
came to meet all kinds of criminals convicted of heinous crimes. She
assembled a group of them, and together they took control of the prison
population. She coerced her fellow-inmates by filling them with terror.
 
   " I went in penniless and came out with more money than I ever had
had before," she often said.

   Once released from prison, Graciela put together a band of young
homeless men, and under the expertise of Isaac Guttman Esternbergef,
a Jew from Israel who ran a school for hired assassins while enjoying
the tolerance of the Colombian authorities, they all became experts
in the act of killing from a moving motorcycle with a rider behind
shooting at a moving target.

   On August 9, 1986, Isaac Guttman himself was shot to death while
driving through the center of Medellin. The bullets came from a motor-
cycle that pulled along his car. The shooter was right on target. 
With out doubts, it was the work of one of his alumnus.

   But no matter how charming and magnetic Graciela could be, death 
was always sitting on her shoulder, ready to leap. I was mingling with
people with money and nocturnal life. My wife thought I was playing
around too much and told Graciela about it. That didn't set too well
with Graciela and she suggested to get rid of me. "You just let me
handle him, she said. "Just remember that a dead husband with money
is worth more to a woman than a live one. If you want me, I have one
of my man take care of him for good."

   "No! Oh my God, no! He's good man. He's my husband and I love him 
dearly. What are you saying?" My wife was shocked at the suggestion.

   That night when I got home she was still shaking. She told me all
about it and that made me changed in a hurry. No more friends and no
more night life without my wife. Graciela loved intrigue, she loved to
see people fighting among themselves. She would encourage it, then
take over. And once she took over, the only people left to enjoy it
were her and her goons. It was time to get the hell out of Colombia.

   Two years later, the same friend that had brought Graciela into my
life, was touring the United States and dropped in to see me. He told
me a story about Graciela that shocked the hell out of me.

   Graciela had found an arms dealer. She was negotiating an arm deal
in the dealer's own house when the dealer started bragging what a big
man he was. "Yeah, I just delivered some automatic weapons to Luis
Ramirez. He's at war with some ugly fat whore and I sold him enough
arms to finish her off," said the arm dealer.

   Graciela's face turned white. She then stood up, looked straight
at the face of the arm dealer, and said. "Guess who you are dealing
with, asshole. I know that son-of-a-bitch Ramires and I am her you
call 'a fat whore."

   Right then, the dealer knew he was a dead man. Two of Graciela's
bodyguards held the dealer to his chair while she slowly screwed on
a silencer to the semiautomatic she carried in her purse, then 
pressed the barrel to the dealer's head and pulled the trigger. Seven
days later, the smell of his decomposed body brought the cops to the
scene of the crime.

   Graciela and Ramires hated each other with passion. How this hate
came about I really don't know. One version has it that Ramires and
Graciela were once lovers and he did her wrong. Another version has it
that Graciela was paid by a Rancher to kill Ramires uncle who was locked
in a dispute with the Rancher over a piece of land adjoining their farms.
Whatever the reason, the war between them two raged on endlessly until
Graciela got to Ramires first. Luis and two of his shooters were shot to
death while en route to the Airport one Sunday morning. Not too long
after, I received words that Graciela was dead. One of her man turned
against her and put three bullets on her chest.

   For every killer that succumbs in Colombia others will surface to
take his place. Death continues to be Colombia's daily bitter diet. In
this sense the government of Colombia lacks the will to bring to an
end this vast waste of human lives.
 

 


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