All of that happened in the eighties. After serving, it was easy for Koala Gutiérrez to obtain more work as a mercenary soldier. He lived in Africa for ten years, fighting in various wars. The one in Sierra Leone was the last — he got sick of it and went back to his homeland.
Koala’s homeland wasn’t really the island. He only ever knew a slice of it before enlisting in the army when he was just eighteen. At that time, Koala was already an immensely fat kid who didn’t mess with anybody and was lethal in a fight. A well-placed punch, a chokehold around the neck, and boom. No enemy was a match for Koala. And in Las Margaritas almost everyone was an enemy.
Koala was from Las Margaritas, an apartment project that the government (of his country? of the other country?) had built to provide shelter for the thousands of starving families living on the edge of Laguna San José. His was like all the other apartments: a square box made of concrete, with one bathroom, two bedrooms, and bars in all windows, where a family of six had to live. His parents were like many other parents, shadows of hunger and rage, who’d left the countryside and come to the city to look for work, finding it occasionally. One afternoon Koala’s father got lost in the labyrinths of little streets, pastures, and trash dumps that surrounded Las Margaritas, and never came back. His mother told him he went north, to that other country. To help out, his mother brought his grandmother from the country to live with them.
Koala could spend incalculable hours sleeping. He ate, slept, and chewed on his little stick — or on a leaf or a plastic straw, anything he could shove in his mouth — and then he’d sleep some more. He was never good in school. He never showed any interest in anything that didn’t require the absolute minimum effort. And in fights. He never initiated any, but he won them all. So when he was old enough, he enlisted in the army. And afterward, he came back. He never had children, no regular lover, not even an irregular one. He never got into sleeping with ex-convicts, the ones who got out of prison and came back to Las Margaritas, after years spent surrounded by men, a new need in their bodies. Not with the sad little whores who sold themselves on the project streets for drugs, either. “This guy only uses what he’s got between his legs to piss,” heckled Chino, a distant cousin, who got him into the business and introduced him to the Boss. “Just like a koala bear. Hanging from his pole all day, snoring away without a care.” Koala stayed silent and stared at him with his dark, round eyes.
But now he had to keep those eyes open. He was sitting next to Ballpoint in Café Violeta, waiting for his next victim: a woman. “La Pastora” had moved through the ranks and turned into a solid rival for the Boss in the interminable battle for domination of the drug trade. She had inherited control from her dead brother, and inexplicably emerged as a lethal power, a force from which it was necessary to be protected. That’s why the Boss contacted Koala. “Go with Ballpoint, he knows her movements. Get her out of my way. Nothing fancy, maybe a quick shot in the forehead.” He didn’t know why the Boss qualified it. That was Koala’s classic method. A shot to the head, infallible, between the eyebrows. No bloody mess. No bodies full of holes. Clean and wholesome, Koala guaranteed a tranquil death, and he was famous for not even giving his victims time to scream.
But he didn’t like killing women. He’d seen too many ruptured bellies in the war. Too many women raped by militia soldiers and then hacked up by machetes, bodies rotting in the savannah. Exposed flesh, just before exploding, had the consistency of plastic. The butchery of a woman’s body turned his stomach more than anything.
When the Boss informed him about La Pastora, he thought about saying no. He was about to shake his head when something stopped him. What woman could be a boss in the drug trade? In other words, does she really count as a woman if she’s gotten her hands dirty — not with blood, which is easy (Koala knows it), but with terror transformed into blood in the eyes of her enemies? How many addict children — now corpses, because of some stupid drug debt — had she, personally, turned over to their mothers? Koala imagined La Pastora as a brutish woman, shapeless, with short hair and swollen hands. A broad back just like his. Or like a frigid whore, one of those skinny, painted women with plastic everything, who so many people like and who leave him wanting to stay eternally asleep.
“I work alone,” he responded to the Boss.
“I want you to take Ballpoint. He’ll point her out. The thing is, it has to be her.”
He never could’ve imagined what he saw: a woman soft as velvet entered Café Violeta; she was full-figured, with a mature head of hair that smelled like cinnamon and eucalyptus — long, straight, and a little stiff, like a mane. All of her was brown, or really the color of honey. She half-closed her small, round eyes with the lust of someone who had just awakened from a long dream. Koala intuited that her very large breasts had dark nipples, enough in them to suckle for all eternity. Her thighs pressed against each other under her skirt, which fell to the middle of her calf — they were the thighs of a woman who’d known children. Firm hips, wide rump. Koala had to close his eyes after watching her pass by. He smelled her walk down Café Violeta’s central hallway; he heard her sit down at a table in the back. Three men stationed themselves around La Pastora, three men similar to him who were obviously her bodyguards.
“That’s her,” Ballpoint whispered in his ear, and left.
With eyes wide open, Koala Gutiérrez kept watch. He was also watching inside. Flesh, touch, an erection. The aroma of eucalyptus and cinnamon made him alert. He saw how La Pastora ordered a coffee with milk; how the owner of the place sat down to chat with her for a while; how she finished conversing with the owner of Café Violeta at the same time that she finished her coffee. His prey would soon be making a change of scene. Koala Gutiérrez asked for his bill and paid it, chewing on his stick. He’d wait for them in the car.
La Pastora left Café Violeta five minutes later. She and one of her henchmen got into a new SUV, subtle gold, like her. Koala prepared to follow her, his eyes lit up like two sparks in the night.
They turned down Avenida Borinquen and took the road down to the boat launches. They crossed a new bridge heading toward Las Margaritas, turned around at the roundabout at San Juan Bosco Church, and entered the ramp that connected to the housing project. Koala followed them in silence. Suddenly, his sixth sense tingled. Along that route, most of the roads were closed down for repairs from the recent rains, when the laguna flooded the banks of Las Margaritas. Koala stepped on the accelerator.
It smelled like a trap.
He couldn’t explain where the car that hit his vehicle on the driver’s side came from. Koala lost control and struck a lightpost in a flat area near the entrance to Las Margaritas. The owner’s manual for the vehicle pressed against his chest. He felt like he was suffocating, but then two hands pulled him out.
La Pastora was waiting for him. A single look and Koala Gutiérrez knew he’d never be able to shoot this woman in the head. He’d never be able to shoot her, period. He’d rather kiss her.
The bodyguards held him by his hands and feet. Koala put up no resistance; he didn’t get desperate.