Narcos < Hot >

Pablo Escobar never killed anyone. That’s what Luis Herrera told himself as he walked the twelve blocks from his modest apartment to the neon glow of the Monaco building. Luis was an auxiliar de contabilidad , a junior accountant. He didn’t pack cocaine. He didn’t pull triggers. He just made numbers dance.

Luis tried to speak, but blood filled his mouth. He thought of Elena. Of Mateo. Of the refrigerator and the new bicycle and the lie that he had never killed anyone.

He called Peña from a payphone on Calle 53. The line crackled with static and the distant sound of salsa music. Narcos

He was working late in the Monaco basement, a vaulted room with no windows, only the hum of air conditioning and the clack of an adding machine. A young sicario named Chuzo appeared in the doorway, a gold chain around his neck and a .38 tucked into his waistband.

“Now.”

“Jefe wants the November numbers,” Chuzo said.

Luis had first seen Peña three weeks ago, leaning against a gray Fiat outside his daughter’s school. The American didn’t look like the other DEA agents. He didn’t wear a tie or a badge. He wore a leather jacket and the tired eyes of a man who had seen too many bodies stacked like firewood. Pablo Escobar never killed anyone

Murphy sat down. “We shouldn’t have turned him.”

“Sure you don’t,” Peña said, lighting a cigarette. “But here’s the thing. La Catedral—that private prison Pablo is building for himself? He won’t have room for accountants. When this falls—and it will fall—you think Pablo’s going to let you testify? Or do you think he’ll give you a nice severance package? A bullet to the back of the head is free, Luis. Very cost-effective.” He didn’t pack cocaine

“He was turned the minute he took Pablo’s money,” Peña said quietly. “We just gave him a reason to die scared instead of rich.”