¨Qué triste, negro.
What sadness,¨ she said to
me over the phone. ¨All the 50,000 peso notes are false. Even the 20,000.¨
¨¿Qué pasó?¨
¨I went to buy
the hangers and the Paisa told me the
two 50,000 peso bills and the 20,000 were false. What sadness, negro. What sadness.¨
The hijo de puta malparido Paisa had switched the good bills for
fakes, I thought. In the market in the centro,
and at Christmas, it had to happen all the time. She must have missed what that
ill-birthed, son of a whore had done. I didn´t say anything. It didn´t matter
now.
¨I still had
enough for the ganchos,¨ she said, ¨And for the yellow
underwear that the Rolos have asked
for.¨ It was believed in Bogotá that golden underwear brought prosperity in the new year.
¨Just come back,¨
I said calmly. ¨I´ll meet you at the shop.¨
I considered it and
then I thought maybe it hadn´t been the Paisa.
I went in the bedroom for the 50,000 peso note I had taken from the shop the
day before. I compared it to a note withdrawn from the ATM and immediately I saw
the difference. The paper was wrong. The ink bled at the edges of the
bronze ¨50¨ in the corner.
I held both bills to the light as they do at the supermarkets.
The forged note did not have the thin strip embedded in the paper that said 50
MIL COLOMBIA. It was also smaller than the real note. Someone was working the
panty shop and had passed off a fake 50,000 peso note each of the four days we
were open.
I hurriedly put
on my shoes and left the apartment. No doubt they would try it again today. I
had to get there in time. I hurried up the avenida
in a rage, thinking about what I would do to him. I´d blind him first with the
pepper spray and then drag him into the bathroom and beat him until the police
arrived. Maybe I´d carve something on the fucking ladron with my knife.
But the pepper
spray would make a mess of the shop. And what if it wasn´t a guy? There hadn´t
been any guys in the shop that I remembered. Probably the counterfeiter was
sending women. He was sending women with 50,000 peso notes and telling them to
come back with the change and to keep the panties.
When I caught the
woman I would keep the note and detain her until the police arrived. Or better
I could tear up the fake and tell her to take the message back to the hijo de puta counterfeiter. That would
make things clear.
¨¡El patron llega!¨ shouted Señor Roberto as
I came up the block. He was putting out bicycles in front of the bicicleteria.
¨¿Qué más, amigo?¨ I shook his hand and
then the little man hugged me tightly, his face pressed against my chest.
I went into the
shop and told Ines to show me the false notes. The fake note I brought and the two
of hers were identical. They had come from the same counterfeiter.
¨There will be
another falso today, amor. Es cierto. The counterfeiter will send someone again.¨
I showed her the
differences between the false and the real. She insisted it was the paper which
made the difference but I explained a new bill might also appear too crisp. Then
I held a fake and good note to the light and she picked the good note as the
fake. I held two fakes to the light and she picked one of them as real. She wasn´t
seeing it. I showed her the ink bleed around the bronze ¨50¨ on the fakes and
she nodded that she understood, but I tested her and she missed that too. I would
stay to catch the thief anyway. We could practice at home tonight.
¨But you cannot do
anything to the one who comes with the falso,¨
Ines said. ¨They will send others to harm us or pay someone. What will happen when
you leave and I am here alone?¨
She was right. I
couldn´t do anything. It was the Colombian way to sneak up on someone, or hire
a stranger. Colombians did not confront you. They were cautious and kept their
distance. They even fought with belts instead of their fists. Anyway, the fault was
ours. The thief had only acted in accordance with his nature and we had allowed
it. We had given the papaya, as the Colombian expression goes.
In the afternoon
a woman and a young girl came into the shop. They selected a top and panty set
and two thongs. I watched the woman give Ines a 50 mil note and she came behind
the display rack and gave it to me. It was a forgery, the same as the others. I
came out and confronted her.
¨Es falso, mamí.¨ Her face was rough and
she didn´t make eye contact with me. The young girl with her looked entirely
innocent and unknowing.
I gave her the
note and saw the tattoos on her hands. Then she rubbed the bill to show me the
ink did not smudge.
¨That signifies nothing,¨
I said. I pointed at the ink bleed around the 50. ¨Mira. Look. It is badly done. And the strip inside the paper is
missing.¨
The woman´s hands
were shaking. It surprised her to be confronted by a gringo.
¨No más pendejada, mamí. You will have to
do better next time.¨
The woman put
the fake note in her pocket and turned to leave. But the young girl still wanted
the thongs. She paid with 4,000 pesos of her own and they left.
That night we
were walking home and Ines wanted to stop at the drycleaner to pick up the bed
spread. She wanted to pay with one of the false notes. I didn´t say anything.
The drycleaner was closed. Then she wanted to buy some nail polish. She wanted to
pass a false note there. Again, I didn´t say
anything.
I stood at the
entrance of the shop and watched as she selected different bottles of nail
polish and brought them to the woman at the counter. She passed the bill and
the woman quickly pronounced it a fake and handed it back. She passed it back
as if she had been receiving fakes all day. The counterfeiter had probably tried
them at shops throughout the barrio. Ines
paid with good money and we left.
¨Let´s just
forget about using the false ones,¨ I told her.
¨Yes,¨ she said.
¨It doesn´t feel right.¨
¨It was our
fault anyway,¨ I said.
¨Yes. We should
have known.¨
¨Tonight we will
practice so that you see clearly the difference. So that it does not happen
again.¨
¨Nunca más de
esa mariquera.¨
¨No, mi amor. Never again that faggotry.¨
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