15
Kiss, truth, or Mentium
W hen I arrived at the bar, Dante was waiting for me.
I didn't want to wake Nikita to let her know; she needed to rest as much as possible, so I told Ana María to be the one to tell my wife that I was going out to meet with my manager.
At that hour, the bar was closed. Dante usually came early to take inventory, resolve incidents, or supervise the work of our runners.
That he had called me meant it could be a problem. In a work sector like mine, that was an everyday occurrence. Sometimes, I felt more like a fixer than a gangster.
When I went to shake his hand, he rewarded me with a tight hug.
"First of all, congratulations."
"For what? Did we hit the jackpot?"
"It's you who's hit the lottery by getting your wife back and coming out alive from Gordo's club after having blown the father's card of one of his best clients."
"He was lucky I didn't leave him toothless and without a business. By the way, thanks for being happy about it."
Dante patted my back, and I smiled at him with relief. Even though he was happy about what happened, I could sense something was bothering him.
"I guess you didn't make me get out of bed just for this."
"No. Better tell you inside..."
The bar was so clean, tidy, and quiet that it seemed unbelievable that at night it was filled with smoke, people drinking alcohol, and rock music singing the chorus.
We arrived at the office, and he took out a mobile phone.
"What do you know about TikTok?" he asked before opening the app where people left their hips to the rhythm of little dances and where every day millions of mortals believed themselves to be future stand-up stars.
"Well, if you show me a video of you dancing the Macarena, I die."
"In any case, I'd dance to Highway to Hell if you push me."
"Totally agree, I see you more as AC/DC." We both smiled, although humor did not shine in his gaze. "Come on, spill it, what's up with that app? Is it about some new market niche or something?" He shook his head.
Before my eyes appeared the account of a kid, he could be anyone, I had no idea what Dante wanted to show me. He must have been about fifteen, tousled hair, wearing a Vans hoodie. Basically, what you'd call a teenager.
"Don't tell me he's your son from a drunken night?"
"No, I don't know him. Or rather, I didn't know him." His tone was rather somber.
"Then?"
"He died yesterday, jumping from a rooftop."
"Fuck!"
"There's a new challenge on social media, it's called kiss, truth, or Mentium."
My eyes moved from the screen to Dante in disbelief.
"Come on, don't mess with me."
"I'm not. I wish I were. The psychotropic drug your wife took off has become popular among the kids. There's a new social network that has been created for challenges, it's causing a frenzy among the youth because they earn easy money and hundreds of thousands of followers.
"You know that being the trendy influencer, even by acting foolish, is what most are after.
"But you're talking about Mentium... That's serious business."
"I know. The worst part is that it's getting out of hand. They organize gatherings like drinking parties through the app. Subscribers bet money among the boys who participate in the game that night. They live stream the challenges that pop up on the screen and choose kiss, truth, or Mentium. As you can imagine, each challenge completed has a value, and the Mentium challenge generates the most interest and money.
"I don't understand. It's been discontinued! Nikita made sure to pull it from the market by destroying all the batches."
"Are you sure about that?"
"What do you mean, am I sure?"
"Maybe your wife saw another kind of potential and is dealing with it behind your back." The mere idea made my toes curl.
"Don't even suggest that. Nikita would be incapable!" I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. Dante raised his hands.
"Calm down, man, I was just suggesting a possibility." I huffed in anger. "If it's not your wife, I'd say someone got hold of part of that batch, maybe it's the same person who corrupted the formula and is now dealing on the Dark Web. Until a few hours ago, it was selling for fifty bucks a pill, after the kid's death, a hundred."
"How?!" I brought my hands to my face and rubbed my beard. "This is a fucking nightmare. It's like troubles are growing, damn it!"
"It is, especially with the flood of lawsuits that are going to fall on you again." Dante was right, even though we weren't the ones marketing it, the pharmaceutical company's name was on every box, they were going to go for our throats. "What was the name of the journalist you made a deal with a few weeks ago to calm down the lions he himself provoked?"
"Jonás Sánchez. Why? You want me to call him to spread the new news and send us straight to the gallows?" Dante clicked his tongue.
"I don't think you need to warn him. I just wanted to confirm his identity because it sounded familiar. Look at the full name of the kid. It's right there underneath."
I read every damn letter carefully.
"He has the same name. Is this some kind of sick joke?"
"No, it's life, which is a bitch and likes to laugh at us in a macabre way. It looks like it's his son."
Now the ground really did open up under my feet.
"Fuck!"
"Exactly, we're screwed. That guy is the worst plague in the universe, and your wife's drug just unleashed it. You better start calling the lawyer."
I swept everything off the table and threw it to the ground. It felt like I had stepped in shit the size of Gibraltar. Couldn't anything good happen to me?
"Vaffanculo [2] !" I roared, standing up to grab one of the glasses from the bar cabinet and smashing it against the floor.
My Italian blood always boiled when events beyond my comprehension occurred. What were the odds that the son of Mentium's biggest detractor would play the new Russian roulette and end up dying?
I cursed everything curse-worthy.
The flares of my nostrils swelled. I had to find another damn culprit when the war was about to break loose. Could I have more fronts open?
I needed someone to take care of the Mentium situation.
Immediately, I thought of Aleksa. My man was still convalescent, but I couldn't trust just anyone with the case.
I remember the first time he showed up at our house. I was studying at the university and he was spending his first weekend with us.
The cartel that sold us drugs had given him as a gift to my father the week he came to visit the coca cultivation fields. Aleksa was one-month shy of turning eighteen. My father noticed him when the cartel saw one of the workers stealing merchandise, snapped his fingers, and a very young Aleksa aimed the shotgun and blew the man’s brains out without a tremor, from a considerable distance. He praised the boy's precision, and the cartel gifted him as if he were a box of cigars. No one asked if he wanted it because Aleksa was just another number in the organization.
The dark-eyed boy did not protest. He had learned from birth that the cartel was never contradicted.
He packed all his belongings in a small bundle and flew to Spain without opening his mouth throughout the journey.
My father said he didn’t even get up from his seat to go to the bathroom; it was his first time on a plane and he flew first class.
As soon as my mother saw him and received the necessary explanations, Aleksa became part of our innermost circle and was treated, almost, as another son due to his youth.
He was very polite, reserved, and never asked for anything that was not given to him. That endeared him to my mother, who insisted that he be given a good education so that the boy could progress.
Aleksa slowly flourished; he was not accustomed to being treated as my mother treated him, who even gave him his own room. His eyes shone whenever he looked at her, and he was imbued with her particular energy and that sharp humor that characterized her.
When my mother passed away, Aleksa sank almost as much as we did. We had never seen him cry, and it's not that we saw him then, but he spent a week waking up with red eyes and praying in front of her favorite chair when no one saw him.
That week was when I understood that I would not find a man more loyal to my family than him. For that boy raised in the jungle, we were much more than his bosses.
It was I who asked my father to put him in charge of my men.
Someone who mourns your mother as if she were his own would do anything to protect what came from her womb and filled his heart.
I picked up the phone and called him.
There were few people I trusted as much as him. As soon as he answered, I let it out.
"Aleksa, we have a big problem. No, I don't need you to come here, just find out who's distributing Mentium to teenagers through the Dark Web behind our backs."
"Mentium?" he asked, surprised.
"I'm going to put you on speaker so Dante can give you a summary; he knows it better than I do."
I placed the phone on the desk in the office, with the speaker on, and let my manager fill him in.
"Damn, what a mess! Well, let's look on the bright side, with that kid dead, the others won't want to buy a damn pill again."
"On the contrary," Dante interrupted. "This morning the selling price has doubled because the bets have gone up to stratospheric amounts. These kids know that suicide is a side effect, not something that happens to everyone, so they think they're going to be immune."
"Fucking brainless bunch!" exclaimed my friend on the other line.
"We need to trace the source. Contact the seller pretending to be a prospective buyer, see where that leads us," I said.
"As soon as you hang up, I'm on it, R. Have you told Koroleva yet?" At least he hadn't suggested that she might be behind it.
"No, my wife doesn't know anything about this..."
"Well, you'll see when she finds out, if I were you I'd be ordering some bulletproof vests and wearing them two at a time."
"Me? But it's not my fault!"
"Since when has that mattered to your wife?" I loved the concept my men had of her.
"That was before."
"Before what? Your birthday? Oh no, you've only known each other for a few weeks. Or maybe you meant before you blew the balls off that bastard who cost us a good chunk with Gordo?" I pinched the bridge of my nose.
"Nikita and I are fine. Things have changed since Santorini."
"Whatever you say, but that damn Russian is like a fucking minefield, you better be careful and show up with a good bouquet of roses and a bottle of expensive perfume with a few drops of anesthesia, to distract the enemy and not hit the wrong button."
"You handle your part, and I'll take care of my wife."
"At your command. I'll call you as soon as I have something. See you, R."
I didn't even have time to hang up when a loud bang sounded at the door of the bar.
Dante and I looked at each other and ran towards the entrance.