Pablo Escobar by Escobar Juan Pablo

Author:Escobar, Juan Pablo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250104632
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2016-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

12

Tales from La Catedral

“Don’t worry, son, I’m doing well. Things are great. I need you to do me a favor and buy twenty-five or thirty warm coats and have them sent down here on a direct flight. We need them urgently. Everything is fine here. The men who are taking care of me are the same ones who have always taken care of me.”

It was hearing the calm in my father’s voice, three days after he’d entered the La Catedral prison in June 1991, that convinced me that turning himself in was going to be good for my father, for us, and for the country as a whole.

In that third week of June, we’d just arrived in New York, forty-five days into our prolonged family trip to the United States. My girlfriend Andrea had already asked for permission to extend her stay with me for the third time, which had caused problems with her family and at her high school, where she was in the process of completing her final year. I had promised to put her on a direct flight back to Medellín after we’d spent a few days together in the Big Apple.

My father’s men had reserved rooms at the St. Regis, one of the best hotels in the city, an architectural gem from 1904. But I wasn’t so sure about staying the night there. When they gave me a tour, the place didn’t feel the least bit luxurious or elegant. Quite the contrary, I found it old and ugly and depressing. I must have been one of the only customers in the history of the St. Regis to take one look at the hotel and then leave with all his luggage. Of course, they refused to refund the money we’d paid for our five rooms.

“I want a modern place, boys, a hotel up in a skyscraper with a good view of the city. I’d rather be in a Holiday Inn than this old dump,” I said, back in the car.

So we went to the Hyatt, which turned out to be just what I’d been looking for—a modern place and a room on a floor so high up that you had to change elevators to get there. The view was incredible.

It was a hot summer, and I quickly realized that I didn’t like New York at all. It felt as if the sun had a hard time reaching the earth with all those massive shadows cast by the buildings, which seemed to be piled one on top of the other.

Endless and aimless wandering around the city made the trip tedious and boring, but I perked up when I discovered a huge electronics store right beside the hotel. I went in with my uncle Fernando and went nuts buying gifts for family members and friends back in Medellín: thirty of the latest model of Sony Discman, water-resistant, plus five photographic cameras and five video cameras.

That night my uncle came to my room and told me that the store owners

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