Jose Arcadio Buendia's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

The buyers had left, but Jose knew they would come back. Next time they would ask harder questions. His farmhands had no papers. No names on any ledger. A dozen workers who shared one stolen face. If a buyer looked twice, he would see his own product carding wool in the barn. Jose needed records. Real-looking ones. He knew only one man who could make them. He rode to the auction house at dawn. The weathered wooden porch groaned under his boots. Inside, Cornelius Slick was packing crates of powders and corked bottles, moving fast. The information broker sold whatever paid best, and Jose had paid him before to keep quiet. That debt bought no trust. Slick would flip on him for a better coin. "Buendia." Slick did not look up. "I'm closing early. Inspectors are coming. So make it quick." "I need papers," Jose said. "Identities. Twelve of them. Names, birth dates, work history. Enough to fool a man who checks." Slick set down a bottle. His eyes moved over Jose's face, then past him, counting something unseen. "Twelve fakes. Same day. That's a strange order for a farmer." He waited. Jose said nothing. Slick shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Money's money." He pulled a worn card from a drawer and slid it across the counter. The surface looked aged, faded at the corners, the print crisp. A fake so good it passed for real. "I move a hundred of these a year. Runaways. Debtors. Men who need a new name." He tapped it. "They don't work if the faces match. Yours don't match, do they." Jose's jaw tightened. Slick had guessed the whole shape of it. Twelve workers, one face. The broker held the truth in his hand and knew exactly what it was worth. "I can make each card different," Slick said. "Different names, different histories. A buyer reads twelve strangers, not one man copied over." He named a price. It was steep. Jose paid it without haggling, coin by coin onto the counter. Slick counted the money, then began writing. He worked fast, his hand steady, aging each card with a rag and a smudge of dirt. Twelve names. Twelve lives on paper. He stacked them and pushed them across. "Now they're hired hands with a past," Slick said. "That's your problem solved." He returned to his crates. "Here's a free one. The buyers already asked me who bought a delivery route last year. I told them a name. Wasn't yours." He corked a bottle. "Might be yours next time. Depends who pays." Jose gathered the cards and left. He rode home with twelve identities in his coat. His farmhands were safe now, papered and named, hidden past any check. But Slick's last words rode with him the whole way. The man who sold him cover would sell him out the moment it paid more. His workers were protected. He was not.