MEDELLIN, Colombia (CNN) -- This city's drug underworld is littered with "poseurs" -- lowlife triggermen pretending they're the real hard cases.



Samir Romero, wanted by police for two murders, was killed in  August. He was shot 13 times.



But a longstanding and trusted source, with intimate knowledge of Medellin's violent subculture, assured me the two men I was about to meet were the real deal.



My destination: a single-story home in the city's notorious "Commune 13" district where I had set up a meeting with two hit men, who have for years hired their lethal services out to the cocaine cartels.



Inside the house, a man called "Red" sat on a couch toying a fully loaded 9mm Ruger pistol. "This will stop somebody nicely," he said, as I glanced at it.



His face and arms were covered in burn marks. He said it was a testament of the day a barrel of acid spilled onto him as he was working in a clandestine cocaine processing lab in northern Colombia.



Red explained that after the accident, the lab foreman tossed him out, half-dead, into a jungle clearing. What little strength he had left, he said he used to bat away vultures. And, against the odds, he made his way to safety and slowly recovered.



When Red left the clinic months later, he said he went straight back to the drug lab and gunned down the foreman and three of his henchmen.



That wasn't his first killing though, he told me. When he was just 11 years old, Red recounted, he took a razor to the throat of a neighborhood drug pusher who had been molesting his little sister.



The other man, "C", sat quietly as I listened to Red. Like Red, my source told me, "C" was also the so-called "chief" of a number of neighborhoods -- running local drug-peddling operations, extortion rackets and organizing hits for a big cartel boss he simply referred to as "El Cucho," or "The Old Man."



It was a hot morning and he was shirtless. His chest was branded with a tattoo of the Virgin Maria Auxilatrix, known in Colombia as the "Virgin of the Assassins."



Hitmen, or "sicarios" as they call them here, revere her and pray to her for protection against arrest or death and for help to carry out their killings.  Watch as Medellin law enforcement moves from killing to killing »



During our time with the hit men they offered a fascinating insight into their violent world -- from how much they get paid to what their mothers think of their lifestyle:



Penhaul: Why are Medellin's drug bosses and the street gangs in a war right now?



"RED": "These problems come about because they're looking for a good man to run things. We have to find him and, in order to find him, what's happening right now has to run its course."



"C": "Medellin has exploded right now because different groups want to control it and earn money and gain territory. The authorities locked up, extradited, or cut cooperation deals with the big guys, the ones who controlled all this. Those were the ones people respected. Now there's no respect and anybody who has a bunch of money is grabbing a few kids from a poor neighborhood and putting them to work."  Penhaul: What are the cartel bosses paying for a contract killing now?



"C": "If you're talking about a contract hit then right now you can get four or five million pesos (between US$2,000 and $2,500) to kill some idiot slimeball. Then of course there are bigger hits where you can earn 15 (million) or 20 million (between $7,500 and $10,000). Some of those hits pay pretty well. There's a lot of people around here with a lot of money and they're using it for bad things. Sometimes even the politicians will pay
Who are talking about their careers? What is the cost of a hitman kill?
Red. (between $7,500 and $10,000).
question: Who are talking about their careers?, answer: Red. | question: What is the cost of a hitman kill?, answer: (between $7,500 and $10,000).