by Gabi Moore
We met Antonio at his office later that evening. I knew that he never went home early, so I thought it might be a good enough time to head in his direction. The thing about Antonio is that you have to let him know you aren’t trying to fuck him over, and you have to let him know that you appreciate what he’s doing for you.
“Just so you know, I think we’re both aware of exactly how dangerous this is,” was about the second thing he said to the two of us, right after “Jesus fuck!”
After his explicative about the fornication of Christ, he proceeded to pull a gun on the two of us.
Tyler had closed the distance between the two of them like a trained dog and had him on the floor with the gun dismantled into separate pieces. After that point, it took a minute to bring him back from the land of fear and silence, at which point he quickly regained both his composure, as well as his business acumen.
“So, we’re going to have to talk about payment,” was the third thing he said. “I know you and I go way back, and I’m sorry to hear about your dad, but I just can’t let something like this go for nothing. This is how I make my living, you understand.”
I nodded and held a restraining hand out toward Tyler’s chest.
That man was so eager to fuck shit up, it seemed as though he had reached his peak of stress operation some time ago, and was now ready to smash or steal anything necessary to get toward whatever his goal was. I also felt a strange sense of protective nature coming from him — which was natural, I think, given h is temperament. There was something magnetic and powerful about that emotional force though. I didn’t doubt that the combination of our stressful experiences and the killer fucking that we had been doing over the last week had something to do with the connection.
Antonio ended up settling for half of the contents of the backpack. He put up a bit of a fuss in the beginning, but I could tell it was a ruse from the outset.
“How the fuck did you get this?” he asked, only to cut himself off, “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. It’s probably better if I don’t know.”
He accepted the goods, without too much more hassle. He actually tried to get more, but we told him that was all we had, and that he could take it or leave it. He tried to argue for something else, but I told him I had nothing, and when he looked into my eyes, he knew that I was correct. I was totally fucked, and this was a final movement.
The passports themselves were not so big of a deal. We could have ripped off the place and gotten the raw materials. It was the passwords to Antonio’s encrypted file system that were the real trouble. Even Angela wouldn’t have been able to manage that kind of security in any reasonable amount of time. The man was a paranoid, who basically thought that he was about to be betrayed by every single person he ran across.
Once the passwords were entered, and the passports were printed, Tyler and I had shiny new identities that would serve well enough to get us wherever we needed to go. Antonio may have been a bit of an irredeemable scumbag, but he was good at what he did; an honest estimation would be that there was no one more suited for the job; which is, unfortunately, the exact reason why it turned out we were unable to trust him.
One thing my father always told me that I’ll have to try not to forget is that people don’t see the world as it is, but as they are. It was an old quote from a mystic, and though I don’t recall whom the original source was, my father was mystical enough in my mind to be able to successfully pull something like that off. In my mind, he was the one who said it, and the next series of events only served as a testament to the fact that I should have paid that man a bit more attention while he was still breathing, and on this earth.
That fucker — Antonio.
The one who thinks that everyone around him is trying to fuck him over. He gave me a fucking awful feeling, right before we left his place. That kind of Judas Iscariot level, impending doom, absence of connectivity. I felt cold around him, like a person who was being sentenced to death. Sure he smiled goodbye, but it rang hollow. I couldn’t tell if I was hollow, or it was just him, but the absence of ease stayed with me as we got back into the car and drove away.
We were only about two miles away when Tyler verified my suspicions.
“We’ve got a tail,” he said, grimly.
“That’s not possible,” I said in disbelief. “ How did they find us so quickly?”
“Don’t be naïve.”
His tone wasn’t accusatory or even upset in any way. He was admonishing me for being too trusting of a pre-existing social network.
Everything that happened came back to me, and I realized my folly in going to Antonio. We didn’t have much of a choice. If we wanted to feel the country we could either do it as illegal aliens, and continuously be under the gun of local law enforcement, or we could go semi-legit and forge the papers necessary to keep our heads above water.
Without Antonio, I had no idea how we would have managed to secure those documents. Initially, I didn’t understand why he would let them go, if he wasn’t planning on having us make it out of the area without being captured or killed. Then I realized that it all probably made perfect sense.
“Antonio was just protecting his own ass,” I muttered, feeling so frustrated that I actually punched the dashboard of the car. My knuckles hurt, and I was far too upset.
“God,” I said, feeling incredibly frustrated, “You’d think that I’d be able to score a break or something.”
“That’s just negative self-talk,” Tyler said, interrupting me.
“Who the fuck are you,” I asked indignantly, and focusing my rage on anyone — the nearest object that could feel the wrath and bitterness that was flowing inside of my body. “Some fucking daytime television host, here to tell me what is and isn’t…”
He slapped me.
It didn’t hurt because he didn’t put his whole weight into it, but it was hard enough to bring me back into the present moment. The sting on my cheek reminded me of the reason that I was here in the first place. I was hurt, and we were trying to get out of this together.
“I resent you for hitting me,” I told him, saying the first thing that came to my mind.
“When we were fucking you wanted me to choke you,” he said, “so I thought maybe a little slap to bring some sense into you might not be such an unwarranted thing. Do you know how to fire a gun?”
“What?” I asked, still stunned.
“The last time you fired a gun, you were aiming at me, and you shot your bosses friend. I just need to know if that was a fluke, or if I really can’t trust you with a gun.”
His voice was frustrated, but earnest.
He was picking up speed and turning corners more sharply than not.
“I can handle a gun. I was just scared.”
“Well, I need you to not be scared right now,” he said, speaking loudly so I could hear his voice over the roar of the engine.
I turned around quickly to take note of what he was already aware of.
Two motorcycles and a car were chasing after us; matching us in speed and agility through the hairpin turns of the southwest quarter. In addition to that, a black and white had picked up on the chase, effectively pushing us past all reasonable chance of escape.
“Maybe we should just pull over,” I said. “The police would probab--”
“Get the gun out of the glove compartment, and when I say, I want you to fire on the windshield of the car behind us.”
He was headed full speed in a wild area known as Riserva Statale Tenuta di Castelporziano. Our car spat up dust on the road and hugged every turn. Gunshots went off behind us, and I saw the police car flip over its hood and end up in a ditch. The motorcyclists were having the easiest time of the chase and came right up alongside our rear tail once.
Tyler slammed on the brakes and skidded into a turn. The way he handled a car was a rush, but things got all too real when I felt a huge object slam into our car and flip over the hood. The gunning sound of the closest motorcycle blast
ed through my chest as the rider was thrown from the vehicle and into a field of tall grass ten meters away.
The other motorcycle managed to swerve off the trail, while the car was approaching fast for a head on collision. With expert timing, Tyler pulled back and swung the car around to the side of the road and down into a ditch. Instead of fighting the decline, Tyler rode with it, and the car got to the bottom of the dirt siding of the road and was able to gain speed once more.
The ocean was nearing, and there was only one car and a motorbike in pursuit. We blasted out of the natural area and onto the main highway, launching up the berm of the side of the highway as we did. The launch caught the motorcyclist off guard, causing him to abandon his bike and fall into a slide on the hard asphalt.
The car, on the other hand, was not so easy to lose. They kept pace with us the entire way. Each time a new threat arrived, they managed to evade in just the right way; balancing pursuit with negotiation, and safety with aggression. When a speed trap was raised, there was little need for the police to respond in any way because no law enforcement professional was going to get in the way of this car and its prey - us.
“This time, they’re professionals,” Tyler said, gritting his teeth as he fishtailed around the side of a cliff.
The sea was approaching on our right-hand side, and we were wrapping quickly around the edges of the coastal highway. The two cars cruised down a major hill, and we accelerated all throughout the descent.
“Get ready,” he said, grabbing my shoulder. “When we head up the road on the other side of this hill, I want you to unload that clip at the windshield!”
Simultaneously, Tyler released the convertible top of the car, which immediately popped off from the vehicle and flew behind at the car following. Our car wasn’t exactly free from the direction change either, and Tyler had to do some quick sliding maneuvers to get the car under control. In spite of the difficulties, I managed to sit up and ready myself with the weapon aimed at the car behind us.
“NOW!” he yelled, as the car was accelerating up the hill in front of us.
Chapter 21 - Piper
I could feel the dip in the pit of my stomach as the g-force of the hill, however slight, had its effect on my body.
Not pausing to think, and trusting my aim, I let loose the entire clip of the pistol at the windshield of the car behind us. My attack was signaled by a series of brief, staccato bursts. The gun was much louder than I had initially anticipated. Moving forward at that moment, things start to become unclear.
I remember us accelerating up over the berm of the hill, and I remember Tyler leaning over behind me to grab the door of the car. All at once, when we reached the top of the hill, he swung the car far out in a fishtail that almost brought the car off the edge of the cliff.
“HOLD THIS!” he shouted, as he pushed the bag hard into my chest.
The force of the push, in combination with the location of the car and the open window, was a sequence of events that propelled me backward through the air, and right out of the safety of the car door.
Everything happened in slow motion from that point. The car, as well as Tyler’s face, was clear to me as I fell backward through the air. I felt an incredible sense of confusion and pain, wondering if he had betrayed me, and why.
That question, ‘Why?’ was the strongest thing in my mind as I fell from the top of an ocean cliff into the Tyrrhenian Sea. My moment of reflection and confusion passed, as the car recovered its speed, and screeched away along the outer edge of the cliff. I fell at such a fast rate that I didn’t even see the next car coming behind Tyler. I heard the next car, though. I heard them screech past, hot in pursuit of their prey. Then a wall of water hit me in the back, forcing all of the oxygen from my body.
Falling off of a cliff into the ocean is not an easy thing to do. I could have died easily. In fact, when my back hit the water, and I lost all of my breath, I thought I was going to die. My body sank into the ocean, and when I was down near the bottom, my eyes opened, and a spark of life came to me. The spark was the smallest, most subtle suggestion at first.
“Air?” it asked; almost politely like it was going to give me a moment to collect my bearings and realize that I wasn’t exactly finished. “Air please.”
I moved one limb at first, and the another, and then I realized that though I felt a sharp, stinging pain throughout my entire back — I could still move. My next state of awareness centered on the fact that my lungs ached, and were completely vacant. Looking up from below the surface of the water, the whole world seemed to be one expansive aquatic illusion.
“Air,” it said, more firmly.
The question was gone from the tone of the voice. My survival instinct was becoming more urgent. I felt the panic rise inside of me and began to swim upward from the bottom of the Tyrrhenian Coast. With an explosion of light and a long drink of beautiful, incredible oxygen, I realized that I was alone.
“Bag,” the voice said, and I looked instinctively to my left to see the bag was partially floating on the surface of the water, about four meters to the left.
I swam over to recover the bag and then made my way to a shallow cavern hidden beneath the cliffs above.
In spite of the fall, I still retained all of my ability to move. The rocks were not far away, and there was a bit of difficulty in dealing with the waves as they splashed into the small cavern. Looking up at the face of the cliff, I was terrified and surprised that I had been able to survive the fall. I count myself to be relatively brave, in terms of dealing with situations that others most typically prefer to avoid, but this cliff face was a bit too much to manage.
Had I been on the top of the cliff, I’m not sure I would have been able to jump, even if my life had been threatened. Quite literally, I had to be thrown off a cliff by a man who for some reason believed that whatever fate waited for me at the bottom was preferable to whatever fate he was looking forward to at the end of the car chase.
He must have been desperate, I thought.
I would have blamed him entirely, and pinned him as a sociopath, but sociopaths don’t offer you a bag full of everything needed to start a new life when they throw you off of a cliff — they just get the deed over with and move on to the next empathetically void course of behavior that they are compelled toward.
The rocks were hard on my ass, and I had a few scrapes from where the tide pushed me toward the rocks, and then pulled me back down into the water. The edges of the lower cliffs were mossy and slick, so it was a bit difficult for me to find a place to relax, but the alcove was deep enough to offer a small place to sit, and just high enough to where the tide didn’t splash inside.
Sitting on hard ground after being in the ocean was a pleasing sensation for me. Just the knowledge that the word was over, and that I was sad, if only for a moment — that was good enough.
I thought about my circumstance some more and began to feel an increasing sense of relief. In fact, I had been so bogged down by problems before, that I had not even noticed the increasing weight of the anxiety I had been carrying around. The way that things had been going, just getting laid, and finding solutions to immediate, urgent problems had been exciting pieces of joy. Now that I was here I took an inventory of whatever was going on outside of my current situation.
The two motorcyclists were gone, and Tyler had led the final car away from the edge of the cliff. Even if they found Tyler at the end, and he wasn’t able to get away, they wouldn’t have any idea where I had been abandoned. By the time they figured out to look, I’d be long gone. Their trail would have gone cold.
I didn’t need to visit Antonio any longer.
I opened the bag and found that everything had been quick, though effectively wrapped in plastic, and was mostly airtight. The passports were there, both mine and Tyler’s. Not taking him into consideration, I had all of the paperwork necessary to go basically wherever I wanted. I knew from working with Antonio before that his passports were basically as good as gold
. He was the best in the industry. What made things even better was that I didn’t have to worry about whether or not my escape would be predicated on meeting up with anyone else that I knew from my time with Maurice.
Of course, there were the drugs.
I know. I haven’t explicitly mentioned them before now — but that’s what’s been in the bag if you haven’t pieced that together already. Without going into the details I can tell you that I’m not proud to have been involved, but I’m not too proud to find a quick distributor and get the fuck out of Italy. That was where things got a bit hairy.
My previous calculations would have been wrong then. I would have to go with someone I knew from Maurice’s syndicate.
Fuck, I can’t fucking escape — every little thing pulls me back.
I considered whether or not to just ditch the drugs altogether.
Yea, I could just beg, or be a stowaway. That might be a bit easier to do than risk another run-in with Maurice.
I paused my reflections for a moment, and allowed myself to feel a sense of relief — to really just sit in it, and breathe. Sure I was soaking wet, but I had everything I needed to go somewhere new. Somewhere far, far away.
India perhaps. I might be able to go to India and start a small business. At least the exchange rate would be favorable. I could probably leave out of Barcelona.
And so my thoughts went, weaving together theoretical scenarios about my many possible futures. All in all, I had been gifted a fresh start. I was sick to death of the area anyway.
“That's it for me,” I told myself, leaning back against the rocks, and listening to the rhythmic crash of the waves. “No way I’m going back to that life.”
I made solemn promises to myself so that I would be able to move forward and know that I would never stoop down to the level of working with someone like Maurice ever again. A lot of times, people who got caught up in bad business ended up staying there — not because they loved it, but because they had grown used to it, and didn’t have another way out.