by Rowley, M C
My body killed with pain but I let out a wild howl. I couldn´t help it. Aronson and Jason would know what I´d done. It didn´t matter.
It was like a Sergio Leone western. And I was the cowboy.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I clambered from the hissing wind to the safety of the empty train carriage and lay flat on the lumpy steel floor, spent. I rocked on my shoulder blades with the momentum of the train.
Even if Jason or Aronson had gotten onto the train too, I couldn't have done anything for ten minutes. I just lay there. I was destroyed, and my body was punishing me for the exertion.
My breathing pounded and sweat broke out all over my skin, pushing through cold pores and prickling my nerves. My leg muscles enacted their revenge upon me as they cooled and began swelling, and despite laying flat, I could move them no longer.
But the rock and tilt of the train was mollifying. Being carried made me feel like someone cared for this. Cared for Eleanor, and our son in some way.
I lay there and thought of them both and watched the gray sky drift past.
After ten minutes of rest, I dared to get up. The train rocked side to side and my muscles were doing a poor job of finding equilibrium, but steadying myself with my arms holding the safety railing I got up straight. I looked over the railing down the train.
Each carriage was connected by a meter long mechanism and it was simple enough to jump on to the next carriage. I stooped and listened for anything. Nothing. No shouting, nothing but the hum and chink and the smash of the train wheels on track.
I stayed within the same carriage but edged along the barrier rail toward the front of the train. We had picked up speed since my boarding and the wind behind me bore me flat against the handrail.
I found a small space on one of the carriage connectors that had a reserve with a seat and a little cover. I sat in it and put my head on the side. In front of me the landscape whipped by.
We were flying through the valley toward Lujano City. I thought back to the map I had looked at on Google. I guessed I would arrive in Lujano in less than an hour. There was no time to rest. It was already getting dark now, thanks to the heavy clouds above. And as much as they threatened, rain still did not come.
I had made two gambles. And two had come off. And I had two more to go.
Seeing Jason´s response to my escape helped. I comprehended the situation better now. I was important to their plan too. I wasn´t entirely sure why yet, but that was still a big piece of the puzzle I had failed to see until that morning.
Sleep began to claw away at my mind from the edge of my consciousness and I started to let my eyes close but the cold wind, and my remembering what I was to do woke me up. I was okay. I was better than okay if my hunch was right.
Only time would tell.
I sat still on the train for thirty minutes before Lujano City started sprouting up around the tracks. Small ghetto neighborhoods at first, but then larger, more developed communities.
I hunkered right down in the small recess I had found and pulled my knees up to my chest and got as comfortable as the setting allowed. The roll and sway of the train began to induce sleep, but I fought it. I could have killed for a cup of hot black coffee, strong and rich. My efforts had also burned up the tinned food Jason had handed out.
I looked up at the sky and the huge rolling bags of black pressure hadn´t split yet. Instead, the thick air underneath them, with us stewing in it, grew and swirled and throbbed. My head hurt and my muscles ached. I needed energy. I had found the nearest point on the map to my apartment but it would still be a trek. I had marked a reference for where I needed to jump off the train, Lujano´s bus station. As soon as I saw a sign of it, it was time to disembark.
We were in the suburbs of Lujano, so I stayed down. My clothes stank. My expensive shoes were destroyed, and I could feel a layer of muck on my skin. I promised myself a shower if I made it to the apartment. I promised myself food, and then coffee. I started to think it was implausible. Would they have the place guarded?
My third gamble.
If my hunch was right, they wouldn´t.
Empty lots floating past me started to transform into basic housing, one floor places, with concrete lawns and old cars parked in front. Lujano´s budget housing industry. They´d sell these places for less than 5,000 dollars and report them as social housing projects, only for the places to descend into social failure. It was classic Mexico. The rich make their money, reap the benefits and then abandon their own people for the second home in Cancun, or Miami.
After another ten minutes, the houses and neighborhoods became neater, and bigger. The freeways ran alongside us, threading their way through, up and over the city. We were close to my stop.
I decided to crouch, keeping my eye out for signs of the “ El Central de Camiones”. The bus station. I hadn´t been there, so had to rely on road signs I could see, or the actual place.
It wasn´t hard. The train passed around the East and then South of the city, not through it, being cargo trains, and the Central came into view soon enough. I stood up and walked to the edge of the carriage.
As I looked down, the ground moved too fast to contemplate jumping at first, but I had no choice. It was better to look ahead, it seemed slower.
If I could get on this thing, I could get off.
The train began to curve and we had passed the bus station now and were moving through shrubbery again.
I braced myself and jumped.
I landed on my side and rolled. It hurt. I felt my neck get scratched as it hit dirt. I came to rest face up. I checked my body while laying flat. Grazes, but nothing broken, nothing dislocated. I breathed and watched the train pass. It felt surreal to be out. Out and about as Mexico´s most wanted man.
I lay there. The sky above so close. Rumbling and ominous.
A shadow came across my line of vision, followed by a tall dark figure. I startled and sat up onto my arms, ready for a fight.
I looked up at the man. A dirty face stared back.
And then the smell hit me. The figure stooped, and I sat up and looked at his face. It was framed by matted, short yet dreadlocked hair. His eyes were just black, almost no whites, and his nose was bulbous, like it had been broken many times in a former life, and just settled that way. His lips were blistered and cut. His skin was caked in dirt too. The smell was powerful, which, considering it overwhelmed my own stench, said a lot.
The vagabond had a collection of plastic bags tied together by a thin line of string, which was looped in and out of his arms, like a bag. He had a thick, filthy green jacket on and his trousers looked like they used to be water proof.
I figured I could run for it. He was probably not that fast. But as I began to consider my move, he spoke, in Spanish.
“Mejor que vengas conmigo, cabrón,” he said.
You better come with me
“Te ayudo,” he said.
I´ll help you.
I nodded and got to my feet. The vagabond turned and walked away from me. “Come on,” he shouted in Spanish. He spoke with a coastal dialect.
I followed him from where I´d rolled off the train in the wasteland. The terrain was prickly pear bushes and lava-like rock hard mud under foot. The ground was brown, and the prickly pear plants bright green, although the dark clouds passed every few minutes and shaded them to a sickly grey. The vagabond walked with a deft touch, and I was getting good at it too.
On the outskirts of the bus station perimeter, we sauntered through the under-bush for ten minutes or so before we arrived to a small shack set up in amongst the shrubs and cactus trees. The vagabond´s hut was constructed from ancient pallets, and tarpaulin. There were three walls and each consisted of two pallets standing on end, and tied together with wraps of thin wire and rope. The vagabond had expanded the tarp over the entire camp to form a cabin. Inside there was nothing but the dirt floor. Shelter from the storm.
He gestured for me to sit down with him inside it. “Gonna ra
in,” he said, in Spanish.
I nodded.
He took one of the plastic bags from his collection and produced a tin of refried beans. Mexican ones. He took out a knife and jammed it into the side of the tin and work it around until the lid came clean off. He then plunged the same knife into the mix and put it into his mouth, nodded, then offered the tin, knife sticking out if it, to me.
I was starving, and the gesture meant a lot. I took it and ate. It was not too bad. I gave it back and we shared it like that. Like we were brothers.
“You ain´t been on the street long, huh?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Don´t talk much?”
“No.”
He nodded. He didn´t seem bothered. From another bag, he took out a small golden bottle of liquid. It was the cheap tequila you could buy for less than 50 cents. It was made from the remnants of the agave plant, after the real tequila had been harvested, or something like that. He took a swig and passed me the bottle. I needed a drink but I needed my head clear too. I took the bottle but feigned a swig, keeping my lips closed enough to stop too much passing them.
I handed it back. He drank deeply, soothing his pains. I felt pity. He had helped me. I guessed he hadn´t read the news either, he didn´t seem to recognize me at all.
“Where you headed?”
I looked across the way from our position on the hill, I could see the towers in which my apartment was, and pointed.
He seemed to understand. No questions.
I looked back toward my apartment building. I mapped the route of getting in. The complex itself was easy, a collection of upmarket coffee shops and estate agents set into slick grey granite paving stones. The elevators to the actual apartments had security but it was lax, under the usual circumstances. If I could pass the security guard, then my fingerprint would provide access to the rest.
Only Salvatierra had actually visited me there, but all the same, I couldn´t risk staying too long. And besides, Esteban´s conference was tomorrow.
“What´s your name?”
The vagabond looked at me a little astounded. I guessed no one had asked that for a long, long time.
“Leopoldo, or Polo.”
“Thank you Polo,” I said. “I´m going to leave but I really appreciate you sharing your food with me.”
He nodded and tilted the cheap tequila at me.
It was getting dark now and it was time to take my third gamble.
“Wait,” said Polo. “You need a better disguise.”
I turned back to him, and he unpacked from one of his bags a large waterproof jacket. It was filthy and stank to high heavens.
“You´re a wanted man,” he said. “Put this on,” handing me his spare coat. “No one pays attention to bums here. And being a bum ain´t easy to fake.”
If Polo with, I guessed, no access to internet had known who I was, what were my chances?
I took the jacket from him.
“And this,” he said, and pulled out a plastic bag covered hat.
I put it on with the jacket and felt better. We must have looked like twins.
“Good luck,” he said. “Whoever you really are.”
“How did you know me”?
“Your picture´s everywhere. Everybody knows you right now.”
I nodded at him. “Thank you, again,” I said.
And I turned toward the towers and started walking.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Polo´s ramshackle abode lay tucked into a shallow hill. At the bottom of the hill lay the bus central, and beyond that, the towers of my apartments. I reckoned it was an hour´s trek. The pathway along the bottom of the hill running toward the central was beaten dirt, hard and cracked. The clouds still had not opened, and I was thankful. The road would have been a mud bath if it had.
I reached a larger, tarmac road on the perimeter of the bus station, and through the thick metal poles separating the scrubland from the passengers and taxis I could see inside the complex. A large U shaped entry road, where cars passed periodically, dropping off travelers. Outside the main door, I saw military uniforms. I stopped and looked closer. They were shaking down passengers. Visible action. A staple tactic of the government. In the fruitless hunt for a kidnapped governor, the least they would do is shake down random tourists and commuters. But it gave the impression that they were doing something. I smiled, thinking that their real target was watching them only 500 meters away.
I moved on.
I reached the back end of the central and left the tarmac, back into shrubs. The greenery ran almost to the apartment towers, and thus, I was covered. I moved faster, eager to make it to the hard part.
The altitude gave me a vista of my apartment towers the whole time. As I approached them, the real world returned to me. Lights were on in some of the apartments, and against the dark and low sky, the towers shined bright, a beacon. I just had to pray it was a beacon of hope, not of warning.
I made it to the apartment complex´s border. I checked my clothes and adjusted the plastic hat and walked in. The feel of perfect flat slabs of concrete was strange. I walked to the side of the walkway, and people started to go past. My heart sped up as the third gamble came, but Polo had been right. No one even glanced at me. I was a nothing. A vagabond, a piece of trash. One of the city´s forgotten sons, or daughters. Discarded from civilization, from their housing developments, bank loans, and car credits. It felt good to be invisible.
I walked with a slight limp. It just felt right. And it slowed me down so I could plan my access.
There were three towers with about a hundred apartments in each. Mine was the south tower. At the foot of these towers, a plaza had been built, which is where I was. Each tower had two entrances. One for cars, under ground. The other on foot.
CCTV everywhere.
The entrance on foot had a security guard. I had seen that on my last visit. They were usually rent-a-cops in Mexico.
Sure enough, as I reached the main plaza where the three tower entrances faced each other, there was my man, and the door behind him. But there were two other rent-a-cops at the other two doors.
People milled around, dipping in and out of the blocks, all watched over by the three guards. The problem was they stood at the door, blocking the entrance. There was no way through.
I loped into the plaza, in plain view of all of them, and prayed my outfit convinced them. They didn´t look at me aside from a glance. I walked to the edge of a wall, where all three entrances were visible. Mine to the right.
I couldn´t run the guy. His friends would help. They also carried pistols, and would not think twice about killing an angry bum.
I looked at the doors. Closed and locked.
I sat down, my back against the cold concrete wall. Jason and his team would figure it soon and time was running out. I had two places to go in Lujano; Polysol, or my apartment. So they would be here eventually, or were here already.
I checked Polo´s jacket´s pockets and found an old box of matches and a straw.
I cursed myself. I hadn´t thought this through. I nearly came without the disguise. I was as lost as those Mexican soldiers at the bus station, shaking people down. Just creating a distraction so people didn´t see the truth.
Just a distraction.
I checked Polo´s hat. The thing was lined with paper. I took it out and scrunched it up into a cone shape. Then, I re- thought it and unrolled it and tore the paper into three equal parts. Then I rolled each into a tight cone.
I scanned the plaza for trash cans. There were five. So I got up and limped to each one and as I passed by each of them, pretending to look for food or something to drink, I lit each cone at the thin end and placed it deep into the discarded coffee cups, food wrappings and tissues.
I shuffled away. I worked out it would take at least five minutes for the fire to really take.
I got to the second trash can and risked a glance. No one was watching. No one cared. I planted the fire.
&nbs
p; I reached the third and repeated the process. I then crossed the plaza and looked back to the first bin. I couldn´t see anything. Maybe the first hadn´t set off, but I had time.
I made it to the left of the door to my apartment and slumped against the wall as close as I thought possible to the door and security guard. And then I waited.
The first to ignite was the second bin. All of a sudden, it exploded. Yellow flames licked out of the deposit hole and fingered the metal lid. Black smoke plumed from it. I sideways glanced at my security guard and he stood, looking at the bin. Other people too were looking, debating whether to do anything.
My guy didn´t budge.
Then, the first bin and third went off simultaneously. This freaked everyone out. Someone shouted, and my guy´s colleague from across the way even pulled his gun and ran into the fray, shouting everyone to calm down. I went into a crouch and readied myself.
My guy didn´t budge. I cursed the indecisive fool. Come on, I urged him. But he didn´t move, he just stared at the three infernos.
But then, the second bin kind of spat. It did not explode as such, but there must´ve been an aerosol or something in there, and it popped. My guy jumped with the crack, and it did it. He ran to help his buddies.
I got up and walked briskly to the door, placed my finger on the resident scanner and waited. Red light.
I tried again.
Red light again.
I looked at my finger. There were four days of living and moving around in the rough there. I just scraped it off with my teeth, forgetting any remnants of hygienic self-awareness I had once had, and tried again.
The light switched to green and the door clicked. I pushed it and entered, and made for the stairwell fast. And there it was, a nearly unused metallic staircase, spiraling up seventy floors above, each floor with a door and cheap knock off print of some impressionist painting.