The Fugitive

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  Their route from Urubuapá lay along the base of the mountains, skirting the ocean, crossing the Santos road at the bridge of Iandú, and thence up the winding dirt trail through Pirimondanha until the rivers below lost their twisted form in the haze of distance; until finally the curving road swung into the rounded body of the hills and the ocean beneath disappeared completely from view. Their way from here, with all familiarity and sense of direction gone, lay in the tortuous curves of climbing turns, past dusty, abandoned orchards and sudden falling streams, until they reached the summit and swept into the planalto to intersect the Dutra Highway at Merópolis.

  Before them lay the paved road to Rio de Janeiro. Their driver, a young, swarthy Paulista, whose pride in his driving almost equaled his pride in the decrepit and owed-for truck, swung from the pitted sand road that had led them safely up the mountain, pulling into a combination gas station and bar that fronted the busy Dutra Highway. The worst part of the trip was over; ahead lay the twin-laned and asphalted highway leading to Rio, smooth and assured driving, for even if his lights failed, as they often did, he could always follow the taillights of one of the many night trucks or buses descending from São Paulo.

  “We stop!” he called back from the cab, and swung stiffly down to the crushed stone of the curved drive. “Ten minutes! The privadas are behind in the back. There is no paper, so I warn you. And those who stay, do not shove your garbage out here! The owner is a friend of mine. Ten minutes!”

  He moved toward the lights and the blaring radio of the bar but found his way blocked by the sudden appearance of the large man in wrinkled white, who had swung down quickly to intercept him.

  “Motorista?”

  The driver stopped, still stretching his cramped muscles as he nodded. “Yes?”

  The man in white eyed him speculatively, as if judging him for some obscure reason of his own. The driver waited patiently. The man in white coughed diffidently. “You stay in Rio long? After this trip, I mean?”

  The driver suddenly recognized him. This one had gotten on in Urubuapá at the docks shortly after he had left the garage. One of the very first. He had come running from the shadows like some huge bird, flapping his arms, and had almost missed the trip. And he had paid cruzeiros, cash; and he had not argued over the price, although he did not appear to be the type to allow himself to be taken advantage of. Certainly, thought the driver warmly, the type of customer to attempt to develop.

  “Why? You would like to return with me?”

  “If I might.” The man in white suddenly seemed to realize his voice was louder than necessary and dropped it. “Not all the way. Only a part of the way, but on your route. I have but a few hours to spend in Rio.…”

  The driver lifted his shoulders regretfully. “I’m afraid I’ll be there longer. I need to sleep, you know.” He smiled suddenly, a young smile. “And I had planned on a visit to a girl …”

  The man in white shrugged this aside as being of minor importance. “I can drive,” he said shortly. “I have my carteira and it is in order. You can see your girl tonight and tomorrow I can drive and you can sleep.”

  “But you will be as tired as I …”

  “I only get tired when I have the time,” the man in white said grimly. “In my business you cannot get tired when you want. And at the moment I do not have the time. Well?” The harsh voice was impatient. He suddenly realized this was the wrong tone to employ and added, “It is quite important, I assure you. And if there are no other passengers …” He paused significantly. “This, also, can be handled, you understand.”

  The driver considered this, frowning. One eye was on the lighted bar and the other on his spread-out charges, taking the air, or aiding their children who relieved themselves along the highway into the flashing lights of the cars and trucks that swept by. Another drive his truck? And no passengers?

  “Well?” Despite his control, the impatience had returned to the thick voice. But the driver was not to be rushed.

  “You wish me to bring you back alone?”

  “Not necessarily alone. If anyone else is ready to leave when you—we—are, they can come. And anyway, I do not wish to come back all the way. You can drop me where you cross the Santos road, as near the docks as possible.” He paused, thinking. “If we’re alone, you can take me all the way to the docks. That might even be better.”

  “But I may not go back the same way,” he driver objected. “The roads may be closed.…”

  “The roads will not be closed,” the man in white said, almost fiercely. “The roads will be open. And I’ll pay well. Is it a deal?”

  “How much?”

  The man in white relaxed, shrugging. “How much do you want? We shall not argue.”

  It was a difficult decision, one that had never arisen before. “Twenty—thirty—twenty conto?”

  “Thirty.” It was said with decision. “I said we would not argue. Here, I’ll pay you now.” He withdrew a thick packet of bills from his pocket and began counting. The driver blanched and pulled him hastily back into the shadows of the truck.

  “Senhor! Por favor! Not in the faces of everyone in the world!” He looked about nervously, but no one was paying them the slightest attention. He swallowed. “It is a deal. What time?”

  “About eight.”

  “I will be ready. And I will give you a receipt for the money.”

  The man in white smiled; it was not a pleasant smile. “I do not require a receipt. If you take my money you will wait for me. Or you will not sleep well nights, wondering if—”

  “No, senhor. I insist. You must have a receipt.” The driver was young, honest, and also cautious. He was far from sure that this unusual passenger was not of the police. He reached for the other’s arm. “If you will, in the bar …”

  The man in white hesitated a moment, and then his smile became almost friendly. “All right, then, a receipt. One return passage on the—how do you call your line?”

  The driver was embarrassed. “As yet it doesn’t have a name, senhor. But everyone in the Praça Mauá knows me—Evaristo Machado. We shall make it in my name. Do not worry; it is legal.”

  “I am sure it is.” The man in white hesitated once more, glancing at the bright lights flooding the noisy bar. “You can give me the receipt when we get to Rio. I do not believe I am hungry.”

  “As you wish, senhor.” The driver essayed a minor salute and headed for the bar. A conhaque and a beer made him feel better; he called his friend the bartender and requested paper and pencil. And then he proudly and laboriously traced out a receipt for thirty thousand cruzeiros for one return passage via the Evaristo Machado Omnibus Line. Even as he carefully formed the magnificent figures, his heart swelled. How right he had been to buy the truck! His family had argued endlessly about the deal; his friends, even as they helped him change the clutch and reline the brakes, had practically laughed at him. Even his girl friend—he shook his head. Well, they would see. They would see who had the last laugh, which was always the most delectable. Someday the Evaristo Machado Omnibus Line would compete with the Passaro Marron, with the Viação Cometa, even, running from—

  The radio music faded; a station announcement was made. He glanced quickly at the wall clock. Time to stop dreaming and to get moving if he wanted any sleep at all tonight. For obviously he couldn’t let a paying passenger drive while he slept on the morrow. He signed the receipt with a flourish and tucked it into his shirt pocket together with his driver’s documents. One last conhaque and he slipped from his stool, ready for the road.

  The man in white had already retreated to the deep shadows of his bench in the center of the truck when the driver returned. The young man clambered up into his cab and wheeled around to the pumps to fill up with gas. Only one quart of oil was required, and very little water. The tires were more or less as they had been, in itself a good omen. With the business of feeding the monster beneath him accomplished, he swung to the road’s edge and braked. Then, with the sort of chuckling cr
y one uses to start ducks along their route, he finally managed to get all of his passengers back in place.

  Whistling to himself, he pulled out onto the broad highway, entering the stream of traffic, heading east. Thirty conto! Six months’ payment on his truck! On his truck? On his omnibus! He pushed the faltering machine into second gear and then into high, rolling faster. Thirty conto, he thought, and grinned to himself in the moonlit darkness.

  They passed the lip of the plateau, the passengers now asleep or attempting sleep in the face of sudden sweeping headlights and the hard jolting of the benches beneath them. The serra dipped; they came down slowly, taking the sharp curves with care, hugging the rock wall to allow faster vehicles to pass or to let laboring trucks creep by on their way uphill, their acrid exhausts choking in the still, humid air. The man in white laced his fingers tightly across his knees, pressing his arms to his side, feeling once again the pressure of the package beneath his arm.

  He smiled to himself in the darkness, his feeling of safety growing with each mile. What luck! The one chance everyone dreams of! If Jorge hadn’t tried to be extra careful, and if Jorge hadn’t chosen that particular island, he wouldn’t have needed me, and I’d never have gotten that chance. Dishonest? Who’s honest? Jorge? Luis? The Man?

  His smile faded suddenly at thought of The Man. How much time had Jorge asked for? Two weeks? Just about up, and when the time came for explanations I’d better be far away from here, well out of Santos, heading south. Jorge is bad enough, he thought, but The Man …

  A small shack slid by, a flickering kerosene lantern a reminder of life in the empty night; as quickly as it had been seen it disappeared into the broken shadows behind. They dropped over a steeper lip of the descent, and then before them was the sharp, straight drop into the valley. A bright moon peered from behind the bank of ruffled clouds, throwing distorted shadows of the roadside banana plants in odd patterns across the patched asphalt of the road. The heat of the plain rose to meet them; a sudden blanket of fog swirled up to obscure the moon; the driver slowed down at once, cautiously. And then they were through the wavering band of mist, down in the valley itself, onto the four-lane highway leading to the distant city.

  They rolled down the silent valley, following the tunnel of their yellowed headlights past Nova Iguaçú, past Merití, past sleeping houses and trees hiding in the last fading wisps of early-morning fog. The city rose suddenly and mysteriously about them. They swung down the Avenida Brasil past the dim walls of signboards and the shuttered factories, past the weird reflection of the refinery thrown back from the low clouds, past the sodium street lights, harsh and ghastly after the clarity of the moonlight. It was two in the morning when they turned into the final stretch, bouncing unevenly over the cobblestones that fronted the locked and darkened dock warehouses and led finally into the lights of the Praça Mauá.

  The driver braked squeakily to a halt, turned off the ignition with relief, and dropped from the cab, stretching his taut muscles as he did so. It had been a good trip, an exceptional trip. No breakdowns, no rain, no sick children. And his lights had miraculously managed to remain lit the entire way. Not to mention the unexpected thirty conto in his pocket. A very good trip indeed.

  His passengers unloaded themselves and their tattered belongings slowly, as if reluctant to quit this last fragile tie with home and familiar surroundings. The man in white was the last to descend, but the driver was awaiting him.

  “Your receipt, senhor.”

  The man in white smiled, showing large square teeth. “Hold it. I’ll collect it when I come around tomorrow—or later this morning, I should say. About eight, more or less. Is that all right?”

  “Fine, senhor. About eight. But I must insist. Your receipt.” He held the paper out stubbornly.

  The man in white laughed, happy to be in Rio, the end of his business in sight. The most perilous part, by far, was over; a quick delivery and collection and he’d be on his way. A fraction of the value? So what! It was still more money than he’d ever seen, and anyway, they still had to pick it up. And by the time they knew what they faced, he’d be past all of them forever, the people he’d sold it to, as well as Jorge. And The Man, whoever he was. He pressed the package against his side once again for reassurance.

  “Well, all right,” he said lightly. “I’ll take the receipt if it will make you any happier.” He slipped the scrawled sheet into his watch pocket negligently, grinning at the weary driver. “And you’ll be here at eight …”

  “I’ll be here, senhor, all gassed up and ready to go.” He patted the steaming radiator fondly. “And she’ll get us back. Maybe one of these trips I’ll have something a bit better …”

  “It’s good enough for me as it is,” said the man in white, and he smiled. “Until tomorrow, then.” He turned up his thumb in farewell and crossed the street in the direction of the cab rank.

  “Até amanhã.” The driver rubbed his neck to relieve the tenseness there from over three hundred miles of difficult driving. He smiled. For thirty conto he could cut down on his sleep. For thirty conto he could even forgo his usual visit to the shapely girls in the houses behind the Avenida Vargas.

  He was undergoing his first lesson in the responsibilities of wealth.

  In a small cul-de-sac tucked off to one side of the Praça Mauá, between two squat ancient buildings that appeared to lean over it protectively, a black sedan was parked. The two men who sat in the front seat of the darkened car had picked this place for several reasons: it gave a clear view of the Praça and particularly of the main bus station, and it also allowed them to escape any undue attention from passing cars. Especially from police cars. The black sedan had been stolen some six hours before, and there was a chance that the license number had already been circulated.

  The man behind the wheel hulked there; even in the darkness his great size might have been suspected, for slumped as he was, his head came to the same height as that of the other, perched high on the seat. They had been there since midnight and the hours had dragged. The car they had stolen did not have a radio, but the larger man knew that his companion would not have allowed him to use it even had they been so blessed. For the tenth time since parking there he unconsciously reached for a cigarette, placed it in his mouth, and then felt it picked away before he could light it.

  “Luis!” The voice grated. “How many times …!”

  Luis grunted. “I forgot, that’s all. I forgot.” He shifted on his seat. “This is foolish, Jorge; he will never come by bus. And there will not be another bus for over an hour, anyway. So why can’t we go over and get a drink?”

  The smaller man didn’t bother to turn his head as he answered; his eyes were fixed upon the deserted platform of the bus station. “Because I say so, that’s why! He must come by bus. He has to. And he’ll plan to come at night. And to talk about schedules and when they arrive and when they don’t arrive is stupid. They come when they come.”

  “But he may have already have come,” Luis objected.

  “How? The night train doesn’t arrive until eight tomorrow, even if he went to São Paulo first, which I doubt. And to come up from the coast, he could only do it by bus. No, we wait here.”

  Luis stared out of the windshield stubbornly. “He might have hitchhiked.” He knew it was ridiculous to suppose that their quarry would ask for a ride on the deserted roads of the interior with the package he was carrying, but having taken a negative attitude, something forced him to maintain it.

  “Of course.” Jorge’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “He could have swum, also. Urubuapá and Rio de Janeiro are both on the same ocean.”

  Luis became sullen. “We don’t even know for sure he’ll head for Rio.”

  Jorge smiled grimly in the darkness. “He’ll head for Rio, don’t worry. Why do you think he came here last week? He hasn’t been in Rio for years! He was setting up a deal!” He cursed. “I drove him to the Santos airport myself!” He shook his head. “If I had known …!”
/>   “Maybe he came last week because maybe he has a girl here …”

  “Maybe he has a paper route and he came here to collect,” Jorge said in disgust, and Luis subsided. His fingers crept to the crumpled package of cigarettes in his pocket and he cleared his throat nervously.

  “If I just went over to the bar for a minute …”

  “You won’t go over to the bar and you won’t have a cigarette. You’ll just sit there and shut up! What do you think we’re playing for? Can’t you get it through your thick skull that the time is just about up? And we’d better have something for The Man, or else!”

  They settled back; the minutes crept past. The lonely hoot of a tugboat in the bay echoed hollowly; an occasional car fled homeward through the Praça, its lights flashing through the few trees and skimming their hiding place. The sharp sound of footsteps striking the pavement came; three sailors passed the entrance to their cul-de-sac without looking, their voices loud and clear in the stillness of the night. A radio in the open bar across the avenue suddenly spurted into life, blaring; a quick adjustment reduced the sound, but another hand brought the volume back up. Luis yawned.

  “How long do we wait?”

  “Until he comes. Or until it’s light. Or maybe longer; maybe forever. Don’t talk so much.”

  A truck edged from the dock road into the Praça, swung about parallel to the railing beside the water’s edge, and crept forward slowly; its weak headlights flickered uncertainly as they searched the curb for empty space. It pulled in behind a deserted copy of itself. The lights blinked off; the motor coughed into silence. For a moment there was no movement other than the descent of the weary driver; then people began to drop from the tail gate, reaching back for packages, helping others descend. Children were handed down; a few of the larger ones slid over the side of the truck body unaided.

  “Pau de Arara!” Luis said in disgust. “Why in hell do they come to Rio, anyway?”