I don’t know how long we traveled, but a long time. An hour? More. I was wearing my Rolex, but under the circumstances I couldn’t exactly consult it. If they were taking me home to Tapitepe, that would be a trip of 200 miles. In this pickup it could take four hours. It seemed to me horribly likely they’d prefer to get rid of me sooner, but on the other hand, they did have to go home to Tapitepe anyway, and they might know the countryside better around there, have more secure places to stash me where I’d definitely never ever be found.
So, after one long time, they stopped and only one or two got out, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on until I smelled gasoline. Then, being as egocentric as anybody else, my first thought was, They’re going to burn the body! Before it’s dead!
But then I realized, No, they were just filling the pickup’s gas tank. Which they did, and we rode on.
This was boring work, gnawing through hairy cord, but I didn’t have anything else to occupy my time, so I kept at it. Every once in a while, somebody would poke me with a foot to see if I were conscious and ready to be slugged again, but I always lay doggo and spared myself further punishment.
Up until the stop for gas, I had no real feeling of accomplishment with the cord. I had it nice and wet, and it was less hairy, while my teeth were more hairy, and it seemed thinner and more wirelike, but I wasn’t noticing any loss of strength. Sometime after the stop for gas, however, I felt it start to give. A faint loosening around the wrists. The ability to move my thumbs just a tiny bit farther apart. Encouraged, damn near elated, I gnawed on.
This kind of cord is not one rope but a lot of thin twines braided. I suppose I must have gnawed my way through half of those twines before I felt that first slackening, but after that it all went much faster. Sprong! Sprong! I could feel them on my lips as they popped apart, losing their tension. And all at once, my hands were free.
Oops. I must have moved, because here came that probing foot again. I lay still, but it wasn’t enough. I’m going to get hit, I thought. The side of my head is against this metal truck bed, and coming down from above is this—
Stop. Bounce. Dip. Jerk. Darkness. Conversation. Men farting.
Memory and horror returned together, hand in hand. The truck had stopped somewhere, and they were getting out. Are we here? My hands were free, but my ankles weren’t, and I was still inside the bag, and they were still six to my one, and they were armed at least with clubs and machetes while I was...
Feeling doomed, is what I was.
The male voices and fartings receded. A screen door somewhere to my right opened and slammed.
What was going on? Was I alone? Very hesitantly, because I didn’t want to get whomped again, I moved my left hand until I could see the Rolex, and the little numbers gleamed in the dark: 10:09. This dear little machine would tell me the time in other places, too, if I wanted to know; Madrid, say, or Adelaide. It could not, however, tell me how to get to one of those other places now, right now.
Four and a half hours on the road. We must be in Tapitepe, at one of their houses. They’d come for the shovels and things they’d be needing soon, unless I figured something out this second.
How strong was this damn bag? I poked it, and I felt new frays, new scratches in it. That would mostly be from when the beer truck door was opened, doing as much damage to the bag as to its contents. I poked at a weakened spot down below my chin, scratched at it with nails I was glad I hadn’t gotten around to trimming recently, and after a few little scritch-scritches, my finger went through.
A hole. I widened it, first slowly and then rapidly. I widened it until my head and shoulders could fit through, so there was nothing above me any more except the tarp. I wriggled and wriggled and got the bag off the rest of me, and then spent five frustrating minutes working the knots of the cord holding my ankles before I finally managed to loosen the damn thing and free myself.
And now what? Cautiously I moved under the tarp to the right, the direction from which I’d heard that screen door slam. I found the edge of the tarp, peeked out from underneath it, and saw a million stars in an indifferent sky. It can look cold even in the tropics. A mosquito buzzed me, and I blew on it, and it tumbled away somewhere.
Beside me was the side wall of the pickup. I snaked over to it, and lifted my head, and looked out at a many-windowed shack lit by some candles and some kerosene lamps. To left and right, some distance away, were similar shacks. I saw no electric light anywhere at all.
Tapitepe. It’s a very poor town, Tapitepe, and I suspected this was one of its poorest neighborhoods. These people wouldn’t mind at all trading some gringo’s life for their share of millions and millions of dollars.
Movement in the house. They were all in there, talking together, perhaps arguing about where to bury me. I saw a couple of them drinking beer. I saw a couple of them eating what looked like burritos. On the other hand, I also saw one of them carry a shovel over and put it down next to the screen door.
They’d driven four and a half hours, and they were tired and hungry. They’d have dinner, and deal with the inconvenient but trussed-up Barry Lee later.
I lowered myself to the truck bed. On top of the tarp now, I squirmed myself forward. I had two options. If they’d left the keys in the truck, and in these rural places people mostly leave the keys in the truck unless they’re staying in for the night, then I would try to escape by stealing the truck. If they had not left the keys in the truck, even though that would be uncommon and unfair, I would try to escape by climbing over the side of the truck away from the house and scampering into the darkness.
Most of the back window of the truck was gone. I looked through the space, but it was too dark in there. I couldn’t see if the key was present or not.
All right. All right. We don’t have time to stall around here, they won’t keep eating forever. I made it to the left side and went sliding over like a snake, riding down, clinging to the door handle and whatever other parts I could find to keep me from falling straight to the ground yet again.
Out. Knees on the ground, left hand on the driver’s door. When I opened this door, I knew, the interior light would go on, alerting the six in the house. So I wouldn’t have much time, whichever option I got. I took a deep breath, held it, and opened the door.
No interior light. Of course not. This was a no-frills truck. On the other hand, I still couldn’t see if the goddamn key was in the goddamn ignition. I leaned into the truck, feeling around the steering column, the dashboard... the key. There it was, in the ignition. Dangling from it by a little chain was a key-ring decoration shaped like a sombrero. How nice.
Quickly I slid up behind the wheel. I didn’t even bother to shut the door; acceleration would do that. I put in the clutch and ground the accelerator.
Pandemonium in the house. They came barreling out of there. The engine coughed into life, sounding as though it would prefer death. But I would not; I shoved the gearshift into first, ground gears like mad, and the truck jolted forward just as the first of them got to the right side door. He clung to the door, he got his arm inside, he was trying to climb in the open window.
Where were the goddamn lights? I was driving in the dark, no idea what was out in front of me, hand pawing all over the dashboard, turning on the windshield wipers — then huzzah! Light!
I was on a dirt road, flanked by scrubland featuring broad-trunked, wide-leaved trees, with shacks spaced here and there among them. Such a tree was just up ahead to the right. I steered for it, pointing at it, yelling, “You’re gonna die!”