Valencia marvels at the expanse of clear blue sky, resolutely ignoring Emilio’s overconfident mountain driving on snaking roads that hug cliff edges. Karl grits his teeth at the nerve-wracking experience, moaning at each tremor and freaking out at every pothole. The land eventually levels out and merges with the freeway.
“This is the most beautiful country in the world. It just keeps changing. I could spend the rest of my life here.” Valencia is completely wrapped up in the awe-inspiring scenery.
“That’s fine, we’ll drop you off at the next junction.” Karl quips, and receives a swift slap to the side of his head for his trouble, which hurts the ear Pancho had clouted so viciously.
Emilio accelerates along the highway. Valencia puts her head out of the window and then pulls herself up, so her backside is on the window ledge, with half her body outside the car. She sits up straight with her left hand on the roof for balance. Her hair is blowing frantically in the wind and she feels a rush of pure adrenaline shoot from the tips of her toes through her spine and up to her brain. She feels more alive than ever. A truck heads towards them on the opposite side of the road. Valencia’s heel catches the inner door latch and her body weight causes the door to suddenly swing open. She shrieks with fear, gripping on to the door as she swings uncontrollably. Karl looks back and panics, fearing for Valencia’s life as if it were his own. He clambers into the back and stretches out to try and pull the door closed, but he struggles to get a grip.
The truck driver was having a pretty good day, having picked up an attractive buxom blonde hitchhiker. He’d been on his best behaviour, only looking at her bulging cleavage when replying to a question, which was fine, as the girl was friendly, self confident and inquisitive, and asked endless questions. The conversation has an underlying tinge of repressed excitement, and they are so wrapped up in each others words that they are both completely unaware of their surroundings, and haven’t noticed Valencia, who is about to be squashed against the chrome grill of the truck like a hamburger patty. Emilio gently brakes to bring the hurtling black estate down to a controllable speed. He is afraid to hit them too hard, for fear that the door will swing wildly and Valencia will be thrown off, and he is unable to swerve off the highway, as there are barriers along the roadside. Looking in his rear view mirror he sees that there is no traffic behind him. With no other option, Emilio slams on the breaks. The car skids for several yards before coming to a bone-jarring halt. Valencia jumps down from the window onto the ground. She freezes for a moment, with the droning truck bearing down on her like a hulking metallic demon. Karl jumps out of the car screaming, bear hugs her and pulls her on to the back seat. He then reaches out and pulls the opened door back in, narrowly missing the truck as it speeds by.
“You should never have jumped out of the car, Karl! You could have killed yourself.” Valencia clenches her fists.
“Are you fucking kidding me, I just saved your life! And this is the thanks I get!”
Karl is a little wary of Valencia, having seen her vengeful side. He understands her motive but is surprised by how seemingly easily she executed the two men without blinking a single long-lashed eyelid. It’s almost as if she had done it before. Emilio is just grateful that he and Karl stumbled across the village, as they probably wouldn't have survived for long without her or Elmanda. Emilio understands her motive. He probably would have done the same in her position. Emilio has met a lot of women but he’s never met one as tough, caring or strong minded as her before. He starts to develop a deep respect and fascination with her.
“I had it all under control.” Valencia brushes the dust from her forearm.
“Yeah, just chill, Karl. Valencia was living in the moment.” Emilio backs her up.
“What’s the point of living in the moment if you run the risk of not living at all? That just doesn’t make any sense to me.” Karl sulks.
Karl still has a tight grip on Valencia, so that she is forced to lie across him in a graceless mess. She shakes herself free, wanting her own space. Karl was enjoying the rare closeness.
As the sun sets they approach a small town. Running beside the highway is a small industrial estate; the buildings have long since been deserted, and are boarded up and derelict.
“We should see if there’s a vehicle around here that we could borrow some drug free tyres from.” Valencia suggests.
“I think that’s a bad idea, let’s get closer to the border, and then look at the situation again.” Emilio had been hoping that the others would have forgotten about the drugs, still set on getting the coke over the border, having convinced himself that it will be a piece of cake with their fake documents.
“We have to get rid of these wheels, Emilio!” Karl leans forward in his seat.
“Ok, relax, we’ll look for some spare tyres.” Emilio figures he might get away with only changing two of the tyres, to trick Karl and Valencia, and still keep some of the coke.
He turns onto the abandoned industrial estate. Set back from the rest of the units is a massive, crumbling, black-bricked book warehouse.
“This is a crazy place, man! Look at it! We should hide the car in here!” Emilio drives up to the front of the warehouse, which has massive double doors, the padlocks long ago ripped away from the rotting wood. A few empty cardboard boxes and promotional posters are scattered across the cavernous space, but the warehouse is pretty much empty. Emilio decides to drive in, to hide the drug filled car. Just in case. Karl jumps out and opens the wooden doors. Emilio slowly creeps the car into the dingy gloom and pulls into the far corner, turning the car as he manoeuvres, so that the vehicle faces out toward the doors they came in through.
“Right, I’ll go and find something with a similar wheel size.” Emilio declares.
“You’re gonna start stealing from innocent people now? Great! Why not! We’ve commited so many crimes recently I’m sure another won’t hurt.” Karl replies with cutting cynicism.
“Relax, Karl, we’re just going to switch the tyres with another car. We’re not stealing anything.” Emilio sighs.
“So, you’re gonna put a load of drug filled tyres on an innocent person’s car, so the next time they try and cross the border they’ll go to jail for the rest of their lives. Perfect.” Karl laughs patronisingly.
“Ok, ok, you’re right, it’s probably better to just borrow the tyres and then leave some kind of I.O.U note on the side of the vehicle.” Emilio matches Karl’s sarcastic tone. “Anyway, how come you’ve become so righteous all of a sudden. It’s not that long ago that you went around knocking on all the doors in our neighbourhood asking people to sponsor you, so you could raise money for homeless children. You said you were going to do a video-game marathon.”
“I know where you’re going with this, Emilio. I did do the marathon, and some of that money did go to a homeless person.” Karl defensively waves his hands at Emilio in an attempt to get him to shut up before Valencia hears all the details of the incident.
“Karl, you always play video games for days on end and most of that money, which you were given in good faith, didn’t go to any foundation for homeless children. You brought a new pair of sneakers with it.”
“I did give some of it to the homeless.”
“You gave five dollars of to the alcoholic who lives under the bridge, and he’s not even a child.”
“Ok, I’m sorry, I feel bad about that. Look, as soon as we get back home I’ll get a job, and I’ll go and give the money to charity.
Valencia tries her hardest to keep her laughter from spilling out.
“Alright, now one of use should sit here with the car and the other two can go on a borrowing mission.” Emilio switches the subject back to the wheels, orchestrating orders with his hand.
“Well, I’m not going to be any part of grand theft auto, so I’ll sit here with the car.” Karl sulks.
“Ok, just make sur
e that if anyone comes into this warehouse that isn’t us, then start the car and drive off, even if they don’t look suspicious!”
“Ok. I got it.”
Emilio and Valencia walk out onto the crumbling streets. Night is drawing ever closer. Light in the warehouse is fading fast, as all the windows are boarded up. Karl contemplates switching on the headlights, then thinks better of it, for fear of drawing unnecessary attention. He sits rigid and alert, his discomfort and paranoia growing as he stares into the shadows. As time passes he starts to feel he is being watched. Wind whistles through the gaps of the boarded up windows, rattling and banging against unseen objects in the darkness. Karl is whipped into a frenzy of irrational fear. He sees something move across the open space in front of him. He clicks the ignition clockwise one notch, turning the electric on. Mournful classical music bleeds into the air. He quickly turns the radio off and searches for the headlight switch, flicking the headlights on and quickly off again, trying to see if anyone is actually out there in the darkness. In the few seconds of light he thinks he sees what looks like a man standing in the far right corner of the old warehouse. Karl screams, his chest convulsing with fear. With trembling hands he flicks the lights on again. The man he thought he saw is revealed as a large poster with a character from a book depicting a man in a trench coat. The man is gazing straight at him, and the picture is drawn so well and looks so realistic that Karl can’t shake the feeling of being watched. Sitting alone in the shadowy warehouse is messing with his head, and he considers leaving the car to try and catch up with Emilio and Valencia, but he remains frozen in the driver’s seat, planning his escape in anxious desperation. Ten minutes later there is another noise and some definite movement in front of the car. Karl peers frantically into the darkness. The silhouette grows in stature as it moves towards him. Karl starts the engine, slamming his foot to the floor, driving directly at the figure, who jumps onto the bonnet to avoid being run over. Karl lets out a long, high-pitched scream, accelerating fast towards the warehouse doors, smashing through them, sending wooden splinters in all directions, but the man persists in clinging on. Karl swerves hard, locking the steering wheel left and then right. The person is sideways on the bonnet when Karl passes a streetlight at the end of the estate and sees that the man is Emilio, his mouth open wide, screaming for Karl to stop. Karl slams on the brakes and sends Emilio flying out on to the road. Emilio hits the tarmac, rolling as he tries to break his fall. Karl gets out of the car and hurries over to his friend.
“Oh my God! Emilio! Are you alright? Talk to me! I didn’t know it was you.”
Emilio slowly sits up, rubbing the side of his head, which is bleeding.
“Oh God, you’re bleeding.” Karl goes to examine Emilio’s head. Emilio pushes him away, wanting space for a few moments.
“What the hell were you trying to do? Kill me?”
“I didn’t know it was you, it was so dark in there, dude.”
“Karl, there’s no-one on this estate. It’s vacant.”
Emilio drags his sore body up from the rough tarmac and walks slowly around the car while Karl waits by the kerb, feeling unhelpful and redundant.
“Come on, we’ve found identical tyres. Let’s go, Valencia’s waiting for us.
They jump into the car and drive to an alley where Valencia is nervously waiting beside an abandoned car, which has been broken into and gutted out by passing thieves looting the estate for all that it was once worth. Emilio gets to work jacking up the black car and replacing the wheels.
“Ok, I’m down to the last tyre. You guys may as well get in the car.” Emilio says slyly. He waits until Valencia and Karl are in the car and then he removes the hubcap of one of the drug filled tyres and pulls the greasy cocaine parcels from it. He stops intermittently, looking up to make sure he isn’t being watched. He replaces the last tyre and then gathers the jack, along with the parcels of cocaine. He walks to the back of the car, sheepishly placing the items in the recess under the carpet of the boot. Emilio walks back alongside the car and stands by the driver’s door. He is hit with a momentary pang of guilt, which disperses quickly as he opens the driver’s door, gets in the car and drives off with reckless abandon.
Chapter 24: San Luis Rio Colorado