by Rob Aspinall
“So it’s ten miles that way,” I said. “Better get started.”
24
Hot Tin Roofs
The obvious move as far as I was concerned, was to take the rickety staircase down the side of the building and dart in and out of side-streets, making the best time we could.
Nathan had other ideas. “We should take the rooftops for as long as we can. We’ll make better time and we can use landmarks as a guide.” He pointed across the skyline. “Look, most of the roads are narrow. I bet there’s only a few feet between buildings. And we’ve got a clear view of the streets. The sooner we clear the immediate area, the better.”
“Okay then. Let’s do it,” I said, as we ditched the sombrero and the umbrella.
We ran low across the roof of the bar and jumped the few feet across the first street, landing on a protruding corrugated overhang. Our feet thudded loud, drawing attention from below, but we kept going, skipping over the gaps between rooftops.
There was something crazily therapeutic about it. Making good time. Seeing the way ahead. Not having to bob and weave between people and alleys.
If a street was too wide or a the building on the other side too low, we were able to pick out a slightly different route, without deviating too far off course, keeping our eyes fixed on a point on the far skyline where a large, pink apartment building rose up several storeys high.
Now that would be a problem. But it was green lights all the way until then. In fact, the great thing about the slums was that space was as precious as diamonds. People built almost on top of each other. Especially the two and three storey buildings we flew over now.
Yep, everything was peachy until we stopped for a brief rest beneath a tatty white parasol with a three-litre container of brown water underneath.
“Drink some of it,” Nathan said.
“I’m not drinking that,” I said, hands on thighs.
“It’ll be out of a tap,” he said. “If it’s brown, it’s okay. It’s the clear stuff you have to worry about.” Nathan took a sip himself as if to prove it. He instantly retched, but managed to hold it down. “See, perfectly drinkable,” he said, retching again as he handed it over.
Unconvinced, I took the heavy bottle. I closed my eyes and gritted my tastebuds, taking one big gulp so I wouldn’t have to repeat the exercise. “Ugh, tastes like week-old cat piss,” I said, putting the bottle down.
I glanced over my shoulder to see how far we’d come. Quite a long way. A good half a mile. I was just limbering up for the next leg, when I spotted a couple of figures in the distance. They were leaping over the rooftops too. Only faster. And they weren’t deviating when it came to the wider streets or higher jumps. They were flying right over, like those free runners you saw on TV.
“Do they look like La Firma to you,” I asked Nathan..
His eyes widened. “Run,” he said.
25
Run Or Die
The free runners were gaining with every step, with two more closing in from left and right.
“Someone must have spotted us. Cut my ties,” Nathan said, between breaths.
“No,” I said.
“Cut my ties so I can fight.”
“Just keep running,” I said, before leaping off a solid stone roof on to another made of sloping, corrugated iron.
The first runner caught me as I landed.
As Nathan scrambled up the roof, I struggled for grip. The first runner, narrow-eyed and fat-headed, put a hand on my shoulder and whipped a knife from his belt. I half-turned and side-kicked Fatty Head off the roof, into a narrow alley below, where he landed adroitly and scurried off.
I climbed up the corrugated roof and sprinted across a series of flimsy metal panels each one rattling and riding up underfoot.
Up ahead, Nathan was flanked by a pair of free runners closing in either side, like predators blindsiding their prey. He suddenly stopped, causing one, dressed in jeans and a faded metal t-shirt, to overshoot. The, other, a guy in baggy silver shorts, a white sweatband around his head and not much else, danced towards Nathan with his fists up, fancying himself as a boxer. He launched a series of punches to head and body. Nathan kept his hands high in front of his face and blocked them all, before cracking the kid on the nose with a left forearm. He followed it with a right elbow up under the chin. The kid dropped for a ten count, but Metal Guy had come prepared. He zipped open a bumbag around his front and took out a small, snub-nose revolver. He pointed it at Nathan, only to take a flying kick to the face from me, crashing the fight.
As he staggered backwards, he stepped a little too hard on a corrugated panel. It collapsed inwards, sending him tumbling into a small room where a large family ate around a small table.
I skirted around the hole in the roof and pushed Nathan on; another runner on our tail, and now Fatty Head finding his way back up to the rooftops to our right.
And then another, out of nowhere, somersaulting from one roof to the next.
We hopped off the corrugated panels on to a jumble of red, blue and orange shipping containers stacked up and used for homes.
We jumped from one to the next, but found ourselves blocked off at every turn; the runners coordinating their movements to pen us in.
The shipping containers were stacked high. The space between them dark and tight. A good few storeys to the dirt floor below.
“Split up,” Nathan said. “Wait for them to get close, then jump.”
As Nathan shuffled right, I stepped left; the runners taking a breather as they sized us up. I noticed one had a carpet knife. Another, a gun he had to take the safety off.
The other two were unarmed.
The guy with the gun was closest, so I launched into him before he could point and shoot. I directed the barrel towards the second runner trying to intercept me. The bullet tore through his right trap. He took a nose-dive and butted the edge of a container roof sickeningly hard.
I wrestled the shooter for control of the pistol. He was strong for a small guy and wasn’t letting go easily. So I detached the clip and stamped hard on the toe of his left trainer.
As he pulled his foot from beneath mine, I swept out his other leg. I picked up the gun and clip, slapped one inside the other and shot him in the chest as he rose.
I took aim at the remaining two runners, but they were moving too fast to hit.
Nathan evaded the pair of them long enough for me to get close enough to improve my aim. But as I tracked one with the end of the gun barrel, the other blindsided me, knocking me flat on my back, the gun falling between containers.
The guy who’d sucker-punched me hard across the chin leapt into the air, ready to obliterate me with both fists. I rolled my legs up tight to my chest and used the soles of my pumps to push him away over my head.
He bounced off the lip of the roof and bumped between containers, all the way down to the dirt floor.
I jumped to my feet to see Nathan held with a carpet knife to his throat. He was dragged away onto a brick rooftop swamped in criss-crossing lines of drying laundry.
I sprinted after them, but lost them when I was hit hard in the face by a crusty pair of giant men’s undies. I wore them like a face towel for a few yards before pulling them off and picking my way through the endless lines of laundry, searching for Nathan and the remaining runner.
I pushed my way through trousers, tops and underwear, before getting tangled in a large white bed sheet. As I came out the other side, I almost fell off the roof; feet wobbling on the edge.
On the street below, I saw Nathan appear out of a side door, with the carpet knife still to his throat. The runner shoved him right along the street, calling for help.
I followed them along the edge of the rooftops until I saw a yellow tarpaulin on the other side of the street. Worth a shot.
I ran a few feet ahead of Nathan and the runner. I jumped as far as I could across the yawning gap between rooftops, knowing I’d fall short.
But that was the plan.
&n
bsp; I twisted one-eighty in the air, bounced off the tarpaulin and straight into the runner holding Nathan hostage. I drove the guy into the ground, disarming him and jamming the carpet knife in the side of his neck.
We moved away from the scene and rounded a corner onto a bigger, wider street, where cars and scooters passed up and down. I spotted a pair of cops armed in tactical gear, with automatic weapons strapped over shoulders. I called out in Spanish for help, but they didn’t hear.
Nathan told me to shut up. He pushed me into a doorway. I noticed the walls were painted pink. It was the apartment block I’d seen from up on the rooftops before our little fun-run across town.
“What the hell are you doing? There’s police there,” I said.
“Exactly,” Nathan said. “Trust me.”
“Trust you? That’s rich.”
“Fine, don’t trust me. But certainly don’t trust the police. They’re corrupt as hell here.”
I snuck a look around the doorway. More cops gathering, talking into their radios.
“We need to get off the street,” Nathan said, looking around for an option.
A few feet to our left, I noticed a young mother struggling to fit a pram through a door made of wrought iron bars. It led directly into the pink apartment block.
“Wait here,” I said.
I jogged over to the door and held it open for the woman to fit through.
“Gracias,” she said, as she pushed the pram out into the street.
I smiled and held the door open for Nathan to duck inside. I followed him into the cool, shaded surrounds of the apartments. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight, but I made out a small, graffiti-sprayed elevator door with tape fixed in an X across it. A staircase rose up to the right, with more black wrought iron forming a guard rail. Terracotta tiles lined the communal floors, a lot of them broken, or missing altogether. The place stunk of stale yak. Up and down yellow stains in the corners of the stairwell proof it wasn’t the smell of my own sweat soaking into my clothes.
At the top of the first flight of stairs, we found a tall, narrow window missing a pane, but covered by rusting wire mesh. We stopped and peered out onto the street below. I felt the acid slowly draining from my legs; my lungs cooling from a dragon-fire burn.
Police numbers were really beginning to swell. They seemed to be listening to a man in charge, dressed in black trousers and shirt. We stood quietly, watching, listening as he dished out instructions to the troops. No doubt about it, they were talking about us. Where we’d been. Where we were last seen. And what I’d done to the last remaining runner.
Worse still, they were soon joined by La Firma members, including Pepe and Louis. The policeman in charge, a thickset guy with a greying crew cut, was locked deep in conversation with Pepe. I couldn’t tell what they were saying from up on the first floor of the apartment, but the policeman soon took hold of a megaphone. He turned it on and held it to his mouth. His voice echoed far and wide, meaning we could hear exactly what he had to say.
And what he had to say, chilled me to the bone.
Even in the searing heat of Mexico.
26
Pablo & Jenny
“To all local residents,” the man with the megaphone said. “This is Captain Ramon Diaz of the Secretariat of Public Security. There are two fugitives hiding out in the neighbourhood. They have already killed many of your own. And next, it could be you. So if anyone is harbouring them, or anyone has any information on their whereabouts, now is the time to come forward. The people we are seeking are English. One, a girl around seventeen. Blonde hair and blue eyes, with a prominent scar on her chest. The other, a man in his early forties. Five foot nine. Slim build. His hands bound at the wrists. A scar running across his forehead.”
“Five-nine? That’s generous,” I said to Nathan.
He shot me a look.
“They are to be considered armed and extremely dangerous,” Captain Diaz continued. “So let me be clear. If anyone is found hiding them, the punishment will be severe. But if you find them, we will pay good money. Dead, or alive.”
“He means JPAC will pay,” I said. “What next? The Mexican army?”
“No,” Nathan said, missing the joke. “The sequence will be La Firma, the federal police, then professional killers sent by the cartel.”
“Oh, now I feel better,” I said.
Diaz continued his neighbourhood talk. “We will be going door to door, home to home, store to store. No one will face charges for any contraband we find. So leave your homes open and make this quick and painless. Thank you for your cooperation.”
So let’s get this straight. The Rosales cartel were after us. La Firma were after us. The cops were after us. And now every man and his dog had a reason to sell us out, or come at us with a weapon of their own.
“So you’re the analyst,” I said to Nathan. “Got any super-tactical moves up your sleeve?”
Nathan angled his head to get a better view of the street. “By the looks of that tactical unit entering the apartments, I’d say run.”
So we ran.
Up another couple of flights of stairs, the sound of armed police on our tail, as likely to take us out. as take us in.
The stairs to the apartments wound their way round in tight formation. At the top of each landing, we were faced with a long. foreboding hallway with a mesh-wire window guard at the end.
A quick lean over a bannister told me the police were splitting off along corridors on each floor to search apartments. I counted twenty or so cops charging up the stairs as a tight unit, guns at the ready, as if everyone in the city with a helmet and a Kevlar vest had been despatched to the area. Even with all that manpower, it would take them a while to search every apartment in the block. Our best bet was to head to the top, on the tenth story up.
By the time we hit the top, my legs were like jelly. My throat drier than an overcooked chop.
Two corridors branched off either side of the stairs. Instinct took us left; every apartment door closed.
We moved up and down, hammering on doors, hoping we could force our way in and hide out. But no answer. Not a peep.
We moved on to the opposite hallway, exhausting all our options and hearing the echoes of shouting, stomping police working their way up.
‘We could try and find a way to the roof,” I said.
“Don’t you hear that?” Nathan asked.
“What?”
I stopped and listened, scanning the airwaves for a new sound.
There it was. Thudda-thudda-thudda. I peered out of the window at the end of the corridor into the sky. A black police chopper whirring around the area.
“Yeah, but what choice do we have?” I said to Nathan, thinking how close that tac unit was to hitting the top floor.
Suddenly, a door opened up behind us. A little boy of five or six in a baggy red t-shirt and pale blue shorts emerged from an apartment, kicking a half-inflated orange football against the wall with his sandalled feet. He left the door open as he kicked it to and fro.
I ushered Nathan behind me as I approached. “Hi,” I said with a smile.
“Hi,” the boy said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Lizzy. This is, er, Dave.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name’s Pablo.” He craned his neck to see Nathan better. “Why are Dave’s hands tied up like that?”
Nathan cut in before I could think of a reason. “Some bad guys tied me up and I escaped.”
“There are lots of bad guys here, mister. Mum says you should be careful.”
“Hey,” I said, conscious of the swarming police. “Is your mum home?”
Pablo shook his head.
“How about your dad?” I asked.
“They’re both at work. Just me and my sister, Jenny.”
“Can we come in?” I asked, one eye on the far end of the hall.
“We’re not supposed to let in strangers,” Pablo said, kicking his ball.
>
“But we’re not strangers,” I said, smiling. “We’re friends now, right?”
Pablo chewed it over.
Come on kid, chew faster!
I took out some money. “See, we’re okay. We’ve got money. You can buy yourself a new ball. One that bounces.”
Pablo bit his bottom lip. The police barked instructions at each other as they came up the stairs. I was a second away from scooping up Pablo and carrying him into the apartment with my hand over his mouth.
“Okay,” he said, waving us in.
The cops were up on the landing. A team leader sending his men left and right.
Pablo turned and kicked his ball inside the apartment. Nathan darted in after him and I shut the door, just as the police began their search of the top floor.
I threw on a series of latches and bolts, the remnants of old busted-in locks still visible on the door. I steered Pablo into the apartment. Hot. Cramped. No air con, other than windows left open and a slight breeze wafting through the living space, where his sister Jenny sat on a beaten-up brown sofa watching a Mexican reality show on a tiny TV from the eighties.
She was a couple of years older than Pablo, dressed in a bright green summer dress, with a short, kitchen-scissors haircut.
“Hey Jenny, this is Dave and Lizzy,” Pablo said, kicking the ball across the living room, into a tiny kitchenette.
“You’re not supposed to let anyone in,” Jenny said, eyes glued to the box.
I snatched the remote off the sofa and muted the TV. I put a finger up to my lips. “We have to be quiet.”
“Why?” Jenny asked.
“It’s a game,” Pablo said.
“No it’s not,” said Jenny.
I offered her my last fifty peso note.
“There’s pocket money if you play,” said Pablo.
As Jenny looked at the note, I jumped out of my reddening skin at the sound of a fist on the apartment door. It sounded like God banging to get in.
