She had just decided to abandon her hopes of scoring anything for Billy, wanting to return to Ibiza, when Jim finally called stating he had just spoken to Wayne. The deal had been arranged for that evening at 9:00 PM. It was December 17, 1973, a date Jan would never forget.
At 8:30 PM, she again reluctantly followed Jim and Billy into a taxi and drove to Wayne’s apartment in Miraflores. As she paid the fare, Jim walked purposefully towards the security door entrance, rang the buzzer to Wayne’s apartment and stood back, waiting for the answering buzz that would open the locked door. There was no response, so Jim buzzed again. Still no response.
“What the fuck? Not again. What time is it? Jim complained.
“It’s 9:00 PM. Right on time. I told you this doesn’t feel right to me,” Jan responded.
“And I keep telling you it’s fine,” Billy countered.
Rather than ring again, Jim noticed a couple about to leave the building. As they exited, he caught the door and held it open, gesturing to Jan and Billy to come inside. They took the elevator to the eighth floor and as the doors opened, the elevator ding echoed off the narrow hallway. Jan took a moment to re-examine the surroundings, as they walked out, looking in both directions. The corridor was completely devoid of people. Wayne’s door was to the left of the elevator, about ten feet down the hall, just past the stairwell on the right.
Once they arrived at Wayne’s door, Jim knocked twice, paused and then twice more.
To their surprise, a frail Peruvian woman opened the door. “¿Qué quieren ustedes? What do you want?”
“Wayne,” Jim answered.
“El no está aquí ahora. He’s not here now,” she replied.
Jim explained to her in Spanish that Wayne had told them to meet him at his apartment and if it was okay with her, they would wait for him inside. She eyed everyone cautiously before backing away from the doorway to allow them to enter, leading them over to a corner of the living room where they sat on the floor with their backs to the wall. Jim lit a cigarette, offering Jan a puff. She shook her head to decline. Her nerves were shot at this point.
While they waited for Wayne to show up, a heavyset, middle-aged man, accompanied by what appeared to be bodyguards following him, strode purposefully into the apartment. He curiously eyed the new visitors before striding back to a bedroom. Jan supposed by his air of authority that he was the leader. Recalling what Jim had told her about Wayne, she wondered if he could be the head of the smuggling ring inspecting his workers.
The Peruvian woman offered bottles of Coca Cola and they gladly accepted. Jan checked her watch. A half hour had passed and Wayne still had not arrived. Finally, the door swung open and Wayne walked into the apartment. An expression of shock crossed his face when he saw them waiting. Jan noted this with alarm. Hadn’t Wayne arranged the meeting himself? He should have been expecting them.
“What are you doing here?” Wayne asked.
“What are we doing here? We’re meeting here as you requested last night,” Jan answered with incredulity.
“Right,” Wayne answered.
“Where’s the coke, man?” Jan angrily inquired. Wayne motioned for her to keep her voice down and follow him into a small bedroom adjacent to the kitchen. They all complied. Once inside, he shut the door behind him.
“The stuff hasn’t arrived yet, but it should be here any moment. Let’s sit down and smoke a joint while we’re waiting,” Wayne suggested.
As the joint was passed around, Jan couldn’t escape the feeling of foreboding that she had experienced on her last visit. She could sense danger in the air. A churning in the pit of her stomach was a physical warning that something was wrong.
Jan wanted to leave and asked Jim and Billy repeatedly to come with her, but they shrugged off her fears. They kept telling her everything was all right, then ignored her. Jan took a moment to reflect on Jim’s motives. She knew Jim didn’t deal in drugs, although he used them copiously and he definitely wanted his commission as the go-between in this transaction. Jan wondered how much that influenced his attitude and perceptions; perhaps a trifle too much. She would have to be more careful.
Jim and Billy wanted to wait around until the cocaine arrived. Jan was not willing to do so. Jim and Wayne were joking while getting high, but all she could feel was her tension growing, building to an ominous crescendo.
Suddenly, they all heard noises down the hallway and the apartment next door. A bang sounding like a firecracker caused everyone to jump. “What the hell was that?” Jan fearfully blurted out.
“It’s fine. Take another hit from this joint and chill out,” Billy advised.
“We need to go,” Jan warned everybody.
“We can’t go. That means a wasted trip for nothing,” Jim answered.
“Look. I know you plan on making some money from this deal, but something feels off to me,” Jan cautioned.
Billy laughed. “I told you she was green, man.”
“He’s fuckin’ high. Don’t listen to him. Look, you’re just paranoid. Relax,” Jim assured her. Jan hopped to her feet and started to pace. She was tense and scared.
Jim turned to Wayne with a chuckle. “Poor girl. I think she needs to get laid,” he joked. They laughed uproariously as they teased her, but Jan was not amused. Suddenly, and without conscious thought, something made Jan jump up, pulling Billy to his feet by the shirt collar and practically dragging him from the room. A feeling of danger charged through her body, jolting her into action. At that moment, she was following her gut instincts. Billy hung back, which only pissed her off more.
“Screw you,” Jan screamed at him as she ran out of the room.
Jim chased after her as she headed out the front door towards the elevator.
“What the hell has gotten into you? Everything is under control,” Jim said.
Jan heard a flurry of activity in the wake of their departure. Loud voices and shouts were aimed in their direction. She pushed the button for the elevator and waited impatiently for it to rise from the lobby, ignoring Jim’s protests. She could hear doors opening and closing all around them and voices in the ascending elevator which sounded ominous. Another wave of fear washed over her.
“Follow me!” she ordered Jim, a note of panic creeping into her voice as she raced for the stairwell. Sprinting down the stairs as quickly as possible, Jan stopped Jim one flight down and motioned for him to be quiet as she listened to the voices and commotion above. Crouching against the landing, they heard the men in the elevator get out on the floor above and begin knocking on Wayne’s door.
Billy and Wayne had been sitting on the floor passing a joint between them when they heard a knock. Before Wayne could get to the door, it opened suddenly. They were confronted by the heavy set man and his bodyguard with guns drawn.
“Where’d your friends go?” the heavy set man asked.
“They decided to leave,” Billy said as he was freaking out.
“Everything’s cool man, relax,” Wayne answered, stoned but alert.
“Both of you motherfuckers, gimme your money, NOW!”
Billy and Wayne stood closer to each other, panicked and scared. They now realized this was no joke. After emptying their pockets of cash, they handed it all over to the body guard.
“Our friends had the dinero for the coke deal,” Billy stuttered in fear.
“Turn around and face the wall,” the body guard demanded. Billy and Wayne complied reluctantly, both shaking, their shirts now soaked with sweat
“Please let us go. You got all our money. If you want the big bucks, go find our friends,” Billy pleaded.
Wayne was speechless. As he started to turn around and speak to the thugs face to face, the heavy set man shot him point blank in the head, brain matter splattering the walls and Billy, blood gushing everywhere. Wayne’s body slumped to the floor. The body guard stepped back and shot into
Wayne’s body several more times with gusto, obviously getting a thrill doing it.
Billy screamed hysterically. “I beg you, please don’t kill me. I haven’t done anything wro—” Before he could finish his last word, the bodyguard shot him multiple times. He fell over Wayne’s bullet ridden body lying in a huge pool of blood.
Jan and Jim froze in place after hearing the screams and pleas for their lives, then multiple gunshots and people scrambling around. They realized that Billy and Wayne were probably murdered and that they could possibly be the next victims. She tugged Jim’s arm and they descended the stairs quickly, quietly.
They paused again a few floors down, ducking into a storage closet hoping they would be overlooked. However, Jan realized in a flash that it wouldn’t work as long as they were in the building. They surely would be found. Their only prospect was to get outside. Suddenly, there were voices descending in the stairwell and they had to make their move.
She rushed down the remaining flights with Jim trailing close behind, no longer doubting the severity of the situation. They burst through the door into the apartment lobby and to their surprise, six or seven men were waiting in front of the elevator. She didn’t stop to count knowing they were waiting for them to exit the elevator. The thugs obviously knew about the coke score and the large sums of money to be used in the transaction.
In one fluid motion, Jan crossed the lobby with arms outstretched and hit the latch on the glass doors to escape outside into the night. Jim was right behind her as she hailed a taxi, luckily waiting outside. Without looking back, they jumped in and slammed the door quickly. Jan told the driver to rush them back to Lima while they kept a lookout from the back window. As soon as the men in the lobby realized who they were, they burst through the doors to chase after them as their taxi pulled away.
Jan’s mind reeled as she tried to make sense of the events that had just occurred. Was it all in her imagination or was the danger she felt a reality? Coming out of her split second reverie, she realized that Billy was shot to death and that his big mouth probably had gotten him killed. She knew she did the right thing by fleeing the scene. Unfortunately, Billy did not follow her lead and it cost him his life. Once again, her gut had successfully guided her through this horrific moment; otherwise she would have been part of the body count.
Jim continued to look out the back window when he suddenly noticed that a black sedan was following them. “They’re coming,” he urgently warned.
As Jan looked out the front window, she saw that they were heading in the wrong direction; away from Lima. “You’re going the wrong way,” she told the driver in Spanish, alarmed. “Lima’s in the other direction.”
“No, no…Lima is this way too,” he insisted and continued on.
Jan looked at the driver with doubt, then looked at Jim, immediately aware that his door had no inside handle. In a flash, the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. It was all a set-up, of course!
It was not uncommon in Lima to hear stories about people who had come to make a buy and ended up face down in the ocean among the anchovies without their passports or their money. With these thoughts crowding her mind at an insane rate, she looked again at the taxi driver. No, this wasn’t a real taxi. “Pull over right now!” she ordered.
“No. This is the way,” the driver repeated. “I can’t pull over.”
“There’s no way we’re gonna join the anchovies,” Jan stated.
“Anchovies? What are you talking about?” Jim asked.
“Forget it,” she responded.
Jan knew they had been cornered. Apparently this taxi had been waiting for them all along. Luckily, she was not carrying any money or identification; she usually carried both, but purposely left it in the hotel room floor vent.
However, she did bring her small all-purpose Swiss Army knife which was hidden in her waistband. Jan never carried a weapon, but tonight fate once again guided her to do so. She pulled it out knowing something had to be done to stop the driver. After carefully exposing the blade under her jacket, she took it off to wrap around the knife.
Bending forward slightly, she pointed the camouflaged weapon directly at the driver’s head as if brandishing a gun. Her hand shook a bit, but she managed to mask her terror with bravado. The driver flinched slightly and looked in her direction as if to confirm that she had a gun.
“I said pull over, motherfucker or I’ll splatter your brains all over your cab.”
The driver looked back as if to change lanes. Following his gaze, Jan spotted a large black sedan behind them, dimming its lights as if signaling something. The driver slowed, finally coming to a stop at the curb.
Jan climbed out the front window of the cab and yanked the door open for Jim who was still stoned. As he asked the driver how much they owed, she grabbed his arm. “Dummy, this isn’t a real taxi. Let’s get out of here,” she told him.
Her adrenaline was pumping now. They took off running down the street as fast as their legs could carry them. Jan’s mind took in all the surrounding details in a flash. The street was wide and well lit. Street lights were spaced about fifty feet apart and ran the length of the street on both sides. The neighborhood was residential, with tall apartment buildings on the corners and one-story, single family residences in between. It was about 11:00 PM on a Sunday night and the majority of the houses were dark, their occupants asleep. No one was in sight.
In the meantime, the black sedan that had been driving behind them, pulled to a stop. Jan looked back and saw several men exit the vehicle, clearly carrying handguns which reflected the illumination from the street lights. That scary image alone motivated her even more to run for her life.
They dashed through the narrow streets, going down several blocks. She hurried up to one of the apartment buildings and rang several door bells, trying to get someone to let them in. There was no response. Jan returned to Jim at the curb and they continued running quickly up the street. Refuge, she thought, where can we find refuge?
They passed into the next block, almost running along a stretch of low stone walls that surrounded the tiny gardens in front of each house. Jim was alongside her, breathing hard with fear and struggling to keep up the strenuous pace that Jan was maintaining. His face was devoid of expression. Unfortunately, Jim was still stoned and totally clueless to the severity of their situation.
She was really frightened now for the first time in her life, but not quite comprehending it at the same time. Jan kept her pace, half-walking, half-running, all the time searching for safety. Her mind was racing, but she thought nothing.
A hundred feet from the next corner, she saw a movement ahead of them. A man stepped around the corner and into the light. He was of medium stature; dark skinned, dressed in a vest, suit coat and a tie and was casually smoking a cigarette. The man stopped on the corner, tapping his foot, watching them approach.
Quickly, they darted into the street. Jan went diagonally to the middle of the road and onward, never slackening her pace or forward momentum. Jim tagged behind. A few moments later, she noticed a car driving towards them from the opposite direction. She returned to the left hand curb and gasped when she saw the car pass slowly. It was the taxi driver, his ‘taxi’ sign no longer lit.
Once past them, the cab turned around and proceeded slowly back up the street. It cruised by, moving at about ten or fifteen miles an hour and finally stopped on the right side of the road a few hundred yards ahead. Jan looked anxiously at Jim as they continued up the street.
“What the hell is going on?” she cried. “Do you see what’s going on? Can you feel it? Am I going crazy?”
“I don’t know, but if anybody starts shooting, jump over one of the concrete walls and stay on the ground.”
That was silly advice since the walls were only three feet high and would not protect her for very long. Still, the thought of being shot at spurred her on, adding urgency t
o her steps.
The taxi driver got out of his car and walked around to the hood, raising it as if something were wrong with the engine. He was not looking at the motor; he was watching them. From there, the driver returned to the front seat, left his door open and dangled his foot in the street while he lit a cigarette. Meanwhile, he continued to surveil them.
At that moment, another car passed, heading up the street towards the taxi. It was the same black sedan that had followed them and dimmed its lights earlier. Jan’s heart leapt to her throat as the car slowed and parked across the street from the taxi. She and Jim were heading right for it.
Jan bounded to the right side of the street, rushed up the steps of the nearest house and frantically banged on the door. She could scarcely breathe. An old, wrinkled woman wrapped in a housecoat came to the window and pulled aside the curtain to look at them.
“Yes,” she inquired in Spanish, studying the pair curiously, “What can I do for you?”
“Please!” Jan begged in Spanish, “We’re tourists and we’re lost and scared! Could you help us for a moment and call a taxi to drive us to Lima?” The woman eyed her and Jim with suspicion.
“You wait here,” she said, “I’ll call a taxi. It’ll be a moment.” The woman dropped the curtain and was gone.
Jan slumped against the door in despair. ‘This was the end’, she thought to herself. If the shooting starts, the bullets will go right through the woman’s front door. It would serve her right for not letting them in.
There was a lull that lasted a few minutes which seemed like hours. It was the moment of expectation when Jan knew that something had to happen. The scene was set.
“What are we going to do? We can’t wait,” Jim said.
Rendezvous With the Fat Man Page 8
