Five Uneasy Pieces

“We’ve been here for focking hours. I can’t smoke…can’t…take a goddamn leak.” Her voice began to break up.

“I see.” Mendez looks like Rita Moreno in her heyday, but swears like a sailor. I wondered what the nice gentleman might be thinking as he overheard this particular conversation.

“Hello? I can’t…goddamn thing. I’ll… reach…can’t…” The phone took a turn for the worse and her words became incomprehensible sound blurbs.

“Hello? Hello?” I said.

“Are you there?” With a blast of static, communication returned. “Jesus, I need a focking cigarette—ay!”

“Call me when you land,” I said.

“I can’t focking hear you. Our…friend will meet us in the morning. That place…you know.”

“Call me!” I yelled, but she was talking at the same time, in semi-decipherable Spanish. Suddenly, we were disconnected. I sighed and dropped the phone in my lap.

The girl eyed me suspiciously. “Who was that?”

“Just an old college pal,” I said. I didn’t even see her reach for the phone. Next thing I knew, it was in her hand.

“Hey!” I said.

Then she launched it out the window.

“What the hell?” I said. “Lucky for you that’s a company phone, or I’d…”

“You’d what?”

I shook my head, as if it would make everything clearer. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“In case.”

“In case of what?”

“Forget it. Just drive.”

“Hey…hey!” I pointed my finger at her. “I’m inclined to kick your ass out of this car right now.”

There was a moment of silence. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was subdued.

“Sorry! That’s great. I’ll probably get docked for the cost of a new phone. Ohh…” At the nearest intersection, I swerved over two lanes, drawing honks from a few critics, and turned onto the side street. I parked the car and pulled a few bucks from my fanny pack.

“Get out. Here’s some money. Take the bus. Or not. I don’t care. Just take a hike.”

I handed over the bills. As she took them, I could see her hand shaking.

“Oh, what is this…” I started to say something, but she had begun crying now and I didn’t think she was acting. Soundlessly, at first, tears streamed down her cheeks. Then, with a great inhale of breath, she began sobbing, her shoulders shaking and her arms clutched around her belly.

“I freaked out,” she said, in a high, quavering voice. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Please don’t leave me here. I’m sorry. Damn it.” She wiped the tears away fiercely with the back of her hand.

“What is it with you?” I tried to hide my irritation, with little success.

r /> “I thought maybe you’d call the cops. I thought… I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. I just freaked, that’s all.”

“Okay, okay. We’ve established that. Christ.” I leaned against the seat and waited for the storm to pass. But the tears kept coming.

“Someone was supposed to pick me up…back there,” she said, between sobs. “But he never showed. And all I could think… I just had to get out. That man back there. He would have killed me.”

I thought of the blond with the scar. “Yeah, he didn’t look all that pleasant.”