One of Us. Michael Marshall Smith
all nodded together. Little, uninterested nods. The fact that this was all so chummy should have made me more relaxed. It didn't. It made me feel tense. No-one had asked me for money. No-one had asked for my papers. No-one was hunting through the cavities of my car for drugs.
So what were they doing? I hadn't done anything, after all. Not really.
Then I heard it. Very quietly at first, the sound of a car approaching in another street. Nothing exceptional about that, of course: I'm familiar with the internal combustion engine and its role in contemporary society. But I couldn't help noticing that the cop in the middle, the one who appeared to be leading this crew, glanced towards the end of the block. I followed his eyes.
Initially there was nothing to see except tourist couples walking hand in hand across the intersection, their blurred voices calling as they pointed out souvenirs to each other. For a moment I had a flash of the first time I came to Ensenada, many years ago. I remembered realizing that every bangle and every rug, every copyright infringement and Day of the Dead vignette, had been stamped out somewhere in a factory and that no-one here was selling anything unique or genuine. Realizing that, and not caring. Spending days eating fish tacos at two for a dollar, loaded high with fixings and chilli, down by the fish market where the world's most disreputable pelicans fought for scraps in a flurry of brown feathers. Cruising in the late afternoon, Country on the car stereo and Indian kids on every street corner, selling subcontracted chiclets to support their mothers' habits. And nights of shadows and distant shouting, patterns of light on water and wood fires in run-down chalets; cold breezes on the rocks at the waterfront, the warmth of someone who loved me.
That's why I used to come back here. To remember those times, and the person I was when they happened.
But the car which slowly moved into position wasn't a beat-up old Ford, and there was no-one in it that I knew. It was a squad car, and that's what the cops around me had been waiting for. It was a trap, either because they knew who I was, or because it was a slow night and they just felt like it. Either way, it was time to go.
I braced my hands against the car door and whipped it out quickly, catching two of the cops in the stomach and sending them stumbling painfully backwards. The remaining cop scrabbled for his holster but I swung a kick at his hands, smacking into his wrist and sending the gun skittering along the pavement. It had been a big night for kicking. Lucky I kept in practice.
The cops in the car down the end saw what was happening, and the vehicle leapt up the street towards me. I jammed the key in the ignition and had my own car moving before I'd even shut the door. There were shouts from the cops behind as I yanked the car round in a tight bend, scattering grit like a line of machine-gun fire, heading straight for the police vehicle.
I kept the car on course, flooring the pedal, but I knew I was going to have to turn. You don't play chicken with the Mexican police. They tend to win. I caught glimpses of tourists watching as I hammered down the road, their mouths falling open as they realized there was local colour in prospect and that the colour was likely to be red.
In the front, the faces of two cops stared back at me through their windshield as they got closer and closer. The passenger looked a little nervous, but one glance at the driver told me what I already knew. If there was going to be a domesticated egg-producing squawker in this confrontation, it sure as hell wasn't going to be him.
At the last minute I yanked the wheel to the right and went caroming off down a side street, narrowly avoiding rolling the car into a storefront. People scattered in all directions as I cursed my luck and tried to work out what I was going to do next. Behind me I heard the scream of tyres as the cops performed an inaccurate U-turn, cracking a few parked cars in the process. I hope everyone had the proper insurance. It's a false economy not to, you know, and there's a place about fifty yards from the border where you almost believe that what you're being sold is worth something. I forget the name, but check it out.
There weren't that many options available to me – you can either leave Ensenada up the coast or down. I figured on going up, but I had to try to convince the cops I was heading the other way. I made a series of hard turns towards the southern end of town – ignoring lights, screaming over the main drag at seventy and in general displaying very little concern for the finer points of road safety. A couple of cars ended up swerving onto the pavement, the drivers shouting after me before they'd even come to a halt. I could see their point, but didn't stop to discuss it.
After a few hectic minutes I couldn't see anyone following me in the mirror, so I made a sudden left and slowed the car right down, pulling in to park neatly between a couple of battered trucks by the side of the road. I edged far enough forward that I could see the crossroads, and then killed the engine. Heart thumping, I waited.
It worked. People don't really expect you to park in the middle of a car chase. They sort of assume you'll keep on driving. After a few seconds I saw the police car go flying over the intersection, but I stayed put a little while longer, wiping the sweat off my palms onto my jeans.
Then I very sedately reversed out of the space and pootled off up the road.
On the way back to the border I tried to call a friend of mine in the Net, a guy called Quat, but there was no reply. I left a message for him to get in touch with me as soon as possible, and then just concentrated on not driving into the sea. I was pretty calm by then, telling myself the Mexican cops had just been fishing, rousting a conspicuous Americano for kicks.
Just outside Tijuana I stopped to get some gas from a run-down place by the side of the road. I could have waited until I got the other side of the border, but the station looked like it needed the business. While the guy was gleefully filling my car up I took the opportunity to throw the remaining packets of Kims in the trash, and get some proper cigarettes at contraband prices.
I also elected to make use of their men's room, which was a questionable decision. The gas station claimed to be under new management, but the toilets were evidently still under some old management, or more probably governed by an organization which predated the concept of management altogether. Possibly the Spanish Inquisition. The smell was bracing, to say the least. Both of the urinals had been smashed, and one of the cubicles appeared to be where the local horses came when they needed to empty their backs. If so, someone needed to introduce them to the concept of toilet paper, and explain where exactly they should sit.
The remaining cubicle was relatively bearable, and I locked myself in and set about what I had to do. My mind was on other things, like what the hell I was going to do when I got back home, when I heard a knock on the door.
‘I'll be out in a minute,’ I said, zipping myself back up. Maybe the guy was just worried he wasn't going to get paid.
There was no answer. I was groping through the same sentence in pidgin Spanish when suddenly I realized it wouldn't be the gas jockey. He had my car keys. I wasn't going anywhere without them.
The knock came again, louder this time.
I looked quickly around, but there was no way out of the cubicle – except, of course, through the door. There never is. Take it from me, if you're ever on the run, a toilet cubicle isn't a great place to hide. They're designed with very little functional flexibility.
‘Who is it?’ I asked. There was no answer.
I had my gun with me, but that was no answer either. I'd like to think I've grown up, but it could just be that I've got more frightened. I was never a big one for firearms, and encouraging situations in which I might get my head splattered across walls had even less appeal than it used to. The gun's little more than a souvenir, and I haven't fired it in anger in four years. I've fired it in boredom, as my old CD player would testify, but that's not really enough. You have to keep in practice at senseless violence, otherwise you forget the point.
Extreme politeness was the only sensible course of action.
So I pulled the gun out, yanked open the door and screamed at whoever was there to get the fuck face down on the floor.
The room was empty. Just dirty walls and the sound of three taps dripping out of unison.
I blinked,