S&S12

He was beginning to calm down, at last. He could feel his vascular skin regaining its usual pallor. The hollow feeling in his stomach was gradually receding, allowing the organs that belonged there to settle back into their designated positions. He was no longer looking pale with fear at the officer’s serious face, but instead began slowly dissecting him with his gaze, a man of middle age, short hair - a military crew cut, fresh and neat. Slightly greying at the temples. He couldn’t have been more than 40-45 years old. He seemed aged more by frustrations, by his own maliciousness, and the abuses he’d committed on the job, rather than the normal passage of his years. He was short in stature. Very stocky, tough - but would definitely be easy to take down with a well – known blow in his hometown, both for its strength and for its speed. He had knocked out much larger men than the officer in front of him - and with much less effort than he intended to invest in the blow aimed at the pig who pulled him over - but only if it came to that, of course.

He then looked at the name written on the officer’s chest tag, from the side: M….Jones…? Something …. Maybe...

He wasn’t certain. It wasn’t very clear from that angle. But he had two stars on his epaulets, and this seemed very strange to him, that meant he was an Inspector, what was a police Inspector doing on the roadside, stalking traffic misdemeanours, at the outskirts of a rundown port town?

So, the young man told himself, almost malevolently grinning, Mister Inspector, he repeated in his head, smiling maliciously. A smile that went unnoticed this time by the wandering gaze of the officer, who was more focused on inspecting the car’s tyres, for whatever reason - scrutinizing them attentively from all possible angles.

David then looked at the police car, King County plates….. They must have been stationed nearby, maybe even in his own home town? But what were they doing all the way there, so far away from the city? Well, at least he knew more about him now…the perimeter of possible refuge had already tightened up around the officer in question. One more misstep on his side, and David would certainly know how to -

‘Hand over that ID, you piece of shit!’ the officer shouted, gesturing with his hand towards David. ‘Come on, hurry up, I don’t have all day!’ he said, wiggling his fingers at him.

David pulled out all the documents he had in his pockets and handed them over to him - taking rapid advantage of the proximity, as he got closer to the officer, to see his full name tag: Morgan P Jones, So, he repeated the name in his head several times, mouthing the syllables on his lips, Inspector Morgan P Jones, From King County…

‘Thank You, Dispatch. No-No, that’s all for now,’ the cop signalled in his walkie - talkie. Then, ‘You’, he yelled at David ‘Come Here!’

The young man flinched and looked around as if he didn’t understand what was happening, or who the officer was addressing.

‘Come on, get over here,’ the officer sarcastically consoled him, smiling wickedly at the same time. ‘Come on, I won’t hurt you, just come over here, let me talk to you!’ He assured him.

Yet, when David approached close enough, the officer suddenly thrust his hand forward and grabbed David by the face and said, as viciously as possible, with a courage and audacity that his small stature would have bitterly betrayed at first sight otherwise.

‘Now you listen to me, you little fuck, you were lucky this time, you caught me in a good mood,’ he said, through gritting teeth. ‘I’m letting you go now, but if I catch you exceeding the speed limit even by a centimeter, you’re done, understood?’

With his jaw and neck held tightly in the cop’s firm grip, David tried to nod in agreement but couldn’t, the officer began to squeeze his already clenched jaw even tighter, then tried to furiously push him forward. However, the young man barely budged, and the officer only managed to slip, he released his jaw by mistake, and managed to unbalance himself, then falling face first onto David’s massive chest.

He immediately jerked back and took a few quick steps backward.

‘You son of a - Get! Get the fuck out of here, right now! I don’t want to see you around here ever again, you hear me? I catch you around her again and you’re dead, you hear me!!! He yelled at the young man, twitching and blushing and shaking, while David stared puzzled right at him… struggling to understand what was happening.

While massaging his numb chin, David watched the inspector getting back into his car, where his partner was waiting at the wheel- a sleepy, sluggish constable, who had not bothered to even get out of the cruiser in all that time, despite his partner’s strange actions and behaviour.

They turned the car around with three jerky moves in the middle of the road, dispersing a heavy and hot exhaust smell into the morning coolness. Driving in the opposite direction, the police officer stuck his head out the window and shouted something - unintelligent - grinning maliciously at David again. He seemed to be mocking him, or something - but regardless, it was yet another gesture that David also could not understand.

He returned to his car and reached for the glove compartment, from where he produced a pack of Dunhill’s, likely inherited from Billy’s last trip in the same old car, he pulled out a small green lighter as well - which he tried three or four times until he finally managed to light it.

‘Fuckin’ pig,’ David whispered to himself, looking in the rear-view mirror at his face, bruised by the idiots cop’s sadistic grip on one side, scratched by the bullet on the other - and the fine trail of blood flowed freely from it again. He wiped the trickle of blood with his sleeve, then took a deep drag from the cigarette, blowing the thick, heavy smoke towards the windshield before him.

He continued to think about the police officer and the incident that had nearly cost him the entire journey. His leg had numbed considerably, and only now were beginning to regain their usual circulation. His arms were still shaking slightly. It seemed as if his entire body was vibrating due to the tension and anxiety that he was only now slowly beginning to detach from.

With the cigarette between his lips, he stretched back, reaching between the front seats for the bag in the back. Once retrieved, he carefully placed it on his lap. He opened it and looked thoughtfully at the piles of metal barrels and bullets, of different shapes and sizes, several Russian pistols, two or three disassembled hunting rifles, and a few German revolvers. He rummaged carefully among them…A Thousand Randelas, he thought - for a single round trip… The bag in his lap held goods worth at least fifty thousand. If he was smart, he thought, he could just take the bag and disappear, no more hassle with the road, with the police. But, no sir - he scolded himself - he absolutely had to risk his skin for the city’s lowly thugs.

He took deep drags from his dying cigarette and grumbled to himself in the car, parked on the side of the road. The fog had lifted a bit and the surrounding landscape had regained some of its colour. Occasionally, the chirping of a bird could be heard in the distance, and the rustle of a few surviving leaves, still clinging to the trees around him.

And it was only that calm, natural state that he allowed himself to imagine what he would have done with all that money, if he had had the courage to run away with it, where he would have gone, how he would have squandered it….

He then realized, sadly, that while he was dreaming of wealthy scenarios, with women and money and houses on the beaches of countries he had only seen in Billy’s bootlegged video tapes, he had completely forgotten about the family he’d left behind, his mother and siblings, who would certainly suffer as a result of such an unwise decision.

Anyway, his aspirations were directed towards a more stable, safer future…. Yes, it would not have been difficult to take the money and leave. He would get rich quickly, but how long would that well-being even last? The entire city would be after him, afterward. Tiny, Albert… Even Billy, who had to take orders. And a lifetime of sleeping with a gun under his pillow certainly wouldn’t have been worth living, not even for the fifty thousand Randelas that he would get off the smuggled guns.

His family … on the other hand, if he made the trip, as Promised, he would receive some decent money in return, not enough, of course - you could never have enough money, especially with so many siblings at home - but if he was wise, and waited patiently, if he did as he was told for just another year, maybe two… perhaps, who knows? Maybe he would finally get some recognition. Maybe he would finally put aside a decent pile of cash to retire from these dubious activities, and just start over. He briefly thought of Sasha, as well … of marriage, and children…and buying one of those nice apartments that he himself had worked on.

There was a sudden, powerful thunder outside - and the wind whistled through the cracks in the car’s body. He was startled. Then he burst into laughter, waking up to reality. Dreams. Stories, he thought, shaking his head resignedly, yet smiling at the self - irony he had allowed himself to succumb to.

This is what they had filled his head with, his so-called friends, these weren’t his thoughts. They weren’t his aspirations…. Maybe they could have been, indeed, a potential path he could have taken. His boundless, even reckless courage, combined with his weight and imposing physical strength, were assets that his companions in the trade could only have dreamed of, and would certainly have given him an advantage in the underworld, which relied only on brute force and intimidation.

But he would not have felt comfortable in such an environment. To live a lifetime in illegality? To profit from the suffering of others, equally, or even more unhappy than he…?

The cigarette was almost finished and was beginning to extinguish. It had smoked itself out more than he had, while he was dreaming of potential alternative futures for himself and his loved ones.

No, definitely, this wasn’t a life for him. He didn’t want to live off harming others. Always thinking about what would come next, afterward. However, he had made a promise. He had committed himself to completing this transport and intended to keep his promise, to carry out his task to the end, to earn the sum of money he had agreed upon with Tiny, at the beginning - to buy his little girl the shoes she so desperately needed, and, from there on, to seriously consider what he would do next. But he knew now, beyond any doubt, that he never wanted to find himself in such situations, ever again.

With a slight bitterness, even disappointment, he closed the bag. He took the last remaining drag from the cigarette, threw the butt out the window, and carefully placed the bag in front of the passenger seat, under the dashboard.

He slammed the car door shut, and after three violent twists of the key, which shook up the entire car, the engine finally started…..