phosphorescence on the jungle floor as I slowly took off my jacket.
I heard Aaron's door creak open and looked up to see him silhouetted against the glow from the canal. By now I was nearly naked, rinsing my jeans in the trench before wringing them out and throwing them up on to the grass, then checking out my back rash and face.
I watched as he stuck his head slowly into the back of the wagon. He recoiled and turned away, vomit already exploding from his mouth. I heard it splatter against the side of the vehicle and tarmac above me, then the sounds of him retching up those last bits that stay in your throat and nose.
I scrambled up on to the grass and hurriedly dressed in my wet clothes. Aaron had his last cough and snort and walked back to the cab, wiping his beard with a handkerchief. Sidestepping the pool of vomit on the tarmac, I covered Unibrow again with the poncho, lowered the tailgate, and climbed in next to Aaron, ignoring what had just happened even though I could smell it on his breath. That's better, wet but clean-ish.' I grinned, trying to lighten the tone.
Aaron didn't respond. He looked terrible, even in this low light. His eyes were glistening with tears and his breathing was sharp and quick as he swallowed hard, maybe to stop himself throwing up again. His large hairy Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a fishing float with a bite. He was having a moment with his thoughts, not even realizing I'd spoken as he rubbed his stubble with shaking hands.
'Back to your place, then how far is it again, mate?'
I patted him on the shoulder and he nodded, turning the ignition with another little cough. He gave a quiet, resigned, 'Sure.' His voice trembled as he added, 'It's about four hours, maybe more. We've had some very heavy rain.'
I made the effort and kept my happy voice on, not really knowing what else to do or say 'We'd better get a move on, then, hadn't we?'
We got through Fort Clayton and hit the main drag; the Barrier was up, it seemed the old security guy didn't play at night. I'd been wrong, the street lighting wasn't used now that there wasn't much traffic on it any more.
We turned left, leaving the lock and Clayton behind us, travelling in silence. A distant arc of light in the night sky indicated the city, along with flashing red lights from the top of a profusion of communication towers. Aaron just stared straight ahead, swallowing hard.
Before long we approached the floodlit toll booths by the old Albrook air-force base. The noise of the bus terminal blasted all | around us as power hoses washed the buses. A surprisingly large number of workers were waiting for transport, most holding small iceboxes and smoking.
Aaron spent the best part of a minute fumbling in his pockets and the glove compartment at the toll booth. A bored, middle-aged woman just stared into space with her hand out, no doubt dreaming about getting on to one of those buses at the end of her shift.
I let my head bob about as we bounced along the pot-holed road and into the sleeping city via El Chorrillo. A few lights were on here and there in the apartment blocks, and the odd scabby mongrel skulked along a sidewalk, then a black BMW screamed past us at warp speed. Five or six heads with cigarettes glowing in their mouths jutted backwards and forwards to the beat of some loud Latin music as it roared down the street. The BM had violet- coloured headlights, and a powerful fluorescent glow beneath the body work made it look like it was hovering. My eyes followed it into the distance as it hung a right, tyres squealing like something out of NYPD Blue.
I looked over at Aaron. He probably wouldn't even have reacted if we'd been overtaken by the USS Enterprise. He screwed up his face and deep lines cut into his skin. He looked as if he was going to be sick again as we bounced along, turning right at the junction the BM had taken. Once more we drove past the Pepsi stand, barred up for the night, and into the market area.
I thought I needed to say something to fill the silence, but I didn't know what.
I just looked out at the rubbish overflowing from the piles of soaked cardboard boxes that fringed the square, and cats fighting over the scraps.
In the end it was Aaron who broke the deadlock, wiping his nose into his hand before he spoke.
'Nick ... ?'
'What's that, mate?' I was almost too tired to speak.
'Is that what you do kill people? I mean, I know it happens, it's just that-' I pointed down at the gollock in the foot well
'I nearly lost my leg with that thing, and if he'd had his way, it would have been my head. I'm sorry, mate, there was no other way. Once we're the other side of the city, I'll bin him.'
He didn't reply, just stared intently through the windscreen, nodding slowly to himself.
We hit the bay once more, and I saw a line of ships' navigation lights flickering out at sea. Then I realized Aaron had started to shake. He'd spotted a police car at the roadside ahead, with two rather bored-looking officers smoking and reading the papers. I gave myself a mental slapping, but not enough for him to see.
I kept my voice calm.
'Don't worry, just drive normally, everything's OK.'
It wasn't, of course: they might stop a beaten-up Mazda just to relieve the boredom.
As we passed, the driver glanced up from his newspaper, and turned to say something to his mate. I kept my eyes on the cracked wing mirror, watching the four police cars as I spoke.
'It's OK, mate, there's no movement from behind.
They're still static. Just keep to the limit and smile.'
I didn't know if he responded. My eyes were glued to the vehicles in the mirror until they dropped out of sight. I caught sight of my face for the first time.
It was a pleasant surprise. My left eye was half closed but not as swollen as it felt.
I looked over again to see how Aaron was doing and the answer was, not good.
He wasn't enjoying his visit to my planet one little bit. I wondered why and how he'd got involved in this shit. Maybe he'd had no choice. Maybe he was just like me and Diego, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We splashed our way through mini-Manhattan, where large neon signs flashed down from the top of buildings on to the wet tarmac below. It was a completely different world from El Chorrillo, and a whole galaxy away from what had just been happening in the old Zone.
Aaron gave a small cough. 'You know what you're going to do with that guy yet, Nick?'
'We need to hide him somewhere on the way to your place, once we're out of the city. Any ideas?'
Aaron shook his head slowly from side to side. I couldn't tell whether he was answering or if it had just come loose.
'We can't leave him to rot... God forbid. He's a human being, for God's sake.'
There was resignation in his voice.
'Look, I'll bury him for you. There's an old tribal site near the house. No one will find him there. It's the right thing to do he's someone's son, Nick. Maybe even someone's father. The family in the picture, they don't deserve this.'
'No one goes there?'
He shook his head.
'Not in a few hundred years.'
I wasn't going to argue with that. If he wanted to dig a hole, that was fine by me.
I got back to looking at the neon as he drove, and hoped that someone like him found my body one day.
We came to the airport road toll booth the other side of the financial district, and this time I got out a dollar of my own money. I didn't want us standing still any longer than we had to. Diego would take quite a bit of explaining.
He paid the woman with a sad 'Gracias' and a thanks to me for giving him the money. This wasn't a good night out for him at all.
The lights faded behind us as we hit the road out of town. I dug out the wallet again, hit the cab light and looked at Diego's family picture. I thought of Kelly, and the way her life would be if I died without sorting out the mess I'd created. I thought of all the things I'd wanted to say to her, and hadn't ever managed to.
I wondered if his mum had wanted to say those things to her son, to tell him how much she loved him, or to say sorry about the stupid argument they'd had. Maybe that had been the stuff that had flashed through Diego's head in the moments before he died, things he wanted to say to these people raising their glasses at the camera as
