Jet

There.

Fifty yards up on the opposite side of the street, a Caucasian man leaned against the wall of a neighboring building, reading a paper, occasionally glancing at the waiting passengers when he flipped the pages.

He hadn’t seen her. Or if he had, he hadn’t registered her as anything besides what she appeared to be — a late thirties peasant woman down on her luck.

She turned and moved back down the street then ducked into a tiny market, where she bought a bottle of water and considered her options.

Thank God she’d decided to play dress up. She would have stuck out from a mile away if she hadn’t.

But her basic problem remained. How to get off the peninsula?

The small airport wasn’t a solution. It would also be watched if the bus stop was.

She resumed her walk, passing the little secondhand store, then backtracked and asked the proprietor if he knew anyone that could give her a ride to Carupano — a relatively large town on the Caribbean side that would have more buses to Caracas — the only international gateway she knew of. He rolled his eyes, considering the request.

“You can catch the bus. It leaves in a few minutes. Takes you there on the way to Caracas,” he offered.

“No. I’ve had bad experiences with rural buses. It’s worth it to me to pay a little more and have someone drive me.”

“It’s going to cost more than just a little more.”

“Well, I’m obviously not rich, but where there’s a will…”

He studied her. “I may know someone.”

“Could you call them?”

“What do you think is a fair price?”

“I don’t really know. How far is it?” she asked.

“Maybe eighty or ninety miles by road. Mostly bad roads.”

“What do you think is the right price?”

He laughed. “For you or for the driver?”

After another few minutes of banter, they agreed that twelve dollars seemed fair.

“My name’s Cesar. I’ll close up the shop.”

She nodded, her suspicion confirmed. “What’s your car like, Cesar?”

“It’s made it so far. Like me. A lot of miles, but still runs okay.”

He swung a rusting gate closed across the stall and slid a padlock through the latch, then motioned for her to follow him. Two blocks later, they arrived at a small house with a tin roof and chickens swarming the yard. A skinny brown mongrel dog growled from one side of the shaded front porch, but didn’t bother to move.

“Don’t let him scare you. He’s too lazy to bother to attack if it means getting up or coming into the sun,” Cesar said, then pointed at a sagging gray Isuzu Trooper that was more rust than metal.

She eyed it skeptically. “Are you sure that will make it?”

“It would make it to Alaska for the right kind of money.”

He walked to the side of the SUV and pulled free a filthy rag that served as a gas cap, then lifted a dented jerry can.

“Just need to fill it up, and then we can go.”

Jet began to get a sinking feeling, but simply nodded. Anyone watching for her wouldn’t be looking for a native woman in the world’s losing-est truck. She walked slowly around the vehicle, noting the nearly bald tires and the wire that appeared to be holding on one of the fenders.

“Jefe! Come on. You want to go for a ride?”

The dog sluggishly raised its head, and then its ears perked up. Cesar slapped his leg in invitation, and the animal stood and stretched, then sidled over to where his master was finishing pouring gas into the tank, watching with measured curiosity. Cesar returned the can to the side of the house and then opened the rear cargo door. The dog hopped up with remarkable dexterity and plopped down in the back.

“Hop in. We’ll be there in no time,” Cesar said.

She tossed her bags onto the rear bench seat, watching the dog for any sign of aggression before climbing into the passenger seat. The door sounded like it was going to fall off its hinges when she slammed it shut. Jefe began panting his anticipation, and the vehicle immediately smelled like dog breath.

Cesar slid behind the wheel and dug a key out of his pocket. Squinting at the dashboard as though puzzled by the layout, he fiddled with the ignition. At first nothing happened, and the temperature inside the cab quickly climbed twenty degrees. Finally, a series of clicks issued from under the hood, followed by a wheezing groan and a series of coughs, and then something caught, and the engine puttered to life.

“See? It’s a like a Mercedes! I told you.”

“Very impressive,” she agreed.

He jammed the shifter into drive and goosed the gas, and the ancient truck lurched reluctantly forward.

“Sorry. No air-conditioning. Broke about ten years ago. But once we’re moving, the air from the windows will cool us.”

“I just hope we keep moving.”

They pulled onto the narrow street, and he eased the truck up the gentle incline to where rural Highway 9 connected to the main street. On the outskirts of town, they passed an old converted school bus heading into Guiria. It looked marginally more trustworthy than the Isuzu.

“That’s the Caracas bus,” Cesar said, gesturing with his head.

“Nice.”

The road meandered across the peninsula and back again, and they motored along at an average of twenty miles per hour. Jet didn’t know whether to be more annoyed or relieved that the driver was being cautious. She decided to be optimistic and closed her eyes, allowing the feeble cross-ventilation to provide scant relief from the mounting heat.

Four hours later, they rolled into Carupano and Jet had Cesar drop her off a block from the bus station. She walked over and checked the schedule and saw that there was a bus headed to Caracas that evening, and another in the morning. The prospect of traveling three hundred miles at night on dubious roads didn’t appeal to her, so she decided to get a room and do some clothes shopping — the peasant garb had been fine, but it had served its purpose, and she needed essentials that a town the size of Carupano was likely to have.

She found a serviceable hotel a block and a half off the beach. The room was clean and comfortable, with a reasonable bed and a mild breeze blowing off the Caribbean. After unpacking her few belongings, she went in search of stores, and several blocks away, she came across one that looked promising. Within a few minutes, she found a pair of jeans and a top that would work — long-sleeved lightweight cotton in muted blue and green — and some running shorts and a T-shirt. Jet paid for her purchases and changed into the jeans and top at the store, stuffing her dress and blouse into the bag — then went in search of dinner.

She found a promising eatery on the malecon and took her time over her meal, but by the end of it, she realized she was exhausted. The night on the beach hadn’t been particularly restful, and she’d only been able to doze as the Isuzu had weaved through the jungle hills — she needed some solid hours of uninterrupted sleep.

It was getting dark as she exited the restaurant, and the stream of beachgoers had dried up. Jet stuck to the main seafront road, in no hurry, and was looking forward to the inviting bed in her room, when she turned the corner that led to her hotel.

A blur of motion came at her as she passed a small alley, and she barely had time to register a twenty- something-year-old man in a stained soccer jersey approaching her holding a knife. She threw her clothes bag at his head and then swiveled and grabbed his knife arm, then slammed the heel of her right hand into his face, catching him on the chin. He winced in pain from the blow, but he didn’t drop the knife, although he’d stopped his surge and was standing facing her, breathing heavily, a trickle of blood running down his chin. He spit a bloody gob of froth and a decayed tooth into the gutter, and glared at her. He was emaciated and smelled sour, with a junkie’s distinctive body tics.

A smaller man, older, with a face that resembled nothing so much as a rat, edged to the alley mouth, his eyes darting down the street to confirm there were no witnesses. He clutched a length of pipe and held it like he