Shady Places

Don’t pay the ferryman
Don’t even fix a price
Don’t pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side

Chris de Burgh

Uruguay – June 2003

I’ve had more than enough luck in my life to say that I’d had more than my fair share. Buying gold at its lowest, being mistaken for the CIA when I had no cards left to play and falling in love with the creator of Bitcoin. Each of those came with an adventure and a windfall, but there were also some that came at a cost.

And as a sprinted for my life down that Montevideo street on a winter afternoon, I quickly weighed up my all the decisions in my life that had led me to that point. A writer once said that a story needed to be more than a series of events. Each step in the hero’s journey could only happen because something else had led him there.

I knew then that my life had not been just been happenstance and everything that had happened to me before had led up to this moment of sheer terror. My breaking up with Beth had led me to meet Alison. Breaking up with Alison led me to Timor. And going to Timor had put me in bed with Sally, which now had come back to haunt me.

From the moment I laid eyes on those sailors and them on me, with hate in their eyes and murder in their hearts, I knew exactly what had happened. Somehow, Sally’s husband had learned of our liaison and then sought to murder me. He had tried and failed in Canberra from where I fled. But like a fool, I had sent letters and postcards to all, including Sally, and he had read them. He had sent his goons after me, and I had tipped them off during each step of their pursuit. Letters to Sally and addresses to Laura had given them all the details they needed to find me. As I dodged startled Montevideanos, tipping over bins and racing through the traffic, I had only one thought. I deserved this.

Not that I blamed either Sally or Laura for my current predicament. Sally was likely unaware of her husband’s murderous plans, so how he found out we’d screwed was still a mystery. Laura’s connection, however, was more than obvious. In my desire to bed her again, I had left her my hotel address in Uruguay. My sailor friends had evidently confronted her and pried the address from her by some means. Though she was likely safe, I had a sick feeling in my stomach that she was not. 

Despite her situation, and as much as I knew that sleeping with another man’s wife was bad and had earned me a beating, I still ran. First, because someone had assaulted me once, and I never wanted it to happen again. And second, because I didn’t trust that these men would be satisfied with just giving me a simple bashing. They had crossed an ocean and half a continent to find me, tracking me patiently by following each bread crumb I left behind. No one does that with without bloody and dangerous thoughts. So I ran, I ran because my life depended on it.

And although I could feel the icy hand of death upon me, a strange calmness befell me and I thought back to the most unlikely of events to deliver me from my peril. Five years earlier I had been sitting around company headquarters, only days from meeting Alison, bemoaning my break up with Beth, when I was rudely taken and deposited in a muddy forest and told to run. Pursuers would be upon me soon and I had to escape at all costs. My escape and evasion training comprised five minutes of instruction in the back of a moving truck, and only one thing stayed with me; change direction frequently.

Outdoors, your options were wide open but there were less place to hide. In a city, it was the opposite. Fewer places to run, but innumerable places to vanish. My problem, though, was not hiding. I had more than enough distance from my three pursers. Even if I outran them, which I had, I eventually had to return to my hotel to retrieve my possessions and then they would have me cornered. I only hoped that they would realise that too late and by then I would be long gone.

Though it had felt like a lifetime since I had seen them, it must have been a little over five minutes. I knew I couldn’t maintain that speed for more than a few more minutes because I was already exhausted. So, rounding a corner block, I checked my mental map and turned down a side street back toward my hotel.

My course was obvious, collect my things, including my all-important passport, and like those German sailors over fifty years earlier, vamoose into the countryside. After that I could make my next move, but this time I would tell no ex or current lovers of my plans. And even though the thought of heading back to Peru for another liaison with Justina or Laura tempted me, I knew then that either option would only invite danger.

When I arrived, I knew I had little time to watch for trouble, so I risked entering the hotel in broad daylight. Knowing the chances of them assaulting me in the lobby were low, I dashed inside and made straight for my room. I’d had little time to settle in and easily gathered what few possessions I had deposited about the place. Running to the front desk, I threw my key at the clerk and shouted, “Adios” as he stared at me blankly.

My timing could not have been more perfect because a taxi materialised just as I emerged from the entrance and, using my Spanish skills, I hailed it with no trouble. It was not a moment too soon because, just as I opened the door, my would-be assailants rounded the corner. Seeing that I was just about to escape, they sprinted toward me just as I slammed the door and yelled, “¡Conductir!”

As the cab sped away, I turned to look at the three exasperated sailors throwing their hands up in defeat. I smiled. I had just dodged death, but my triumph was short-lived. One of the trio would not give up so soon and I could see that he was also trying to trying to hail a cab. Even though I had evaded them, I knew I had only gained a few minutes at best. A cross city car chase would likely only end with me stepping out of my cab and them arriving on the kerb beside me. I tried to think of somewhere safe to go but, as I barely knew the city, I could only think of the one other place I had visited thus far; the naval museum and, more importantly, the fishing docks.

With nowhere left to run and pursued by three men who seemed likely to follow me to the ends of the earth, I decided I had but one chance. I had to break contact with them and go off the grid. I had to go somewhere they would least suspected and I could tell no one where I had gone. Once I was out of their reach, ensconced in some far away bolt hole, I could think about what to do next and what to do when or if I ever returned to Australia.

I still had good connections at home, and I had an ace up my sleeve. But I knew I could only play it once, and using it to escape some cuckold’s cabin mates would have consequences. No, I needed to put some distance between them and me, then play my hand at the perfect time. And now was not that moment.

I had to get out of town as fast as I could and at that instant, I only knew of one way to leave Montevideo fast. So, with my bag in hand, I threw a fortune of pesos at the taxi driver and ran toward the same docks that I was that afternoon. The docks where I had met the master of the Virasa. The man who had promised to take me all the way to New Zealand if I paid. Not that I was keen to spend six months at sea to get to Wellington or to spend the money it would take to get there. But I figured if I paid him enough, he might take me to somewhere more useful; Buenos Aires.

Located just on the other side of the River Plate, BA was a teeming metropolis that would be easy enough for me to get lost in. Once there, I figured I could find an out of the way hotel and plan my escape, possibly west via Chile or north via the US. It seemed like a quick trip, but the Argentine capital lay over 200km to the west. Not that it occurred to me then. As far as I knew, BA was just over the river.

I found the Virasa and not a moment too soon. The Ricardo had been true to his word, and the ship looked as if it were getting to heave to in the next few minutes. As I rushed toward him and another man he was locked in a heated debate with, I started shouting, “Captain, captain! Do you remember me? I wish to ride on your ship, please!”

Cabrera and his companion stopped bickering and stared at me in disbelief. I told him I would be forever in his debt if he would take me to Buenos Aires. The pair of them looked at me as if I were mad with their mouths open and eyes unblinking.

It was then that I saw that the decision was not up to the captain, as Cabrera seemed to turn to seek the other man’s approval before he spoke. When he did, he told me it was not possible.

In desperation, I cut him off and, fumbling for my wallet, pulled every Peso I had and thrust them in his face. “I’ll pay you all of this-likely several hundred US dollars’ worth-and double once we reach the other side!”

Cabrera again appeared that he was about to refuse me when the second man cut him off. Taking the cash from my hand, he said, “Of course we will take you, my friend. Welcome aboard the Virasa.”

The master starred at him in disbelief, but the second man waved him away. “I am Antonio Perez,” he said. “First mate of the ship.”

That confused me. I thought that captains out ranked first mates but I wasn’t about to question them then. I eagerly climbed up the gangway as both men argued inaudibly behind me. When they reached the deck, the Virasa cast off, and the ship moved off into the channel. But it didn’t take me long to realise that we were not heading west to BA as we had agreed, but most definitely east out toward the Atlantic Ocean.

I let the ship sail on that course for as long as I could hold my nerve before I sort out Antonio and asked him how long it would be before we arrived in Buenos Aires.

“Oh, three, maybe four months,” he said.

I felt myself sicken and this time it wasn’t the swell of the sea that was doing it. “Three or four months!” I exploded. “What the fuck? Where are you taking me?”

“Fishing,” he said. “This is a trawler, not a ferry.”

“But you promised me,” I protested, wondering if it was at all possible to jump overboard and swim back to shore. “I will take you to Buenos Aires,” Perez said. “I just never said when.”

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