"Most People Are Dangerous" Mr Martínez 10

Martínez reached the trucker’s table just as he was standing up. The driver scattered four two-euro coins on the table top, next to his half-eaten flan. Martínez couldn’t abide the mutant cheesecake peculiar to Andalusia, his prospective ride didn’t seem too keen on it either. Maybe that was why he hadn’t left a tip. The driver could have been anything from forty to seventy. His skin was as wrinkled as a dried autumn leaf and the same colour. The freakish blue of his eyes suggested some north-european ancestor whose genes had survived generations of marriage between Sevillano second cousins. Martínez jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the bar,

‘El Jefe says you’ll give me a ride.’

‘He’s not my boss. Where you goin’?’

Martínez thought the driver might get a crick in his neck if they talked too long.

‘As far as you can take me.’

‘Got any money?’

Martínez nodded, ‘Some.’

‘I need some diesel, I’ll take you as far as what you put in the Pegaso will take us, Señor.’

‘I could get us to Biarritz.’

‘Just put a hundred euros in the tank, then, Señor.’

‘Call me, Martínez . I’ll meet you at the pump.’ Martínez walked over to the gas station. The driver shambled over to an old Pegaso flatbed that his grandfather might have bought new. The paintwork was patchy, but the hubcaps shone. The truck started first time. The driver put the truck right by the diesel pump first time. El gasolinero came out of the office-cum-convenience store and shouted up to the driver in the cab,

‘¿Cuanto litros? The driver nodded down at Martínez , who held up two fifties.

‘’Til the money runs out,’ he said

Martínez clambered into the flat-bed’s cab. The driver looked at him. ‘¿Norte?’

‘What’s on the truck?’

‘This and that.’

‘Where are you headed?’

The driver put the stick shift into drive and asked Martínez if it mattered. Then he lit up a cigarette without offering his passenger one.

‘North it is then.’ Martínez said.

The flatbed pulled out onto the road and headed for the crossroads heading for the freeway north to Córdoba. The driver turned on the radio just in time for the last of a headline news item.

‘Se considera este personaje como armado y peligroso.’

‘Most people are dangerous, even without guns.’ Martínez tuned the ancient radio to a station playing just musica latina.

The driver might have stuck to his promise, had they not been pulled over, some 250 kilómetros later, at the behest of a Guardia Civil Trafico vehicle on the A-41, just after the slip road to Cuidad Real. Martínez swore, the driver didn’t, just asking him if he had ‘papeles’. Martínez replied he had no ID at all. A mugging on the road a long way back. The driver swore quite a few times at that.

It was a one-vehicle stop, in the lay-by beside the yellow emergency ‘phone. Just the two GC Trafico uniforms. One big guy, who would have to go down first, maybe. The other was a weedy type, the kind of person who really was dangerous with a gun, since they relied on it to even up the score. The big guy told them to step out of the cab. The driver had his vehicle documents and DNI card held out in front of him as he hit the ground. Martínez shouldered his bag and thought about running, but figured he wouldn’t make it across one lane, never mind four. As he stepped around the front of the cab, the skinny guy was giving him the fish-eye. The driver was talking,

‘...And just now he tells me he has no papeles!’

Big cop turned to look at Martínez , Weedy Cop hadn’t taken his eyes off him since he came round to the side of the truck away from the autopista.

‘No papers, Señor? Why?’

‘I lost ‘em. A while back.’

‘That was careless. When did you last have an ID card?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Ah, that makes it difficult. We are looking for someone, of course. You must have guessed. If you had papers, we could rule you out, no? You see how we’re fixed. Why, you could be a dangerous criminal. You might even be the bandido desesperado we’re looking for.’

Big Cop looked over at his partner and laughed. Skinny Cop spat on the ground, narrowly missing the driver’s boot.

‘So, claramente, we’ll have to take you in, Señor..¿Qué? I don’t believe you said…’

‘Martínez , people call me Martínez .’

Big Cop gestured at his partner, ‘They call him Cabrón, but that doesn’t mean it’s his name.’

Skinny Cop was too frightened of his partner answer him back. He made do with roughing Martínez up a little as he put him in back of the SUV. Martínez decided not to make anything of it. Especially when his bag followed him into the rear of the vehicle. He turned to look out of the rear window at the trucker and realised he hadn’t even asked him his name.