THE STRANGER ON THE BUS

 

                                        Episode 7      

                                     Triple Cross

 

   So what's a smart guy like me doing in a jerk situation like this? I wish I had a dime for every time I've asked myself that question.

   I mean whose city is this anyway? The Underworld want it, as far as this sucker's concerned, they can have it, gift-wrapped with a cherry on top. Who says the good guy always wins? I gave up that idea when I first got thrown out of Sunday School for raiding the collection jar.

   In this business, there's no such thing as heroes. Just schmucks like me. It was times like this I always started planning to have my head examined. Gee, I wished I had a cigarette.

   It was 6 o'clock. Thursday afternoon. And here I was, twisted up like a pretzel in the trash under the seat of the 710 school bus, hitch-hiking a free ride to the depot. The way my gut was wrenching I guessed the bus was winding its way into the main traffic, and I was nearly there.

   Sure enough, the floor took a jump, the brakes gave a squeal and the barbed wire gate rolled closed behind. I was inside the depot.

   It was only then I realised I had about as much of a plan of action as a kitten that's just crawled into a closing microwave. 

   The driver's shoes came strolling down the aisle, kicking the seats as they went. I took a chestful of dust and made like a lungfish. Meanwhile the shoes kept coming.

   Suddenly, the length of a blowfly's necktie away from my face, they stopped. Sweat was running like drainwater down my face. If I didn't die of suffocation first, I was already halfway toward drowning under here.

   The figure in blue leaned down. My teeth clenched. An arm leaned down and picked up a bus ticket.

   Mine. And then it went upward again.

   "Rotten litterpunks," the man mumbled as he passed through the door and left.

   I breathed again. Climbing onto the seat, wiping the flood from my face, I reached trembling for my pack of B & H. And vowed like a monk that that was going to be the last time Nick Shaw Did The Wrong Thing.

   Nicotine had never tasted so good.

   I put up my feet, set my brain into cruise and waited.

   Though for what, for how long and for whom, only Father Time and Lady Luck on this night of surprises would tell.

 

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   It was 3:58 a.m. I'd been sleeping like a cat on a jackhammer, jumping six feet every time a mosquito coughed. It looked like a question of which would go first: my mind or my trouser seam.

   Then I heard something. My cigarette and me went to the ground. Someone was opening the Depot Gate.

   By the look of the headlights there were 2 Ford Pick-ups, a GMH Van and a Merc. A full-fledged bonified Narcotics Navy. I ducked as the light beams swept through the bus, and glanced up again as they turned to the other end of the joint. It looked like Unloading Time. For their cargo, and for me. 

   Making like Felix the Cat between the sleeping hulks of this pantechnikon parkland, I slowly made my way to the action.

   A quick eye at the Seiko and it was 5:35 a.m. Morning was on its way, and here I was, a single bus-width and a smile away from the Pushers' Powder Party.

   They were jabbering away in Chinese or Malaysian or something. I almost thought I recognised one of the voices. Help! Where was Charlie when I needed him?

   A quick count told me something I'd have been happier not knowing. Fifteen movers. Seven guards. Three dogs. Nick Shaw was outnumbered twenty-five to one. I didn't like those odds. If I'd had any money, it wouldn't have been on the gumshoe.

   Take a leaf out of the book of a suburban kid who's learnt it all the hard way. When you're out on the street, a heartful of confidence is about as useful as a bucket of strawberry yoghurt, and not half as edible either. I'd suddenly found myself standing here, asking what the hell was I going to do next? This whole party was beginning to look for Nick Shaw like a choice between mauling, shooting or heart attack.

   Too late. The choice had just been made for me. The bark of a dog, a flurry of voices, the crush of animal fangs on my leg and here I was surrounded on four sides. There was one way to go and I took it. Straight up.

   In a tenth of a second I was in through the open bus window and into the drivers' compartment. By the time anybody knew what was going on, I had the pedal to the metal and the gearstick to the ground.

   I wasn't giving in without a fight.

   Nick Shaw had double-crossed the double-crossers.

   The lowlife's stolen bus had been stolen back!

 

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          BE SURE TO CATCH SHAW in the LIGHTNING CONCLUSION

                          to "THE STRANGER ON THE BUS"   

                                    Episode 8  -  next week

 

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