The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [122]
He sat down behind some bushes and waited. Twenty minutes left.
He felt a niggling unease. Not because of the transaction with the fat one—it was open area and Slobodan could not do anything—but because he doubted the very reasoning behind his plan.
At exactly two o’clock Slobodan Andersson pulled into the parking lot. Like Armas, he drove a BMW. He turned off the engine but did not get out of the car. He looked around. He took a call on his cell phone that he terminated almost immediately. Manuel waited behind the bushes. Slobodan writhed uncomfortably in the car and Manuel watched as he strained to look back toward town and check out all the cars heading east from the roundabout.
Manuel stood up from the ditch. Slobodan had his attention aimed in the opposite direction and did not observe him. Manuel snuck over and tapped on the window. Slobodan threw open the car door.
“Hell, you scared me!”
“Do you have the money?” Manuel asked.
Slobododan glared at him.
“Where do you have the goods?”
“I want the money in my hands first, then you will—”
“Where is your car?”
“I walked here,” Manuel said. “We have to hurry now.”
“Walked? Give me the goods.”
“I want to see the money first.”
Slobodan looked around, then picked up a dark plastic bag from the passenger seat and held it out. Manuel opened the bag and there were the bills. One-hundred-dollar notes. Four hundred of them.
“Forty thousand?”
“Of course,” Slobodan snapped, his brow wet with perspiration.
Manuel left the bag and went to get the sports bag with the cocaine. When he returned to the car, Slobodan was talking on the phone.
“Stop talking!” Manuel said.
Slobodan smiled tauntingly, but turned off the phone. Manuel handed him the bag, Slobodan checked the contents and held out the plastic bag with the money, shut the car door without a word, and drove away. Manuel ran back, jumped into his car, and quickly drove onto the highway. He caught sight of Slobodan’s car on the E-4. As Manuel approached the roundabout he saw Slobodan’s brake lights come on. He had hit a red light. Manuel chuckled smugly.
Slobodan drove at great speed north on the E-4 until he suddenly turned off toward town. Manuel was afraid of losing him, but he did not want to stay too close. Luck smiled on him again and he was just able to pass the intersection before the lights turned red.
The fat one crisscrossed through town and finally ended up by the river, where he parked the car and got out. Manuel, who was forced to stop several times for pedestrians saw him cross the street with the bag in his hand. Manuel took a empty parking space.
Slobodan disappeared down an alley and Manuel hurried to keep up. If he was going to have a chance to punish the fat one he could not lose him now. Slobodan walked quickly at first but then slowed the pace and Manuel sensed that the rapid clip had worn him down.
After several minutes he entered a restaurant. The sign said Alhambra. Manuel recognized the name as being the same restaurant that Feo had mentioned.
After ten minutes Slonodan was back on the street again, minus the bag. How dumb can a gringo be? Manuel thought and watched Slobodan blend into the crowd.
Manuel breathed freely. He felt how hungry he was. The tension surrounding the delivering of the drugs and following the fat one had suppressed all needs.
A little way down the pedestrian zone there was a group of musicians and Manuel walked over to them. He thought about the men he and his brothers had joined forces with in crossing the border, and how after their successful crossing they had sung a few songs and shown them the typical dance steps of their region. It would probably be a long time before he would have the pleasure of a huapango, he thought, and left the musicians