Could the night get any worse? A thin spittle hung from his lips like foam around the mouth of a hard-driven horse. Sal stepped as hard as he could on the gas pedal, caused the bus's wheels to screech. His fucking driving instructor's voice reverberated inside his head when he stopped at a traffic light further up the road: "You need to slow down in conditions such as heavy rain. Driving even a few miles over the speed limit increases the chances that you’ll lose control of the vehicle."
The instructor had been a total moron. He hadn't liked Sal’s way of braking, so the instructor kept slamming his own brake repeatedly, causing the car to jerk back and forth which made it impossible to drive.
To hell with it.
Sal didn’t slow down, even the lights changed to yellow. He barely saw it turn to red as he blasted past the intersection.
The bus skidded on the wet road. Sal was smart enough to know not to slam the brakes.
Adding further fuel to Sal’s aggravation was the sudden roar of a siren. A police car cropped up in the rear mirror, its red and blue lights flashing brightly. Sal had no option but to pull to the side of the road and wait for the officer to get out and make his approach.
He could handle this.
He lifted his foot off the gas, and the bus stopped its insane pace, finally coming to a full stop.
The officer—wearing a traditional blue police officer's uniform and black sunglasses—climbed out of his car and approached the bus. Sal noticed that the officer was slightly overweight as he tapped the window, signaling for Sal to roll it down.
“How’s your day going, officer?” Sal asked the ruddy-faced cop.
"Good evening. I'm Officer Green, and I'm stopping you for driving one hundred and twenty-two miles per hour in twenty-five mile per hour speed zone. Do you have any reason for driving that fast?” the cop asked, ignoring Sal’s question.
Sal resisted sassing the officer: No, I don’t, because Law and Order lied to us all. “I was driving recklessly,” he answered instead.
The cop raised his eyebrows as if he'd expected Sal to plead his innocence.
An immediate download crashed into Sal’s head. The officer was trying to open a dialog to see if he could get some information about Sal, if was he intoxicated, nervous, or if he showed some other indicators that something was amiss. “You look wet. Do you always walk around in the rain late at night?”
“Only when I take dance lessons," Sal replied sourly.
“Can I see your license and registration, please?” the cop continued. Sal opened the glove compartment; it was the last place he'd seen his license.
He was searching for it among all the crap that had been shoved in there when he stumbled upon the note from Seth—he'd gone temporarily insane when Seth had walked away, and he'd forgotten all about it.
Help your brother find the girl he loves.
Love Seth.
An address had been written neatly beneath this.
Sal was taken aback for only a few seconds, but it was enough for the cop to get suspicious, and he loosened the holster on his gun and took a step back. “Please, turn off your engine and get out of the vehicle.”
Another download seemed to burn a hole in his skull; his mind-hacking skills had gone through the roof! Sal sucked in a deep breath and prepared for whatever graphic would hit him.
Officer Green was a paid informant for a local drug cartel. Because he worked in vice, he knew who was being investigated for violation of drug laws and whenever one of the cartel people came under investigation, he'd tip off his contact, which would inadvertently disappear, often to resurface in another country.
“Or what?" Sal's body hardened. "Are you going to tell on me?
“What the hell's a vice cop doing working traffic anyway?"
“Huh?” Officer Green stiffened with shock. His eyes opened wide as he began to wonder who'd ratted him out. Slim Jim, perhaps?
Officer Green reached for his gun.
Sal swung the car door open with full force, hitting the cop who went staggering backward. Quick as a panther, Sal jumped out of the car and body tackled Officer Green. Sal had to resist the urge to yell "Timber!" as the officer hit the ground. He kicked the gun away, stepped hard on Officer Green’s right arm, leaned in over him, and looked directly into the officer's core.
He saw his wife leaving him due to the lack of money.
So, that was how it had started.
Sal almost felt sorry for the guy.
“Here's what’s going to happen, Officer,” Sal wheezed. "You're going to forget that you ever saw me, and you're going to spend some of your blood money on something too expensive for a cop’s pay—a yacht, shall we say—revealing your extra income.
"And no, you can’t say you won the money.”
Sal stood up and looked around, inspecting his surroundings. The weather had kept the roads empty, and there weren't any houses nearby. If there were any witnesses, he’d just have to deal with that later on.
He got into the bus and left a groggy Officer Green behind to deal with his newly assigned headache.