Wrong Directions
a short story by
Austin Mitchell
Romain thought they were on the right road to Darnley district. As they turned off the main road and drove on a dirt road they came upon a large tree trunk blocking the road. As the driver and Romain got out in an effort to remove the object in the road three men burst out of the bushes, waving guns at them.
“Don’t move, lean up against the van and you guy from foreign take off your chains and your rings and empty out your pockets,” a big heavy set man ordered.
The two other men opened the van door and began moving out Romain’s suitcases.
“Hey guys, what’s the meaning of this? Is this what Darnley district has come to now?” Romain asked.
One of the men laughed.
“Darnley is about two miles down the road.”
There were no houses around as far as Romain could see.
He was stripped of all his jewelry.
“You guys are taking away my luggage, jewelry and money. I’m not giving up my cell phones.”
“Judge, you want us to shoot him?” one of the men asked the heavy set man.
“Big man, we want everything from you.”
Judge pointed his gun at Romain.
“What’s becoming of this country? All the things in those suitcases are things I brought for poor country people and you’re stealing them,” Romain said. He handed the two cell phones to Judge.
All three men helped themselves to a suitcase and set off through the bushes.
“Hey driver, how did you miss your way so badly?” Judge mocked from the bushes.
“What do I do now? How come you told me that you knew the way to Darnley and you brought me so far up?”
But the driver opened the van door, jumped in and sped off before Romain could do anything.
“My God, he was in league with them. He set it up.”
***
Romain was sitting in a bar having a beer in the village of Darnley two miles away from where he had been robbed. He had hidden some money in his shoes and so was able to hire a taxi.
He remembered waiting on the car that was supposed to have picked him up at the airport. When Beck didn’t show up, he had hired another vehicle after the man said that he knew the way to Darnley district.
Maybe he should have been more careful, at twenty five he had left the area for the States fifteen years ago. He should have made Beck send somebody else for him if he couldn’t make it.
“I took this guy’s van at the airport, only to find out that it was a set up.”
He had described the men to everybody in the village, but they all said they didn’t know them. Nobody seemed to know the driver.
The police were also unable to help him. He decided that he wouldn’t cut short his vacation, despite what had happened to him.
He got some money to borrow from his aunt and his other relatives. This he used for his food bill and other necessities. He didn’t let anybody know that back in the States, he was a deputy sheriff. He would do his own investigations and get those robbers. The man who appeared to be the gang leader, Judge, would be easy to spot because of his size and demeanor. He had already forgotten what the other men looked like.
“You said one of the men looked like a giant. There are several men around these areas who look like giants. You have to come better than that,” a man called Cutty, told him.
“You mean that these strong young men who should be in the fields working, are going about robbing people?” Romain asked.
“Look how the place is overgrown. It looks like a forest, all the young people up here are interested in is to make some fast money,” Cutty remarked.
A police car came driving down the road. It stopped in front of the shop and the three policemen came out. All three men nodded to Romain and Cutty before going around the back to eat in the small restaurant.
“You reported the robbery at the station?” a man called Winty asked. He was drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette.
“They said they didn’t know the guys who robbed me.”
“They’re useless. That’s why crime is out of control in this country,”Cutty remarked.
Romain ordered some more drinks for both men.
“I had to ask my mother to send some money for me to buy
some clothes. They took all of my suitcases. I had a lot of things in
them for my friends and relatives. I don’t understand, nobody
seems to know these guys.”
“People know them, but they aren’t going to talk. Most of
them are afraid of those guys,”Winty opined.
“The guy who picked me up at the airport seems to be a part
of the gang. After the guys robbed me, he just sped off. He didn’t
even stay around to help me.”
Romain remembered now. The driver had stopped at a
petrol service station to refill his tank. He remembered seeing him
on his cell phone. Maybe that was when he was planning the
robbery.
***
A dance was being held that Saturday night. Romain decided to go along. A girl from next door, Colleen, had invited him to the dance.
“If you see any of those men again, you alone don’t tackle them. Go to the police,”Winty had warned him.
“Those guys are dangerous. I know that in the States you’re a policeman, but you let the police out here deal with them,”Cutty had also warned.
With some of the money sent to him by his mother, he was able to rent a car. So he, Colleen, a friend Tommy and his woman, Carla, went to the dance.
Romain and Colleen were in the dance and they were dancing. So too were Tommy and Carla. An hour later Romain went to get some drinks for himself and Colleen when he saw a huge man leaning up by the bar, drinking a beer and eating a plate of curry goat. It was Judge! Romain was sure it was him.
He went and told Tommy. They left the dance and went to the police station. A corporal and a constable came back with them, but the man had disappeared. Romain was downhearted. His three friends said that the police took too long. All of them said that it was the first time they were seeing the man called Judge. Romain asked around in the dance, but nobody said that they knew the man, he was asking them about.
As luck would have it the next night a bingo party was being held in a nearby village and Romain and his cousin, Pablo, attended. When he looked he saw Judge up on the platform and he was calling out the bingo numbers!
“That’s Judge, what should we do?” he asked Pablo.
“Don’t get too hasty and don’t let him recognize you and bolt.”
So they backed out of the venue and drove to the police station. Romain gave a brief account of being robbed and of now seeing one of the robbers at a bingo game. The policeman looked up the report on the robbery and saw that one had been made.
“The only vehicle we have is out investigating a robbery in Corner Shop.”
That was about five miles away. The policeman had no idea when the vehicle would return. Romain was in despair, but tried not to show it.
“As soon as they return I’ll send them to pick up the suspect,” the policeman sought to assure them.
Romain knew that the he was dismissing them, nor was he sure that Judge would ever be arrested. They returned to the bingo party, bought tickets and started playing. Romain’s intention was to possibly follow Judge and find out where he lived.
It was approaching midnight when the bingo game was scheduled to be over. Neither Pablo nor Romain had won anything. Romain had a worried look as the game would soon be over and the police jeep hadn’t yet turned up. He knew that it would be trouble holding Judge until the police came. The man had friends in the room. He wasn’t sure if any of his cronies were there.
Romain left Pablo inside and went outside to wait in the car.
Presently Judge came out with two other men and three women. They got on three powerful motorcycles and rode away. They all stopped at a sports bar a mile away. Romain drove his car further up the road and stopped. Neither he nor Pablo came out of the car.
About an hour later they came out of the sports bar and rode away.
Romain debated whether to go after them or not.
“That’s the only way we’re going to catch them. I’ve seen some of these guys already, but I don’t know their names or where they live,” Pablo told him.
“All right, let’s go then.”
Romain drove off the car. As they rounded a corner, they saw the bikes parked along the road, blocking it.
“What the hell!” Romain shouted as he slammed down on the car’s brakes. He and Pablo jumped out of the car and sped down a gully.
The men jumped out of the bushes, firing shots at them as Romain and Pablo raced down the gully. They then shot up the car, rendering it useless. They again peppered the gully with bullets.
“Do you know where this gully leads to, Judge?” one of the men asked.
“Seeing that I don’t live up here, how’d I know?” Judge flung the question back at the man.
“Why were they following us?” one of the girls asked.
“I don’t know,” Judge replied.
“You want us to go after them, Judge?” another man asked.
Judge hissed his teeth before replying.
“I don’t think they’re still in that gully. We can ride around and see if we spy any of them. Let’s split up into three groups. If you see any of them just shoot him.”
Romain and Pablo were at the bottom of the gully. Romain heard the men shooting up the car and wondered why it hadn’t caught fire.
“We can’t go on the road, because of what the men said,”Roman told Pablo.
“He didn’t recognize you.”
“That’s good, it means that he doesn’t know why we’re following him around.”
Several times that night they heard a barrage of gunshots. They were even thinking that Judge might burn them out by setting the gully on fire.
Romain and Pablo spent the rest of the night in separate trees. When they woke up it was in broad daylight.
When they went up to the car there were bullet holes all over and all the tires were flat.
They went up to the police station and reported the incident, including the shooting up of the car. Judge was identified as the caller at the bingo game. His right name was Sam Judson. He lived four miles away in Bramble River.
The police didn’t find Judge at his house when they went to look for him. It took another week for them to find him.
“I don’t know this guy and I never stole anything from him. I never shot up his car or shot after him,” Judge protested.
However, when the police searched his house, a suitcase with
Romain’s name tag on it was found there. Judge denied ownership
of the suitcase and said that it was a man who gave him to keep. However, several other suitcases were found in a secret compartment in the house. Judge was arrested on a battery of charges. At the moment he and one of his accomplices are in jail awaiting trial. The other one is still on the loose. Romain knows that he will have to return to Jamaica to give evidence against Judge and
his accomplice. The End.