My second week slowly trudges past.  I turn out my assigned work, as expected.  (It has been some time since I worked as part of a software development team and I gradually work into the routine.)

Saturday morning, I’m getting ready to drop off and pick up laundry.

I see a large Mercedes sedan, parked outside my crummy little rental house.  I go back and put on a T shirt.  The T shirt is maybe a bit too small for me, but it shows my muscularity and that I’m not packing a gun.

I walk out my front door and face the big Mercedes.  Two hard boys get out of the back and two manager types get out of the front.  One of the manager types says, “You got money that belongs to us.”

I sneer, “Actually, I used the money to build my sumptuous pleasure palace.”  (I wave at the rental house.)

The manager swallows the insult and says, “If you don’t have the money, who has the money?”

I lecture, “I was working for one of your operations, as you know.  I was being watched closely, because I’m a gabacho.  I didn’t sell out the operation, because I couldn’t sell out the operation.  It is just barely possible that one of your low level people sold out the operation, but that’s not what happened, because that way lies death for the informant.  That leaves us with Gilberto.”

The manager type says, “Gilberto has disappeared.”

I lecture, “I had just gone to the rest room, to relieve myself.  Suddenly the operation was invaded by Mexican Army troops, Federales and maybe more.  I put my head down and just ran over a few of the invaders, like the American football player that I once was.  They probably could have shot me, but then they lose any information that I might have.  I ran, I dodged, I put any obstacle that I could between me and the policia.  I outran pursuit, although my legs and lungs were screaming ‘who me?’ at me.  About that time, some idiot drove up in an unmarked car.  I extracted idiot boy and drove off.  I got to the border, via an unlikely route.  I raided my escape vehicle for a gun, ammo and some Los Estados Unidos cash.  I made it across the border, so hard pressed that I was willing to kill DEA people, for free.  When I was in high school, I could run 100 meters in 10.7 seconds.  I can still run 100 meters in 10.8 seconds, self timed.  I may have run 100 meters in 10.6, or even 10.5 seconds, running away from the policia.  It was not fun.  I have no idea who the policia caught.  If Gilberto escaped and you can find him, I will beat the information as to where your cash went, out of Gilberto, even if Gilberto doesn’t know.”

(The operation, where I was working had a large, strong safe, that contained the large amounts of money that the kind of operation dealt with.  At some point in time, large amounts of the money had disappeared.  Gilberto was responsible for the money.  Gilberto had maybe called in the policia, to cover the disappearance of the cash, Gilberto had almost certainly arranged an escape, as the powers that be would have tried to extract the money from Gilberto.  Gilberto didn’t have the money, because I had taken the money.  Some idiot had hidden the combination to the safe in a computer file.  I did a check to see which files had been accessed recently and found the hidden combination, which I then changed.  I used the actual combination to open the safe and take large amounts of the money, in a duffel bag.  I hid the money and then went back, much later, and retrieved the money.  Gilberto had been skimming the money, to fund a lavish lifestyle.)