Flat Tire

It was the best holiday we had ever had! We upgraded our room from the cheapest to the presidential suite. We had the best meals from our balcony overlooking the golden sands of the beach. We went out to the best clubs with brand new clothes (sometimes with the price tags still on!). We jet skied and drove the fastest cars (on loan from the dealership, we didn't have that much!). It was the best 2 weeks of our lives.

And then it all caught up with us. The 2-week haze of delight and excess suddenly crashing down around us in a blur of running and hiding and the thought that these 2 weeks might have been our best but might also have been our last.

It all started when we landed at the airport and went to pick up our hire car.

“Hi. We’re here to pick up a car under the name Linda Weir".

The woman behind the counter didn’t even look up. She filled out the paperwork, I signed it, she handed me the keys and gave us directions to our car. A small 2 door, I can't even remember the make. We put the bags in the trunk and headed out. Within 20 minutes we were on the side of the road with a flat tire. This was not the getaway we were hoping for and desperately needed. As we got the spare out of the trunk, we noticed a small bag underneath it in the wheel compartment. When we unzipped the bag out fell a large pile of cash and a little black book. We scooped up the money and started to count it, we gave up at around $8,000 realising that we needed to do this in private. We stuffed the cash and little black book back in the bag, changed the tire and set off again. We checked in and went straight to our room with a view of the garbage cans, and the beach, if we stood on the bed. We tipped the money out onto the bed and as John counted it, I started to flick through the little black book. Whoever had hidden this bag seemed to be a loan shark. The book was full of names, dates and money still owed along with money already repaid. Some names had been crossed out completely. The last entry seemed to have been about a week ago. But why did they leave the bag behind?

“There’s 20 thousand and change in here” John said as he stepped back from the bed looking at the stacks of money he had made. “Where’s it come from?” he asked, mouth agog.

“Well, according to this book” I replied, flicking through its pages, “some guy named Philippe was collecting money for someone else, a person or organisation, it’s not clear, and this was a couple of days’ worth of payments. But there are no clues as to how it ended up in the back of the car”. I looked at John. “What are we going to do? Should we hand it in to the authorities?”

“Are you kidding?” he looked at me shocked. “What are they going to do with it? Hand it around amongst themselves and not think about it again?”

“We don’t know that” I replied. “There might be a finder’s fee, maybe a percentage of the total amount.” I wasn’t convinced by that either. I knew what the right thing to do was but I had never seen so much money in one place before.

“Who knows we have it?” he said. “Not the car hire company. Not even this Philippe guy. He might be dead or in jail for all we know. I think we should keep it. Spend it. Just on small things that no one will even notice. No one knows how much money we don’t have except us! Let’s just have a great holiday before we head back home ok?”

I looked at him. My head hurt. I knew what he was suggesting was wrong. Just out and out wrong. But to have a relaxing time where we didn’t need to watch every dollar would be really nice. And we needed a break.

I took a deep breath. “OK” I finally replied. “But nothing too extravagant that makes it obvious that we have money to splash around”. The smile on his face was huge as he strode across the room and took me in his arms and kissed me. When he let go he laughed and threw me on to the bed and started whooping and throwing the money around the room so it looked like it was raining money! When we finally calmed down, we gathered all the money up, put it back in the bag and went down to reception and changed our room for one with a view not of the garbage cans. We ordered room service with champagne and didn’t come out of our room until the next morning. We made love. Sweet passionate love. It was the best night.

The next morning, we had breakfast and then headed for the local boutiques and bought a few new clothes. Not too many, just enough to last us the holiday. I even found one of those cute handmade backgammon and chequers boards that clasps shut to keep all the pieces inside that I really liked. I bartered lazily for it and when we got back to the hotel I got them to post it home for me so it would be a nice surprise for John on our return.

That night we hit the clubs. We drank from tall glasses with fruit and umbrellas and burning shots. I don’t know how many clubs we did or how much we drank but we got back to our room as the sun was coming up and slept the morning away. That day we spent next to the pool drinking water and soft drinks and went to bed early.

The next day we were fully rejuvenated. We went and checked out a car dealership and put down a wad of cash as a deposit to borrow a car for the day. We drove it up a mountain to a château, had lunch and drove it back with the top down. We drank in the hotel bar that night and the next day hit the beach, jet skied and para glided all morning and went back to the hotel for lunch. It was a dream come true. No worries, just enjoying the moment we were in and it was an extraordinary moment.

During lunch one of the front desk staff came over to our table, “Excuse me Miss” she spoke very quietly. “Can I confirm this is your car?” She handed me a sheet of paper with a car make, model and registration number on it.

“I’ll have to check” I replied. “It’s a hire car you know”. I went through my bag and found the car keys with the car information on the key fob. “Um, yes that’s it. Why, is there a problem?”

“I’m afraid there has been a break in and the car’s rear window has been smashed. Did you leave anything of value in sight inside the car?” I tried to stay calm.

“Um, no, nothing. We didn’t leave anything in the car. Do you know who did it?”

“We are checking CCTV now and as it was in our carpark, we shall arrange to get it fixed. If you think of anything you may have left in the car please let me know and we will see what we can do.” And with that she slowly backed away and left us at our table stunned.

“What do you think that was about?” asked John.

“I think Philippe has caught up with us. Maybe it’s not too late to go to the police”.

“With what? How much money is left? I think we just need to lay low. He might have known the car but he doesn’t know who we are or if we even have it. Let’s just stay in the hotel for the next few days and relax. We’ll be safe here.”

Relax? Really? The next few days we went from our room to breakfast, to the pool, to lunch, to the spa, to dinner, to the bar and back to our room. I got some books from the shop and sort of read them while looking over the top for any shady looking people who looked like a Philippe. Then we got restless and joined a tour of the local towns and vineyards. It was great to get out and talk with people again. We made some new friends and arranged to meet them later that night. When we got back to our suite, we found it had been broken into. Everything had been tossed around. If they were looking for the cash and the little black book they were out of luck! I had kept it on me since we found it. I’d even bought a waterproof bag for it when we went jet skiing. This was getting serious now. He knew our car and had been in our room. He might have watched us come in. He might be standing outside the door right now.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know John. But we’re not going to leave here before we can figure out a plan”. And we didn’t. We stayed in our room all that night and all the next day until we had a ‘sort of plan’.

We packed our bags the next morning and checked out early. The hire car had been repaired so we put our bags on the back seat and returned the bag, the little black book and what cash we had left to the trunk. We drove to the airport. But not straight there. We did a tour of the town and while John drove I checked to see if anyone was following us. There was. A small, yellow beaten up car seemed to be in every street we were in. That’s when we headed for the airport. We tried not to let on we knew it was there but let it catch up to us while en route to the airport. We went to the drop off lane and pulled up to the curb. John got a trolley and I got our luggage out. No one took any notice of us as others were rushing for planes and saying their goodbyes. No one, except one man. I turned to John and told him to go while I stayed with the car.

“You have something of mine!” His low guttural voice said behind me. As I looked round at him, I raised my hands up.

“It’s in the trunk. We don’t want it, it’s all yours”. I threw the keys at him, making sure they went over his head. As he turned to pick them up, I turned and ran while shouting “HE’S GOT A GUN!” There were screams and people dropped to the floor. Security turned up fast as John had already alerted them as was the plan.

We were interrogated and explained that our car had been broken into a few days before and this man had come up to me and said he had hidden something in the trunk. They checked the trunk and found the bag. They checked with the hotel who corroborated the story. We were let go and thanked for our bravery.

When we finally got home my parcel was waiting for John.

“Open it” I said. He did and found the backgammon board. He smiled and turned it over in his hands. “I don’t even know how to play” he said.

“Well maybe it’s time we learnt” I suggested. As he opened the clasp a small wad of cash fell to the floor. “Oh yeah, something to remember the holiday by” I smiled.